by Ken Brosky
“His name is Nibbles, and I do say he may have saved my life. Ahem! Allow me to tell my tale …”
And so he did. There were games played with rats. The overall cruddy conditions of the ship. The monsters trying to kill them. The crates full of dirt. And in true Briar fashion, plenty of unnecessary details about snacks.
“Crates … like this?” I said, rapping my knuckles on the wooden crate I was sitting on.
“Crates exactly like those,” Briar said. “Coincidence? Doubtful. We followed these crates, hitching a ride on another train that took us through some very beautiful Spanish countryside. Check the tag.”
I got off the crate, searching it for the little green shipping tag. It definitely smelled like dirt.
“Agnosara,” I read. “The same city we’re going to.”
“All these big crates,” Briar said, waving a paw, “are full of dirt. Fresh, rich soil. Now, I don’t want to alarm you, but vampires have been known to sleep in fresh soil …”
“You don’t mean to alarm me?!” I exclaimed. “And then you mention vampires? Are you absolutely insane, rabbit?”
“It’s just speculation,” he said. The disgusting rat cowered behind him, looking up at me with more than a fair share of suspicion. He squeaked a few weird squeaks. “Yes,” Briar murmured. “I told you she could get like this.”
“Why are vampires the first thing that comes to you, anyway? Why can’t it be, Oh, someone must want to start a worm farm or something like that?”
Briar’s ear drooped. “I apologize, dear hero. I suppose Nibbles and I are still a bit shaken by our experience on the boat. The boat we traveled on for nearly two weeks. With barely a week’s worth of provisions! Not to mention the bit about nearly being eaten alive by sailor-monsters…”
I sighed. “All right, I get it.” I scratched him between the ears, his favorite spot. His foot stomped on the ground a few times, nearly knocking out his rat friend before it could jump out of the way.
“Nibbles would like a scratch, too,” Briar said. “He thinks you don’t like him.”
I reached down, using the very tip of my finger to scratch the rat’s head. His fur was everything my sickened mind predicted: slightly damp and crusty. I have to admit, I probably would have barfed if Nibbles demanded a scratch behind his cruddy-looking ears. Even his thankful squeak of appreciation made my hair stand on end.
“So what now?” Briar asked. “I assume you have some plan or other.”
“Nope.”
“But you must! We can’t just sashay nonchalantly into this town with the possibility of vampires threatening to kill us all! Oh, I’m too handsome to be a vampire! I enjoy the sunlight far too much!”
I stood up, rubbing the muscles in my legs. “What I need is a bath. Which is impossible, I guess. Still, there’s one thing I don’t quite understand. Hans said his stop was coming up …”
“Ah, yes.” Briar pulled a small piece of paper from his pocket, unfolding it. “If I remember my German—and I’m sure I do because I’m Br’er Rabbit, after all—then this map says the next stop isn’t until we are well within the Romanian border. The city of Deva, to be exact. That’s another 5 hours away, though.”
I held my breath, bracing myself. Briar and his rat friend both cocked their heads, watching curiously.
I exhaled. “OK, I know it sounds strange, but I totally thought the train was going to break down right there or something. My hero sense was tingling.”
Underneath the floor, the sound of metal grinding on metal returned, louder than before. The entire car rumbled. I grabbed one of the crates, clutching it as the train began to slow down, shaking violently as if it might derail at any moment.
“What’s happening?” Briar asked, clutching one of the smaller shipping boxes on the other side of the aisle. Nibbles clutched Briar’s leg, squeaking madly.
“Irony is happening!” I shouted over the screeching of the brakes.
The train slowed to a stop, hiccupping once more and causing the smaller boxes to shift, crashing into one another.
I let go of the crate, looking down at Hans’s knapsack.
“Something tells me he was counting on this unscheduled stop,” I said.
“Well, duh.”
I looked at him, raising an eyebrow. He shrugged, dusting off his pants.
“Now will you formulate a plan?” he asked.
“I have one.” I kicked the knapsack, spilling its contents. “We’re going to find Tom Thumb.”
Chapter 5
Of course no one else thought it was strange that our train just happened to break down just outside the town of Ukigos, Hungary. Why would they? Other than me, nobody really expects devious Corrupted to make a general mess of things. And so when the conductor offered everyone a free stay at one of the local inns, well, no one was especially mad. Grumpy? Yes. Mad? Nah … Europeans are pretty easygoing.
The town was small, full of boxy white buildings with red roofs and lots of trees on every block, dividing the properties and sometimes overtaking the older homes, their longs limbs creeping over the windows. The newest houses looked a lot like the houses in a suburb, except here each house was surrounded by tall iron fences. The grass was muddy and the paved roads were wet and cracked in places. We walked with about two hundred other train passengers to the inns, all of which were only two stories tall and spread throughout the town.
“I can only imagine what the townsfolk are thinking,” Seth murmured, hefting his suitcase.
I watched an old silver Mercedes speed past on the street. “I don’t think they much care, Seth.”
“Everyone please stick with me!” Mr. Whitmann called out from the front of the group. He waved his hands in the air like a traffic controller, as if we needed the additional directions.
“Mr. Whitmann?” Margaret said. “Could you, like, stop yelling? You’re acting waaaay too American.”
He frowned, then turned back around.
Chase sighed. “Alice, will you slow down? You’re going to bump me into Mrs. Satrapi.”
I let go of the handles. “Just wheel yourself.”
“Fine,” he snapped. “More than happy to.”
Our mood didn’t get any better when we reached the first hotel. Fellow passengers had already filled it to capacity.
“What do they know that we don’t?” Mr. Whitmann asked the clerk, a young man with shaggy brown hair and a pale complexion. When the clerk didn’t answer, Mr. Whitmann added, exasperated, “Can you at least find someone who knows good English?”
The clerk could not.
We dragged ourselves to the next block, following a few other train passengers who’d taken their sweet time disembarking. The next hotel looked the same from the outside, save for the greenish brown water marks that streaked down from the edges of the old window sills. Inside, it was worse. The brown carpeting had seen better days. The clerk—a middle-aged woman with thick glasses and curly brown hair—stood behind a counter whose fake wooden paneling was peeling in places. She had an old clunky computer sitting on the counter and about a hundred pieces of paper spread out in no obvious order. On the walls were old paintings of famous battles. In one, men rushed at each other with guns. In another, they were all riding horses, clutching swords.
Tucked in the corner to our left were two couches and a tube TV, along with a little table for continental breakfast and a display stand full of tourism pamphlets.
“It smells like rotten cheese,” said Miguel, the saber fighter on the boys team. He wrinkled his nose.
“That’s mold, dummy,” said Scott, the epee fighter. The epee has a stiff blade like the saber, only in an epee fencing match, the fencer’s entire body is fair game. The girls team didn’t have an epee fencer because we only had one epee blade for practice.
“It could still be rotten cheese,” Margaret murmured. “I wouldn’t put it past this place.”
“At least there’s TV,” Scott said. The boys congregated to the little corner, b
razenly turning on the TV and growing immediately agitated when the picture came in fuzzy. The man and woman on the TV spoke in a hurried, alien dialect, only annoying the boys further. Scott shut off the TV with more than a bit of a temper.
“Boys,” Mrs. Satrapi said, “come over here.” She put an arm around Scott’s shoulder, much to his chagrin.
Mr. Whitmann walked up to the counter, speaking slowly to the clerk despite the fact that she seemed to have a pretty good grasp of English. I thought at first that maybe he was talking down to her, but then my weary eyes took in his body language: slumped features, deep breaths … he was exhausted like the rest of us.
“OK,” he said, handing the boys two sets of keys and the girls one set. “Everyone just go to your rooms and relax. Watch some TV.”
“We don’t understand what they’re saying,” Miguel said matter-of-factly.
“Then use your imaginations!” the coach shouted. He took a deep breath. “I’m losing it. Grandpa was right: the Whitmanns are all doomed to the loony bin.”
“We’re all jet-lagged,” Mrs. Satrapi said. “It’s the time difference. The best thing you can do is relax this afternoon and then get a good night’s sleep. Your bodies will recuperate overnight.”
“Yeah, do what she says,” Mr. Whitmann mumbled, dragging his feet toward the hallway just past the check-in counter.
“Alice, are you coming?” Mrs. Satrapi asked as everyone began dispersing.
“Yeah, I just …” Think, Alice! You need to find more info about Tom Thumb! I ran a hand over my pockets. “I think I dropped my phone on the walk over. I should go double back and just check my steps.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Uh … no, no! That’s OK. I can handle it.”
Mrs. Satrapi’s stone face seemed to harden even more. It was easy to picture her in a boardroom, dominating everyone sitting with her at the table. A beautiful gargoyle. I loved it. I loved the fact that I was totally intimidated by her. I’d killed a dragon, been swallowed by a whale … but Mrs. Satrapi still had the look. I needed that look.
“I’m not letting you walk around the town alone,” she said. “You’re my responsibility, dear.”
“Right,” I said meekly. “Oh. Here’s my phone. In my pocket, after all.” I followed her to the girls’ room. At least it was on the first floor. I could sneak out through the window, maybe …
… provided Margaret, Jasmine and Rachel could keep their mouths shut about it. Jasmine and Margaret immediately called dibs on the bed near the window, setting their suitcases on the floor beside it. Rachel put her suitcase on the other bed, giving me a friendly smile.
“I guess we’re bunk mates,” she said brightly. She seemed to be the only one not in an ornery “grumpy teenager” mood, as my mom would say.
I tossed my suitcase beside hers, groaning when the pain in my ribs returned.
“How long do you think we’ll be here?” Margaret asked. She was in the process of pulling out her makeup and cosmetics, laying them out on the bed. She’d brought along two bottles of nail polish, both of them a shade of blue.
“The train guy said it might be a day or two,” Rachel said. She started laying out her cosmetics, too: black nail polish, dark lipstick, mascara and a simple hairbrush. I loved her simplicity.
“Are Hungarian guys cute?” Jasmine asked. “Should we be on the prowl?”
None of us had any idea.
“Well, there was the clerk at that other hotel,” Margaret offered.
“Ewww, he had a mustache,” Jasmine said. We all laughed. “Shave the mustache and we’ll talk. But a furry little caterpillar on your upper lip is the kiss of death.”
“Only guys think mustaches are cool,” Margaret said. “Oh, wait. You know what we need to do? We need to take off these bed covers.”
“Why?” Rachel asked.
“Because I read somewhere that hotel bed covers are the grossest thing in a hotel room. They never ever clean them. Ev-ar.”
We pulled off the bed covers, giggling, handling them like they were on fire. We threw both covers in the corner.
I went into the bathroom, not surprised that it looked like it was right out of an old horror movie. The curtain was yellow. The tiles were yellow. The sink was tiny, its porcelain cracked in two places. Even the toilet seat couldn’t be kind enough to stay on straight.
“This ain’t the Hilton,” I told Margaret before she could have her turn. She walked into the bathroom, took it all in, and whimpered.
“Oh cool … Alice, check this out,” Rachel said, flipping me a pamphlet. I caught it in mid-air, stretching out on the bed beside her.
“Ukigos is one of the oldest cities in Hungary,” I read. “In addition to boasting two beautiful holy sites, Ukigos is also known as the capital of Hungary’s most famous stories. Legend has it that two hundred years ago, mysterious wolf-like creatures surrounded the town, demanding a virgin sacrifice once each night. On the twelfth night, a hero arrived and vanquished the wolves. It’s said that on a clear night, you can still hear the wolves crying out in the distance, afraid to come near the town.”
“Let me see that,” Jasmine said. She grabbed it, then screamed. I nearly fell off the bed in alarm. “There’s a goulash place nearby! I looooooove goulash.”
“What the heck is that?” Rachel asked.
“Spicy stew,” Jasmine said. “Seasoned with paprika and full of meat and veggies and sometimes noodles. My mother has to know about this. She’ll take us all for sure.”
“Yes,” I said with a devious smile. “We’ll convince Mrs. Satrapi to take us to dinner.”
“And then we’ll scope out cute boys,” Margaret added, emerging from the bathroom. “And, in Rachel’s case, cute girls.”
“Thank you, madam,” Rachel said with a low bow.
Margaret returned the bow. “But of course, my dear.”
Jasmine went to her mom’s room to get the OK for dinner while the rest of us took turns showering. We were still beat, but a refreshing warm shower was more than enough to get us revitalized. I volunteered to go last—I was the only one who was used to taking lukewarm showers and we were all suspicious of the hotel’s hot water heater.
Our worries were warranted. Midway through my shower, the hot water quickly dissipated, and I had only a few precious moments to get the last suds out of my hair. I tolerated the cold water for a few breaths, then gave up. In the circular bathroom mirror, I examined my ribs. Yup, there was definitely some bruising. It was blue now but it would be purple tomorrow.
And sore.
By the time six o’clock rolled around, all of the boys were ready to go, waiting in the hotel lobby while all of us girls were clustered inside the bathroom, applying makeup. Rachel was the first to finish, sticking with her minimalist style. Margaret, with her phone battery precariously low, managed to finish second—and in record time. Without the nagging temptation to check Facebook every few minutes, she stayed focused on the task at hand, taking special care to cover the little pink pimples that she hated with a passion.
Jasmine had beautiful olive skin, and so most of her focus was on her eyes, which she liked to make the highlight of her face. She added shadow and a little dark blue under her thin eyebrows. She also, thankfully, convinced Rachel to forego the chain wallet for the sake of maintaining a friendly appearance.
Me, I was going for a laid-back feminine look. I pulled my dark hair back in a ponytail, then added a quick swipe of mascara and some bronzer to my cheeks and forehead. I wore a pair of slim cut deep indigo jeans topped with a flowy orange v-neck tunic printed with flowers in shades of blue and violet cinched attractively below the bust with a wide violet sash. Jasmine slowed everyone down by cycling through three different outfits before finally settling on a green wrap dress that looked amazing with her brown jacket.
The boys, needless to say, were impressed. Chase stared at me with a little too much intensity, getting a healthy rib from Adam, the foil fencer. None of the
boys had bothered making themselves presentable: jeans and t-shirts and light jackets, all of them. At least Chase was wearing a decent-looking black twill jacket. His hair was combed; he looked nice. He looked like the kind of guy I could really start to dig.
And I did dig him.
That was what worried me.
“What’s wrong?” Chase asked once we were outside. Seth and Rachel were walking ahead of us, and the rest of the team was already half a block up and trying to hurry Mrs. Satrapi to walk faster, anxious for some good cooking.
I see the death of your loved ones …
“Meh,” I said, wheeling him around a spilled drink that had frozen to the sidewalk. “I like this town. It’s quaint.”
“It’s decent,” he said, looking around. The street was mostly empty, with only a few cars passing, their headlamps illuminating the road. There were only a few streetlights running along the boulevard, and with the sun fully set the entire town seemed like it was experiencing a power outage. “They could use a souvenir shop.”
“It’s too dark,” I said.
“You’re too used to lots of streetlights.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Walk beside me.”
I let go of the handles, catching up to him. He wheeled the chair himself, grunting a few times. “I gotta keep my arms in shape,” he said.
“Ya,” I said with a bodybuilder’s accent. “You gotta pump up, maaaan.”
Chase laughed. “You sound like Clyde. Are you going to tell me what’s wrong or not?”
“Nothing is wrong,” I said. “Seriously.”
“Where the heck did you disappear to today, on the train? Why are you brushing me off all of a sudden?”
Because a creepy wizard said my loved ones would die. “Because … look, I’m just jet-lagged.”
He sighed a long, frustrated sigh. “Fine. I can be patient. But don’t think that just because you’re this big-shot hero that you get a pass on hiding things.”
“I’m not hiding things! Well, not a lot of things.”
“Be more like Spider-Man,” he said. “Less like Batman.” He wheeled to catch up to the boys, giving Miguel a swat on the butt. I was thankful for it. I wanted to walk alone. Whoever was watching me … wherever they were watching me from … I didn’t want them to know who my loved ones were.