Mulrox and the Malcognitos

by Kerelyn Smith

  There she was, hip frame and all, holding forth at another table. While most of the ogres preferred ox-bone tea, Griselda always ordered a drink made from fermented bean sprouts that reeked to high heaven and left her wobbly even without a broken hip. Her blue skin had an unnatural green tinge to it and she was swaying in her seat. Not a good start. Mulrox swallowed.

  “I…” Trolzor started. “What happened to you?”

  Mulrox looked down; his shirt was torn in several places and decorated with bits of moss and spiderwebs. Dust and mud covered his arms, but they couldn’t conceal the obvious scrapes and scratches.

  Mulrox hesitated. His story sounded crazy even to him. But if anyone could understand, it would be Trolzor. He had traveled outside Ulgorprog—he might know what to do.

  “I was at raid practice—”

  Something crashed, and a mug shattered against the back wall.

  “Grendel’s gout, they’ve lost their minds! Tell the others to lay off you—you’ve got to stand up for yourself. I’ve got extra clothes in the back. I’m sorry, Mulrox. We’ll catch up later.” Trolzor turned back to the other ogres. “ALRIGHT! WHO DID THAT?”

  Mulrox sopped up the more obvious puddles from the table, trying to keep his soaked backside from view and slunk down the hallway to Trolzor’s room.

  The noise dropped as Mulrox turned the corner, and his shoulders relaxed.

  He’d put on clean clothes, and then Griselda would tell him she was going home. That bit with the squirrelmonk would turn out to be an elaborate prank, and everything would go back to the way it had always been.

  “What are you doing back here?”

  Mulrox froze. The voice was kind, welcoming almost, but it did nothing to help with his mortification.

  Svenn, the enormous six-fingered slug, was coming down the stairs. Though Trolzor had been like a parent to him, Mulrox had hardly ever spoken to the enigmatic slug. Svenn kept to himself. He played his music and then disappeared to his rooms. No one complained when he was announced judge of the Beatific Behemoth. He was above it all, and besides, no one wanted to go up against Svenn in a talent competition. The slug was a musical genius.

  He was staring at Mulrox, who realized his mouth was hanging open. “Trolzor said I could change back here. If that’s okay, I…”

  “Of course, I meant, why aren’t you out there with the rest of them, showing off your act? I’m looking forward to seeing what you will do.”

  “Me?”

  The slug nodded. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you watch and listen when I play or seen you scribbling in that notebook Trolzor gave you. You have it with you now, don’t you?”

  Mulrox nodded and pulled the purple notebook from deep within his pockets. He brushed off a coating of redwood duff from his fall. Even covered in dust, the golden toad on the cover flashed in the low light.

  The slug smiled. “I can’t wait to see what comes out of that head of yours.”

  “Nothing good,” Mulrox said. “The only thing I’m good at is making mistakes.” Mulrox’s sopping sleeves dripped onto his shoes. “Look at me.”

  The slug chuckled. “You just need a change of clothes. Go on.” Svenn waved toward Trolzor’s rooms.

  Mulrox nodded to the slug and sloshed down the hall. As Mulrox reached the door, Svenn called after him again. “Mulrox?”

  “Yes?”

  “Hold on to those terrible ideas. The good ones change others, but the bad, they change you. There’s nothing more powerful than that.”

  Mulrox shook his head. Maybe the slug was crazy.

  The clothes were in the chest at the foot of his bed. As expected, they were several sizes too big. Trolzor was as jovial as ogres came, and he had the size to go with it. Mulrox did his best to belt the clothes on, rolling up the sleeves and pant legs.

  By the time Mulrox made it back to the front of the inn, Svenn was up on the stage playing his theorbo to the appreciative cheers of the ogres.

  As the song came to a close, Great-Aunt Griselda banged her mug against the table. “Ogres. I claim the right to speak.” She struggled to her feet. “As you know, I have been in Ulgorprog these last two weeks.” This was greeted by several cheers. “Yes, my presence is an honor. However, I have seen many things that give me cause for concern: overcrowding, foreigners,” she glared at Svenn, “and a substandard mung-bean selection.”

  The room quieted. Trolzor stopped polishing a mug and glared over at Griselda.

  “This stay has given me plenty of time to think. To think and to consult. It has come to my attention that my ancestral home was distributed under extenuating circumstances. The regrettable mental state of my nephew and his wife at the time of the will’s writing make those contracts meaningless.”

  The words bounced off Mulrox’s skull like pebbles on a rooftop.

  “I planned to discuss this with my grandnephew first, but since he didn’t show, he has waived his rights. Therefore, I reclaim ownership of my family’s home and land.”

  She couldn’t do this, could she? His parents had given him the home when they left. He took a step toward her and tripped on the too-long pant legs. Mulrox pushed himself to his feet. Trolzor was making his way toward him, but the other ogres were getting in his way.

  “I wish to state my intention to turn the hut into the finest war-yodeling and mung-bean appreciation center the world has ever seen.”

  There was only a smattering of applause.

  “No!” Mulrox shouted.

  Benches screeched against the floor as ogres from all over the room turned toward him. They were staring at him. All of them. Mulrox’s face began to burn. He had to say something.

  “You can’t.”

  “I can. I assure you I’m perfectly within my rights.”

  “What about Mulrox?” Wertol said, poking his nose up over the crowd.

  “The boy will be taken care of,” Griselda snorted. “He’ll go to Raggok.”

  Raggok?

  “Sounds good to me!” came a cry from the back of the room. Groxor was standing up above the others.

  He couldn’t go to Raggok.

  “We could use another place to eat,” said Broxli, his gangly green arm raised in the air.

  “Even Raggok will be jealous of us with the world’s finest yodeling center,” Oogin added, squinting at the rest of the tables.

  The applause grew into an overwhelming cheer. Mulrox looked around and saw their faces glowing with excitement for the new town attraction, his home. The home his family had built.

  “Mung beans it is!” shouted an old ogre next to Griselda.

  Trolzor caught Mulrox’s eye and shook his head.

  “To Griselda!”

  His legs were moving. He had to get out of there.

  “Griselda the Gruesome!” the crowd roared back.

  “Mulrox, wait!” Someone grabbed his arm. Yahgurkin was towering over him, her curly mess of hair sticking out at all angles. “Don’t worry, Mulrox. She can’t do this. We won’t let her. It’s my land too.”

  “What do you know?!” He ripped his arm away. “She’s Griselda the Gruesome. She can do whatever she wants.”

  6

  Mulrox stumbled his way down the path to his house. Everything was a blur of fuzzy shapes, as though he were looking through a thick pane of glass. His throat felt like something was trying to claw its way out of it. He passed identical hut after hut. The other ogres had done nothing. They had all stood there while his aunt stole his home out from under him.

  He was running now—he couldn’t get home fast enough—through the main village, down the hill, past the blur of color that marked Yahgurkin’s garden.

  He tripped.

  His ankle twisted, and he fell, crashing headfirst into the garden. His shoulder smacked against something sharp. A second into Yahgurkin’s monstrous garden, and one of her spike-trunked trees had drawn blood. As he peered down at the wound, something smacked him hard on the top of his head.

  �
��Gah!” A seedpod the size of an orange bounced to the ground next to him. Mulrox looked up. Above him, amidst the branches of the pink flowering tree was a swaying sea of the enormous pods, some green and leathery like the one that had hit him, others puffed out like fluffy cotton balls. Why would she line her garden with these awful trees? He snatched the giant seedpod and drop-kicked it down the hill.

  He watched it soar and then fly to pieces as it smacked the ground. He was still furious. He pushed back to the path and sprinted the rest of the way home.

  Mulrox burst into the guest bedroom and threw himself on his bed. He closed his eyes and tried to think, but his breath wouldn’t slow, his throat kept rattling, and the bump on his head throbbed in time with his heart. He had to pull himself together. There was only one thing that ever made him feel better.

  Mulrox pushed to his feet. He scrambled onto his bed, propped himself up on his knees, and lifted up the unicorn tapestry. Mulrox grabbed the notebooks out of the cubbyhole and spread them out around him on his bed. He touched the covers of each, trying to let go of all the terrible things he had heard tonight, to concentrate on now. Mulrox picked up the purple notebook, flipped to the first empty page, and after two deep, calming breaths, began to write.

  The words poured out of him and onto the page so fast he hardly registered what he was writing. He knew this feeling inside of him had to get loose somehow or he might explode. He flipped to the next page and continued writing.

  As he wrote, the tension slipped out of his shoulders, neck, and hands. His heart still beat like a gong, but his breath slowed, and the room that had been bucking and twisting before his eyes settled into his safe and familiar guest bedroom. He dashed off another page and then realized that the thumping noise he had mistaken for his own heartbeat was coming from the other side of the door.

  Mulrox looked around and then flushed. In his haste, he had left Geraldine out there. The door thudded again. What was he going to tell her? Mulrox pulled open the door, and she shot in like a rubber band.

  He wrapped his arms around the bumpy toad and hugged her.

  “Geraldine” Mulrox muttered. “I have some bad news…” This was her home too. It was bad enough they were kicked out of their room, but this. Geraldine was a very proud toad. He didn’t know how to tell her.

  “You’re moving to Raggok.” Griselda’s hip frame scraped against the doorjamb as she pushed her way inside. She smiled at Geraldine and raised her eyebrows.

  Mulrox set the toad down.

  “I’ve decided to take an interest in you, Mulrox. Perhaps a fool’s errand, but I’ve never turned down a challenge.” She strode over to the bed. “It’s no secret you’re heading in a disastrous direction. Groxor is this close to kicking you off the Raid Brigade. I had yet another complaint from him today. For your own good, you will go to Raggok and manage my bone mill. Well, manage is a strong word—it’s more of an internship really.”

  “The bone mill you shut down? Didn’t you sell the mules?”

  “You’ll only have to pull the grindstones yourself until you earn enough to buy the animals back. A few years at the most. But once I’m done with you, you’ll be strong enough to lead any raid.”

  Mulrox pictured himself strapped to the boulders, forced to walk in endless, dreary circles to keep the millstones turning. He shuddered.

  Griselda was looking behind him. “I see you are packing already. Quite thoughtful of you. We’ll need everything out by the end of the week. We won’t have space for all of these books though. The movers…” She trailed off. Her big index finger trailed over the open pages of his notebook and stopped on the pen that lay in the crease of the spine.

  “Did you… did you write this?” Griselda stopped and looked up at Mulrox.

  Mulrox nodded.

  His great-aunt’s face was going through a series of contortions he didn’t begin to know how to interpret.

  “This rhymes,” she said.

  “Not all of it.”

  Griselda grabbed another notebook and flipped to the middle. She read a few pages, a strange expression creeping over her face. She tossed that notebook aside and grabbed another. She did this three or four times before she looked up and stared Mulrox straight in the eye. “This is poetry.”

  “Yes,” he said

  “All of these?” She waved at the bed overflowing with notebooks of every size and shape and color. “This is all your poetry?”

  He nodded. He was beginning to feel something, like the wings of a bird fluttering against his chest. “Like Vroktar. I write about everything. I mean, it’s all perfectly gruesome. They’re not good, but there’s one I’ve been working on. Here.” Mulrox grabbed the purple notebook and flipped back a few pages. “I think you’ll like it…” He cleared his throat.

  “We go a-raiding through the night,

  To—”

  Her gnarled hand snatched the notebook from his grip. “This,” she said, holding up the book, the lamplights flashed off the golden toad, “is trash. There will be absolutely no more of this poetry. Not now, not ever. It’s worse than I thought. At this rate, it would take a miracle for you to fit in even in Raggok. Do you want to end up like your parents?”

  “No, I—”

  He was about to turn away when he saw Geraldine out of the corner of his eye. She crouched down, sinking deep into her heels. And then she was barreling through the air, right at the notebook. Her long pink tongue shot under Griselda’s hands and wrapped around the book, snapping it back. Geraldine landed with a thud, the notebook rolled tightly in her tongue.

  “You!” Great-Aunt Griselda turned toward the toad. But Geraldine was already off, down the hall, the notebook banging against the walls and floor as she pulled it behind her, tangled up in her tongue.

  “Grendel’s gout!” Griselda yelled. She grabbed the nearest notebook from the bed and with one giant yank, ripped the notebook in half. Scraps and fragments of paper shot all over the room, words floating and soaring and crashing all around them.

  Mulrox felt as though the wind had been knocked out of him. He struggled to find his next breath. But Griselda was moving—he had to stop her.

  As she stooped over the bed, Mulrox threw himself on top of it, grabbing for his notebooks. But she had the size advantage, and with one quick movement, she swung around and rammed him with her hip brace. The next thing he knew, he was flying across the room. He hit the far wall and slithered to the ground.

  His great-aunt was breathing hard, but she scooped up the notebooks and pounded out of the room.

  “Stop!” Mulrox called.

  With his hand pressed to his side, he pushed himself to his feet and stumbled after her. Griselda was far ahead of him, already through the living room and heading down the main hall.

  “Wait!”

  She ignored him and pushed forward, but with her hip brace, she was slow. Mulrox was catching up. As she passed door after door, it dawned on Mulrox where she was heading.

  No. He closed the space between them, pushed past her bony elbows, and wedged himself in front of the peeling red door.

  “You can’t. I won’t let you.” Mulrox tried to look as big and imposing as possible.

  Griselda reached through Mulrox’s arm and turned the doorknob. The door opened in behind him with a sickening moan. The musty air of the flooded basement drifted up to him.

  Mulrox tried to block the opening, but Griselda gave one great heave and chucked the notebooks over his head. Mulrox turned. The notebooks flew, their spines flared out, pages rattling in the air, before they disappeared into the darkness. A series of splashes echoed up the stairs. He swore he felt them sinking down through the cold, dirty water.

  They were ruined.

  Griselda wiped her hands against one another and placed them on her hip brace.

  “You will leave Ulgorprog by the end of the week.”

  He shook his head.

  “You will take up the bone mill. In Raggok, there will be no poetry of any
kind. You will learn to be like the rest of us.”

  He couldn’t think—he kept imagining the words bleeding out of the pages of his submerged notebooks, a dark stream of ink swirling around the old covers.

  “It’s for your own good. Start packing.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “You can’t take my home.”

  “I already have.” Griselda snorted, but a crease of worry appeared on her face. “It’s for your own good.”

  “Go back to Raggok and leave me alone.”

  “Don’t be difficult. I’ll join you in Raggok once I’ve sorted out this appreciation center business. Plus, there’s the Behemoth. I’ve got an open space on my victory shelf. The medal will do nicely.”

  “You’ll never win!” He didn’t even know what he was saying anymore.

  “No? And who do you think will beat me? Me, Griselda the Gruesome, village elder, the most respected member of Debtor’s Doom and proprietor of the world’s premier war-yodeling and bean-sprout appreciation club. You think Oogin will beat me with his juggling? Or Groxor with his hot air?”

  “Anyone,” Mulrox said.

  Mulrox saw her nostrils flare and her jaw tighten. But a smile crept across her face. Mulrox tried not to shrink back into himself.

  “Anyone?” Griselda said. “Even you, little grandnephew?”

  Mulrox glared at her. She was a monster. He wanted her out of his house.

  She laughed. “I have a proposition for you.” She closed the door behind Mulrox with a slam. “If you’re right, I’ll drop this whole scheme, no yodeling club, no mill. How does that sound?”

  Mulrox didn’t dare say anything.

  “It will be simple. All you have to do is read one of your lousy poems and win. If you win the Beatific Behemoth, everything goes back to normal. Should be easy for you.” She smiled. “Otherwise, I get everything. It’s Raggok and the bone mill for you; no protests, no complaining, and absolutely, positively, no more poetry.”

  She raised an eyebrow at Mulrox.

  His heart pounded in his ears. Everything she had done, everything she had ruined, was rushing through his head. The bedroom, his books, his peace, his home, his work.