The Garden of the Plynck | Page 7

still air of the
Garden. All at once she was startled nearly out of her wits by the
Plynck, who dropped an unbroken rule and shrieked,
"Look! Be careful! Oh, dear, oh, dear, it's in!"
"Oh, what is it?" cried Sara, afraid to move, yet longing to clap her
hand to her cheek; for she knew by a sudden terrible tickling there that
something had happened to her southwest dimple--and she had meant
to be so careful! And yet she had allowed herself to get so interested in

the talk of the Plynck and her Echo that she had walked right past
Schlorge's beautiful dimple-holder. "What is it?" she cried, jumping up
and down. "Oh, what is it?"
"It's one of the Zizzes!" cried the Plynck. "Where are the forceps? Run
for Schlorge--won't somebody please run for Schlorge?"
She sat fluttering her lovely pink plumes and gazing around with her
sweet, wild, golden eyes in such acute distress that the sight of her
grieved and terrified Sara even more than the awful tickling. "I'll go--"
she began, desperately.
But that seemed to frighten the Plynck more than ever. "Oh, don't you
go," she cried, more wildly than before. "You stay right here where I
can watch it! Oh, somebody--"
"I can't come out of the pool," panted her Echo, fluttering around the
rim distressfully.
"I know I could never in Zeelup get there, with this consanguineous
handle," hesitated the Teacup, in tears.
And just then they saw one of the Gunki rushing off down the road as
fast as his feet could carry him.
The Plynck drew a sobbing breath of relief. "Don't cry, dear--stand
still," she said, finding time at last to feel sorry for Sara. "We'll soon
have it out now, when Schlorge gets here."
Sara stood as still as she could, for the tickling. "What is it?" she
ventured to ask, tremulously.
"It's a Zizz, dear," said the Plynck, soothingly. "He flew into your
dimple and got stuck in the sugar left there from your last smile. You
should have wiped it off," she added, very gently. "Standing so close to
the pool has made it sticky, and now the poor little Zizz--"
"I meant to take off my dimples entirely," said Sara, her lip beginning

to tremble again.
"Never mind, dear," said the Plynck. "It will be all right now. I see
Schlorge coming with his forceps."
And sure enough, in a moment Schlorge came panting up, with his
forceps in his hair, as usual. Very deftly he extricated the poor little
Zizz, and held it out for Sara to see, still buzzing its wings as furiously
as it could, with so much syrup on them.
The Teacup fluttered down, and they all looked at it with mingled
sympathy and curiosity. The mixture seemed to agree with it, too, for
the familiar faint, pale-blue "zizzing" sound began to come from its
wings.
"Poor little thing!" said the Echo of the Plynck. "Why will they persist
in doing it? Flying right into the syrup like that!"
"It's on account of the bitterness of their tails," explained Schlorge
absently, without looking up from his work.
"Oh, yes," said Sara, though she didn't quite understand. "Will it ever
be able to fly again?"
"Well," answered Schlorge, "I'm afraid you'll have to dry it." He looked
about him. "Where's the stump?"
He found it presently, and led Sara to its mossy base; then he gently
pressed one of her shoe-buttons, and she was lifted upon it in safety.
"Now," he explained, "you got it all sticky with your smile, and you'll
have to frown on it to dry it. I know it's hard to do, here, but if you keep
your mind on it, you can. I'll hold the Zizz's wings out, and it won't take
long. Think of something very unpleasant--something you came here to
escape. Come, what shall it be?"
"Fractions," said Sara.
"All right," said Schlorge. "Now think hard. And frown."

So Sara sucked in the corners of her mouth to keep from smiling, and
tried hard to feel very cross indeed. But, as you will imagine, it was not
easy to do in that place. As you have already guessed, the place into
which Sara went when she shut the ivory doors was a sort of garden,
but not an ordinary one. To be sure, it had the pool, and the fountain in
the middle, and the moon-dial, like most gardens, and the
Gugollaph-tree where the Plynck sat, and a good many prose-bushes
besides the one with the hemmed doorknob where the Snimmy lived
with his wife. But not many gardens have such charming little openings
in the flowery hedges that shut them in, through which little paths run
out as if they were escaping through sheer mischief, and