He Said, Sidhe Said

When she pointed to the curse cup, he sighed and dropped in a coin. She didn't ask where he got the money. She suspected she didn't want to know.

* * * *

Only Callum, the Brownie in the running shoes, could read and write. The others thought he was full of himself and too quick to take up newfangled ideas. After three fights and a small fire no one would admit to setting, she'd taken the registration forms away and told them she'd fill them in herself. It was important to register them. If they weren't registered then they weren't real Brownies, and it would mean nothing when they flew up. She'd feminized their names and added Scottish family names for everyone except for Ewan – who became Eula. He was a Singh. Over the years, she'd helped fill in enough of these forms that the lies came easily.

Too easily, considering that honesty was a part of the Brownie law.

I'll sell extra cookies to make up for it.

* * * *

The registration fee was $75 dollars each.

"Bugger that!"

Big Tam grabbed Conner by the collar and hauled him back into the circle. "You want to be serving 'til the end of time, then? You want to spend eternity cookin' and cleanin' and muckin' out their shite and grinding their flour? Well, there's not much flour grinding of late, but you take my meaning." He shook the smaller Brownie so hard a confused-looking squirrel fell out of his pocket. "Hand it over," he commanded as Conner grabbed the squirrel and tucked it back out of sight.

She had to drive into the city to sell some of the registration money at a rare coin store. Even considering that half of what they'd offered her had disappeared when the sun hit it, she had more than enough to cover the fees for all five and order each of them a badge vest. Back in her day, they'd have been wearing skorts and knee socks, and, as imagination supplied the visuals, she thanked God that uniform choices had become more flexible.

* * * *

They met every Tuesday evening in the church hall basement. She intended to run this troop the way she'd run every troop – well, except for the curse cup. That was an idea she'd picked up from a Guide leader who dealt with a very rough group of inner-city tweens.

"Oi, Missus! What's with the sodding mushroom?"

She waited until his coin hit the curse cup before she answered. "It's not a mushroom, it's a toadstool, and it's very old."

"Old?" Conner scoffed, right index finger buried knuckle deep in his nose. "I got boogers older than that there."

"It's old," she repeated. The toadstool had spent every Tuesday evening in the basement for as long as she had. It had been the focus of thousands of circles of girls.

Big Tam stared at her for a long moment. "It's no' old to us."

"But you don't want to be you anymore, do you?"

His brows dipped so deep they met over his nose. "You're daft, Missus."

"Probably." But she was going to turn these Brownies into Guides. That's why they'd come to her, and that's what she did. "Each of you take a cushion and sit in a circle around the toadstool. Oh, and stop calling me Missus. Address me as Brown Owl."

Their reactions put another seventy-five cents, two doubloons, and a farthing in the curse cup, although she'd had to guess that Little Tam's tirade was obscene since she was unfamiliar with all of the words and half the gestures.

It was a small circle, she realized when they were seated, the smallest she'd ever had.

"Don't be worrying about that, Missus," Callum told her reassuringly when she voiced the observation. "Size don't matter."

"You'd say that, would you?" Big Tam snorted, leaping to his feet and reaching into his trousers. "Them what says that, they ain't got size enough to matter. Now, me, what I got…"

"Put it away."

"But…"

"Now."

"Fine. Still bigger," he muttered, sitting down.

Never let them know they'd flustered you. Little girls reacted to weakness like wolves – which was not particularly fair to wolves, who were, on the whole, noble creatures. But saying that little girls reacted to weakness like chickens, who were known to peck their companions to death, didn't have the same kind of mythic power behind it, even though it was more biologically accurate.

"Missus?"

Right.

She cleared her throat and dried her palms on her thighs. "We'll start with the Brownie law."

"Well," Conner said thoughtfully, "we ain't allowed to be rewarded for our services."

"Though that's really more of a guideline than an actual law," Ewan pointed out.

Little Tam nodded. "You're supposed to be leaving stuff out for us."

"Good stuff," Callum qualified. "No shite."

"And a little appreciation for services rendered, that don't go amiss," Big Tam added, to a chorus of: "Oh, aye."

She absolutely was not thinking of what service Big Tam could render. "This is a different Brownie law, for the kinds of Brownies who become Guides."

"Let's have it then, Missus. Owl. Missus Owl."

Close enough.

* * * *

They learned the law and the promise, and could soon recite them both.

"Honest and kind? This lot?" Conner pulled his finger from his nose and stared at the tip. "That's a laugh."

"You calling me a liar, you miserable little shite?"

"You want kind? Have a knuckle sandwich!"

"I'm gonna feed you my friggin' boot!"

"Up yours, asswipe!"

She got the toadstool back in essentially one piece, and, as she disinfected it before repainting, figured first aid had better be the initial Key Badge.

The curse cup already held enough money for various bandages, analgesic creams, and cold packs. It took three weeks for them to stop using the slings to tie each other into anatomically impossible positions, and a week after that to stop eating the creams, but, eventually, they learned how to deal with black eyes, bloody noses, scraped knuckles, wrenched shoulders, and swollen genitalia – the latter a necessary addition to the basic course material.

"Who'd have thought that frozen water'd feel so fine nestled up against the 'nads," Little Tam sighed, adjusting the ice pack.

* * * *

They sold the Classic Cookies in the fall – the chocolate and vanilla, centre cream cookies stamped with the Guide trefoil. She had regular customers who'd bought boxes for years and didn't care if they came from smiling little girls or scowling little men as long as they got their fix.

New customers found themselves holding boxes in one hand and an empty wallet in the other without being entirely certain how it had happened. She was pleasantly surprised to find that, although a few people were over cookied, no one was ever short changed.

"Brownies are honest," Ewan reminded her, as the entire troop looked a bit insulted by the surprised part of her reaction.

She made it up to them by presenting Money Talk badges all around.

They were heading for a record year when she realized they were in danger of attracting too much attention. "You've done remarkably well," she said, choosing to ignore the baby swapped for a doll made of cookies that she'd managed to swap back just in time. "But record numbers will bring us to provincial attention, maybe even national, and Brownies are supposed to be secretive folk, who keep out of sight."

"No one saw us, Missus Owl."

"But they'll know something is going on, and someone will come to investigate."

"Ah," Little Tam nodded. "CSI."

They all watched too much television, but she'd dealt with that before. The best way to counteract it was to lead them into the limitless worlds of imagination that came with books.

Half an hour of every meeting was devoted to teaching four of her five brownies how to read; unfortunately, without much success.

"It's not that they don't want to learn, Missus Owl," Callum confided after the other four had vanished from the basement muttering about just what they'd like to do to Dick and Jane. "It's just you gotta teach them from stories they're interested in."

"Myths and legends?"

He snorted. "Not quite."

* * * *

"Dear Penthouse forum. Last night when my girlfriend and I were getting…"

"Sound it out, Little Tam."

"Int. I. Mate. Intimate!"

"Very good."

"Hey! Let's see them pictures!"

"Back off! It's my turn to read!"

"Git!"

"Arse!"

"Who remembers how to apply the ice pack?"

* * * *

For the Halloween meeting, she dressed as an Indian Princess. She always dressed as an Indian Princess; the costume had moved past traditional some years earlier and was approaching legendary. This year, the beaded, buckskin dress felt restrictive and uninspiring, but it was too late to change.

Big Tam dressed up as a Boggart, Little Tam as a Hobgoblin, Conner as a Bodach, Ewan as a Red Cap, and Callum, always a bit more progressive than the others, as Liza Minnelli. His story about her comeback concert was terrifying.

* * * *

In November, they used the kitchen upstairs in the church hall to bake a Sugar Pie.

"Or, as the Acadians call it," she told them as Big Tam sprinkled cream on the maple sugar, "la tarte au sucre."

The old oven was a bit temperamental and she had to call the minister's wife over to help get it going. The Brownies stayed out of sight – she explained they were down in the basement working on a project – and didn't reappear until the minister's wife was gone and the pie was in the oven.

While it baked, they traced the route of the dispossessed Acadian exiles out on a map.

She cut the pie into small pieces, but that hardly mattered when everyone had seconds. And thirds.

That night, persons unknown repaved the parking lot behind the town hall, causing incidental damage to five pigeons and 1988 Buick. The pigeons recovered, the owner of the Buick found a bag of assorted coin worth twice the Blue Book value of the car in his trunk, and she resolved to be more careful with sugar in the future.

* * * *

By mid-December, the curse cup held three hundred and twelve dollars and forty-two cents as well as three wizened, black beans Conner swore were magic and should cover his contributions well into the new year.

"Oi! None of that, ya cheap bastard!"

Later, after a review of first aid basics, she suggested they use the money to help under-privileged children celebrate Christmas.

"We don't do Christmas," Big Tam pointed out. "We're older than that, ain't we."

"Aren't we. And I'm not asking you to do Christmas. I'm asking you to help children. Think of it as service to the community."

"We're all about service to the bleedin' community, Missus Owl."

"Workin' our arses off in the background, never getting no recognition."

"Aye, and we're right tired of it."

She could understand that.

"Still," Callum added a moment later, "it ain't the kiddies' fault."

* * * *

Three in the backseat, two with her in the front, and she could fit all five into her car for a trip to the big toy store in the city.

"Big Tam, take your hand off my thigh."

"Sorry, Missus Owl. Ewan's shoving like."

"Bugger I am!"

"Brownies, what did we discuss about seatbelts?"

"No one gets punched," five voices responded. "No one gets bit. Seatbelts stay on, and no one gets hit."

"But…"

"No, Ewan."

"Not fair, Missus Owl! He sodding started it."

They had three hundred and twenty-seven dollars to spend by the time they reached the store.

She ran into the minister's wife as she emerged from a painfully pink aisle, her arms piled high with boxed baby dolls.

"Are you here on your own?" the minister's wife asked, as she helpfully adjusted the pile.

"No, I'm here with my Brownies."

"I'd love to meet them." Smile tight and official, the minister's wife peered around the store. "Where are they?"

From three aisles away she heard, "Sod off, you cheap bastard. We're buying the web-slinging set what comes with Doc Octopus."

"Oh, they're around."

* * * *

Little Tam was the hit of the talent show in January. The other four stomped and shouted and whistled, applauding long and loudly when he finished his song. Unfortunately, it was in Gaelic and she didn't understand a word of it.

"It's about a shepherd," Big Tam explained, glaring around the circle as though daring the others to contradict him. "A shepherd what really, really loves his sheep."

* * * *

In February, on the Tuesday evening closest to the full moon, they made snow men – one large and five small – out behind the church hall. She provided carrots for noses, but each of the Brownies had been told to bring enough small stones to create eyes and mouth.

"What's so funny, mate?" Callum muttered, finishing his snowman's smile. "I'm freezing my bloody bollocks off out here."

"This is a part of your Winter Outside badge," she reminded him, uncertain if bollocks was cursing or slang.

"Is there an icicle up the arse badge? Because I've got that one nailed."

The minister's wife appeared as she was unlocking her car.

"I've missed them again, have I?"

"Only just." She smiled and checked to make sure that she'd obliterated the distinctive prints made by hobnailed boots.

"I could see you from my upstairs window." The minister's wife gestured toward the old stone house that went with the church. "I couldn't see your Brownies, though."

"I expect the angle was wrong. And that pine tree's in the way."

"I've never seen them." The light over the parking lot made her eyes look a little wild. "I see you park here every Tuesday evening, but never them."

"They come in through the other entrance." She didn't know what entrance they came through; they arrived every week a few minutes after she did. The other entrance was therefore no lie. "You've come out without your boots and hat. You do know you lose forty-five percent of your body heat through an uncovered head, don't you? You should get back inside before you get a chill."

* * * *

Her first year as a leader, she'd brought in pictures of John Glenn, her Great Aunt Rose, who'd raised eight children on her own after her husband had been killed in the First World War, and Wonder Woman. She'd talked about what it meant to be a hero and then had the girls come up with heroes of their own. Over the years, she'd added many of their heroes to her portfolio. This year, it took her nearly an hour to carefully tape them all to the painted concrete walls.

She hadn't been snuck up on in thirty-seven years, and so she turned, smiling, when she heard the faint sound of footsteps behind her. The tall, dark-haired woman with the minister's wife came as a bit of shock, but she didn't let it show. It helped that, over the last little while, she'd become used to seeing the minister's wife pop up at odd moments. "Good evening. May I help you?"

The dark-haired woman held out her hand. "Hello, my name is Janet O'Neill." Under her coat, a blue and white striped shirt, a dark blue sweater, a prominent pin… "I'm from the provincial office."

Of course she was.

"I was in the area visiting Samantha Jackson…"

The name threw her for a moment, and then she remembered. Samantha Jackson was the minister's wife, who was looking less nervous than usual now she had backup.

"…and I thought I'd drop in and visit your troop."

"My troop."

"Your Brownies."

Oh, dear.

"I see you're studying heroes tonight. Why don't you run us through the pictures while we wait for the girls to arrive?"

It took forty-five minutes. It would have taken longer, but after forty-five minutes, Janet raised her hand and said, "They're not coming are they?"

"Well, of course they…"

"Aren't!" the minister's wife finished dramatically. "I've never seen these Brownies of yours. No one has. I've asked around, and no one in town has enrolled their daughter in the program."

"You've spoken to everyone in town?" She was honestly curious. Who knew the minister's wife had that much free time.

"Not everyone. A lot of people, though. It's a small town!"

Janet pulled five familiar registration forms from her briefcase. "I just want to ask you a few questions about these forms. You filled them in yourself, didn't you?"

"Yes, but only because they couldn't."

"There is no they!" The minister's wife jabbed a shaking finger at her. "No one came to register that night, but you've been a Brownie leader since the beginning of time and you couldn't bear not having a troop. So you made them up, didn't you? They're total figments of your imagination!"

"They are not!"

"Then where are they?"

"They won't come when you're here!"

"Why not?"

"Why should they? You don't believe in them."

Janet cleared her throat.

She stepped back, took a deep breath, and apologized for shouting.

"I need to meet these girls," Janet said firmly. "I need to know that our organization hasn't been…"

"Used by a crazy lady!" the minister's wife finished.

"I swear to you," she spoke directly to Janet, "my Brownies may be a little rough around the edges, but they're trying, and isn't that what we're about? They're doing their best, and they understand about duty…"

"Duty hasn't been a part of the promise for years," Janet reminded her gently.

"Well, maybe it should be. The point is, they want to be more than they are and they came to me for help, and I helped them because that's what we're about too. Helping."

"I need to meet these girls," Janet repeated. "Or I'm afraid that…"

"Oi, Missus. Sorry we're late."

Hobnailed boots coming down the stairs. In front as usual, Big Tam held out a gnarled hand to Janet O'Neill. "Tammy McGregor," he said. "Pleased to meetcha, Missus. This here's my younger sister, Tina." Little Tam grunted, still apparently annoyed he'd had to change his name. "Our Da gives us all a ride into town, but he had a cow in calf and we couldn't go until the bugger popped."

"Oh, I didn't realize you were all from farms."

She blinked. If that was the provincial leader's only concern, she was adding a new picture to her wall of heroes.

"Well, Eula here ain't…"

Ewan waved.

"…but Da picks her up on the edge of town. We'd all been part of 4-H, but we had to keep Karen away from the sheep, if you know what I mean; wink-wink, nudge-nudge."

"Oi, none of that you lying bastard!"

She cleared her throat. Callum stopped his charge, sighed, and tossed a coin in the curse cup, muttering, "Knuckle sandwich later, boyo."

Conner sidled up to Janet, and tugged on her sleeve. "I learned to read here."

"Well, good for you."

"I got a badge for it."

"Congratulations." Her pleasure seemed genuine.

"But there's no one there!"

Everyone turned to stare at the minister's wife, who had collapsed into a chair and was visibly shaking.

"She takes a header, dibs on mouth-to-mouth!"

"I'm for CPR, me!"

"You just wants ta grab her boobies."

"Brownies!"

The rush toward the minister's wife stopped cold.