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A Certain Kind of Happy Ever After.
Though he was content, in his own way, Presto sometimes would stop, and wonder how it had all happened, and if it was the way he’d imagined it would be. Was it better? Was it worse? He didn’t know.
It had started with a book: Ranger Fred’s Guide to the Amazon.
Presto was never that sure why he had kept that book in particular, after all, he’d gotten it from the Hat under slightly stressful circumstances!
He never intended to actually read it, he certainly never intended to let anyone else read it either. And he never expected Eric to want to read it, considering what had just happened to them all.
Not long afterwards, Eric had started keeping closer to Presto, especially any time he used the Hat.
The Hat was just as uncooperative as usual, but instead of abandoning the junk it produced, or trying to fit it back into the Hat where it came from, Eric started to sift through it.
No one stopped him. There was no reason to stop him! Eric couldn’t fit much in his pockets, and no one thought anything of the few things he did decide to keep.
Then came the night they spent in Mindril, when Martha had let them stay in real rooms. There had been something different in Eric’s eye as he’d watched her count out the coins from her own purse. He’d stood there and watched her pay. With real money, too. The Cavalier hadn’t seen real money for a long, long time.
After that, things changed. Just little things, little differences in attitude that no one really paid any attention too. It was most obvious when they went to a city. Normally, they struggled through the crowds, content just to pass through on their way back out to the wilds. But Eric now tended to wander off where once he had stuck close to his friends. And when he returned, he was usually looking unusually smug and well fed.
But still Presto didn’t put two and two together.
The final straw came not long after they’d met the Fairie Dragons. Another way home had been destroyed, and though no one had criticised Eric’s decision, everyone was down.
They passed near another town and this time Eric insisted on going in, even though he was in a minority of one. Hank must have guessed something was up, as he agreed a little too easily.
Presto didn’t actually know what happened in that little town, whether Hank followed Eric deliberately, or they had met by accident. But that was the night. The night it had all changed.
Presto still thought about that night sometimes, especially if he was feeling nostalgic.
Hank had confronted Eric as soon as he arrived back from the town. Presto would never forget the look of disapproval on the Ranger’s face, contrasted with the mild surprise on the Cavalier’s.
Eric, Hank had told everyone, had been bartering!
Presto hadn’t thought there was much wrong with that; they had to barter from time to time to get supplies. Sheila tried to say said something along the same lines, but Hank interrupted. It was the same, he had said. Eric wasn’t bartering for supplies, with things they’d found in the wild. Eric was bartering with stuff from the Hat! This time, he’d been bartering with digital watches, like some two-dime hustler!
So what, was what Presto had thought!
Though Eric maintained he’d done nothing wrong, Hank didn’t agree. Eric was fleecing these people; he was knowingly swapping totally worthless junk for food and coins!
Presto could remember the way Eric had looked at Hank, calm and collected, confident and in charge! Presto could remember that clearly, the Cavalier had never looked so confident before. Then he’d pulled that tatty old book out from his pocket.
‘This,’ Eric had said, ‘is the best thing ever to come out of that Hat!’ With a well-practiced flick, he had opened the book.
‘Chapter 6,’ he had quoted. ‘How To Survive In An Alien Land.
‘The most important skill you have in your toolkit is how to barter. The native tribes of the Amazon are likely to be encountered with great regularity, so the ability to swap trinkets for supplies is invaluable. Without this, there is almost no hope of a safe return to true civilisation.’
There had been stunned silence. Presto had never witnessed a proper stunned silence before that night.
And into that stunned silence, Eric had barged, explaining his plan.
The Hat was a resource, he had said. The Hat produced all sorts of stuff that they didn’t want or need, but that other people in this Realm did. Why not let people have the stuff if they wanted it? Why not let people pay for it, if they wanted it that much!
That evening, Eric had been at his most persuasive, he believed that he could have talked anyone into almost anything. He had painted a beautiful mental picture of what it could be like, living a life here, funded by the Hat.
By the end of it, Presto was sold.
Neither Diana nor Sheila would say anything. Bobby had thought it was a neat idea, but was overruled by his sister.
But Hank was a different matter altogether. Hank didn’t think like Eric, it was as simple as that.
The argument had descended into a cruel slanging match, and in the end, Eric just walked away, sweeping Presto along in his wake. Maybe they had made it home, Presto didn’t know, though he doubted it. He’d never seen any of them again. There were rumours, but he chose to believe that the whispers were nothing more than mere speculation.
And he tried not to think about it.
He tried to think about what he had Eric had made. Now, they had a shop! Yes, a real shop that sold the junk that the Hat just kept on producing! It was small shop, true, but in a huge city, and unobtrusive enough to avoid Venger’s attention.
And they made money! Real Money! To buy stuff with! They had food! They had hot water! They had (almost) everything they ever wanted!
More surprisingly still, they split it, fair and square. Presto found he couldn’t complain: Eric got a third, Presto got a third and a third went on their shop.
And Eric worked for that third. No, really, he worked… like Presto had never seen before! At least three quarters of their customers wouldn’t have been anywhere near that shop if it wasn’t for the Cavalier’s efforts, Presto knew that much. And as much as Eric would try and deny it, it was obvious that he was enjoying himself.
Though he would never have said it to Eric’s face, he was certainly his father’s son when it came to making a quick buck.
And that was that.
The Hat wasn’t going to run out of rubbish any time soon, so they stayed in the city, safe with their shop and their money, and no one bothered them, not even Venger.
Sometimes Presto still wondered what it would have been like, going back, though it was far too late to try.
But he was alive, he reminded himself, even if this wasn’t the happy ever after he had hoped for.
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Fanfiction Masterlist
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