Another Dreadful Fairy Book

by Jon Etter

  “Good point,” Ginnie agreed. “I’ll wait here. Maybe Richard can tell me more stories about Gran.”

  A frowning Shade and beaming Sir Justinian turned to look at Ginch and the Professor. Ginch quickly looked up at the ceiling and started whistling; the Professor took out a nail file and began giving himself a manicure. Shade put her hands on her hips. “Guys?”

  Ginch sighed and picked up a croissant. “Fine! Fatcha-coota-matchca, sproot! But first I’m a-gonna eat this because I no like to almost die without the full stomach.”

  The Professor nodded, then stuffed a sausage, three hard-boiled eggs, and half a cantaloupe into his pockets.

  “Good. We’ll leave in a few minutes. First, I want to see about something,” Shade said as she got up from the table.

  Shade found Johannes at the circulation desk, hunched over some paperwork. “Hey kitten-britches, did you find out anything about the books on that list?”

  “Ja, I did,” Johannes said, taking out a piece of parchment. “Very much interest in those titles this veek. Caxton and I have listed the names of all fairies who have checked out each title and noted vhen patrons whose names ve do not know have looked at the books in the library vithout checking them out. In all cases, ve have written vhich door each came through.”

  “Great work.” Shade studied the paper. She had hoped to find one fairy going through all the books, one fairy working for Perchta or whoever was after G.L.U.G., that they could track back to their enemy. But not a single fairy had looked at more than a single book on the list. What’s more, the readers listed came from all over Elfame. Disappointed and frustrated, Shade pushed the paper back to Johannes. “Oh, for the love of St. Eeyore . . . ”

  “The list is no good?” Johannes looked disappointed. “Perhaps ve—”

  “Fetch the head librarians!” Grand Scrutinizer Drabbury shouted as he marched to the circulation desk from the door to Ande-Dubnos, a scroll clutched in his claws. The bugbear glared at Shade through his smoked-glass lenses, looking quite pleased with himself, rather more a “smugbear” than a “bugbear.” “In the name of M.O.A.N., I demand to see them this instant!”

  “Fetch them yourself,” Shade fired back.

  “If you insist on making zis racket every time you come ’ere, you may force me to teach you ze lessons on manners,” François declared as he and Émilie came swiftly down. “Whether you prefer with ze book or with my fists, I am ’appy to accommodate.”

  “And what can we do for you today, Monsieur Drabbury?” Émilie asked.

  The bugbear thrust the scroll at them. “First, you address me by my title, ‘Grand Scrutinizer.’ And as you can see, both the Seelie and Sluagh courts have signed orders authorizing me to immediately confiscate any books I deem a clear and present danger to Elfame. Unless you want military garrisons to haul you and your staff out in chains and seal up every entry to this library, you will immediately order your staff to bring every copy of every book on these pages to me this instant.” Drabbury slapped ten sheets of parchment onto the circulation desk.

  “Listen, slug snot,” Shade said heatedly, “if you think we are going to give you even one single book on that list—”

  “Shade, please,” Émilie interrupted. “I’m afraid we must.”

  “What? We can’t just—”

  “I am afraid we must,” François said gently. “Ze orders say exactly what ’e says, and we do not want anyone arrested or blocked from ze library, n’est-ce pas?”

  Shade looked with disbelief at the two librarians. How can they just give up like this? she wondered as a deep anger born of having one’s home threatened—one of the deepest angers there is—began to well up inside her. She balled up her fists; her face flushed.

  Drabbury snorted. “What? Nothing to say now that you know who is truly in charge here, little sprite?”

  Shade walked over to the bugbear. As she was only as tall as his kneecap, she was forced to look a long way up at him. “You are a no-good, slug-licking, pond scum-slurping pile of snake scat.”

  Behind Drabbury’s dark glasses, his eyes flared and the lenses glowed red. While she wasn’t completely sure, Shade thought she saw wisps of smoke curl out around their edges. Under normal circumstances, she probably would have been at least a little afraid of him, but she was too furious just then to feel anything other than rage.

  Shade felt a cold, smooth hand on her shoulder, but she refused to turn away from Drabbury. “Shade, this is not helping matters,” Émilie said. “The Grand Scrutinizer will wait with us in our office while you and other members of the staff go collect all of the books on this list that haven’t been checked out and bring them up, s’il vous plait.”

  That command did get Shade to turn away from Drabbury but did nothing to calm her. In fact, it enraged her more. “Give him the books? Give him the books? You seriously are going to hand over the books of this library to this—this—dingle-dangle-donkle dungball?”

  “Oui,” François said. He looked very serious but—and Shade wasn’t sure at first because of how worked up she was—there was the slightest hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth and the slightest gleam of mischief in his eyes. “As Madame Tonnelier ’as told you, we need you to go and collect every available copy of ze books on zis list. If a book is ’ere and not checked out, we expect you to bring it to ze Grand Scrutinizer, oui?”

  Shade instantly got the message and grabbed the sheet of papers. “Fine! I’ll get the books, but—” she pointed her finger up at Drabbury’s face, “you’re still a pile of snake scat!”

  As the librarians led Drabbury up to their office, Shade shouted, “I need all staff at the circulation desk right now! Especially you, Dewey! Justinian, Richard, Bowsers, Ginch, Professor—I need you too!”

  Everyone came running, with Dewey bringing up the rear, his bowtie a touch askew and a single hair hanging slightly down on his forehead. “I’m sorry for my frightful appearance,” he said, instantly straightening his tie and smoothing the hair with his hand. “I was in the weeds on the children’s section and—”

  “Sorry, Dewey, no time for all that.” Shade handed him half the pages and gave the rest to everybody else. “Okay, we need to get every copy of every book on these pages off the shelves and checked out or else Norbutt Dungberry is going to confiscate them. Get them fast and bring them here.”

  “Okay, but who’s gonna check out alla these books?” Ginch asked.

  “You, the Professor, Poor Richard—everybody who doesn’t work here.”

  “Can we help?” Shade turned to see the cloaked elfin kids standing behind her. “We’d really like to help.”

  Shade smiled and gave each some pages. “Absolutely. Now get cracking, everyone!”

  Dewey ran from shelf to shelf, knowing by heart that week’s organizational structure—smallest to largest calculated density of each book. The rest went to the card catalog, pulled out and tossed cards, then followed each card as it marched, sprinted, galloped, sailed, or flew to its corresponding book. They carried armload after armload to the circulation desk where the non-staff members took turns checking them out.

  Once the last book was officially signed out, all of them were squirreled away in Johannes’s book repair room. As the fairies and knight returned to the main floor, the Grand Scrutinizer strode down the central spiral with François and Émilie following behind. The head librarians looked at Shade, who gave them a nod. Both looked much relieved, and François took an extra-large sip of his ever-present coffee.

  “I have waited long enough,” Grand Scrutinizer Drabbury declared. “Where are the books? I am a busy fairy and have much to attend to. Hand them over, and I will be on my way.”

  Shade sighed and shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Grand Scrupelizer—”

  “That’s ‘Grand Scrutinizer,’ young lady.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, I’m afraid that we don’t have any of the books on this list.”

  Drabb
ury snorted. “You know that is a lie, girl. And one easily disproven.”

  The bugbear marched over to the card catalog, opened one of the drawers, and yanked out a card. “Right here: The Terrific Jimmy Gatz.” Drabbury held out the card for all of them to see. “One of the indecent books on the list—glamorizes a life of crime, major characters engage in lying and cheating, and other moral offenses—and here it is in your collections.”

  “Yeah, but Mr. Drudgery—”

  “That’s ‘Drabbury,’ you little—”

  “Whatever. As I was saying, we don’t have it. Yes, it’s in our collections, but it’s checked out.” Shade smiled and crossed her arms. “All the books on your list, it turns out, are checked out.”

  “I find that hard to believe. Very hard to believe.” Drabbury tossed the card, but rather than fold itself into a stylishly dressed young elf and confidently saunter over to a bookshelf, the card did two loop de loops and refiled itself in its drawer. “Fine, perhaps that one is checked out but surely the others . . . ”

  Drabbury opened another drawer and pulled and tossed a card, which refiled itself just as the previous one had. He opened another drawer and another and another with increasing speed and force, and again and again the tossed cards went right back to their drawers. With a growl, Drabbury slammed the last drawer shut and whirled around.

  Ginch gestured to the card catalog. “See, it’s like she say, Mr. Booger-the-bear—”

  “That’s ‘bugbear,’ you filthy, thieving brownie.”

  “’Ey, I’m-a no filthy. I take-a the bath . . . Hey, partner, when I take-a the bath?”

  The Professor held up two fingers, then pulled a rubber ducky out of his pocket and tossed it to Ginch.

  “I take-a the bath two months ago. And if you no believe me, you ask the duck.” Ginch held the duck out to Drabbury and gave it a squeeze. It squeaked.

  The bugbear swatted the duck from Ginch’s hand and rounded on François and Émilie. “If all these books are currently checked out, then I demand the names and whereabouts of all fairies currently in possession of them, which you will compile and hand over this instant.”

  François’s eyes narrowed. “Zat is out of ze question. Only ze Grand Library’s staff may see such zings. We do not share any information about our patrons.”

  Drabbury tilted his head back and looked down his nose at the librarians. “Then, by the authority vested in me by the Seelie Court and Sluagh Horde, I shall have all of you arrested and this library closed.”

  “I do not believe you will.” Émilie held out the orders she and François had been looking at earlier. “According to these official orders, you are authorized to do that if we do not produce the books, which you see is currently impossible. They say nothing about confidential library records. If you go back and get authorization for those, then we can discuss that possibility.”

  “As ze officer of ze governments, I’m sure we need not explain to you ze importance of official paperwork, non?” François took a sip of coffee to hide his smile.

  “Yeah. Go push some papers around, Drudgery,” Shade said.

  Drabbury growled and raised his arm as if to stab Shade with his elbow barb but stopped himself and scratched at his chin as if that had been his intent all along. “Very well. I shall return with the necessary paperwork. I shall also note your reluctance to follow official orders—”

  François shrugged. “We would be most ’appy to ’elp, but ze paperwork . . . ”

  “I shall also officially report the rudeness with which I have been treated while fulfilling the duties of my position.”

  “Oh, there was no insult intended, I’m sure,” Émilie said soothingly. “Our page, well, she sometimes has trouble with names.”

  Shade grinned. “Oh, no. I was intentionally insulting this creep. Because, you know, he’s a creep.”

  “Our business is concluded for now, but I shall return shortly and finish it . . . and possibly finish all of you.” Drabbury turned on his heel and marched out the door to Dinas Ffaraon without a backward glance. Had he glanced backward, he might have seen the Professor sneak up and attach a sign to his back that read “Kick Me” with an arrow pointing down to his rear end.

  Shade turned to Ginch, the Professor, and Sir Justinian. “So that’s done. Now why don’t we move on to something more pleasant, like maybe dying in a mine shaft?”

  In which we learn the disgusting

  truth about unicorns . . .

  Located on the eastern coast of Elfame at the southern tip of the Hollow Hills, Mamlwytho was a once bustling mining town. After fairy miners exhausted the deposits of copper, silver, and gold that once filled the now hollowed out hills (hence the name), Mamlwytho had gone back to being a sleepy little coastal town of fairy farmers and fishermen. Only the most tenacious miners were still at it, trying desperately to squeeze more wealth from the earth. The streets were quiet as Shade, Ginch, the Professor, and Sir Justinian stepped out of the branch of the library tree that grew in the center of town.

  “All right,” Shade said, studying the map Poor Richard had annotated for her. “We’re here. It looks like the first site is due north of—”

  “Psst! If you’re fortune hunters, I can take you right to a cache of gold that will make you rich,” a gravelly voice said.

  Shade turned to see who had spoken, but all she could see was an old yellow mule, with an unruly shock of curly black hair between his big ears and an odd tuft of equally black hair just below his lower lip, hitched to a post outside a livery stable. “Who said that?”

  “That would be me,” the mule replied.

  “You talk?” Ginch asked. “How come you can-a talk?”

  Sir Justinian’s eyes lit up. “No doubt this is some good wizard cursed by a rival who will provide fortuitous aid to us until we may restore him to his true form.”

  The mule cocked an eyebrow at that. “Uh . . . Yeah, why not.”

  “And whatta you say about the fortune?”

  “I can take you to a secret stash of gold up in the hills that would make you richer than in your wildest dreams.”

  “I no know about that,” Ginch said as the Professor shook his head. “We have-a the dream last week where we’re the pretty rich.”

  “I can make you exactly three and a half times richer than that,” the mule said. “All you have to do is buy me from the abusive jerk who runs this dump, and I’ll take you there.”

  “It’s-a the deal,” Ginch said. The Professor patted the mule on the head, then took a handful of oats out of the feedbag hanging on the post next to him and started eating it.

  “Wait. We’re not looking for gold,” Shade said.

  “Speak-a for yourself!”

  “Then what are you looking for?” the mule asked.

  Shade leaned in. “The tomb of a coblynau named Grigor Byrrower.”

  “Oh, I’ve done supply runs up into the Hollow Hills for years. I can take you right to it—wouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.”

  “And then you take us to the gold, and we get-a the money back and a lot more?” Ginch asked.

  “And you’ll become our boon companion in exchange for us eventually restoring you to your wizardly glory?” Sir Justinian chimed in.

  “Yeah, sure. The gold, Grigor Byrrower, the wizard stuff—whatever you want. Just get me out of here before I get another beating.”

  Shade wasn’t sure that she believed a single word the mule had said, but the thought of an animal being abused was enough to make her take a chance on him. And so Shade, Ginch, and the Professor soon rode into the Hollow Hills in a cart pulled by the mule who hummed as he walked, with Sir Justinian striding alongside.

  “So, you gotta the name?” Ginch asked. “Or do we just call you the mule?”

  “Trudgemore,” the mule answered. “And for the record, I’m not a mule.”

  Sir Justinian’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “I knew it! You rea
lly are a wizard.”

  “Nope. Sorry. Just played along with that to try to make the sale.”

  “Oh.” Sir Justinian looked disappointed, then perked up. “Then surely you are some noble prince who’s been transformed into a beast as poetic punishment for your ‘beastly’ behavior who must be kissed by a fair maiden like our good Lady Shade here to restore his humanity!”

  Shade grimaced. “Um, ew, no.”

  “That goes double for me, bug girl,” the mule said. “And, again, no. I haven’t been turned into anything.”

  “But since you can talk, surely—”

  “Oh, that?” Trudgemore rolled his eyes. “All horses, ponies, donkeys, and mules can talk.”

  “Then how’s come I never hear the pony talk before?” Ginch demanded.

  “I don’t know. I think most are just too lazy to learn anything other than pony. Besides, your average pony is not the greatest conversationalist. Unless you want to talk about oats, water, and how nice it is to have your mane brushed, I wouldn’t bother trying to strike up a conversation with one.”

  “So, good Trudgemore, if you aren’t a mule, then what—”

  “I’m a unicorn.”

  “A unicorn?” Shade smirked.

  “A unicorn.”

  “You’re not a unicorn. Where’s your horn?”

  “I was born without one.” Trudgemore sighed. “Everybody always brings up the horn—”

  “Well, it is the defining feature, after all. And aren’t you supposed to be a horse instead of a mule?” Shade asked.

  “Isn’t the brownie supposed to be cleaning a house somewhere?” Trudgemore fired back.

  “I no do the housework,” Ginch said, shuffling some cards.

  “And isn’t the pixie supposed to be dancing and singing and mesmerizing people?”

  The Professor blew a raspberry at the back of the mule’s head before taking a handful of oats out of his pocket to chew on.

  “And you’re not flitting about a forest somewhere tossing acorns or whatever it is you butterfly people do, so there we go.” Trudgemore snorted. “Look, just because my body doesn’t match up with what I am on the inside doesn’t mean I’m not a unicorn.”