by Laurence Yep
There was no time to worry about the neighbors seeing my true form. I had to become a dragon to protect Winnie, so I moved my hands and muttered the spell.
When the golden haze began to dissipate, I got ready to knock the kobolds into the street, but with a grin, the lamia flung a long strip of yellow paper at me.
“Nighty night,” she called.
The paper flew straight as an arrow, and I glimpsed the enchanted symbols written in bright red ink that told me it was a magical charm. I started to duck but too late.
The paper flattened tight against my shoulder, and I heard Winnie shout, “Miss Drake!”
And then the world went black.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Above all, be careful what you wish for.
Winnie
Sss. Sss. Sss…I heard a sound like a file on an old, rusty nail.
“Wake up!” a harsh voice said.
The cement floor was cold, and the dusty air smelled like old rotting magazines. The last thing I remembered was Miss Drake falling on the sidewalk and the mongoose leaving me. Then Rowan shouted that we had to get the charm off.
We both tried to rip the charm away at the same time, but blue light crackled and twisted like snakes around our hands. That was the last thing I remembered.
I was laying on my side now. My hip hurt where it pressed against the concrete, and my shoulders ached from having my arms pulled behind me. There was something tight around my wrists and also around my ankles, so I figured that I must have been tied up. I couldn’t see my ring, but I’m sure it was still flashing red—flashing with the beating of my racing heart.
My toes felt cold, which made me realize I didn’t have my shoes on anymore.
When I raised my eyelids, I saw the cabby. She’d changed from her sweatshirt into a pullover blouse with purple sequins. From the waist down, she was a serpent with violet scales that matched her blouse.
Behind her, next to a very tall candelabra with six candles, my shoes were lying in tatters, so she must have been searching for something hidden inside or in the heel. Rowan’s pair must have been the black ones, also torn up, that lay a foot beyond mine.
“The wormy said she had solved the theft,” the lamia said. “So you must know about the whistle. What happened to it? Where is it?”
About twenty feet away, I saw a large circle of light made by a ring of more candelabra shining on Miss Drake’s scales. The yellow strip of paper on her shoulder gleamed against her scales.
She was lying so still. Was she dead? I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw her chest rise. She was still breathing but slowly, like she was in a deep sleep.
Five kobolds were poking and prodding her. I wanted to shout at them to stop it because I knew how much she would have hated that.
“Anssswer me!” the lamia hissed, sounding annoyed now. “Where isss the whissstle?”
The ivory whistle had been in my blouse pocket, but I couldn’t feel it anymore. And there was no sign of Nanu Nakula either. Maybe when he saw Miss Drake being kidnapped, he’d taken the whistle and hid.
But I played dumb. “What whistle?”
I tensed when she raised a hand to slap me, but Rowan said, “Don’t you dare hit her!”
With a snarl, the lamia jerked her head at Rowan. “You’re my prisssonersss. I want the whissstle.”
Rowan didn’t have to pretend to be ignorant. “I don’t know anything about a whistle.”
A cell phone buzzed, and the lamia answered it, her voice calm and controlled again. “Yes, we’ve searched them.” I assume she was speaking to Lady Luminita, who was probably at the meeting so no one would suspect she was behind the kidnapping. But she must have slipped outside to check on her servants’ progress. The lamia’s voice grew exasperated. “None of them has the whistle. And the brats claim they know nothing. They look pretty stupid, so they probably don’t.”
I didn’t like the way the lamia grinned. “With pleasure, master,” she said, and put her phone away before she clicked her fingers at a kobold guarding a heavy wooden door. “Bring me the magical charms.”
The kobold opened the doors and disappeared into the shadows while the lamia slithered toward Miss Drake. Her dry scales rippled over the floor, and I heard again: Sss. Sss. Sss.
I looked around the windowless rock walls. The stones looked old and dirty, and there were patches of green stuff growing on the mortar. Then I heard the faint sound of rushing water like a toilet had broken. “Where are we?” I whispered to Rowan.
“I think we’re in the basement of an old house,” he said. “When San Francisco expanded, they just covered over a lot of little creeks. I think there’s one on the other side of the wall.”
Suddenly a tan streak zipped through the open door toward me. The next moment I felt the mongoose’s breath tickle my ear. “When Nanu Nakula saw the Snake Lady, he knew she wanted him and the whistle, so he escaped. And when they captured you, he followed them. Is Nanu Nakula not faithful?”
I’m glad I’d trusted him instead of listening to Miss Drake. “You’re the faithfullest,” I said softly. “And the whistle?”
“Well hidden,” the mongoose said.
“You are the smartest,” I said approvingly. “Now get these cords off me.”
“Nanu Nakula is sorry. You must make a wish, not a command,” the mongoose corrected me. “Those are the rules. But remember, be careful how you wish.”
Why didn’t magic work like it did in the stories? In the fairy tales, you just pick up an old brass lamp and rub it and presto! You’ve got a genie who will do anything you want. Not a mongoose with a rule book. But he had made me think about wishes. How wishes in books like Five Children and It could go very wrong if you weren’t careful. So, I told myself, think before you make a wish…if you ever got a chance to make your wishes count again.
The kobold who had left stumped back. I expected the magical charms to be in some ancient carved wooden chest, but he was carrying a black binder—the kind like you kept schoolwork in. I suppose it was cheaper and more practical than something more impressive and mystical.
The kobold headed toward the lamia, and I whispered, “Okay.” Rewording everything made it more complicated. “I wish for the cords tying my hands and feet, but they must be off my wrists and ankles and in my hands instead.”
“Then the cords you shall have.” I felt the mongoose tug and gnaw at the cords around my wrists. The munching sounds seemed loud to me, but the lamia was too busy leafing through the binder pages, each of which was like a transparent pocket. She looked like a collector going through her stamp collection. Instead of stamps, there were more yellow strips of paper with writing on them. Each pocket must have had a label because her lips moved as she read it. And in their little grating voices, all the kobolds were busy making suggestions about which charm to use.
As soon as the cords around my wrists dropped off, the mongoose began to work on the cords around my ankles. My hands and feet felt funny as the blood rushed into them again, but I felt the pieces of cut cord in my palm. He’d kept his word after all without any tricks.
“Is Nanu Nakula not Helpful?” he asked, fishing for another compliment.
“Yes, you are,” I agreed. “Now I wish for the cords tying up Rowan.”
“Then his cords you shall have,” the mongoose said.
There were munching sounds, and I glanced at the lamia and the kobolds to see if they’d noticed, but they were still too busy arguing over spells.
“Here it is,” the lamia grunted. “Something to wake the wormy up that will let her talk but not let her make trouble.”
The tip of the paper wriggled like a serpent hunting for a tasty meal. With a grin, the lamia let it go, and the new charm fastened itself to the scales of Miss Drake’s chest.
Then the lamia reached for the one attached to Miss Drake. Blue electricity crackled, and the lamia’s face twisted in pain until she was able to wriggle backward, sucking on her burnt fingers.
&n
bsp; The kobolds started to jeer, and one of them pointed a long knobby arm at the snake woman. “Stupid, Stupid! You forgot the charm was protected.”
“Shut up.”
The lamia swatted at the kobold, who bent his head so that her hand hit the top of his hard skull. “Ow, ow, ow.”
When I felt Rowan’s cords in my palm too, I made sure to tell the mongoose, “Thank you.”
He spoke slowly, as if in wonder. “No one has ever thanked Nanu Nakula in all these thousands of years.”
“No one?” Poor little guy. I guess his other owners had ignored the fact that he was a living, breathing someone and treated him instead like a magical ATM machine: push the button and out comes money. No wonder he had made their wishes go wrong if he could. “Well, they should have,” I said firmly.
Rowan rustled to get my attention. “We can’t take them on by ourselves. We should sneak away and get help.”
I didn’t like the idea of my dragon lying helpless with an angry snake woman and kobolds around. “I’m not leaving without Miss Drake. Let me think of something.”
There was a red cord hanging from the binder, which I thought helped mark a place in it, but the lamia pulled the cord free. At one end hung a gold oval, which she touched to the first charm on Miss Drake. The paper instantly disintegrated into powder.
The next moment, Miss Drake blinked groggily. The oval had deactivated the charm.
The lamia tucked the gold oval and cord into her breast pocket and then spoke slowly, exaggerating each syllable. “Worm! Where…is…the…whistle?”
Miss Drake didn’t answer. Instead, she tried to get up, but her body barely shifted. Her eyes could move, though, and she glanced at me. I took a chance and gave her a thumbs-up.
Reassured, she became her usual cranky self and glared at the lamia. “What’s so important about a whistle? Shouldn’t you be looking for the Heart of Kubera?”
The lamia threw the binder down on the floor with a thump. Miss Drake had a real talent for making everyone lose their tempers. And when the lamia got angry, her narrow forked tongue darted out more, making her hiss her words. “The Heart belongsss to the one with the whissstle. And the whissstle belongsss to my massster. A human brat ssstole it from my massster’sss grandfather a hundred yearsss ago before he could ussse it.”
I thought about the desperate kiosk owner who had tried to get the whistle from my great-granddad Caleb. Who could be the man’s grandchild?
“On the contrary, I saw the child pay money for it,” Miss Drake argued. “Your master has no claim on it.”
The lamia’s mouth twisted into the scowl of all scowls and hissed, “You have it now. You called a meeting to show the jewel and the whissstle to everyone and gloat.”
Miss Drake gave the lamia her haughtiest stare. “I merely solved a hundred-year-old mystery. I didn’t say I had the Heart of Kubera itself, let alone some child’s toy. You must have searched me. If I had either of them, why didn’t you find it?”
“Because you hid it sssomewhere firssst,” the lamia argued. “Or sssomeone elssse isss holding it for you.”
“I simply ran across a few clues in old books and connected them together,” Miss Drake insisted.
As the lamia continued to argue with Miss Drake, I didn’t think Rowan and I could take the snake woman and the kobolds by ourselves.
Finally, I had it. “Nanu Nakula,” I called softly.
He was by my ear again. “Yes, master? We can go now?”
“Do you see that binder? It’s like a big black book,” I asked.
“Yes, master,” the mongoose said expectantly.
I thought a moment, trying to make my wish perfect. “I wish for the book. And I wish for only that book and not any others, and I want everything in that book. And when you get it, I wish it was placed behind me where the lamia and kobolds can’t see it.”
“Of course, master,” the mongoose said.
There was a rush of air as he darted toward the lamia and a second breeze when he returned. I felt the binder’s hard edges against my spine. My heart began to race.
“Is Nanu Nakula not quick? Is he not strong?” the mongoose wanted to know.
The mongoose needed flattery as much as he wanted snacks. “You’re certainly the quickest and strongest. I’m so glad I met you.”
“Of course, of course.” He was almost preening.
“Now, Nanu Nakula, do you see the red cord in the lamia’s pocket?” I asked as sweetly as I could.
“My eyes are the sharpest, master. I see the Snake Lady has it,” the mongoose said with a snarl.
“Well, at the end of the cord is a gold token,” I said, trying to pin him down on what I wanted him to take.
The mongoose’s eyes gleamed. “I know where there’s lots more gold.”
“I bet you do,” I said. “But I wish for the cord and the token.”
He liked the idea. “Ah, steal from the Snake Lady.” His whole body went rigid for a moment.
By now, Miss Drake had made the lamia so mad that she was practically screeching and the kobolds were stamping their feet angrily, sounding like a mini rockslide. They were working themselves into a mood where they could hurt my dragon.
None of them noticed the tan blur that climbed the lamia’s scales and onto her blouse. A second later, none of them saw him take the cord and token. And a millisecond after that, not one of them witnessed the mongoose return and put it in my hand.
Rowan murmured, “Okay. Now what?”
“We’re going to free Miss Drake.” I closed my fingers tightly around the token. “I’m going to count to ten, Rowan. When I reach ten, we’re going to sit up and you’re going to start pulling charms from the binder and throwing them at the lamia and her gang.”
“Without knowing what they are?” he asked skeptically.
“There won’t be time to pick and choose,” I said to him. “Use whatever you can grab. We just want to confuse ’em.”
“And what will you be doing?” Rowan asked.
I was so scared my mouth felt dry. “I’m going to free her with the token.”
The mongoose grabbed my sleeve and tugged. “No, no. It’s much too dangerous. Run away with Nanu Nakula, and he will grant all your wishes without any tricks.”
I gently shoved his paws away. “All I want is my dragon.”
“Then a dragon you shall have,” Nanu Nakula declared. The next moment, the token was gone from my hand and he was shooting like a furry bolt of lightning toward Miss Drake.
* * *
MISS DRAKE
When Winnie signed to me that she was all right and I saw the mongoose, I assumed he had freed her as well as Rowan. I kept stalling, waiting for them to sneak away and get help, but Winnie could no more desert me than Caleb could have.
Instead of fleeing, she had the mongoose fetch the black binder. Then, jumping to their feet, Winnie and Rowan began grabbing charms at random from the book and flinging them toward the kobolds and snake woman. Some sailed past to glue themselves to the wall, turning one spot puce and making another drip with molasses. Others clung to the kobolds. One of them had his arm swell up. Another began warbling like a bird. Still another turned into a gingerbread kobold complete with frosting.
The charm that smacked against the snake woman made her shrink to about a yard high, half her size. She slid sideways, shaking in shock.
The hatchlings had confused our enemies. Now was the time for them to escape, but instead they kept throwing more charms.
“Get out of here,” I ordered them, but they were just as single-minded as the mongoose.
A kobold finally turned with a grunt and began to stumble toward the hatchlings. Two charms hit him at once, and the combination made him swell up like a balloon and float up and up till he grated against the ceiling.
While the lamia and kobolds were distracted, the mongoose suddenly appeared on my shoulder next to the charm immobilizing me. He was holding a token on a red cord in his mouth. When he
took it in his forepaws, he whispered in Sanskrit, “This will turn the charm that binds thee into powder. Nanu Nakul does not like thee, but the One with Great Spirit loves thee and so for her sake, he will save thee.”
But before he could act, a narrow forked tongue flicked between the lamia’s lips as if testing the air. Sensing the mongoose, her body whipped around. Like a snake, she unhinged her jaw so that her human mouth and lips stretched wider and wider—large enough to swallow a cat whole, let alone a tiny mongoose.
The mongoose instinctively became focused on her, his every muscle, every hair, taut and ready. Instantly, he leapt from me to the floor and faced the lamia who, though reduced in size, still towered over her tiny foe.
When she lunged, he hopped nimbly to the side and then struck.
With a cry, the lamia straightened up as the mongoose sank his teeth into her earlobe. Her tail lashed the floor as she tried to grab him. But bracing his hind legs against her jaw, he somersaulted backward on to her shoulder and then leapt for the side of her throat where the main artery was.
As small as he was, I might have given him even odds of winning if he could have used all four paws, but as it was, he insisted on keeping the token in his forepaws while he fought his uneven battle.
Sensing his goal, the lamia desperately whipped her body back and forth, and the mongoose couldn’t keep his grip on her blouse. He flew off and slammed against the wall, where he lay as still as death.
The lamia snatched the token from the floor, and tossing it into her stretched mouth, she swallowed it. Then her dagger-thin tongue stabbed repeatedly as she slithered toward her mortal enemy, the mongoose. “I prefer my mealsss kicking and sssquealing, but I’m willing to make exceptionsss.”