“I would like to check out today, you know,” a cranky woman declares.
Helga pockets the piece of paper as she takes in the woman’s presence, the lady standing there clutching a bag of Agnes’s freshly baked cookies. She has frazzled hair. A yowling two-year-old boy pulls on her skirt. Not that Helga can speak much for herself because she’s wearing the same black dress that she wore the previous day. Too many late nights sneaking out for society meetings. She blinks her weary eyes, staring down at the little boy clinging close to his mother, so eager to have at least one cookie before they’re purchased.
“Cookie, Mama, cookie!” the boy cries, wiping his boogers and drool onto her dress, and reaching up. “I wan cookie!”
“Just a minute, sweetie,” the lady tells her sniveling little boy, “We have to pay for them first.”
“COOKIE! I WAN COOKIE!” the child wails, followed by more cries and tears as he pulls at his mother trying to get the cookies in her hands.
The woman raises an eyebrow at Helga waiting for her to finish ringing up the order.
“Well?” she asks.
Helga snatches the bag of cookies out of the mother’s hands and pounds out the numbers on the ancient register. She gives the total of three dollars and ninety-seven cents to the woman who hands Helga her card for payment. Technology is not Helga’s thing. She rolls her eyes as she pulls out the square that handles card payments. Swiping the card with more velocity than needed through the little card-reading square, she sneers at it when it requests her to do it again but slower.
She wants to find out what’s going on with her sister since some of the customers are known to be more hands-on than needed, especially when it involves her shapely, kind-hearted Ursa.
Finishing up with the desperate mother’s order Helga takes a deep breath, pulls back her shoulder-length auburn hair, and scans the cafe for her sister who is dealing with an older customer. She hops the counter ignoring the next customer’s complaint when she sees the elderly lady yank on Ursa’s arm.
As Helga gets closer she overhears the elderly lady complain, “Wa en tar-nation dis crud dat y’all caw food?”
There’s a pause before her sister, in a sweet voice, queries the elderly lady, “I’m sorry, but what is the problem?”
The elderly lady sneers, “No man’ers. Firs, all, caw me ma’am oar Miz Pin-kar-ton. Sec-on, ah sez wa ya caws dis y’as put ‘fore me?”
“Oh! I’m sorry, ma’am. This is what you ordered, right? Eggs with dreamy grits, side a bacon, biscuit with butter, and a small coffee. Did we miss something?”
“Ya bet’cha. Ma’eggs tar run-ee, biscuits’ har, grits tar grittee, en bacon’s nuthin bah charcoal. Na’taw mention ma caw-fee tastes like dirt.”
Ursa, a true sympathizer who only wishes to make people happy, frowns her pretty ruby lips while looking at Ms. Pinkerton’s plate. The eggs are perfect, grits creamy, bacon crisp not burnt, and biscuit golden brown with melted butter. She cannot see what the problem is with Ms. Pinkerton’s food. Being the sweet and affectionate person that she is, she chooses not to argue. With her free hand she stacks the coffee cup onto the plate of food and tries to walk away.
Ms. Pinkerton continues to hold onto Ursa’s slender arm when she tries to leave with the stacked dishes. “Naw, hol’on jus a min-et. Ah wan GOOD FOOD. Nut dis crud ya got me. Git me wa he’s got,” she demands, pointing towards another patron who happens to be a wizard who is eating an enchanted breakfast.
Helga, watching the interaction between the lady and her sister, looks over at the wizard’s breakfast, which consists of dragon eggs Benedict and a slice of pumpernickel bread with Have a Happy Day raspberry jam. For his drink the wizard has a frothy cappuccino with pixie dust sprinkled on the froth.
Shaking her head, Ursa replies, “I’m sorry, ma’am, we cannot serve you that dish. It’s for magic folk only. I can get you something else instead, if you would like . . .”
“NO!” she shouts, “Ah wan wa he’s got en das dat.”
After winding in and out of the cafe’s busy crowd, Helga reaches the table to help her sister deal with this customer. She decides to put an end to the woman’s outright rudeness.
“What’s the problem here?” Helga inquires.
Ursa jumps, “OH! You scared me.”
Ignoring her sister, for she’s easily scared, Helga rolls her eyes and asks again, “What’s the problem?”
“Ms. Pinkerton wants the same dish as Wizard Liam over there,” Ursa explains.
“So?” Helga scoffs, “Give it to her.”
“We can’t,” Ursa says. Then leaning closer to Helga and cupping her mouth, she whispers, “She’s mortal.”
Helga snorts, “Soooo what? I say give it to her . . . It’ll teach her a lesson.”
“But . . .” Ursa bites her lip and then continues, “but she’s a mortal.” She looks around, adding, “We’ll get in trouble if we give it to her.”
Helga pushes Ursa towards the register. “Oh, go and mind the register. I’ll take care of HER.”
Ms. Pinkerton interrupts, “Ah say wer cher jibber jabbin ‘bout? Ah’m hungry!”
Turning to Ms. Pinkerton, Helga says, “Don’t worry, ma’am, I’ll go and get you YOUR breakfast. Special order too.” She hurries off to her eldest sister, Agnes, who’s the cook. “Agnes!”
Her older sister pokes her short, curly blonde-haired head out the small kitchen window, as Helga hollers, “Ms. Pinkerton wants the same dish that Liam got.” She winks. “SPECIAL ORDER!”
Agnes returns the wink yelling back out the small window as she retreats back into the kitchen, “One SPECIAL ORDER coming up!” It was a minute before she pops out the window again, calling after her sister “Wait! Helga, are ya sure?”
Stomping up to the window and then standing on her tiptoes to come nose to nose with Agnes, Helga places her hands on her hips and answers decisively, “Yes, I’m sure. Just make the dang dish.”
Agnes scratches her head with the butt of her spatula, “I can’t remember if we can or cannot serve this dish to mortals.”
“You would forget. You’re always forgetting things,” Helga sneers, “There isn’t anything in the dish that would harm her anyways. She might sprout flowers or something. It really does not matter. Just make the dish. She’s waiting.”
Shrugging Agnes says, “Okay then . . .” and returns back to cooking.
Meanwhile Helga starts rummaging through the cupboards under the counter in front by the register. She finds a bottle and chuckles.
Agnes calls out from the window, “Order up!”
Snatching the bottle Helga gets up to retrieve Ms. Pinkerton’s order. She takes the plate from the window, looks around, and then puts a few drops of the potion onto the meal, muttering, “I’ll show you bad food, you good-for-nothing lout.”
Ms. Pinkerton is sitting and flicking at some app on her smart phone when Helga places the new breakfast down in front of her. “Here’s your special breakfast, ma’am, as ordered.”
Wringing her hands together, Ms. Pinkerton devours her breakfast. Helga, grinning mischievously, stands back to watch the lady chow down on the food.
“Maw gawd, des eggs tar good an.” Ms. Pinkerton takes a swig of the enchanted cappuccino. “Mmmm, das good too,” she remarks, smacking her lips.
Once finished, she sits back, pushing her chair away from the table, and then pats her stomach, feeling full.
Suddenly, Ms. Pinkerton’s eyes begin to grow wide as she sits straight up. She reaches up to her ears, feeling them getting longer. Brown and white patches of fine fur begin growing in spots on her ears. Her eyes continue to get bigger, and when she reaches for her nose, it begins to get rounder and larger. It pushes outwards with her mouth into a muzzle.
Ms. Pinkerton starts to freak out and jumps up, looking round the room. Her transformation completes as her head changes into that of a donkey.
Ursa, who’s at the register, and all the other patrons in the cafe find their
jaws dropping as they watch Ms. Pinkerton’s transformation. Helga keeps her mouth firmly closed to prevent the giggles that threaten to escape her lips.
Ms. Pinkerton turns and stomps over towards Helga with an upset look in her eyes. “YA!!” she tries to yell, but instead emits, “HEE-HAW! HEE-HAW!”
Ms. Pinkerton clasps her hands over her muzzle, shocked. Helga, unable to hold it in anymore, falls to the floor laughing—and she’s shortly joined by her sisters and the rest of the customers in the cafe.
Every time Ms. Pinkerton tries to talk she brays, “Hee-haw,” which makes her madder, causing the girls and the cafe patrons to laugh even harder.
At a nearby table an oversized man with a bushy mustache dabs his mouth and then stands, commanding, “HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!”
The laughter in the cafe abruptly ceases. Ms. Pinkerton quits trying to speak. He waddles over to Ms. Pinkerton and grabs her hand, promising, “Do not worry, madam. I will get this corrected at once.”
He seats her back at her table. She places her head down on the table and tries to cover it, but her long ears stick up bold and straight to listen in on what he has to say next.
The man glances over at the girls, looking from Agnes, next Ursa, who both look away, and then Helga, who’s pressing her lips tightly together doing her best not to laugh again—but then she snickers.
He steps towards her. “Ah, it was you then, wasn’t it?”
“Don’t know what you are talking about . . . sir,” responds Helga.
“Come now, do not play tricks with me, young lady. I saw what you did to this poor woman. Fess up.”
“Pffft, you saw nothing because there was nothing to see.” Helga squints her eyes at him. “Lady wanted a special order, so she got a special order.” She crosses her arms, declaring, “Not my fault that part of her turned into a donkey.”
“What a ruse you are playing. I saw what you did.” His mustache twitches. “Now fess up or else.”
“Or else what? You gonna call the officials on me?” She leans forward, questioning, “Just who in the world are you?”
Ursa runs up to Helga and tries to whisper in her ear, “Helga, that’s—”
“Shush, Ursa. I got him cornered.” She waves Ursa back.
“But Heeeelgaaaa,” Ursa pleads.
“Quiet, Ursa . . . I want to see what he has to say . . .” She stares back at the man in the green sweater vest.
“Miss, I have given you a chance to fess up. I have no choice but to issue a warning to you.” He starts to reach around to his back pocket for his citation pad.
“Warning? Warning? HA! That’s a good one! Who put you up to this?” Helga cackles.
The man’s face starts to turn red. “I do say, miss, that your manners are quite appalling. Do you even know who I am?”
Helga stands back. “Nope.”
Ursa peeps, “I do.”
Helga turns her head around to look at Ursa, standing there, fidgeting from one foot to another. Agnes comes out of the kitchen, asking, “Well, don’t keep me in suspense—will ONE of you tell me who this is?”
The man with the red face clears his throat, then bows before Agnes, stating, “I, mademoiselle, am Chief Officer Higgins of the New London Order of Magic Official’s station.”
Agnes and Helga both reply, “Oh.”
Helga mutters under her breath, “Great, just what we need. Some nosy Order of Magic Official butting into our business. Caused us enough grief already. Why can’t they leave us alone?”
Higgins straightens up and then goes back to writing Helga’s citation.
“HEE-HAW, HEE-HAW, HEE-HAW,” issues from Ms. Pinkerton’s muzzle, which is supposed to mean, “Hey! Don’t forget about me!”
Higgins pauses, looking back at Ms. Pinkerton. “Sorry, ma’am. I will only be a few more minutes here. Please be patient.”
He continues to scribble on his paper pad. Then he puts his pen away and rips the paper from the pad. He hands Helga the citation.
“I was here to investigate some of the complaints that have come into the station about this shop.” He rocks back and forth on his feet. “I am unhappy to find out that they seem to be true.”
He takes a breath and then exhales. “You and your sisters are only one warning away from having this placed closed down.” He frowns. “Though I am willing to rip this warning up if you change that woman back to normal.”
Helga huffs and turns her nose up in the air away from him, remarking, “I refuse.”
“HELGA!” Agnes and Ursa shout.
“Nope, not gonna do it. That lady was a total brat. She got what was coming to her,” Helga explains, “Besides, why do you care? Your precious Order didn’t care about us when our parents abandoned us.”
“Young lady, I care because this is a mortal woman who only wanted a nice breakfast.” Higgins mops his brow as he continues to get redder in the face. He then looks over at the other two sisters and asks with a strained voice, “Will you two be willing to help this woman out?”
Ursa and Agnes exchange a worried look at one another and then reply, “Yes.”
“I will sit down with her while you two cook up a cure.” He seats himself down at the table with Ms. Pinkerton.
Helga throws both of her sisters a dirty look as they hurry into the kitchen to make Ms. Pinkerton a cure.
Agnes pauses and says over her shoulder, “Sir, please, Helga is just being a rebellious teenager. Go easy on her . . . please."
Higgins looks from Agnes to Helga, “Rebellious or no, she has committed a crime. I am willing to overlook this transgression IF you two older sisters undo the curse placed on this poor lady.”
Agnes nods and runs into the kitchen to help make the cure.
Higgins notes under his breath, “It might be the youngest. The two older ones don’t fit the agenda of TRUE society members.”
Pots and pans bang, and glasses clink as they busy themselves in the kitchen. Helga looks at her fingers and starts to pick out the dirt from under her short, stubby fingernails. A rascally idea strikes Helga, and a naughty grin grows on her lips. She wrings her hands together and then hurries over to the door, waiting for her sisters to come out.
Higgins looks up and glares at her. Helga pays no attention to his stare and waits patiently for her sisters to step out of the kitchen doorway. Hearing footsteps, Helga sticks her foot out in the path, tripping her rather tall oldest sister. Agnes falls forward dropping the first dish that contains one of the cures. The dish shatters on the floor, and Helga chuckles to herself.
“Not funny, Helga,” Agnes mutters while rubbing her big nose, “You’re seriously trying my patience. I wish I didn’t have to be the ‘responsible parent’ all the time. . . I would totally zap you right now.”
More footsteps and Helga again holds her foot up in the way. Ursa looks both ways before she comes through the door. When she notices Agnes on the floor, she asks, “Agnes, what happened?”
Agnes points at Helga who is still wearing a smug look on her face. Ursa offers her hand to Agnes and helps her up off of the floor. They then take the remaining cure over to Ms. Pinkerton.
Helga glowers, for she isn’t done torturing Ms. Pinkerton. She grabs a round cylinder and hurries over to the table, asking, “Wait, don’t you want some spice on your food?”
Higgins, with a side-glance, asks, “What? Spice? On a cure?”
“It’s only pepper and salt, sir.”
He eyes her suspiciously and then asks Ms. Pinkerton if she wants extra spice. She shakes her head no. Helga huffs and stomps away.
Ms. Pinkerton eyes the cure, a brownie-like treat sitting on a square white plate. She timidly picks it up. She moves it close to her muzzle, sniffs, and takes a bite, chewing slowly.
The ears and muzzle slowly melt away until Ms. Pinkerton is her elderly self again. She sighs, slumping back into her chair, before she bolts upright again, hopping around the crowded cafe like crazy while patting her butt.
A donkey
’s tail sprouts forth from her tailbone area, swishing back and forth. Ms. Pinkerton shouts, “Eh tail! Ah ave eh gosh dern tail!! Lawd ave mar-see!”
It was too much for Helga again who bursts out laughing at Ms. Pinkerton who is bouncing around the café, trying to grab her own tail.
Higgins, his face getting redder, turns his gaze at Agnes and Ursa. Agnes nervously explains with her hands up, “It was a two-part cure. I figured we could try it anyways, you know with just the one part . . . It kinda worked.”
Higgins points angrily back at the kitchen, warning, “Not too well. She is still half donkey. Fix her or else!”
The sisters rush back to the kitchen to cook up another cure. Higgins darts his eyes over at Helga and points, ordering, “YOU! Come over here so that you don’t interfere.”
Helga blinks and places her hand on her chest. “Me? Interfere? No, never.”
His face goes a shade darker. “Get over here this instant, or I will change my mind about the warning.”
She snorts, “As if.”
Higgins wiggles his fingers, any wizard of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Order can cast magic without a wand, and Helga’s feet are lifted off of the floor. She screams, “HEY! What’s going on here?” She struggles in the air trying to go the opposite way as she floats towards Higgins.
“PUT ME DOWN!” she hollers.
He smiles a toothy grin. “Of course,” he concedes and then drops her down with a thud into a seat at his table. He places his hand on her shoulder, forcing her to stay seated.
Helga slaps his hand away. “Get your hands off of me.”
He sputters, “Assault on an official. I will need to add that to your record.”
“Oh, stick it in your ear,” Helga spits back and rolls her shoulder away.
Steam begins erupting from Higgins’s ears.
Knowing that she’s getting under his skin, Helga’s grin grows wider, allowing her bottom snuggle tooth to poke through her lips. Their fight is interrupted by Ursa who seats Ms. Pinkerton back down at the table while Agnes places another cure in front of her. The color in Higgins’s face goes a few shades lighter as he refocuses his attention on Ms. Pinkerton.
Potion of the Hound Page 4