The TriadCity Adventurer

A Most Exciting Evening on the Mount of Martyrs!

by Your Junior Correspondent, Violet Blackwood (age 8 and three quarters!)
Month of Bulls 20, Year of the Hare 12

I have been on the most TREMENDOUS adventure! Nanny Collins would have absolute kittens if she knew I went to the Mount of Martyrs all by myself, but a proper reporter must go where the stories are, and there are ever so many stories there!

To get there I rode the FUNICULAR! It's a little railway that goes straight up the hill, pulled by cables, and it's the most thrilling thing! You sit in a tiny carriage and it goes up and up and UP at such an angle that I thought we might tip over backwards! A lady next to me clutched her hat and said "mon Dieu" which I think means she was enjoying it too. From the top you can see ALL of the City spread out like a map — the river and the rooftops and tiny people walking about like ants! I rode it three times. A girl selling hats recognized me and said "encore, petite?" which means "again, little one?" and I said OUI which is Mount speak for YES. I am becoming very Continental!

First I visited a cabaret called the Moulin Rouge, because I liked the pretty poster for it in the funicular station. It has a big red windmill on top! Inside there are ladies who do the most ATHLETIC dancing I've ever seen — they kick their legs up higher than their HEADS, which I cannot do even though I'm very good at gymnastics. Miss Primsworth would say their petticoats are showing, which is true, but everyone claps and cheers so I expect it's considered alright to show one's petticoats there on the Mount. A lady called La Goulue is the best kicker of all, and she stole a gentleman's drink right off his table while dancing! Very naughty but also very clever.

There's another dancer called Jane Avril who's quite different — she moves like she's dreaming, all floaty and strange. A short man with a beard was drawing pictures of her on a napkin. When I asked if she was a ballerina, a waiter laughed and said "something like that, petite." I don't know what's funny about ballet! — my lessons hurt my toes!

Next I went to a place called Le Néant, which means "nothingness" in Mount language. It's decorated like a funeral parlour! The waiters dress as undertakers and they serve drinks in COFFINS! A man in a black suit told very funny stories about dead people, which sounds horrid but everyone was laughing and I laughed too. There's a lady in a skeleton costume who dances about while making jokes. I didn't understand many of them, but the audience thought they were wonderful fun.

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