Heart of the Staff - Complete Series

by Carol Marrs Phipps

  “What gave you your first clue?” he snapped, rubbing his jaw.

  “I was just making an observation.”

  “Yea? Well, if you don't mind I'd just like to be left alone.”

  “Fine with me, little brother. Just see to it that you do your suffering in silence so I can get some sleep.”

  “That was my plan, sister dear,” he said, sitting in the straw to tug at a shoe. “If I let her talk to me, there's an 'I told you so' coming for sure,” he thought.

  Soon he was dreaming about a hairless bear, a snake, a rabbit and a skunk inside his mouth, hammering his teeth.

  Rose lay in her straw and fumed. Lukus had eaten sukere after they both had agreed to give it up. He had been horrid about it when she tried to help him with a reminder. Worst of all, he had gone to sleep before she could straighten him out. But now she was dreaming and trying to run away without him, only to have him turn into a bat and fly into her hair. He was still in her hair when she arrived at the Chokewoods. She was trying to get him out when Prince James flew into her camp on a huge, fat crow that kept cawing: “Hubba Hubba!” James was bigger and fatter than ever, flashing a mouthful of rotten teeth when he smiled his nasty old childhood smile. Suddenly he reared up and opened fire at her with his straw out of a huge sack of dried peas.

  Chapter 42

  “You two need to hurry if you are going to say goodbye to everyone,” said Fuzz, suddenly standing in the doorway before ducking back out of sight.

  Lukus was out of bed at once following on Fuzz's heels.

  When Rose stepped into the parlour, Lukus was shaking Spring's paw.

  “We'll sure miss you fellows,” he said as he turned to Shot 'n' Stop and hesitated at finding no hand to shake. “Are you sure you can't stick around? I mean, it'd be right nice to get to know you after all your trouble.”

  “I hope you understand,” said Sweetcheeks. “It would be delightful, but the way things are, it would be best for all of us if we go at once. Ugleeuh could appear any time. She's always thinking we animals are up to something. The longer the two of you are missing, the more she'll be certain that at least one of us had to have seen you, and if we're together, she'll be certain that we've more than just seen you. She'll not leave us alone until she either finds you or us until we make a mistake which gives you away. It would only be a matter of time before she did discover the truth. I don't even want to think about what would happen to all of us then.”

  “Of course,” said Rose as she gave Spring a hug. “I'm quite sure you're right, particularly since it was your good judgment that allowed us to escape Ugleeuh in the first place. We'll always be grateful.”

  Shot 'n' Stop was no easier to hug than to shake hands with. She gave him a pat which he returned by rubbing the back of her hand with his tail. Sweetcheeks stood waiting for her kiss and hug. “I do so hope we'll see you all again someday.” she said. “Please come to Niarg and visit us any time that you can. You'll always be welcome.”

  And they all swore that they would someday, as they bobbed and fidgeted by the door, but they all knew that they would never do such a thing. Rose could see it in their eyes.

  “Niarg is a very long way away, Rose,” said Fuzz, as the three vanished down the path, “and you have a very big heart. Kindness is not lost on you.” He gave her a pat and shuffled back inside.

  “Well now,” he said, rummaging about in the kitchen. “I need to lay in a few supplies if I'm to have guests. Now what can I use to disguise two humans? Aha!” He dropped onto all fours and hurried into the bat pantry to return at once with two red and white stripped cloaks. “Here. I'd forgot about these. You'll blend right in. If she flies over, she'll never see. I made these things just for her, and they do work. She's slick and she's mean, but I don't think she sees very well.”

  Rose and Lukus put them on at once and chased after him, already well down the path, swinging two pails. “Man alive!” said Lukus. “He can really get up and move.”

  After a time, Fuzz stopped to peer up a tree. It was not peppermint, but it certainly had a candied look. Its bark was like ropes of dark soft taffy. The branches were all high up on the trunk and were densely covered with large rubbery leaves. About halfway up was a hole from which flew a steady stream of huge bees.

  “Bees!” cried Lukus. “This means that Fuzz can make sweets that we can eat without toothaches. This is wonderful.”

  Fuzz had already climbed the tree beyond hearing with his pail. Rose and Lukus stood back, straining to see under their hands. Looking up was easier the further they backed away. Soon they were sitting in their red and white robes in a dense stand of peppermint saplings, watching him climb.

  “Ow! Ow! Whoo-ee!” he hollered, his voice ringing out through the woods as his pail, heaped with comb, came jerking down the trunk on a line. “Rose! Lukus! Take this and hook on the empty bucket! Quick! Quick! And get away from the tree! Ow!”

  They snapped to and did as he bid at once, changing pails with frantic fingers and sprinting away from the tree with the full one, only to find to their alarm that a whole cloud of bees had come with them. They set the bucket on the ground and fled a good long way into the peppermint trees, frantically batting the air around their heads as they ran.

  “Yeow! Owee! Mercy! Ow! Ow! Dang you little buggers!” came Fuzz's voice from the treetops. Soon he was on the ground, yowling as he ran with his pail, scooping up the one abandoned by Rose and Lukus as he came, leading a furious swarm of bees. “Run for it!” he yelled. “Ow! Get back to the den! Fast! Don't worry about me! I'll lose these bees in the woods!”

  Rose and Lukus exchanged one look of alarm and bolted off, capes flapping.

  ***

  They had been back in Fuzz's den for some time before he limped in, bedraggled and winded with his full pails of precious booty. “And now, let's enjoy the fruit of my labor,” He grandly announced, nodding at the table.

  They took seats at once. He got three bowls from the cupboard and spoons from a drawer, then set about dipping out heaping gobs of the treasure. “Dig right in by all means,” he said. “Don't be shy.”

  “No Lukus!” said Rose, knocking his spoon away from his lips. “You can't eat that. It's caramel instead of honey and this caramel has tons of sukere in it.” She turned to Fuzz. “I'm so sorry! You went to so much trouble for us, but we are simply in no condition to eat this.”

  Fuzz looked disappointed and apologetic all at once. “I'm afraid I don't know what I'll feed you two while you are my guests,” he said in despair. “I don't know of anything in this forest that isn't mainly sukere. How am I to keep you alive until you escape?”

  They felt awful. Fuzz had been so nice and now they had refused his effort and had caused him distress over their welfare as well. Rose gave him a hug. “He's so grandfatherly, so very valiant and concerned, he's almost like Grandfather Razzmorten,” she thought. “Please don't feel bad,” she said. “You're being wonderful and we really do appreciate it. And please don't worry, because we still have food of our own.”

  “Truly?” said Fuzz. “I've not seen either of you eat a bite of any kind, except that pitiful mouthful Lukus had last night that hurt him so.”

  “Yes indeed,” said Rose. “We have rations in the panniers which we brought.”

  “I'm so glad to hear that. That is of course, if you have enough. Just how long will it last? We must implement your escape immediately. I couldn't bear to see you starve.”

  “We'll probably be all right for about three weeks. Well, two,” said Lukus, smiling at Fuzz's accidental pun. “We'll have to be careful.”

  “In that case,” said Fuzz, “we should leave first thing in the morning. I'll take the two of you to Gastro. He's the only one I know of who could really get you out of this forest. I only hope he's willing.”

  “You mean this Gastro person as terrified by the old witch as the creatures in the Peppermint?”

  “Not quite,” said Fuzz. “But it's a long story. He's as vulner
able to her as anyone, but he has a certain independence.”

  “He can't actually be Ugleeuh's friend, can he?”

  “Worse than that Lukus. He was her suitor actually, but that's a bit of a story, I'm afraid. Go get your rations and have a bite to eat. Then we can sit by the fire and I'll tell you about Gastro and Ugleeuh.”

  “I'll say one thing about Fuzz,” said Lukus, as he and Rose went to their bags, “he sure knows how to aggravate a fellow's curiosity.”

  “Yea. Let's hurry up and eat, because I'll bet he isn't going to say one word about Gastro until we're done.”

  With that, they grabbed up their packs and hurried back to the table. They were barely seated before they were wolfing down their food in order to hear what Fuzz had to tell. He however, was eating at a snail's pace and insisted that they slow down and chew so that they would not get stomach aches. It didn't take long to see that they might as well slow down, since they were still going to have to wait for him and he was in no hurry at all.

  ***

  “Where are they?” howled Ugleeuh as she sped above the treetops on her broom. Here and there she would swoop into the dells to hurtle their length above the grass and brush or chase madly along a meandering creek bed before vaulting aloft once again. She rubbed an eye on her sleeve and squinted into the passing mottle of light along the ground. “They'll pay! They'll pay! They'll pay! And how they owe me! And when I'm done, they'll know it, too.

  “This is mad!” she said as she gave up her search for the day. “I've been at this since yesterday. They can't be good enough to have gotten clean away. They have to be here... Whoa! What's that?” She dove through the trees for a closer look and was furious to discover an ordinary rabbit. “Here, you miserable cony!” she shrieked, as she turned it into to a crackling swirl of smoke. “You owe me vastly more than you're worth!” She threw back her head for a gleeful cackle as she wheeled and shot skyward.

  ***

  “I'm actually going to miss those two young humans,” said Spring to Shot 'n' Stop and Sweetcheeks as they ambled along to the cries of sukere jays, “but I'll be awfully glad to get home. Just the thought of old Rat Face out there hunting.”

  “No kidding,” said Sweetcheeks. “Every time there's movement in the branches overhead, it makes my fur stand on end. I'm going to be just plain scared 'till I get home.”

  “Oh why did we ever have to be talking about her!” wailed Spring. “Look!”

  They stood paralyzed, watching her swoop by them in great circles, coming to a halt to hover directly in before them. She fixed them with her owlish stare of death for the longest moment. “You three think you're pulling a fast one, don't you?” she said.

  “What do you mean?” said Spring. “We'd never deceive you, Mistress Ugleeuh.”

  “No, because you've not the wits!” she roared, grabbing Spring by the throat with a lunge like a preying mantis. “Tell me where they are. Now!”

  “Smallies!” squealed Spring, scratching her arm with a squirming kick.

  She clamped down on his throat, causing his eyes to bulge as flecks of spit shot from the rotted gaps in her grimace. From the corner of his eye he saw a milling red swarm of hundreds of yellow-eyed little devils.

  “This is my committee to clean up deceit. You do grasp your situation, don't you?”

  Sweetcheeks and Shot 'n' Stop certainly saw the smallies, and they could also see that Spring's mouth and nose were turning purple.

  “Wonderful! Then perhaps you'd be so reasonable as to tell me where you've hidden my niece and nephew?” she said, flinging Spring to the ground to lie gasping and heaving. She clucked her tongue and squatted, yanking him upright by one ear and letting him go. He swayed and tumbled onto his face. “There now. See? I'm reasonable. You don't have to grovel at my feet. Just tell me where Rose and Lukus are, and I could let you live. Right generous of me, too, wouldn't you think? I mean, you lied to me and you deceived me. Look what you owe me,” she said. “Now talk!” she screamed, grabbing him by the neck again and shaking so mercilessly that his ears made smacking sounds against her hands.

  Ugleeuh let go of Spring to choke on his own drool. He knew that he would die once she had found that they had lied to her. “I've the best chance if I admit nothing about Rose and Lukus,” he thought. “And if I die, at least I'll know they beat her. His resolve was set, and though his head felt like splitting and his eyes simply wouldn't focus, he glared at her and said nothing.

  “Maybe you need a bit of persuading, bunny!” she snarled, as if her vocal chords would crush themselves, blowing his fur with huffs of rotten wind. “How 'bout a taste of liar, aye smallies?” she said, turning to dangle him before them, as a wave of alertness surged through their numbers. “Now Spring, this is your last moment,” she said in a sudden kindly tone. “Tell me this very second or die ever so slowly and so very, very painfully.”

  “Smallies are quick, you witch!” thought Spring, as he thrust out a defiant look.

  “You owe me 'way more than you were ever worth!” she said, flinging him into their midst.

  “Please! Please! Please!” went his shrill screams, as the smallies covered him with a chattering huddle.

  Sweetcheeks could not bear this at all, and rushed up to Ugleeuh. She turned toward him with such a face of rapture that he gasped and shrank back. With an impatient hiss, she shooed away the smallies from Spring where he lay, blood spurting from the stumps of his feet.

  Sweetcheeks reeled at the sight of him. “Oh, please!” he cried. “Free Spring from the smallies, and I'll tell you where Rose and Lukus are!”

  Ugleeuh rolled her eyes like a debutante awaiting a prize. “And the polecat wants to save his partner in crime,” she said.

  Sweetcheeks drew up into a bristly arch. “Please, please, Mistress!” he said with his heart about to burst. “Stop his bleeding, and I'll tell you everything!”

  “All right,” she said suddenly. “Tell me first. Then I shall.”

  “Rose and Lukus are with Fuzz the bear on their way to the coast seeking Gastro's aid to escape to Niarg,” he cried. “Now please, please save him!”

  Ugleeuh threw back her head and staggered with laughter until tears spilt from her eyes. Without warning, she threw her leg over her broom. Sweetcheeks sprang into a handstand and shot a stream of angry spray at her face. With a flick of her hands, the stream exploded into a frying lavender steam, horribly cooking his behind. He toppled onto his back with a shriek and lay there moaning.

  Ugleeuh wheeled 'round to find Shot 'n' Stop gone. Certain that his friends were dead, he had seen his moment. He knew he was Rose, Lukus and Fuzz's only hope. “Thiss ssnake in the grathss,” he said with a flick of his tongue, “will get even with you!”

  “When I find you, Snot Tube, I'm going to skin you alive!” she roared. “I'll turn your hide into a belt as you bleed to death!” With more cackling laughter, she flicked her fingers, turning Spring and the entire hoard of smallies to ash. “Debt paid in full,” she cried as their smoke curled aloft.

  “And you're banished from the Peppermint Forest for good,” she said, yanking Sweetcheeks up by the tail, making him squeal out in pain. She mashed him across her broom stick for the ride and they were aloft.

  Soon, Sweetcheeks was looking down on Chokewood Forest. “I hope Rose, Lukus and Fuzz make it,” he said with a squirm.

  “Well Skunko,” said Ugleeuh, “You won't.” And with no more warning than that, she pushed him off her broom.

  Sweetcheeks shrieked in terror as he plummeted, knowing he was on his way to join poor Spring. The last thing he heard before colliding with the tangled branches of a choke oak was Ugleeuh's ringing laughter.

  ***

  After what seemed like an eternity to Rose and Lukus, Fuzz set his knife on his plate, thoughtfully chewed and swallowed his last pinch of sukere bread, wiped his mouth, plunked down his napkin and rose heavily to his feet. “I shall stir up the fire,” he said, as they sat by with all the respectful patien
ce expected of them at a state dinner. The moment they saw which fire he meant, they dashed in to sprawl before it, lolling on the thick wooly rug as Fuzz settled into his chair with a groan.

  “Well then. Did you know that Razzmorten once had a very promising apprentice?” he said, looking first at Rose then at Lukus, who both shook their heads. “Well he did, indeed. And this apprentice was Gastro, the very one I'm taking you to. He was the only son of Gastron, the greatest wizard of the age.” He paused to see if they were properly spellbound. They certainly were.

  “Gastron,” he said, as he idly massaged the scar along the side of his face, “was the very wizard who took your Grandfather Razzmorten's twin brother, Razzorbauch for an apprentice, years before that. Though it could never be proven, Gastro was quite convinced that Razzorbauch betrayed Gastron, poisoning him and stealing his extremely potent Staff of Power.”

  “I've never before heard anything about a staff of power,” said Lukus, with a wide- eyed look, “nor for that matter, anything whatsoever about some great wizard named Gastron. So, what did our great uncle do with this amazing staff?”

  “Me neither,” said Rose.

  “Well then,” said Fuzz, blinking in surprise at their unfamiliarity. “As I said, there was no proof that Razzorbauch was connected with any of it, after all, so I can't say. Had he used the Staff for something that anyone knew about, then we'd know, wouldn't we? What I can do is tell you what Gastro has always claimed, and let you decide for yourselves.

  “Gastro thinks that Razzorbauch used Gastron's Staff to turn the Chokewood Forest into what it is today. 'Way back it wasn't evil at all, you know. It used to be an ordinary oak woods with plain ordinary plants and creatures. No choke oaks. No smallies. No dorchadas. He also thinks that the Staff enabled Razzorbauch to capture and enslave the dragons. Until Razzorbauch's time, they weren't even found on this continent. You know, I actually bored some fellows to death, once...”

  “No!” said Rose.

  “Yes indeed. I got them so bored, that when I looked up after a spell, the eyes of both of 'em had turned to knot-holes. And then, the only way I had left of driving home a point was to pound nails into them.”