by Jon Scieszka
“It’s Grover’s birthday,” I corrected, but Apollo and his singers had already disappeared in a flash of golden light.
“So much for a day off,” I said, turning back to Grover.
“Back to Prospect Park?” he suggested. “Juniper must be worried to death.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “And I’m really hungry.”
Grover nodded enthusiastically. “If we leave now, we can pick up Juniper and reach Camp Half-Blood in time for the sing-along. They have s’mores!”
I winced. “No sing-along, please. But I’ll go for the s’mores.”
“Deal!” Grover said.
I clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, G-man. Your birthday might turn out okay after all.”
BOUNCING THE GRINNING GOAT
BY SHANNON HALE
When I staggered into the town, I hadn’t eaten in three days. My big brother’s armor pressed heavy on my shoulders. His sword hung long from my belt, scraping the ground. I tripped over it, fell face-first into a mud puddle, and wondered, If I just lay here, how long would it take me to die?
The noon sun’s heat on my back felt like a pat of encouragement. I found the energy to crawl back to my feet and stumble on, past houses, tanners, cobblers, and weavers, following the maddening smell of food. A tavern! Its carved wooden sign bore a smiling goat.
“Good morning, sir,” I croaked at a short, round man who was nailing a paper to the door.
I was about to ask—that is, beg—for a scrap of food when I read the notice he’d nailed up: BOUNCER WANTED.
A bouncer! If the job included meals, I could be a bouncer. Keep the tavern-goers in line, stop fights, toss out the troublemakers. After all, I looked after my nine little brothers and sisters. Or I had before I ran away.
“I’d like to be your bouncer,” I said. “I know I don’t look like much at the moment. . . .” I tried to scrape the mud off my face. “But I have excellent bouncer experience.”
“Hmm, a stranger might work better than one of their own telling them what to do,” he said. His voice was surprisingly high, like a morning bird’s screech. “But what makes you think you could bounce my tavern any better than the last fellow?”
“What makes me think?” I made my face indignant. “What makes me think?”
The wind shifted, blowing rich scents from the tavern kitchen—charred beef, bacon grease, milky potato stew, oat muffins. My stomach shrank one more size. Just then, I’d have said anything to get fed, but the first solution that popped into my mind was—
“I’m from Old Hollow.”
The little man blinked twice and took a step back. “Old H-h-hollow? Oh my oh my.” He rubbed his hands together and looked everywhere but my face. “Yes, yes, an Old Hollower. That’ll do. Oh my, yes.”
He didn’t ask for proof. After all, who would dare falsely claim to be an Old Hollower? The twisting of my thin stomach took up so much of my attention I didn’t feel guilty yet. Because I was actually from New Hollow, which is just down the mountain and on the other side of the wood. But we shared the same stream, so that sort of counted, didn’t it?
No, it didn’t. I’d never seen an Old Hollower, but I’d heard the tales—they fought with swords forged of hot light, their eyes burned like fire to see through lies, they could turn into living flame and chase away their enemies. New Hollowers like me were normal boring folk.
“Welcome to Bendy Stream,” said the little man. “I’m Churn. What was your name?”
My big brothers all got warrior names like Forge, Strike, and Tackle, while I got—
“Spark,” I said. It sounded like something you would swat away—a firefly or flitting ash. I suppose it could have been worse. My little sisters were named Ponder, Silence, Listen, and Behave. By the way, Behave was the naughtiest four-year-old in the Five Kingdoms.
I tried to sound casual as I asked, “Now, about meals . . .”
“You can eat after work,” said Churn.
My belly made a pathetic squeak.
Inside, the tavern was smoky from the hearth fire and as dark as evening. At this time of day, our little tavern back home would be mostly empty, but the Grinning Goat was half-full of people eating their noon meal.
The salty scent of meat made me wobble. I grabbed a chair back. It’d be hard to look fearsome while in a dead faint.
“Hey!” Churn screeched. “Hey!”
The talking and clanking died down.
Churn adjusted his apron. “You all know what happened to my last bouncer, rest him, though maybe only one of you knows exactly how he ended up in that ditch.”
The last bouncer was . . . dead? My legs tried to fold beneath me.
“But never you mind because my new bouncer isn’t going to put up with your fighting and thieving and accumulating of excessive meal tabs. This one is an Old Hollower.”
The silence got silenter.
Please feed me, I wanted to beg, but I guessed that tactic would get me tossed out the door. I needed to convince them I was an Old Hollower. I did have some practice in storytelling. The little ones wouldn’t go to sleep without a good story.
“Greetings, Bendy Stream!” I said grandly. “I am Mistress Spark.” My stomach let out a groan so loud it could’ve been a dragon’s snore. I tried to cover it with a cough. “As you can see, I’m young, and the powers of young Hollowers are still raw. If I were forced to fight you, I might hurt you terribly. So let’s just avoid fighting at all costs. Um, thank you.”
Someone whispered, “That little girl is a Hollower?”
“Looks more like a half-drowned rat than a mage,” someone else whispered.
“So . . . so let’s just all be nice,” I said not as grandly. “If you don’t mind. Please.”
I put my shaking hands in my pockets and gripped my lucky rock.
“Hey, Blaze,” I heard a man whisper, “I dare you to shove her over and see what happens.”
Years ago I’d found my lucky rock on the mountain—black, big as a duck egg, its irregular facets smooth like glass. On boring winter days back home, I used the rock to reflect a spot of sun or firelight onto the ground, wiggling it for the little ones to chase. Old Hollower powers seemed to involve light. Could I fool this lot with a light trick?
I stepped into the brightest spot in the room, where sunlight poured through the window. I held the rock down low by my side.
“You!” I said, pointing to the man who had just spoken. When he looked at me, I twisted the rock, reflecting light into his eyes.
“Aah,” he said, squinting.
“And you, and you, and you,” I said, reflecting that bright light directly into the eyes of three more people. “I’ve marked you four with my . . . my light mage powers. Ahem. That was just a flutter of magic. You don’t want to feel my, uh, full wrath.”
I slipped the rock back into my pocket. The four I’d shined were shielding their eyes, afraid to look at me.
“I’m not going to blind you. Today.” I smiled. “Just be nice and you have nothing to worry about. All settled? All right, let’s eat up!”
Everyone went back to their meals, whispering about the Old Hollower bouncer.
At the bar, Churn took out a wooden bowl. I took a step closer. He ladled not one, but two whole scoops of stew into the bowl, topping it with half a torn loaf of dark, nutty bread. I felt drool trickle out the corner of my mouth.
“Eat up, Mistress Spark,” he said. “The evening crowd is worse.”
I fell onto the bar stool and shoveled in the first spoonful. The stew was very hot and full of venison, cabbage, and carrots cooked so long they fell apart on my tongue. A tear dropped from my eye into the bowl, adding a little more salt. I hoped no one noticed the fierce Hollower bouncer crying.
Once the noon meal passed, most of the folk went back to work in their shops and fields. I stayed on the bar stool. Now that I hadn’t died of hunger, I wanted to die of shame. Old Hollower? Really, Spark?
When the sun began setting, Churn�
��s girls lit the oil lamps, the fat burning smoky and bitter. And the tavern filled. Every table, every chair, the upper floor as rowdy as the lower.
Hollower, people whispered, talking behind their hands.
I felt like a bug in a bird’s nest.
A broad-shouldered woman stalked up to me, fists on her hips. “Prove that you’re an Old Hollower,” she said.
Prove it how? It was too dark to do a light trick with my rock. At home when the little ones seemed especially sneaky, I would shout, “I know what you’re doing,” even when I didn’t. But they’d get spooked and stop whatever mischief they’d had planned.
So I leaned close and whispered to this woman, “I know what you’ve done.” And I pointed at her.
The woman blushed. She looked down and hurried away. I exhaled.
The crowd ate. They sang to a musician’s flute. They danced and drank and shouted and shoved. Someone threw a punch.
“Stop that!” I said, standing on my stool. The punchers backed down. For now. But how long could I keep this up?
“Spark, come talk to Mister Grunt,” Churn called to me. “Mister Grunt owes coin for a month’s worth of meals.”
Grunt was twice as tall as me and four times as big, bulging with studded leather armor and a ridiculously huge war hammer. He was hunched over his meal at the bar, stabbing chunks of stew with a pointed bone knife, drinking broth from the bowl and dribbling it into his beard. His beard was so filthy I thought washing it with stew could only be an improvement.
“Mister Grunt,” I said in my stern tone. “Pay Mister Churn.”
Grunt wiped his mouth with his sleeve, looked at me hard and said, “No.”
I pressed my hands to my stomach and felt as skinny as my own skeleton under my armor. I tried the pointing thing again.
“What?” said Grunt, scowling at my pointing finger.
“Pay up,” I said, still pointing.
“Or what?” he said.
I had no idea or what, but my, did he have lovely hair. Long, black, shockingly curly—
“Or—or your hair will fall out,” I spluttered.
I noticed the tavern had gotten real quiet. Grunt leaned close to my face, his breath sticky with ale.
“I fought in the Southern Wars, Spark,” he said, spittle flying with my name. “I’ve seen real Hollowers.”
My heart was beating like a jackrabbit’s. I tried to smile as if I had all the confidence in the world, probably just managing to look like I urgently needed the outhouse.
“Well?” Churn asked me. “How come his hair isn’t falling out?”
“M-magic doesn’t always work fast.” I said.
I pretended I did need to use the outhouse, but then I ran into the dark woods behind it.
Running away again, Spark? Where would I go this time? Just two days from home my food had run out. I hadn’t managed to catch any game, and no nuts, berries, or roots conveniently appeared to feed me. I’d spent the past three nights starving, shivering, afraid the creaking of the woods was the sound of Ash Raiders out on the hunt.
I couldn’t go home, even if my brother Forge wouldn’t kill me for stealing his armor, even if I could be happy in our crowded house again—Mama shouting at me to help her corral the little ones, make sure they didn’t drown in the stream, wipe their noses and bottoms. I’d never survive the return trip without food.
I looked at my boot (Forge’s boot, actually, with an extra sock stuffed in the toe). I’d stepped on a darkease plant. At home when one of us was sick, Mama would give us darkease tea to help us rest peaceful through the night.
I went back into the Grinning Goat and served Grunt some stew myself. I may have crushed certain leaves into his bowl.
“This is your last meal at the Grinning Goat until you pay Churn every coin you owe,” I said.
Grunt laughed.
He stumbled home at closing time. I followed, sneaking from shadow to shadow. When I squeaked his door open, Grunt snored and rolled over on his bed.
I was well practiced for this trick. I used to help shear Papa’s sheep. But it really was a shame to cut off all that beautiful curly hair.
The next evening when Grunt entered the Grinning Goat, the music cut short. The laughing, shouting, and hollering silenced. Everyone stared at Grunt’s bare scalp, as white as a winter rabbit.
Grunt emptied his coin bag on the bar. Churn filled up a horn with frothy ale. Grunt turned to the room, lifted the horn, and shouted, “To Mistress Spark, our very own Hollower!”
The room erupted in cheers.
I blushed. Some of that blush was shame. I’d promised Churn I’d help keep the Grinning Goat in line. It didn’t matter that I was lying to get it done, did it?
Grunt pulled me aside, bending in half to reach my ear. “Will it grow back?”
“Yes,” I said.
He rubbed his bare head and sniffed. “Good. I kind of liked my hair.”
For two more weeks I bounced the Grinning Goat. By day the patrons gave me little trouble. I would sit in the sun by the window, slowly drinking a horn of milk. I held my lucky rock, and its glassy darkness seemed not to reflect but actually to soak up the light. I made up stories about its origin—was it really a dragon’s eye? A shard from a Hollower flame sword? An Ash Raider’s black stony heart?
I didn’t use my rock to flash light at troublemakers anymore. After Grunt, the only trick I needed was to point and holler some. I ate three meals a day. I got used to not hearing Mama’s voice yelling, “Spark, go check on your brothers! Wash the dishes! My hands are full, I need you to see which baby is stinky!” In fact I barely thought about home at all.
Until one afternoon when in stalked the most frightening sight I’d ever laid eyes on.
It was my big brother Forge, whose armor I was currently wearing and whose sword I’d scratched so badly trying to practice fight a rock that I’d stuffed it under my mattress out of embarrassment.
His gaze was raking the tavern, searching for me. I turned away. I started toward the back—
“Spark!”
I froze.
I could hear Forge’s boots stomping across the tavern’s floor. Or maybe they were our brother Bluster’s boots, since I was wearing Forge’s.
Grunt stepped between me and Forge. “You want to mess with our bouncer?” he said. “Then you mess with Grunt. I’m her bouncer.”
My “big” brother Forge had never looked so tiny.
I’d been closer to Forge than any of my brothers and sisters. We were the only ones born without a twin. “We lonely babes need to stick together,” he used to say. Until I stole his armor and ran away into the night.
“I . . . I . . .” Forge was saying. Grunt had unhooked his war hammer.
“It’s all right, Grunt,” I said. “This is my brother. Excuse us a moment.”
I pulled Forge by his sleeve into the leaf-speckled sunlight beyond the tavern. He looked so achingly familiar—the dark brown eyes we all shared, the whiskers just growing on his lip and chin, the brow scar I’d given him years ago when playing with a wood sword. I wondered if I looked any different to him.
“If you’re going to kill me, do it here, please,” I said. “Otherwise Grunt will fight you, and that’ll get messy.”
Forge rolled his eyes. “Spark, what happened? Everyone assumed you’d gotten up in the night to use the outhouse and had been carried off by a pack of wolves.”
“They did?” Being savaged by a wild beast was a nice, dramatic way to die. Though of course I’d prefer a valiant death in a hopeless but noble battle.
“Then I noticed my armor was missing. My precious armor I’d sweated and worked for and rubbed with oil every single night. . . .”
I whimpered. “I’m sorry, Forge.”
“Why’d you leave, Spark?” Forge sounded more sad than angry.
“Why wouldn’t I? The world is full of adventures, but I was stuck in that crazy, crowded house watching over nine little ones who were constantly fighti
ng—”
“So you’re better off in this crazy, crowded tavern watching over dozens of big ones who are constantly fighting?”
“Um . . .” He had an excellent point.
I’d always been plagued with warrior dreams. In one I stood atop a mountain facing down an entire army—and I wasn’t hopeless. In the dream, I won! So I’d left home hoping I’d stumble into a marvelous adventure. The Grinning Goat had great stew, but wasn’t I the same girl here I’d always been?
“Come home with me,” Forge said.
I shook my head. My big brothers complained about their warrior training and farming chores. They had no idea what it was like being the oldest girl in a big family.
But then he said, “Mama misses you, Spark. She cries at night.”
Mama cried? Over me? I was the middle of sixteen. I didn’t think she’d even notice I was gone.
My eyes stung. I didn’t want to cry, so I looked up at the sun to dry away the sting.
“Stop that,” said Forge. “I hate when you do that. It’s creepy.”
Staring at the sun was supposed to turn anyone blind, but it never hurt my eyes. I loved how warm and strong the sun made me feel, like that fierce light could fill me up.
“I’ll come home,” I said real quiet so my voice wouldn’t crack. I couldn’t quite believe I was giving up on my adventure already, but if Mama missed me, I’d always go home.
“Spark!” Grunt came barreling through the brush, loud as a bull. “Spark, the Ash Raiders are coming this way.”
Forge stood up from a tree stump so fast, he tripped and stepped on my boots. His boots, actually.
“Did you say the Ash Raiders are coming this way?” I asked.
I was hoping Grunt actually had said something like “the trash traders are coming to pay” and I’d simply misheard.
“Yeah,” he said, and my heart plunged into Forge’s boots. Grunt kept looking over his shoulder, as if afraid the raiders had already arrived. “Some people just ran into town from Two Toads, the village to the north. The Ash Raiders burned Two Toads to the ground. The survivors said the raiders were moving south.”
