19. Funeral day

The cart arrived at the house of the dwarfs. Happy and Bashful lay happily snoring in the back. The driver of the cart made several attempts to wake the two up, but failed time after time. He shrugged, lifted the two little men from the cart and put them on the grass near the house. They'd be fine there.

As the man was doing this, the two dwarfs who had stayed home from working in the mine looked out of the window. Grumpy mutteted something, Doc elbowed him to be silent. It had the adverse effect.

"Come, we have to help the man," Doc said and opened the door. "Howdy, dudey, what are you doing with our friends?"

"Oh, hello mr Dwarf. I am taking them home, and bringing the glass coffin. Rather kinky if you ask me, but since you don't ask me..." The man took off a plank from the cart to make the lifting of the coffin easier.

"Oh, good, yes," said Doc. "We'll help you. Just let me get some steps, so we can reach up to that high wagon of yours."

"Good? Speak for yourself," Grumpy grumped, shaking his head as he stared at the two almost lifeless shapes that were his friends. "They got it good. You know nothing."

Doc did not care. He went off and returned with a small ladder, just high enough to reach the loading floor of the wagon. "You get up there, Grumpy, and help the good man. I am too old for circus acts like that."

Grumpy cast a look that would have killed, but Doc was used to something. It also helped that Grumpy was a dwarf, not a witch or a warlock, and that was a good thing for all lifeforms in the area. Unhappy the grouchy dwarf climbed onto the ladder. "I'll probably break my neck and legs. And if I do, I'm going to break yours as well, Doc."

With considerable effort, they took the glass coffin from the cart and put that on the grass also. Somehow it all went well, nothing was broken or scratched.

The man from the village wished them well, got onto his wagon and drove it off again.

Doc stared. At the two sleeping ones, and at the coffin. "We'd better get started then," he said to Grumpy.

"Start all you want," the addressed dwarf grumbled, "I have done enough for today, risking my neck and all."

"Hey," said Doc, slapping Grumpy over the head, "we have to prepare this coffin for Snow-White so she lies comftorably, remember? Now, if you don't want to help me with that, you are one mean piece of-"

"Okay, okay, no need to say that word out loud," Grumpy grumped. "You made your point. Do you want to bring the stuff out here, or do we take the coffin inside?"

They took the coffin inside.

By the time their mates came home, Happy and Bashful had regained most of their consciousness again and had been helping to make a nice resting place for Snow-White inside the glass coffin. Bashful, as he had the neatest handwriting, had taken it upon him to write her name in large golden letters on the cover, near the part that would be over her legs and feet.

"Are you sure this is the right thing to do?", Dopey asked as he put yet another silk pillow in the coffin, next to the twelve he had already stuck in there.

"Depends on what you are referring to, Dope," Grumpy said. "If you keep that pillow-fetish up there won't even be room for a shoe in that coffin, you twit."

"Oh. Think so?" Dopey took off one of his shoes. "That still fits..."

"I sometimes want to hurt you so much..." Grumpy hung his head and trotted off in despair, looking for liquid sanity.

"He's really having a mood again today," Dopey said to Sleepy, pointing his thumb over his shoulder to where Grumpy had sauntered off.

"Hmm...", Sleepy responded, agreeing with his eyes closed and his mind wandering.

"Thought you'd agree," Dopey nodded as he went looking for a pillow. A small one.

Doc, Bashful, Happy and Sneezy sat at the table, watching things unfold.

"Uhm, sorry folks, gotta run," Sneezy said as he made for the door.

"Uh-oh," said Bashful as he dove under the table. When the thunder was over, he and the others reappeared from under the table as Sneezy came in again.

"No harm done," the sneezer announced. "Well, nothing worth mentioning. We just won't have vegetables for a while."

"Not again," Grumpy moaned. He walked over to Sneezy and hit him up the head. "How often do I have to tell you not to sneeze at the vegetable garden. Or the potatoe garden. Or the flower garden."

"Uhm, well, that would only leave the house," Sneezy said, angered as he had been whacked for something he could not help. "If you don't care about that, it's fine with me. Sleeping outside is fine in the Summer."

"Maybe I just should get done with you then," Grumpy threatened Sneezy, his hand slowly going up to grab his mate by the throat. Suffocation was a clean and merciful death, someone had once told him.

"Uhm, don't you think that's a bit harsh with Snow-White still in the house, Grumpmeister?", asked Doc, who grabbed Grumpy's arms to prevent a killing.

"You damn always know something to say that makes friggin' sense. I hate you for that."

Doc couldn't care less. At least everone in the house was safe now. For now.

They inspected the glass coffin one more time. They took out the pillows, much to Dopey's disappointment. And then they had to take the difficult and drastic step: putting Snow-White in there. Six of the seven had a bit of an argument who would hold Snow-White where, making Sleepy complain about their noise. The problem was solved in the end though, and the six positioned themselves around Snow-White's bed, where she still lay sleeping, the piece of apple in her throat.

"She looks pretty darn dead to me," Grumpy muttered.

"Be quiet andlift, you're just pissed off that you have a foot," said Happy who already had his hands under Snow-White's behind. If his smile would get any wider, the top of his head would fall off.

"Come on, boys, on my mark of three," said Doc.

"Three what?" Dopey was scared he had missed something and pulled his hands back from Snow-White's head and shoulder.

Doc closed his eyes and counted to ten. Twice. "Dopey, listen. I will count to three and then we lift Snow-White up to put her in the coffin. Got that?"

"Oh, that, yeah, sure, no problem, just count fast and be loud on the three!"

Five sighs later and all hands on board, which in this case should be read as under body, Doc counted. "One-two-THREE." Snow-White became airborn as the six little men lifted, putting their muscles they had earned while working at the mines to good use. As if they had practiced many a time, very quickly the black-haired, red-lipped, white-skinned princess lay in the coffin.

"Shame, really, isn't it?", Doc said, his hat in hand.

"Yeah, she was so good for us," Happy said, his hat in hand.

"I think we could put another pillow between her legs," Dopey said, his hat in Doc's hand.

"Hufff...", Sneezy said, his hat in hand and a finger under his nose.

"I think she liked me," Bashful said, his hat in hand and red in the face.

"Bunch of whimps," Grumpy said, his hat in hand. "I sure hope that witch knows what she's doing."

The witch in question was staring at a green flame that was walking over her table, leaving a green trail of goo behind it. "This is wrong again," Hilda muttered, as she slapped the flame into oblivion and took the rag to wipe off the green smear before it got too attached to the table. "What the hell am I doing?"

The rag was remarkably green already, from all the attempts she had made to get this right.

Hilda fell into her chair again and looked at the red and the yellow flames that were happily walking around the jars they lived in, without leaving traces. "Damn it, I can't stand this. I get this fantastic idea to annoy people that use roads and pathways, and then the green light keeps dribbling all over the place. That's not going to cut the mustard."

The two goldfish on her cup sat silently in their place.

"What are you looking at?", Hilda muttered and turned the cup around.

Carefully two fishfaces crept around the cup, trying to stay out of sight and yet keep up with the happenings. Their efforts were in vain, because Hilda extinguished the two flames that were not drooping and went to her mirror again.

She giggled. "Fire-light, sun-light and mustard-light. Shiny. Already got the names done." Then she paid attention to the imagery the mirror had to show. Silently she praised Johan's craftsmanship in making mirrors. His products with the best. Simply the best.

"Right. First let's see how the boys are doing with the coffin." She saw Johan working on mirrors. "Ah, good. The midgets left. Oh, bad Hilda, calling your co-conspirators midgets. Oh well, they're small enough for that."

The two fish on the cup looked at each other and frowned. "No man for far too long," they silently agreed.

Hilda switched channels on her mirror and checked the proceedings at the dwarfish house. She saw the six- (six? Oh, of course. The sleepyhead was missing.) -stand around the glass coffin, hats in hand. "Awwhhh... so sweet... they really admired her." Hilda's eyes went all dreamy and a smile was on her face, wondering how the hell it got there. "I wonder if they'd do that for me too..." Her wand was in her hand and her clothes changed to pink, with tiny yellow brooms and blue piglets. The tiny off detail was that each piglet had a broom up its arse.

One of the goldfish tried to cover its eyes. The other wished it could reach its ears. They were out of luck.

"She looks really cute like that," Hilda commented as she inspected the sleeping princess in the glass box. "Maybe I should go for black hair too. And the- nah, no red lips. Come on, Hilda, that's not you! But still, the black hair looks spiffy. But perhaps only with the pale skin, and I am not going there. Been stupid once and I am definitely staying away from that."

Hilda went on and on, until the dwarfs had put the cover on the coffin and carried it out of the room. And during all that time, the fish were trapped on the teacup...

Walt sat outside the castle, enjoying a very mundane and well-chilled beer. He stretched his royal legs and rested them on the seat near him, while taking a sip of the golden liquid. He found that he deserved this. He had been running around after the queen a good deal of the day, and such strain should be rewarded. Without overdoing it of course, so he had promised himself that he would only have two beers.

Little did he know that at that time the dwarfs were lifting his little girl up and depositing her into a glass coffin. He was unaware of their grief and Sleepy's snoring. Unaware of the goldfish that wanted to get away from the cup and Hilda's fluffy-bunny babbling.

The thing that worried him was the rapidly receding level of beer in his pitcher, and that the first pitcher was already on the ground, empty. Only two beers. Walt frowned and tried to find a way to get around his self-imposed limit...

The mean queen sat in her room and stared at the mirror. She did not want to ask, did not need to ask. She wanted and needed something else, but she was afraid to go out and get it. Walt was a seriously inhibiting factor in her life all of a sudden, and she did not like that one bit. She stared at the door of her hidden room. Perhaps she had to go in and think of something queenly constructive that would also be kingly destructive...