It took us quite a while, but we finally got close enough to Hyacinthe to attract her attention. She waved us to a set of chairs close to her and to the new King, and while the witches talked I addressed the elephant in the room. Or rather, the penguin.

“Hey, hi, erm, hello your Majesty…” How was I supposed to handle this? “I have noticed that you seemed rather uncomfortable with the… erm… festivities…?” The look on the poor fellow’s face was pure fear. He needed help, and he needed it now. I turned to Clarissa, who was so caught up in her conversation that she hadn’t noticed us yet.

It took a claw in her leg to get her to stop talking. “Ouch! Milk, what is wrong with… Oh. Ah. Yes. Got it.”

She took the present we had prepared from wherever she had hidden it and handed it to the new King. Luckily, despite the unexpected change of ruler, it still would work. It was a universal translator, and a voice extender. In other words, the poor penguin would now be able to communicate with his subjects and be heard over their usual cacophony.

Tears in his eyes, he took the device that had the shape of a walking stick, bowed, readjusted his top hat and went in the general direction of the buffet. Only Hyacinthe didn’t seem disturbed at all by the situation. But then, she had been here for some time now, she was probably used to it already.

As the King could now communicate with the crowd, they were are very busy and would pay no attention to us if we acted quickly. I jumped on Kiba’s back with Zazzles, Babette grabbed Hyacinthe’s hand and, with Clarissa bringing up the rear, we rushed to the exit before anyone wondered what and who we really were. No matter if we had brought peace, crabs still didn’t like witches. At all.