Once Upon Now

by Danielle Banas

  “Right here! The pirates said she was a princess and they took her to the queen.”

  She paled. “Oh.”

  “Oh? Just oh? Can’t you, like, take me to the castle so I can get her back?”

  “The queen”—she sighed—“doesn’t live in a castle. She lives in an office building. You have so much to learn.”

  “Well,” I said, feeling pretty pathetic. The truth ached like a boulder on my chest. “I need help. What do you say?”

  A strange emotion flickered in Corinne’s eyes. Then, “Fine. Yes, fine. Hang on.” She strutted belowdecks, tossing around a few pots and pans before returning with a cell phone.

  They had cell phones here?

  “I’m getting us a dragon,” she said.

  “A what?”

  “Relax, Leonard. It’s a ride-share service. I’m not buying a new one, duh.”

  A DRAGON WAS A RIDE-SHARE service. It was also, as Corinne neglected to mention, an actual dragon.

  “Scared, Leonard?”

  Lying was useless. “Terrified. And it’s Leo.”

  Corinne climbed aboard the red scaly beast, scratching its neck like it was a puppy, like it didn’t have teeth longer than my forearm. The dragon’s wings flapped, creating a gust of wind that nearly knocked me on my butt.

  “Don’t worry. This guy is quite domesticated.” She pulled me up behind her. “Only the wild dragons will swallow you whole.”

  During the trip downtown, I learned two things about riding with a dragon. First, bugs will fly down your throat. And second, dragons liked to talk. A lot.

  “And so I says to her, I says, ‘Patty.’ I says, ‘Patty, your breath smells like damn onions.’ ” Mario, our dragon, shrugged, nearly sending us flying off his back. “I thought that was a compliment. I thought that was a new toothpaste she was trying out. But then she does this. Ready? You listening back there?”

  “Not particularly,” I replied, flinching. Stupid truth curse. Telling a two-ton dragon you didn’t care about his problems was probably a no-no in Pittsborough. But Mario didn’t hear me.

  “Patty breathes a fireball right in my face, singeing off my eyebrows! Can you believe it? My face is my moneymaker, you know what I’m saying?”

  Corinne rubbed his shoulder. “Mario, you know how the ladies are around mating season. Hey, do you watch that new reality show? Gnome Hunters?”

  “You bet! It’s on tonight. Man, I was so happy when they kicked off Fabian last week.”

  “I know! He was such a drama queen!” Corinne turned around, smiling. “See, Leonard? Dragons are perfectly friendly.”

  But because of their size, dragons weren’t allowed to enter the city, so Mario touched down across the river on Pittsborough’s north shore and waved good-bye with a flick of his fifty-foot tail. Corinne waved back, grinning. I spit out a mouthful of bugs and tried to massage a kink from my neck.

  “Having fun, Leonard?”

  I leveled my gaze at her. “Stop calling me that. And no. Are you kidding?”

  “Lighten up.” She set off across the bridge into town. I followed, my stomach still growling. The sun had set and the lights in the buildings were winking on, spreading a dull glow across the streets. “Tell me more about your sister.”

  The truth: my new nemesis. “Mia’s really annoying . . . but she’s okay, I guess. The reason she’s missing is because I said some hurtful things about her. I said the truth.”

  “Because you’re cursed to?”

  “Exactly! But I didn’t mean for it to come out so harsh. I really do care . . .” I pressed my fingers over my mouth, willing the words to stay inside. But they shot out anyway. “I really do care about her.” I groaned. “You have no idea how hard it is for me to admit that. I hate sharing how I feel about stuff. I like being indifferent. There’s too much pressure that comes with caring, and I don’t want to mess it up.”

  Had I really confessed that? I’d never felt so exposed. I was going to be sick.

  We turned the corner onto Pencil Avenue, which I think was Penn Avenue in my version of things, and headed uptown, passing a mob of people with large pointed ears. No one looked twice at Corinne’s skin or my gnarled wooden cheeks. Corinne stayed silent for a while—I was sure that meant she thought I was some kind of screwed-up loser—but then she started laughing, a crazed, high-pitched noise that stopped me dead in my wobbly wooden tracks.

  “You’re not dying, are you? Because I hate to admit this, but you’re my only hope at the moment.”

  “No! I’m fine. It’s just—it’s just so funny! Talk about irony! Honestly, Leonard—”

  “Leo.”

  “You hate having feelings, so you get transformed into the most emotionless thing out there—a talking block of wood!”

  “I’m not a block,” I said, slightly offended. “I have arms . . .”

  Corinne ignored me. “And then you’re forced to tell the truth about how you feel! It’s just . . . wow.” She wiped her eyes. “It’s poetic, really.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Yes!” She gripped my shoulders, shaking me. “Hate me all you want, Leonard. It’s okay to let your feelings out. That’s what humans do!”

  “You’re awfully insightful for someone who wasn’t human two hours ago.”

  “Never mind that.” She shook her head. “Maybe you could learn something from this curse of yours. I mean, all I learned from mine was how to catch a fly on my tongue, but you, Leonard, you could change your life.”

  “Your inspirational wisdom makes me want to hurl,” I said in a monotone.

  Corinne harrumphed. “I guess that’s a start.”

  We walked on, passing more citizens with pointed ears, some with whiskers on their cheeks, and a few short, wrinkly men in business suits. Corinne said they were goblins. She also said that looking them in the eye could be misconstrued as an ankle-biting challenge.

  I kept my gaze trained firmly ahead.

  I didn’t know what we would do once we reached the queen’s building. I had a feeling I couldn’t politely ask for my sister back, not after she was mistaken for royalty. And especially not after I recited her list of shortcomings.

  Corinne crossed the street, tugging me behind her. I tried to dodge a group of musicians on the corner, but Corinne stopped me. There was a gleam in her eyes that made my legs feel shakier than usual.

  “Do you like dancing, Leonard?”

  I sighed. “It’s Leo. And not on these feet. Not at all, honestly.” I tried to pull away, but her webbed fingers were surprisingly strong.

  “Why not?”

  “Because . . . because . . .” Okay, the truth was really getting old. “Because it’s embarrassing. Because I don’t like looking like an idiot.”

  Corinne nodded to the musician closest to us, a girl with blue tentacles for hair. The girl gestured to her friends, who picked up their banjos and began playing a twangy country tune. Pedestrians stopped to watch, clapping their hands in time with the beat.

  Corinne tugged me closer, but my feet tripped me up and I crashed into her chest. She laughed it off. “Leonard, no one will think you look like an idiot as long as you don’t think you look like an idiot.”

  “That’s not necessarily true.”

  “Just one dance.”

  “But my sister—”

  “We have tons of time, I promise.” She twirled around, making me dizzy. “Live a little first. Feel something.”

  ONE DANCE TURNED INTO TWO, which turned into three, four, five. And I was shocked to find that the more time we spent on that street corner, the more fun I had. My feet were still clumsy, and my fingers couldn’t grip to save my life, but something about the way Corinne spun around, looking as ridiculous as me, made it okay.

  But time was running out. We had less than two hours to get Mia back, and yet whenever I mentioned this, Corinne clammed up and nervously glanced at the blinking red light atop the tallest building in the city. The queen’s chambers. It was called the Ste
el Building in Pittsburgh, but here it was known only as the Q.

  Something was up with Corinne. And my future depended on discovering what that was.

  “So . . .” I began, realizing she knew much more about me than I did about her. “If I broke your curse, why are you still green?”

  She skipped along the street, shrugging. “I think it’s permanent. Green’s my favorite color, though, so it’s not a total disappointment. Orange on the other hand . . .” She laughed, but her heart wasn’t in it.

  “How did you even get green to begin with?”

  “Long story. Oh, hey! Want some ice cream?” She took off in the direction of a nearby building, leaving me to hobble after her. I could recognize when someone was deflecting. I was a pro at it, after all.

  I squinted at the sign above the parlor. “Mice Cream?”

  “Yep. These guys are great. Look!”

  Screaming wasn’t considered very manly, but at the moment I didn’t care. I screamed like a thirteen-year-old girl. I screamed like Mia at her first bubblegum-pop boy-band concert.

  Three five-feet-tall white mice were staring right at me.

  “We seem to have alarmed him,” said the one on the left. It was wearing a putrid-yellow top hat and holding an ice cream scoop.

  “Newbie,” added the mouse on the right. It adjusted the lapels of a hideous glittery blue suit.

  The middle mouse said nothing. It pushed a pair of horn-rimmed glasses up its nose and offered me a bowl of red ice cream.

  Top Hat Mouse bowed. “Enjoy our complimentary mint chocolate chip. We added extra chips this week.”

  I glanced at my bowl. “Why is it red? Are there cherries in here?”

  “Don’t mention that,” Corinne said. “They’re color-blind.”

  I blinked. “Color-blind . . . mice?”

  “Red-green color blindness mostly. Sometimes blue-yellow.”

  “My lady,” Top Hat interrupted, “I do love your green hair. It’s quite alluring.”

  Corinne nudged my arm and pushed a lock of red hair over her shoulder. “See? It certainly doesn’t help their sense of style.”

  Top Hat rounded the counter, allowing me to get a closer look at him. He wore orange-and-white-striped pants and a checkered shirt. He was a bit too close for comfort. I tried not to scream again.

  “You guys are the stuff of nightmares,” I confessed, wincing as the truth spilled out.

  “How rude!” said Top Hat. “You know, we do love to gnaw on a good block of wood.”

  “I’m not a block!” I said, exasperated. “I have arms.”

  But Top Hat seemed to have grown bored with me. He turned to Corinne, while his two friends retreated into a storage room.

  “It has been too long, my lady.” He bowed a second time, and the look of reverence in his beady red eyes freaked me the heck out.

  “Indeed,” Corinne said. She’d relaxed once we entered the shop, but her shoulders were tense again, eyes skittish. “Don’t tell anyone you saw me here. I haven’t been recognized yet.”

  My ears perked up. Recognized?

  Top Hat nodded. “I will say not a word, but I would think you’d want to stay far away, my lady. Considering your history.”

  I elbowed myself between them. “What history?”

  A red blush formed beneath Corinne’s bright green cheeks. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Her voice was deathly low. “Do you, Alberto?”

  The mouse began chewing on his fingers with sharp teeth. “I know only that the queen would kill you if she saw you. She hasn’t forgotten.”

  “Alberto,” Corinne warned.

  “No, no.” I motioned for the mouse to continue. For someone who kept encouraging me to tell the truth, Corinne definitely had some secrets of her own.

  “Why would the queen want to kill her?” I asked.

  “She doesn’t,” Corinne said.

  “The mouse says otherwise.”

  Alberto’s eyes widened. With a quick bow, he scurried behind the counter. “A lover’s spat! I have said too much! Please ignore me.”

  I stared Corinne down. For the first time since I met her, she seemed almost shy. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not just some frog girl who rescued me from pirates?”

  Corinne glanced out the door, peering down the street at the Q. “Because I’m not.” Her eyes grew watery. “You keep telling the truth, but I haven’t been honest with you. Leonard, I know the queen because . . . I’m the real princess of Pittsborough.”

  She snatched the remainder of my ice cream and slumped down at a table to stuff her face. “Surprise.”

  EVERY FAMILY HAS A NUT, and Corinne’s just happened to have four. First up was her fairy godmother Wilhelmina, who killed Corinne’s parents—the former king and queen of Pittsborough—in an attempt to steal the crown. She trapped them inside their bedroom and set it on fire. A bit more creative than just using poison, but it didn’t really wow me as far as murders were concerned.

  Nuts Two and Three were Corinne’s mother and father. These winners had their daughter cursed against her will in a misguided attempt to hide her so Wilhelmina couldn’t kill her as well. Turns out frogs can’t rule a kingdom. Go figure. With Corinne gone and no one to take over, crazy Wilhelmina got put on the throne. Which brings me to . . .

  Nut Number Four: Wilhelmina’s daughter, Beatrice. This nut disappeared into the Enchanted Forest to hide from her mother, which actually made her the smartest nut, but she was still an idiot solely because she was responsible for my mess. If Beatrice hadn’t done a runner, Wilhelmina wouldn’t be overturning Pittsborough to find her. There would be no chaos, no reward money, and those pirates would have left Mia untouched.

  “I can’t get over that it’s like there are two of my sister,” I told Corinne. “Beatrice is like Mia’s twin. It’s freaky.”

  “That’s because this is an alternate reality,” she said. We were still sitting in Mice Cream, and Alberto was dishing out endless free samples due to the return of Her Royal Highness Princess Corinne. I had trouble believing she was royalty, likely because her appetite was worse than a dude’s. I’d finished stuffing myself ages ago, but she was still going strong.

  “Here’s how it works,” she explained. “In your world, Mia is your sister, but in this world she’s Wilhelmina’s daughter. Or she looks like her anyway. Just like in your world, your father is your father, but here he might be—”

  “A pirate!”

  “Sure, maybe.”

  “No, he is!” I jumped from my seat, remembering the way the captain’s face had looked so familiar. “Sal, the pirate, he kidnapped Mia! He took his own daughter—wow, that’s messed up.”

  “Not really. Sal isn’t Mia’s father here. If he was, he wouldn’t have taken her.” She stared at the Q again, a frightened look in her eyes.

  “You don’t need to come with me, you know,” I said.

  According to Corinne, Alberto had been right: Wilhelmina would kill her if she spotted her. Anything to keep the crown from its rightful owner. The longer we were in town, the more reality started to sink in. Wilhelmina knew how to use magic; supposedly she was good at it, too. Corinne could die helping me.

  “Why agree to this in the first place?” I asked.

  Corinne sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, come on! If I have to tell the truth, you do too. Don’t start being all wooden.”

  She laughed a little. “That was a poor choice of words, Leonard.”

  Shockingly, being called Leonard didn’t bother me that time.

  “Okay, you want the truth?” She pointed her spoon at me. “I decided to come along because you looked miserable on that ship. Broken.” Her voice got quiet. “And I know what it’s like to be cursed and want out. I thought if we found your sister . . . it might help.”

  “Even though you might get hurt?”

  “I know Wilhelmina’s quarters like the back of my webbed hands.” Corinne folded her arms across her chest
. “I’m a big girl, Leonard. I can take care of myself. I was under the impression you didn’t like me much anyway.”

  “What? No way! Honestly, Corinne, for a pushy green princess you aren’t so bad.”

  She patted my cheek, her eyes sad. “You’re sweet. But you wouldn’t say that if you weren’t cursed.”

  As I followed her outside, I wondered if she was right or if I had just shared my feelings all on my own.

  THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT.

  I was in total secret-agent mode as we crept through the service entrance at the back of the Q. That is, if secret agents had feet that cramped up and caused them to stumble every two steps.

  “All right, Leonard?” Corinne asked. We dodged several guards returning from a break room and ducked into a stairwell. I was panting, my hands gripping my knees, but Corinne appeared unaffected.

  “I feel like my chest is about to explode,” I said.

  “Just hang tight. There’s an elevator at the end of the hall.” She pulled the door open a crack, searching for trouble. “All clear. Let’s head up.”

  For the first time since Corinne rescued me from the pirate ship, I was filled with doubt. Mia had been furious at me the last time I saw her. I couldn’t even imagine how she would react when I showed up to her rescue.

  “What if she doesn’t want to come back?”

  “She’ll come,” Corinne assured me. “You don’t know how overbearing Wilhelmina is. Mia’s probably dying to get out of there.”

  I chuckled as we waited for the elevator to arrive. It was on floor forty-five and needed to come all the way to the basement. “You’ve never met my mother. She’s the same— Wait. Does Wilhelmina have blond hair?”

  “Yeah . . .” Corinne answered slowly.

  “Brown eyes?”

  “Like a chocolate bar.” She paused. “Or feces.”

  “Does she have a deviated septum that makes her squeak when she laughs and—”

  “Yes!” she said kind of gleefully, but the confirmation only made my stomach hurt.

  A loud bang echoed behind us. Corinne jabbed the call button repeatedly, as if that would help us get upstairs faster. Two women and a man in crisp white chef’s attire rounded the corner at the end of the hall. They halted when they spotted us.