SlenderWolf

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“All of the above,” says KristalClear, “OK, this is what we’ll do.”

“Cash first. Next, NutJob can be our watch expert, and Max can sell the sizzle. I’m going to try to tune in to their thinking if I can. If we need a back up plan then it’s going to be wind turbines. NutJob the engineer has that covered too. And finally if it comes down to pedigree horses I will lead the discussion.”

“No matter which bait they like the look of, Max is going to tell them how it will lead to a decent standard of living, and complete peace of mind.”

“Focussed? That’s not a question,” smiles KristalClear, “that’s an order! Focussed!”

Once again, the lady is in charge of her own dominion, and everybody else’s.

With an outline plan in place, the boys head out to explore Newsholme a little, “we, won’t be long, just a short walk up and down the High Street.

With a pot of freshly prepared tea, CandiCrush and KristalClear start to compare notes.

“Well, Max was on form today wasn’t he?” says CandiCrush, “when OtherErik stepped out of line.”

“I wasn’t worried about the two Eriks,” says KristalClear, “not as much as Dash and Max were. What worried me was that Max might stop the whole deal dead in its tracks!”

“He stood up for you,” says CandiCrush, “and he said I was married! He hardly even knows me!”

“Like I said before, he’s a really nice guy at heart, and he looks after the people he cares about.”

—o—

“They’re a bit lively aren’t they,” says HayWire.

“Are you sure this is safe?” he asks.

« Don’t invade my personal space! »

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enough to be valuable. How many watches and clocks have we seen in the Pennines?”

“Good point,” says CandiCrush, “let’s have a look around tomorrow, before we sit down.”

“So it would help if HayWire was here,” reiterates MaxChaos “or his GuildMaster. What about wind turbines? How many of them do they have, or how many can they use?”

“And horses? Same questions!” says NutJob, “we just don’t know these answers. Is there anybody in Wolfland who knows about Pennite civic society?”

NutJob and KristalClear look at each other, and they both instantly say, “Mr Rafone!”

“That would be good!” muses KristalClear, “but we don’t know if even he knows much about the Pennites. What’s that thing he’s always banging on about?”

 

‘What do you want, do you really, really want?’

 

‘A decent standard of living, and

complete peace of mind.’

 

“That’s it then,” says CandiCrush, “we focus on watches and clocks, and we try to sell them a decent standard of living, and complete peace of mind.”

“Sell the sizzle not the sausage,” adds MaxChaos.

They all stare at him. He rarely says anything that poetic.

“Don’t ask me,” he says, “I hear it a lot down the docks. It’s something about saying …

 

‘wouldn’t you enjoy the exquisite taste and the

delicate texture of a freshly caught herring?’

 

… rather than trying to sell them by saying …

 

‘we’ve got herrings, buy some’

 

… it’s marketing speak apparently!”

“And we could try just offering more hard cash,” suggests CandiCrush.

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medical services, and banking. These types of services can’t be exported without also exporting the people, or training other people locally. It’s impossible to export complete hydro electric power stations. Teams of people actually have to go along somewhere and build one on site.

“So tell me about tangible exports,” says CandiCrush.

MaxChaos looks puzzled.

She clarifies, “tangible exports, I mean proper exports, things, stuff you can send as cargo.”

“This is what I know from working alongside Lancastrian Lines and InfiniDash,” he says, “ please write this down.”

He said ‘please’! That makes a change. MaxChaos would normally be more direct. His character is definitely becoming more cultured. Briefly discussing all the items so far, NutJob jots down a comprehensive list of the main Wolfland exports.

1. Ships
2. Wind turbines & hydro electric power stations
3. Watches & clocks
4. Horses
5. Weaponry
6. Wolfskin

“But,” says MaxChaos, “ships are out right away! Nobody on the North Sea coast would buy a ship from Lancaster. They’d have them made locally.”

KristalClear remarks, “and the Pennites in the hills wouldn’t want ships anyway! Wolfskin is no good to them either, they already have plenty of that .”

“Weaponry is out,” says CandiCrush, “we only export weapons to territories where we have diplomatic accords in place already.”

“That leaves wind turbines, watches, and horses,” says KristalClear.

“Offer all three,” says NutJob “though focus on watches and clocks. Small enough to transport easily, and sophisticated

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“We have a number of ferocious live animals,” says CandiCrush, “we call them marines!”

“Very funny!” says KristalClear, “seriously though, we’ll need a big wagon and two strong Shires. I know which ones I’d choose, I’ll talk to them.”

Settling in to the common room back at the barracks, the four of them have time to think. And they have some tea. Something called NAAFI tea. Not the best stuff around, but it seems to be traditional in the Garrison.

“What we don’t have is something to offer the trappers that isn’t cash,” says CandiCrush.

“We need HayWire here,” says MaxChaos, “and business leaders with goods to trade.”

“We can work out something now, between us,” insists NutJob, “what we have to do is second guess what it equates to in Sovereigns, four hundred Sovereigns they said, can we get that price down?”

“They probably can’t conceptualise what a pile of two thousand YorkCrowns actually looks like,” says CandiCrush, “it’s just a number they picked out of thin air.”

“I think,” says KristalClear, “that three or four years of wolf farming will deliver thousands of Sovereigns and that an up front price like four hundred would be recouped fairly easily.”

“That’ll please HopAlong and EarlyBird,” says NutJob.

“We should focus on the things that Wolfland exports, and narrow it down,” says MaxChaos.

MaxChaos is the one who’s had the toughest life. The Garrison doesn’t run a business and doesn’t have to turn a profit. The two schoolkids don’t have to worry about household finances, not the way he does. As a casual labourer he knows that if he works more he gets paid more, he understands the value of money.

Wolfland has a lot of commerce, though much of it is in the service industries, things like freighting, legal services,

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Chapter 35
MarshMallow Time

Confused that they were suddenly thrown into the forefront of a potential negotiation, NutJob and MaxChaos have lots of questions for the girls. They hadn’t been mentally prepared for an intricate discussion with smelly, dishevelled, overgrown teddy bears.

As they ride back to Newsholme, they both hang back, riding side by side, and to get some privacy, they put a little distance between them and the girls.

“We looked like novices,” says NutJob, “we have to be better prepared tomorrow.”

“We are novices,” replies MaxChaos, “when was the last time you bought a wolf?”

“And why are we doing this? All on behalf of an elderly couple running a near empty farm in Ulverston?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time I suppose!”

MaxChaos pauses, and in reflective mood, demonstrates that he can listen, he can learn, and that he is becoming more mature.

“What did BarmyWaffle say? Or was it HayWire? Both of them said it I think. Sometimes you just need to do new stuff, throw new ideas together, see where it takes you, and then work out what you’re going to do with it.”

“We’d better work it out pronto though,” says NutJob, “I’m not going to be caught off guard again tomorrow!”

Up ahead, somewhat more practical discussions are underway.

“We’ll have to take them much further than Lancaster, won’t we?” says KristalClear. “Ulverston’s a long way.”

“The Garrison will sort it out,” replies CandiCrush, “we have a week to plan something .”

“Does the Garrison have any horses with experience of transporting ferocious live animals?”

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They stare at the two youngsters. MaxChaos is twenty, NutJob is sixteen. Erik and OtherErik could be in their thirties, or forties, or fifties, it’s hard to tell! Probably younger rather than older, but they look old before their time.

OtherErik looks at NutJob and says, “you gotta shrewd girl there … an’ she’s pretty!”

MaxChaos quickly steps forward and says, “and she’s spoken for.”

He raises himself to his full height and broadens his chest, clearly demonstrating his superior size. Everybody can see his arm and shoulder muscles rippling.

“And Commander Crush is married,” he says, forestalling any further discussion on the subject, “so you’re staring down a dead end there!”

Erik strokes his beard, “you lot come back ‘ere tomorruh. We’ll ‘ave a fink about what we want, and you ‘ave a fink about what you can offer.”

CandiCrush looks to KristalClear for a signal. Throughout, KristalClear has detected lots of uneasy, positive vibes. Definitely uneasy, and certainly on the better side of indifferent. Raising her eyebrows almost imperceptibly, and mustering an extremely faint smile, it’s enough for CandiCrush to get the message.

She puts ten Sovereigns down on the table. MaxChaos stares. For him that’s more than a month’s wages. CandiCrush, with the sort of blink that says, “I’m surprising even myself right now,” offers a calm, polite smile.

Looking directly at Erik, she narrows her eyes a little, and narrows her mouth, and she says purposefully, “no obligation, this is yours, no strings attached, we’ll be back tomorrow.”

A ten Sovereign inducement should be more than enough to let them know that the Wolfies are serious, and it’ll ensure that the trappers also turn up tomorrow.

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“We ‘ave a male an’ a female down at the knackers yard already,” says Erik, “what’re they wurf to you?”

“We want two adolescent females. Alive.”

“Uh huh,” says OtherErik, cleverly hiding his bewilderment behind all his facial hair, “alive, eh?”

“That’ll cost you!” says Erik, “an’ it’ll take time.”

CandiCrush says, “Wolfland’s not short of money. What’s a fair price for a fair trade? And how much time are we talking about?”

Erik says, “One thousand YorkCrowns! But you ain’t got Crowns ‘ave you? In your sovereigns? We’d need a couple of ‘undred of ‘em. But they’re no good to us. We can use maybe five, or even ten, but nobody round ‘ere wants two ‘undred Wolfie Sovereigns.”

“We’d need somefing uvver dan sovereigns,” says OtherErik, “an’ it might take us a few days to sort out traps. We trap live deer you know, we kill wolves. We gotta fix up somefing dat can ‘old a live wolf … a nangry, live wolf!”

“Seven days,” says Erik, “you can have two adolescent wolves in seven days. Females if yer lucky. Normally we don’t care. For us a dead wolf is a dead wolf. We’ll get yuh live ones though.”

OtherErik cuts in, “you want two live females? You gotta male? A live male you mean? Yer gonna breed wolves?”

“Yer mad!” says Erik, “And yer gonna put us out of business! We don’t make much from the farmers who ‘ire us, we make us money from sellin’ dead wolves.”

“You’ll flood the market with your farmed wolf stuff, and then we’re done for.”

“That’s gotta be wurf four ‘undred sovereigns. But not Wolfland Sovereigns. What else yuh got?”

“We’ve got MaxChaos …”

“We don’t need any chaos fank you. We’ve gotta nuff our own!”

“This is Max, and this is Dave,” says KristalClear, “they can work on a trade for trade agreement.”

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generally his BO is less noticeable. Although apart from him and BarmyWaffle, nobody understands why.

In comparison to the trappers, MaxChaos looks completely normal. In comparison to the MaxChaos of one year ago, this MaxChaos is completely normal!

When the trappers speak, it’s impossible to avoid their bad breath. Everything about them suggests, “don’t mess with me”! At a distance they could even be mistaken for actual wolves, rather than trappers. Maybe that’s the point.

—o—

            “Two wolves you say? Why do you want two?”

KristalClear is trying to tune in to their thoughts. Since first detecting NutJob’s signal a few days ago, KristalClear has been trying hard to figure out how the human wavelength works. It’s still very early days. Everything is a mush of feelings. Nothing is crystal clear. Perhaps, it’s just womanly intuition, but the atmosphere is not as tense as she had feared.

KristalClear has always quietly relished the idea that one day she might actually learn how to read humans. And one day, even meet somebody who can do it two ways.

“We want two adolescent females,” she says again, without answering Erik’s question.

“Uh huh. Why adolescent? Why female?”

Concentrating, more on searching the wavelengths than on her speaking skills, she perhaps unwisely says, “we already have a male.”

Erik and OtherErik are hard work, but she knows that they want to trade. This is a good sign. She covertly gives her team mates a thumbs up. The meeting is already a lot better than it first appeared. It’s no longer a “yes no” conversation, it’s going to be a “how much” conversation.

Of course Erik and OtherErik don’t know that she’s a demi-psychic.

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proposition can Wolfies offer? Will they take Sovereigns? I know that reticently, some Pennite innkeepers and shopkeepers will take Wolfland Sovereigns. However, I know that the sheep farmers and livestock traders are suspicious of anything foreign. The Pennites use Crowns, the YorkCrown. And it’s worth a lot less than a Sovereign. To them one Crown is a large amount of money. Day to day commerce is done with pennies, and they are so low in value that we don’t keep YorkPennies in stock in Wolfland. I have a few Crowns. But because there aren’t a lot of coins in circulation it makes it difficult for us to amass their currency.”

—o—

            To a Wolfie, the trappers Erik and OtherErik look identical. Maybe a Pennite can tell them apart. Clearly they cannot be twins, nor even brothers as they have the same name. However, all the Pennites tend to look the same, perhaps their lifestyles do this to them. Every trapper looks exactly like every other trapper. Every farmer like every other farmer. Every innkeeper like every other innkeeper!

Apart from the bit obscured by their bushy beards Erik and OtherErik have dark suntanned skin which is cracked with the texture of a dry river bed. Their deep set, brown eyes peer out beneath voluminous eye brows, and the eyes have a piercing quality which says, “nothing escapes my attention”. Sticky out ears, larger than average, emerge clearly from long straggly, matted hair, and indicate that their hearing is acutely tuned to pick up even minor sounds.

Wearing old, rough, grubby wolfskins, they look a bigger mess than Benet, and their body odour is worse than MaxChaos has ever been! On both counts, that’s a truly remarkable achievement.

Although these days MaxChaos does seem to be a bit more presentable. His clothes are cleaner, his conduct is gentler, and

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Chapter 34
Sovereigns and Crowns

In Wolfland waking up early in the morning in order to be somewhere important, is completely normal. This particular group of Wolfies is no exception. Everyone has arrived at the Garrison in good time for the expedition.

“Out of uniform?” asks KristalClear, “I thought you said this was a work trip?”

“It is,” says CandiCrush, “but I mustn’t scare off our new contacts!”

“It looks like we all have a uniform now,” says NutJob, “everybody wearing white T shirts and jeans!”

The youngsters don’t remember having ever seen CandiCrush wearing a white T shirt and jeans. It makes her look remarkably young, just the same as the rest of them!

She’s also looking especially cheerful this morning, because she likes an intellectual challenge. A pleasant ride on a horse, a taxing test of her diplomatic skills, some time away from her desk job. And a group of young friends to help her feel youthful again.

“The horses have been saddled up already,” she says, “as usual I’m taking Handsome. NutJob, you’ll be taking Romeo. And Max, Falcon is taking you for a ride. He’s a gelding, he’s good with novices.”

“A gelding?” asks MaxChaos.

“Kristal will explain it to you while you’re walking over to the stables. Kristal, you’re taking Marconi. Go and do your saddling parade now. Boys, these two marines will show you how to do a saddling parade, checking your horse and your equipment. The horse should stand square, alert, and free from signs of fatigue or illness, and so on, and so on.”

With the checks completed, CandiCrush finishes the briefing.

“OK, let me tell you what I know about the Pennites. This is not going to be an easy negotiation. What sort of value

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