by David Lubar
“No, thanks,” Jeff said. “I can do it myself.” He reached beneath the couch. The lizard ran out from under there and dashed up the wall. Jeff raced after it. He reached toward the wall, but the lizard scooted out of his grasp again.
Kelly just watched. She had no plans to help after Jeff had turned down her offer. The lizard ran across the wall to the corner of the room. It was lower now.
“Try sneaking up on it,” someone suggested.
Jeff moved like a cat stalking a chipmunk. He got really close to the lizard. He reached out.
Zip! The lizard skittered from his clutches.
Kelly fanned herself. It was really getting warm with the door closed and all the people in the room.
“Help me,” Jeff said to Rickie. “You go from that side and I’ll go from this side.”
“Okay,” Rickie said.
Kelly watched. She doubted they would have any luck capturing the slithery critter. It had speed, reflexes, and instinct on its side.
The lizard sat motionless on the wall between the boys. Jeff and Rickie inched toward it. They both reached out at once. The lizard shot up the wall, and Jeff and Rickie ran into each other.
Kelly shook her head. They’d never catch it. But she wasn’t going to offer any more help. A drop of sweat rolled down her nose. She flicked it off. It would be nice to open a window and get a blast of winter air, she thought. It was so hot.
Winter air … The thought and feel of it tickled Kelly’s mind.
“That’s it!” she shouted.
Everyone in the room turned and stared at her. Even the lizard seemed to look her way.
“What?” Jeff asked.
“The heat. That’s the problem,” Kelly said.
Jeff seemed puzzled. Kelly saw that she would have to explain. “Lizards are cold-blooded. The hotter it is, the more active they get. And the colder it is—”
“The less active,” Jeff said, finishing the thought for her.
Kelly nodded. “Exactly. All we have to do is cool the room. Let’s turn off the heat.” She went over to the thermostat and adjusted the controls while Jeff opened the window. Cold air swept into the room, pushing the curtains aside as it blew through the screen.
They watched the lizard. Its tail was twitching. Bit by bit, as the room grew colder, the tail slowed.
“Now?” Jeff asked when the lizard stopped moving altogether.
“Try it,” Kelly said.
Jeff started to reach for the lizard, then pulled his hand back. He smiled. “You do it. You haven’t had a real chance to see it yet.”
“Thanks.” Kelly reached toward the lizard. It didn’t move. Gently, she took it from the wall and cradled its dry body in her hands. After a moment, she returned it to its cage. As she closed the lid, Jeff’s friends started clapping and cheering.
“Good thinking,” one of them said.
“Smart going,” another told her.
Kelly smiled, then said, “I have to admit it was a cool idea.” She went to close the window. It was pretty cold in the room—cold enough to see her breath. But the funny thing was, she didn’t feel cold at all. At the moment, she felt happy and warm.
BEAUTY AND THE BEEF
There once was a prince who was terribly handsome. He was also terribly proud. And not terribly bright. So when he was invited to the fairy ball, he made the mistake of saying, “No, thank you. Fairies are silly little creatures who chatter away all day about silly little things, and fairy balls are unbearably boring. The food is terrible, too.”
He might not have had a problem if he’d said that to his squire, or to his horse (who was actually quite bright), but he said this in front of the Fairy Queen, who placed a curse on him. She could have turned him into a frog, or a mule, or removed his ability to talk, but she was already having a bad day and wanted to give him an especially terrible punishment. So she turned him into a roast beef sandwich. And not a lovely and desirable sandwich with beautifully crusty bread, thick pieces of freshly carved rare beef, a fresh leaf of frilly green lettuce, and a slice or two from a red, ripe garden tomato. No, he was pretty much a dried-up, unappealing slab of gristly meat on two stale pieces of crumbly bread. No mayo. No mustard.
“You will remain that way until someone truly loves you,” the Fairy Queen said, placing the prince on the banquet table in his castle.
“Help,” the prince said.
Nobody heard him. He had a very quiet voice, made even quieter by his current lack of vocal cords, lungs, or a tongue. Nobody paid any attention to him or knew what he had become, since sandwiches had not yet been invented by people, though fairies had been making them for centuries.
There once was also a fair maiden named Merrigayle, who was the most beautiful young lass in the land. An evil queen heard rumors about her. The queen felt she herself was the most beautiful person in the land. So she summoned her huntsman and said, “Find that fair maiden and kill her.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the huntsman said. Like most huntsmen, he was not an evil person. So when he found the fair maiden, he took her into the woods but didn’t kill her.
(There was another beautiful young lass who ate a poisoned apple and fell into a deep sleep. But she slept through the whole story and will not be mentioned again. Let’s get back to our current lass.)
Merrigayle wandered through the woods until she reached an old castle overgrown with weeds and thorns. She found her way inside, hoping to get some food.
There was something odd sitting on the banquet table. It seemed to be a stack of bread and meat. Merrigayle stared at it. “What are you?” she asked.
“A prince,” the sandwich said.
Merrigayle, who had not expected an answer, stepped back and gasped. “You can talk!”
“Of course I can,” the sandwich said. “I’ve been talking all my life.”
“But what are you?” Merrigayle asked.
“A prince,” the prince said, once again.
“I’ve never seen a prince like you before,” Merrigayle said.
“I believe I’ve been cursed,” he said.
Merrigayle reached out and poked the top of the sandwich with one finger. “Who cursed you?” she asked.
“The Fairy Queen,” he said. “She turned me into this thing. And now I have to wait until someone comes along who truly loves me.”
“There’s not much here to love,” Merrigayle said.
The sandwich, somehow, sighed. “I know. It’s a pretty powerful curse. Perhaps you could take a small nibble out of me. I could be so tasty you’d fall in love.”
“Ew…,” Merrigayle said, studying the sandwich. That didn’t appeal to her.
“Please,” the prince said. “It might be my only hope. I haven’t had many visitors. Actually, I haven’t had a single one before you.” He made a peculiar sound.
Merrigayle realized he was sobbing. “Stop. You’ll get soggy. And then you will definitely be unlovable.”
The prince sniffed and snuffled but managed to stop sobbing.
“I don’t see any part of you that looks tasty at all,” Merrigayle said.
“I suppose not,” the prince said.
But Merrigayle, who really did have a pure heart and a weakness for people in need, picked up the sandwich and took the tiniest possible nibble.
The sandwich tasted amazing.
Had the prince bothered to learn something about fairies instead of mocking them, he might have found that fairies are incapable of making a bad sandwich. In fact, all their food is unbelievably delicious. He would also have discovered this if he’d been open-minded enough to go to the ball.
Unfortunately, he knew none of this.
More unfortunately, Merrigayle was just learning it.
The sandwich was truly amazing.
It was actually irresistible.
And soon enough, it was nothing but a tasty memory.
“Sorry,” Merrigayle whispered when she realized there was nothing left of the prince for her to love.<
br />
No longer hungry, Merrigayle left the castle.
Unlike the prince, she lived happily ever after.
I’VE GOT MY EYE ON YOU
Here, there be dragons.
That’s what it says on the map my brother, Dylan, has on the wall over his bed. It’s an old-fashioned map from way back when they didn’t know much about the earth. They thought there were dragons in the ocean. I wish that were true. It would be cool to see a dragon. From a distance, of course.
Dylan likes ancient history. I like old stuff, too, but not anywhere near that old. I like trains from the 1800s and 1900s. I have a cool setup in the basement. My main layout is HO scale, which is one eighty-seventh real size, but I have stuff at every scale from tiny to pretty large.
Anyhow, the reason I mentioned dragons is that we ran into a different monster, and not one I wanted to meet.
We’d been riding our bikes on the trail through Bryer Woods when Dylan skidded off the path and wiped out.
“You okay?” I asked when I pulled up next to him.
He looked down like he was checking his body for broken pieces, then said, “Yeah. I’m fine. But I think this tree has had it.”
He tapped the old, dead tree that had stopped his slide. It creaked a lot and tilted a bit. It looked like it was just about ready to fall over.
“Might as well help it out,” I said. So we gave the tree a shove. Hey, that’s what guys do. We break things.
The tree fell hard and slid down the hillside into a gully. It took a couple of boulders with it.
“Cool,” I said, staring down the hill at the mini landslide we’d created.
“What’s that?” Dylan asked.
Something slithered out from the hole where the biggest boulder had been.
“Snake?” I guessed.
“Snakes don’t have fingers,” Dylan said. “That’s an arm.”
“Arms don’t come that big,” I said. Even from a distance, I could tell that whatever we were looking at was part of something huge.
It turned out it was an arm. We discovered that when the rest of it burst out onto the hillside.
It was a giant. I saw the other arm break through. And then the head came out, facing away from us.
“It’s huge!” Dylan said. It was all the way out of the hole now. It looked like it was at least seven or eight feet tall and really broad.
“Enormous.” I glanced over my shoulder at my bike. “We should get out of here,” I said.
“I want to see what it looks like close up,” Dylan said.
I took a step away from him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Dylan obviously thought otherwise. “Hey! Big guy! Over here!” Dylan jumped up and down and waved his arms.
The giant turned around and stared back at us with one enormous eye in the center of its head.
“Cyclops!” I said.
“Cool,” Dylan said. “I read about them in The Odyssey. I never thought they were real.”
“Not cool,” I said as the cyclops let out a roar of rage and charged toward us. “Run!”
I dashed for my bike, but I waited long enough to make sure Dylan got back on his. We raced down the path. The cyclops chased after us, knocking over any trees that got in its way. It was fast, but we managed to keep ahead.
Dylan pedaled up beside me when we reached the road. “What are we going to do?” he asked.
“Stay ahead of it,” I said.
“Forever?” he asked.
That was a good question. “We can go home and lock ourselves inside. Then we can call for help,” I suggested.
A rock went flying past my head. I guess the cyclops had thrown it.
“I don’t think our front door will do much good,” I said.
“Wait! I have an idea,” Dylan said. “But I need to get home ahead of you. Can you slow down a bit?”
I checked over my shoulder. “Are you kidding?”
“No. I’m serious. I just need to get there a minute or two ahead of you,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“There’s no time to explain,” he said. “Just trust me. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said. “Go for it.” If you can’t trust your brother, who can you trust?
It wasn’t easy, but I slowed down until I felt the cyclops was getting too close. Then I increased my speed just enough so he wouldn’t get any closer. Dylan pulled ahead. I hoped he knew what he was doing. I couldn’t even guess what he had in mind. But if it didn’t work, we’d be in big trouble.
I was getting tired. And I was slowing down. I knew I couldn’t stay ahead of the cyclops for much longer. Even so, I took the long way home, going all the way around the neighborhood to give Dylan more time.
Finally, with the cyclops getting so close I could almost feel his breath on my neck, I turned onto our street. Dylan was in the driveway, standing behind several rows of stuff that looked familiar. As I got closer, I saw what they were and screamed, “Hey! What are you doing with my trains?”
Dylan ignored me. He raised his arms and growled like an angry bear. He was clutching my favorite caboose. I was close enough now to see that he’d lined up a bunch of trains, with the largest-scale ones in front and the smaller ones in back. It looked a little bit like they were spread out over a large area.
Dylan roared again. I couldn’t believe he thought he could scare the cyclops this way.
I heard a cry of fright from behind me. The cyclops had stopped chasing me. He was staring at Dylan now like my brother was some sort of monster.
Dylan stomped his foot and let out the loudest roar yet. He waved the caboose in his hand and then crushed it.
“Hey!” I shouted.
The cyclops turned and ran away, heading back toward the woods.
I staggered off my bike and walked over to Dylan.
“How…?”
I was too puzzled and out of breath to talk, but I guess he knew what I was asking.
“I made myself into a giant,” Dylan said. He held his hand right in front of my face and then slowly pulled it away. “You need two eyes to see depth,” he said as his hand grew smaller.
“So he thought you were a giant,” I said. “Because everything got smaller and smaller in front of you.”
“That’s how it looks,” he said.
“That was brilliant,” I said.
“I know.”
“But you didn’t have to ruin my caboose,” I said.
Dylan flashed me a guilty grin. “Probably not. Want to go back to the Bryer Woods?”
I shook my head. “Definitely not.”
And we didn’t.
DROP THE BALL
For the first eight years of her life, Bonnie’s New Year’s Eve experience went like this. Her parents tucked her in at her normal bedtime, whispered, “Happy New Year, young lady,” to her, and went off to enjoy a party in the living room with a group of their friends.
The same thing happened for the first seven years of Lisa’s life. She was Bonnie’s younger sister.
But the year when Bonnie turned nine, she decided that she wasn’t going to be left out any longer.
“We’re going to the party,” she told Lisa the morning of New Year’s Eve.
“Why?” Lisa asked.
“I heard they watch this giant glittery ball drop while everyone counts down, and then they all cheer,” Bonnie said. “I’m tired of missing out on everything.”
“It sounds kind of boring,” Lisa said.
“It sounds amazing,” Bonnie said. “I’m going to sneak down right before midnight and watch. You should come, too.”
“Sure,” Lisa said. “Why not? If it’s amazing, I won’t miss out. And if it isn’t amazing, I can kid you about it. Either way, I win.”
Bonnie hadn’t thought about it that way. But she was sure it would be amazing. That night, she let her parents tuck her in and whisper what they always whispered. And she closed her eyes. As soon as she heard them leave her room, she o
pened her eyes and double-checked that she’d set the alarm on her phone for 11:55. It turned out that wasn’t necessary. She was so excited, she didn’t fall asleep. All night, she listened to the sounds from below. People were talking and laughing and even singing. As midnight approached, things got quieter.
The alarm startled her—not because she was asleep but because she’d forgotten all about setting it. She turned it off, woke Lisa, then crept down the stairs to the living room.
Her parents and their friends were all there. And they were all fast asleep. On the couches and in the chairs, they were sprawled out. Some were snoring. Some were tossing and turning a bit. But nobody was watching the countdown on the TV. Bonnie stared from face to face in disbelief. She helped herself to a potato chip from the bowl on the table. She watched the TV. At midnight, the ball dropped.
“That’s it?” Lisa asked.
“I guess so,” Bonnie said. “It looks like you were right.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I guess I was. I wish I’d been wrong. It would have been nice to see something exciting.”
“But look on the bright side,” Bonnie said. “It’s a new year. A brand-new year. I’m going to make the most of it.”
“Me, too,” Lisa said. “Is there anything special you want to do this year?”
“Sure,” Bonnie said. “Lots of things. But I also know one thing I don’t want to do with this year.”
“What’s that?” Lisa asked.
Bonnie pointed to the sleeping adults. “When the time comes, I don’t want to sit around and fall asleep waiting to watch it end.”
UNDER THE RAINBOW
“A rainbow!” Tad screamed, flinging his arm out to point at the sky. He and his twin brother, Rufus, had been sitting on rocks by a river. They’d just escaped from the third day of a boring family reunion that had brought them and their parents all the way from Madison, New Jersey, to the Greek island of Naxos.
