Casserole Diplomacy and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF

attention back to the figures dragging the carts. Explosives , she suddenly realized with distaste.
    She expelled a sharp breath and cursed loudly. They would be at the gates in a few minutes. It was too late to find Poopsie.
    Gathering up her skirts, she dashed out of her sitting room and down the stairs, taking them two at a time, emerging in the courtyard. She ran over to the front gate and knelt in the dirt, her velvet gown forgotten. Placing her palm flat on the ground, she concentrated on the two remaining fingers of her left hand and began chanting under her breath. Almost immediately her fingers stretched, then liquefied, soaking into the earth and transmuting the hard-packed, washed-out dirt to a lumpy beige mass centred around her palm. It glistened in the sunlight. The transmutation grew, milk-white circles forming in pockets on its surface. It continued to spread, now moving away from Miranda, following the path under the gate and out towards the men trotting up the road.
     
     
    Bertwold watched the sapper slip and fall. The man tried to rise, but the more he struggled, the further he sank into the ground. He managed to drag himself up slightly on the protruding edge of his cart, but his efforts only mired the cart deeper. He wiped his face with the back of his arm and spat something from his mouth. “ Oatmeal!” he screamed.
    “What did he say?” asked Bertwold.
    “Ootmal,” said Lumpkin, his voice altered since his nose had been turned to broccoli. “The rood’s been tooned to ootmal.”
    “Oh,” Bertwold said. “I see.”
    Two of the men—along with the cart—had already slipped beneath the surface. Another had managed to half-swim, half-crawl to safety at the side of the road where the ground was firmer.
    Bertwold stared at the castle and ground his teeth.
    A moment later there was a muffled roar. The oatmeal road exploded upwards like a fountain; it showered down in thick droplets splattering all those who had gathered to watch, a large lump narrowing missing Bertwold and plopping wetly atop Lumpkin’s skull.
     
     
    Miranda reached the ramparts just in time to see the ensuing explosion. She laughed aloud as the oatmeal rained down on her enemies. Chew on that, silly mortals! she thought. Vulgar food for vulgar pests . That big one didn’t seem to be quite so haughty now that he was wearing a suit of oatmeal.
    Miranda felt exhilarated, alive. And something else, too. A strange, yet not wholly unpleasant tingling. Perhaps, this was just what she needed. Nothing like a bit of excitement to shake the dust from your bones.
    She clambered onto the thick edge of the crenel so she would be visible to those below. Then she waved, looking directly at the big man, laughing and knowing her laugh would be carried clearly on the tongue of the wind to those annoyingly perfect ears . . .
     
     
    There was no denying she was beautiful.
    Bertwold stared through his brass telescope at the infuriating woman. She sat on the parapet, brushing her hair as if nothing were amiss, acknowledging his presence by blowing him an occasional raspberry. Cheeky impertinence ! he thought. He was angry at her—and angry at himself for finding that damned eye patch so fascinating!
    “Weel?”
    “Well what?” Bertwold answered irritably. He stepped back from the telescope and made a mental note that, at a more discreet moment, he would suggest a thorough steaming might help Lumpkin in the preservation of his wilting nose.
    “Whoot shud I teel the mun?”
    Bertwold turned. Some of the crew were playing cards, others stood in small groups, talking in low voices. Bertwold stared at a digging machine, its oak bucket cupped in the shape of a human hand, resting uselessly on the side of the road.
    “Assemble the men,” he said. “I have an idea.”
     
     
    Bertwold stood behind the machine, pleased that its design and construction had proceeded so smoothly. It had taken only a day, remarkably, really, when he thought about