This Isn't What It Looks Like-secret 4

by Pseudonymous Bosch

  “Please, can somebody escort this man out of here?” The Master of Arms was gesticulating in all directions. A handsome silver-haired man dressed as a Renaissance courtier, with a wide ruffled collar and black boots, walked up to him and whispered in his ear.

  “Begging your pardon, ladies and gentlemen, there may be a change of plan,” announced the Master of Arms after a moment, obviously very flustered. “The new entrant calls himself the Unknown Knight. I am told he represents the Queen’s cousin, Mary Queen of Scots.”

  As he said this, the Unknown Knight bowed toward a woman standing in a box opposite Mrs. Johnson’s. She was pale and beautiful and dressed in a sparkling white gown—much finer, it must be said, than Mrs. Johnson’s—that showed off her Barbie doll–thin waist. She tilted her head ever so slightly in acknowledgment.

  The Master of Arms turned toward Mrs. Johnson. “Your Majesty, this is highly irregular, but according to this gentleman, your cousin requests that we make an exception for her champion.”

  “Very well, the Unknown Knight shall joust with the winner of the previous contest,” declared Mrs. Johnson, playing along in as regal a fashion as she could muster. “It saddens us to say it, but we have just learned that Mary Queen of Scots has been plotting against us. She would take her own cousin’s life so that she might be Queen. This joust will settle our feud.”*

  As the courtier joined the woman identified as Mary Queen of Scots, the audience booed and hissed good-naturedly.

  “Down with the traitor from France!” “Long live the Queen!”

  Most of the audience seemed to assume this final joust had been preplanned, but the nervous face of the Master of Arms suggested otherwise.

  Max-Ernest frowned, watching. “Do they look familiar to you?”

  “Why? Who do you think they are?” asked Cass cautiously. She had recognized the courtier and Mary Queen of Scots right away, or thought she had, but she no longer trusted her own perceptions.

  “Ms. Mauvais and Dr. L—who else?”

  Cass nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. But why? What are they doing here?”

  “I know, it doesn’t make any sense. Who do you think the new knight is?”

  Cass looked down at the knight standing like a shadow in the sun. She felt a strangely familiar chill. “I don’t know…. Should we warn Yo-Yoji?”

  It was too late. The final joust was beginning.

  While Yo-Yoji and the Unknown Knight sat on their horses at opposite ends of the field, the Master of Arms explained the rules of the joust. “Five hundred years ago,” he said, “knights would continue fighting on foot once they were unhorsed in a duel to the death. Today, however, we will consider unhorsing your opponent to equal a win.”

  He addressed Mrs. Johnson once more. “Your Majesty, will you bless this field that these men may duel?”

  Mrs. Johnson nodded somberly and raised her hands in benediction.

  It was hot inside the armor. Yo-Yoji could hear himself breathing in his mask and could even, he thought, hear his heart beating beneath his breastplate. Sweat dripped into his eyes, but with one hand on his lance and the other hand holding his shield and at the same time the reins of his horse, there was no way to wipe his face. The tournament was taking far too long: he wanted a shower.

  He forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand.

  It was difficult to see or hear very much under his helmet; he had no idea who the new knight was or where the knight had come from, only that they were meant to joust with each other. Am I really supposed to unhorse him? Yo-Yoji wondered. What if his opponent got hurt? What if he, Yo-Yoji, got hurt? He’d been lucky the last time he landed on the ground. What if this time was different?

  The whistle blew.

  He wasn’t aware of urging his horse forward, only of the sound of pounding hooves below and the rush of wind on the sides of his helmet. In mere seconds he and the mystery knight were closing in on each other. But for Yo-Yoji, there was something surreal and slow-motion-like about the moment. He found his eyes drawn inexorably toward his opponent. At the very least, Yo-Yoji had been able to see the other knights’ eyes above their masks, but when he tried to catch a glimpse of the mystery knight’s eyes, he saw only shadow. He could see nothing of the knight, not even a sliver of neck or wrist. Only armor and chainmail.

  The crowd fell silent, everyone waiting breathlessly for the inevitable collision.

  In his brief reverie, Yo-Yoji had lost crucial time. His opponent’s lance was aiming straight for him; from Yo-Yoji’s perspective, it looked like an oncoming arrow. It was too late for him to try to land a blow. All he could do was try to protect himself. Just in time, he lurched to the side and raised his shield, deflecting the lance with a loud screech.

  The crowd cheered.

  Yo-Yoji shuddered. A delayed reaction to the near miss.

  As his horse headed automatically for the far side of the stadium, Yo-Yoji glanced down at his shield. The deep gouge in its gleaming surface confirmed what he’d seen. The mystery knight’s lance had been real. All the other lances, including his own, had little balls on their tips; his opponent’s had been needle-sharp. Only Yo-Yoji’s instinctive lurch to the side had saved him. An inch or two in one direction or another and he would have been impaled.

  Was it possible the other knight was intentionally trying to kill him? Or was the knight just so determined to win that he was indifferent to whether Yo-Yoji lived or died?

  Turning his horse around, Yo-Yoji noticed he was no longer sweltering hot. His sweat had turned clammy. His armor was now cold to the touch. This is what it is like to be afraid, he thought.

  He didn’t know what to do. Bow out? Cass and Max-Ernest would be disappointed, but they wouldn’t want him to risk getting killed, would they?

  Shivering, he looked over at the Master of Arms to see if he’d noticed anything awry, but the satin-clad man was raising his whistle to his lips, about to signal another round.

  Just then there was a shout from the royal box:

  “Halt! The joust must stop!”

  It was the school secretary, Opal, still in costume as Lady Fool. She pointed to Yo-Yoji. “I just recognized that boy. He is a student at our school and not allowed to participate in this tournament…. Yoji, dismount and remove your armor immediately!”

  There was chaos as the Master of Arms verified what the secretary was saying, then hurriedly declared the Unknown Knight the winner.

  When Cass and Max-Ernest caught up with Yo-Yoji, he was out of his armor and standing by the guardrail. The secretary gripped him by the arm as if he were a little boy likely to run off.

  “You’re right, that was totally against the rules for Yo-Yoji to be in this. Are you taking him to see the principal?” asked Max-Ernest hopefully.

  “I’m sure Mrs. Johnson will deal with him just as soon as she’s done with that knight,” said Opal, nodding.

  She nodded to the other side of the field, where the Unknown Knight, still unseen under his helmet, waited on his horse in the winner’s circle with the Master of Arms. Mrs. Johnson strode regally toward him, a blue ribbon in her hand.

  “Good, I mean, oh, that’s too bad,” said Cass. “You know, we knew Yo-Yoji entered the competition. But we didn’t say anything. So we should be in trouble, too.”

  The secretary raised her eyebrows. “Is that right?”

  “Sir Unknown, champion of Mary Queen of Scots,” said Mrs. Johnson, speaking into the Master of Arms’ bullhorn, “with this ribbon, we bestow upon you our royal favor—”

  She raised the ribbon in the air for the Unknown Knight. When his gauntlet-covered hand reached down, however, he didn’t take it; instead, he yanked the lodestone pendant off the neck of the unsuspecting principal.

  “Well, I never—!” she shrieked. “Are you crazy?!”

  Straightening himself once more on his horse, the knight laughed—a hollow, echoing laugh that sounded as if it came from the depths of his rusty old armor.

&nb
sp; “Go!” he shouted to his horse, spurring it forward.

  Mrs. Johnson screamed and pointed. “Thief! Thief! Stop him! That man took my necklace! Thief!”

  At the edge of the field, the knight unexpectedly reined his horse and looked back over his shoulder.

  The frantic Mrs. Johnson kept shouting. “Guards! Security! Somebody, do something! Arrest him!”

  Cass knew it was unlikely, but she felt certain the knight was looking at her. She thought again of the awful possibility that had occurred to her earlier. There was no way… or was there?

  Then, as the crowd watched aghast, the knight galloped out of the stadium with his right hand raised, dangling the lodestone like a prize.

  As soon as the Unknown Knight disappeared, Mrs. Johnson turned her ire on Ms. Mauvais and Dr. L—or Mary Queen of Scots and her courtier, as she knew them. They were sitting expressionlessly in their front-row box, watching events unfold.

  “You and you, I—I mean, we,” sputtered the furious Mrs. Johnson, still trying to maintain her character as Queen Elizabeth, “we don’t know what you think you’re getting at entering a maniac like that in this competition, but you’re not leaving until he returns with my necklace!”

  She pointed to the uniformed royal guards lined up in front of them. “Guards! Seize my… our traitor cousin and that awful courtier of hers this instant!”

  The guards didn’t move.

  Ms. Mauvais stood slowly, her dress glittering in the sunlight. Seemingly without trying, she looked ten times the queen Mrs. Johnson did.

  “Please spare us your theatrics, Your Majesty, or should I say, Madame Principal. A queen should not have to shout in order to be heard.” Indeed, although Ms. Mauvais’s voice was but an icy whisper, it could be heard all across the stadium, as if it were being carried by a cold breeze.

  She gestured to Dr. L, who stood and bowed. “I’m afraid my courtier and I must refuse your invitation. We have pressing business to attend to—a kingdom to build, you might say—and we simply cannot be detained…. And now I have a message for a certain extremely meddlesome little girl here today….”

  Ms. Mauvais looked directly at Cass. “Darling, it’s over. You and that ragtag bunch of circus freaks have lost. We hope never to see you and your friends again, but rest assured, if we do, it will be for the last time. It’s no longer just us mere mortals you will have to contend with. Our master has returned and he will not be stopped…. Guards—”

  Ms. Mauvais snapped her white-gloved fingers at the guards who had ignored Mrs. Johnson only moments earlier. They immediately stood at attention and saluted.

  Cass, Max-Ernest, and Yo-Yoji gasped involuntarily. All the guards were wearing white gloves.

  “Friends—” Ms. Mauvais snapped her fingers again.

  Suddenly, the entire crowd of people behind her stood up—and revealed that they, too, were all wearing white gloves. They raised their hands in unison and made a single sweeping gesture. Then, in silence, they descended onto the field and filed out the gates behind Ms. Mauvais and Dr. L.

  Our three heroes stared after them. It was like watching a flock of seagulls rise from the beach and disappear into the horizon. Only in this case the seagulls might better be described as birds of prey.

  A moment later, they were standing in the winner’s circle with a tearful Mrs. Johnson.

  “I don’t know who that lady thinks she is! Is everybody out of their minds?”

  She pointed at Yo-Yoji, who looked more than a bit rattled by his brush with the Unknown Knight. Not to mention the sight of all those white gloves.

  “You, it’s all your fault! If you hadn’t entered the contest, he wouldn’t have been able to steal my necklace.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” said Max-Ernest, unable to stop himself. “The Unknown Knight would still probably have won, he would have just won against someone el—”

  “And now you again!? I shouldn’t have let any of you back into school after that last episode with the Tuning Fork. This time, you’re all expelled. Forever!”

  Mrs. Johnson threw off her tiara. No longer a queen, she was their principal once more. Or ex-principal.

  “Actually, I think that’s redundant,” said Max-Ernest. “Expulsion is always forever. That’s what it means. Otherwise, it’s—”

  “Not another word out of you, young man!” snapped Mrs. Johnson.

  “Otherwise, it’s suspension,” he concluded. “Er, sorry.”

  “Now, now, these kids don’t mean any harm,” said Opal soothingly. “If they retrieve your necklace for you, will that be enough to get them back in your good graces?”

  “And just how are they going to do that?” Mrs. Johnson scoffed.

  “Never mind about that. Just tell me you won’t expel them.”

  “Oh please. Right now that necklace is halfway to Mexico. Or wherever it is medieval knights go to pawn jewelry these days. There’s no way those three are going to find it.”

  “Not medieval, it’s Renaiss—,” Max-Ernest began, but Cass silenced him with a look.

  “Don’t underestimate them,” continued Opal. “Didn’t you say they managed to get something from you before? What was it? A tuning fork?”

  “True. There’s no doubt they have a talent for thievery….”

  As the kids listened in disbelief, the secretary somehow persuaded their principal to let them have twenty-four hours to find the necklace. After that, the principal would call the police about the necklace—and their parents about expelling them.

  * * *

  Minutes later, Opal ushered them into the stables. The still-shell-shocked Yo-Yoji flung himself down on a bale of hay.

  “Why are you helping us?” asked Cass.

  “Just doing my job,” said Opal with the hint of a smile. “Aren’t secretaries supposed to be helpful?”

  “I was wrong about you,” said Max-Ernest. “I thought, well, I didn’t trust you.”

  Opal laughed, incredulous. “Oh really? After I gave you that mirror? And the monocle?”

  “You gave them to me?”

  “Well, left them for you. Same difference. You didn’t really think I would be so careless with my things, did you?”

  “Oh, no, I guess not,” said Max-Ernest, turning red because he had assumed exactly that.

  Opal grinned. “And what about the KICK ME note? A nice touch, I thought.”

  “What KICK ME note?” asked Yo-Yoji.

  “I knew you wrote that!” said Max-Ernest, ignoring Yo-Yoji. (For some reason he was still reluctant to admit he’d walked around with a sign on his back that said KICK ME.)

  “Well, I didn’t write the message on the other side,” Opal corrected. “That was from Pietro.”

  Cass stared at him. “You know Pietro?”

  Chuckling, the secretary sat down on a stool and pulled off her rather large silver platform shoes. “You guys really don’t know who I am, do you?”

  “You mean you’re not Opal… like the rock?” asked Max-Ernest.

  “Nope, not any kind of opal.” She took off her trademark opal ring and tossed it over her shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, it was plastic,” she said, seeing the shocked expressions around her.

  She peeled away each of her absurdly long fingernails in rapid succession, revealing the bare, unpainted, and very short nails underneath. Then she reached up, gripped her blond hair in her hand, and yanked off what turned out to be a very big wig. Underneath, her hair was brown and short-cropped.

  “Here—why don’t you keep this?” she said, tossing the wig in the direction of Max-Ernest. “You never know when you’re going to need a quick disguise.”

  Finally, the secretary started wiping makeup off her face with a tissue. The shadow of a beard began to show.

  Cass smiled for perhaps the first time all day. “Owen!”

  “No kidding. Took you long enough,” said the Terces Society’s resident spy and master of disguise, now speaking in a deeper voice without any trac
e of a New York accent. “Pietro had me visit your school to find out what I could from Mrs. Johnson. We knew the Midnight Sun was watching her, but we thought it was about the Tuning Fork. We didn’t think it was about a magnetic rock…. Well, don’t just stand there, help me. My other stuff’s over there—” He pointed to a small army duffel on the floor that looked about as different from Opal’s patent leather purse as a bag possibly could.

  Cass handed it to him and he dumped the contents unceremoniously on the ground: jeans, T-shirt, tennis shoes, and a pair of sunglasses.

  A moment later, Owen came out of a horse’s stall dressed as himself—something the kids had seen only once or twice before. (Although no longer a working actor, he was almost always dressed as someone else, whether that was a cowboy in a ten-gallon hat or a secretary in a ten-gallon wig.)

  “Speaking of disguises, you guys have any guesses about who that spook was in the armor? The Unknown Knight? Anybody get a look at his face?”

  They all shook their heads.

  “Even you, Yo-Yoji? You were pretty close,” Owen observed.

  “I couldn’t even see the dude’s eyes. Just, like, shadow. His mask was pretty big.”

  “It wasn’t ’cause of the mask,” said Cass, finally fessing up to what she’d been fearing. “It was ’cause he’s invisible.”

  Haltingly, she told them about her encounter with Lord Pharaoh—and about how she had been forced to give him the last remaining bit of Time Travel Chocolate. “I didn’t think it would be enough to work, but it must have been,” she said, stricken. “When I heard about Pietro’s warning, I started to worry. Now I’m sure of it.”

  “How can you be sure of it?” asked Max-Ernest. “I mean, the average person would consider the whole story pretty unlikely.”

  “I just am. Did you see the way he looked at me? It was like we were communicating or something. Plus, Ms. Mauvais said her master has returned. Who else would that be?”

  “From what I hear from Pietro, I think Cass is probably right,” said Owen.