Sagaria Read Online Free Page A

me, as many of you know. For today is not just the birthday of my beloved daughter, Jinnia Furfoot, but also the day on which she has come of age. As her proud father, I have to confess that this creates for me a certain amount of trepidatiousness.”
    Luti was grinning as he carefully enunciated the long word, chosen deliberately for its cumbersomeness. Everybody knew what he meant. Before today, anyone who wished to claim Jinnia’s hand in marriage had to gain Luti’s permission for the union first. From now on, the choice of consort was solely up to Jinnia. Although one assumed she would still ask for her father’s blessing, she was legally entitled to go ahead and wed whomsoever she chose without it.
    There were cheers, stamping and a few shouted off-color remarks. Squinting along the table, Flip could see Jinnia blushing prettily as she toyed with some morsel of food on her plate.
    “But most of all,” cried Luti Furfoot, his voice rising to a crescendo, “her coming of age gives me great joy!”
    He paused for a split second.
    “Now, let the festivities begin!”
    This time, the cheering was like a rapidly advancing tidal wave, a wall of sound that seemed ready to engulf everything. Scores of hats were hurled into the air. Laughter and shouting added to the din.
    The food that had been on the tables earlier had merely been the beginning of the feast. An army of young folk emerged from all sides, staggering under the weight of serving dishes that seemed half as big as they were and at least half as heavy. Some of the boys rolled mighty barrels in front of them filled with cider, beer or fruit juice. Every plate in the room was soon piled high, every goblet brimming.
    Flip ate sparingly and drank only a little of the beer an enthusiastic youth poured for him. Restraint in eating and drinking was a habit he’d picked up during his long ventures away from the village. Too much of either slowed the wits and the body, which was not at all what an explorer wanted when an unknown peril could lurk around every corner. He couldn’t help noticing that it was a habit that Tod, sitting among a group of his cronies at the table directly in front of the dais and tucking in with enthusiasm, had not acquired. Flip idly wondered if the big fellow had really ventured far from Mishmash at all or if, as soon as he was out of sight, he just holed up in a tree for a while with a mound of nuts and berries.
    Flip ground his teeth, annoyed with himself. He disliked the boaster, to be sure, and he knew with every fiber of his body that Tod embellished his tales almost to the point of unrecognizability, but to think that the fellow was an out-and-out liar – why, that was to demean oneself. The people of Mishmash did not lie, except perhaps sometimes a little white lie or two in the service of a higher truth; they were very proud of this fact. They might embroider things a little, but that was all.
    He soothed himself by stealing another sideways glance at Jinnia. Smiling broadly, her cheeks flushed, she was talking animatedly with her father. As Flip watched, his heart yearning for her, she bent her head forward to kiss Luti on the cheek.
    The serious business of eating and drinking carried on for a while longer. At last, when the pace of even the most dedicated trenchermen was beginning to slow – by which time Old Cobb was far from the only person to be snoring from the beer and cider – there was another tinkling of the bell.
    Flip’s spirits plunged like a stone. This was the sign that the speechifying was set to begin and, undoubtedly, the very first person to take the floor would be none other than …
    Sure enough, Tod was already on his feet, a grin the size of a barn door plastered across his face.
    “Well, I guess that was my signal,” said Tod with a supposedly modest chuckle.
    There was some scattered applause.
    “Tell us the one about the lizard,” bellowed a beer-coarsened voice from the back.
    “No, no! We want to