Translation:The High Mountains/57

Costakis has only one shoe. The other was damaged yesterday on the path they took to find Phanis.

The nails have come out from underneath and it's gaping open. Costakis drags his shoe as if he's hunchbacked or old. He can't walk much: the shoe opens and goes “flap, flap!”

It's something important a shoe... How useful it is to have cobbler! If he could go past one right now... Or the cobbler in the Small Village would have to come, the old man with three teeth! He'd punch the air again and then mend the shoe.

They called Spyros, maybe he has some staples. Spyros always has something: needles, nails, he collects these sorts of things.

—Spyros! Spyros! Have you got any staples?

—Big? Little? asked Spyros. For shoes, wood, what are you going to do with them?

—My shoe has come apart.

—I'll have a look at it.

—Shall I come in too?

—No, don't come in.

Spyros didn't want anyone else to see his box. Everyone knew that Spyros is a hoarder. He hides what he's got and only he can see it.

It seems that he's got a box with different things in it. He puts this box in a secret place in the cabin. And only when the others aren't there, does he open it. What can he possibly have in it?

Costakis, as he's only got one shoe, approaches the door slowly, without a sound. He sees Spyros lift up his mattress and take out an old Turkish delight box. He opens it and looks inside.

There was no lack of old and rusty things there. There was the old nail, the old needle, the old pin, the bent spike, the broken pencil, the dry inkpot and the broken spoon.

There was also a sardine tin opener, a tin lid; half a pair of scissors, a piece of unrecognisable metal and other rusty things of that nature.

“Spyros!” Costakis cried to him.

Spyros turned round quickly. When he saw him, he looked angry.

—Come on; I've seen your box, said Costakis.

—And what did you see?

—I saw the old stuff you've got there. Can I have a closer look?

Spyros stood with his mouth and his box open.

—That's why you always walk around with your head down, Spyros, to collect all that? Where are the pins?

Spyros showed him five rusty pins.

—In exchange, he said, you give me a goose feather.

Mr Stephan then said to the children:

—Do you know what a magpie is?

—No.

—It's a bird that resembles Spyros. He collects things he doesn't need, everything he finds: needles, boxes, little cans and even coins. He takes it all back and hides it in very secret places, like in the roofs of houses; in a hole where no human eye has access.

—And what does he do with it all? asked Georgios.

—Nothing, what d'you think he can do with it? He's just got this habit of collecting things. Sometimes he even tries to drag away heavy clothes. And Spyros is busy like the magpie. Of all the things he's got in his box, nothing is of use to him.

Costakis, bent over with a hammer, was trying to nail the shoe with Spyros's five pins. No sooner had he nailed it in and put it on, then flap! It opened up and gaped like before. Spyros's pins were useless.

Costakis was still on one leg. Five children — four plus Gkeka who made five — took Costakis's shoe and went up to the Small Village. In the evening they brought it back repaired.

With the shoe they also brought back some news. They said that the cobbler's teeth had gone from three to two.