A Pixie Called Pudding (Book 1)
Page 4
Chapter 4
After spending the entire day with his parents, Fidget had returned to his dormitory and immediately gone to bed. If he had known how fast Nemesis would act, he might have begun keeping an eye on her that very night. Then he would have noticed a cloaked figure sneaking out of the exclusive dormitory where she lives during the school months. Unfortunately for Fidget, he expected that even pixies with evil intent would wait for a more agreeable time of day to commit their unsavory acts, and so he had gone to sleep, leaving Nemesis free to act.
Weaving in and out of lonely lanes at a maddening rate, and being sure to stay out of the moonlight as much as possible, Nemesis made her way through Lumina, finally coming to a stop at a worn down shack of a house.
From underneath the cloak, a tiny hand came out and knocked on the front door softly. It was eventually opened by a tall brute of a pixie with long greasy black hair and deep black eyes. He looked puzzled until the figure in front of him reached up and lowered the hood that had concealed their face.
“Nemesis! Come in, quickly.”
As she entered the house, Nemesis gave its dinginess a disparaging look; disgust was evident in every feature of her face. The door was quickly closed behind her, leaving her standing in a small living room with a round table and two chairs. A light breeze was being carried into the house through an open window, causing the flame of a small candle on the table to dance back and forth, casting an eerie light throughout the room.
With a big yawn, the tall pixie offered Nemesis a dust covered chair. She looked at the dust, looked down at her cloak, and then once again stared at the thick layer of dust. Without saying a single word, she yanked the table cloth off the table, knocking several food crusted plates onto the ground with a crash. The candle went tumbling as well, plunging the room into darkness.
Muttering something under his breath about “rich” pixies, the large fellow bent down and picked up the candle. “Ignite,” he said, which instantly relit its flame. By its light, Nemesis bunched up the table cloth and set it over the dust layer, but upon seeing the food stains on the table cloth, she decided to just go ahead and stay standing.
“Nimrod, you do justice to your name, did you know that?”
Nimrod tried to understand her meaning, but was lost for words for a few moments. “Uh, sure. Hey, hey, I thought I told you not to come here. You … you could have been seen.”
“Believe me, I don’t want to be seen in this … area … anymore than you want me to be seen here, but we have to have a little chat. I thought I gave you clear instructions. What was that today?”
“You said to let a creature through the barrier. That’s what I did.”
“I told you to let it through the barrier after we got in the submarine. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? AFTER WE WERE IN THE STUPID SUBMARINE! If that thing had attacked us while we were in the invention of little miss smarty pants, the council would have deemed it dangerous, and then they would have had no choice but to confiscate ALL of her inventions. She would have been finished.”
“You could have died if it attacked while you were in the su … submaline.”
“Submarine, Nimrod, she calls it a submarine … pay attention, stupid.”
“Whatever, you still could have died.”
Nemesis eyed him suspiciously. His concern was unwarranted, and more than a little unwanted in her mind. “We would have teleported out in time. No one would have gotten hurt. Instead you let the creature pass through the barrier early, and they all nearly died fighting it. The invention can’t take the blame if no one is in it.”
Nemesis began pacing back and forth in the tiny little room. “Ugh, this place smells; don’t you know how to clean?”
“Feel free to leave anytime you like.”
“Oh, we aren’t finished yet,” said Nemesis threateningly. “You need to take care of the second one.”
“Second one? A second submal … a second invention?”
“That’s right, genius, she made two of them. She’ll be making it even stronger now that your little monster showed her where it’s weak. So, this time you’re going to have to let a couple of those creatures into pixie territory.”
“What? No, no, I’ll lose my job if another one gets by me. One can be written off as a mistake … two is just plain negligence. They would fire me.”
“So, get a new job.”
“I can’t, this is the only magical job that I’m rated to do. If I lost this job, I’d have to go get a normal one. You’ll have to con someone else this time.”
Nemesis changed her tone, hoping that something a little less threatening might turn the conversation more to her favor. “Pudding’s inventions will be the downfall of our society. If a pixie like you cares about things like that, you should be thanking me for “conning” you into helping me.”
“You’re just jealous that you can’t invent anything like the stuff she comes up with.”
“I ... bah … jealous … of her! What’s there to be jealous about?”
“She’s smarter, nicer, and a lot prettier than you.”
The words cut Nemesis deeply, as she herself had spent quite a long time thinking the very same things. Still, her own self-deluded pride wouldn’t allow her to admit to it. Instead, her anger level shot through the roof and she did the only things she knows how to do in situations like these; shriek and scream, very, very loudly. “HOW DARE YOU! She … ahhhh … have you seen the way she dresses … prettier … HOW DARE YOU!!! She wears blue jeans! BLUE JEANS! She’s a menace! A deviant! A … a … are you listening to what I’m saying?”
“Just go bother someone else, I’m not going to help you a second time.”
“You don’t get to decide … what are you doing? Get your dirty hands off of me … whaaa.…” Nemesis landed out in the street with a soft plunk and Nimrod’s door was immediately closed. She stood up and glared at it for a few moments, as though it would open simply because she desired it too.
It seemed for a moment that her wish would be fulfilled, as the door suddenly popped back open, but Nimrod had only done so to poke his head out into the street so he could have one last parting word, “Don’t ever touch my table cloth again.” He stepped back inside and slammed the door behind him.
With a last shudder of rage, Nemesis began to sneak back home.