Before Bubbles could stop her, Smush reached out a paw and snagged a clean apron hanging by its strings from a hook halfway up the cupboard. She tossed it back to him, then fished around for something else, pulling two boxes marked "Trick or Treats" into the tunnel. She pushed the cupboard back in place.
“Let’s go!” She threw him a box, balanced the other on her head, and tapped the hat down on top of it. As she trotted ahead, gems rained out of the hat. Bubbles picked them up. He was worried about losing any, especially since they had not left a “Borrowed” note. And what about the apron and the boxes? He hadn’t left a note for them either.
“What did you say?” Smush turned around, stopping suddenly and almost tripping Bubbles. Two more gems fell out in front of her. She bent and retrieved them, this time losing her hat and the box. Bubbles caught the box.
“I’ll carry this for you, if you like,” he volunteered.
“Okay. I was thinking,” Smush said then paused giving him that sideways look.
A cold chill chased bigger ants across Bubbles’ shoulders and down his back. “What?”
“These boxes say Trick or Treats, and that's a word the parrot kept saying. From the good smells, I bet these are filled with food,” she said.
“For the Halloween party,” Bubbles added.
“Right. But why is the food in boxes? It was on platters and plates for the Primus Party.”
“Huh.” Bubbles looked at the boxes and sniffed in the delicious smell.
“I know! These foods need to age in boxes! Like the sun-willow weed! You have to leave those weeds out in the sun to dry a few days, or they’ll poison you!” Smush grinned like she was too smart by far.
Bubbles shook his head. “But they smell so good. How can they …?” Smush frowned at him, the folded-forehead-look that meant she didn’t want him to disagree. “So we can’t eat them?” he asked.
Smush nodded. “Not until the party. We’ll bring them with us.” With a saucy turn, she headed down the tunnel, not stopping until they were at the river.
“We need to keep them dry,” Bubbles pointed out as they stood in the tunnel opening onto the riverbank. "They'll get wet when we swim in the river."
Nodding slowly, Smush looked around. “We need to keep my hat and your apron dry too. We’ll put them in that niche over there. It’s high and dry.”
“What about river rats and …”
Smush jerked her ear at him to put the boxes next to her hat and then to put the apron on top. She nosed a number of large stones out of the tunnel floor, and they piled them in the niche opening. Standing back and smiling, Smush said. “Good, huh?”
He had to admit it was. “I wonder when the party will be?” he asked as they dove into the river.
After a full meal of river weeds, and a nap in the shallows, Bubbles and Smush sunned themselves on the muddy bank. It was there that Cl’rnce found them.
“Hey, you two. Do you want to come to the Halloween Party? Great and Mighty said I had to invite you. But I know you don’t like to go to Wiz Tech or do new things, so I told her—”
“Yes!” Smush said. “And we have costumes and everything!”
“Oh. Okay great. What kind of costumes?” Cl’rnce asked. “I haven’t figured mine out yet. I was thinking maybe I could go looking like my sister Hazel. You know all I’d need would be a cranky look and …” He didn’t finish because his Wizard Partner Great and Mighty popped in at that moment. “They said yes,” he told her.
“I knew they’d enjoy it.” She settled down on a fallen log. “Halloween is a new idea to me. I’m not sure I understand dressing up in costumes. But I thought of a costume I can conjure up with a spell.”
“We have costumes!” Smush announced again proudly.
“Really? What are you going as? No. Don’t tell me. Cl’rnce tells me part of the fun is guessing who is who. He says fancy masks are very important to keep people guessing.”
“Masks?” Bubbles asked.
Great and Mighty snapped her fingers and a big thing covered with lace, flowers, and ribbons with eye holes Smush-sized floated in front of the little wizard's face.
“It's beautiful!” Smush sighed.
“Take it. It’s just right for you.” Great and Mighty directed the mask, and it floated to Smush and balanced on her snout. “Perfect fit. Do you want me to make one for you, Bubbles?”
“Sure,” Bubbles said, feeling uncertain all over again about all this new different stuff.
“That means you have to tell what you’re dressing up as,” Cl’rnce crowed.
“No, he doesn’t. If he wants to surprise us, all I have to do is make an ‘Anything’ mask. I’ll make it your size, Bubbles, and when you are ready to come to the party, just tell it what you want it to look like.”
“Thank you.” Bubbles tried to sound enthusiastic, but this was magick and new. Since it was nice Great and Mighty’s magick, he couldn’t refuse.
It took a few finger twitches and a clap of her hands before the air in front of Bubble’s face sort of wavered. “Just the size,” Great and Mighty said. She pointed Bubble’s almost invisible mask and Smush’s mask at a tree with low branches hanging over the edge of the river. “I’ll hang them here. See you tonight!”
“Tonight?” Bubbles thought of the Trick or Treats that would be poison if they didn’t age.
“Yep. Let’s go, Cl’rnce. We have a lot to do before the party.” Great and Mighty jumped onto Cl’rnce’s back, and they flew toward the school.
“This is bad!” Bubbles said. “The Trick or Treats will be dangerous!”
“What?” Smush stared at her elegant mask.
“They need to age. They can’t age in a few hours!” Bubbles paced through the sucking mud. “They’ll be poison!”
Smush turned, her eyes large like she was afraid too. “But that would mean Cook wants to kill Cl’rnce! That can’t be right.”
“What if Cook is not the kind of dr’gon we think? What if he’s a disguised Killer Dr’gon? Killer Dr’gons are supposed to be Very unhappy about Cl’rnce being Primus.”
“We will save everybody!” Smush declared. “We will go to the party, capture Cook, and force him to admit he is trying to poison everybody!”
Bubbles nodded. “Tonight!”
“Now! We’ll save the party!" Smush dove into the river.
Bubbles followed her. They picked up the boxes, the hat, and the apron at the entrance to the tunnel. "We forgot the masks. Wait here, and I'll go back and get them."
He turned and swam, scooping the masks off the tree branch. Not sure if they would get wet and dissolve, he balanced them on his head and swam more slowly back to the entrance.
"Got them! Let's go," he called to Smush. But she was not there. Her hat and its gems were gone, along with both boxes. Only his apron had been left behind.
“Smush!” Bubbles yelled. He grabbed the apron and ran down the tunnel. What if she got to Cook first and did something … that made the dr'gon kill her. "Noooo!" Bubbles yelled as he raced faster.
A running Barforami is a rare sight and not unimpressive. He kicked up mud on the tunnel floor as he dug in his wide paws and forced his legs to move faster than ever. As he turned the first corner to Wiz Tech, he saw something glittering ahead. He slowed and scooped it up, tucking the gem in his apron's pocket. "At least I’m on the right trail."
Once before, Smush had gotten lost trying to go back to Wiz Tech on her own, but she had made the right turn this time. He wished he knew how far ahead she was. There were so many turns in the tunnel walls here that he couldn't see her. Then he thought he heard pounding paws. She wasn't so far away. He'd get to her.
But he arrived at where the tunnel turned from earthen walls to stone, where it ran under the school, and he still hadn't seen her. Now he couldn't hear her.
Bubbles hoped that Smush would make it to the kitchen without getting lost. He sprinted to the kitchen door. He'd hoped it would be open to show him she was inside, but
it wasn't. He had to go in, but if Cook was there, Bubbles didn't want to be recognized. He thought of the mask Great and Mighty had made for him and put it on.
It occurred to him that even with the mask he'd be recognizable since there were only two Barforami in the vicinity. But he had a plan. He'd tell Cook he was in a Halloween costume, a Barforamous costume.
Bubbles slid the door open, mask in place, and walked into the kitchen. Cook looked up as the cupboard scraped. After a quick glance, he went back to packing treats into boxes.
Bubbles decided Cook was too busy with his evil mission to really look and see. Or he couldn't see properly. The Dr'gon Cook kept wiping his paw over his eyes.
Bubbles walked around the kitchen as quietly as he could, but he found no sign of Smush. That was good. Bubbles could deal with the evil Cook all on his own. But what should he do?
He’d definitely accuse Cook of trying to murder Cl'rnce. That was good, wasn’t it? What would Cook do once Bubbles hurled the accusation? Hurled. Maybe Cook would throw knives and kill Bubbles.
As if Cook read his mind, he picked up a wicked big knife and balanced it in his paw. Then he cut a length of purple cord, wrapping it around the box he had just filled with treats from a special tray. "These for Cl'rnce." He pushed the box to one side.
Bubbles stared harder at the tray. He'd peeked in his own box, and these treats were exactly the same as his. He knew what he'd do. Find Cl'rnce or Hazel and show them his box and tell them it held the same poisonous treats as the one Cook packed just for Cl'rnce. He just had to find Smush and get back his box.
But what if Cook wasn’t the only Killer Dr'gon sneaking around the school? Bubbles needed to warn Hazel and Cl'rnce in a hurry. They needed an army of dr'gons and wizards.
Quietly Bubbles backed out of the kitchen and just as silently slid the door shut to the tunnel. Besides finding Smush, he had a bigger problem. He didn't know where Hazel or Cl'rnce had their chambers. Since Hazel was a big dr’gon, he guessed upstairs in the tallest rooms with the skyward window slots for flying in and out.
And where was Smush? Was she lost? Was she safe?
He trotted up past an exit tunnel that wasn't high enough in the school. He went another floor up, and up, until the tunnel stopped. No more turns. One big door, and on the other side of it he was sure he heard Smush.
He pushed open the door, but no one looked at him.
Smush paced back and forth, her hat shedding gems, and that dratted bird back on her shoulder. "You have to go down. Or is it up? I don't know where it is. You have to go!"
Hazel picked up several of the jewels. "Other than it seems you have been stealing gems, which is very serious, I don't know what you are talking about, Smush. Can you calm down and tell me slowly, what this is all about, and how you got in here?” Cl’rnce’s sister, Hazel, was a very serious dr'gon, and she looked even more so than usual.
"She's talking about a plot to kill Cl'rnce!" Bubbles marched up to Hazel and pointed to the box he knew was proof.
Hazel and her Wizard Partner Gaelyn looked toward him and frowned. Hazel turned to Gaelyn, "I hear someone, but I …"
"Oh, no!" Great and Mighty walked into the chamber followed by Cl'rnce.
Cl'rnce said, “I heard it too. That was Bubbles' voice, but I don't see him."
Hazel, Gaelyn, and Cl'rnce turned to Great and Mighty.
Great and Mighty’s face turned an interesting shade of red. “I guess an ‘Anything’ mask…”
Gaelyn snorted, and Hazel laughed. Gaelyn said, “Never use ‘Anything’ in a spell. It means so many things it erases all of them, and you get … well it looks like this time you got a mask that makes Bubbles invisible.”
Bubbles slipped the mask off, laying it on a long table between him and the others. He hated that Great and Mighty looked so embarrassed. “You know being invisible was a good thing. I just came from the killer, and he didn’t see me.”
Hazel, Gaelyn, Great and Mighty, and Cl’rnce all looked at each other.
“I’ve got this,” Cl’rnce said. “Bubbles, what killer?”
“Cook!” He pointed to Smush and the two boxes she had put on the table. “Cook wants to poison Cl’rnce.” His head bobbed, and his ears swept the stone floor. “He packed up special … what are they called?” He stopped for a minute because he’d forgotten what the cookies were called. “Oh, Trick or Treats. That's it. Very poisonous.”
“How do you know?” Cl’rnce asked, opening one of the boxes and smiling. He looked at Great and Mighty. Together they looked at Bubbles. “What do you think Trick or Treats are?”
“Poisonous food for Cl’rnce!” Bubbles and Smush said together. “Cook put them in the boxes to keep them separate from everybody else’s.”
Cl’rnce shook his head. “There will be lots of boxes. Trick or Treats are given out to everybody.”
"I knew it! He’s going to poison everybody!” Bubbles said.
“No. What makes you think they’re poisonous?” Great and Mighty asked.
“Easy. They weren’t left in the trays like at the other party. These treats have to age in the boxes, or they’ll be poison, like sun-willow weed.” Bubbles watched their faces.
Cl’rnce held up a paw, stopping Hazel who had just snorted, and not in a laughing way. “I’ll take care of this. Trick or Treats are not poisonous when they’re in a box. They don’t need to age. They’re in boxes, because each guest at the party is given a box, and they dole out the treats inside the box to the other guests.”
Bubbles and Smush looked at each other. “That doesn’t make sense,” Smush finally said.
Great and Mighty said, “Well the treats are actually traded for a trick or something else that would be like a treat, like a song. So say I come up to you at the party and say, ‘Trick or Treat?’ You decide whether you’re going to trick me or give me a treat, from your box, or whatever.”
"Not exactly,” Hazel butted in. “At the party you walk up to another guest and say, ‘Trick or Treat,’ and they have to decide if they will accept a treat or a trick.”
“No. That’s not right,” Gaelyn interrupted.
Bubbles and Smush looked at each other. “I think they’re saying that the boxes are not aging boxes, and the treats inside are not poisonous,” Smush said.
Bubbles shrugged. “I hope not. Because a really big trick would be if the treats were poisonous.”
Everybody stopped talking over each other and looked at the Barforami. This time they weren’t laughing or scoffing.
Hazel said. “I think we need to pay Cook a visit.”
The six took the regular hallways down to the kitchen—a first for the Barforami traveling through the school.
When they got to the kitchen, Hazel held up a paw to stop the rest. She approached Cook, who put down his knife, but held onto the piece of purple cord he had in the other paw.
“Cook, are the treats poisonous?” Hazel spat out.
Gaelyn and Great and Mighty groaned. Cl’rnce snickered. Bubbles and Smush watched closely.
Cook picked up the knife. “Get Out!” He threw the knife, missing everybody but slamming it deep in the doorframe. “Out!” he yelled again.
Hazel was the only one who did not run. Bubbles waited outside the door and watched. “My apologies, Cook,” said Hazel. “We had a misunderstanding. A vile rumor is going around that your beautiful foods have been poisoned.”
Cook snorted, the angry kind, and stuffed his muzzle with a treat from a box he had been about to tie up. He munched, then turned, and pointed to all the boxes. “Want to taste them all with me?”
“No.” Hazel shook her head.
“Yes!” Bubbles yelled. “The one you marked for Cl’rnce.”
Cook rolled his eyes. “Be my guest. He likes peanut butter, so I iced them …” Bubbles streaked over to the box, tore it open, and snatched a cookie with a slick brown icing. He held it out to Cook, who sighed and snapped up the cookie, swallowing it in one chew. “Satisfied?”
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Bubbles sat down. “I’ll just watch and make sure.” His apron folded on the floor as he sat.
“No. You won’t. Everybody else out. You, little Barforamous, what is your name? Never mind. You will help me prepare the Trick or Treats boxes. Sample as many as you like.” He spit fire at Cl’rnce who had sidled over to a tray of cookies. “You get out!”
At first Bubbles packed boxes and watched Cook pull things out of the hot oven. Then being a very curious Barforamous, he started asking questions. Normally his food was uncooked, so he was curious about this fancy cooking.
Cook gave him a sideways glance, snorted, and said, “How do you feel about getting dirty?”
Bubbles was startled into silence for the first time in five minutes. “Like mud from the river banks?”
“No. Like ingredients for making treats. I take it you and your friend will attend the party. Would you like to make special treats to give out?”
Bubbles looked at the stack of boxed treats and the empty platters. He sniffed the air. Everything smelled so good.
Cook sighed. “Trick or Treats? Do you want to make treats, or shall I play a trick on you?”
“Treats!” Bubbles said. “But how do I know you aren’t going to trick me into making poisonous treats?”
Cook laughed. “You are a suspicious one. I will taste the treats, of course.”
“Oh, yeah.” Bubbles nodded. “I like this cooking stuff. It smells much better than aged river weed.”
“Indeed. What flavor would you like your treats to be?”
“River weed,” Bubbles said at once.
“Pardon. I thought you said river weed didn’t taste good.” Cook cocked his head at Bubbles.
“Oh, yeah. If I did that, I’d be making Tricks, not treats.”
Cook chuckled. “You sound like Cl’rnce with his practical jokes.”
“I like that!”
Cook nodded. “Then I think I know a recipe. I can even show you how to ice them with …”
“Mud?” Bubbles asked.
“Why don’t we at least use something that smells good. Honey?” Cook opened a jar sitting at the end of the long table and waved Bubbles over to sniff it.
Bubbles and Smush_Trick or Treats Page 2