Except the enthusiastically rolling Tumbles, everyone else remained quite still. What had that been about?
Our answer came a few seconds later, when shriveners poured into the room. Skinny metal fingers reaching, white robes flapping, they charged down the hall at Sandy. She stumbled backward, eyes wide in fear.
Throwing my cup out of the way, I lurched to my feet and ran after the crowd. Shriveners at least aren’t fast, and I grabbed one’s foot, tripping him up. “Leave my hero alone!”
Fingers like clamps closed around my head, tugging me free and lifting me to be examined by the bird mask. “Clothling, you are asymmetrical. After a brief measurement—”
That was as far as he got before Sandy shrieked, “I won’t let you hurt Heartfelt!”
The shrivener and I both turned our heads to look. Skinny figures in white had Sandy surrounded, backed up to the wall, but… well, they were skinny. Angry now, Sandy grabbed them one by one and flung them forward, backward, in all directions. As tall as shriveners might be, they weren’t even close to a match for a human. Each one landed in a clattering heap of metal struts and white fabric. Storming up to the one who held me, she grabbed his arm at the wrist and shoulder, and yanked it down against her knee. The elbow snapped off, leaving only the hand and forearm holding me.
Prying the fingers free, Sandy cradled me to her chest. Her voice croaked, nearly crying, as she shouted over my head, “How could you betray Heartfelt this way?”
For a moment those words rattled around, until they connected.
Sheriff Long set me up. Used me to get to Sandy.
Wriggling around to face him, I recoiled against Sandy’s chest at what I saw. Taking hold of his cape, Long gave it a shake, and… shrank. The cape turned gold, the hat became long and floppy, and the marionette body plumped out into a clothling body rather like mine—although admittedly much better made, and with pins stuck through it.
Raising her chin in defiant pride, Little Miss Snippybritches shouted back, “How? That boy-crazy fluff-head will give her heart to any block of wood that so much as winks at her. She always has and she always will. Anyone with a little magic could manipulate her, and I… have… magic!”
Pulling a pin out of her torso, she held it in both hands, pointing the round head at Tumbledown, who was still rolling around chewing on his conundrum and might not even have noticed the disturbance. He was rather tucked in tight. With a sweep of her arms, Little Miss Snippybritches mimed flinging him down the hall.
Even that gesture didn’t prepare Sandy or I for what happened. Tumbles rocketed off the floor, thrown at us so fast I couldn’t react or analyze. The same magic must have cushioned him, because he didn’t explode into punkin bits when he hit us in the middle of Sandy’s stomach. No, he just knocked her, wheezing, backward off her feet and against the mirror.
Into the mirror.
The glass might as well have been water, or air. She fell into it, and the view of the Hall of Mirrors disappeared, replaced by a dingy brick chamber with a lot of pipes that leaked steam. Held tightly in her hands, I fell with her into that room.
OW. RRK.
Okay, not into that room. Sandy could go through the mirror, but to me it was hard and solid. Her grip squeezed me to the glass with the weight of her falling body.
That was okay, because I was her anchor. She stopped falling, pushed herself forward, and stepped back into the Hall of Mirrors. As soon as she was free, the mirror turned back into a regular reflection.
She marched up the hall, feet thumping loudly on the concrete floor. One of the shriveners reached for her foot, and she kicked him against the wall. Unrolled now, Tumbles stared up at her with an open mouth and anxious eyes as we passed. Sandy’s expression must be terrifying. Tucked under her arm I couldn’t see it, and didn’t want to.
Little Miss Snippybritches scrambled backward, squeezing herself so tightly against a mirror that it forced out three of her pins. Holding up a hand, she squeaked, “Don’t touch me! I have magic!”
Without a word Sandy scooped Snippybritches up, wrapped her up in her cape like a ball, and jabbed her own pins through her to fasten it shut.
Dropping Snippybritches back on the ground, Sandy turned, gave our scared dargon a warm, apologetic smile, and held out her hand to him. “Come on, Tumbles. We’re going somewhere nicer.”
“Boat,” I wheezed, pointing. It was hard to talk. Hitting the mirror had smushed me almost flat. I had big hand-prints in my dress.
A responsible dargon, Tumbledown picked up the box before waddling into Sandy’s welcoming arm. She carried both of us out into the night, making a straight line toward the river that defied moving walkways or spinning benches.
A shrivener and a flops stuck their heads out of another building. Sandy bared her teeth at them, and her words rang over the suddenly subdued music of the city. “I. Will. Break. You.”
We reached the water. Using her long legs, Sandy stepped right over the gap and into a boat. Lowering herself onto a wooden seat, she set Tumbles on the floor and me in her lap.
Why wasn’t the boat going anywhere? Oh, yes. A rope fastened it to the shore. While Sandy picked up an oar, I flapped a hand and wheezed, “Tumbles. Flame.”
Letting out a very serious, “Rar!” he breathed green flame onto the rope, and when that proved to be a slow solution to the problem, bit down with his excellent teeth, dragging forward and back until he sawed through. Sandy immediately pushed us away from the bank with her paddle. The current caught us, dragging us patiently toward a ramp that would take us up onto the wall.
With a little kneading, I got my chest fluffed out enough to roll over and give Sandy an awed stare. “That was heroic. You’re so powerful!”
Where she’d been watching the dimly lit streets with ferocious suspicion, Sandy’s face suddenly softened into worry. “You didn’t think I was too mean?”
“I was impressed by your mercy. You could have ripped Pincushion apart.”
That got a shudder and an open-mouthed stare. After a couple of seconds of silent horror, Sandy shook her head. “No one would be that cruel.”
I winced at the unpleasant memory of fingernails digging into my seams. Sandy was so very, very wrong. She was too kind, too heroic, to imagine real evil. Pushing myself up in her lap, I laid my face to her chest and wrapped my arms as far as I could around her for a soft hug. Just for a few seconds, I wanted to bask in belonging to a human who was truly kind and good.
That done, I had responsibilities, and Sandy certainly did not want to hear the gruesome story of my death. Withdrawing my book from its bag, I flipped to a map, and in the pink light of my heart traced the Dotted Line up to the capitol.
“We can’t go all the way on the river. Pincushion knows where we’re heading, and she’ll set up an obstacle considerably more dangerous than shriveners. I’ll find us a place to disembark where we can sneak around her defenses.”
When we reached the capitol, Sandy would deal with Charity. Right now, this was guide against thug, and I was determined to be a better sidekick than Little Miss Snippybritches.
Chapter Thirteen
I awoke when Sandy awoke, for the simple reason that I’d been pinned in place by her head. Not that this was any burden. As heavy as she was, her head itself wasn’t that bad, even pleasantly reassuring. When she sat up, the lifting of that weight alerted me instantly.
She adjusted her amazing multicolored hair, and twisted around. I rolled onto my back, sat up, and prodded my middle until full plush state had been restored. The last twenty-four hours had been rather hard on my stuffing.
“Oh! Were you up all night, Tumbles?” asked Sandy.
The dargon was, indeed, awake. His thick tail began wagging even before he turned away from the boat’s point—one moment.
I flipped hurriedly through my book to a picture of a boat I had seen. Yes. The boat’s bow. Standing tall, he went, “Rar! Yes, your humanity! It was peaceful all the way!”
A lo
ok of guilt I was starting to recognize flickered over Sandy’s face. Time to be a guide! “He is a watch dargon, Miss Sandy.”
The look of guilt didn’t go away. Lowering her head, she cupped the dargon’s face in both hands, which set his tail wagging faster. “I’m sorry, Tumbledown. I started thinking of you as a pet.”
“If you want, you can call me a pet, or a carrot, or a fwumbo!”
That reminded me! “Carrots! Do we have any carrots in here? You should eat, Miss Sandy.”
I leaned over the top of the dilapidated Heartfelt box and pushed items of food around. Pulling a bottle up from beneath a sandwich filled with red things labeled “HOAG,” I hmmmed. “Root beer? Oops, this is last night’s bottle. It’s empty.”
She snatched it right out of my hands. “No, that’s perfect! Too much root beer makes humans even thirstier. Tumbles, could you fill this with water?”
He took the offered bottle in both hands, eyes wide. “Me? I—I mean—okay…”
So brave! Tumbledown actually toddled all the way to the edge of the boat before I rushed over and grabbed the bottle myself. “Oh my, no! Miss Sandy, didn’t you know? Dargons are afraid of water! I’m quite impressed he’s even in the boat.”
With the bottle taken away, Tumbles propped his claws on his waist and puffed out his chest with pride, or at least shifted some of the roundness from the lower half to the upper half. “I used to work on the Great Fwubbo Dam! Once I got a whole beaver wrung out on me!”
I ran the bottle through the river instead. Squishy hands wouldn’t hurt me, and while I did, I explained, “If water gets inside a dargon’s mouth, it might put out his candle and he would turn back into a punkin.”
Sandy took the bottle from me, took a couple of swallows of the cold, clear water, and leaned over me with wide, curious eyes. “Did you read that in the book?”
I shook my head. “Oh, no. The book does show where to find the Punkin Patch, but I must have heard someone say it while I was at the Picnic. It’s all a bit of a blur, but I know dargons visited sometimes.”
Really, my memories were a mess. Just one long feeling of vague cheerfulness. I could barely sort out any details—
Soft, strong, deft hands yanked the plate out of my grip, then grabbed my shoulders and gave me a shake. Little Miss Snippybritches’ face pressed up so close we almost kissed, but instead that terrible scowl and disappointed eyes stabbed me with guilt. “What are you doing, fluff head?! You can’t give pumpkin pie to a dargon! They’re made of punkins. Punkin, pumpkin. Punkin, pumpkin. Even you should be able to figure out why that makes them feel uncomfortable…you don’t know the word ‘uncomfortable.’ Bad. It makes them feel bad, fluff head.”
I did so know the word ‘uncomfortable’, but I had a mistake to make up for. I reached for my cup instead. “I’ll just give her some tea—”
Little Miss Snippybritches shoved the handle away, spilling the tea onto the picnic blanket. “No, that’s even worse! Dargons are punkins with a candle inside. You don’t ever pour tea on a candle. Can’t you just think for once, please, fluff-head?”
As he marched past, Lieutenant Noble gave us a smile and said, “She’ll do the right thing, now that she knows.”
All I could say was, “Oh, my.”
“Oh, my! What an intense memory.”
Things had changed a bit while I was recalling. Now Sandy had me in her arms, squeezed against her chest. “She shouldn’t have treated you like that. I bet you were smarter than you looked. You just needed a chance.”
“She was my friend, Miss Sandy. She only had one way to express it. That’s how she was made.”
Sandy squeezed me tighter. “No real friend would trick you into thinking she’s a boy so she could make you love her and betray you with it.”
Despite my love of hugs, I scowled. “I’m not saying I’m pleased about that, but what makes me cross is that she used me to try and eject you from Here. That is quite unacceptable. It goes beyond exceeding her authority. You are by far the best, most amazing person I’ve ever met, and it is beyond rude to the point of ungrateful to suggest you stay Here one minute less than you want.”
The hug relaxed, and Sandy stared down at me as wide-eyed as if that had been an insult. “Heartfelt, I broke that coat hanger person—”
“Shrivener,” I supplied.
“—Shrivener’s arm in half. That’s the opposite of heroic.”
I held up a hand, and ticked off on my thumb and mitten, “First, I’m confident he’ll be repaired by the first tinker to happen by. Second, you did it to save me, and no one has ever felt I was worth saving before.”
“That’s just how that nasty doll wanted you to feel about yourself. I’ve…”
When she didn’t finish, I patted her forearm. It might not be politic to suggest that Charity might be forcing Little Miss Snippybritches to use her snippiness for a bad cause instead of a good one. Instead, I opened up my book and peered at the map of the Dotted Line between Port Rait and the capitol.
It looked like a dotted line. Peering ahead and behind our boat, the description was excellent. We went gently up and down when the wall and its river dipped, but visually the dips looked like gaps between the straight stretches of wall.
Those tiny notches on the map looked like ramps down off of the wall. Off to the right of us, in the eternal gloom of There, I could see something like a castle wall made out of dirty pillows, with a ring of bare, dead dirt around it. That was probably this lumpy shape labeled “Trash” in my book, with a road leading right to it. It would be interesting to look that up, once I had answered the issue at hand, although I certainly had no intention of ever going there.
Yes, if that was Trash, then we should be approaching the road in question, and an exit from the wall. They were both next to two dots labeled “Guardians (huzzah!).”
In fact, if I shaded my glasses with my hand, I could see big lumpy things on either side of the wall ahead of us.
Partly because it was time to, and partly to draw my heroine’s thoughts to better topics, I said, “Oh, my. I do believe we’re almost at our debarking point, right after those two giant statues. This is excellent. We’ve saved what I’m sure will be leagues of walking once I find out what a league is, and escaped before Princess Charity’s unfortunately misguided minions intercept us. It’s inevitable that they will try, alas, now that they know our target.”
The drifting water pulled our little boat farther along, and after we rose up out of the next dip, the statues were quite visible.
“It’s a dragon with big hands! A really real dragon!” said Tumbles, bouncing up and down excitedly despite the unsteadiness of the boat.
“A statue of a dragon, at least. Isn’t he impressive?” I sort of agreed.
“And the other one is a really big snake. Huge! So big!” Tumbledown waved his little arms in an attempt to convey how big. As big as the dragon statue, which was twice as tall as the Dotted Line, so large indeed.
I tapped my chin. “I believe at that size they’re called serpents.”
Sandy laid a hand on my head, and suggested, “It might be a wyrm. That’s a kind of dragon.”
I made a note of that. Wyrms are a kind of dragon. If only I had a pencil, to add that information to the journal. Well, the power of my glasses would surely help me remember.
The statue on the right, on There’s side, was the dragon. It was big, white, and round bellied, like a much more sleek and impressive dargon, with huge arm wings and blue spikes all over. Over Here, the wyrm faced it, mostly blue with a white head that boasted both bared fangs and tentacles hanging off the sides. Yes, Sandy must have been right. That was far too majestic to be a mere serpent.
Sandy sat up very straight, staring at them with something like shock. “Where did those come from?”
An excellent question. Theodosus Q. Flapwaddle had put the huzzah into his notes, so… there, I found the page! Adjusting my glasses, I read, “Master Mikey feels that the Dotted Line
should be as magnificent as he is, and decrees that the water supply of Here and There will have guardians. He pulled a tube full of stuff out of his Hatte, and shaped it into two mighty divine beasts that I am sure will scare the fiends of There and prevent them from riding the river into the capitol.”
Sandy sniffed as we got closer, and indeed, the guardians had a lovely fresh smell that would certainly repel evil.
The two guardians did nothing but stare across at each other, and I was quite certain they were only statues, right up until the dragon smacked its wing down across the river. The huge hand on the end fit neatly into the crenellations, and our boat floated right up and bumped into it.
My mind raced. We could swim underneath! No, Tumbles certainly couldn’t. What if he held his breath and we plugged his nose and ears? He must float with tremendous bouyancy. Could even Sandy pull him under the water?
“Declare your allegiance!” boomed the dragon.
“Which princess do you serve?” demanded the wyrm.
Before I could even begin analyzing the proper answer, Tumbles hopped up on the seat near the front of the boat, his tail spinning with enthusiastic loyalty. “I serve the human heroine Princess Miss Sandy! Personally! I’m her watch-dargon and she’s going to make me a dragon like you!”
“Only those loyal to Princess Charity, the true ruler of Somewhere, may pass,” declared the giant dragon.
The wyrm slapped the end of its tail, which had a huge (everything was huge about these guardians) blue and white fan on the end, down on the dragon’s hand. “Princess Sandy is the true ruler of Somewhere, and only her followers may pass!”
The dragon shouted, “Charity is the rightful princess!”
“Sandy is the rightful princess!” the wyrm yelled right back at it.
Lifting me in her hands, Sandy stood up straight. She got very still, very stiff, and in the loudest voice I’d heard from her yet declared, “You are both to be commended for your loyalty. We will get off on the ramp here, and you may sleep again knowing your job was well done.”
The guardians ignored her entirely, yelling, “Charity!” and “Sandy!” at each other, with their faces close and mouths pulled into snarls.
A Rag Doll's Guide to Here and There Page 17