The Korbat Who Coudn't Hang: Part Two

"She really does sleep on the ground!"

There were muffled giggles from the female visitors.

"Yes, she does," Isabel's father spoke up. He probably would have explained more, but the girls shrieked and flew away in all directions.

The next day, it was all over the village. Ricky and his friends swooped down on Isabel, chanting the hateful little rhyme. The girls smirked and whispered whenever they met up with Isabel by accident.

"Divide and conquer," Isabel's father said that evening, seeing his daughter's miserable face.

"What?" Isabell asked.

"See if you can get each of the girls alone at some point and explain about your foot," he said. "Once they know there's a legitimate reason, they probably won't tease you anymore. And while you're talking to them individually, invite them to do something with you. Bit by bit, you'll win them over with friendship."

Isabel gulped at the enormity of the task ahead of her, but the next morning, she started looking for opportunities to talk to the other Korbat girls alone. It was difficult, as they seemed to move in one solid group from morning to evening. Eventually, close to bedtime, she cornered Olga by hiding out next to the Yellowfoot family tree and waiting for Olga to come home. There were quite a few false alarms, as Olga had several brothers and sisters, but at last, she arrived.

"Hi, Olga," Isabel said, flying up from behind a bush.

"No-Hang Hizzie," Olga sneered.

"Yeah," Isabel agreed, then stuck out her foot. "You know what? These two claws didn't develop properly. It's been that way since I was born, so I can't hang."

"So you really are crippled," Olga stated.

"I'm not crippled!" Isabel protested. "I can still walk and fly. I just can't hang, that's all."

"Isn't that enough?"

"It's no more being crippled than - than not being able to draw," Isabel shot back, knowing that Olga couldn't sketch anything better than stick figures.

"Yeah, well, at least I don't have to sleep on the ground like some Gelert," Olga retorted.

Isabel decided not to invite Olga to play with her, and flew back to her own tree.

"It's a stage everybody goes through," Mrs. Broadtail said when Isabel reported what had happened. "It's painful when you're the target, but it'll soon pass. Next week, they'll find somebody else to tease."

"And remember what I said about 'divide and conquer'," Mr. Broadtail added. "That's what worked for me."

"When did anybody ever tease you?" Isabel asked miserably.

"When I was a child, just like you. For a while, they used to chant 'broad tail, skinny wings, can't fly, only sings.'"

Despite herself, Isabel giggled just a little.

"You never had skinny wings," Mrs. Broadtail said.

"You never saw me at that age," her husband replied, and they smiled fondly at each other.

So Isabel tried again the next day, and the next day, and the next, to invite one of the girls to play with her. Each time, however, the girl laughed in her face and made a nasty remark. Aimee was the only one who didn't, but when she heard that Isabel wasn't interested in Usuki Dress Up, she didn't want to spend time with her former friend. And whenever she was part of the group, Aimee joined in with the others in teasing Isabel.

Isabel began to hate her foot.

"Mom, Dad, can't we go to the Healing Springs and see if that would help?" she asked one evening.

Her parents looked at each other, and her mother said, "It's a long way off, and it would cost a fair amount to get there."

"Food always costs more when you have to buy it in strange places," her father nodded.

"And as far as we know, the Springs are only for illnesses and injuries," her mother added. "We just don't know if it would work on you."

"But we could try," Isabel protested. "Couldn't we, please?"

"We know you don't like being teased, but you've always gotten along fine before," her father said. "Just wait … things will get better."

"Can't we start saving our Neopoints, just in case things don't get better?" Isabel pleaded.

"We're always trying to save Neopoints," her mother said. Then, seeing Isabel's face, she added, "But we'll try harder from now on, if that's what you really want."

"It might take a while," her father added. "And you never know. One day you might meet a nice young man who's so blinded by your artistic ability that he never notices your foot."

"I think he'd notice," Isabel said darkly.

In an attempt to help, her parents decided it would be better to talk to the other parents, explain the situation, and see if they couldn't get their children to stop tormenting Isabel. It didn't seem to work. Isabel had told them that it probably wouldn't, but they'd tried it anyway. If anything, Isabel thought morosely, it had made things worse. Now she was also subjected to surreptitious glances from any passing adult Korbat.

Isabel wondered if she could strengthen her claw by practicing hanging. She spent long hours in the woods, trying again and again to dangle from a low branch, but slipped off eventually each time. After several weeks, she'd only managed to improve her hanging time by one single second. At that rate, she'd be ancient before she could hang through the night! Whenever she got tired of falling on her head, Isabel picked up her sketch pad and pencils and started to draw. At least she was able to do that.

One afternoon, Isabel had given up trying to hang and had sat down to draw when she heard a rustle of wings from above. One of the younger boy Korbats swooped down through the clearing, then swooped up again, and Isabel heard him calling out excitedly. A moment later, an entire group of boys came in for a landing, and Isabel's heart sank when she saw that Ricky was among them. They huddled together in a group, as though planning something secret, and Isabel realized they hadn't seen her yet.

Standing up very slowly and quietly, she turned to creep away through the woods, but stumbled over a tree root and had to extend her wings to keep her balance.

"Fiery Flouds!" came a cry of glee from the group of boys. "It's No-Hang Hizzie!"

As one, they raced over and stood in a semi-circle around her.

"Tripped over your own feet, did you?" another one of them sneered.

"Mutant claws!" Ricky sniggered.

"Shut up!" Isabel cried, standing up taller.

Suddenly, Ricky dashed forward and grabbed her sketch pad out of her hands, then launched himself upwards into flight, neatly transferring the sketch pad from his hand to his foot. "Try and catch me with your mutant claws!" he shouted.

Isabel was right behind him, but no matter how fast she flew, Ricky dodged, swerved, and generally managed to avoid her.

"Give me back my sketch pad!" she shouted, becoming increasingly frustrated.

"Why? Are you so crippled you can't catch me and get it back?" he taunted her.

Isabel realized that she'd have to change tactics if she were going to beat him. She flew slowly for a moment, thinking, then began to climb high into the sky. The trees below became smaller and smaller, and Ricky appeared as a green and white speck, darting between them. At length, he slowed and doubled back the way he'd come, no doubt looking for her. She waited until he was out in a fairly wide open space, then folded her wings close to her body and dove down, aiming directly for him.

Ricky changed direction at the last second, and Isabel caught his tail with her left foot instead of raking his wings as she'd intended. She hung on grimly, working her own wings to keep them both from plummeting to the forest floor.

"Who's crippled now?" she cried, adding the good claw from her right foot.

Ricky gave an inarticulate grunt as he tried to pull away.

"Give me back my sketch pad!" she demanded.

"Go fetch!" he commanded, and let it drop.

Isabel was so angry by then that she pulled her foot up, bent her head and sank her teeth into his tail.

"Yeeouch!" he cried, yanking his tail away. Spitting out the taste from her mouth, Isabel dropped lightly to the ground and picked up the sketch pad.

Ricky managed a shaky landing, then pulled his tail around and massaged it with both hands. "Oh, no! Oh, maggoty Meepits! I've been bitten by a mutant! I'm going to turn into a mutant, too! I'll wake up with crippled claws tomorrow!"

"Good!" Isabel snarled as she launched herself into flight. "Then I can call you No-Hang Hickey!"

At home, when she explained what had happened, her father put his arms around her neck and enveloped her completely with his wings.

"How many Neopoints have we got saved?" Isabel sobbed.

"Not enough," her mother sighed.

"Eating Ricky Longear instead of supper might save us a few extra Neopoints," her father teased. "Maybe he'll even be enough for two meals. Go back and catch him again."

"Dad!" Isabel protested.

"Of course, on the other hand, he probably doesn't taste all that good."

"We're Korbats, dear!" said Mrs. Broadtail sharply, reproving her husband. "Not Skeiths!"

"Are you sure?" Mr. Broadtail asked, letting go of Isabel in order to flap his wings and snap his teeth playfully at his wife. She gave a mock shriek, and Isabel looked away in embarrassment and disgust. Parents! How could they joke around at a time like this, when their only daughter was being mercilessly teased and closed out of the community? They didn't seem to care that she didn't have any friends or even any prospects of getting any until her foot was normal and she could hang like everybody else. Instead of whisking her off to the Healing Springs despite the costs, they were - ugh! - nibbling each other's ears!

That night, Isabel couldn't sleep for thinking about how horrible her life was. Now that everybody knew about her foot, nobody wanted to be friends with her anymore. She was tired of being shut out and teased, and tired of having to wait until her parents had saved enough money for all of them to journey to Faerieland. She waited until she heard the rhythmic whuffling sounds that her father always made when he was sleeping, then quietly opened their family trunk and counted the Neopoints that they had saved. It seemed like an enormous sum to her - surely it was enough to get her to the Healing Springs and back by herself.

Stuffing the Neopoints into a carry-bag, along with her precious sketch pad and pencils, Isabel flew away from the family tree.

To be continued...