The Dastardly Deed

by Holly Grant

  Anastasia’s jaw dropped.

  There are many inventive insults that one may hurl in times of distress. Anastasia might have called Saskia a louse, or a meanie, or told her to “make like a tree and leave.” But Anastasia didn’t say any of these things. She instead flared:

  “Shut up, you…you…you witch!”

  Kablooey! Shocked exclamations erupted across the classroom like detonating cherry bombs, and Marm Pettifog leapt as though a grenade had exploded within her petticoats.

  “Anastasia! You will join me in my office now.”

  11

  The Dastardly Deed

  OVER THE CENTURIES, tyrants have devised many creative instruments of torture. Despots have shackled their captives to special racks designed to twist and crack bones. They have forced their enemies to sit atop porcupines, which is very painful for victim and porcupine both. There is even a sort of frightful upright casket called an iron maiden, studded inside with hundreds of sharp nails pointing inward, into which particularly unfortunate wretches have been locked.

  Marm Pettifog’s office didn’t feature any of these gruesome doohickeys, but it was no less terrifying to Anastasia than would have been a torture chamber in the cruelest overlord’s dungeon.

  “Contemptible,” Marm Pettifog uttered. “Unforgivable. Just plain nasty.”

  Anastasia pulled her ears down into her shoulders, hoping to disappear entirely.

  “Well?” Marm Pettifog’s tone was low and dangerous. “Do you agree with me? Do you think those adjectives fit this situation?”

  “I—I shouldn’t have told Saskia to shut up,” Anastasia faltered.

  “That’s true,” the schoolmistress said. “Here at Pettifog Academy, I’m the only one who gets to tell anyone to shut it. But I think we both know that’s not why you’re sitting here.”

  “It isn’t?”

  Marm Pettifog studied her for a long, hard moment. “It is unforgivable to call Saskia, of all children, what you called her.”

  “Because she’s a princess?”

  “Because of who her grandfather is,” Marm Pettifog said. “Of course, he’s your grandfather, too. And that’s what makes your behavior so dreadfully shocking. So utterly rotten! And with the anniversary of the Dastardly Deed this very week!”

  Anastasia gawped at her. “My grandfather? The Dastardly Deed?”

  “Don’t play the fool with me, Princess. Every Morfling schoolchild knows that tragedy.” Marm Pettifog stood. “Suffice it to say that I will be watching you closely during your matriculation at Pettifog Academy, however brief that may, in fact, prove to be.” She shrilled at her bat, and it rocketed from her shoulder and darted out one of the holes windowing the office.

  “Since you claim not to speak Echolalia, I’ll translate for you,” Marm Pettifog said. “I just sent Napoleon to the castle with the message you’ll be staying after school today for detention. Now, let’s get back to class; you’ve already wasted enough of your schoolmates’ time.”

  If you have ever started at a brand-new school, then you already appreciate that entering a lunchroom alone is a daunting task indeed. Clenching her lunch box, Anastasia sized up the crowd of children milling in the caveteria, hoping against hope that some kindly soul would halloo, “Over here! You can sit with us!”

  Sadly, no one called out any such greeting. The Morflings eyed her, but no one waved her a welcome. Not a single child even smiled at her, with the exception of her cousin. And Saskia’s smirk, Reader, could not be described as friendly. It was the evil grin of a crackerjack bully watching her victim suffer.

  Anastasia shot Saskia a dirty look and galoshed to the far side of the caveteria, plunking down at the deserted end of one of the long dining tables. As she flicked back the latches on her lunch box, murmurs tickled her ears:

  “The Halfling princess thinks she’s too good to sit with anyone else.”

  “Princess? That’s the new princess? She doesn’t look like it.”

  “Did you hear? She can’t even speak Echolalia!”

  “My little brother is in Pettifog’s class, and he said Anastasia called Saskia a you-know-what.”

  Anastasia pulled a jar from her pail and unscrewed the lid, releasing a flitter of moths. “This is for you, Peeps.”

  “Squee!” Pippistrella launched herself off Anastasia’s head, knocking the Ben Franklin to the floor. Watching her royal companion loop-the-loop amongst the stalactites, Anastasia wondered when she might make the magnificent shift from ordinary girl to fuzzy aeronaut. She dug in her pocket and clutched Miss Viola’s silver watch, willing her palm to tingle.

  It didn’t.

  Crumbs. Still, she drew a glimmer of comfort from the timepiece. The villainess’s clock, looted from a secret turret in the course of Anastasia’s asylum snoopery, was proof positive that she wasn’t just some scolded schoolchild and social outcast; she was also an accomplished sleuth.

  “Um, Princess?”

  Anastasia turned.

  “You dropped this.” The gorgon boy held out the wig.

  “Thanks.” Anastasia grabbed the hairpiece and jammed it into her satchel.

  “Is it okay if I sit here?” Angus asked. “Are these seats saved, Princess?”

  “Yes! I mean, no—I mean, no, the seats aren’t saved, and yes, you can sit here. And you don’t have to call me Princess. In fact, please don’t.”

  “Okay.” The boy looked puzzled. He slouched down opposite her.

  “It’s Angus, right?”

  “Nobody calls me Angus except Pettifog and my parents. I’m just plain Gus to everyone else.” He placed his lunch box gently on the table as Pippistrella plunged from the stalactites and crash-bombed Anastasia’s sandwich.

  “Hi,” Gus saluted her. “We met the other day, but you were asleep.”

  “Peep!”

  “I’m sorry I broke your castle model,” Anastasia said. “I’ll help you fix it, if you want.”

  “Oh, that’s all right.” Gus shrugged. “I was thinking about rebuilding it anyway. I realized I left off a few towers, and I want it to be perfect.” He paused and then added sheepishly, “I’ve never seen the castle in person, of course—Stardust Cavern is off-limits to subjects unless they have special clearance—but I read three books about it for my project. It must be pretty neat to live there.”

  Anastasia’s cheeks burned. She wondered whether Gus deemed her too ordinary to bunk at the phantasmagorical Cavepearl Palace. “Um. How are your snakes?”

  “They’re okay. They finally stopped coughing up wig fluff.”

  “Can I meet them?”

  Gus grimaced. “Why would you want to meet them?”

  “I love animals,” Anastasia said. “When I grow up, I’m going to be a detective-veterinarian-artist.”

  “My snakes aren’t very interesting,” the gorgon stalled. “They’re not venomous or anything. And they hardly ever bite.”

  “You should be glad,” Anastasia said. “My guinea pig once bit me and it hurt for two weeks.”

  “Well…okay.” He peeled his wig off. The snakes wriggled, and a few of them blinked sleepily.

  “This one is Hamish, and this one is Daisy…Boris…Elmo and Lilybelle…and this is Pete.”

  Anastasia greeted each and every snake. She even stretched her index finger to touch the tip of Daisy’s green nose. Daisy’s little tongue flicked out in reply.

  “Oooh, that’s ticklish!”

  “She’s smelling you,” Gus said. “Snakes smell with their tongues.”

  “Is Boris snoring?”

  “They’ve been napping all morning.” Gus rolled his eyes. “They’re pretty lazy.”

  “Pippistrella sleeps a lot, too,” Anastasia confided. “So, what do you have for lunch?”

  Gus cracked the lid of his pail. Squeak! Squeak!

  “Is your lunch—squeaking?” Anastasia asked.

  “No.” He slammed the lid shut. Something scrabbled against the tin.

  “Is there a bat
in there?”

  “Nope. I’m just not hungry.” Gus hugged the lunch pail. “So, the newspaper said you flew across the Atlantic in a hot-air balloon? What was that like?”

  Anastasia told him. She told him how silky smooth the takeoff was, like satin gliding through a sky of black cream. She told him about toasting s’mores in the propane burner and spying whales through telescopes. When she told him about navigating by the stars, his eyes widened.

  “Stars!” he thrilled. “I saw stars once.”

  “Once?” Anastasia echoed.

  “I can’t really go abovecaves,” Gus said. “Not with these snakes. I can’t blend with humans the way other Morfolk can.”

  “Your wig hides them pretty well,” Anastasia pointed out.

  “Nobody wears wigs like these abovecaves except English barristers.”

  “What about a big hat?”

  Gus shook his head. “My dad wouldn’t let me abovecaves again in a million years anyway. He was furious when he found out my grandpa took me up! But it was worth it. We went at midnight and hid in the woods outside Dinkledorf. The sky was the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen! It was alive. Bursting with moonlight and star-magic.”

  “Star-magic?” Anastasia asked. She knew moonlight piped Morfolk brimful of vigor and vim, but this was the first she’d heard about stars.

  Gus hesitated. “My grandpa Baba says we Watas have starlight in our blood.” He spoke shyly and cautiously, like someone repeating a fairy tale without knowing whether the listener would scoff. “He was an astronomer, and so was my great-grandfather, and my great-great-grandfather. In Timbuktu. He’s told me all kinds of things about stars….” He sighed. “But Dad thinks it’s too dangerous abovecaves. I never get to go anywhere.”

  “Well,” Anastasia ventured, “I know it isn’t the same as seeing the sky, but you could come over to see Cavepearl Palace. Maybe it would help you with your history project.”

  “Really? I’d love to!” He beamed at her. “How about tomorrow? I’ll ask my dad tonight.”

  “Okay.” A friendly little glow pepped Anastasia’s heart.

  “I can’t wait to tell Grandpa Baba,” Gus said. “He worked with me on the first model.”

  Anastasia thought about her own grandfather. What had Marm Pettifog said? Every Morfling schoolchild knows that tragedy.

  “Gus, have you ever heard of—er—the Dastardly Deed?”

  His eyelids stuttered. “Sure,” he said slowly. “Everyone has.”

  “I haven’t,” Anastasia said. “Marm Pettifog mentioned it when I was in her office. She said it had something to do with my grandfather. Something bad.”

  Gus stared at her. “You don’t know?”

  Anastasia bristled. “The first I ever heard of my Merrymoon family was last week.”

  “Sorry. It’s just—cripes. The Dastardly Deed—”

  DINGALINGALINGALING!

  The students popped from their seats, clanging their pails shut. Lunch was over.

  “The Dastardly Deed?” Anastasia urged.

  Gus bit his lip. “We have two minutes to get back to class, and the Dastardly Deed is a long story. Listen, it’s all in your Cavelands History textbook. Chapter thirteen.”

  Detention.

  “With this piece of chalk,” Marm Pettifog said, “you’ll atone for this morning’s crimes.” She placed the dusty chunk on Anastasia’s palm. “Now, write this one hundred times: I will not slander other students.”

  “Slander?” Anastasia asked.

  “Sully someone’s reputation,” Marm Pettifog said. “Spread rumors and lies.”

  “I did all that?”

  “You called your cousin a witch,” Marm Pettifog said severely. “That is a very serious charge. You could ruin someone’s life with a lie like that!”

  “I wasn’t really saying that she…um…rides around on a broom or anything.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Now, get writing, and I shall watch you.”

  Anastasia turned to the chalkboard. I will not, she scratched, slandur other students.

  “It’s S-L-A-N-D-E-R,” Marm Pettifog admonished. “And your cursive is scandalous.”

  I will not—

  “Marm Pettifog!” A plump woman burst into the cavern. “I need your help! Calamity! Oh, calamity of the worst variety!”

  “Miss Ramachandra, your wig is askew,” Marm Pettifog snapped. “And your hands are covered in purple paint. Pettifog faculty are supposed to be neat and clean.”

  Miss Ramachandra grabbed two handfuls of curls and wrenched the wig sideways, leaving the sideburns bright purple. “It’s another glue emergency,” she panted. “Little Susie Oliphant is glued to Tommy Bucket. She’s absolutely howling—”

  Marm Pettifog clicked her tongue. “Princess, you keep at your punishment. I’ll return as soon as I’ve cleaned up Miss Ramachandra’s mess. Art teachers,” she grumbled, stalking from the cave.

  Anastasia nipped over to her desk and flung back the lid. “Thirteen,” she whispered, cracking open her heavy Cavelands History text and breezing past the first twelve sections.

  Nicodemus! She peered at the color plate below the chapter heading. A ginger-mustachioed man, sitting at a desk in a gentlemanly study, smiled out from the page. The feather of a quill pen tufted from his grasp. Anastasia drew her nose even closer to the book. A golden design gloved Nicodemus’s hand: three concentric circles of stars and numbers, ringing a sickle moon. And hugged within the moon’s golden arms, wrought in teensy, fanciful letters, gleamed one word: Fredmund.

  Anastasia’s instincts buzzed. Fredmund, as in Fred McCrumpet?

  Who was Nicodemus Merrymoon? And why was her father’s name inscribed on his hand?

  She read:

  In the early eighteenth century, tensions continued to escalate between Morfolk and witches. (Witches? Anastasia boggled.) Morfolk Congress passed a number of bills attempting to regulate dangerous magic, but the rebellious witches scorned to obey any new laws. Finally, an act of outrageous witch aggression on January 2, 1756, now known as the Dastardly Deed, sparked the Perpetual War.

  January 2! Anastasia squinted at the classroom calendar. Just four days away!

  The infamous Calixto Swift, a skilled and crafty warlock, created a magical silver trunk into which he locked Nicodemus Merrymoon. Swift enchanted the chest to vanish, along with the Silver Hammer used to seal (and required to open) it, and neither these silver instruments nor Nicodemus has ever been found. Such a plight would torment any Morfo, but for a Shadowman such as Nicodemus, the suffering would be particularly terrible.

  Morfolk anger erupted in response to this Dastardly Deed, and Wigfreda Merrymoon declared a Perpetual War on all witches, driving them from the Cavelands forevermore.

  Anastasia’s mouth gaped. The mysterious missing Nicodemus was her grandfather? And he’d been locked in a trunk by witches?

  12

  The Perpetual War

  HEARING FOOTSTEPS APPROACH the classroom, Anastasia slammed the history tome shut and dashed back to the blackboard. Slander—she jumped as Baldwin stomped through the door, his face red behind his mustache. Anastasia had never seen him so furious, and it was a frightening sight indeed. She plastered herself against the wall, Pippi-strella clinging to her collar.

  “In the name of Great Caesar’s ghost,” he thundered, “what’s this baloney about trouble at school?”

  “Baldy, keep your temper,” Penny urged behind him, but a frown crimped her lips, and her eyes flashed dangerously.

  Anastasia ducked her head. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?” Baldwin roared. “Put down that chalk right now, Anastasia. In fact, throw it to the floor and stomp it to bits!”

  “Baldwin!” Penny cried. “I know you’re upset, but violence against chalk?”

  Anastasia replaced the chalk on the blackboard ledge just as Marm Pettifog reappeared. “Ah. If it isn’t Penelope and Baldwin Merrymoon. We have much to discuss.”


  “Indeed we do!” Penny said. “Your courier bat reported that Anastasia cheated and slandered? I cannot believe either of those accusations.”

  “She accepted unauthorized help from her bat during Echolalia lessons,” Marm Pettifog said coldly. “And then she called Princess Saskia a…er…the word that begins with W.”

  “I’m sure Saskia deserved that and more,” Baldwin retorted. “Have you actually met her?”

  “I’m not going to comment upon what Saskia does or doesn’t deserve,” Penny said. “But I will say that Anastasia is new to the Cavelands, and she knows almost nothing of Morfolk history. Abovecaves, it isn’t particularly polite to call someone a witch, but it’s no grave offense.”

  “It is a grave offense in my classroom,” Marm Pettifog rejoined.

  Penny clenched her jaw. “And as I informed your secretary in my letter of registration, Anastasia never even heard a peep of Echolalia before last weekend. She’ll need some extra time before she can participate.”

  “And how long will that take, Penelope?” Marm Pettifog sneered. “Perhaps we should demote Anastasia to fourth—or third—grade.”

  “Codswallop!” Baldwin hollered.

  “Don’t you howl in my school, Prince,” Marm Pettifog said. “This isn’t the Dinkledorf yodeling competition.”

  Penny took a deep breath. “Marm Pettifog, why don’t you and I step outside for a moment and discuss this?”

  Once the two educators disappeared into the corridor, Baldwin snugged Anastasia into a hug. “What a horrible start to your Morfolk school days.”

  “Marm Pettifog thinks I’m horrible,” Anastasia sniffled.

  “Ah, she does, does she?” A smile twitched Baldwin’s mustache. “Don’t you worry about that. It may interest you, Anastasia, to know that I have my own sinister record at Pettifog Academy.”

  “Really?”