Ella Enchanted - By Gail Carson Levine Page 0,51

often. I like to be surprised, but if I could supply your answers with confidence, I might miss you less. The remedy is obvious. You must write to me again and quickly. And again, and more quickly.

Your

very

good

friend,

Char

In my reply, I gave him conversation.

Greetings. How do you fare today? Lovely weather we've been having. The farmers predict rain, however. They say the crows are chattering. Ah well, wet weather will do us good, I daresay. We can't have sunny days always. Life isn't like that, is it? Wish it were. Wouldn't that be fine? Never a disappointment, never a harsh word. Don't you agree, sir? A fine fellow such as yourself, you have sense enough to see it's never that way.

In one dose, I hope I have cured you of your desire for conversation.

My pen stopped. What could I tell him? I couldn't explain my servitude without telling about the curse. Then I recollected that Mum Olga had recently held a cotillion. I described it, omitting the detail that my participation had been limited to removing the dirty plates from the refreshments table.

Char's reply was that the Ayorthaians didn't have balls.

They have "sings," which are held monthly. Three or four Ayorthaians at a time occupy the stage in turn and sing long, sad ballads or happy tunes or funny ones, joined by the whole throng in the choruses. The entire populace knows thousands of songs, and there is hardly a mediocre voice among them.

Sound gushes forth from somewhere deep, their toes or their souls. For the last song, a paean to the rising sun (because they have performed through the night), they gather their families about them. Husbands and wives and children clasp hands, tilt their heads heavenward, and release their music.

And I, seated with the few other visitors, add my weak voice to theirs, humming when I can't guess the words and wishing my hands were held too.

Perhaps we can come here together someday.

By the way, you are a month older than the last time I saw you. Are you still too young to marry?

I chuckled at the joke. Then I thought of the bride I'd make, in a threadbare, sooty gown that stank of cooking fat and yesterday's dinner.

Char repeated the query in every letter, probably because my answers were so silly that they pleased him. If not too young, I was too tired to marry or too wet or too cross or too hungry. Once I wrote, "If my years are measured by inches, then I am certainly too young. The eleven-year-old daughter of an acquaintance dwarfs me."

The acquaintance was Nancy, the serving maid.

Another time I wrote, "Today I am too old to marry, a hundred at least. I have spent the last eighty years and more listening to a lady detail the pedigree of every dinner guest tonight."

The lady had been Hattie, and I had not attended the meal.

I continued in a more serious vein. "I have not found anyone in my stepfamily's circle in whom I can confide. And there are few subjects about which my stepsisters and I share an opinion. It is great good luck that I have a pen and paper and a friend."

Char's answer: "My tongue may wither from disuse here, but at least I shan't lose words entirely while I still can write to you."

Sometimes I wondered what would happen if I told Char that I was just the right age to marry. With each of his letters I fell more in love with him. But I couldn't tell him. If I said I was old enough to marry and his question had only been the continuation of a good joke, he would be horribly embarrassed and our easy friendship would be ruined. He might stop writing, which I couldn't endure. If he wasn't jesting, it was for him to say so. Until then or never, I treasured our correspondence.

In his next letter he wrote,

I don't know when I learned I would be king. It seems I've always known it. But two stories are told, and I've heard them so often they seem to be memories.

One has me as hero; the other is not so flattering.

A lute was given to me when I was six and my sister, Cecilia, was four. She coveted it and plucked at it whenever she could. Finally, I presented it to her, an act that signified to the servants that I would be a generous king. They never considered how indifferent a musician I was. My