The pretty yellow soup bowl and the spoon decided that night that they would leave the lady’s cottage in search of something more. In search of adventure.
They thought it best to leave some time during the day, but after the lady had left.
“That way,” the spoon said, “we won’t get lost or picked up by foxes.”
“What’s a fox?” The bowl asked.
“I think it’s like… well, I don’t really know. But I’ve heard Lady talking about them before, and she didn’t sound happy. So I think it’s best to stay away from foxes.”
The yellow soup bowl agreed, and settled into her nook in the cupboard to await the pale gold light of day.
Dawn broke, and the lady woke with it. She ambled into the kitchen, and set a kettle boiling on the embers of last night’s fire. When it was hot, she poured herself a cup of hot water, adding a little pouch filled with aromatic leaves and spices. Tea in hand, she settled into her morning routine: reading by the fire before beginning her daily tasks.
The little yellow soup bowl was nearly shaking off shelf, so anxious was she to get going on their adventure. She was also anxious about something else: how was she to get down from the cupboard without dashing herself into hundreds of tiny pieces?
The lady was rousing herself from her creaky chair by the fire when an idea struck the soup bowl. With a bolt of daring, she rattled herself against the wood. There followed a clatter, louder than any she had made previously. She hoped it was enough.
Hearing the noise, the lady looked up, searching. Finding nothing, she stood, and was about to leave the kitchen when the bowl rattled herself again.
This time the lady saw the bowl quiver, ever so slightly. She squinted, and crossed the large, cracked flagstone floor, and stood before the cupboard upon which the bowl sat. The bowl, suddenly finding that her courage was failing, rattled one last time.
The lady blinked in surprise.
“Well, I don’t believe…” she reached out, snatching the bowl from the cupboard. Her eyes darted too and fro, seeking the only thing that could conceivably cause a dish to move: a mouse. “There are no mice in my kitchen, let me tell you. Dreadful creatures.”
With that, she absently set the yellow soup bowl down on the counter. And promptly forgot about her.
She didn’t even look at me, the yellow bowl thought, sadly. Maybe it’s a good thing we’re going on this adventure.
The thought brought her spirits back, and she began considering ways off the counter that wouldn’t result in her demise.
By the time the lady had left for the day, the bowl had hit upon an idea. She wasn’t sure how the spoon would get down from his rack, but so long as she got to the ground, she knew they could make it.
Sighing, she wiggled herself over to the very end of the counter, peering over the edge.
Yes. There it was.
She remembered that the lady always put the washing down at the end of the counter, by the door. Fortunately for the little yellow soup bowl, the lady hadn’t taken the basket with her, and it was sitting there, piled high with all sorts of soft things: shirts, blankets, skirts, towels, socks.
The perfect landing spot for a little soup bowl.
“Spoon!” She cried, poised on the edge. “Spoon, Lady is gone!”
“Eh? Wha?” There came a horrid clanking rattle as the spoon wiggled himself to the top of his rack. “Oh! Oh yes, of course!”
“You were asleep, weren’t you?” The bowl asked accusingly.
The spoon faced his bowl towards her, sheepish (you may have noticed that the bowl and spoon have become more animated since the beginning of the story. How, you ask? Well. The only answer I can give you is simple: Magic. Now, back to the story.)
“I might have been, but you woke me up! So there’s nothing to worry about, is there?”
The bowl sat there, silent and unmoving for a moment, before answering.
“Well, no, not really. But how are you going to get down?”
“Oh, that’s easy. I’ve done it before.”
“You have?!” The bowl was incredulous. When had he done that?
“Yeah, watch.”
With that, the spoon wriggled and bounced his way off the rack. He landed on the kitchen island with a clatter, picked himself up, and hopped on his handle over to the edge. From there, he hopped off, landing on the floor with yet another, louder clatter.
“SPOON!” Cried the bowl, seeing him unmoving on the flagstones.
“Ng. I’m alright!” Came his voice. He got back on his handle and slowly hopped to where the bowl waited, perched on the counter. “Just… makes it hard to move afterwards.”
The bowl sighed with relief. If the spoon could do something like that, then surely she could roll off the counter onto a pile of soft things.
“What about you? How are you going to get down?” The spoon asked.
“Like this!” The bowl said. She wobbled on her base, closer to the edge.
“Wait, what? No, you’ll break!” The spoon gasped. The bowl just kept wobbling closer to the edge, until she was teetering over empty space. “Bowl! No!” She tipped, glinting gold in the early morning light. “NO!”
The spoon waited for the telltale crash, dreading that his only friend was gone, shattered into irreparable pieces.
None came.
“Bowl?” He asked, tentatively. “Bowl, are you…”
“I’m okay!” Came her muffled voice. Confused, the spoon hopped around the end of the counter. Relief flooded him when he saw the basket of clothes.
“Oh thank the baker!” He sighed, sagging ever so slightly. “How are you going to get out from there though?”
The question was met with silence. Then:
“I don’t really know.” The bowl sounded disgruntled. “I didn’t think about what to do after I got into the basket.”
The spoon thought for a moment.
“What if you tip the basket over?”
“How?”
“I don’t know? Roll around and see if you can’t get it moving?”
“Hmm. I’ll try.”
She did. Nothing happened, though the basket did wobble as she moved.
“Nothing?” She asked, still muffled.
“Nothing.” The spoon thought another moment. “Hey, wait. I have an idea.”
So saying, he hopped around to the back of the basket. He pressed his scoop against it, bracing his handle against the bottom of the counter.
“When I say, roll away from the counter, and I’ll push.”
“Okay.” The bowl sounded nervous. And who wouldn’t be? This daring do was the stuff of big adventures.
“Now!” Chirped the spoon.
They moved in tandem, the spoon pushing, the bowl rolling. And on the third try, their efforts met with success.
The basket, round on the bottom, tipped forward slowly before falling to the ground. The clothes spilled out with a whump.
“Bowl? Bowl, are you okay? Where are you?”
“Yes, I’m okay. I’m not that fragile, you know.” Her voice came from under a pink shirt. The spoon hopped over, waiting anxiously for his friend to emerge. A second later, she rolled out from under the shirt, up and over a pile of garden-dirty trousers, and onto the flagstone with a clink. She stopped rolling. “Help me upright, please?” She asked. She was round, true, but had a slightly flat side that prevented her from rolling with ease. It was simpler to just waddle-hop.
Obliging the request, the spoon hopped up and landed on the bottom of her curve, pulling her back down to her proper position.
“Thank you!” She said. She looked around. “It looks so much different from down here, doesn’t it?”
“It does.”
The bowl wiggled closer to the spoon, nervousness and excitement warring within her.
“Well, let’s go then!” She said.
“Aye!” The spoon replied.
With that, they set out, a bowl running away with a spoon.
***
The day was perfect for adventuring. An early summer sun hung low in the east, rising slowly to banish the chill and damp of the night. The sky was a pearlescent blue, and growing bluer. Birds chirped and warbled in the trees that surrounded the cottage. After making their way down the sandy garden path, under blooms of lavender, oleander, gardenias, dahlias, and dozens of other flowers and big fuzzy bees, they came to the road. It was a wide expanse of pale, hard dirt. Grass and weeds and wildflowers edged the way, and beyond the field on the other side, the bowl and spoon could see a band of dark green trees.
“Well, which way?” The bowl asked.
“Hmm. Well. I remember that Lady brought me from that way-“ here he nodded to the right – “I think that’s the way to the village.”
“What’s in the village?”
The spoon shrugged, a sort of little half hop. “Don’t know.”
“Then we shall find out!”
So saying, she began wiggle-waddling her way down the road, leaving the spoon to catch up. He did in three hops. Four hops later, he was well beyond her.
“I can’t go that fast, spoon.” The bowl, said matter of factly. “I would roll, but…”
“The flat side. Right.” The spoon sighed. “Alright, well I’ll stay with you then. It’s more fun with someone, you know.”
“Have you adventured before?” The bowl asked some time later. The cottage’s wall of garden was still in view, but it was smaller than it had been.
“Only once or twice, and I stayed in the garden.” The spoon replied. “When I woke up – (this is referring to when he realized he could think and move of his own accord. This happens, sometimes, to inanimate objects. Have you ever misplaced something, and can’t find it? Well, it probably woke up and went on an adventure). – I thought I’d see what there was to see in the kitchen. Did it at night, of course. Took me awhile to figure out how to get off the rack, but when I did, I explored all over the kitchen. Not much to look at, and I’m sure you could see all that I did from your perch.”
The bowl doubted this, but let him continue uninterrupted.
“Anyways, Lady came in and found me on the floor in front of the fire. She washed me with that lavender soap of hers, and put me back. I did it again a few days later, and that time I made it to the garden. It was cold and wet and white outside, so I didn’t see much, and all the bushes were empty. Do you know where the green comes from?”
“No, I don’t. But we should find out.”
“That’s a good idea.”
They went on in this way for some time, the sun rising in the sky until it was right above them. The day had turned warm, and bugs buzzed in the trees beside the road. A few humans passed them, but none stopped or commented on the bowl and spoon sitting in the road. One, an inquisitive child, poked at the bowl, but was called away by his older sister.
“Leave it! Don’t you know that wizards like to experiment with dishes?”
The boy looked at his sister with wide, hazel eyes. The girl, tall and slender with youth, shook her head and tugged her brother away down the road, eyeing the bowl and spoon suspiciously. “You never know what they’ve been enchanted to do.”
Perplexed, the bowl and spoon watched the children wander away.
“What’s a wizard?” The bowl asked. “What’s enchanting?”
“Beats me. Maybe they’re like foxes,” the spoon replied, pensive.
“Well, I’m not entirely sure I want to meet one, if they do things to dishes.”
“I guess we’ll find out when we reach the village.” (As Neap is a magical land, it stands to reason that there would be a wizard in the village. And wizards, after all, are powerful, if unpredictable, spell casters.)
The bowl agreed, but was suddenly nervous about encountering a wizard, whatever it was.
The afternoon continued, the dish and spoon talking about this and that. Before long it was mid-afternoon, around two o’clock. They could no longer see the cottage, but neither could they see the village.
“How long is it until the village?” The bowl wasn’t tired, per se, but she was getting worried that they would be caught outside, in the dark, with foxes and wizards and enchantings about.
“I don’t think it’s much farther,” the spoon reassured her. In truth, he wasn’t sure. It had been a long time since the lady brought him home.
They continued wiggle-waddling and hopping down the road in silence, lost in their own thoughts, when suddenly there came a deep, resonant voice from behind them.
“What have we here?”
Turning, the bowl and spoon saw a tall, largish man walking towards them. He had a thick, dark grey beard, and long wavy grey hair that fell past his shoulders. He wore a navy blue robe with billowy sleeves, and a tall, pointed hat of black felt that covered his eyes.
“BY my unruly eyebrows! Animated dish ware!”
With a cry of delight the man swooped on them like some sort of voluminous bird, his robe flapping behind him like wings.
The soup bowl shrieked and wiggled away as fast as she could. But she couldn’t keep up with the spoon, who was hop-hop-hopping away from the descending bird man.
“Run, Spoon run!” The bowl cried.
The spoon stopped mid-hop and fell over. He bounced back up and turned.
“Not without you!” He replied. He hopped back to his companion as fast as he could go, reaching her just before the bird man
“Back!” He yelled. “I warn you!” He swung his scoop menacingly at the bird-man.
Who only looked on in bemused wonder.
“Well if you insist,” the man said, taking a step backwards.
The spoon stopped brandishing himself, and looked at the bowl.
“Did he just…” he stammered.
“You… can hear us?” The soup bowl asked timidly.
“Of course I can! I may be half-deaf, but magic? Aye, anyone with the gift can hear when it speaks.”
If they had faces, the bowl and spoon would have gaped.
“Magic?” The spoon asked.
“Aye, magic.”
The soup bowl began to quiver.
“Then that means you’re… you’re a…”
“A wizard! Naturally!”
The bowl and spoon looked at each other, unsure of what to think. This man, as odd as he was, didn’t seem like the sort to experiment on dishes. But then again…
“Well, if you are, why don’t you prove it?” Asked the spoon.
The wizard laughed heartily.
“By all means!”
With a wave of his hand, he conjured a glittering orange butterfly of light. It fluttered down and alit on the soup bowl’s rim. It was warm, and buzzed with power. Then it flapped and settled on the spoon for a moment before flying back to the wizard, where it dispersed in a shower of orange and gold sparks.
The bowl gasped.
“How did you do that?!”
The wizard waggled his eyebrows.
“Magic. Now, my young friends, what brings such a lovely yellow soup bowl and spoon to these parts?”
“We’re on an adventure!” The spoon said, standing tall.
“Are you now. Very interesting.”
“Yes, but we haven’t gotten very far.”
“Yes, I can see how you’d have trouble getting anywhere very quickly.” The wizard hummed sympathetically. “My dears, I have a proposition.”
“A who what now?” The spoon asked, suspicious. He didn’t entirely trust this large bird-man, but was interested nonetheless. As far as he knew, no other spoon had talked with a wizard before.
“A suggestion, an idea, a thought for your consideration.”
“Oh.”
“What is this pro… propo… proposit…” The bowl had more trouble saying the word than she expected.
“Proposition. Yes. How’s about I take you to the village, speed things up a little bit?”
“Oh yes, please, Mr. Wizard!” The bowl gasped, relieved. She was beginning to worry the lady would come along and find them and put an end to their adventure. And what then?
“Righto. I may pick you up, yes?”
The bowl wiggled her consent, and the wizard picked her up very gently, cradling her against his chest like she was something precious.
“And you, my dear spoon?”
“I suppose so. All that hopping is making my handle ache.”
The wizard laughed, and the bowl found she liked the sound of it. It felt… homey, comfortable, safe. Stooping, he retrieved the spoon, resting him in the crook of the arm that held the bowl.
“That way, no one will suspect you are alive,” he said, laying a finger to the side of his nose.
“Why don’t you want them to know?” Asked the bowl as the wizard began walking down the road with long, even strides. In two minutes they’d covered more than half the distance they’d made that morning. It helped to have legs apparently, and the bowl wondered what it would be like to have arms and legs and a face that made real expressions.
“They have a tendency to ask impertinent questions. Questions I don’t have the answers to. And I don’t like not being able to answer people’s questions.”
His words made both the bowl and spoon’s heads spin. Hearing so many new words in such little time tended to do that.
“What does impertinent mean?” Asked the spoon.
“And ten… tend-en-cy?” Chimed in the bowl.
Chuckling, the wizard answered.
“Impertinent means rude and uncivil and tendency means ‘being inclined to be a certain way.’”
“What…” the spoon deadpanned.
“Oh, dear, I’m sorry.” The wizard laughed again. He laughed a lot. “I forget that not everyone knows as many words as I do.”
“I want to know more words!” Piped the bowl, intrigued. So far she had heard more new words today than ever she had in the cottage. It was exhilarating.
“And so you shall, my dear yellow soup bowl.”
Assuming the air of a professor, the wizard began explaining new words, and answering both the spoon and bowl’s questions as well as he could.
By the time they reached the edge of the village they had learned what the difference was between magic and sorcery (really, it’s not that much of a difference, the wizard said before expounding on the many nuanced differences), what dozens of new words meant, and what type of wood the spoon had been made from.
“If I’m not mistaken, you appear to be made of olive wood. Very useful in the kitchen, ages very nicely.”
“Hear that, bowl? I age nicely.”
She hummed, and was about to answer when they turned down a path and approached a tall, narrow-built brick building.
“What is this place?” She asked instead, taking in the front garden. There were flowers everywhere, most of which she’d never seen before. The wizard walked down a winding flagstone path, with green springy stuff in between the stones. The door to the house was under a portico, and was carved with intricate leaf and floral designs of lifelike proportions. There was even a brass bumblebee knocker. But the wizard didn’t knock on it. Instead he whispered a word that sounded like seedlings, and the heavy, oak door swung open on silent hinges.
“This, my dear soup bowl, is Featherwright House.”
The soup bowl really felt that it would have been better to have a face to properly express her awe at the house they just entered. It was somehow, inexplicably, bigger on the inside, and full of interesting things and a wonderful smell of paper and cinnamon, and campfire smoke.
Sensing the wonder of the dishes in his arms, the wizard chuckled, and held them out for a better look, unsure of how they perceived the world, but determined to make an effort to help them along.
“Welcome to my home.” He said, closing the door behind him.
Two Hour Tales 