The story: Aji Lynxu is a lynx who enjoys a slow-paced free life, happily and luxuriously lodged in the bark of a sequoia. But one day he decides to leave Forest Land and travels all the way to the City where he meets a Siamese called Geta. They get to know one another, exchange their good stories and end up plotting against a large and dangerous pitbull. This gives Aji the chance to explore his great courage and ingenious discretion. He is indeed a sympathetic wild animal who surprises even himself by his resourcefulness and brilliant traits as a lynx! As the tale unfolds, he is known everywhere a creature has been, from worm to horse. This is an illuminating account of how the friendship between a cat and lynx becomes something quite remarkable.
This text is divided into 14 chapters and its length is 54'000 words.
Below is a more detailed summary with a few passages (marked between quotes).
One more thing must be said about Aji. In some distant countries, he is named Nobi. Depending on where he lives, and who reads about him, he is called Nobi. So it is Aji for the people in English speaking countries, and Nobi in French speaking countries. He is not yet known by the Chinese, but a Japanese Lady, Mrs Chizu Kobayashi, has heard some rumours about him. So she is the best person to give him the right name in Asia, but that is for another future.
Aji is truly a clever lynx as he could not reasonably have thought of a better way to insulate his burrow from the cold and rain:
“His den deserves to be described as fabulous in the proper sense of the word: its windows were made of costly, golden amber and its roof was covered in such overgrown moss that no rain could ever bother him. But the gigantic pinecone for a door was probably his most ingenious invention as it opened and closed with the wind, which was very practical. And then he had found a rather remarkable way to carpet his floor: just by letting the dust add up and crystallise into very thick layers so that when it was cold outside, with fog and snow, his place remained snug and warm. So it was certainly very charming to live in this burrow, and Aji knew his luck.”
As you see, Aji couldn’t be happier. But, he says, discovering the world is also a way of enjoying life. And then by the fact of his own thinking, his inner harmony changes. He becomes adventurous, restless and even unhappy. So he undertakes a series of travels which he tells about to the other fellow-creatures of his community. What?, they say, he’s gone all the way to the Wolf Forest? They hear him tell such incredible stories that they fabricate paper to write them down. And that’s how they become book-lovers, animals though they are. But Aji has now got into his own way of thinking and dreams of discovering the City of Men. So he decides to throw a big farewell party to say good bye, and sure enough he has already become some kind of hero :
“Nothing but a little breeze was what opened the pinecone door of number 7. This would not be an extraordinary thing at all, if it weren’t for going into a tree. But the truth is these creatures were just now creeping into Mister Lynxu’s burrow as though it were nothing more than entering an old cathedral. Huge it was, and lit with a thousand torches that seemed to take away all sense of dimension. I am only trying to say that Aji must have had a secret in terms of working with light, because his conifer did look taller and wider than usual! And then, as one of them pointed out, the main room and its ten open alcoves were furnished with a variety of chairs, couches, tables and benches: evidence for them to make themselves comfortable. So the enterprising guests jumped on and off the chairs and tables, but that was not all they did while waiting to be served. They also took to discussing the taste of their host, expressing various distorted impressions on the carpet made of dust. But on the whole they had to admit that his den showed a rather refined craft. Later that evening, some began to sing old songs and play music. Their art wasn’t just amazing: Thanks to the remarkable skill of their claws, they could easily pinch the strings of a guitar to make it sound very romantic (see illustration). And exactly when the clocked ticked midnight, a glorious fish was served and, with this, a boisterous group of young lynxes engaged in shouting:
‘Aji, give us a SPEECH!’
‘What?’ protested Aji, a worried look on his adorable cat face. He’d always have a good story to tell about but had no idea on how to deliver a speech. And being totally unprepared, he certainly did not want to venture improvising one. But a disorder as had seldom been seen at a gathering of this kind began. Many pushed Aji towards a table, saying,
‘C’mon, get on to this platform and start talking! We all know that you can say a lot in just a few words!’
‘My dear guest …’ Aji mumbled, reluctantly addressing the great assembly.
‘SHH!’ hissed some young lynxes, pretending to call for silence all the while creating a lot of noise.
‘I’ll be brief,’ said Aji, turning a paw round to adjust his large fluffy moustaches in the hope of looking more self-confident. ‘Be most welcome and er-,’
But feeling unable to naturally charm the crowd, he stopped here.
‘D’ont be so shy! Good old Aji!’ shouted the others, encouraging him to enter this major performance which seemed terrifying public to him. And then, to the astonishment of all, Aji in an effort to gain better social skills suddenly began developing some awesome communication skills:
‘My dear Lynxekis, Lynxishis, Lynxakis, please listen!’ he said, trust in his voice. ‘And you too, my dear Lynxukis, Lynxomois, Lynxsashis: I will soon be leaving Woodtown, my family and my friends for a long journey to the City which is, as you know on the other side of the world.’
‘Aji the intrepid globe-trotter! Hurray!’ yelled the stormy cat gang, producing a thunderous applause with their horny claws. They drank to his health and ticked one glass against another for a refill. Cries of good luck! fired joyously into the air and they sang a strange adaptation of an old tune:
Oo Aji!
Ten kisses for Dame Lynxari,
And one hundred kisses for Kata Lynxsashi!
And did Aji get embarrassed by their silly jokes? Oh yes, and up to the point that he felt worse than terribly uncomfortable. But he plucked up courage and recovered his speech on a more serious tone than a moment before:
‘I know that I’m telling you the same old story: I have always wanted to go to the City because of a book I once read (The Fantastic Urban Centers of the Great Elves, by E. K. Lynxagari). Although they are supposed to be highly advanced, they yet know nothing of the intelligence of animals. This surprises me so much that I would like to see those creatures with my own eyes.’
As he spoke, others held their own side-conversations: ‘Why doesn’t he find a bride instead of reading books?
‘Oh-you know, you shouldn’t pay too much attention to what he’s saying because he’s been forced to take the word in front of all. I personally would never venture to make a speech in public.
‘No, you have indeed found a better thing to do as you are sitting comfortably and are not stupid enough to dare to speak in front of everyone!’ ”
Late in the night Aji abandons his family and friends to pursue his dream. When in the City, he hears cries and screams from a Siamese called Geta who is being mistreated by a dwarf. Aji takes a great risk to save her. Grateful, the Siamese brings the lynx to her house where both cats talk about their different lives. Aji also dispels impressions of the new world around him while Geta describes her day-to-day existence with her master Paul. And the lynx who is still rather ignorant about how normal domestic cats should behaves in very strangely and plays despite himself many silly jokes. Chapters II to X describe all the damage he causes as when he sharpens his claws on Paul’s chairs or even bites into his television:
“Now Aji followed the Siamese into the dining room. Its decor was gloriously rustic and told that its proprietor was rich, perhaps aristocratic. A black lacquered piano shone and reflected magnificently in a glassy marble wall. A costly lustre hung from the ceiling, parading strangely over a large oak table. Several highly polished chairs surrounded a massive four-leg sofa covered in a grandmother patchwork. At its opposite and perched atop a table was a television set whose glittering screen attracted the lynx.
‘What’s that for?’ he asked.
‘It’s a queer thing: it makes Paul laugh, cry and sleep. It's called a TV.’
‘Oh, that’s exactly the sort of thing I find interesting.’
So saying, he sat down in front of it and waited for it to make him laugh, cry or sleep. But nothing happened, and he felt very silly.
‘It’s not on,’ laughed Geta.
‘Would you put it on, please?’
‘If I turn it on, you’ll see our entire world all at once, and you might get a shock.’
‘That’s a children’s story,’ he objected, growing defensive because he was becoming more conscious of his ignorance. ‘Oh do turn it on, I would like to know what you’re supposed to feel in front of a screen.’
‘Listen: That machine might be dangerous for you: it also makes Paul yell like a sergeant, sometimes.’
‘He’s psyched out!’ he declared.
Curious, he ventured very close to the TV screen in order to figure out how it was able to render Paul mad. Pressing his snout against it, it mirrored his face, which baffled him. The table and chairs he could see in it too, but they suddenly looked much larger and darker than in real. Panic overtook him: he bit savagely into the machine and damaged it terribly. It was a few seconds before Geta realised what she was seeing.
‘Stop biting that TV!’ she screamed.
Her furious voice calmed Aji at once. He stopped gnawing the screen and turned to look down at her, seeking forgiveness.
‘But I don’t trust that tv set because of the way its screen deforms all the furniture. I have in fact just seen in it the strange things that drive Paul crazy.’
‘No, there’s nothing in it now. Paul yells in front of it when he’s watching soccer.’
‘Soccer, television, telephone …it’s all getting mixed up in my head.’
‘That’s urban technology.’ “
Aji will soon be doing all sorts of strange things despite himself: he tears Paul’s bedspread into pieces, wrecks a carpet and creates a general chaos. As the man knows nothing of the presence of lynx in his house, he believes that a crime was committed. And as he progressively looses his mind, Aji explores his qualities such as his courage, discretion and brilliant lynx traits. This will definitely attract Geta’s attention and slowly bring her to distance herself from Paul.
But when the Siamese shows her favorite place to the lynx, the roof, two wicked mice Seki and Ko are spying on Aji:
“ ‘Did you hear? That monster eats squirrels! said Seki, a gray female mouse curled up round like a small, hairy tennis ball. ‘It might want to eat us, right?
‘Yes, you are absolutely right,’ said Ko, the husband of this particular Mrs Ko Mouseashi – but who were these Mouseashis? Just a few lines of explanation are needed here, I suppose, since mice have never conversed all that much with men. They descended from an ancient family of rats, dwelled in Paul’s walls and were able to live on his crumbs. They feared cats dreadfully but had been clever enough to dig deep holes which protected them. Their digging had been hard work, but they had become so good at it that Paul’s house provided a habitat of a thousand galleries from under its foundations to the roof. So it had been quite easy for them to follow Aji wherever he went. Now that you know enough to go on with, let’s return to what Seki and Ko were saying.
‘That damn weirdo is liable to fry us with onions! said Seki, a quiver in her voice.
‘No! Nonsense! If he eats us, he’ll plump us down whole and unfried, which will already be bad enough!’ muttered Ko who obviously did not like the prospect of having a lynx lurking so nearby.
‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ cried Seki. ‘Oo, what a titanic animal: to me, it looks like the work of the devil!’
‘It’s much worse than that,’ said Ko who was having the trembling of his life. ‘It’s a great savage wild cat!’
‘Not a wildcat, or I’ll die!’ said Seki in a hardly audible voice.
‘Let’s face it: we must get the pitbull to fight for us!’ suggested Ko.
‘Oh yes, great idea!! He’ll tuck him away! Quick, let’s go down the house and tell him everything about Aji!’ said Seki.
Now rejoicing at the prospect of the lynx being harassed by the watchdog, the mice rolled down the roof deck, nearly fell off but caught themselves just on time on the top of gutter.
‘That stupid cat will never find us here,’ said Seki as she gave Ko a little push into the empty. ‘Go on: slide along the drain pipe!’
‘What? No!’ screamed Ko, clinging dangerously to Seki: ‘it dips down and down in there, vertically!!’
As he kept grasping on to the other, both mice fell down the conduit which was like a tunnel turned upright. They stopped their conversation to shriek louder and louder as the gap swallowed them. After a while that seemed to have lasted an eternity, they hit a bend in the pipe that changed their direction, slowed them down and brought them to argue.
‘I’m all scratched and bruised!’ cried Ko. ‘Fine idea you had, to borrow this passage rather than our usual inter-floor galleries. I say, A jump in the empty wouldn’t have been much worse!’
‘Next time you get us out of the mess!’ grumbled Seki.
‘Where are we?’
‘In a vertical gutter going down pretty steadily!’ answered Seki, ironic.
‘I’m disoriented. My head is up side down,’ said Ko whose feet were not able to grasp the slippery iron walls of the pipe. To cap it all, they suddenly splashed into a pool when arriving on to the ground and brr! it was so cold! But they were now far away from the threat of the wildcat, and thought they had outsmarted it nicely: They were looking forwards to warn the pitbull!”
Let’s stop here: before you know it I’ll be telling you the whole story!
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The story: Lite is a young 11-year old girl who loves to read in her cosy, warm bed. Her favorite pass-time is when her grand-ma comes to tell her stories about their ancestors, especially about Joseph Jacot Guillarmod, an ancestor of note about whom many legends exist. For example, he threw his tutor out of the window when he was a youngster. So then he fled from home and enrolled as a simple soldier. Before going any further, I wish to reassure you that nothing happened to the poor tutor, because a carriage of hay was under the window. Joseph was a tall, strong boy, already as a teenager. So returning to his career, he started as a soldier and became a great army leader, a Lieutenant Colonel at the service of the Queen of Danemark. He was also the Queen's lover.
Chapter I
An unexpected journey
Kibitz, who lived in the Capital of Hell, was very proud of being darker than darkness, good for him. He was an oily little creature with virtually no head, but he had such big bulging eyes that they always shone like Christmas lamps. He had particularly long and dangerous horns with which he killed a dragon whose skin he used to make red stockings. He had a fork, and liked to float silently here and there, in the darkness of his deep cave, under the ground of the Moon.
Kibitz appeared on Earth in the form of an old wizard in a black coat, with an old pipe in his mouth, and a big book in his hand. This happened long ago, in 1665. To humans, he gave the book with the title:
All About the End of the World,
Summary of the Destruction planned by Moyo,
The greatest dark elf of all times.
(Published in 1665 by the Hell Editions)
- When is that End of the World going to take place? asked an ancient king who thought Kibitz was saying a joke of poor taste.
- Coming Soon! said the old wizard. Sorry, I cannot give you the exact year. I don’t understand human calendars.
- You are ignorant! exclaimed the king, despisingly.
- No! retorted Kibitz. Earthlings do have a strange way of counting the number of days in a year. Martians find 687 days for one year, and the inhabitants of Pluto count 90'613 days. You see, time does not follow a straight line, but flows along curves and intersections.
- What? uttered the king, stunned.
- Didn’t you know ? said the wizard, ironic. And yet, it is easy to detect time intersections with machines or « shishos », as my people call them. They enable us to pass from one era to another.
- Shisho sounds like a Japanese word, remarked the king, suspicious.
- These shishos, continued Kibitz, turn days into seconds and centuries into minutes.
- How is that possible ? asked the king, not understanding and getting angry.
- You are ignorant, mocked the wizard. These machines obey the formula : - ∞ ≤ tretarded = tproper √ (1 - u2 / c2) ≤ + ∞.
Seeing the bewilderment of the king, the wizard laughed loud and heartily.
- So the destruction of the world could happen tomorrow? asked the poor king who was racking his brains.
- That’s possible! replied Kibitz, and he disappeared in flames, abandoning the king to a bottle of vodka for his shock.
As for Kibitz, he had very well succeeded in sowing panic : his mission was accomplished! The only annoying thing was that a certain family called Year was, so it seemed, going to counter that destruction planned by Moyo.
If ever you come across a Mr. or Mrs. Year, be prepared ! Knowing only a hundredth about them would make any other story appear boring. Just seeing them will not make you suspect anything, because they do look like humans. But you’d wonder whether they really are men or women, boys or girls. They are tall, hairy and prone to eat more than the average person. They live a long life, in spite of the fact that they meddle in affairs which you and I avoid. They are fearless globe-trotters, and have the strange tendency to pop up when they are presumed dead. And they can make quite a nuisance of themselves : this can be said about Miss Lite Year who stole a shisho from Kibitz because she wanted to travel backwards in time.
What a sport ! Wasn’t she afraid of being late for tea? I would’nt have done that for anything in the world. But she didn’t hesitate a second, and you may call her not very wise, to say the least. Some said she was a sort of comical witch who embarrassed the whole neighborhood, because bad trouble sprouted out wherever she went. Others said that her pockets were full of « elf dust » of which one pinch was enough to bewitch an entire forest. These are only rumors, but I think there is some truth in them.
Lite Year always liked to tease people, so they said about her: « Lite loves to contradict everybody ! Will she ever get married ? I’m afraid not ! What is she going to do? Run for president? Thank you, no! Politics is madness, especially for a woman! In my opinion, she’s got the brains of a scientist! I like female scientists, tough I hardly ever see any. And they do scare me quite a bit... »
Her parents were wondering a lot about her.
Be it good or not, Lite did not play the same games as most children did. She was interested in advanced reading, and didn’t seem to have any dreams. When standing at the window watching the clouds, in them she couldn’t see a little angel, while all other girls and boys her age believed in them. Lite knew better : clouds are made of vaporized water which were raised and then condensed into droplets, period. Wasn’t she so very down to earth !
But thank God, she had been very impressed by her elder brother’s stories, especially the one that told about her birth on the 1st of August 2010 at the delivery room. The obstetrician who held her in his arms told her mother:
- Your daughter is starring at the clock with such big, wide eyes, Mrs. Year ! I've never seen a baby do that! And her left ear is a very strange watch, made of solid gold and with two needles... Your baby is very mysterious.
- Oh? said her mother, and she wondered whether Lite could already read the time.
Suddenly the hospital’s clock went bizerk. Its needles started rotating backwards, and the glass broke with a sharp crack. The practitioner gasped and nearly dropped the baby on the floor.
- You… you are already very clever, though you’ve just been born ! said the obstetrician to the newborn.
Never in his life had he ever talked to a baby in such a funny way.
The baby laughed: Then the needles of the clock started to go forwards again, but it stroke time at irregular intervals. Seeing that her baby had such an incredible effect on time, her mother decided to call her Lite Year - almost like light-year which is a distance related to the stars and to time.
Eleven years had passed by since Lite had received her predestined name. With time, her hazel eyes under a staff of auburn hair made her look more and more like her father, except that Lite had the ability to change the life of other people. She really could decide on the destiny of those she liked, as though she had a mysterious power over them.
On that spring day of her eleventh year, Lite was lying in her bed and listening to a radio program on magic. One question fascinated her: suppose there were nothing in our world, no magic, no miracles, no time, no space – just nothing.
- Oh but, thought the girl, there is something, there is a world - a fantastic dream world, both outside of me and with me in it, and I have a role to play in it !
Then Lite wanted only one thing : to hear her good old grandma assure her that, yes, there is a world of magic in which you can travel backwards and forwards in time, where you can meet your grandparents when they were young, as well as your great-great-great-great grandparents when they, too, were in their prime. And you could tell them all about the evolution of the world!
But Grandma didn’t come that night to read her a story. Being all alone in the dark, and having to sleep without feeling sleepy, Lite listened and listened to the strange tic-tac of the antique Neuchatel Clock.
That clock came from her famous ancestor the Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Jacot Guillarmod, and it did not only measure time. There was something bizarre in it, as though its creators had cast a spell on it. It stood alone in a corner, so that the family didn’t know that it had voice. And now it came that its voice spoke with an echo against the walls like a murmur:
- Stop it, Lite! Your thinking is bothering Old Moyo, the greatest dark elf of astromagic. Please leave him alone ! He’s got business to do.
Just then the clock face lit up and out of it sprouted a fire ball, dragging behind it a white and sparkling trail like a firework.
« That trail is a flying carpet ! » thought Lite, intrigued.
She was going to find out that the trail was, in fact, a time machine which Kibitz had spoken about and which he had called shisho. At its head the fire ball was jerking in all directions, smashing the walls with loud banging noises. Afraid her parents may be angry she wasn’t yet asleep, Lite chased that strange little meteor. From her bed she leaped and landed on the floor as supple as a lynx. Slowly she approached the flying ball and skillfully she grabbed it in her hands. From them came these words :
- You're suffocating me!
The fire ball made her her fingers vibrate. So carefully, Lite separated her thumbs and saw in the palms of her hands a tiny clergyman. He was barefoot, a bit chubby and dressed in a red robe with a hood. He looked like a funny Lilliputian Santa Claus. A gold cross was hanging on his left arm, while the right one was holding a Bible. It was a mysterious person saying mysterious things.
- I read your thoughts, he said in a deep and strange voice. You want to set fire to London.
- What ? No! What are you talking about ? asked Lite, incredulous.
- I’m the one asking questions here! said the tiny clergyman, looking at Lite from under his great hood over his enormous nose.
- Who are you? asked Lite, shily.
- Hello! said the Lilliputian, and he removed his hood.
Then a small round head propped up. It was bold and split in two by a wide smile.
- How can you say hello, as if nothing in the world was happening? You just told me about... the fire of... an entire city, said Lite, worried.
- Yes, I did! London is getting too big. It’s going to use its military power to dominate all the lands on either sides of the Atlantic. We cannot, like Rome, let this create still another era of endless wars, slavery and bloodythursty games. So I'm looking for someone to destroy it. But few people agree to go on such an adventure. I’ve come to you, because you are so audacious that your magical clock brought me to you. But I never would’ve expected an eleven years old girl to dream of traveling backwards in time. What’s more, I’d have to take you to the Middle Ages, and that was a long time ago. What problem!
- Certainly! said the girl. And I assure you that I’m not the right person for your destruction story ! I don’t want to leave my quiet life for any such adventure ! Why such trouble? No, thank you very much. I’d rather stick to my after school tea-time and my cozy bed reading. And from what I know, everyone here is like me! You should look somewhere else, in another country perhaps. And anyway, who are you? where are you from? Lite asked, suspicious.
- I am a savior whom nobody knows of. I look after Humans and am the wisest of all times. My name is an abbreviation between two different names : Fool and Our Lord - Foolord to serve you. I come from Heaven.
- The word fool combined with Our Lord is not very polite towards God, said Lite.
- Yes, I know. Kibitz, the leader of the devils, called me like that.
There were many things Lite didn’t understand in what Foolord was saying. But talking to him already meant that she was traveling backwards in time. Lite felt pain in her eyes as if bees were stinging them : in them whorled dust - Stardust, as Moyo’s helpers called it. It came from the shisho that had just slipped under her feet and lifted her up into mid-air. Then Lite saw her bed shrink beneath her as the magic carpet whisked her out of her window and into the starry night.
- Great ! I know how to fly! she cried.
- This is not my doing ! exclaimend Foolord, helpless. I wasn’t sure whether I had to take her along or not.
And this is how a nice and quiet girl suddenly flew out of her house as if it were as simple as saying hello. Foolord wondered about it. He gathered his small hands and prayed, all the while circling in a whirlwind.
- You look worried, said Lite to Foolord.
- Well yes, replied the tiny clergyman, pleading before the sky. I, in fact, didn’t want to block the light of a thousand stars. It would’ve electrocuted me. That's why I let you get on the shisho.
- Pardon me ? said Lite, amazed. Electrocuted !... shisho !... what do those names mean ?
- Whether you did it on purpose or not, you’ve used the magic of the elves, announced Foolord in a bad mood. Their magic is what enables you to fly. Heavens! You’re a bit young to use their powers! And I may be responsible for it. My bosses are going to scold me. But how could I resist the electricity of an entire galaxy?
- That sounds very painful, said Lite, feeling that Foolord wanted her compassion.
- My bosses want too much from me ! exclaimed Foolord, rebelling.
- Oh well ! said Lite. They probably won’t even know it, because nobody sees us here. It is night, and this carpet or – er – shisho looks like a thin firework only. But it’s a cool thing : It’s got reins as for a horse ! I’m not such a good rider, but this is an easy machine to fly ! Faster ! she cried, pulling on its shiny strings.
- Be careful ! cried Foolord. There are planes and satellites ! And don’t go to fast or you’ll get sucked by space and you’ll travel too quickly backwards in time.
But instead of listening to his warning, Lite was simply enjoying her flight. She felt the shisho vibrate softly under her and loved to hear it whistle through the air. She couldn’t keep her eyes off its subtle shimmer. And in spite of her thin nightgown, she wasn’t cold because of the warmth that came from its sparks.
- This is the most splendid rocket ever ! she exclaimed.
- You’re going to fast ! cried Foolord. We’ve already gone two hundred years backwards. Ouch ! Your driving is hurting my back, as if my archangel wings were propping back up !
Once again, Lite wasn’t paying attention to him. She now saw her house disappear in a bath of light and mist. Soon the whole town of Neuchatel lay beneath her eyes. This was the most superb travel ever. The lighting of the entire city disapperaed in a flash of white and orange, while the extraordinary shisho was heading for the stars. Joyfully she imagined the envy on the face of her schoolmates when she was going to tell them about this flight.
- Let’s go behind the mountains, she said as the moon grew bigger and brighter.
- Hey ! exclaimed Foolord, panicking. Don’t fly too high : you might entry paradise and scare everybody there, like a lynx in a chicken barn!
- Paradise doesn’t appeal to me, remarked Lite. I don’t care about saints. Besides, going there would mean I’m dead. So let’s go back down !
Then the shisho dropped and dropped, letting the Moon which had taken up the entire night sky return to its normal size. The night passed. When the day broke out, Lite was surprised to see new landscapes. There were no more cities. The roads and railways had disappeared, as well as the factories with their thick spouts of gas and fire.
- Where are we? she asked the Lilliputian.
- Well ! he muttered in a bad mood. By avoiding the mountains, you’ve led us straight to Ancient England. We’re back in the seventeenth century. At this time lived the Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Jacot Guillarmod, your great great great great... sixteen times great grand-uncle. He had seen the Great Fire of London which took place in 1666.
- Oh, yes, said Lite. My grand-parents talked about it.
- Joseph wrote about it a year later to his brother, at the death of his father, pursued Foolord. He remembered that the city had eighty-five churches and thirty thousand houses, and that it was always waging war with Holland. But his writing is not clear about the role he played in the fire. When he was a teenager, he was quite big and strong, and he threw his tutor out of the window. So he couldn’t write, and depended on secretaries to put his stories down on paper.
- Joseph! said Lite, delighted. This is my chance to see him when he was in his prime !
- What ? You want to see him ? Meet him ? said the priest, aghast. I am very afraid of you facing him.
- Of course I’m going to meet him ! exclaimed Lite. Grandma says that he did attack London. But Grandpa says that that’s only a legend. I’ll see to it that he does set fire to London so that that legend about him is true and historical !
- Why on earth do you want your ancestor to become some kind of pyromaniac ! grumbled Foolord. Don’t you have better things to do ?
- Oh well, stammered Lite. When I’ll tell Joseph that I'm his sixteen times great grand-niece, I’m sure he’ll be happy to meet me. Besides, this trip has made me thirsty. I’m getting hot. Some apple juice will be most welcome. So let’s go visit Joseph who, I’m sure, will offer us a little drink or something!
So saying the shisho flew over a large forest cut by the shores of the Channel. And there, silhouetted in the horizon and perched atop a cliff stood an ancient castle. Its tall, fire-lit walls gleamed with an intense light. But the magic carpet was no longer as shiny as it had been till then. Its sparks grew dull and was becoming thinner. It was losing speed and Lite felt she was beginning to fall.
- What's going on ? she asked the Lilliputian.
- Are you surprised ? he said. You wanted to find your ancestor, so it will happen. Your wishes are commands.
Lite smoothed the folds of her nightgown to look as pretty as possible. Meanwhile the shisho already had turned into a loose net, and it was heading towards the sea. One hundred feet below Lite were the crashing waves of which the girl was very afraid. She clung as best she could to the last threads of her flying carpet.
- Stop panicking ! said the priest. You’ll only make things worse. It is now too late to turn back. You have signed your wish by mentioning your ancestor here, on the magic carpet. Your words have been heard by all the heavens. You’ll just have to accept the fate that you chose yourself !
At that moment, Lite felt strange, as if someone was watching her and as if she had made a big mistake. But the fear of diving into the roaring sea shook her to better sense.
- Go to that castle! she told her carpet.
At these words, the shisho fell into pieces and fell and fell. It was terrifying, and Lite’s stomac was turning angrily. Soon she heard no more sound except for the Lilliputian’s prayers which sounded like the buzz of a huge bee.
Then the tangled roofs of the castle reappeared, getting bigger and bigger. Clinging to the very last string of her shisho, Lite glided along the wall of the building until, at last, she was able to climb onto the edge of a window. It opened onto a large stone chamber that looked like a subterrean mountain cave.
Lite came nearer to a warm toasty fire that was crackling in a fireplace. Near her on a bed lay a man, fast asleep. Despite the heat, Lite shivered with terror as she stared at the sleeper who yet inspired peace and melancholy.
- Sanctus and deus spiritus, growled the tiny clergyman. Visiting your ancestor is a terrible sacrilege !
So saying Foolord exploded into a burst of fire – a devastating sound which shook the sleeping man out of his sleep.
- What's going on? he asked in a somewhat deformed French. He sat up in bed and stared back at Lite. His long auburn hair and the white of his eyes gleamed strangely in the fire light. Because of his giant stature, the nightgown he was wearing looked like the robe of a magician. He had the typical hazel eyes of the Year family.
- Who are you? he asked in a deep, warm voice.
Lite presented herself and told him the story of her flight, beginning with the magic clock and ending with her arrival at the castle. The man looked so surprised that Lite feared for a few scary moments that he may not be her ancestor after all. But Joseph liked her, and asked her more about the Lilliputian, the shisho, the fireworks and her time voyage. Then he said:
- I loved the story of your flying carpet ! And apparently, you know about me and about my attack on London. So you will help me accomplish it !
