Bertie, as has been stated, was pondering.

He was sitting at the top of his castle, in a special pondering room. Well, it may as well have been, as it was equipped with a hard chair, a small table with a jug of water on it, and a mat with zodiac signs on the floor.

The room was small, and commanded a good view. In short, it was a suitable room in which to ponder. It seems to be a custom to have very little luxury around if you are serious about pondering.

Really serious ponderers would consider Bertie’s set-up as indulgent in the extreme. They would be more inclined to find some damp and cold spot, where they stood a better chance of doing battle with pneumonia viruses, rheumatic joints, and such, to go with the many hours of ‘conceiving a nothingness.’ But enough of these serious people!

Bertie, because of his readings, had deemed that there ought to be 222 ‘significant’ steps to his attic. Before his research there had only been 219 steps, so Bertie had three more steps put in and they then became very significant indeed. If the exhaustion of climbing 222 distracted you from the fact that you were now perched atop a miniature cliff, you were in trouble.

The local healer was often called in to minister to the unfortunate unaware ones. This same healer, having himself succumbed to what would later prove to be the welcome source of many gratuities, thus viewed 222 as a mixed blessing.

After enough bumps, bruises and tractions, daylight usually did dawn, which I guess served as a valid, even if harsh, learning method.

As a side-note many people were decidedly miffed to witness their local healer earning enough from their mishaps at the ‘222nd step’ to enable him to build a nice little cottage on a sunny site by the country’s most beautiful lake.

‘Ah, it’s an ill wind that blows no good.’

Naturally Wooshy arrived at the king’s door without mishap. She knocked on the door and without waiting for a response, walked right in.

To say that the king was surprised by what he would have loosely called an outrage would be less than accurate.

Previously, only people informing him of the deaths of friends would take this liberty, and only then with a suitable pause. Words failed him. He had not experienced this before. Yes, you can see that he needed to do a bit of pondering all right, but on subjects more closely aligned to getting along with his fellow man!

Well, help was at his door; in fact it came through his doorway, but first an explosion.

“You, you, you, varlet, you knave, you infidel you!”

When upset, Bertie tended to resort to archaic terminology without any concern that his gender labeling might leave something to be desired. He was livid.

“Thou…”

Bertie was starting to indulge himself and was getting carried away.

Wooshy decided to intervene.

She stood in front of the seated king and waved her finger, and nothing else, in front of his face. She carried on waving her finger until she finally got his attention and he had slowed down and stopped his ranting. Having got his complete attention, she took her finger away and looked him in the eyes and said, “Thank you.”

“Thank you, your majesty, for expressing yourself to me in the way that you did. I understood you. I really understood you. Thank you.”

Bertie’s breath, which had been held pent up, firstly in astonishment, then in wonder, now was let out in a rush. What was most amazing to him was that his indignation, his sense of outrage, had departed also. What, from an acknowledgement? I don’t believe it. He did believe it though he just did not understand it. One moment full of anger, that had departed as quickly as it had come. He had to know more.

Oh, he had people that complied with his wishes and praised him many times. This time however, he knew that someone had really understood, knew how he felt, and didn’t resist what he had expressed, however irrational it may have been. He had been really understood! This little sprat of a girl had shown him something special, something that he desired to know more about.

“Who are you little girl, and perhaps more relevantly, what are you? Anyway, what’s your name?”

“Wooshy, your majesty.”

“Just Wooshy?”

“I have no other name that anyone need care about. What I am, I’m just a human being, at least I am being a human being. A human being who’s learned a few tricks, and if you are willing, some of them can be imparted to you. However, the imparting would be on my terms!”

“Of course, of course. On your terms,” said Bertie. “When do we start?”

“We can start tomorrow. Now come on,” said Wooshy, ''Let us put your people’s minds at rest, and let them see you are okay, and haven’t been molested by a strange female.”

Bertie, because of his excitement, naturally tripped over the projection, namely the three extra stairs, on going out of the door and suffered abrasions enough to bring about a burst of sanity.

After limping from the tower, he asked that the top three steps be removed, restoring the steps to their former state. In such way progress can be made.

Wooshy left the king to assure his people that just because he was smiling, he had not succumbed to some form of madness. He informed his people that he was going to study, and that his unlikely teacher was going to be Wooshy, the little girl that most had seen around the town.

Of course this news astounded them, but Bertie assured them that she was not quite what she seemed.

Tomorrow, possibly, would be a telling day for Wooshy, they thought.

Not to Wooshy!