by Jon Scieszka
Scowling, Mother raps her knuckles against my skull again, harder this time. It’s clear she’s having second thoughts about her new champion. “Haven’t you been listening?”
Heat rushes to my cheeks. I don’t want Mother to think she’s chosen the wrong person for the job, just because I can’t figure out how to operate a magic bag. Allie Chen would probably catch on quicker. She’s pretty smart, even if she does have an obsession with pigs and hates geometry. She won top honors at this year’s science fair with her project “The Many Uses of Manure.” That’s when Cameron Jamison started picking on her almost as badly as he picks on me. Though, as far as I know, Cameron hasn’t ever stuffed Allie in a locker before, just to keep her from telling on him for stealing her stuff.
I set down my pie pan and stick one end of the shepherd’s crook into the bag.
“Corn nuts on a cracker!” I cry when the staff immediately gets sucked into the bag and disappears. I regard the burlap sack with new respect. It is now five times longer than it was before—the same length as the staff, in fact—yet it still looks and feels completely empty.
“Now get it out again,” says Mother, clearly trying to be a patient instructor.
Remembering what she said about saying names backward, I retrieve the bag and stare into its empty shell. Thinking hard for a moment, I rearrange letters in my head and sound them out. Then I shout: “KOORC!” Which comes out sounding a lot like “cork.” But it must be correct, because the wooden staff rockets out of the bag and hits me squarely between the eyes, knocking me on my butt and making little twinkle-twinkle stars flash like diamonds all around me.
“Eh, well. You’ll get the hang of it soon enough,” says Mother. “Just remember, young Wendell. You possess all the tools and weapons a hero needs most. Employ them! Use your brain! Use your heart! Use the gifts you’ve been given!”
Staring at the pie pan and the shepherd’s crook, I am completely mystified by my so-called “gifts.” At least the magic bag is cool.
“Are these enchanted, too?” I ask hopefully, holding up the pie pan and the crook.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, clucking her tongue. And before I can ask anything more, she pushes me out her front door, not even offering me an ice pack for the lump on my forehead.
Turns out, having a magic bag is a truckload of fun. As I walk mile after crooked mile, headed in the direction of the Knave’s not-so-secret enclave—which, according to Mother, is only a few hours to the west, across a river and past a fork in the road, at the foot of Fiddle Peak—I start putting anything and everything that’s not nailed down inside the burlap sack. I want to know if there’s a limit to what the bag can hold. So far, there isn’t. I’ve collected a bunch of stones. Some small, others the size of my head. I’ve also picked up fat sticks and skinny sticks, and about forty-seven pinecones. But no matter how many things I put inside the bag, it never gets any heavier.
The bag does continue to get bigger, though, and soon, I have the thing wrapped around and around my neck like a scarf, even though it’s scratchy and warm in the afternoon sun.
I continue to carry both the crook and the pie pan in my hands; somehow it doesn’t feel right to store them in the bag. To make myself feel less dorky, I pretend they are the epic weapons I’d been hoping for: the Noble Staff of Wendell! The Unbreakable Shield of the MacDougall-Flowers Clan! Clearly, this might be equally dorky, but it helps me feel better nonetheless. I may be in the seventh grade, but I’m still pretty good at make-believe.
I thump the pie pan against my leg as I walk, trying to figure out how a round metal pan could be useful for anything but baking. I suppose it could make a stellar Frisbee. . . . I throw the pan a few times to test out this idea. I miss every rock and tree I aim for. But that’s nothing new.
The shepherd’s crook is heavy, yet it makes a decent walking stick. It might also be good for conking a bad guy on the head, I suppose, or for tripping somebody, or getting a kite out of a tree.
Feeling my stomach rumble, I open my bag, consider carefully for a minute, then say: “ELPPA!” This time, I’m ready to grab the object that whizzes toward me. “And the crowd goes wild!” I shout, hopping up and down with my arms above my head, as if I just made a game-winning catch.
Munching on my apple, I continue to follow the path Mother set for me. In an attempt to keep my anxiety in check, I keep my mind busy by figuring out how to say all kinds of things backward. So far, I’ve come up with:
EVANK
ESOOG
NOREMAC
SD3 ODNETNIN
It isn’t long before I hear the sound of rushing water. I step up my pace, eager to get my confrontation with the Knave over and done with. Then I can bask in the glory of a job well done and find my way home to Grandville. But when I reach the river and see the water leaping over the rocks, I momentarily forget my nervousness. I rub the coarse, loosely woven fibers of the burlap bag between my fingers. Then I dip my hand into the icy water. “Hunh,” I grunt. “This could be interesting.”
Would it work? Could it work?
Curious, I remove the burlap bag from around my shoulders, roll up my pants, kick off my socks and shoes, and wade into the water.
I open the mouth of the bag, allowing the river to flow directly into it. I watch the bag grow . . . and grow . . . and grow.
When I slog back out of the water again, the bag is still completely empty, as usual. It is also 100 percent dry and the size of a bedsheet.
“Hunh,” I grunt again. “I think that might have worked.”
I tie the bag back around my neck, this time letting it drag on the ground behind me. When I catch sight of my shadow, it looks exactly like I’m wearing a cape.
“Yes!” I shout over the sound of the river. “This almost makes up for me not getting a sword.”
After I cross the river, I set my sights on Fiddle Peak and refuse to be distracted. I mean, if I want to get Mother’s goose back and save the day, I’d better stay focused, right? Though I do pause briefly when I meet a girl who’s searching for some wayward sheep; but I’m on the road again as soon as I help her find them. I’m also traveling lighter now, because I gave the girl my shepherd’s crook. She obviously needed one, and I’m no jerk. Besides, I have other tools at my disposal.
Eventually, I come to the fork in the road, and I strike out through fields and farmland. With my burlap cape billowing majestically behind me, I blaze a path between the two roads, just as Mother instructed . . . until the overpowering stench of manure stops me short, making my eyes water.
I plug my nose and fan myself with the pie pan as I contemplate the pig farm in the distance. I imagine how happy Allie would be if she were here. There are long-tailed pigs, short-tailed pigs, pigs with curly tails . . . not to mention tons and tons of raw material for more prize-winning science fair projects.
Something clicks inside my brain, and I pause to consider for a moment, trying to use my gray matter the way Mother ordered me to before I left her house. Call me crazy, but even though the stink here is almost unbearable, I decide it might be worth my while to linger for a bit. And maybe collect a few things into my bag.
When I eventually do walk on, nearly twenty minutes pass before I realize I forgot my pie pan back at the farm. But there’s no going back. The sun is low in the sky. I’ve got to keep moving. By now, my mom and dad have probably convinced the Grandville Police Department to issue a missing-kid alert. If nothing else, I’m going to be in serious trouble for not calling to check in.
The Knave’s enclave is not what I expected. I thought I’d find the guy standing at the top of a tall tower or hiding behind some impenetrable fortress. Instead, I’m looking at a small warehouse built in the shadows at the base of Fiddle Peak. The front door is propped open with a brick, yet there are hand-painted signs everywhere that say things like “Get Lost!” and “Go Away!” and “Mine, Mine, ALL MINE!”
“You only have to grab Mother’s goose and get out again, W
endell,” I tell myself. And, taking a deep breath, I slip through the open door without knocking.
Turns out, the Knave isn’t just a thief and a bully, he’s a hoarder.
I make my way slowly through a towering maze of rubbish inside the warehouse. Piles of pilfered belongings reach as high as my eyeballs and past my head, sometimes all the way to the ceiling. There are hundreds of mismatched dishes and spoons, pipes and bowls. Heaps of candlesticks, bags of wool, and oodles of decaying pumpkin shells lay everywhere. I steer clear of a collection of cooking pots that look and smell like they’re filled with nine-day-old porridge.
I’m super-surprised when I stumble into a teetering stack of board games. Wait. Board games? I’m even more surprised to discover that the Knave has a mountain of video games, game consoles, and controllers, too. These all feel completely out of place here. They twist a sharp corkscrew into my sense of what’s real and what’s not real.
I pick up an old GameCube controller and turn it over.
“Didn’t you read my signs?” A surly voice ruptures the stillness inside the warehouse, making me jump. “My signs that say ‘No Touchy!’ and ‘Stay Out’?” The questions are punctuated by the yap of a small dog, whose bark sounds strangely like laughter—and also strangely familiar. The barking is immediately followed by a loud honk from somewhere farther back in the building.
The goose!
I drop the ancient controller and turn around.
Sitting sideways in a high-backed chair positioned atop a platform built of thousands of seventh-grade textbooks is a thick-necked kid not too much older than I am. His legs are draped lazily over one arm of his chair, and he leans against the other. A curly white dog perches on a pillow below him, simultaneously growling and wagging its tail.
Necklaces, chains, and medals dangle from the top of the Knave’s throne-like seat while all around it sit trophies: basketball, baseball, ballroom dancing, you name it. Strangely, these are all things from my world, just like the video game components, the board games, and the textbooks.
A large silver tray rests on the kid’s stomach. The tray is covered in pastries—mostly tarts, I think. And he’s got a half-eaten tart in his hand.
Another honk echoes through the maze of junk.
“Are you the Knave?” I ask, stepping boldly forward, trying not to fidget, bounce, or twitch.
The kid studies me for a moment, chewing with his mouth open, spewing crumbs. He takes in my burlap-bag cape—which is now the biggest and coolest it’s ever been—and smirks. Then he shrugs and cleans some powdered sugar from his hand by wiping his fingers on his fancy pants and ruffled shirt. It’s clear he doesn’t see me as an epic force to be reckoned with.
“Some people call me the Knave, yes.” He shrugs again. “I call me a self-starter, a guy who takes what he wants. Would you like a tart?” He holds up the tray of pastries. “I’ll have my maid prepare some tea. Polly!” he calls out. “Put the kettle on, Polly! We’ve got company.” Then he snorts. “Just kidding. I don’t have a maid. AND I DON’T EVER, EVER SHARE MY THINGS!” The Knave’s expression turns dark as both his mood and his volume shift dangerously without warning.
I suddenly worry that I’m standing in the presence of a psychopath. Mother didn’t say anything about the Knave being totally unhinged.
The kid throws the silver tray at me. I jump back and watch it clatter to the floor; delicious-looking tarts fly everywhere. The dog leaps toward the fallen pastries but is brought up short by a leash tethered to the leg of the Knave’s chair.
“I’m not here for tea,” I say loudly, hoping I sound ten times braver than I actually feel. “I’ve come to retrieve a certain goose you stole from a certain old woman who likes to be called Mother.” I hope this declaration doesn’t make me sound unhinged.
The Knave rolls his eyes and tosses the last bite of his tart in the dog’s direction. It lands just beyond its reach. Then he stands, rubbing his hands together slowly, brushing away crumbs—or getting ready for a fight. It’s kind of hard to tell the difference. The little dog barks its funny bark and strains against its leash, trying to reach the discarded bite of tart.
I wonder if the Knave stole the dog, too. It looks a lot like Mrs. Finkleman’s pup, Mr. Sixpence. I’d know. I taped up over two hundred “Lost Dog” posters with Mr. Sixpence’s photograph last week.
“Hey!” I shout when I recognize the dog’s green rhinestone collar. “That is Mr. Sixpence! You . . . you can’t just go around taking other people’s stuff! Or other people’s pets!”
The Knave descends slowly from his platform of textbooks, stepping menacingly from Earth Science Today to What in the World History? to Traditional Language Arts for the Modern Seventh Grader. Each of his steps is punctuated by another strident honk from the stolen goose.
“‘Can’t just go around taking other people’s stuff?’” he repeats, lashing each word with the whip of exaggerated diction. “Haven’t you ever heard of ‘finders keepers’? If people want to keep their belongings, they should hold on tighter to the things they own. Besides, you know what they say”—he smiles wickedly as, in one smooth movement, he pulls a golden sword from the mountain of objects closest to him—“if you’re going to be bad . . . be horrid.” He arches his eyebrows as he points the sword at me.
Come on! Really? This dude gets to have a totally boss, downright bomb-diggity sword? The bad guy?
I feel myself deflate, but only for a moment. “Give me that dog, Knave! And the goose!” Getting ready for action, I begin to unwind the enormous bag from around my neck and shoulders.
“Or you’ll do what?” The Knave laughs. “Smother me in burlap?”
“No, I’ll give you a few things of mine!” Reordering the alphabet as fast as I can, I point the mouth of my bag in the Knave’s direction and shout, “RETAW!”
Water gushes from the bag. The full force of a rushing river knocks the blade out of the Knave’s hand. Keeping my aim steady, I zigzag past him as he splutters, spits, and cries out. Water blasts my foe with the power of a fire hose, and the kid struggles for a moment to keep his fancy pants on. Before he hikes them up, I catch a glimpse of the big red hearts printed on his boxers.
As the last of the water drips from the shrinking bag, I head straight toward Mr. Sixpence. But I can’t afford to give the Knave any time to recover. As soon as the water runs out, I yell, “SENOTS!” and “SKCITS!” and am propelled backward by the force of all the sticks and stones I collected on my journey. Big stones, small stones, fat sticks, skinny sticks—they all cannon out of the bag in the Knave’s direction. I think about calling out the pinecones, too, but I can’t figure out how to say “pinecones” backward fast enough.
The Knave is able to weave and dodge enough to avoid the bigger stones, but he doesn’t have the same kind of zip and backpedal I’ve learned during my years of playing dodgeball with Cameron Jamison, so many of the smaller sticks and stones still hit him—though, none very hard. This is good because I’m trying to slow the Knave down, not break his bones.
I reach Mr. Sixpence, but before I pick him up, I launch the biggest, baddest weapon I’ve collected in my magic-bag arsenal so far. This is an easy one, because it’s spelled the same no matter how you say it. Backward or forward, it makes no difference.
I suck in my breath and holler with all my might: “POOOOOP!!!!”
Manure sludges from the bag. It flies in great gloppy, smelly arcs toward the Knave, who doesn’t understand what’s coming at him until he’s buried up to his ears in pig poo. It took me a while, back on that farm, to use my pie pan as a shovel and scoop this much manure into my bag, but I had a feeling it would be worth it in the end.
I was right.
I can’t resist taking a moment to celebrate my victory in classic Wendell James MacDougall-Flowers style. Never has anyone danced the funky chicken with as much enthusiasm as I do now.
The Knave shouts curses at me as I tuck the shrunken burlap bag under one arm and Mrs. Finklem
an’s dog under the other. His curses follow me as I run farther into the labyrinth of stolen junk, guided by the thunderous sound of honking.
I find the goose in the far corner of the warehouse, in what can only be described as a jail cell. A supersize jail cell. But it isn’t the size of the massive cage that brings me skidding to a halt. It is the size of the goose. Even Mr. Sixpence finds the sight of the goose alarming; he whines and wiggles in my arms, trying to climb over my shoulder. When the goose honks again, the sound vibrates my entire body. I suppose that’s what happens when a waterfowl the size of a minivan decides to make some noise.
“What the flippin’ flapjacks?” I whisper to the dog. It’s no wonder Mother is so keen to get her goose back. This particular goose may indeed be cooler than a Nintendo 3DS after all.
I shake my head in awe; the bird is practically big enough to ride. In fact, when I look closer, I see that Mother’s goose has already been outfitted with a saddle. A saddle. At first, I can’t believe it. Then I remember that not one thing has been believable since the moment Cameron stuffed me into Allie’s locker. Better to just roll with it.
Somewhere behind me, the Knave roars in fury. I get the sinking feeling that he’s freed himself from my massive manure bomb and is coming after me, now a Super Angry Triple-Rotten Villain Deluxe.
I can think of only one thing to do.
“Hang on, Mr. Sixpence,” I say, tightening my grip on Mrs. Finkleman’s dog. “You and I are going for a ride.”
I unlatch the door of the cage and let it swing open. Murmuring what I hope are soothing, goosey sounds, I step inside. The giant goose raises its head and beats its enormous wings. It’s a threatening gesture, and an impressive sight.
“I’m here to free you, goose,” I say, raising my free hand in a placating gesture. “I’m here to bring you back to Mother. She sent me here to get you.”
This seems to do the trick. The goose cocks its head at the name “Mother.” Then it folds its wings, ruffles its feathers, and sits. When I continue to stand rooted in place, the goose reaches out with its beak and half steers, half shoves me and Mr. Sixpence toward its saddle.