The Legends of Greemulax

by Kimmy Schmidt

  “Just like us,” X chimed in, raising a sarcastic eyebrow.

  “Yes,” Kristy said. “Just like us. Back then, Grabagorn Prime was in charge of the women and the men. And he did all sorts of mean stuff besides trapping dragons. He encouraged all the boys to become tough and bossy and nasty—and the more they did… guess what happened?”

  Penn was enthralled. “What?” he replied, teetering on the edge of the glass.

  “The more the men started turning into Grabagorns. And the women began to disappear!”

  He blinked.

  “Disappear!” she repeated, throwing her arms up in the air for emphasis. This part of the story usually got a big reaction.

  Still nothing.

  “Anyway, the women begged the men to free the dragons, but the men wouldn’t listen. So when more dragons came to rescue their friends, which, duh, was inevitable, they scorched everything in North Greemulax.” Kristy motioned to the ash and mud surrounding her as proof. “See?”

  “And all the women died?” Penn asked.

  “Some of them did, yes. And some of the men, too,” Kristy said, hanging her head. “But it wasn’t until soon after, when the men all started to transformate into full Grabagorns, that Lorianna the Wobbly decided she had had it—she was sick of watching the men work out all the time. She was tired of disappearing and having to pretend like it wasn’t a big deal. So she led the rest of the women away from North Greemulax forever. If we women wanted to survive, we had to do it on our own.”

  “But how? How could anyone get past Grabagorn Prime?”

  Jackelion laughed. Kristy shush-handed her.

  “Ahhh, and that brings me to the Grape Escape,” Kristy said. “The best part! The women secretly put crushed bumbleroot in the men’s grape juice. Which, for the record, is not a nice thing to do. But desperate times called for desperate measures. Then they waited. When the men started to get tired, the women stole away…”

  “Never to be seen again,” Kristy, Jackelion, and X said in unison.

  “I was just a baby back then, so I don’t remember much,” Kristy said. “But I was told that Grabagorn Prime and a few of his lackeys chased us for as long as they could…” She trailed off. She didn’t like this part of the story because it ended with mothers and sons and sisters and brothers being separated. So she jumped ahead. “As soon as we made a new home away from the Grabagorns, women started to become like our old selves—powerful, bright, and solid. And now we live without Grabagorns. In West Greemulax. With Lorianna the Wobbly as our queen. She’s cool, fun, and strong, like an elephant wearing sunglasses!”

  It only took a moment for the realization to hit poor Penn—that he’d been lied to for his entire life. He got up and stalked back and forth across the glass ceiling.

  “They lied to me? They lied to all of us? They didn’t want us to know that you had chosen to leave, so they told us you died?! I’m so… so… ANGRY!” Penn growled.

  “Penn!” Kristy gasped. “Your hand!” The boy’s fist had grown to three times its normal size. It was blue. And it was hairy. It looked disgusting.

  “Ahhhhh!” Penn screamed, staring at his foreign fingers. “Make it stop! I don’t want to be a Grabagorn! I’m not a monster!” He ran around the edge of the pit, wailing.

  “Kid!” Jackelion yelled. “Can you stop, please? You’re literally stomping on our heads.”

  “Well, not literally,” X said. “That would hurt.”

  “No!” Penn cried. “I’m mad!”

  Jackelion sighed. “Would you stop if I told you that there’s a way to reverse the process?”

  Penn stopped freaking out for a moment, clearly intrigued. Kristy was intrigued, too. This was news to her. “All you have to do is eat a Lemon Bubble. At least that’s what the legends say.” Jackelion shrugged. “And Candy Every-Other-Monthly.”

  “I’ve never heard of a Lemon Bubble.”

  “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” X noted. “Until an hour ago, you thought all women were dead, yet here we are. So maybe, like, check your assumptions.”

  “That’s an excellent point, X,” Kristy said.

  Penn kneeled down again and spoke straight into the hole. “If I help you escape, will you help me find one?”

  “It would be our pleasure.” Kristy smiled. She’d done it. How was that for thinking outside the pit?

  It had taken five full-grown Grabagorns to secure the heavy glass ceiling over the top of the pit. Penn stood no chance of getting the thing to budge on his own. As he stared down at the women, Penn’s brain felt fuzzy. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about how to trap creatures, but he’d never had to help any escape. Plus, he couldn’t stop thinking about his new Grabagorn hand, which pulsed with a strange sensation. It was all a bit much.

  “Use the rope, dummy!” X called out.

  “Be patient, X,” he heard Kristy say. “He’s a boy. He might not know things.”

  X sighed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to be rude. But the rope they used to lower us down is probably right there. Duh.”

  “Oh, good idea,” Penn replied, still offended that X had called him a dummy. Grabagorn Prime had said that women were always supposed to be nice. Penn shook his head. The lies just kept piling up.

  He scanned the surrounding area. Sometimes, Grabagorns would hide things in the hollows of tree trunks for later. Rope and knives, mostly, but sometimes a secret snack or two. He spotted a supplies tree and jogged over. He had to move quickly. This rescue was already taking too long.

  Penn reached inside the ashy trunk and felt around. He pushed aside an old pair of shoes and felt the rope. He grasped it and pulled. A packet of meat jerky fell out with it. He secured the rope around the trunk of the tree and darted back over to them.

  “Grab on,” he said into the hole and unfurled the rope down into the pit. Kristy, Jackelion, and X sprang to their feet and began to jump, but the rope was too short. Hmm. Maybe he could tie old shoelaces together to form a longer rope? Or he could hold on to it and—

  “I got it!” Kristy said. “We’ll boost each other up.”

  “You’re the smallest,” X said. “We’ll lift you first.”

  Penn watched in awe as Jackelion and X worked together to lift Kristy up onto their shoulders. He’d never seen such amazing teamwork. He’d never seen anything like this. Everything Penn and his friends had been taught was about fighting. If the women worked together as a team, how could they tell which of them was winning? They moved like one big creature, with Jackelion and X on the bottom and Kristy up top. Kristy raised her arms and caught the rope, shimmying her body up to meet the glass.

  “I got it!” Kristy poked her head through the hole. She tried to climb higher but kept getting stuck. She twisted her shoulders and squirmed around, but she still wouldn’t fit. She couldn’t even get her arms out.

  Kristy lost her grip, and the women tumbled to the ground. They sprang back up again, this time lifting Jackelion up.

  “ROY G. BIV!” Jackelion cried as she thrust her armored elbow against the glass at full force. It was a battle cry of the Rainbow Knights. The moment the shiny metal made contact with the ceiling, a network of cracks appeared and quickly spread to its edges. One more hit, and a hunk loosened and fell to the ground. She’d done it! Jackelion had broken the glass ceiling! The others cheered as she climbed all the way up and out.

  WEE-OO! WEE-OO! WEE-OO! Oh no…

  An alarm?

  Sirens blared as red lights flashed across the landscape.

  An alarm! Penn knew they didn’t have much time. It would be five minutes, max, before Grabagorn Prime showed up with a band of angry Grabagorns.

  “We have to hurry!” Penn shouted as he and Jackelion pulled Kristy and X up.

  “Follow me!” Jackelion said. X and Kristy obeyed and ran after her, but Penn hesitated. Grabagorn Prime was going to be mad. Really mad. Penn imagined his mad face, eyes red and bulging. What had he done?

  “Come on, Penn!” Krist
y yelled. “Don’t you want to find the Lemon Bubble?”

  Right. He did want to find the Lemon Bubble.

  He started running… and spotted Brandon, Landon, and Marcus frozen in place on the other side of the pit. Dagnabbit! Had they seen everything?

  “He helpthed them escape! Pfenn’ths a traitor!” Marcus shouted. Brandon and Landon stood behind him, arms crossed. All three looked at Penn with shock and disgust. Should he turn around and convince them he’d been bewitched by the womenfolk? No. This was his one chance of stopping his Grabagorn transformation. He had to find that Lemon Bubble, and he had to find it before it was too late. His hand had already started changing—who knew if the Lemon Bubble would work on someone who had already completely transformated?

  Penn could hear the wheeze of Grabagorn Prime’s fleet of Grabagolf carts in the distance. It was now or never.

  “Wait!” he yelled after the women. He leaped over a pile of rocks and scurried across the terrain toward them.

  Free from the pit, the women were quick, darting past trees and over burnt logs. They led Penn through the woods and to the spot where they’d been caught by his trap.

  The Grabagorns were not far behind.

  “Our trolley… is still nearby,” Kristy explained through shallow breaths. “Only our voices… can activate it… so there’s no way those Grabagorns… could have moved it.”

  “We crashed it into a tree,” Jackelion reminded her. “Just after we passed that other tree.” Her eyes lit up as she pointed past Penn’s shoulder. “Right there!”

  “Hurry!” X hollered. Everyone ran to where the ten-foot by five-foot rainbow trolley car sat perched between two blackened trunks. It was a little dented but in pretty good shape considering.

  The women scrambled up the trunk, grabbing onto the spiky branches and helping one another as they went. They were quick to reach the top, but Penn kept slipping. He was used to kicking trees, not climbing them.

  “Penn, you gotta move faster!” Kristy called. She was almost to the top. Jackelion and X were already inside the trolley. He was still halfway down.

  “Hello, Trolley,” Jackelion said. At the sound of her voice, the trolley began to hum and whir to life. Even from halfway up the tree, Penn could see a row of multicolored lights blink on, sending rays of color across the nearby trees. What if the Grabagorns could see them, too?

  “Trolley, take us to Pepperton Boulevard,” she continued.

  “Okay,” the trolley chirped in response. “Setting course for Pepto Bismol.”

  The women groaned.

  “Trolley 4 is the worst,” Kristy said. “Come on, Penn. We gotta move.” She was at the door of the trolley now.

  “Kid, are you coming or what?” X said, popping her head out a window. “It’s taking off.”

  Kristy reached down to him, but he was too far. “You can do it,” she said. “Try harder.”

  “I am trying hard,” Penn grunted.

  “Then try faster,” Kristy said. She looked into the distance. “The Grabagorns are almost here! I can see them!” She scrunched her nose. “And smell them.”

  “Ahhh!” Penn cried as he slid farther down the tree. Chunks of crispy bark rained to the ground with each jab of his shoe into the trunk. When he finally stopped, Penn swung his right foot up, reaching for the broken nub of a branch. But he still couldn’t get traction.

  Penn remembered his new Grabagorn hand. It seemed pretty strong, so he tried gripping the branch above him, lifting his entire body up, and then repeating the process. It was working. In only a few seconds he found himself at the top, right below the trolley. But then Penn felt a tug on his foot. His first thought was that it was one of the Grabagorns pulling him down.

  “Hot fudge!” Kristy exclaimed, peering down. “Your shoelace is caught. If I climb down, I can unhook it.”

  “There’s no time,” Jackelion told them. “The autofly is on and the override is broken.” She gestured to the steering wheel, which was moving on its own. The trolley was beginning to float upward. “We’re going right now!”

  “We can’t just leave Penn here,” Kristy pleaded. “What about the Power of One?”

  “He’s not one of us. Time’s up, Kristy,” Jackelion said. “We have to leave without him.”

  Penn figured he was done for. The Grabagorn fight code dictated that if you were ever able to save yourself by sacrificing another, you should. Only the strong survive. Penn wasn’t the strong.

  But Kristy looked determined. She jumped out of the trolley like a cat, landing nimbly on a branch below Penn. She quickly started untangling the shoelace from the branches. As soon as he was freed, Penn and Kristy began to climb back up. But it was too late. The trolley was already taking off.

  “Trolley!” X yelled as the trolley went higher and higher. “Wait for Kristy!”

  “Okay,” Trolley answered. “Here is a recipe for crispy cookies. One egg, two cups unbleached flour…”

  The trolley rose higher and higher and swooped away like a colorful bird. It was one of the weirdest sights Penn had ever seen, and he would definitely draw a cool picture of it for his Vehicle Studies class if he ever went home. Was it magic? But there was no time to think about that now. They’d missed their chance to escape North Greemulax. And he was going to be in huge trouble with Grabagorn Prime.

  Kristy jumped to the ground. “Over there,” she whispered, yanking him into a thorny bush. “Don’t make a peep.”

  Even though hundreds of spikes were poking into him and he wanted to cry, and his mind was still trying to make sense of Kristy’s actions, of a girl protecting him, Penn trusted Kristy and stayed quiet. The two sat huddled together, twisted into a weird ball of limbs so that they could fit inside the prickly underbelly of the bush.

  “The Weaklinks have told the truth. The womenfolk have been released,” Grabagorn Prime growled. “Young Penn will pay for this when we find him. I haven’t seen such treachery since the women escaped, I mean, uh, were all killed.… Whatever, I’m mad at Penn!”

  The Grabagorns grunted in agreement and stomped their monster feet on the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

  “But you lied!” The words escaped Penn’s lips involuntarily.

  Kristy’s hand shot to Penn’s mouth to cover it.

  Grabagorn Prime turned in a circle as he looked around for what had made the noise. “Was that you, Grabaleg?”

  “I didn’t say anything, I swear!” Grabaleg insisted. He pointed at another Grabagorn. “It was probably him.” The Grabagorns proceeded to get into a lengthy, noisy argument about who called whom a liar.

  “I know it’s hard,” Kristy whispered to Penn. Her voice was soft and gentle, like a rabbit right before it was prepared for Night Meal. “But we have to stay quiet. Just count to ten. You can endure anything for ten seconds. Then you’ll be okay. Okay?”

  Penn nodded. By the time he had counted to ten in his mind, the Grabagorns were leaving. Kristy was so smart.

  “See?” Kristy smiled, eyes sparkling. “They think we were on the trolley with Jackelion and X. They won’t be looking for us. We’ll just have to make our own way out of North Greemulax on foot. It will be an adventure!” Kristy crawled out of the bush, her red hair all tangled and covered with burrs. But because of her metal armor, her skin was unscratched.

  Penn wondered where he could get armor like that. He was going to need it.

  The sun bloomed orange and pink as it peeked over the horizon and climbed up into the sky. Penn tried not to look down at the steaming crater below the rickety wire bridge. With each step, the cables felt more precarious. He worried they would snap at any second. Steam licked the bottom of his shoes and the ends of the good-for-nothing shoelaces that had gotten him and Kristy into this mess.

  “West Greemulax isn’t far, Penn,” Kristy said. She didn’t seem too bothered by the danger. She didn’t seem too bothered by anything. Penn found this odd, but also… refreshing?

  They’d been walking through No
rth Greemulax all night. Kristy had told Penn all about the green trees of her home, the fields of soft grass, and the shimmering lakes filled with cool water instead of smoldering ash. And Penn had told Kristy all about his favorite Garate pit, dragon traps, and the Sacred Throne of Stink. But as day began to break and the excitement of escaping started to fade, anxiety crept into Penn’s thoughts. And fear.

  “I don’t know about this anymore…” Penn wasn’t sure if it was the swaying of the rickety bridge, but suddenly he felt like he was going to barf. “Maybe I should go back home. Turn myself in. Maybe they’ll forgive me if I just explain…”

  As much as Penn wanted to see and hear, and mostly smell, the lovely things Kristy talked about (if they were even real), it was starting to sink in—he’d just run away from everything and everyone he knew. He wouldn’t be able to hide from Grabagorn Prime forever. Penn would be hunted and, once found, punished. He’d be forced to live in the dungeon pit. And what had it all been for? To help some strange women who had probably tricked him with the promise of a magical cure? For all he knew, Lemon Bubbles didn’t even exist. They sounded pretty fake, now that he thought about it.

  “What am I doing?” Penn stopped walking across the cables and spun around. “I have to get out of here.” Kristy ran right into him and nearly fell into the ash lake. But Penn’s reflexes were fast, and he was able to steady her. “This is a total disaster, Kristy. I should never have listened to you! Are Lemon Bubbles even real? I bet they’re not! I bet you and your womenfolk friends MADE THEM UP!”

  Anger swirled inside him. Why couldn’t he control it? He held on to the hot cable with his hands, not even caring if they got scorched. But instead of burning, he could see that now both his hands were blue and hairy! “Nooo!” he wailed. He looked into her eyes. Kristy and the women had ruined everything! “This. Is. Your. Fault!”