She saw, in the darkness, Ian’s lip curl. Too late, she saw he had a gun.
Ian shot her.
There was an ear-breaking POW and Jo reeled away through a haze of blue smoke, staggering backward.
She blinked, startled. She was still standing. She looked around, then down, and through the swirling blue dust she saw what had struck her: a little rolled-up piece of paper.
Ian said, “I set it for maximum sincer—”
With a hilarious shriek Jo flew at Ian and knocked him down, crushing the Apology Gun as they tumbled backward together. She hit him until her arms couldn’t hit anymore, and Ian lay back, laughing, and she stopped trying to beat Ian up and just collapsed on him, out of breath.
A minute later Jo got off him, embarrassed but still smiling. Ian got up and offered his arm. She took it, and together they went back into the party. She couldn’t stop smiling.
Ken Kiang stepped outside.
It was all too much for him. The smoke, the lights, the laughter, the dancing…he had to breathe some cold night air and clear his head.
He was finished with Eldritch City. It was time to go back. He’d done what he’d meant to do—he had fought against the Belgian Prankster—and even if he wasn’t the one who had defeated him, well, at least he had helped, or…
But no. Ken Kiang knew he was deluding himself. He had to admit that everything he attempted had ended in failure. He couldn’t pull off being evil; he couldn’t kill the Belgian Prankster; his musical was horrible; he had even been fired from the Municipal Squires Authority. And yet here he was, unexpectedly at the happy ending, and why? Ken Kiang knew he didn’t deserve it. The whole thing was infuriating.
And yet Ken Kiang had to admit he liked this place. Despite himself, he liked the knights. He was happy. He could almost imagine being happy here for some time.
Many times, Ken Kiang had heard the saying “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” It would be too tidy to say that for Ken Kiang, the road to heaven was paved with bad intentions. Still, his intentions had always been the worst; yet now he was as close to happiness as he was ever likely to get.
Ken Kiang hesitated. He took a breath.
And then Ken Kiang—no; Sir Ken—walked back inside.
The lights at the Odd-Fish lodge stayed on late that night. The feast went on and on, nobody wanted it to end; course after course came out, borne by troops of dancing cockroaches, and as the wine was poured around, Sir Oliver proposed a toast to Aunt Lily, and Dame Delia quickly followed with a salute to Sir Oliver, and another toast to Aunt Lily; whereupon Colonel Korsakov leaped up and bellowed an emotional toast of his own to Aunt Lily’s memory, along with affectionate respects to Dame Delia and Sir Oliver, and indeed all the Odd-Fish, which was received with warm applause—Jo was certain there was no group of people in the world so fond of toasting each other. It seemed everyone had a favorite story about Aunt Lily, told to laughter, applause, and some tears, and for the first time Jo understood how much the Odd-Fish had loved Aunt Lily and already missed her. Then Audrey stood up, her blond hair glowing and her droopy eyes sweeping mischievously around the room, and proposed a toast to Jo, which was immediately seconded by Nora’s breathless squeak, and the rest of the squires, who shouted “Hear! Hear!” and banged their silverware against their glasses. And just when Jo thought she might die of embarrassment, Ian rose and quietly proposed a toast to the entire Hazelwood family, Sir Martin and Dame Evelyn included. The table broke into applause, and the toasting knights and squires became more and more extravagant and violent, crashing their glasses together, sloshing their drinks, pounding their silverware and leaping on chairs in transports of sentiment. Drinking songs started up, raucous and incomprehensible, with Sir Festus standing on the table and conducting the Odd-Fish with broad, slashing sweeps of his arm while Cicero vainly protested and tugged on his robe. Then the cockroaches’ band cranked up, chairs scraped back and clattered to the floor, and all the knights and squires were suddenly dancing, and Jo whirled and weaved through the capering knights and squires, flung from Maurice to Nora, and from Nora to Dugan. The knights snaked past, arms locked in high-kicking rows of purple-stockinged legs, and Jo grabbed Audrey and threw her at Phil, hooting and ducking a glass just before it smashed on the wall behind her.
Later that night, after everyone else had gone to sleep and the lodge was silent, Jo would quietly slip out of bed and wander around the empty halls of the lodge, alone. She would creak down the stairs to the basement and Aunt Lily’s old workroom, where the torn-up machines were already gathering dust, never to be tinkered with again; she would wander up to Aunt Lily’s old bedroom and stand on the balcony, looking out over the city; she would climb up to the roof, where she had clung to Aunt Lily as the lodge was carried into Eldritch City and Aunt Lily first looked at the city and said to herself, “I’m finally home. We’re home.”
Jo spun into Ian’s arms, laughing; they looked at each other, and Jo spun back into the dancing. It was true. She was home.
JAMES KENNEDY lives in Chicago. The Order of Odd-Fish is his first novel.
Published by Delacorte Press
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by James Kennedy
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