by Temre Beltz
Birdie’s stomach flip-flopped. Surely Francesca would conduct a head count and realize that in an obvious drawing of the Tragicals, one of them was missing. And of all the children who were included, not one of them had perfectly plaited braids and a smattering of equidistant freckles. Cricket had left Francesca out. But Cricket had only been trying to draw what she saw, and Francesca had made her choice long ago, hadn’t she?
Francesca’s face grew unusually pale. Quite roughly, she folded the paper back up. She folded it up even smaller than it had been before, as if she wished she could make it disappear entirely. When the click-clack of Mistress Octavia’s high-heeled boots could be heard just outside the Instruction Room door, Cricket cried, “Please! Please give it back to me!”
Francesca continued to stare at the folded-up piece of paper. As if she could still see what was inside. As if she might never be able to forget.
“Please!” Cricket said again. “It’s special to me!”
The doorknob to the Instruction Room twisted to the left. The children all scrambled back to their desks. When Mistress Octavia entered the room, the only one not where she was supposed to be was Francesca Prickleboo.
Mistress Octavia’s eyes flashed. “Excuse you,” she said to Francesca, and whipped her hand through the air in the direction of Francesca’s seat. Without making eye contact with any of the Tragicals, Francesca held her fist clenched around Cricket’s drawing and shuffled to her desk.
Mistress Octavia prowled back and forth at the front of the room.
Then, quite abruptly, she began to laugh.
It is never ever a good thing when someone like Mistress Octavia laughs. Especially because she appeared to be laughing at the Tragicals.
When she finally paused to collect herself, Birdie’s heart pounded. Mistress Octavia licked her lips and said, “We have a problem in this manor. A very, very serious problem. Would any one care to raise their hand and reveal what this problem is?” Mistress Octavia paused for less than a second before she began, “Frances—”
But she stopped.
Francesca wasn’t raising her hand. Francesca wasn’t even looking at Mistress Octavia, and Birdie wondered if Francesca had heard a single word Mistress Octavia said.
Mistress Octavia narrowed her eyes. She cleared her throat. “Anyone?” she repeated. But no one volunteered. “Well, then. Let me spell it out for you. You children don’t know how to tell the difference between real and make-believe! For example, rain that falls inside and spiders that climb out of books are not real! But . . .” Mistress Octavia paused. She strode near the back of the classroom, toward the far-off, gloomy area, and brought forth a squeaking contraption draped in a thick black sheet. “Today, children, I shall help you come to terms with the fact that nothing in Wanderly is more real than your doom. And so, instead of flipping to Booby Traps and Other Dangerous Weaponry in your readers, we shall have a demonstration.”
Mistress Octavia swept the thick black sheet away, and the children instinctively covered their eyes.
They peeked through the cracks between their fingers.
Situated at the front of the room was a spinning wheel. It was black and ominous-looking, but the worst part by far was the long, shiny needle. It glistened and gleamed and seemed to fill the quiet of the room with an eerie HISSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
“Can anyone tell me the origin of this lovely device I picked up while I was away from the manor?” Mistress Octavia asked, stroking the side of the machine as if it were one of her mangy wolves.
Though the spinning wheel seemed to have finally captured Francesca Prickleboo’s attention, she still did not bother to raise her hand.
Mistress Octavia puffed in annoyance before continuing, “This is a spinning wheel. It holds special significance for you because it was originally intended, perish the thought, to prick the finger of a Triumphant. But thanks to the loyalty of an Oath-signing Tragical who took it upon himself to be pricked first, the Triumphant’s life was spared. The Tragical, of course, fell into a deep and unwakeable sleep and eventually died. Now, this spinning wheel is not equipped with a sleeping potion.” Mistress Octavia paused again, and the children breathed a small sigh of relief. “Instead, it is equipped with an electric shock. A shock that will help prepare you for pain. A shock that will help ensure you embrace your Tragic End so that someone better doesn’t have to!”
Mistress Octavia rubbed her hands together. Her voice was low. “The steward at the Archive of Magical Objects informed me the shock is strong enough to give a rat a heart attack but not strong enough to lay up a child for more than three days. I promised you a demonstration, children, and I fully intend to keep my promises.” Mistress Octavia tossed her head back and bellowed, “SIR ICH-A-BOD!! SIR ICH-A-BOD!!”
A few moments later, Sir Ichabod trudged through the doorway. His face was a sickly shade of green. The tip of his bulbous nose gleamed with beads of perspiration. His heavy medallion thumped against his neck, and his hands trembled. Hands that cradled a cage made of pencils and black thread. Racing around inside the cage, with his silver pompadour splayed in distress, was none other than Sprinkles.
The cry bubbled right out of Cricket’s eight-year-old heart. A desperate cry. “Sprinkles!”
But Birdie couldn’t take her eyes away from Sir Ichabod. Hadn’t she and Cricket tried hard to keep him awake? Hadn’t he been remembering that he was a grown-up? How could he do this to them? The answer was simple, but nearly too much to bear: despite Sir Ichabod’s progress, he was still a Tragical. A cursed Tragical, nonetheless. And as long as Mistress Octavia was around, he could never be fully trusted.
“Sir Ichabod,” Mistress Octavia purred. “Come show the children what I discovered just this morning in your kitchen. Come show the children the unlucky rat who avoided his first tragical ending in exchange for one much, much more painful.”
“No! Please!” Cricket begged. “You mustn’t!”
Mistress Octavia whirled toward Cricket. “Shut your mouth, you miserable child! None of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for you and your ridiculous idea that you could keep a rat a secret. Now you shall learn once and for all that you are nothing. You will always have nothing. And you are destined for nothing!”
Birdie’s heart raced. For Cricket’s sake, for the sake of all the Tragicals who had found a way to hope in the life of a heroic rat, she had to find a way to stop Mistress Octavia!
Creeeak! Mistress Octavia opened the door of Sprinkles’s cage. She jabbed her fingernails inside and wrenched Sprinkles out by his tail. Both Sprinkles and Cricket screamed, and Birdie slammed her hands against her ears.
The room began to spin around her. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t feel. She felt like she was turning numb. She felt like she was becoming what Mistress Octavia said she was, what maybe she always had been.
Nothing. Mistress Octavia’s words echoed dully in her ears. Nothing . . .
And then Birdie remembered. Regardless of what Mistress Octavia believed to be true about Birdie and the rest of the Tragicals, there remained at least one person’s identity Mistress Octavia couldn’t argue with. One person who everyone in Wanderly would agree was someone. One person who might frighten even Mistress Octavia.
The words exploded from Birdie’s mouth like fireworks.
“I’m friends with a witch!” she said.
Boom!
At the word “friend,” Sir Ichabod’s drooping head snapped up. Mistress Octavia froze. She turned in an agonizingly slow circle while Sprinkles continued to lunge and wriggle and wrestle against her awful grip. “For a moment it almost sounded as if you said you’re friends with a . . . witch.”
Birdie gulped. She nodded. “It—it’s true. She’s the one who sent the rain and the spiders. And we never said any of it was make-believe; we called it what it is: magic.”
Mistress Octavia thrust her hands to her sides and shouted, “Magic is forbidden here!”
It was quiet for a moment. Even S
prinkles paused to catch a breath. And then Birdie whispered, “But just because you say so, doesn’t make it true, ma’am.”
“Her name,” Mistress Octavia said, sharp.
Birdie’s chest tightened. “W-what did you say?”
“Her name. If you’re such good friends with this witch, prove it! Otherwise, we shall proceed with our demonstration,” Mistress Octavia said.
“But why do you need her name?”
“Because witches are anything but friends to children, much less to Tragical children. Let’s just say I’m curious. I think others shall be curious too. But you must give it quick! Right now! Before I change my mind!” Mistress Octavia slipped her hand across Sprinkles’s neck like a noose.
The children’s feet shuffled against the ground. As if they were trying to run, as if they would give anything to run far, far away. Worst of all was Cricket. She held her hands clasped tight against her chest, begging Birdie to do as Mistress Octavia wished.
Birdie pressed her eyes shut. When she did, she saw herself in Cricket’s drawings. Standing tall; standing beside Cricket; looking more real than she had ever felt. Would she still be real if she did nothing?
HISSSSSSSSS, the spinning wheel whirred.
“Squeak!” Sprinkles screamed.
“Now,” Mistress Octavia commanded.
With tears rolling down her cheeks, Birdie whispered, “Agnes Prunella Crunch.”
“I can’t hear yoou,” Mistress Octavia taunted in a singsongy voice.
“Agnes Prunella Crunch,” Birdie said again softly.
“Say it loud or the rat dies!” Mistress Octavia said, thrusting Sprinkles’s neck near the gleaming needle.
Birdie shot up. Her chair fell behind her with a loud clatter. She shouted at the top of her lungs, “AGNES PRUNELLA CRUNCH!!”
Outside the manor, the Winds of Wanderly rose up. The Winds of Wanderly sprinted up the steep sides of Tragic Mountain and pounded the windows with such ferocity it sounded like the glass might shatter into a million pieces.
In much the way Birdie’s heart felt.
Everything, inside, broken.
And a faint beat rolling across the debris.
Worst. Friend. Ever.
And as Cricket opened up her trembling hands for the return of Sprinkles, as Sprinkles miraculously twitched and sank his bucky teeth into the fleshy part of Mistress Octavia’s hand so that she inadvertently tossed him to freedom, all Birdie could think about was what would become of Ms. Crunch.
Birdie was so lost in thought, she very nearly missed it when Mistress Octavia smacked her broken broomstick against Birdie’s desk and hissed in the cadence of the spinning wheel, “Now we shall see to your punishment for daring to engage with someone outside the manor!”
With her head hanging low, Birdie merely nodded. She didn’t know how it could get much worse. She didn’t think she could feel more tragical.
Unfortunately, she was very, very wrong.
Fifteen
Worse than Wild Hogs
Agnes Prunella Crunch slunk through the Dead Tree Forest for the third day in a row.
She had not managed to track down the Blue Dragon.
She had not located the missing jar of peanut butter.
She could not even lift her head to jot out a letter to the Bird-Girl.
But if she had, Agnes knew exactly what it would have said: Send Help!
Because of all the magicians Agnes had outsmarted, of all the witches she’d outcursed, of all the goblins and ogres and trolls she’d flummoxed, it turned out there was no greater opponent in all of Wanderly than a scrappy, one-eyed kitten.
Even naming the kitten had turned out to be an out-and-out battle, and Agnes was more than certain it wasn’t her fault. She had come up with a slew of perfectly ferocious names: Bruiser (her hands-down favorite), Spike, Fang, Tank, Bones, Dagger, and Spooky. The kitten had turned its nose up at each and every name, except of course for the final name Agnes had haphazardly tossed out on a whim, Spooky. Which would have been arguably okay, except for one little problem. The kitten only answered to the name Spooky when Agnes said it fast enough that her letters slurred together and it sounded like . . . like . . . Pooky.
And so that’s what Agnes was doing.
Agnes was calling her pet kitten Pooky. The last thread of dignity Agnes clung to was that if anyone ever asked how it was spelled (which, really, whoever would?), she would emphatically insist that it was spelled with a y instead of an ie because everybody knows the difference between “Pooky” and “Pookie” is the difference between possibly wicked and a total joke.44
Pooky trotted in front of Agnes like she owned the place. Of course, if Pooky hadn’t been up half the night gnawing on Agnes’s anklebones, Agnes might have been able to keep up with her. Agnes could have mounted her trusty broomstick and really smoked her, but you-know-who had entertained herself by pulling out every single one of the broomstick’s bristles and scattering them around Agnes’s haunted cabin like confetti!
Agnes fumed.
For a fleeting moment, she wondered if the Bird-Girl had done all this on purpose. But if the Bird-Girl knew getting a pet would drive Agnes bananas, why would she go to the trouble of sending her address? Why would she keep insisting on being BFFs? Why would she have said those words, those strange words: Because I like you, Ms. Crunch? 45
Agnes kicked a witchy toeful of dirt in Pooky’s direction. If it wasn’t for Pooky, Agnes would have made it to the Blue Dragon and probably be strutting around with a vial of laughter potion jingling in her pocket. But Pooky had an exhaustive list of needs. She demanded a warm place to sleep (her preference was Agnes’s squishy stomach); she insisted on fresh water (apparently pond scum wasn’t satisfying); she expected items to play with (another week with Pooky, and Agnes’s cabin would be in shambles); and she could not make it more than two hours without a snack (she deemed Agnes’s stockpile of worm jerky totally unacceptable).
And so there they were. The wicked witch and the tyrant kitten. Combing through the Dead Tree Forest in search of a few tasty morsels. Spying a rotting log, Agnes hobbled near and collapsed on top of it. She stretched her sore feet out in front of her. She rubbed at her drooping eyes, because when one is accustomed to living alone forever, there is no quantifying the added disturbance of simply hearing something else breathing and rustling and stirring unpredictably about. Agnes simply wasn’t made for such a life!
Pooky looked over her shoulder and blinked her one eye in Agnes’s direction.
“You go on ahead,” Agnes said. “I’ll catch up with you.”
Pooky bristled. She even managed to drum up a hissing spit. Then she looked to Agnes for approval.
It was a perfectly rotten display of behavior, to be sure, but Agnes hadn’t the energy to offer little more than a halfhearted grunt. Moreover, she was beginning to wonder if she would have been better off encouraging the kitten to have a few manners rather than be rotten like her. She was beginning to wonder if her haunted cabin only had room for one supremely rotten being.
After a moment of waiting, Pooky got bored and resumed the boastful little trot that comes easily to a creature—however puny—that is backed by a wicked witch. But Agnes wasn’t right behind Pooky anymore. In fact, Agnes wasn’t even slumped on the rotting log for a moment of respite. Agnes was sneaking away. Agnes was tiptoeing through the Dead Tree Forest with the full intention of being rid of Pooky, and everything getting back to normal.
Pooky trotted obliviously on. She turned past this tree trunk and that one. Her eye was closed in a merry display of pride, and she failed to see the two giant owls that had left their perch far behind and were tracking her. She crunch-crunch-crunched right atop the piles of dead leaves and drummed up such a racket that every foul creature in the Dead Tree Forest stirred. And drew near.
But it was the wild hog who found her first.
In Wanderly, wild hogs look nothing at all like the squishy, round, pink image that may come to
mind when you think of their well-known cousin, the pig. Instead, wild hogs were massive, hairy, long-tusked creatures that delighted in tossing their meals up into the air before crunching them into little bits. The wild hog took one look at Pooky and snorted in delight.
Despite Agnes’s gnawed-on ankles, she had picked up a fair amount of speed. She felt a teensy bit guilty she had left without saying goodbye, but the prospect of returning to her haunted cabin gloriously empty-handed and possibly even catching a snooze in her favorite rocking chair sounded delicious.
“MEOOOW!”
Agnes skidded to a halt. She bit her lip. That was Pooky all right, but was she merely pulling the same sort of stunt as the first time Agnes met her? Perhaps she always made such a sound when searching for a bit of attention, and just because someone throws a fit doesn’t mean they should get what they want.
Agnes pushed herself forward. Surely this was a lesson Pooky needed to learn. Independence was a good thing, and if she was going to grow into a respectable cat, she couldn’t be so impossibly needy. Agnes tried to recapture the image of sitting lazily in her rocking chair and warming her feet by the cauldron.
“MEOOOOOOOOWW!”
Agnes’s lip twitched. The terribly inconvenient thought crossed her mind that perhaps Pooky had stumbled onto a bit of real trouble? She really was nothing more than a mere slip of a thing . . . so small and scrawny . . . and with that one eye, maybe something had snuck up on her without her even knowing? With all the trouble Pooky had caused Agnes, she hardly had a duty to attempt something good like—ugh—help her, and maybe it would even make Agnes a total sucker—
“SNORT!”
Agnes thrust her nose into the air and took a deep sniff. Her small, stony heart began to thump. Wildly. That rancid scent could belong to one thing and one thing only: a wild hog! A wild hog that would tear Pooky to shreds!
Agnes forgot all about her ankles. She forgot all about how tired she was, how miserable she was, and maybe even how wicked she was. She ran through the Dead Tree Forest. She ran like she hadn’t run since she was a witch in her teenage years. She sailed over knobby roots and leaped over giant boulders as if they were skipping stones. With her chest heaving, she gulped in breath after breath of crisp air. It flooded inside; it stirred up all that was old; it blew through every crowded nook and cranny, and when Agnes exhaled, even the tree trunks shimmied and shook beneath the mighty gust.