by Anita Oh
Right away, the smell told me that it was no normal mountain I'd run into. It was a mountain of horse manure. A pony poo pile. And I was covered in it, head to toe.
I groaned as I got to my feet. This was the worst. The actual worst.
The smell was unbearable. Chunks of it were in my hair, it was embedded under my fingernails. I tried wiping myself off on some grass, but the poo was sticky and just smeared around all over my skin. My uniform was ruined for sure. Tennyson Wilde was never going to let me live this down. He was probably also never going to let me in his pocket. Still, I had to keep going, I was more than halfway there and I didn't want to be left stranded if they finished practice.
I broke into a bit of a jog as I headed for Tennyson Wilde. It kept me warm and I was hoping if I started sweating, maybe the poo would come off. Whenever I'd tried to wear make-up before, it had sweated straight off in minutes, so I hoped poo would be the same.
It wasn't.
I reached Tennyson Wilde after what felt like running a marathon. Maybe it was, I was too exhausted to try to do the math. He was so busy bossing around the polo guys, making them run sprints, that he didn't notice me at first, no matter how much I jumped up and down on his shoe. Then he wrinkled his nose, his eyes went huge and he looked down at me.
He gave his whistle one last long blow.
"Hit the showers," he told them.
Even from there, I could hear the polo guys grumbling, and I bet Tennyson could pick out every word. Still, that was not my problem.
"Why are you here?" he asked when everyone was in the locker room. "Why do you smell like that? You couldn't stay out of trouble for one hour?"
"Somebody knocked me out of your coat," I said. "And then I fell in poo. I need a shower and some new clothes. And to get unshrunk. We need to find whoever did this and then drop them in poo and see how they like it."
"I am not touching you," he told me. "Stay on my shoe and try not to get any of that stuff on me."
I grabbed hold of his shoelaces, holding tight as he walked. It wasn't the worst way to travel, but I made sure to smear as much poo over his shiny shoes as I could. I knew it wasn't his fault, but still, I figured you could be a bit vindictive when you were covered in poo.
And it was nothing to what I would do to the spellcaster when I finally found them.
Chapter 10
"I can still smell you," said Nikolai, hiding his nose inside his sweater.
I sat in the middle of the table, freshly washed and dressed in a handkerchief, which was wrapped around me like a toga. I'd bathed in Althea's sink, with all her fancy toiletries, and I thought I smelled pretty darn good. Like fruits and flowers. Really expensive fruits and flowers. Nikolai was obviously just being dramatic. The four of them stared down at me with unreadable expressions. Well, they might not have been that unreadable, it was hard to look at the whole of someone's face when you could fit inside their nostril.
"That's creepy," I told Nikolai. "And I smell awesome so shut up."
"I think that two things about this situation are becoming apparent," said Althea. "The first is that none of you are capable of keeping a tiny human safe —"
"Hey!" said Nikolai. "Nothing bad happened when she was with me!"
"Your ugly hat says otherwise," said Althea.
"And you can hardly blame me for someone else's poor decisions." Tennyson Wilde humphed and folded his arms across his chest.
"And secondly," Althea said, ignoring him. "This isn't a situation that is sustainable in the long-term. We need to find a solution, as soon as possible."
"I agree," said Sam. "Do you think she's getting smaller?"
The four of them tipped their heads back and squinted down at me, as if that would help them judge my size.
"Maybe?" said Nikolai. "I've never really looked at her much to tell."
"We need to know," said Althea. "It will help determine what type of spell it is."
"You're researching?" Tennyson asked, sounding surprised. "But we have people to do that."
"Inept people," she said. "How do you even know they're really working for us? Somebody on the inside must have helped steal that orb, I don't think we can assume the loyalty of anyone outside of this room."
I was kind of sleepy after my bath, and the four of them seemed to forget I was there and kept on with their conversation. I wondered what would happen if I kept shrinking. Would I vanish completely? Would I just get smaller and smaller until I was tinier than an atom? The world would be completely unrecognizable to me if that happened. It was strange enough now. Well, let's be real, it was strange enough when I was at full height. But if I was just a speck — as spick on the back of a speck — I wouldn't be able to communicate with anyone, wouldn't be able to function in the same way, use things the same way. I'd have to relearn everything in my whole life.
When they finished talking, Althea moved to pick me up, but Tennyson Wilde stopped her.
"Did you not look at the schedule?" he asked her. "I didn't just make it for fun."
"Is this because Mother wouldn't let you have a Barbie doll?" she asked, but withdrew her hand.
Tennyson blinked at her. "Mother subscribes to some very arbitrary notions about gender," he said, sounding more stern and dignified than ever. "And she didn't just not let me have a Barbie doll. She took my Wedding Stylist Barbie and burned her at the stake. She had a career, you know. And dreams. She deserved better."
"Maybe we should ask Lucy what she prefers?" Sam said, cutting off what looked to be a lengthy monologue from Tennyson Wilde. "We're home now, it's not as if we have to cover her class schedule now."
I really would've preferred to go with Althea or Sam, but something in Tennyson Wilde's voice when he talked about his Barbie really got to me. He was trying to sound so formal and cold, but he wasn't fooling anyone and I knew what it was like to lose something important to you and pretend as if you hadn't. It was about more than just the Barbie.
Wow, I never in my life expected to sympathize with Tennyson Wilde. Maybe it was because my brain was now the size of a pea.
Still, I couldn't say outright that I picked Tennyson Wilde. That would just be too weird for everyone.
"I'm not a doll," I told them. "And I'm definitely not a wedding stylist. And I don't need babysitting. I can just stay on that big comfortable cushion over there."
Sam raised his eyebrows and turned away. It made my heart sink a bit but I couldn't have chosen him, not when I kept putting my foot in it and messing with his wolfy calm or whatever. I didn't exactly want to get munched on in my sleep and I had no defenses against him. I wanted to spend time with him, all my time, but I didn't know how to make that something possible.
Althea just shrugged. "Okay, but if you change your mind, just yell out."
The four of them settled in to do their homework, but I had no way to study. I couldn't read books or type or use a touch screen. My future looked grim and full of boredom. Maybe I could rig something up so I could use a laptop at least, but I'd need all my equipment, and that was in my room. I'd need help.
Sam was engrossed in a book. When I looked more closely, I realized it was the book from my bag, the one written by our parents. He was so absorbed in it, his face all crinkled up in concentration, that I didn't want to disturb him. And he was probably a bit too volatile for this kind of high-stress mission anyway. There was no way I was asking Tennyson Wilde for help and I didn't want Althea to get into trouble if she got caught. That only left one person.
"Psst," I said to Nikolai. "Hey, I have a business proposition for you."
"Sorry," he said. "I can't hear you over the smell."
It was kind of hard going, but I managed to climb up onto his arm, scale up to his shoulder and flick him on the ear.
"Look," I said. "I know you've got a bit of a thing for my roommate, Hannah."
I couldn't see his expression because I was sitting on his shoulder, but his neck grew a bit pink.
"I don't know w
hat you're talking about," he muttered. "Shut up."
"It's okay, she's very cute and nice and probably too good for you. You know she thinks you're a dickbag though, right? How about you help me out and I change her mind about you?"
I left out the bit about how she wasn't speaking to me and probably thought I was the #1 dickbag in the world. That was just a temporary thing and therefore not relevant.
"What do you propose?" he asked.
*
It wasn't getting into the Red House that was the problem, Nikolai had my keycard out of my bag and the security wasn't half as tight as for the Golden House. It was that Nikolai Volkov was very recognizable. Especially when wearing a mustard-colored top hat. Nobody said anything, but there were stares and whispers, and as he made his way down the hallway to my door, people were gathered in doorways, peeking out. I heard the snickety-click or more than one photo being taken. When he leaned against my doorjam, the whispers broke into outright muttering. He knocked on the door with one knuckle and waved nonchalantly to the people gathering in the hall.
"Don't spook them," I whispered. "You don't know how ferocious they can be."
We waited a moment for Hannah to open the door but there was no answer.
"You can't just sneak in with them all watching," I whispered. "It's too suspicious."
He banged on the door with his fist. "Come on, babe," he called out, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Don't be like this! Don't throw away everything we have!"
The crowd seemed to creep forward, closing in on us.
"That is the opposite of helping," I told him. "Also, make sure they know you're talking to Hannah and not me. The last thing I need is more rumors."
"Hannah!" he called. "My baby turtledove!"
I snorted but luckily Nikolai was banging on the door loudly enough to cover the noise. He seemed to be really getting into it, actually. A bit too much, even.
"You know I can't live without you!" he wailed, clutching at the doorframe. "Don't leave me like this!"
His dramatics were only egging on the crowd. This was going to be all over the internet within minutes.
Then it started.
"You are my sunshine," Nikolai sang. "My only sunshine."
The crowd immediately began to back off. Wow, with all of the Volkov fortune, Nikolai could not buy a tune. Within seconds, the hallway was clear. I envied them their ability to run away, clutching at their ears.
"Works every time!" Nikolai said, chuckling as he swiped the keycard and opened the door. "Woah, people actually pay money to stay in these rooms? That's criminal!"
"Don't be a jerk and help me find my stuff," I told him, then directed him to my side of the room, telling him which things I needed and which weren't important. I got him to log into my desktop computer and send a message to my brothers to say I was sick and couldn't talk for a few days.
"You know, you could hire someone to be your errand boy," he said as he typed. "I am actually far too busy and important for this kind of thing."
"Oh, put a sock in it, loser, and watch your spelling. What's the point of your fancy education if you can't tell 'then' from 'than'?"
"My charms are beyond spelling and grammar," he said, hitting send.
"There are no charms beyond spelling and grammar," I told him. "Come on, we should go before she gets back."
Just as I said it, the door began to open.
"Quick, hide!" I hissed.
Nikolai did this elaborate drop and roll under the bed that nearly knocked me unconscious but managed to hide us in time. I didn't know if anything would happen to him if he was discovered inside our room, but there would definitely be questions asked, and we didn't have any good answers for them.
Someone walked into the room, slamming the door shut behind them. I could tell just from the footfalls that it wasn't Hannah, she walked very lightly and this person was a clomper.
"Yeah, the room's empty," the person said. They sounded as if they were on the phone, but that wasn't possible at Amaris, there was no cell signal. But that wasn't even the strangest thing. It was a male voice, a deep and unpleasant voice and one I recognized.
Astor.
"There's no way she made it all the way back here. I told you, there's no way she got out of the bamboo forest alive. I put the whammy on her good."
I felt cold all over and a little bit like I was going to vomit.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll look, but it's pointless… Fine, look I'll meet you tomorrow night like we arranged and we can talk about it then… Yeah, at 7PM at the pool, I won't forget."
There was some shuffling, and the sound of Astor moving through the room. Nikolai shuffled forward so that we could see what Astor was doing. He went over to Hannah's side of the room and started going through her drawers. He seemed way too interested in her underwear drawer. Actually, that was the only thing he seemed interested in. It had sounded like he was there to look for me, maybe to finish me off for good, but unless I was hiding in the crotch of Hannah's panties, he wasn't going to find me. The big creeper.
I had no idea what Nikolai was thinking, or how we would get out of this. I knew that if it came down to it, Astor was no match for Nikolai, but I really wanted to avoid any sort of physical altercation.
"We have to get out of here," I said, so quietly it was barely a breath. I wasn't sure Nikolai would hear, I could hardly hear myself, but I had to rely on his super senses.
He gave a little twitch of his head that was probably supposed to signify something, but I had no idea if it was agreement or not. Before I could clarify, he moved. He was faster than the wind and just as unseen, grabbing my stuff and speeding us out of there before Astor even looked up from his panty paradise. Oh man, I hoped he didn't move onto my pantie drawer next. Probably not, I didn't really give off the pretty lace and silk underwear kind of impression, and that was obviously what he was into. Plus, he intended to finish me off, so I was probably safe from his panty sniffing.
As soon as we got clear of the building, Nikolai burst into laugher.
"Did you see that guy sniffing those panties? Oh, that was classic! What a pervert!"
I was less amused. Well, only slightly though, because I'd known Astor was a jerk but now I knew he was a panty-sniffing jerk.
"Did you miss the part where he was the one behind the spell?" I asked. "And not working alone. We need to tell the others."
But man it bugged me that I'd been outsmarted by Astor, of all people. The panty-sniffing jerk.
Chapter 11
I'd thought maybe the others would rub it in, that I'd been cursed by a jerkhead like Astor, but they were surprisingly sympathetic. Even Tennyson Wilde didn't comment on it.
"He should be easy enough to blackmail or cajole," he said. "I'll have my people look into his background and I'll speak to him tomorrow. Hopefully this will be resolved quickly and efficiently."
"If we can trace his phone records then we might find the person behind it all as well," said Althea. "You can't go and confront him at the pool, it's obviously a trap."
"We should steal his phone," I said. "He was obviously talking to them through an app because there's no cell signal here, so if we stole his phone we could access all his contacts."
"We won't need to," said Tennyson Wilde, dismissing me. "It will be easier to confront them at the pool. Even if they know we are coming we have the advantage of numbers." His word seemed final and nobody else argued with him.
As they all drifted off to bed, I got to thinking. I'd been so sure it had been Fatima. Maybe I was wrong about other things too. I'd assumed the bullying and the curse weren't related, or only arbitrarily so, but things kept cropping up to make that seem unlikely. Sam had left me his tablet, so I opened up Facebook and searched for the fake Lucy account. Olivia and Charlotte had said I'd posted on the day I was shrunk. "Taking a small vacation" it said. I didn't know the exact time the spell took hold but the status was posted around the same time. The wording could not be a coincidence, su
rely. The person behind the cyberbullying, was at least tied to the magic somehow, if not the one behind everything. I'd underestimated Astor, and I didn't think he was the one ultimately responsible for everything, but I should be careful about underestimating the real villain.
It was hard to sleep. The cushion on the chair was comfortable enough for lazing about but I had a zillion thoughts racing through my head. Literally everyone in the school hated me, so anyone could be behind it. It hadn't just been a random attack; it had been targeted at me specifically. It had been meant to kill me. Wow, somebody wanted me dead. That was maybe the most terrifying thing ever. How was I supposed to sleep? Sleep left you completely defenseless. Sleep had always been my friend, maybe my best friend after food, but I couldn't rely on sleep to keep me safe. The person who had attacked me had broken into the Golden House before. Their magic could penetrate any walls. Nowhere was safe.
I crept over to the edge of the cushion and squeezed down in the crack between the arm of the chair. I didn't know if hiding would do any good against magic, but it made me feel better to be in a small space. For a while, after my dad had left, I hadn't slept. There was nobody in the house to protect our family. What if something happened? I had to keep awake to keep us safe. And then when Sam's family had been killed, I'd spent the nights under my bed, wrapped up in my blanket with just the top of my head peeking out so I could keep my eyes on the door. I knew it wouldn't really do anything against an attacker if they broke in, but there was nothing else that I could do. This was the same sort of thing.
I don't know how long I lay there in the darkness, trying to make myself part of the chair, but it seemed like forever.
And then it happened. The thing I feared the most.
Someone, a shadow, opened the door and crept into the room. No alarms rang, no security detail burst into the room to save me, just the dark form of someone moving toward me. I bit down on the side of my hand to keep from screaming.
"Lucy, it's me," Sam whispered. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"I'd be more okay if you weren't creeping around giving me a heart attack," I snapped, but I wasn't angry really.
