André said that when a Doolivanti first shows up to the Wishing World, sometimes—but not always—unique creatures will show up for them. He called them familiars. Sir Real had his Flimflams, and he claimed that Gruffy, Pip and Squeak were my familiars, too. I didn’t buy that. I just called them friends.
“Right on time. Right on time,” Pip the toucan echoed, flapping up next to Gruffy. “As usual. As usual.”
“Are we to expect anything less from the most powerful Doolivanti in Veloran?” Gruffy asked. “I told you she would come.”
“Gruffy! You’re, like, monster-sized now.” I said.
“I am no monster,” he said.
I threw myself at him and hugged him with all my might. “You’re my monster.”
Four
Where I Pause to Reflect . . . Which Helps How?
And then it happened.
“No,” I whispered, feeling the burn in my chest. I backed up from Gruffy, and the thread hovered there, flickering. I tried to catch it, but it swished around my hand and escaped, floating upward. Don’t mind me. I’m just a little piece of burning lint . . .
. . . and the flare gun of the apocalypse.
Gruffy watched the thread rise past his beak, unconcerned, as though it was an amusing illusion I had conjured.
“No! Stop that thing,” I yelled, jumping up to grab it, but it was out of reach now. I pulled out my carved quill and scribbled on the air:
The rip shrank and returned to Lorelei.
The words burned on the air, and the thread of fire writhed and widened, then kept on floating higher.
“No!”
The thread lodged itself high above in the white-streaked sky.
I wasn’t Leaf Laugher or Sand Spinner, not Sir Real or the Mirror Man or even the Ink King. I was Lore the Ripper. I was Skyburner of the Hairy Thug Club.
“I suck,” I said. Why? Why did my powers hurt Veloran and everyone else’s didn’t? Why why why?
“You are Doolivanti.” Gruffy’s voice rumbled down from his new great height. “The Doolivanti who does the impossible.”
I wanted to cry, but how do you cry with that noble face looking at you with unconditional faith? He smelled like the fresh, wild sky, and he felt like home. With Gruffy around, nothing bad could happen. “I missed you so much,” I said, and I hugged him again. He made me feel like I could make this better. I could find André and Jayla.
I let him go and stepped back.
“So what happened?” I asked, clearing my throat. “How come you disappeared from the mirror? One day I could call you, the next you were gone.”
“As always, you return when Veloran most needs you,” Gruffy said. “She is not herself. Many things have not been working the way they ought to. HuggyBug vanished, so I could not answer your call. All over Veloran, fire has gone wild. We fear someone has stolen the power of the Fire Princess and is wielding it recklessly. And then, of course, the Eternal Sea has gone quiet.”
“What do you mean, the Eternal Sea has gone quiet?”
“No movement. No movement,” Pip said.
“It is true, Doolivanti,” Gruffy said.
“And the Ferbleticks are running. The Ferbleticks are running,” Pip said.
I, of course, was supposed to know what a Ferbletick was.
“Squeak,” said Squeak.
I spotted the little gray mouse for the first time. I smiled and knelt. He hopped on my knee, held out his paws palms up, and said, “Squeak.”
I sighed. “I still can’t understand you.”
Squeak rolled his eyes.
“He said that the Fire Princess has also vanished,” Gruffy translated.
“Who is the Fire Princess?” I asked.
“Squeak.”
“Squeak has traveled to many places this last week,” Gruffy said. “Trees wilt. Doolivanti castles crumble like dry sand. The Eternal Sea is still, and the Water and Fire Princesses are missing. It is as though the soul has been snatched from Veloran.”
The soul of Veloran: Vella Wren, steward of the Wishing World. Also known as Ripple, the Water Princess.
“Ripple is gone,” I said quietly. I had never told Gruffy, Pip, or Squeak about Ripple being Vella Wren. I had never told anybody. “We have to find Ripple. Right now.”
“Squeak,” said Squeak, cocking his head at me as though he could feel my heavy thoughts. Smart mouse. I wished he spoke English.
I turned and bumped into Theron, now transformed into his Doolivanti self Darthorn, who had emerged from the Kaleidoscope Forest and snuck up behind me. Though how you could sneak up on anything when you’re an eight-foot tall man made of mirrored steel plates, I don’t know. I was about to tell him to stop messing around, but I paused at my reflection in his mirrored chest.
It was me, but it also wasn’t me. In reality, I was wearing my jeans, my purple running shoes and my black T-shirt that said: Always Be Yourself. Unless You Can Be Batman. Then Always Be Batman.
But not in the mirror. My reflection in Darthorn’s armor was Loremaster, that “perfect self” I’d almost transformed into when I first came to the Wishing World. She wore her hair—um, well, my hair, I guess—in a long, black braid over one shoulder. She had the same blue jacket with silver embroidery, black leggings and the calf-high black boots. She had the writer’s satchel, too. I reached into my pocket to get my pen, and my reflection reached into the satchel. Totally weird—
Darthorn jolted past me, almost knocking me over.
I turned around as a wall of flame roared toward us. I threw a hand up in front of my eyes, but both Darthorn and Gruffy stepped in front of me. The flames blasted into them. Heat rushed over me.
The fire passed, and I blinked.
“Gruffy! Your feathers!”
He stepped back and flapped his monstrous wings once. The gust extinguished all of his burning feathers.
“Wow.”
“Doolivanti,” Gruffy said in his serious voice.
I stepped around him and saw a horde of figures shimmering beyond the heat fumes. Smoke curled around the leader, slowly parting to reveal her.
I opened my mouth and couldn’t seem to close it.
“Jayla?”
Five
Here, Kitty, Kitty
Jayla wore a black dress that went all the way up to her chin. The sleeves were split into five points that curled from her hands like cat claws. Her curly black hair was bound up in an elaborate sculpture on top of her head. Her eyes were bright green with vertical pupils, and behind her were . . .
Kittens. But big as houses. House Cats. Literally. Ha ha.
Yeah. So funny I wanted to puke.
The House Cats had slanted eyes and pointy ears as tall as I was. Each one was a different bright color. Purple. Orange. Pink. Flames rose from their paws and the tips of their flamey ears. Sparks flicked from their tails as they swished in unison. Left, right. Left, right.
“Meet the Flickapaws,” Jayla said. “They’re my Gruffies.”
Next to the Flickapaws were three of the whip-wielding Flaming Beard-Os, drooling lava.
I didn’t want to leap to judgment, but my best friend looked like a villain. I’m sorry, but if you have green cat eyes, a half-dozen monster kittens that look like they want to eat people, and your back-up band is the Flaming Beard-Os, you look like a villain.
“My name is Cat Singer,” she said.
“Hi, Cat Singer,” I said. “I’m your best friend, Lorelei. Remember? Look, I know this all seems great, but you need to—”
“No,” she interrupted. “I don’t listen to you anymore.”
“How about a guy named Jimmy?” I pressed. “Are you listening to him? Because he’s going to mess—”
The three Flaming Beard-Os cracked their whips and stepped aside. Jimmy walked between them, dressed like some medieval king, ermine cape and all. Except it flamed around the edges. A spark the size of a quarter bounced all over his shoulders. It jumped from one to the other, then disappeared inside hi
m, then jumped back out again. Sometimes it landed on his head, sometimes it skittered down his arms and back up. He didn’t seem to notice it.
“He doesn’t care about you, Jayla,” I said. “As soon as you give him what he wants, he’s going to kill you.”
Another figure emerged from the drifting smoke behind Jimmy, a giant guy with boulder shoulders and fists the size of his head. He was covered in green scales, and he had a long scorpion’s tail. He was even taller than Darthorn, and he pointed at him. “That’s Theron, right?” Lizard Boy shook his head and smacked his enormous fist into his hand. “Knock her out and be done with it. I wanna smash his stupid mirror face.”
Darthorn leaned forward, ready to level mountains. Gruffy’s stern glance told me he was willing to battle to the death. But that henchman looked familiar. He . . .
“Eric Bragg?” I blurted.
“Not here,” he rumbled. “Now I’m Lashtail.”
Chill one and chill two, running up my back. Jimmy had brought Jayla to the Wishing World. He had also brought Eric Bragg. And there were more people in the smoke behind the House Cats and the Flaming Beard-Os. Jimmy had stolen my friend and Theron’s enemy and mashed them into an ugly army.
Who else did he have back there? I felt ill. If André had joined the Jimmy army, I didn’t know if I could—
But the smoke cleared, and there was only one more Jimmythug. He was tall and lanky and most certainly not André. He wore all black with a wide-brimmed hat and a long coat. His arms and legs were impossibly thin and . . . weird, like they had no bones in them. He looked like he was made of black licorice. He lifted his pointy chin and I recognized him. That was the skinny kid who hung out with Eric Bragg all the time. Larry. No. Luke. Jayla called him Luke the Larynx because he was really good at imitating people. He could make his voice sound like any movie star you’d ever seen. Jayla said his impression of Principal Stevenson was hilarious.
“Where is André?” I demanded.
“He didn’t want to play, so I put him in detention,” Jimmy said.
André had refused Jimmy. Thank you, André. The world hadn’t gone completely crazy.
Darthorn’s fist creaked as he shifted. I put a hand on his shimmering arm. “No, wait,” I said. Gruffy glanced at me. I had to figure this out. This place. These people. This wasn’t an accident. Jimmy had wanted me to come here. That little show in front of the school, that was to taunt me into following him.
I needed more info. Jimmy had made Doolivantis. How did he do that, exactly? Only Vella could make Doolivantis.
Except something was wrong with Vella, because something was wrong with the Wishing World. Had Jimmy done something to her? How could he do that when he didn’t even know who Vella Wren was?
“Having second thoughts, Lorelei?” Jimmy said. His fists flamed and the ground lit under his shoes. Smoke curled up from underneath them like he was about to blast off.
“So, last time you were the Ink King,” I said, stalling for time. “And now you’re what, Lord Flaming Feet?”
“I’m the Ink King. I’m the Fire King. I’m the King of the Wishing World,” he said with his grinny grin.
“Jayla,” I said. “This isn’t just your own happy cat dream. What happens here really happens.”
She narrowed her big feline eyes, giving me a look somewhere between “I’m falling asleep” and “I’m going to eat you now.”
“He is using you,” I insisted. “You have to help me—”
“I gave her what she wanted,” Jimmy interrupted. “You wouldn’t give her the time of day.”
I kept my attention on Jayla. “So that’s it?”
Jayla hesitated. “You don’t belong in the Wishing World.”
Jimmy laughed. “Wow, that was awesome. But it’s time to end the drama. Get her. Kill the rest of them.” He pointed his finger at us.
Doolivantis, Beard-Os, and Flickapaws leapt forward. Gruffy screeched, jumping into the air. Darthorn smashed into the Beard-Os and scattered them like flaming popcorn.
“This is starting out as a bad day. A bad day,” Pip said, flapping upward as a spear of fire rushed past him.
“Theron, stop.” He kept going. “Darthorn, stop!” I shouted. “We have to—”
Jimmy shot fire at him, but it bounced off his mirrors like light, flaring in every direction. Eric burst out of the smoke and hit Darthorn in the side of the head so hard that it sounded like a thunderclap. My brother flew sideways, crashing to the ground and cutting a groove in the singed turf.
“Theron!”
I whipped out my wooden pen and wrote on the air.
Lashtail stung himself in the face.
The bully’s segmented tail whipped up and bashed him in his own jaw. He howled and fell back. My chest burned.
Gruffy flew at one of the giant Flickapaws, and it swiped at him. He flapped powerfully to the side and switched back, dodging and landing on the Flickapaw’s back. He dug his front talons and back claws into its ruff. With a thunderous screech, he surged upward and lifted it into the air. It mewled in pain, and I was stunned at how strong Gruffy was now. That cat had to be four times as heavy as he was! He threw the first House Cat into the second House Cat and they both went down in an earth-quaking tumble of flame and fur.
I wrote quickly: Gruffy and Pip are fireproof.
I clenched my teeth and twisted a fist into my shirt. Just like last time, when I used my power, when the sky ripped, it felt like it was also ripping inside my chest. It hurt so bad. Why did my power have to hurt so much? Why couldn’t I do this right?
Luke the Licorice Man leapt on Darthorn, and I lifted my pen—
Suddenly I was up to my ears in blue goo. It rose up around me, a Blue Goo Sea, stinging my hands like a jellyfish. I yelped. The jelly started hardening, squeezing me. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t breathe. It was going to—
Okay, calm down, Stressy Pants. Think.
I closed my eyes. I could still move my finger. Inside the jelly, I scrawled: Goo blew.
My blobby prison blew apart, scattering like a jar of blueberry jelly thrown at the wall. My chest flared with pain, and I heard a boy’s voice crying somewhere in the grass underneath me.
Jeepers. That was a Doolivanti! I quickly wrote: Blobby Boy put himself back together. The blue pieces slithered together, slowly forming a human-ash shape.
“Sorry,” I said. I felt sick in my stomach. I didn’t want to hurt them. Everything was a horrible mess. I’d imagined coming back to Veloran a hundred times, but never like this. Darthorn was half-bound in black cables that grew out of Licorice Man. Lashtail’s own tail pummeled him again and again in the face as he tried to block it with his arms. Gruffy circled, his wings streaming flame. Jayla rode one of her House Cats, looking up and waiting for Gruffy to dive again.
We were losing. Badly.
“Squeak!”
I glanced down at the little mouse. He pointed at the sky. The rip was huge and raging, almost as large as it had been before I’d left the Wishing World last time.
“Squeak,” he said emphatically.
“I know,” I said. “But I have to stop this!”
I plucked my pen out of the slithering blue jelly and wrote on the air: Jayla acted normal again.
I gasped at the pain. I could feel the burn all the way to my fingertips this time. Jayla jerked like I’d hit her in the head with a shovel and almost fell off her House Cat. Both of her fists were shaking as she glared at me.
Do it. Be the way I need you to be.
She screamed at me. Something ripped in my chest, and I stumbled backward, fell to my knees.
“You’re not the boss of me,” she shouted. Her House Cats mrowled their approval.
“Jayla, please think,” I raised my pen.
“Squeak!” Squeak said.
“No. I have to save her,” I yelled. “I have to stop Jimmy!”
“Squeak!”
Jimmy pointed at me, and a wall of flame rushed at us.
; “I have to save—”
“SQUEAK!” He became a blur, circling my feet a dozen times in a heartbeat. A hole appeared underneath me, and I fell just as the fire burned over my head. The hole closed and suddenly I was on a slide, rocketing downward.
I heard Jimmy yell “No!” as the hole closed.
“Squeak,” I yelled. “What are you doing?”
I clung desperately to my pen, and scribbled a little word.
Light.
The pen glowed, illuminating the little dirt tube. I was sliding down a smooth root with smaller roots all around me. I was moving so fast I couldn’t catch my breath. Down down down.
And then up. Up up up. And that was weird. I didn’t lose any momentum at all. Just kept sliding as fast as I was before, but gravity was definitely behind me and not down the tunnel in front of me.
“Squeak.” Squeak perched on my knee, looking forward like a tiny ship’s captain.
“You just left Gruffy there. And Pip and Theron! We have to go back.”
“Squeak,” he said.
Oh, for the love of the sacred tulip of the girl’s bathroom. “I don’t understand what you’re saying!”
He looked back at me, his whiskers twitching. Was that a judgment? A smirk?
A light suddenly appeared ahead, round and bright, and we shot through it like a Nerf dart. Then gravity took charge again, and I was falling back toward the hole, which closed. I landed with a thump on the dirt in the middle of a tall field of sunflowers.
Six
The Mouse. The Myth. The Gangster
“Squeak!” I called for him as I stood up, then I stopped.
This was the sunflower field where I’d first discovered Ripple was Vella Wren and that she was the soul of the Wishing World, working to hold it together, working for balance. I thought that Squeak didn’t know about Vella, but maybe he did. Or maybe this was just the cool hangout for watching the end of the world.
Loremaster Page 3