Page 13 - Another Twist in the Tale

pick pockets, and wheedle and cajole their favourites into hazarding fortunes for their favours. This they did until their bloom faded, at which point they were cast aside and new silky-winged creatures installed in their place.
Baggage’s one great dream had been to be a Butterfly but at fourteen years her face remained a crumpled disappointment – more of a singed moth than a red admiral or a painted lady – so in the kitchen she stayed, under the auspices of the Spoon, and there she seemed destined to remain.
When Baggage returned that snowy night with the babe in arms, her first aim was to keep her from the view of the Spank and her Spoon. So she made her way straight to the Butterflies’ boudoir – the salon where those winged creatures were getting ready for the evening trade. She burst in, damp and snow- covered, to find a dozen or so beautiful creatures lounging on velvet pouffes in tattered silk dressing gowns, lazily applying make-up in front of liver-spotted mirrors. They were a listless bunch, pale and sad- eyed beneath the paint, but when Baggage declared, “A baby – I found me a snow baby,” they crowded round the little grub excitedly, lit up like Chinese lanterns.
12