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.A Traveling Show	By : keithcompany Category: Titles in the Public Domain > Gulliver's Travels Views: 1840 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work fiction, based on Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift.

Chapter List
- 1-A Traveling Show
- 2-two
- 3-three
- 4-Four
- 5-five
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It was a long trip, and we started to doze. No one moved very far from the cup of water. Caught up in the rhythm of the oars, I was kind of hypnotized. I didn't notice that he'd stopped until he was climbing out of the boat.
There was no pier or dock, he splashed into the water and pushed the boat up against something. We all came to our feet after it was firmly lodged. There were trees hanging over us, now. We were in the land of the English.
He had a castle. At least, the first time I saw it, that's what I thought it was. I couldn’t imagine a structure any bigger.
It was painted with different colors of green, almost blending into the forest that surrounded it as he carried us gently towards it. We'd reboarded the rowboat and he'd carefully lifted it. His boat, though, he cast off from shore once he had everything he needed from it.
It seemed likely that it had been stolen for this trip.
Inside the castle, it was a two-room home for the giant. This room had a small sofa, table, several cabinets of storage, a sink, some chairs and other things of unimaginable purpose.
I glimpsed a hallway and a bed the size of a pond beyond it.
The giant set the boat down on the table and held it while we dismounted. Then he left us to our own devices while he rummaged around in the cabinets.
To our great delight, he found food. Cuts of some sort of meat were offered, along with bread. It was wonderfully puffy compared to what I was used to. The crust was firm enough to turn an arrow, but the interior had bubbles I could fit my fist into.
He nibbled on some of the meat while watching us. Another cup of water was shared.
As we started to slow down again, he produced a sheet of paper and a stylus. He quickly drew six figures: a stick figure giant and five tiny figures. The tiny ones were spaced carefully around the sheet, the big one stretched across one end.
He placed that end next to himself, as if we could be confused about who that portrayed. He pointed, then, to the figure then to himself. Each time, he said: Bruce.
"I think that's his name," Zulifaefaefae said.
"What, all of it?" I asked.
"The Englishman have no sense of style," she reminded me.
"Yes, but even Gulliver's name had five-"
"Gulliver?" Bruce asked. I nodded, we all nodded. He smiled even bigger than he had at the word 'fuck.' He drew another giant male figure and wrote something beside it. He pointed to that one: Gulliver, and to the other: Bruce.
I walked over and onto the paper. I stood at one tiny figure and introduced myself: "Andernancilla." He stared. The only movement was the blinking of his eyes. I pointed to the figure, to myself, " Andernancilla."
"Nancy," he replied, scribbling by my figure. I rolled my eyes. "Come get your nicknames," I told the others. "Something the guy with a brain the size of a BARN can handle."
Zulifaefaefae became Fay; Sillipatter was now Pat, and Mayendellia was merely May. We all looked to the orphaned Groedelipid. She repeated her name three times, with no reaction from Bruce. Tears started to well up in her eyes. I could see that Bruce was uncomfortable, but her name seemed quite beyond him.
"June," he finally said, tapping a sheet of paper taped to the wall behind his head. He wrote it carefully at Groedelipid's feet. I noticed that the blocky characters matched the biggest ones on the sheet.
With that settled, he looked at his wrist and whistled. After a flurry of activity on his part, we found ourselves in a large open-topped boxy lined with soft fabric. He made sure we were comfortable, had water and food, then sat at one end of the room.
There was a great noise and a sense of movement. His castle was a vehicle. This was an amazing discovery, but after far too many amazing things. I sat, stunned, in one corner of the box. One after another, my sisters and 'June' curled up next to me. We slept like a pack of puppies, touching the only things we recognized in this new world.
-----
Morning arrived with the smell of food. I woke to find Bruce cooking something across the room from us. At the other end of the box, he'd put a bowl of water, some rag scraps, and a little box. It turned out to be a little waste collector, providing necessity and privacy.
We all worked our way around waking up, then climbed out of the box and over to the table. The giant held the rowboat down by the floor.
As Balance Dancers, we could probably have made it to the tabletop by ourselves, but we weren't quite recovered from the shipwreck, so we rode up with June.
There were two places set: a plate with silverware and a plate with five small rags folded as cushions. As we took our places, he returned to the stove to get a pan of something. When he turned around to bring it to the table, though, he knocked something over on the counter. As it tipped towards us, he grabbed for it.
He missed, but knocked it to the side rather than towards the five of us. At the same time, though, he lost control of the skillet. The sizzling container of...something waved around the table area.
We were long gone, though. As he hit the first item, circus reflexes took over and we ran. May and Fay slithered up the drapes at the end of the table; Pat crouched at the bottom. I grabbed up June and ran.
Before she quite realized what was happening, I threw her to Pat, who came out of her crouch to toss the girl up to Fay, who tossed her to May.
Then we all just climbed. The giant stumbled around, swore and burned himself, but he did keep the hot stuff from spilling across the table. By the time he got it under control, we were at the top of the wall of fabric.
We watched him take a deep breath, put down the pan and turn to, I assume, apologize to us. He was shocked that we weren't there any more.
Pat giggled as he looked around the table and on the floor. Then Fay stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled. The look of surprise to find us above even his head was worth the work of the climb. He bowed, clearly impressed with our scrambling prowess.
"Okay," I said, "let's go back down." Slowly, carefully, I felt for footholds in the loose fabric of the drapes.
"Andernancilla?" May called. "Er, Nancy?" I looked up. June had eyes squeezed tightly shut, and a death grip on the drape cords. The twins hovered to either side of her.
"How...how high up are we?" June whispered.
"About two circus tents worth," Fay offered. It didn't calm the kid down. Pat waved to Bruce, trying to signal, one-handed, that he would have to peel the kid off the cloth like a cat caught in a tree.
He nodded, but didn't reach for her. Instead, he stood on the bench and reached for the curtain rod. Slowly and carefully, he lifted the entire curtain out of the holder. We swayed and rocked a bit, but it wasn't even as rough as the ship had been in the harbor.
June squeaked at the movement, but he made low, reassuring sounds as he stepped gently down and lowered the whole assembly to the floor. We stepped off as the ground came up to meet us until June was literally down to the floor.
It still took a minute to get her to open an eye and let go. Bruce waited patiently. When she did, and took a couple of shaky steps, we applauded and hugged her. She smiled shyly up at her rescuer, who winked then put the drapes back.
So, breakfast was a bit delayed, but all the more welcome after the exertions of panic.
After Bruce finished devouring enough food to feed a small government agency, he pointed to the paper of our nicknames again.
"So," he said, "Gulliver. Lilliput."
"Blefuscu!" Fay shouted. She marched over to point to each figure and repeated the name of our homeland. He looked confused.
"Eggles," Pat wondered, "did Gulliver not mention Blefuscu when he got back, only Lilliput?"
"Gulliver!" Bruce stressed, pointing at Pat. "Lilliput."
"Blefuscu!" Fay insisted. Bruce just shrugged and started cleaning up. After the table was clear, he had something to tell us. Rules.
He drew a map of the vehicle, his 'Personalspaceyouknow,' he called it. The room with the bed in it seemed to be off limits to small people. The windows were even more off limits.
He tried to convey the dangers of looking outside. Or more importantly, of being seen by others outside. We stood beside the paper and tried to take it all in.
"Okay," Fay finally said, "it seems that if anyone besides Bruce finds out we exist, we'll be taken to shiny buildings far away, where they will undress us, cut us up, fry us and devour us."
"Really?" May asked. She hugged June close.
"Probably not," I said. "He just really, really doesn't want us to be seen by people, and he doesn't have the words to say exactly what the dangers are."
"Okay," Pat said with a nod. "Can't be seen. How do we let him know we understand the message?" We looked up. He did look worried about something.
"Got it," I said. I held up a hand for him to wait and walked over to the nearest window. I stood inside the drapes and smiled up at him. Then I drew them to the side for a quick peek.
I staggered back, screaming, hands over my eyes as if they were on fire. June giggled. I fell to my knees, then my butt, then rolled around in a campy death scene.
My sisters spread out a cushion rag and covered my body with it as a shroud. They knelt beside my corpse, sobbing and crying. Pat beat the ground, shouting "Why, why, WHY didn't she LISTEN to the giant!?!?!"
"Death by exposure!" Fay yelled, shaking a fist at the window. Bruce slid out of his seat, laughing, and rolled on the floor for a while.
When he could breathe again, he did the dishes, put everything away and pointed us to the box again.
"He wants us stowed for travel," June interpreted. "We're going to move again."
"Damn," Pat muttered, "we saw with the pan that we have better reflexes than he does."
"Yeah," I said, "but we don't really know what's going to happen. It's his Personalspaceyouknow, so his rules." We got back into the box easily enough. He seemed impressed by our ability to jump up and clamber over the side, even June.
Then he carried the box up to the front seats and put it where he could see us and we could see him. Curtains came off the windows and he put the castle in motion.
It was incredibly boring. I mean, really. The movement was no worse than a donkey cart. The longer we sat there, the more everyone glared at me.
"Okay, okay," I said. "I'll ask." A whistle drew his attention. I popped up to the side of the box and did a handstand. Then a series of flips along the box edge. Finally a double flip into the air to the center of the box. Then I ran over and started kicking the side. We all did.
We were going sit crazy and wanted him to know it.
He laughed and made the 'wait' gesture I made earlier. The vehicle motion got rocky for a bit, then stopped entirely. Bruce carried the box to the back room and let us out onto the bed. He tucked the blankets up into little retaining walls around the edges, tossed us a brick of compressed food and went back to driving. Maybe the bedroom was only off limits when he slept there, we wondered.
June moved to the exact center of the bed, fearing a sudden swerve would toss her to the floor. The rest of us went for a look around.
He had books, I'd never seen so many. Some had pictures, some were only text. Pat found many in a drawer on the side of the bed that seemed to concentrate on naked women, while those on the shelf under the window had dragons and warriors and rather silly looking women on the covers. Well, no sillier than the naked ones, but in a different way.
There was a workbench set up on one wall that eventually drew all our attention. It was a very carefully maintained area of tools and metals and stones, that seemed like we should know what it was for.
After a while of feeling that it was just on the tip of our tongues, as it were, the twins brought June over to see what she made of it.
Her eyes lit up and she smiled from hairline to hairline. "He's a jeweler!" she breathed. "Just like Dadda taught..." The smile went out like a flame in a wind.
"Dadda's dead, isn't he?" she asked me.
"Probably," I said, taking her into a hug. I didn't think there was a point in lying. "But you know what? I think we could adopt you into our family, how'd you like that?"
She nodded and May jumped for joy. "I'm not the littlest any more!"
"Sure you are," Pat pointed out. "But brains aren't everything." It drew a small laugh from our newest sister and broke the mood. For once, they did good. Who'd have thought?
"Now," Fay said, putting a hand on June's shoulder, "what IS all this stuff?"
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