Part Eleven
THE CHARMS TAKE OVER
Barbara remembered the Cherubs’ speculative looks as they saw Sheila the Cat scare the rebel Africans.
The Cherubs belonged to the Charms section, an assortment of questionable good-luck tokens and tacky little figurines. Barbara had placed them on a glass shelf instead of the usual pillar to save space in the crowded storeroom. They were upset, more so when she distributed gold-leaf trees to the others.
“Your glass shelf is too rickety for a gold-leaf tree,” she said.
“Ith not fair!” they protested. Barbara laughed and reminded them of their wishing pyramid. “It doethn’t work,” they told her grumpily. Now she thought she’d better check on them. Their magic was weak compared to the other entities, but you never knew.
The Cherubs were flying from section to section singing “Home Thweet Home,” and appeared happy enough, but why were the Demon Chasers (a sort of Asian Cherub) carrying the Japanese good-luck cat high in the air?
“Put Maneki-Neko down at once,” she ordered. “You’re frightening him.”
Instead of obeying her, they began to chant:
Maneki-Neko, no, no, no! Sheila’s ghost is what we show,
Her paw is high as you behold, to shield you if you pay her gold,
No gold and Devil-Cat will kill, Or if not make you very ill.
Maneki-Neko, who was white and ghostlike in appearance, could possibly trick the more gullible entities into believing that the Cherubs had turned Devil-Cat Sheila into a harmless ghost. Then she saw the Cherubs stripping the trees of their gold leaves as payment for saving them from Devil-Cat.
“Rubbish!” she scolded the Demon Chasers. “It’s not a ghost, it’s the Japanese good-luck cat. The raised paw doesn’t protect, just beckons customers into shops. And those trees don’t come cheap,” she added to the Cherubs.
“Yeth, they do. Half-prithe Thaturday at Goodwill. We thaw the prithe tag.”
She changed the subject. “The only reason Sheila hasn’t been in here is that I shut the basement door. I can open it again and let her in, and then where would you be with your protection racket? I’d hate to be you when the entities see Devil-Cat again and discover they’ve been cheated.”
“Pleathe—”
“The Aztecs, for example, value gold very highly,” she continued thoughtfully, “And I’ve just added a shrunken head to their section. I think I should talk to them.” Like most gods, Barbara was good with threats. She started to stroll away but was called back.
“If we. . . ?”
She’d won again, but her victories were becoming increasingly difficult.
