by Rob Harrell
“I know, I know. So we do something nobody can ignore . . . something epic . . .”
Kevin and Chester were just giving me a blank stare, waiting.
I leaned in and whispered to emphasize the incredible awesomeness of my idea.
And that’s when Kevin really did pass out.
Chester spoke up first. “Wait. We don’t even know if the king is alive.”
“Right! So that means we also don’t know that he’s NOT alive.” I’d been running this over in my tiny, overworked troll brain since we got out of the dungeon.
“It may be a long shot, but I think it’s our best chance of coming out on top. We take out a few Snuffweasels, save the Good King Cheznott and TA-DAH! John and I are back on top again, right?”
I looked over at John, but he was just staring off into the woods, deep in thought.
Kevin was slowly coming to. He sat up and put his head between his knees.
After a couple of minutes, he sat back. “Okay. I’m . . . I’m okay.” He turned to me with a heavy sigh, looking like he regretted what he was about to say. “Zarf, I wasn’t going to mention this before.”
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “It’s a notice from the castle. They’re up all over town.” He unfolded it and handed it to me, his hoof still shaking a bit.
“Fifteen hundred dollars???” I gasped, staring at the piece of paper. I felt the fur on the back of my neck stand up.
I was stunned. “Well, now we have to do this! It’s like it’s . . . destiny or something!! Who’s in??”
I looked at Kevin, then Chester—and they each avoided my eyes, looking at the ground, or just away into the woods.
I couldn’t believe it.
“Seriously, guys?” I looked to Kevin and Chester. They finally met my eyes, looking all sheepish.
Kevin spoke first, but in a timid little voice. “Look, Zarf. I’d do anything for you. You’re my best friend in the world. No offense, Chester.”
“But this . . .” Kevin went on. “We could die! Like, for real. And I wouldn’t know the first thing about fighting a Snuffweasel. I’d be ground pork in seconds.”
Then came Chester. I could tell he was embarrassed to admit his fears in front of his hero, John.
“I mean, I love a good battle and all . . . but this is serious stuff we’re talking about.”
We all sat there in silence for a while, listening to some tree gnomes singing a working song way off in the distance. Something about tiny hands making big progress.
Finally, it was John who broke the silence. “Zarf,” he croaked, his voice still sounding like chains being dragged over gravel. “I’d go with you in a heartbeat. But I can barely stand up, much less walk or run or fight.” Even as he spoke, he was doing curls with a couple of half-pound bags of mutton jerky (Kevin’s again), trying to get his strength up.
We all lowered our heads. I was picking sullenly at a blade of grass.
“But . . .” he said. And there was something in the way he said it that made us all lift our heads. “That doesn’t mean I couldn’t train you.”
I glanced over at Chester, who had a look of wonder on his face like a kid who was just told he could be quarterback in the next Dragon Bowl.
“Seriously?” he asked, and I could almost see his heart start to beat faster.
“Sure.” John pushed himself up a little taller against the tree. “And I could tell you guys how to get into my house so you could get my weapons.”
“Yeah??” Chester was starting to get to his feet, despite himself. Kevin was looking quickly from one of us to the other, unsure what was happening.
“Sure! Yeah!” John was getting excited too. “I could make you guys a fighting force to be feared in a couple of days!! Or, at least, you know . . . not sitting ducks. You can take me along in that wagon of yours in case I get some strength back.”
I was on my feet. “Yeah, of course! Go on.”
Chester was all in at this point. “Can I use a sword? I always wanted a sword!!”
”Absolutely!” John was getting into full Knoble Knight mode now, firing up his troops. There was a commanding growl in his voice that I hadn’t heard before. “And Kevin!”
Kevin jumped a little at the sound of his name.
“Kevin. Give me a couple of days and I’ll make you a warrior.”
“Kevin the Invincible!” Kevin was slowly coming to his feet now too. He was liking this. “Men will want to be you and women will want to date you.”
Kevin’s eyes grew at this. “Even . . . even Meredith, the cute girl who works the counter at the butcher shop??”
“Even Meredith, Kevin. Even Meredith.” John leaned his head back and looked across the three of us, surveying us like new recruits. “Give me two days, and I’ll make men of you three.” He said it with conviction. “Or, you know . . . as much as I can. More so than now, at any rate.”
Kevin was shaking a bit, but he looked from Chester to me to John and finally reared back and yelled.
Which was kind of weird, but okay . . . whatever.
· 23 ·
FORGED FROM STEEL . . . OR SOMETHING
If this were a movie, this is where I would drop in a montage of us training for the next couple of days. I’d put it to some inspiring song—maybe “Eye of the Tiger” or an inspirational rap song or something. I’d show us sneaking into the village at night like ninjas and coming away with a wagonload of John’s old cool weapons.
I’d cut it together with scenes of Chester learning the fine art of swordplay, and Kevin doing push-ups, and me running through a tire course and getting the hang of some wicked-looking nunchucks.
I’d show John trying valiantly to get to his feet, but collapsing back against the tree, frustrated.
Then, in that way they do in movies that makes everybody feel kind of weepy, I’d drop the music down real low and show me writing a note to my family on the back of the reward notice.
Then I’d show Kevin stopping by to see my parents and slipping the note into my mom’s pocket when he hugged her good-bye.
You’d see Kevin telling his folks that he was going to stay the weekend with Chester. And Chester telling his dad that he’d be camping for the weekend with Kevin.
Finally the music would taper off as you see the four of us sitting under the tree at sunset, eating and talking and loading our packs.
All of that would be really cool if this were a movie, but it isn’t, so let me get back to it . . .
“Okay, okay. One more.” Chester had been telling us a series of knock-knock jokes, each one worse than the one before.
“Knock, knock.”
We all obliged. “Who’s there?”
“Thumping.”
“Thumping who?
We all groaned, but I did see Kevin steal a quick look over his shoulder, just to be sure.
“Listen.” John’s smile slowly faded. “If we meet up with something big and hairy with fangs, like a Snuffweasel, you have to use your strengths. Repeat after me: Use Your Strengths.”
We all mumbled it back to him.
Kevin shoved some mutton jerky into his mouth. “What if your particular set of strengths are kind of stupid?”
John: “Nobody’s strengths are stupid.”
We all sat there for a few minutes while that sank in.
“Listen. I think you guys are ready,” John said, before sinking his teeth into a big flumpfruit.
“Well,” John spoke through a mouth full of flump. “I mean, ideally I’d have another couple of years to whip you into shape. But sure, two days is good too. I think we can do this. It makes me sick that I can’t help out more, but I’ll be there every step of the way.”
Just the day before, John had tried to show us that he could get up and around. He’d gotten shakily to his knees before he took a massive digger into the rocky ground. His face was all scraped up and he had two wadded-up tissues sticking out of his nostrils.
“You guys have shown real heart.” He looked off at the sunset for a minute. “This journey is deadly serious. We’ll have to face some of our fears. Like that awful Snarly Tangle and the horrible things that reside in there. But I feel it in my bones that we’ll do okay and make it all the way to the shores of the Sea of Tomorrow if we stick together. If I didn’t believe that, I’d say we shouldn’t go.”
The day before, John had drawn up a map of our journey.
In his solo travels, he said he had once stumbled upon what had to be the main lair of the Snuffweasels. Nestled in a hill on the shore of that famous sea.
John lowered his voice as he spoke, even though there was no one but us around. “I guarantee you most of the search parties will head for the Glimmer Mines. People seem to think those mines are Snuffweasel central. But I’m here to tell you they’re wrong.
“Now,” he went on, his rough voice cracking just a bit, “you all need to get some sleep, because you don’t want to enter the Tangle if you’re not fully alert. Trust me on that.”
We did.
So we slept. Or tried to.
· 24 ·
OUTTA THERE
The next morning, as the sun started to lighten up the sky, we loaded John into the wagon and headed off into the woods.
The problem became apparent almost immediately. Every time the wagon rolled over a tree root or a rock (and there were a lot of them), John would fall out. He just didn’t have the strength to hold himself upright. We tried it ten or twelve times, while John got more and more frustrated, before we tied him to the wagon. But even that didn’t work.
I pulled Kevin and Chester aside for a serious talk. Every once in a while, John would yell at us from his spot on the ground.
“I know what you’re talking about!!” He was getting really irritated, but couldn’t even sit up at this point. “You’re not going without me! I absolutely forbid it!”
Finally, we came back and told John our decision. He was furious as I carried him back to the Wishing Tree, thanking him all the way for everything he’d done to prepare us.
Eventually, he saw that our minds were made up, and he got all worried and parent-y.
“You guys . . . you have to be so careful. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something happened to you.”
We left him some poo-poo berry fritters, a bag of porridge biscuits, a flask of water, and a couple of camouflage blankets.
He shook each of our hands and asked us one more time to stay. But as we walked off, into the woods, he shouted to us.
We loaded our packs into the wagon and walked for a while in silence. I think Chester and I were just as nervous as Kevin for once. We were making our way through woods we had played in all of our lives, but they looked different now. Spookier. At one point, a tiny tree ferret jumped across our path, and Kevin jumped back so violently, he knocked the wagon over.
We spent a few minutes reloading our supplies while I grumpily explained to Kevin the subtle differences between an eight-inch tree ferret and a seven-foot Snuffweasel.
About an hour later, we came to a small wooden bridge over a fast-moving stream. Some overly dramatic explorer had dubbed it The Last Chance River, but I knew a stream when I saw one. This was as far from the kingdom as any of us had ever been, because just beyond the stream began the much more dense Snarly Tangle.
Kevin was visibly shaking. “We could still turn back, you know. I mean, I heard there are meat-eating trees in there. Seriously. And leech-bats and maniac gnomes and mosquitos the size of mid-sized sedans.”
We all stood staring into the trees for a moment. The way I saw it, this was our first real test.
I’ll admit, maybe my teeth were rattling together a bit. I closed my eyes and started taking big, deep breaths. I banged my balled-up paws against the side of my head a few times. Finally, I put my head down and trudged forward, pulling the wagon over the bridge.
“I’m . . . I’m going. You banana heads can come along or go on back.”
It took every ounce of strength in me to not look back and see if they were coming.
When I realized Kevin and Chester were once again walking alongside me through the trees, I felt a rush of relief so big, I almost barfed.
· 25 ·
THE SWEET LIFE
The woods were just as dark and scary as I’d expected, and rolling that wagon over all the tree roots was slow going. But on we slogged. At one point, Chester got his tunic snagged on a branch, and there were a few moments of ridiculous screeching and running around in circles.
I think we all thought Chester was a goner. Tree food, for sure. But it turned out it was just a branch
.
At times, we tried humming songs to pass the time, but then we would hear something off in the woods and we’d all get quiet.
A bit later, we stepped into a clearing to find a small house—but it wasn’t like any house I’d ever seen before. The entire thing—from the shutters to the walls to the bushes around the place to the quaint little chimney on top, was made of candy and sweets. I kid you not.
We just stood there for a moment, taking it in.
Finally, Chester cleared his throat. “Um . . . do you guys know what has two thumbs and likes to eat candy?”
Internally, I groaned. This joke was older than dirt, but I let him have his moment. “What?”
He reared back and yelled like a lunatic.
And then he was running toward the house, laughing at the top of his lungs.
Kevin took off behind him, in some sort of candy trance.
Do you ever get that feeling, like you should know something, but you just can’t remember it? Like when you’re trying to think of a word, and it’s right on the tip of your stupid tongue?
That’s how this felt. A candy house. Deep in the woods. Something seemed way too familiar about this set up.
Chester and Kevin turned around, looking annoyed. “What?”
“Nothing strikes you as weird about this? My spidey senses are tingling.”
Chester snagged the doorbell and popped it in his mouth.
“Zarf,” Chester said, like he was talking to a child, “it’s candy! Sweet, delicious, innocent candy!” He plucked a leaf of a gummy shrub and bit off a big chunk.
“Well we should at least see if somebody’s home before we eat too much.” I stepped up and knocked lightly on the chocolate door. It swung open with a slow creak.
I stepped into the small, darkened house. It was really just one room. There was an unmade bed in one corner and a beat-up old table in the middle. The rest of the room was made up of an impressive kitchen. In one corner there were two large ovens.
Again I had that nagging feeling.
I stepped outside to find Kevin and Chester still eating.
Kevin, being from a construction family, was rav
ing. “I’m really just blown away by the structural integrity. Those must be load-bearing candy canes. It’s very impressive.”
I pulled off a couple of decorative Tootsie Rolls and popped them in my mouth, but my heart wasn’t in it.
“Guys. Something is very wrong here, not to mention the fact that you’re destroying someone’s home.”
Kevin struggled to swallow a big chewy wad of taffy. “I’m the nervous one in our group and even I think you’re being kind of a drama queen.”
“Yeah. Yeah I guess you’re . . .”
And that’s when I saw a dark figure approaching through the trees. There
wasn’t much light in those woods, but it was just enough for me to pick out the unmistakable shape of a witch’s hat.
Suddenly all of the pieces started falling into place like a big game of Tetris inside my head.
I couldn’t get the words out fast enough. They came out all garbled up.
“It’s . . . TRAP!” I was yell-whispering at them, both as loudly and quietly as I could.
Kevin turned to see what I was looking at, annoyed at the distraction.
“What are you yammering about? You mean Hansel and Gretel?” Then his eyes suddenly widened. He jumped up and snorted, making him cough so hard, a big pink glob of taffy shot out of his nose like a rocket, nailing Chester in the ear.
We knew all too well the story of Hansel and Gretel. They were in college now, but their almost-becoming-witch-grub story had been made into a chilling After-School Special that still gave me the willies.
Complete chaos took over for a moment. Finally our feet caught up with our brains and we took off running for the woods behind the house.
* * *
I’ve always taken pride in my abilities at hide-and-seek. I once hid for an entire afternoon behind a small tree no wider than a piece of string cheese.