Amanderella Gottsnobbler and the Bangolin Tree Chapter 8 real one!

Chapter 8.

 

Spectacle makers call.

 

Amanderella had barely finished writing Algersome is for someone else when the doorbell rang again.

Mrs Gaffletter stiffened. “If that is another gentleman caller,” she murmured, “I shall take steps.”

But it was not a suitor. Indeed, was not one gentleman caller it was three Before Mrs. Gaffletter could slam the door in their faces one of the gentlemen spoke. “I believe this is the residence of that renowned explorer Lady Amanderella Gottsnobbler. We,” he gestured to the other two, “are makers of bespoke spectacles, designed to fit exactly on people’s noses.”

Mrs. Gaffletter refrained for the moment from sending them away.

“I am Farley Swiftgaze and my companions here are Mr. Phinglas Motethrifters and Mr. Blinkem Quicklens.

Mr Quicklens bowed with the solemnity of a man greeting royalty.

Mr. Motethrifters bowed with the solemnity of a man who had practised bowing in a mirror and still wasn’t sure he’d got it right.

Amanderella came down the stairs and into the Hall.

“Lady Gottsnobbler?” Swiftgaze asked, peering up at her as though she were a distant mountain peak.

“Yes,” Amanderella said. “If you have come to test my eyesight, I assure you—”

“Oh heavens, no,” Motethrifters interrupted, flapping a hand. “Your eyesight is no doubt envy of the entire county. And we make spectacles we do not prescribe them. We are here because we are in… well… a professional calamity.”

Mrs Gaffletter’s eyebrow rose. “A calamity.”

“A crisis,” Swiftgaze confirmed. “A shortage of the most serious kind.”

Mrs. Gaffletter stepped back from the door and allowed the three men to step into her Hall. She checked very carefully that they did not leave a trail of mud as she ushered them into her parlour.

Amanderella followed them in and stood in the doorway with folded arms. “Explain.”

Mr Farsley Swiftgaze leaned forward, his spectacles flashing like a warning beacon. He perpetually squinted, as though the entire world were slightly out of focus and doing it on purpose.

Beside him, Mr Phinglas Motethrifters adjusted the monocle he wore over his spectacles, a configuration that suggested either extreme caution or a deep mistrust of reality.

And behind them, was Mr Blinkham Quicklens trying to stand still but failing miserably. He had already changed his glasses twice since entering the room. He fumbled with a third pair now, as if hoping one of them might finally make sense of the situation.

“Two’s company,” Amanderella murmured under her breath, “and three’s over the top.”

But the three spectacle makers were unanimous, which was, in itself, alarming.

Swiftgaze cleared his throat with the gravity of a man announcing a national emergency. “Lady Amanderella, the world is becoming far too grey. People are seeing things as they are, which is a clinical disaster.”

Motethrifters nodded so vigorously that his monocle nearly flew right off his face.

Quicklens opened one of their cases. Inside lay a pair of spectacles with lenses the colour of a gentle sunrise.

“Rose‑tinted spectacles,” he said reverently. “Our most cherished product. Much sought after by the vicar’s wife, the postmistress, and anyone attempting to remain optimistic during winter.”

“But we cannot make any more,” Swiftgaze added, wringing his hands. “We have almost run out of the essential ingredient.”

Amanderella leaned in. “Which is?”

All three spectacle makers spoke in unison, voices hushed with awe and dread.

“The juice of the Bangolin fruit.”

“Without the Bangolin Fruit juice, we cannot produce rose‑tinted spectacles. The populace will begin noticing peeling paint, disappointing relatives, and the true state of municipal flowerbeds, which are very messy.”

Quicklens pushed a fresh pair of glasses onto his nose, then immediately swapped them for another. “It’s chaos out there,” he said, lenses fogging with emotion. “I saw a man yesterday who realised his wallpaper was beige. Beige, my lady. He hasn’t recovered.”

Swiftgaze added, “Without it, the populace will begin noticing cracks in plaster, the true colour of municipal paintwork, and the actual behaviour of their neighbours. It is disastrous.”

Amanderella regarded the trio with the calm of a woman who had once sung with a tribe of whistling monkeys.

“And you believe,” she said, “that I am the appropriate person to retrieve this fruit.”

Swiftgaze clasped his hands. “You are the only person we know who has both the courage and the boots for the task.”

Motethrifters added, “And the ability to outrun anything that hisses.”

Quicklens chimed in, “And the eyesight to spot a Bangolin Fruit before it rolls away. Mine tends to blur at moments of stress.”

Swiftgaze clasped his hands. “Rose‑tinted spectacles are not a luxury, my lady. They are a public service.”

Motethrifters added, “The vicar’s wife has already written to us twice. She says she cannot possibly face the Women’s Guild without them. She says it is like facing a pack of hungry hyenas, just waiting to pounce.”

Amanderella inhaled slowly.

This was, unmistakably, thinking‑on‑her‑feet time.

She reached for her notebook.

“Very well,” she said. “Tell me everything you know about Bangolin trees.

Swiftgaze, Motethrifters, and Quicklens all inhaled at once, like a trio of malfunctioning bellows.

“The Bangolin Tree,” Swiftgaze corrected, squinting so hard his spectacles slid half an inch down his nose. “There is only one.”

“In existence,” Motethrifters added, adjusting his monocle‑over‑spectacles arrangement with the care of a man defusing a bomb.

“And it grows,” Quicklens said, swapping to yet another pair of glasses, “in the deepest part of the densest jungle in Burkoland. A place so overgrown that even the vines have vines.”

Amanderella paused mid‑note. “Vines with vines.”

“Oh yes,” Swiftgaze said gravely. “Some of them have ambitions.”

Motethrifters leaned forward. “The Bangolin Tree produces fruit only once every fifty years, usually when no one is looking.”

Quicklens nodded, lenses fogging with earnestness. “It is shy.”

Amanderella tapped her pencil against the page. “And the fruit is essential for your rose‑tinted spectacles.”

“Essential,” Swiftgaze breathed.

“Indispensable,” Motethrifters echoed.

“Catastrophically irreplaceable,” Quicklens added, already reaching for yet another pair of glasses.

Swiftgaze clasped his hands with the solemnity of a man announcing the collapse of civilisation. “Without the Bangolin Fruit, our entire line of Cheerful Vision™ eyewear will be discontinued.”

Motethrifters shuddered. “And then people will be forced to see things exactly as they are.”

All three men stared at her with the haunted look of those who have glimpsed municipal reality and barely survived.

Amanderella closed her notebook with a decisive snap.

“Well,” she said, “that seems straightforward enough.”

Mrs Gaffletter made a sound that suggested she disagreed with every fibre of her being,
with the kind of controlled, internalised horror, a look of such deep disapproval that even the teapot seemed to tremble. Her left eyebrow rose, slowly, inexorably, until it reached the altitude reserved for true emergencies.

“The Bangolin Tree,” she repeated, in the tone of a woman confirming the presence of a wolf in the pantry.

Swiftgaze nodded earnestly. “Yes, madam. The only one in existence.”

“In Burkoland,” Motethrifters added, as if this clarified matters.

“In the deepest part of the densest jungle,” Quicklens supplied, already changing his glasses again.

Mrs Gaffletter inhaled through her nose. It was not a sigh, she never sighed, but the air around her shifted in a way that suggested a sigh had occurred somewhere in the vicinity.

“I see,” she said, though it was clear she wished she did not.

She set the tea tray down as carefully as if she were handling a crate of eggs.

Amanderella, who had survived monsoons, jaguars, and the Whistling Blue Monkeys recognised this as a sign of deep domestic peril.

Mrs Gaffletter clasped her hands. “Lady Amanderella, I feel it my duty to remind you that jungles are… inconvenient places. They are full of humidity, and humidity is the sworn enemy of polished surfaces.”

Mr Swiftgaze opened his mouth to speak, but Mrs Gaffletter raised a hand, the universal signal for do not interrupt me.

“And,” she continued, “they are notoriously unreliable when it comes to providing stable accommodation. No walls. No carpets. No rent.”

Amanderella blinked. “Mrs Gaffletter, I am not moving out.”

The landlady’s shoulders dropped by a fraction of an inch, the emotional equivalent of collapsing into a fainting couch.

“Oh,” she said, recovering herself at once. “Good. Very good. I merely wished to ensure that your… adventuring… would not interfere with your tenancy. One cannot run a respectable establishment if one’s most dependable lodger suddenly decides to live in a tree.”

Motethrifters murmured, “It is a very rare tree.”

Mrs Gaffletter ignored him entirely. “I shall place your rent receipt in the usual drawer, where it will await your safe return.”

Amanderella smiled. “I appreciate your concern.”

“It is not concern,” Mrs Gaffletter replied, straightening a doily that had not moved. “It is foresight.” But her eyes, sharp, flinty, and fiercely proprietorial, said otherwise.

She was worried .Not about the jungle. Not about vines, humidity, or spectacle makers with questionable maps. She was worried about losing the one lodger who never left crumbs, never scuffed the floorboards, and paid her rent in full, on time, and in handwriting so neat it could have won prizes and more importantly never left muddy boot prints in the Hall.

Mrs Gaffletter inhaled again, not a sigh, the distinct impression of a sigh.. “Very well,” she said. “If you must go to Burkoland, you must. But do try to return in one piece. Preferably the same piece you left in.”