The room was a mad flurry of movement. Malcognitos were on top of her, poking and pulling her legs. Death-with-a-kiss dashed forward and, wrestling with Geraldine’s mouth, yanked it open. A stunned malcognito rolled onto the floor, dripping in a pool of saliva.
“You great beast!” Yvwi shouted. “How dare you!”
Though their comrade was safe, the malcognitos had not stopped, and a cloud of the creatures descended on Geraldine, dragging her across the room.
“Get off her! Stop!” Mulrox bellowed, but they ignored him. “Get out of my house! Leave!”
But the creatures did not relent. He charged into the cloud of malcognitos, batting them away until he found his way down to Geraldine. Mulrox wrapped his arms around her and scooped up the toad, holding her tight to his chest.
Not knowing what else to do, Mulrox cradled Geraldine and ran as fast as he could out of the hut.
9
Mulrox burst through the front door, slipping out into the cold night. He didn’t know where he was going. Anywhere away from Yvwi and the terrible malcognitos. He ran down the path from his hut and spilled out on the main road. Straight ahead were the sharp and twisted shadows of Yahgurkin’s garden, bound by a high wall of brambles, to the left the road back to Ulgorprog, and to the right a path out of town. Mulrox paused. The shattering noises faded, giving way to the hush of the wind in the trees and the pounding of his heart. A lone owl screeched. What was he going to do? No one would believe him, not even Trolzor, but he would take him in.
A blue sparkly shape floated out of the darkness.
“Hello again,” Yvwi called.
Geraldine squawked and kicked Mulrox in the stomach, wriggling free of his arms. She flopped to the ground and took off as fast as she could hop down the line of brambles that surrounded Yahgurkin’s garden.
“Geraldine,” Mulrox whispered. “Where are you going?”
But the toad leapt along until she came to Yahgurkin’s footpath and slipped in between the brambles.
“Geraldine!” Involving Yahgurkin in this was the last thing Mulrox needed.
“I hope we’re going somewhere good. Your place is a bit of a mess,” Yvwi said. The cloud of malcognitos slipped out of the darkness to join him.
Mulrox ran after Geraldine, slipping between the hedges and into Yahgurkin’s garden for the first time in ages. Mulrox shivered. It smelled like rotting wood mixed with pepper. To his left was a mess of the strangest-looking mushrooms he had ever seen; red geodesic domes, slimy blue caps, a squat growth with a mass of tentacles like something from the sea, and something that looked like a decomposing banana peel. To his right were the glinting blades of Yahgurkin’s sword garden. Even the air felt different here, warmer somehow and heavy. Mulrox swallowed and continued down the path toward Yahgurkin’s hut.
He only made it a few feet before a swarm of the malcognitos slipped out of the darkness, blocking the path ahead. Mulrox turned to the right only to be confronted by another pack of the creatures.
“What is this delightful place?” Yvwi said, plucking the ball-shaped fungus from the ground. It was nearly as large as he was. He batted it up into the air.
Mulrox tried to peer around the creatures. He had lost track of Geraldine, but up ahead he could see a bush swaying suspiciously. It looked for all the world like it was covered in tiny eyeballs.
“She’s not going to like this you know. It’s the middle of the night, she will be asleep, and we have the brigade tomorrow. She’s not going to want you hopping about all night.”
This was answered by a scornful croak, and the eyeball bush shivered again.
“Oh, a disagreement! Excellent. Who is this she you speak of? Is it the fantabulous creator of this garden? Because I would like to meet her personally.” Yvwi floated next to Mulrox’s ear.
He had to stop Geraldine. No one else needed to be involved in this. If he could just cut her off.
There was an opening to his left, through the intricately arranged sword garden. The half-buried blades winked in the moonlight.
Mulrox dove to the right, charging into the sword installation. The hilts only came up to his knees, but as he banged and smacked into them, they began to wobble and wave. He hissed as they sliced through his pant legs and nicked his shins. He felt something dripping down his leg.
“A sword maze? How daring. What evil genius devised this masterpiece?”
The malcognitos were bouncing on the hilts, flinging themselves into the air.
He could see Geraldine now, beelining for the front door.
“Geraldine, wait!”
Mulrox stumbled out of the swords through a long line of ball-shaped cacti, adding spines to his already-aching hands.
“We’ll go somewhere else. Anywhere else. She doesn’t even like you all that—”
The toad leapt into the air and thumped the door once with each foreleg.
“No more worms for you!” Mulrox shouted. “I’m letting them all loose.”
“Do you hear that?” Yvwi asked. “What was that?”
Mulrox didn’t have time to deal with whatever trick Yvwi was scheming behind him. He ignored the malcognito.
“It can’t be,” Yvwi said.
The door swung open. There standing in the doorway was Yahgurkin.
“Hello?” she said. Her voice, as sunny as usual, was muffled by her green scarf, which was wrapped about her head as though she had come from a dust storm. She pulled the scarf from her mouth and looked around in confusion.
The traitorous amphibian ribbited.
“Geraldine! What a surprise! Do you want to come in?”
Geraldine waited for no further invitation and pushed by Yahgurkin’s legs into the startlingly bright interior. She was impossible.
Yahgurkin leaned out of the doorway and squinted into the darkness.
“Did you bring someone with you?” she asked.
Mulrox crouched behind the eyeball bush, doing his best to seem small and unnoticeable. If Yahgurkin thought Geraldine was alone, then she wouldn’t have to know about the malcognitos. He held his breath and tried to shrink lower, shifting slightly.
A branch broke under his weight, with a sound like a whip cracking.
“Mulrox? Is that you?” Yahgurkin hopped into her garden and jogged toward him.
The game was up. Mulrox stood, wiping his bleeding palms on his pants.
“It is you!”
Any moment now, she would notice the malcognitos and he’d have to explain everything.
“I don’t know what they are or where they came from. They just showed up.”
There was silence. Mulrox bit his lip and looked up. He expected a look of fear or disgust, but instead she looked puzzled.
Mulrox glanced over his shoulder. The garden was serene: there were no shapes floating behind him, no shadows, no mocking voices. They had gone. Why?
“Are you feeling alright?” she asked.
“Not really.”
“Understandable. I tried to talk to you at the Slobber and Snore, but you ran out so fast. There’s no reason to worry. Griselda can’t take our land. There are laws and rules. So what if your parents were mentally unstable? That doesn’t change anything—”
“They weren’t crazy.”
“But I thought—”
“They weren’t!” Mulrox said, his hands curled into tight fists.
“Okay. But we won’t let her. Trolzor and Svenn will help us. Everyone just got carried away because of the Proggrog. Tomorrow they will come to their senses.”
Mulrox very much doubted that.
He met Yahgurkin’s eyes. Her purple skin was covered in strange yellow splotches. “You’re yellow.”
“Yes!” she said. “It’s tomato tar. Did you want to come and see?” Yahgurkin asked. “It’s really quite fascinating.”
“No,” Mulrox said, taking a step back.
Yahgurkin looked back inside her hut toward Geraldine. “But then why…? Did you need something?”
“No,” Mulrox said, then realizing that Geraldine was currently somewhere deep inside Yahgurkin’s hut doing who knew what. “Actually, yes.” The words tumbled out too quickly. “Geraldine, she’s so fascinated by your home. She sees it from the outside every day. She got so curious she had to come see the inside.”
“Oh! I get it. I’ve always wanted to see the inside of your hut with all those strange staircases and additions and little annexes. It’s no problem. I can give Geraldine a tour, and then you can be back on your way in no time. Though if the roktoil overboils, we may have a bit of a situation. I should probably go check on that…”
She turned from him and started back toward the open door. Mulrox knew he was never going to convince Geraldine to come back with him tonight.
“Yahgurkin,” Mulrox began. “Sorry to impose.”
“Impose?” She was wandering away not really listening.
“See the thing is, Geraldine really wants some time to explore. If she was able to stay with you… I tried to tell her not to bother you, but she was insistent.”
Yahgurkin smiled a wide, toothy grin.
Mulrox took that as encouragement and continued on. “Would it be alright if she stayed with you for a few days. With this business with Griselda, I could use a little space.”
“A couple days? Really? Fantastic! Are you sure you don’t want to come in?” she asked.
Mulrox noticed a thick yellow smoke rolling into her front hall.
“Yahgurkin, I think something might be…” He pointed at the smoke.
“Blue Beard’s knee!” She slapped her forehead and then dashed inside, slamming the door in Mulrox’s face.
Mulrox stood there, stunned for several moments as he looked at the door. He could hear pots banging and what sounded like a drawer of silverware clattering to the floor. Over it all was the sound of Yahgurkin babbling away to herself.
Mulrox let out a deep breath and then turned back to the garden.
“You can come out now,” Mulrox said, walking through the garden back toward his hut.
There was no reply.
“Yvwi?” Mulrox asked.
Nothing. It was suspiciously quiet. No trees rustling or owls calling to one another. No deadly flap of wings.
Mulrox headed down the path to his hut, looking this way and that, but there was no sign of the malcognitos. It was clear—only a few smatterings of clouds clothed the winking stars.
When he got to the door, he paused. They were inside, they must be.
“It’s just a bunch of chalk dust,” he whispered. “Pull yourself together!” His hands shook as he grabbed the doorknob and charged into the house.
He barreled through the hut until he was back standing in the middle of his living room.
“Yvwi!” Mulrox shouted. But there was no reply.
He stopped and looked about him.
His house had been ransacked. Food was strewn all over the floor, and there was a dark stain on the wall that could only have come from his last jar of molasses. Books had been pulled from the shelves, throw pillows gutted, and the statue of Great-Aunt Griselda lay smashed on the floor. He spotted Griselda’s nose under the side table. At least something good had come out of this disaster. They had done an admirable job tearing the place up. Not quite up to ogre standards, but still a good effort.
But though evidence of the creatures was everywhere, he did not see a single ghostly shape.
“Malcognitos!” Mulrox tried again, but he was met with silence.
Mulrox searched the rest of the hut, the two bedrooms, the study, the spare room, the library. He even forayed down the long hallway to the cellar and called down into it from the top of the stairs. But the malcognitos were gone.
“Good,” he said.
Mulrox stomped off to his bedroom and flung himself onto the bed. He was more than ready to put this whole day behind him, but his mind raced around and around. The little wooden animals spun above his head, chasing each other in their endless circles as if mocking him. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the ocean. The crashing waves, the spray, the ever-changing colors. His heart slowed, but his mind kept returning to the strange events of the day: The squirrelmonk and her prophecy, Griselda’s terrible revelation, the destruction of his notebooks, his idiotic bargain with her, and then to top it all off, the appearance of his monstrous ideas. No ogre had ever had a worse day.
But as he turned out the light, his thoughts returned to the nightmarish malcognitos and their sudden disappearance. He couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He yanked the cover over himself. “All you have to do now is write the best poem of your life, win the Behemoth, get rid of Griselda, take back your home, and deal with those weird dreams.” Mulrox sighed.
He might write the poem about Griselda. She had certainly earned the honor. Something about her foul stench and the hole where her heart should be.
“Tomorrow,” he mumbled. And with a deep sigh, he fell asleep.
10
The next morning Mulrox woke up with his mind reeling. All night he had dreamed he was being pursued through a garden by a cloud of angry malcognitos on one side and a horde of ogres on the other. Instead of leaves, the trees had words sprouting from their limbs, and he was trying to collect them as he sprinted between their trunks. As the morning sun filtered in through the curtains, he rolled over once, twice, and then opened a bleary eye to look at the rack of ribs on the side table. He was late!
Mulrox rolled out of bed, stumbling over Geraldine’s toad stand and dragging several blankets onto the floor. He tumbled into a fresh set of clothing, grabbed his remaining notebook and a pen, and shoved them deep inside his coat pocket. He rushed out of the house and took off down the road.
Mulrox caught up with the other ogres as a wagon pulled by two sweating, braying mules trundled into the clearing. The other ogres turned and glared as he huffed in and plunked down in the back of the group.
Groxor stood in front of the seated ogres and had obviously been talking for some time already. He sighed when he saw Mulrox but turned back to the group.
“Yesterday was embarrassing. Do you understand? We break things. Is that clear to everyone? I personally have obliterated over five hundred doors. I know we come from a backward, disordered, little town, but that is no excuse. Our guest today is in a league of her own.”
No one liked lecture days. Listening to some old-timer drone on and on about the perfect form for scaling a wall or overturning wheelbarrows put even the most enthusiastic ogre to sleep. It was the perfect time to work on his poem. Mulrox waited until the others had resumed ignoring him and then pulled out his notebook and flipped it open to the next blank page.
With a heart the size of a shriveled pea
And skin more cracked than the bark of a tree
“Hey,” someone whispered.
Mulrox snapped the notebook shut.
Yahgurkin sat a few feet away, staring at him meaningfully. As their eyes met, she scooched in toward Mulrox.
He forced a smile. “Hi.”
“What are you working on?”
“Nothing,” Mulrox said.
“Today’s special guest is sure to set you dunderheads straight.” Groxor was still droning on. “She’s come all the way from Raggok, one of the premier members of Debtor’s Doom, Griselda the Gruesome.”
Out from the wagons shot a metal cane, closely followed by two enormous blue feet. There was a smattering of applause. Mulrox glared as she hobbled her way toward Groxor.
“Ogres,” Griselda said after she had settled. “On this visit to Ulgorprog, I have witnessed an appalling lack of respect and understanding for our traditions.”
“You mean like trying to throw me out of my own house,” Mulrox muttered.
“Or stealing my garden,” Yahgurkin added.
“Therefore, today’s lecture is on VALUES.” Griselda spat as she talked. Mulrox felt bad for the first row who were getting a thorough dows
ing.
“Griselda is an expert on values,” Groxor chimed in.
Mulrox rolled his eyes.
“TRADITION!” she bellowed. “What is it, you ask?—well, don’t. Follow it. End of story. We live by a code. We have a role.”
“Psst,” Yahgurkin whispered. She motioned him forward with the crook of her finger. Mulrox tucked his notebook back in his coat pocket and leaned toward her.
“What?”
“Sorry about what I said last night.”
“It’s fine.”
“You know, about your parents. I didn’t mean anything by what I said. It’s what everyone else is saying, so I—”
“It’s fine.”
“I wouldn’t want to think you were mad at me. Not when we had such an incredible time last night. We looked in all the rooms, and then all the cupboards, and even all the boxes and baskets. I can’t believe we’ve never done it before. Geraldine and I have so much in common. She’s a very curious toad.”
“That’s great,” Mulrox said as he pushed a little farther away from her, turning back to the familiar berating words of his great-aunt.
“I trust no one here wants to return to the days of the Ogre Wars where we were hunted for sport,” Griselda droned on. “Because with this kind of subpar performance, that’s exactly where we are headed!”
Yahgurkin hesitated for a moment but then scooted toward Mulrox a few more inches. “It’s just… when were you going to tell me about your friends?”
“Friends?” Mulrox practically fell over backward. But they were gone. He had gotten rid of them, hadn’t he?
“I knew it!” Yahgurkin shook her head. “When I ran into them this morning, they were definitely up to something. They think they’re so sneaky, but I knew. Don’t worry—I didn’t tell them where you live.”
“Where I live? Who—”
“Though perhaps my grandnephew might make a good wall hanging if he doesn’t pay more attention.”
Mulrox head snapped back toward Griselda. “Sorry, I—”
“As I was saying,” Griselda continued. “Our values are at the core of our traditions. They are—”
Mulrox and the Malcognitos Page 6