Copyright J.B. Norman
Annie gasps in horror as Dunstana careens into the statue plinth.
“Oops,” Dunstana mutters as the plinth wobbles.
Annie gasps in even more horror as the bust on the plinth topples and falls to the floor.
Then, she gazes in the most horror as the bust shatters into pieces as it hits the floor.
“Oops,” Dunstana mutters.
“’Stana!” Annie cries. “You broke Tertitius Megalodon Splendiferus!”
Dunstana glances down at the shattered pieces of the statue head, then gazes back up to stare blankly at her cousin.
“Who?”
“He was a Consul of the Ancient Elven Empire!” Annie explains, feeling like she’s going to faint. She just knows she’s going to go to jail for this. The Faculty of History and the Faculty of Fine Art are going to hate her!They’re going to expel her from the University, and she doesn’t even go to the University yet!
“It was an accident?” Dunstana offers.
Annie feels tears welling in her eyes.
“Self-defence?” Dunstana offers.
Tears continue to well in Annie’s eyes.
“Um…” Dunstana offers. “Williams did it?”
Across the city, the notary in the Dunstana’s crew sneezes.
Dunstana stares thoughtfully down at the fragments of the bust again.
“I don’t see what the big deal is, Annie. He’s just a statue head,” she notes. “There’s, like, five hundred just in their room.”
“But they’re all priceless historical artifacts, too!” Annie protests.
“Okay, but, like, how big a deal is this Splendid-Ferret guy, anyway?” Dunstana asks.
“He’s one of the most important Ancient Elves there is!” Annie explains. “He defeated the pirates.”
“Well,” Dunstana says. “In that case, it was definitely self-defence. It was him or me. And it wasn’t gonna be me…”
The little pirate looks hopefully at her cousin.
“Right?”
After a moment of consideration, Annie wipes the sweat from her forehead and sighs in relief.
“I’m just glad all of the statues here are just plaster casts of the originals,” she says. “They thought it would be a bad idea to have the real ones out in the open on wobbly plinths like this.”
She takes another deep breath.
“I guess I overreacted,” Annie admits. “This isn’t even the first time the bust of Tertitius Megalodon Splendiferus got broken. There are three or four spare plaster casts in the back room.”
“So…” Dunstana says, her eyes scanning the statue gallery. “That means it’s not really a big deal if they break, right?”
She bounces happily.
“Oh, man! This is going to be a great place to play tag!”
The colour drains from Annie’s face.
“No, ’Stana!” she cries.
“Oh, sweet Powers!” the esteemed Sir Chiswick von Strontlebottom, Porthaven’s Minster of Antiquities cries as he steps into the gallery. “What has happened in here?”
Annie yelps and hides behind Dunstana, who looks thoughtfully up at the moustache and the man behind it standing the door of the galley.
However, the magnanimous Sir Chiswick is more concerned with the safety of the two young visitors to the statue gallery than the wellbeing of the plaster casts in said gallery.
“If I’ve told them to reinforce those plinths once, I’ve told them a thousand times!”
He throws up his arms in exasperation.
“Why else do you think I’ve insisted that we only put the plaster casts on display in here?”
“See?” Dunstana asks her cousin.
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