Seshe spotted a squirrel on a tree branch, and climbed up fast, but the squirrel gave a frightened squeak and scrambled away, vanishing into another tree.
She swung down to the grass where I waited, then sighed. “You know, I wonder if she might have been turned into something large. If it’s a true shape change, wouldn’t she have to be a larger animal, something girl sized?”
“I hadn’t thought of that. Shapechanging magic—the real stuff, not illusion—is way beyond me,” I admitted. “But it has to be a little like that shrinking magic. When part of you gets shifted into non-being, somehow. I guess that’s not so bad.”
“Here’s what scares me.” Seshe started forward. “I read somewhere once that if you take the true shape of a creature, after a time you become the creature and forget you’re human.”
“DIANA!” I screeched, so upset I forgot about the Chwahir.
Naturally, my superbellow managed to bring trouble. Not long after we heard a suspicious rustle from ahead, but when we turned to run the other way, we discovered we were surrounded.
The Chwahir never spoke. That was somehow creepier than the prospect of getting bagged. I thought about the magic on them—and then came a familiar yell. Jilo. “Grab them! Don’t let them—”
One of the Chwahir rushed at us—then came the biggest surprise. A yellowish streak tore past me, and hit the Chwahir full in the chest. He slammed to the ground, and a feline shape bounded from him and away, a couple of Chwahir chasing with their swords.
Then Puddlenose and some of the sailors dashed up, Puddlenose bellowing, “Lordsnordsword to the rescue!”
The sword whistled as he waved it. He jumped between me and a couple of Chwahir. “Hey!” I yelped. “That thing nearly cut my ear off!”
“You don’t trust my mighty skills?” Puddlenose hooted, as sword clanged. “Ow.” He danced back and switched hands, blowing on his fingers.
I touched my necklace, but my Shoe did not appear.
The Chwahir advanced—but only for a moment. Both were tackled from behind by sailors, klonked over the head, and we ran.
Later that night, most of the sailors and Puddlenose, Lina, and Robin were in the main room, playing a big game of Dive, which is kind of like Spoon. You keep the cards going, and then when you get six of a kind, you sneak the stick from the center, and everyone dives to get the rest of the sticks. There is one short, and the person without a stick has to sit out the next round.
I usually love this game, but I was in a Mood, so I went to my room to draw, and the girls in our gang sort of drifted in to join me.
PJ had been so quiet I managed to forget he was there until we heard his plaintive wail, “There’s something scra-a-a-a-atching outside.”
“Shut up, PJ,” Puddlenose bellowed. “We’re busy.”
“Why don’t you let him out,” Seshe called up the tunnel. “He can’t go anywhere.”
“Because he whines, and he needs to see what it feels like to be stuck in prison, he’s so fond of doing it to others,” Puddlenose called back cheerily.
“But—”
“But nothing. He’s my hostage. Everybody agreed.”
“So butt out,” Seshe finished. “All right. But I hate this.”
She left the tunnel door. “I really don’t like having Prince Jonnicake here.” She sat down on my bed.
“So do I.” I shrugged. “I hate his pimply scowl, and his whiny voice. He’s even stupider than Rel. Nobody is going to pay any ransom to get him back—and Puddlenose hasn’t even written a ransom letter or anything. It was a dumb idea.”
She sighed. “It has to be horrible sitting down there,” she said.
“You feel sorry for him?” I asked, making a face.
“I feel sorry for his entire life. And we’re just making it worse.” She looked angry—a rare expression for her. “They have all these gems and jewels, but Fobo won’t even get his front teeth fixed, so he can talk properly.”
“I thought the lisp was on purpose.”
“No, you can hear it, how much trouble he has.”
One of the things I’d hated about PJ—one of the many—was his say-it-don’t-spray-it speech. Eugh. I never thought about how his teeth might be wrong—an easy fix in this world. You just went to a healer, and they did spells over a period of time, kind of like braces. It would hurt a bit as they readjusted—like braces—but then the teeth came out straighter, depending on how much magic they did.
“But there’s something out there!” he howled. “I’m scared!”
And from the main room, a bunch of hoots. After some more whining and howling, the grownups said variations on, “Go outside and check!” to Puddlenose.
Since he was in charge of the hostage, he had to go.
“I’ll tell you what has been bothering me,” I said. “That all this stuff done to us shows imagination.”
“Villains shouldn’t have imagination.” Irene raised a finger. “Number forty-seven in the Villains’ Rules.”
“Villains are stupid, or they wouldn’t be villains,” I said, and Faline nodded, and I could tell she was thinking up more Villains’ Rules. “I mean, they wouldn’t want to be villains. If they’re as stupid as Rel, maybe they don’t even know they’re villains.”
“How do they not know they’re villains?” Sherry asked.
“Oh, not Rel again,” Irene muttered, looking skyward.
I got prickle-heat all over, and wanted to snap something nasty at her, but I made myself not say anything. Irene hadn’t been stuck with Rel around, or she would be talking even more than I was, so there. “Villains don’t know they’re villains when they think they’re on the good side. And they’re too stupid to know they’re not. Oooogh. I just figured out why that business about what happened to us bothers me so much. It’s because the stuff they did makes it clear somebody knows us—knows our personalities.”
Seshe looked up, her lips parted. “I think that’s it.” She flushed. “And whoever it was—Jilo, almost certainly—thinks I’m really boring. To be stuck asleep in a forest?”
Irene sighed. “I’d rather be boring than a slave. When I—”
Dhana and Faline both said, “—was chained to that bed—”
“—was ch ...” Irene stopped, and reddened up to her hairline. “That’s mean.”
See how you like it, I thought. I didn’t say it, but my face must have showed it because Irene glared at me.
Seshe, always the peacemaker, said to Irene, “What they did to you was cruel. Is Fobo as cruel to her regular servants?”
“I heard that they quit a lot,” Irene said, distracted by the question. “King Fudalklaeb has to pay them extra to wait on the Dudly Duo.”
I said, “I wish I could figure out a way to find Diana. I’m really worried, and you know what worries me extra is, out of all of us except you, Seshe, she loves animals the most. Maybe she’ll want to stay one, and not be human anymore.”
Dhana shrugged. “That would be all right. If she wanted it.”
“But she didn’t! They put a spell on her!”
Sherry looked from me to Dhana, eyes round.
“Perhaps. But if she likes her new shape ... being human isn’t the best thing in the world, you know.”
“Then why are you human?” Irene flashed.
Dhana just shrugged. “Because I wanted to try it. I like it. But it isn’t best. I don’t think I’d want to be an animal. But Diana might.”
The talk just made me more and more uneasy.
“It’s out there again!” PJ wailed.
“Shut up! There’s nothing there!” Puddlenose yelled impatiently. “Just the tree branches rustling, or something.”
Puddlenose’s room is directly below a huge tree, and roots form part of the ceiling. I could see finding them scary if it was dark. “Does PJ have a light in there?”
“He has the glow globe,” Seshe said. “I made sure.”
“Okay, then let’s ignore him.”
Well, we
did—or I did—but not for long.
Everyone had gone to sleep and I was still awake, because this time I could hear it, too. It was barely there, a ghostly scritch-scratch. So I got up, and fog-footed up the tunnel to look around.
The night air was cool, the forest still. So much for wind making tree branches rub together.
I edged to the small cave at the back entrance—and jumped in fright when a large, pale shape paced out of the cave. It was a huge feline, yellowish in the moonlight.
And I knew. “Diana?” I said cautiously. And held out my hand.
If it was, did she still remember me? She snuffled my hand, whiskers brushing it, then opened her mouth very wide. I snatched my hand back, then said, “Wait here.”
Well that was stupid, I thought. If she’s a human, she’ll wait, then I don’t have to waken anyone, but if not ... I didn’t pause to untangle that, but dashed downstairs and shook Seshe awake. She has that odd almost communication with animals, so I said, “I think Diana’s here. But I need you to make sure.”
She got up at once and followed me.
The feline was still there. Seshe laid her hand on the flat, triangular head. A deep, rumbling noise started. At first I thought it a growl. No, it was a rough, rusty sort of purr.
“It’s Diana,” Seshe whispered. Her nightgown shifted as she shrugged. “I just know it.”
I crept out, and pressed close to the tree I thought was above Puddlenose’s room. Fresh scratch marks marred the bark. “Whaddaya know. PJ was right.”
Seshe was whispering to the feline.
“I told her what happened, and asked her to stay,” she said.
We went back to bed.
o0o
That night I dreamed about Clair. She was looking for me, as I looked for her. The details were smeary—a background that made no sense, just bright color, and our conversation didn’t make any more sense than the background did. It was a dream, I told myself. They never make sense. Still, it left me with a creepy feeling all the next day.
“We gotta get going on some kind of plan,” I said when we all were together. “We’ve got the girls, and I have no idea where to start searching for Clair. “
The girls looked solemn. Captain Heraford said, “One thing we can do, while you investigate.” Then he waited.
I said, “Go ahead. It’s not like my ideas have gotten us free yet.”
“Well, we could just visit the main trade centers. And see if we can contact the leaders. Tell them to get ready to rise. If you figure out the magical end, wouldn’t it be a good idea to send some signal and have all the locals throw out the Chwahir?”
“Could they?” I said doubtfully.
“They might be able to now,” he said. “When his force is spread so thin. If he gets those reinforcements from the home country, it’s going to be a whole lot harder to kick them out again. And I don’t know how well our alliance has done in holding them back.”
Puddlenose said, “Another thing. We got free yesterday, but now they know we’re all free. And that we’re here.” He stuck a thumb at himself then at me.
“And they’ve got to have some kind of lair nearby, to always be on call,” Lina said, making a face. “Because they sure came quick last time.”
“I think Jilo’s in charge of the search,” Puddlenose added. “Him and his pals. If they keep chasing us, sooner or later they’re going to figure out where the Junky is.”
“All right. Then let’s have two plans,” I said. “People who’ll do that contact-and-throw-off-the-Chwahir floob.”
Captain Heraford put up his hand—and so did the sailors, so fast I had a suspicion they’d talked it out beforehand. I got hold of my fuming. They were on my side, and they hadn’t just bulled in and taken over.
Lina put up her hand, followed by Robin. “I think that sounds like mayor business,” Lina said. “You know, maybe I’d better go back and see if our people headed for the hills. Just like in the bad old days. I bet anything they did. If so, we could rise, too.”
I groaned out a loud sigh. Psheee—eeeuuuu-oooow! “So that leaves us to lure that spackle-nose Jilo out ... we need some kind of decoy.”
“We could do that,” Puddlenose offered. “I’d like a fight. See what ol’ Jilo is made of when he’s not sneaking around throwing magic at people behind their backs.”
A couple of the younger sailors stirred, but I ignored them. Oh, I could imagine it—seemed like a fine plan—but I had a better idea. Seeing Seshe sitting there reminded me.
“How about a better decoy?” I asked.
Everybody said, “Who?” or “What?” except for Faline, who said, “Spackle-nose!”
“PJ.”
I waited for the hoots, laughs, and What???s to die down.
I said, warming to my idea, “We dress him up as one of us. Let him go. He’ll get bagged, and Jilo takes him to Kwenz—he probably doesn’t even know PJ, since the Auknuges were thrown out of MH around the time Jilo got demoted into Kwenz’s heir.”
“Demoted?” the captain asked, puzzled.
“Well, since they’re lower than slime, I figure, rank with them has to go lower, not higher. Lowest of all is Shnit.”
“Now that almost makes sense,” the captain said, grinning. “I salute you!”
I turned to Puddlenose. “Well? It’s not like you’ve done anything about a ransom. And if Kwenz recognizes PJ, especially if you know, first Jilo thinks he’s one of us—”
“Who, Jilo’s one of us?”
“No! If PJ thinks Jilo—I mean, if Jilo thinks PJ is one of us, well, maybe he’ll get into trouble for stupidity!”
“PJ?” Sherry asked, brow puckered.
I smacked my forehead. “Pil—that is, Jilo. Hey, that’s a great name! Pilo!”
“Pilo and PJ!” Irene exclaimed.
“But PJ will tell Jilo who he is,” Dhana said.
“Who listens to his whining? Jilo won’t!”
Puddlenose clapped his hands and rubbed them. “And so we lure him out, and capture him, instead. And ransom him to Kwenz!”
“Yeah!” Everybody yelled.
“That’s it, then,” I said, relieved. “I’ll go get PJ. See if he’ll do it.”
I didn’t want to talk to PJ, but I figured it was my plan, so I should see it out. I went to the opening to Puddlenose’s room and called down, “PJ!”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Do you want to get out and go home?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you have to agree to something.”
“Whaaat?” he whined.
“You have to get dressed in normal clothes, and pretend to be one of us.”
“Ugh,” he said. HE!
“UGH!” I honked, disgusted beyond measure that he would dare to express disgust!
But he agreed. So we put together an outfit from our stores. PJ is a whole lot smaller and scrawnier even than you’d think, so it took a couple of tries to find things that fit, and as most of us hate shoes—and those are girl shoes—we didn’t even try with those. But he almost looked human when the idiotic brocade-gilt-lace-gemstone-mess was off him.
The pirates had let him go through the cleaning frame, so that and regular food instead of the awful stuff he usually ate had cleared the pimples to purple patches. He almost looked human, if you didn’t look at his expression.
We blindfolded him again, took him out, led him far away, and then took off the blindfold. “Now. Just keep going,” I said.
He glowered in suspicion. “That’s it?”
“That’s it. I hope you can manage that much.”
He stomped away, the curled toes of his shoes wiggling with his disgust.
As he gradually vanished beyond a shaft of sunlight slanting down, mottling the grass, I said, “And there goes a really dumb idea. You were right, Seshe.”
“I dunno,” Seshe said softly. “Maybe I was wrong.”
“What?” three or four of us turned to stare at her.
“Think about it. He had nothing to do for days but sit and listen to us having a good time. Not ordered, no false social occasions. Just, you know, everyday behavior. Has he ever seen that?”
“All he did was whine,” Faline said, waving a hand. “He wouldn’t even listen to me when I tried to cheer him up with a joke or two.”
Seshe shrugged, and that was that.
THIRTEEN
Sure enough, Jilo and his gang swooped down on him. As they muscled him off to Kwenz (and I was right—PJ was yelling wildly, but Jilo paid no attention to his mix of threats and accusations against us) Puddlenose and Dhana followed them, hoping to find Jilo’s HQ.
The rest of us stayed around—and later on that day, when Jilo and his friends came back, we were ready. Whether Kwenz got mad at Jilo or not, there was no way of knowing. But one thing for sure: he thought like a kid, because here he was, just as we predicted.
We ran, hid, jumped on twigs to crack them. We spread out in order to cause them to divide up. Jilo soon separated off from his gaggle, following a trail of footprints Irene had stamped into the ground so even he could find them.
As soon as we were pretty sure he was as isolated as he’d get, I stepped out from a tree and flopped on the grass, pretending to be asleep. After I gave a few snores louder than a herd of buffalo, Jilo spotted me—I heard footsteps—before he could get within a few feet, I zoomed up and into a tree.
He ran along below me—straight into our trap, heh heh.
And before long, there he was, blindfolded, tied up, and dumped into PJ’s former chamber.
“Let me out of here,” he demanded, looking up at us with those creepy all-black eyes.
“Don’t be an idiot.” I gloated, remembering what he’d done to us. “Ooops, too late for that. Don’t be more of an idiot.”
Sherry said earnestly, “Look, if you don’t act like PJ—er, Prince Jonnicake—we’ll send food down.”
Silence. Faline grinned, her face purple as she tried not to laugh. Even Jilo didn’t want to be compared to PJ!
Mearsies Heili Bounces Back Page 27