Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes

Simon tells Peter and Sir Tode the story of The Cursed Birthday, the event that hid the Kingdom from the world. Formerly known as the Isle of HazelPort, the land was owned by a rich man with two sons, Incarnadine and Hazelgood. The rich man feared his elder son Incarnadine’s cruelty, so he left the island to his younger son Hazelgood. Hazelgood decided to build a great palace for the peasants of the land who were forced to scavenge for food and water. The peasants believed the project impossible, so Hazelgood turned to the ravens for help. Initially wary of humans, the ravens came to trust Hazelgood when he defended them against a tribe of hunters. They helped Hazelgood dig a well for fresh water—Kettle Rock—and together with the people of HazelPort, they built the Perfect Palace with homes for every citizen.

Incarnadine, however, was consumed with bitterness. He refused to help build the palace, and one day, he sailed away in search of dark magic. Years later, the palace finally completed, Hazelgood and his queen had a party for their two newborn twins—a girl and a boy. The daughter was named Princess Peg, but before they could name the son, Incarnadine attacked, slaughtering the crowd with his army of savage apes. Prior to the attack, Incarnadine had recruited thieves to kidnap the children and hide them deep under the palace. The thieves fled by boat with bags of gold, payment for their treachery. With most of the ravens in pursuit and too few left to defend the kingdom, Incarnadine killed Hazelgood and took the throne. Before he died, however, Hazelgood cursed the kingdom, keeping it hidden from the world, and preventing his brother from terrorizing other kingdoms. Ruling over his kingdom with an iron fist, Incarnadine lulled his subjects into complacency with a clean palace and endless food. Over time, they forgot their own children.

The source of the king’s power, Peg tells them, is the immense clockwork mechanism beneath the palace. Meanwhile, one of the sparrows tasked by Simon to spy on the King has been captured. Simon fears she will be forced to reveal the sparrows’ mission.

As Peg leads Peter through the sewers toward the Eating Hall, Peter ruminates on the strange kingdom. Something about the place feels to him like home. When Incarnadine is at last overthrown, Peg’s first order of business will be to find her brother who disappeared during Incarnadine’s attack. Peg is certain he’s still alive.

Peering down at the Eating Hall from the mouth of a stone gargoyle, Peter smells something foul: wet ape. Princess Peg sees reeds sticking out of the stream that encircles the courtyard—breathing tubes for the apes hiding under the water. Moments later, the apes rise out of the water, a trumpet sounds, and the king enters bedecked in his clockwork armor, gears whirring beneath the breastplate. The people clap and cheer. The king waits to see who stops clapping first. When an old man, exhausted, finally stops, three apes drag him from the courtyard. Only then does the king signal for his subjects to eat. He warns the people of the presence of a spy and a thief: One of the “dark creatures who have evil ways of opening the locks that I have installed to protect you” (238). Two apes then drag into the courtyard Mrs. Molasses, whom the king suspects of bringing the spy into their midst. The terrified and vengeful mob surrounds her, chanting “Kill the traitor! Long live the king!!!” (242). Horrified, Peg turns to Peter for help, but he has vanished.

Upon hearing the king’s order to kill Mrs. Molasses, Peter vows to save her, both to repay her kindness and to prove himself to Princess Peg. Wading back through the sewers, he pulls a lever that unleashes a torrential flow of water down upon the crowd. Amidst the chaos, the king spots Peg swimming through the flooded courtyard and orders the ape guards to capture her. Peg, however, is a much faster swimmer, and while the apes try in vain to reach her, Peter frees Mrs. Molasses. Mrs. Molasses, convinced of the king’s benevolence, screams for help, believing Peter and Peg are villains. Not wanting to abandon her to the king and his apes, Peter gags her, and he and Peg drag her back to the cave.

Peter, Peg, and Simon debate Mrs. Molasses’s fate. As long as she protests, she risks alerting the king to their whereabouts, but Peter refuses to let her be harmed. Smelling Mrs. Molasses’s scent gives Peter an idea. He introduces Mrs. Molasses to one of the children: “Trouble […] I want you to say hello to your mother” (252). After some resistance, Mrs. Molasses recognizes her son, Timothy. Simon and Peg finally acknowledge Peter’s value to the mission.

Later, when the other children return and discover one of their friends has a mother, fighting ensues; it’s not fair that Timothy has a mother and they don’t. After some prodding from his mother Lillian, her son agrees to share her with the others. As Lillian embraces the children, they bask in the warmth of a mother’s affection for the first time in their lives.

The next morning, Peter and the gang set out to free the children from the mines, the subterranean prison where they are forced to maintain the enormous clockwork apparatus. The children speak of a magic parchment which shows the king every underground tunnel under the palace. Sir Tode clarifies that this parchment is called a “map,” something the children have never heard of. The children’s cave is the only safe place—the only location not on the king’s map.

While Peter, Peg, Simon, and Sir Tode sneak past the guards, Lillian and the children return to the cave. They eventually reach the mines, a vast underground cavern home to the clockwork beast: “The colossal machine was nearly as tall as the cavern itself. The exposed back revealed a tangle of gears, pistons, and springs, all connected to giant circular cages” (262). A moat of saltwater, populated by ravenous sea serpents, surrounds a group of children sitting on a rock in the middle of the cavern. Ape guards keep the monsters tethered at the end of long chains.

The king’s voice rings out, summoning Longclaw, one of the apes, to the strategy room. Peter decides to spy on their conversation; Sir Tode, acting as his eyes, crawls inside the sack, and Peter climbs down the sheer rock wall to the floor of the cavern. In an adjacent chamber, Sir Tode spies a massive cache of weapons and a fleet of ships under construction. The king and Longclaw discuss plans: locating Peg and the Peter; arming the thieves in their battle against the ravens; and using the clockwork beast to drill through bedrock until they strike water, allowing the king to sail forth and recruit more apes for his army. Peter tries to distract the king and his guard so he can steal their scrolls, but the king sees him before he can finish the job. Longclaw pins him to the wall while the king questions him. When Longclaw reaches into Peter’s bag, Sir Tode fights back. In the confusion, Peter slips free of the king, dashes to Sir Tode’s aid, and uses the golden eyes to escape.