The Tragical Tale of Birdie Bloom

by Temre Beltz

  Inside of her own cell, Birdie swallowed. Hard. Surely this was as good a time as a Tragical was going to get. “Why did . . . How did . . . Why would . . .”

  Ugh. So much for hello.

  Cricket brushed a few messy tendrils of hair away from her face. In a soft whisper, she said, “I thought you might be a villain.”

  “But you saw Sir Ichabod put me in here!” Birdie said, trying not to feel terribly insulted. “How could it have been anyone else but me?”

  “We’re in a dungeon,” Cricket said, looking around warily. “Maybe a wicked witch crept through one of those windows. Or maybe you turned like those werewolves that live in Beastly Valley.”18 Cricket paused and leaned forward ever so slightly. “Why are you trying to break into my cell anyways?”

  Birdie’s heart thumped. Things had gotten off to an unsettling start, but that was okay. That was to be expected. They were Tragicals. But here, now seemed an opportunity to explain to Cricket that she wasn’t breaking in but rather—

  “Do you hear something?” Cricket said, pulling her knees more tightly to her chest.

  With so many critters skittering around in the darkness, Birdie could hear lots of somethings. But Cricket was right. There was one something that stood out above the rest. One something that sounded important.

  And it was.

  Whoosh!

  The Winds of Wanderly gusted up the side of Tragic Mountain.

  Swish!

  The Winds of Wanderly hopscotched along the dungeon’s brick walls, swirling closer and closer to the iron-barred windows, thrumming with excitement, because of all the many nooks and corners and crevices of the manor, the dungeon and its open-air windows were the only places where the Winds could tumble and blow freely about. Where they could stir up the inch-thick layers of dust, and spin it like gold; where they could transform even a dungeon into a place of wonder.19

  Alas, this proved entirely too much for Cricket. She gasped. She rolled up into a little ball so tight Birdie could scarcely tell where Cricket’s head began and her feet ended.

  Birdie cleared her throat. Here was something remarkable. A second chance to talk to Cricket! But what was she supposed to say? With a great deal of effort, she finally settled on the obvious.

  “Um, it’s the, uh, Winds of Wanderly,” she said.

  At which Cricket burst into a round of loud, wailing tears. “The Winds will destroy us! Our Tragic End has arrived! Oh, I didn’t want to die today!”

  Because of course that was the sort of thing Mistress Octavia planted in the Tragicals’ heads. To be fair, the Winds of Wanderly didn’t exactly make Mistress Octavia’s job difficult. When the Winds rattled the children’s dormitory windows as if they were dry bones and tap-danced upon the roof shingles, they hardly behaved like normal winds. And whenever something wasn’t ordinary, the Tragicals couldn’t help but think of magic. Magic come to get them. Magic come to hurt them. Just as they always feared.

  In the midst of such distress, Mistress Octavia had never missed an opportunity to bend near and hiss, “The Winds of Wanderly want to have their way with you. Listen to them! If I didn’t keep the doors and windows locked tight, they would tear you apart, limb from limb!” Mistress Octavia typically delighted in telling the Tragicals all about the nefarious citizens in Wanderly, eager to provide the children’s Tragic Ends, but it was different with the Winds of Wanderly. With the Winds of Wanderly, Mistress Octavia almost sounded . . . worried. And so, on those nights when Birdie was feeling especially illogical, she liked to imagine the Winds of Wanderly weren’t at all angry with the Tragicals, but with Mistress Octavia.

  What if the Winds of Wanderly were on the Tragicals’ side?

  It was a delicious thought! An absurd thought! A thought that would have landed Birdie in a heap and a half of trouble. But nevertheless the sort of thought that was hard to let go of. And so, without at all intending to, Birdie had grown fond of the Winds. She had grown to look forward to their regular visits. And if anyone were to ask (which they never did), she would have staunchly defended this curious affection with the sole fact that of all the people in Wanderly who had forgotten the Tragicals, the Winds hadn’t. When no one else bothered to visit them, the Winds did. And though it should seem a small matter, to simply be remembered felt nothing short of tremendous.

  Birdie intended to explain as much to Cricket but was stopped by a sudden and annoying buzzzzzzzzz.

  Birdie sighed. She wondered if she would ever get a decent go at a conversation with Cricket, but the situation grew altogether more incredible when Cricket popped her head up, opened her eyes two whole times bigger than their original circumferences, and began to jab her finger wildly at the air behind Birdie.

  Uh-oh.

  Birdie whirled around.

  Her stomach flip-flopped.

  Banging against the open iron-barred window of Birdie’s cell was an egregiously hairy, excessively large, black hornet! A hornet with a stinger the size of Birdie’s pinkie finger! The hornet’s one redeeming quality was its plumpness, but alas, it was just determined enough to push, press, and slide its way through the bars of Birdie’s window until it popped finally into her cell.

  Birdie screamed.

  Cricket whimpered.

  The hornet buzzzzed.

  Thus began a chase so ridiculous that if Birdie’s life hadn’t been at stake, she might have found it quite funny. There are only so many places to run in an itty-bitty-size cell. The faster Birdie ran, the more she simply spun about in circles such that if she were to turn her head, the hornet always seemed to be right there.

  Birdie was hardly used to such rigorous activity. Mistress Octavia preferred to keep the children in a weakened state, and Birdie simply hadn’t the endurance to continue. Fortunately for her, the hornet seemed to be tiring as well. It took a break from chasing after Birdie and drew to a halt in front of her nose.

  The hornet waited for Birdie’s full attention and then wriggled its furry eyebrows at her. It defiantly placed a pair of arms (legs?) on its hips and blew a fine dusting of spittle that landed on Birdie’s nose. Yuck! Birdie was certain it was the rudest hornet she would ever meet until she realized most hornets weren’t known to have eyebrows, hips, or anything as sophisticated as manners.

  And Birdie was more afraid than ever before. If the hornet wasn’t an ordinary hornet, might it possibly have something to do with magic?

  The short answer to that question was yes, but the hornet didn’t leave Birdie much time to think about it. Instead, it revved up its wings to full throttle, sped to the top of the ceiling for a bit of momentum, and descended upon Birdie at full speed, stinger plunging straight through the fabric of her gown and into her heart.

  The End.

  Wasn’t that awful?

  That’s precisely what would have happened in a normal Tragical story. In a normal Tragical story, the hornet’s venom would have coursed relentlessly through Birdie’s small body until her eyelids fluttered shut, and she breathed her last. Mistress Octavia would have thrown a party, the Chancellor would have bowed his head (however smugly), and the hearts of the Tragicals who still lived in the manor would shrink just a bit smaller, because the end really was as terrible as they had been taught.

  But as I said, this isn’t a normal Tragical story. And not a single one of those dreadful things happened to Birdie. To the contrary, the hornet exploded! Ha-ha!

  Fortunately, the hornet did not explode in a terribly messy and unpleasant way, but into a neat little pile of ash not unlike the sort found in the bottom of one’s fireplace. It didn’t, however, stay that way for long—magic is nothing if not efficient. It lifted up, stirred up, and whipped itself into, of all things, a letter.

  Birdie could scarcely believe it. For it is one thing to think one’s Tragic End has arrived sooner than expected; it is quite another thing to contemplate that one has somehow, miraculously, avoided that end; but it is even another thing to confront one’s end, escape it, and be offere
d a gift. No one ever gave the Tragicals anything. Especially not something as personal as a letter. This was hardly the fearsome result Birdie had always expected to result from magic.

  Birdie brought the letter near. She cleared her throat and prepared to read it aloud when Cricket burst out, “Stop! Tragicals aren’t allowed to receive letters!”

  “But this isn’t an ordinary letter. It—it flew in as a hornet. This letter . . .” Birdie paused. She took a deep breath. “This is a magical letter.”

  Cricket gasped. “Doesn’t that make it a whole lot worse?”

  Feeling the weight of such inconvenient things as Mistress Octavia’s rules, Birdie thought back to that morning’s inspection and Cricket’s paper-exploding pockets. If Cricket were so afraid of rules, why did she risk breaking that one? What were those paper scraps really for? Was Cricket harboring a secret as wonderful as Birdie’s book? Did they maybe have something in common?

  Birdie leaned closer to Cricket. “Were you really keeping all that paper in your pockets to make a ball?”

  “Those scraps were nothing like your letter,” Cricket said with her cheeks flushed pink. “Hiding paper got me in trouble, but if you handle m-m-magic, you might get your Tragic End.”

  Birdie’s heart thumped. “And you would care about that? About my Tragic End happening, I mean?”

  The dungeon grew very, very quiet. Wasn’t it true—hadn’t it been written20—that no one could care for a Tragical? Wasn’t such a proposition impossible?

  “I dunno,” Cricket whispered. And she looked utterly confused.

  “Well,” Birdie said, straightening up. “I don’t think we need to worry about that anyways. If this letter wanted to do away with me, I’m pretty sure it would have done so while it was shaped like a giant hornet.” And, without further ado, Birdie bent her head and read aloud:

  Hello! Have you finished The Book? NOW WHAT?

  Ms. Crunch

  Cricket frowned. “Is that it?” she asked.

  Birdie gulped, because that was it if you were only reading the words. It wasn’t it if you took into account the penmanship that was unmistakably stabby. Or the color of the ink that was a dead ringer for blood-red.

  Cricket didn’t wait for Birdie to answer. “Guess we should have seen it coming,” she said, and sat back from the hole in the wall with her shoulders slumped.

  Birdie blinked at her. “You thought someday a magical letter would arrive dressed up as a hornet?”

  “No. Only that if it did, it would be an accident. There’s no way that letter was meant for any of us. We don’t read books. We hate books. Why would we ever want to talk about one?”

  Yesterday that would have been entirely true, but that morning, Birdie had found a book she didn’t hate. A book she had risked a great deal to protect. A book that seemed worthy of being referred to in capital letters as “The Book,” simply because there was nothing else like it! What if whoever sent the letter had the same book as Birdie? What if, like her, they wanted to know about friendship? For truly, wasn’t the timing astonishing and hadn’t Birdie experienced the precise same reaction upon discovering the book, upon learning about friendship: “Now what?”

  Perhaps the letter was the answer she was looking for. Perhaps whoever wrote the letter would become Birdie’s friend.

  But Cricket didn’t know a single thing about Birdie’s book or friendship. She wouldn’t, unless Birdie found the courage to tell her. Birdie swallowed hard. She reached beneath the folds of her gown and pulled forth her book. It was warm from being held so close, and beneath her fingertips it felt as if the words were vibrating against the cover, as if the words themselves had wings and wanted to escape. To be set free.

  Friendship, the book whispered.

  Birdie didn’t know if Cricket heard, but Cricket did bend down to peer once again through the hole in the wall. Her jaw gaped. “Why in the world would you be hiding that?” she asked.

  “Because it’s special,” Birdie said. But her voice sounded very small. Books had always been her enemy. It was quite a difficult thing to overcome years and years and years of awfulness. And judging by the glazed look in Cricket’s eyes, Birdie might as well have been talking in another language.

  Cricket reached down and wrapped her fingers around the loose brick. She prepared to fit it back into the hole, upon which her conversation with Birdie would come to an end.

  “Wait!” Birdie cried. “This book is about friendship—”

  “What’s friendship?” Cricket said, wrinkling her nose at the unfamiliar word.

  “It’s—it’s—” But Birdie didn’t really know yet. She hadn’t finished the book, nor had she ever had a friend of her own. Still, maybe there was something better than an explanation. Maybe she could show Cricket. Maybe Birdie didn’t have to wait to find a friend before she could be one. Maybe she could start right now.

  Birdie threw open the front cover of her book. She riffled across the pages until she came to the back. The place where the book was unfinished. With a determined tilt of her jaw, she placed her left hand along the spine of the book and grasped the corner of a blank page in her right hand. With a groundbreaking riiiiiip, Birdie tore the page loose.

  She froze and waited a moment with one eye shut to see if the ceiling might topple upon her head. But save for Cricket’s horrified gasp, the spiders kept on spinning and the rats kept on scurrying. Birdie slipped toward Cricket’s cell. She passed the paper through the hole and into Cricket’s hands.

  “Maybe this will help with your ball,” Birdie said.

  Cricket’s hands trembled. “But what if it wasn’t r-really for a ball?” she whispered. And then, before Birdie could answer, Cricket peeked in the direction of the book and added, “I’ve never seen a book so full of blank pages. What could be the use of such a thing?”

  “Maybe some books are meant for more than just reading.”

  With a small and unpracticed smile, Cricket nodded. And though she still replaced the brick in the hole, she added, “Be careful with that letter”—almost like she meant it.

  Birdie was certain it was a start, but she couldn’t think on it too long, because for once, she had something to do. She had a magical letter to respond to. A magical letter delivered by none other than the Winds of Wanderly! Though Birdie would have preferred to know a bit more than just the sender’s name (especially a name as, ahem, mysterious as Ms. Crunch), you and I both know it was much better that she didn’t. For even a child as hopeful as Birdie mightn’t have had the courage to write back to a wicked witch. In much the same way you may have a difficult time turning the page to see how Agnes reacts to such a shocking turn of events.

  Four

  The Worst Mail Day

  Agnes Prunella Crunch licked the last of the wriggling centipede legs off her knobby knuckles, then gulped from a jug of pumpkin juice and sat back in her spiderweb-encrusted rocking chair.

  Two days had passed since her birthday, and for the most part, the morning had been acceptably rotten.

  She had risen early and set off on her broomstick. She had managed to scare not one but three wide-eyed fairy godmothers on their way to Fatimah’s Flight Academy (No Witches Allowed);21 she had plundered a squirrel family’s entire winter cache of nuts; and she had happened upon a fallen tree log full of fungus and creepy-crawlies, which was the source of her scrumptious breakfast.

  But there was also the matter of The Invitation.

  The Invitation had crept beneath the door in the dead of night. It had tiptoed across the room and tapped Agnes on the shoulder. And when Agnes bolted upright, she had thought for certain it was a response to the letter that had been swept away by the Winds of Wanderly on her birthday.

  But Agnes knew otherwise when seventy-six familiar witch cackles tumbled out and chased her all around the cabin, shouting insults and making raspberry noises. It had taken Agnes a full five minutes of whacking and shooing with the fiery tip of her broomstick before the blasted things got bor
ed and skipped out through a crack in the window. The Invitation smelled as awful as it ever had—a combination of dirty socks and fish bones—but even that wasn’t enough to make Agnes want to open it because she already knew what was inside.

  She had, after all, received—and destroyed—the same exact invitation for the past thirty-odd years.

  Agnes drummed her fingers against her squishy belly. She creaked back and forth in her rocking chair. As she suspected, the stony morning light hadn’t done a single thing to improve The Invitation. It was as aggravating as ever. Still, she begrudgingly read aloud:

  COME ONE, COME ALL TO THE ANNUAL WITCHES’ BALL!

  Have a plumb rotten time humiliating your foes and enemies!

  Lick your grimy fingers over a full buffet of scorpion tails, tossed poison ivy, and fried daddy longlegs!

  Make everyone sniff your witchy boots when you take top prize in the Witches’ Challenge!

  The curses begin October 4 at You Know Where.22

  EVERYONE MUST PARTICIPATE OR ELSE!*

  (*NOTE: This is NOT a Trick. This is NOT a Forgery. This Invitation has simply been spell-checked by the Council. Otherwise, it is an entirely authentic witchy document.)

  Spell-checked? Bah! Though properly spelled words were usually appreciated by Agnes, the Chancellor and his Council’s increased meddling were not. Since when did they peruse witchy documents?

  One by one, Agnes cracked her knuckles. She despised social gatherings. In her opinion, such activities as synchronized cackling, glaring contests, and spending an entire night racking one’s brain for the perfect insult was, in short, a bunch of hooey.

  She also loathed when someone told her she had to do something. Truly, it was almost as if she had a reflex that made her do the opposite. This extended as far back as her mother’s reasonable command of “Agnes, put some pants on, for goblin’s sake!” when a four-year-old Agnes eschewed pants for an entire chilly month, up until a mere week ago, when Agnes saw a sign posted in the Dead Tree Forest that said (in an uppity tone, no doubt): “Stay ON the Path for the Protection of the Budding Botanical Life. There Will Be Consequences.” “Consequences”? For Agnes? Ha-ha! She had rescheduled her entire afternoon solely for the purpose of trouncing all about the foliage. As predicted, she had suffered not even a tongue-lashing or finger-wagging, though there had been an abundance of pollen that had taken residence atop her clothes, and in her scraggly purple hair, and left her sneezing for days.