“And finally, you’re Zinnia, the one who worries about presents. I know someone else like that.”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Rebecca said, “getting insulted is not how I planned to spend my birthday.”
“Oh, really?” Andrew said mildly. “Well, it’s my birthday too, and this wasn’t exactly my first choice either.”
His birthday was the same day as ours? What were the odds?
If we gave Marcia a minute, she’d probably calculate them for us.
“This is all very nice,” Annie said, “playing getting-to-know-you and having old-home week and all that, and I’m sure we all wish you a happy birthday with many happy returns. But really, we only came here to fetch our father, who we believe is in your tower.”
“Oh, yes,” Andrew said. “Your father. He has been making quite a racket lately.”
“Is our mother with him?” Durinda asked.
“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say,” Andrew said.
“Not at liberty . . . ?” Annie echoed, and then she shook her head. She began backing toward the door, the only exit from the room, and we followed suit. “Never mind that now. As I was saying, we’re simply here to fetch our father and then we’ll just be—”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” Andrew said.
“Can’t let us?” Annie asked.
“No,” Andrew said. “Mummy wouldn’t like it.” Then he put two fingers in his mouth and let out a loud whistle.
A great pounding came thundering toward the drawing room, accompanied by the noise of many toe-nails tapping against wood and marble. We turned just in time to see eight dogs enter the drawing room, filling the whole doorway and blocking our path.
Dogs!
Seven Eights reeled back in horror, all of us except Zinnia.
The dogs weren’t excessively large dogs, but neither were they particularly small. They were midsize dogs, brown and white, and their faces reminded us of the joke masks our eight cats had worn to play a trick on us back on April Fools’ Day. So maybe they weren’t huge or especially scary-looking, but they were still dogs.
“Don’t you like dogs?” Andrew said innocently.
“Not particularly,” Georgia said, cringing.
“You could say we’re more cat people,” Petal said, and then she fainted.
Zinnia stepped up and held out her hand. The lead dog jutted his chin forward and allowed Zinnia to give him a good scratch underneath.
“And what’s your name?” she purred.
“He could tell you himself,” Andrew said, “but for your sisters’ benefit, he’s Antibiotic. The others are Dishwater, Gewgaw, Jingle, Mysterioso, Peculiar, Riptide, and Zanzibar.”
“What ridiculous names for pets,” Rebecca scoffed. “Who ever heard of such outrageousness?”
We did notice that Rebecca did her scoffing at a safe distance from the dogs. While Rebecca scoffed, Zinnia commenced whispering in Antibiotic’s ear. We tried to create a distraction by fake coughing and sneezing and loudly reviving Petal because we figured Zinnia was trying to worm information out of the mutt and get him to let us pass.
“I’m afraid that won’t work,” Andrew informed her. “Antibiotic is under strict instructions from Mummy. He’ll let you scratch him until the cows come home, but he won’t answer any important questions and he won’t let you pass unless I tell him it’s okay.”
“I knew we should have brought the cats,” Zinnia muttered.
We weren’t quite sure what good that would have done. Our eight gray and white puffballs were amazing, but were they really any match for eight dogs? Still, we could understand why she was muttering. It was definitely turning out to be a muttering situation.
“Isn’t there anything we can do to get you to let us out of this room so we can go find our father?” Annie asked.
“I could make you the best chocolate chip pancakes you’ve ever had in your life,” Durinda offered.
Andrew shook his head.
“I could promise not to complain,” Georgia offered.
Andrew shook his head.
“I could teach you some running tips,” Jackie offered.
Andrew shook his head.
“I could teach you algebraic equations,” Marcia offered, “as soon as I figure out what they are.”
Andrew shook his head.
“I’m too scared to offer anything,” Petal offered.
Andrew shook his head at the sad state of Petal, as did we all.
“I refuse to offer anything!” Rebecca said. “What—I’m supposed to make bargains with this boy?”
Andrew shook his head at the ridiculousness of Rebecca, as did we all.
“I still think I can talk some sense into this dog,” Zinnia muttered to herself, scratching away as if she really would scratch until the cows came home.
“Isn’t there anything you want from us?” Annie practically begged. “Isn’t there anything we can trade so you’ll let us out of this room?”
Andrew placed a thoughtful finger against his lips and tapped.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a good game of chess,” he said at last. “Do you play chess?”
“I’ve heard of it,” Annie said, and then admitted, “but I can’t say I’ve ever played the game.”
“Perfect,” Andrew said, his eyes lighting up. “Tell you what. We’ll play one game. If you win, you get to leave this room. If I win, you stop bothering me. You let me go back to paying the bills, and you go back to wherever you came from.”
“But we’re not even sure how—” Durinda began to object as Annie began her own objection with “But I don’t know how—” And then a lot of other partial objections were made, all one on top of the other so that none of it really made any sense.
“Take it or leave it,” Andrew said firmly. “It’s the only offer I’ll make.”
Annie held out her hand bravely for a shake. “I’ll take it,” she said.
“Good choice,” Andrew said, that gleam still in his eye as he shook her hand.
We wouldn’t have thought that a chessboard could look menacing, but the one on the table in the corner of the room that Andrew led Annie to certainly did. Perhaps that’s because so much was riding on this one game, this game Annie knew nothing about.
Annie took her seat behind the silver pieces while Andrew took his behind the gold, and Marcia whispered in Annie’s ear everything she knew about chess from having read something on it in a book.
“You have eight pawns. Your pawns can move either one or two spaces on the first move,” Marcia whispered. “You have two each of rooks, knights, and bishops. Your rooks move straight. Your bishops move diagonally. Your knights move in an L shape. You have one queen and one king. Your queen can move straight or diagonally but not in an L shape. Your king must be protected at all costs to keep your opponent from checkmating you. Now, you’ll probably want to know about the Sicilian defense, which—”
“Pardon me,” Andrew interrupted Marcia, “but are you quite finished yet? I don’t mind you giving your sister a quick tutorial, but this is getting to be a bit much.”
“It’s okay,” Annie said to Marcia in a voice that was a weird mixture of cool-as-a-cucumber and nervous Nellie. “I think I know what I’m doing here.”
Reluctantly, Marcia stepped away from Annie’s ear. Then we all, including the dogs, gathered around closely, and the game began.
Andrew magnanimously gestured for Annie to go first, and she lifted the pawn that was in front of her king and moved it two squares forward. We remembered Marcia saying a pawn could be moved in the first move either one or two spaces, and we wondered why Annie had immediately opted for two, but then we figured that maybe more was better in chess. Or maybe she simply wanted to give her king extra room.
Then Andrew did something, but we didn’t really notice what that was. We were still too busy puzzling over Annie’s choice regarding the pawn.
Annie then moved the bishop that wa
s next to her king diagonally three squares toward the pawn in front of Andrew’s bishop, the one that was beside his king.
What was Annie up to? From the look on her face, we thought she might actually know what she was doing! Could she have a plan?
We were so busy wondering about that, we didn’t notice how Andrew moved.
Now Annie looked like she was growing nervous. She cracked her knuckles, something most of us wished she hadn’t done, except for Rebecca, who began cracking hers. Then Annie went in the corner and stood on her head for a bit. Finally, she returned to the table, ready to make her third move.
Annie took up her queen and moved it diagonally two squares so that it stood before Andrew’s king’s bishop.
We were so busy wondering whether Annie was going to go stand on her head again, we didn’t notice what Andrew did.
For Annie’s fourth move, which was preceded by neither head-standing nor knuckle-cracking, she pushed her queen forward and took the pawn in front of Andrew’s king’s bishop.
“I don’t believe this!” Andrew said, moving to take Annie’s queen with his king.
“Now, now,” Annie said, tapping him on the back of the hand and halting his move. “Your only escape is by your king taking my queen, but you can’t do that because I’ve protected the queen with my king’s bishop. I believe this is—oh, what’s the word for it—checkmate?”
Four
“I don’t believe this!” Andrew said again, practically spluttering. “You beat me with the four-move checkmate. No one’s beaten me with that trick since I was first learning!”
“Don’t feel bad,” Annie said.
“You were probably lulled into a false sense of security,” Durinda said.
“Annie’s been known to do that to people,” Georgia said. “It’s really an unfair advantage.”
“She can be smart as an adult when she needs to be,” Rebecca admitted.
“Well, so can I!” Andrew exclaimed. “But she’d never even played the game before!”
“Beginner’s luck.” Annie shrugged modestly.
“It really was,” Marcia said. “I’m almost sure of it.”
“Will you let us out of here now?” Petal asked Andrew. “You did promise, plus those horsy-thing knights on the chessboard are glaring daggers at me.”
“You did promise,” Jackie said, emphasizing the better of Petal’s two points.
“Yes,” Andrew said grudgingly. “Yes, I suppose I did. But you know, Mummy isn’t going to like this . . .”
“Wait a second,” Petal said. “It only just occurred to me. Are we actually inside the snow globe now?”
“It would appear so,” Andrew said.
“But this is horrible!” Petal said.
“Well,” Andrew said dryly, “it’s not like this would have been my first choice.”
“But it’s awful!” Petal said. “I’m miniature now, and I’m quite certain that it is awful to be miniature. Doesn’t this put me at great risk?”
“No more than it does Jackie or any of the rest of us,” Annie said.
“Do I look much smaller to you?” Petal asked us frantically.
“Of course not,” Marcia said, “because it’s all relative.”
“I don’t even know what that means!” Petal said. “I’m miniature, so I could get stomped on by a giant, or even someone normal-size!”
“First off,” Durinda said, “there’s no such thing as giants.”
“Or at least not that we know of,” Georgia corrected.
“And second,” Jackie said, “when Marcia says it’s all relative, she means that while you might be smaller in here, everything else is too.”
“Which means that you’re the same as you’ve always been,” Rebecca said. “You’re one inch shorter than Marcia and one inch taller than me, which I must say always does come as a shock.”
“Excuse me,” Zinnia said, “but could we stop all of this now and let Andrew get on with the business of letting us out of this room? I am enjoying the dogs but I would like to find Daddy sometime today.”
“Come on,” Andrew said. “Antibiotic, Dishwater, Gewgaw, Jingle, Mysterioso, Peculiar, Riptide, and Zanzibar—heel!”
The eight dogs immediately moved through the doorway and went to stand beside Andrew. Huh. We hadn’t known dogs could all be so obedient at once like that. Our cats never behaved that way.
“Off you go, then,” Andrew said to us. “Shoo.”
We didn’t have to be told twice. Quickly, we shooed.
Annie turned back.
“Aren’t you going to come with us?” she said. Suddenly, we had the impression she liked this boy, this Ocho counterpart of hers. Then we figured it was probably because she’d been able to beat him at chess.
“What were you expecting,” he said, “a guided tour? Or maybe you were expecting me to lead you straight to your father? ’Fraid not. Someone has to get these bills paid or Peter will spin himself into a fear tizzy.”
“Who’s Peter?” Petal asked.
But Andrew ignored her.
We turned once more and were heading toward the staircase that led to the upper part of the house when we heard barking and pounding and the sound of toe-nails against the floor, and we saw the eight dogs race past us and position themselves at the foot of the stairs.
“What are they doing?” Annie called back to Andrew.
“Oh, that?” He yawned. “Well, I agreed to let you get out of the drawing room, but I never said the dogs would let you go upstairs. Our bargain was for one thing, not the other.” He yawned again. “Goodbye for now.”
And then he was gone from the doorway.
“Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do.” Durinda harrumphed.
“I don’t even know what that means,” Petal said.
“Durinda means,” Jackie explained, “something along the lines of ‘Oh, this is just great. Now what?’”
“If she meant that,” Petal said, “then why didn’t she just say so?” Petal put the back of her hand to her forehead. “Oh no,” she said. “I’m feeling faint.”
“What’s so new about that?” Georgia said. “You’re always feeling faint. Feeling faint is your regular how-do-you-do.”
“Not like scared faint,” Petal said. “I feel really faint. Like I haven’t had enough to eat or something.”
“I hate to say it,” Rebecca said, putting the back of her hand to her own forehead, “but the little idiot is right. I feel faint too.”
“When was the last time any of us ate anything?” Zinnia wondered.
“We stopped for a very early breakfast on the way home from our beach vacation,” Marcia said precisely. “That means that we’ve driven in the car, experienced the beginnings of a surprise birthday party, discovered Zinnia’s power, had all manner of creatures fill our lawn, met a unicorn, received Zinnia’s gift, tried to figure out how to get Daddy out of the snow globe, finally figured out how to get into the snow globe, met a cousin, met eight dogs, watched Annie beat our cousin at chess, and got freed from the drawing room.” She paused for breath. “So, as you can see, it’s been what is known in technical circles as ‘a while.’”
“It’s amazing I’m still alive and haven’t starved into a little ball of nothing,” Petal said, slouching against Jackie’s side from the weight of the hunger.
“I knew we should have eaten our birthday cake before coming here,” Rebecca said. “Or at least the frosting.”
“Look,” Durinda said. “This house seems very similar to our house, so I’ll bet that room over there is the kitchen. Surely no one will mind if I just make us all a little snack?”
We entered the room, half expecting to find other people in there—weren’t there any people in this house besides Andrew and our father in the tower?—but the kitchen was empty.
“Oh, I was right!” Durinda said. “This kitchen is exactly where the one in our house is, and everything looks very familiar. I’m sure I can make us a good snack in here!”
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Durinda crossed to the refrigerator and put her hand on the handle, but then stopped. “I wonder what its name is?” she said in a quiet voice.
“Its name?” Georgia echoed.
“Yes, its name,” Durinda said. “You know, kitchen appliances can be very sensitive about things. Remember the time Carl the talking refrigerator got upset when he realized we all thought he was a she?”
“I’m sure it doesn’t have a name,” Rebecca said, exasperated. “Most refrigerators don’t, you know.”
“Really?” Durinda raised her eyebrows. “How odd.” With a shrug, she pulled open the door. She scanned the contents, then got out various items: a carton of eggs, a pitcher of orange juice, some lettuce. We thought that last thing was an odd choice. We were in the midst of a dangerous adventure, and Durinda expected us to eat salads?
“Is there any pink frosting in there?” Rebecca asked. “I could use some right around now.”
“’Fraid not,” Durinda said. “There’s only this.” She removed a container of something from the fridge and handed it to Rebecca along with a clean spoon she found on the counter.
Rebecca stared at the container. “Blue frosting? Who on earth would choose blue frosting when there’s pink in the world?” But she pulled the lid off anyway, dipped the spoon in, licked, and soon looked happy enough. Or as happy as Rebecca ever looked when she wasn’t actually performing evil.
“I just don’t feel right about this,” Durinda said. She returned to looking through the fridge. “It feels wrong to be taking food items without first having a discussion of their nutritional value and just what exactly the refrigerator thinks we should be eating.”
“You’re right not to feel right about it,” a boy’s voice said.
We turned to see a boy standing there. He was very similar to Andrew, but this one was Durinda’s height.
Before we could say anything, the boy continued. “What are you doing in my kitchen?”
Oh, this was very bad, we realized. We knew how territorial Durinda could be about our kitchen back home, only ever letting Jackie help her with things. If the boy really considered this his kitchen, what we’d done was as bad as stealing a bone from a dog. Or eight dogs.
The Sisters Eight Book 9 Page 3
