Lizabella: A Musical Fairy Tale 🎤

15: No Place Like Home

Temima's eyes grew wide in alarm. "That is most kind you, ma'am," she said tugging the basket out of Betsy's iron grip, "but I couldn't impose on your good graces."

"Impose! It's no imposition, I assure you. You and the child must come and live with us. I insist."

"That's dreadfully kind of you, but I must decline. I'm perfectly capable of raising Liza by myself. My husband left me enough money to—"

"Live alone! It is unheard of! A young, destitute widower living alone with her orphaned baby!" She slammed a pudgy hand into her chest. "I should never forgive myself."

There was a buzzing of agreement in the crowd.

Betsy smiled at her approving audience. "Never!" she passionately declared, thumping herself in the chest once more for good measure.

"You must come and live with me!" one woman called out.

Betsy's eyes bulged in horror.

"No, me!" cried another. "I have ample space!"

"Take my bed!"

"No, mine!"

"I have chickens!"

"I have geese!"

"Your nasty geese are always trampling my marigolds, and the noise! You never heard such noise! But my chickens. Why, they lay the finest eggs you ever saw!"

"I have goats!" shouted a small bony woman, pushing her way to the front and tugging at Temima's sleeve. "A whole farm of them. You will help me milk them. We shall make cheese!"

"I have ten daughters!" cried another, shoving several sour-faced, grubby-looking girls at Temima. "The rest are scouring the barn for rats. Oh, you must meet them! How they will adore you!The girls, not the rats," she tittered. "I dare say the rats will be gone by the time you move in." 

The mother of many yanked her one way. The goat lady pulled her the other way. And the geese and chicken women were animatedly squabbling about poultry maintenance.

Temima's mind was spinning from the gaggle of voices tugging her every which way.

"I think," said Betsy, glaring at her friends, "that seeing as I was the first to extend my gracious hospitalities, it is only proper that she considers my offer first. And naturally," she said, fixing her gaze on Temima, "It is only proper that she accepts."

"But Betsy dear," came Bert's voice. "Where will we put them? There's no space."

"No space!" Betsy wheeled around to face Bert who was standing behind the stall with a very worried look on his floury face. "There's plenty of space! Ample space! There's so much space I don't know what to do with myself half the time."

"That's not what you were saying last night when you couldn't find some place to hang ya laundry."

"Bert! Must you always take me so literally?"

Bert scratched his head in confusion. "But really, Betsy love, we don't have the room. Not even a spare bed."

"That's the trouble with men," said Betsy, heaving a great sigh. "Their imagination is so limited! Who knew where we'd be if they were left to their own devices? Thank Heavens you got me!"

She beamed at her baffled husband. "You will give her your bed."

"My bed?"

"But of course! You barely sleep in it any way. It's a travesty that such a fine bed should go to waste."

"I do sleep in it!" 

"Nonsense, dearie. You conk out straight after supper and are gone at the crack of dawn."

"But I like to know I have a bed if I want one."

"Bert!" Betsy exclaimed in shock. "Where's your humanity?" She grabbed Temima's wrist. "This under-nourished girl and her pitiful babe are homeless, and you'd have them abandoned on the streets so that you have a bed when it takes your fancy?"

"I have a bed," cut in a petite woman, her face shining excitedly. "I have a whole room she and the child could use. Oh, do let her stay with me."

"Flora!" snapped Betsy, turning angrily on her. "One must never meddle in the affairs of a husband a wife."

"I was only trying to—"

"Stick your great big oar in my marital harmony!"

"Oh." Flora flushed a deep red. 

"A lover's spat is a sacred thing!" 

"Oh dear. Oh my," Flora stammered, slinking back to dissolve in the masses.

"That's settled then," said Betsy, cheerfully swinging her arm around Temima's shoulder. "I shall take you there at once. Can't have the little duckling starve to death now, can we?"

"And Bert dear, don't you worry for one second. I shall make for you the most comfortable bed you ever slept in. Right by the hearth. It shall be a bed fit for a king!" she trilled, weaving Temima through the throng of people and leaving the dumbfounded Bert to man the stall.

(Author's note: Hi guys. Thanks so much for reading and voting. It means so much to me!!

This chapter is dedicated to BrittanieCharmintine for being so incredibly kind and supportive! For allowing me to stretch my writing muscles and dip my toes in a splash of mermaid tails with her amazing under the sea contest. She's an incredible, hilarious writer and you should definitely check out her work, if you aren't already!

But where will Lizabella sleep when she grows out of that basket? And how do you think it will work out at Bert and Betsy's?

Have a wonderful day! xx)