Charlie the 18th - Chapter 1: Problem #3

There once was a village perched precariously on the very tip top of a mountain. You might think that a village perched on the tip top of a mountain would have an enormous number of problems, but in fact, this village had exactly three. 

The first was their ridiculous legends, which the elderly Wugs wouldn’t stop telling the children. These legends told of a time when the Wugs lived in the sky. The sky! Can you believe it? No one lives in the sky!

The parents scoffed when the legends were told because they knew it was all a bunch malarkey. Oh, the legends were alluring, but they could simply not be true. No one lived in the sky. Not now, not ever. And the parents did not like the elders filling their children’s minds with such nonsense.

The second was the obvious problem of how the village came to be perched on the top of a mountain. No one knew. The legends said it happened when the people went in search of More, but, as I said, most of the Wugs did not believe the legends. How could wanting to be the first ones to capture the elusive More cause a floating village to land on the top of a mountain? Preposterous!

Yet somehow, while the Wugs were busy proclaiming the ridiculousness of their legends and figuring out how they had come to live on the tip of a mountain top, More captured their thoughts. Like all peoples, they had jobs and families and school and responsibilities, but late at night, every last one of them longed for More.

Why? Well, that’s easy. If More were captured, you would be happy for the rest of your life and nothing bad could ever happen to you again. More was the source of eternal beauty, unending youth, and riches beyond measure. Who wouldn’t want that? What more noble an endeavor could there be than to capture More and bring safety, security, and happiness to your people?

Their lives came down to this: The legends were ridiculous, and More was all that mattered.

*****

The first mountain-top-dwelling Wugs had to be experts in balance. If their village tipped too far in either direction, everything would slide off and be destroyed. Even a tiny imbalance could cause major devastation. To live in balance, they invented carefully coordinated systems of movement to get from one side of the village to the other and rules upon rules about what could be brought in, what could be thrown out, and what could be built where.

As time went on, each new generation of Wugs became less concerned with balance and more concerned with More, until one day the trash heaps under the village grew tall enough that balance was no longer important. All that mattered now was More.

This is when our story begins. In the Wug year of More, even More, ah, just a wee bit More now, with a dash of More and a bright red More on top. (If you are used to numbering your years, this may sound like an insane naming system, yet the Wugs find it most helpful to mark the passing of time by the intensity of their desire for More, since nothing else occupies their collective thoughts.)

So, as I have just said, in the year of More, even More, ah, just a wee bit More now,... and so forth, we find the start of our story and the Wugs’ third problem: Little Charlie Morehunter.

Charlie was born wrong. She was the only female scion in a line of male Morehunters. Her father was the Chief Morehunter, as was his father, and his father, and his father, and on and on. As long as the Wugs had been perched on the mountain, the Morehunters had been the experts.

Charlie’s family was the closest thing the village had to royalty. The family mansion served not only as their home but also as village headquarters for all things related to More. The walls were covered in maps, and the vaults were packed with every bit of evidence ever found. The mansion was so large and so full that back when balance mattered, it took thirteen houses on the other side of town just to balance theirs.

Every Wug was content with the Morehunters as village leaders, but no one knew what to do about Charlie. No one knew what to do when she was born, so they named her Charlie the 18th, just as if she’d been the boy they expected. No one knew as she grew up - should or could or would she become the next Chief Morehunter? Since all were at a loss, her father raised Charlie the only way he knew how, as if she were his son and the job would be hers.

The adults might not have known what to do with Charlie, but Charlie knew what to do with herself.  In fact, the indecision by the adults made her that much more determined to prove just how qualified she was. As long as she could remember, she had been resolved to be not just the next Chief Morehunter, but to be the smartest, most knowledgeable, most skillful, most qualified Morehunter her family had ever produced.

Charlie lay awake at night dreaming of how proud she’d make her family by doing everything that mattered to them better than any of her ancestors. She’d live in the family mansion, she’d follow Morehunter wisdom to the T, and when it was her turn, she’d find More and bring perpetual safety to her village. Then there would be no more indecision. Then they would all know, without a doubt, that she rightly inherited the title.

Charlie played this scene over and over in her mind. She felt it in her body. She knew it in her soul. She would be the one to find More, and then her people could return to the sky. At least that’s what the legends said: Once the village had enough, it would lift off the mountain and return to the sky. And how else could they have enough except to bring home More? Charlie was determined to capture More and see it all happen.

But everything changed when she turned nine and a half. With her tenth birthday looming, people suddenly had opinions.