Deadly Pink

by Vivian Vande Velde

  “Dragon?” Mom repeated.

  Adam added, “She's altered the game to make getting coins a lot easier. She's going to be hard to fight, if she's in a fighting mood.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “well, she's put me in a fighting mood, too. And I have a plan.”

  Chapter 12

  The Plan

  I ENTERED THE Land of the Golden Butterflies right where I'd asked Ms. Bennett and Adam to set me down—in the pavilion—even though Adam had pointed out, “She's nowhere near there anymore. She's moved to a different area entirely.”

  “That's fine,” I'd assured them. “I'll be able to find her.” I hadn't added out loud what I'd been thinking: I hope.

  So there I was, watching the white silk tent billow in the breeze, listening to the wind chimes, while gently rocking in a hammock that I now knew was smiling-guy-propelled. The treasure chest overflowing with the golden and sparkly goodies Emily had accumulated was still there.

  One of the shimmery butterflies that were always nearby when I entered the game landed on my arm. I wouldn't need coins, not if my plan worked.

  But since when could I count on my plans working? I captured the butterfly and put the resulting coin with the others in my pocket.

  Then, finally, I turned my head to bring hammock-guy into view.

  Yep, still there. Still handsome. Still smiling.

  Okay, so he might as well be useful.

  “Give me a hand up out of here?” I asked.

  He did, steadying both me and the hammock.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Can you pick up that treasure chest?”

  He did that, too, though he grunted at its weight.

  “Follow me,” I said.

  The two of us walked—well, one of us walked, the other staggered under his load—down the path of crushed glittery stones that led off to the left, toward the Victorian house.

  I ended up sending him ahead of me, as the chest was too full for the lid to close, and we were leaving a trail of gems, and golden plates and goblets, and strands of pearls. Sort of like Hansel and Gretel dropping bread crumbs—but in the More Money Than Brains edition.

  By the time we got to the garden, hammock-guy was puffing and sweating. Obviously, toting a chest overflowing with Emily's accumulated riches was a lot more strenuous than what a hammock-swaying specialist guy was used to. But his aim was to please, and he pleased me as long as he was willing to haul. I did let him rest on one of the park benches for a couple of minutes, but I was antsy to get moving again. So I asked, “All right?” and he nodded. I suspected he had been programmed to happily agree to any request, even if his heart was about to burst from the physical exertion, but I didn't let that worry me.

  I led him into the maze.

  I probably should have asked him if he knew the shortest route to the sprite fountain, because I took us to several dead ends. But eventually, over the huffing of hammock-guy, I heard the sound of the sprites' laughter. And it only took two more dead ends before we found the clearing in the center of the maze.

  There were two sprites, one sitting on the head of the water-spouting marble goldfish, one on its tail. “Greetings. Greetings,” they called to me in their sweet little deadly voices. “Wishes for coins.”

  The sprites I'd encountered last time had had lime-green and raspberry-purple tresses. So the purple-haired one sitting on the goldfish's tail may or may not have been one of the two who had sent me over the cliff. But the other sprite, the one on the fish's head, had hair the pink of cotton candy, so she was definitely new.

  Not that it mattered—not really. I didn't trust them in any case.

  Gesturing toward the chest of treasures, I asked, “How many wishes will this get me?”

  Cotton-Candy-Pink shook her head as though she were truly sorry. Yeah, right—like I believed that.

  I pointed at the chest overflowing with—as they say in fairy tales—a king's ransom, though I should think that how much ransom one was willing to pay would vary from king to king.

  The sprite said, “Pretty.” Then she shook her head again. “But not coins.”

  Her purple friend repeated, “Wishes for coins.”

  Coins, not goods.

  Oh.

  So much for my plan.

  I stood there looking at the sprites with their oh-so-cute little faces, and their sweet smiles and lovely iridescent wings, and I considered my options. I had to work hard to keep from asking hammock-guy to take one of the dainty little creatures in each hand and hold them underwater.

  “Wishes for coins,” they reminded me with their musical giggles after a few moments, as though maybe I'd forgotten.

  I knew from last time that they wouldn't volunteer any information. Maybe my plan didn't need to be scrapped entirely. Maybe we were just into Plan 1.1.

  Picking up a diamond tiara, I said, “I want to sell this.”

  Was that a disgruntled look that passed between the two sprites?

  But all they said was “Wishes for coins.”

  Wishes for coins. Wishes for coins. Had they been programmed by Rasmussem's lawyers?

  I asked, “How many coins would it cost for me to make a wish that this tiara would turn into its value-worth of coins?”

  That was a definite pout on Purple's face.

  Pink sounded as though she was speaking through her tiny clenched teeth. “Three coins for that wish.”

  I stuck my hand in my pocket, glad I had traded a butterfly for a coin each chance I'd had. I'd spent one on the misguided wish that had sent me tumbling over that cliff, which left me with ... three coins.

  Was it coincidence that the sprites asked for exactly as many as I had?

  I asked, “How many coins would I get for wishing the tiara into coins?'

  Purple stomped her tiny little heels into the water.

  I had to ask Pink to repeat, since she grumbled her answer too softly for me to hear.

  “One hundred fifty-seven,” she mumbled. If looks could kill, I was guessing she'd be asking hammock-guy to hold my head underwater.

  If they tricked me again, I'd be totally out of coins, but it wasn't like there was much else I could do with what I had.

  I took a steadying breath, then threw the three coins into the water. “I wish,” I said, being careful with my wording, because I knew they were just looking for a loophole, “for you to give me the one hundred fifty-seven gold coins that this tiara is worth.” At the last second, I hurriedly added, “Right here,” just in case they got it into their little heads to “give” me the money halfway around this mixed-up world. “Right now.”

  There was a sparkle of magic dust and a noise like the high notes of a xylophone, and—I have to admit—I braced myself to explode or turn into gold or get kicked out of the program—something wrong that I hadn't been clever enough to anticipate.

  But all that happened was that the tiara I'd placed on the edge of the fountain disappeared, and in its place was a pile—a satisfyingly big pile—of gold coins.

  The sprites glowered at me. I noticed that they did not offer their usual “Wishes for coins.”

  From the treasure chest, I picked up a hand-sized golden replica of the Victorian house. “How much,” I asked, seeing the sprites squirm, “for a wish to turn this into its full value of gold?”

  And so we went: all of Emily's gems, jewelry, golden artifacts, tableware, and knickknacks. How many times had my sister come to the sprites to get all this stuff ? I wondered. And that brought up another thought: were the sprites nicer to her than they were to me? Because I knew I could never let my guard down. With each transaction, I chose my words oh-so-carefully, knowing that those treacherous little critters were looking for an opportunity to turn on me. Had they turned on Emily? Had they made her forget she had a family to go home to, regardless of how badly (I could only assume) Frank Lupiano had treated her?

  By the time we were finished, the sprites had developed the habit of spitting every time they granted a wish. Which wa
s just plain nasty, even if they were small and their spit sparkled.

  There was no way the mound of coins would fit back into the chest. It wouldn't have fit into five chests. That kind of bulk was the reason credit cards were invented.

  “How much,” I asked, “for a small magical sack?” I indicated with my hands something change-purse-size, little enough to tie onto the sash of my dress. “The kind of magical sack that would hold everything I put in it but that would weigh no more than the sack itself ?”

  I left one chest's worth of coins out for hammock-guy to bring back to the pavilion, simply as a precaution, wealth just in case I had to start over again, dismantling Emily's Victorian house.

  The sprites' hair was getting frizzled from their vexation at having to grant all my wishes.

  “How much,” I asked, “for me to have the power to turn into a dragon at will?”

  Pink's hair actually sparked at that. And the answer was about half a treasure chest.

  “That is just so attractive on you,” I said to her. “Okay. Last wish—”

  “Finally,” Purple snapped.

  I smiled at her. I smiled at both of them. “For now,” I couldn't help but gloat.

  They spat even before hearing my wish.

  “How much would it cost for me to put you in the sack and take you with me?”

  Changing into a dragon made me feel the way I imagine those Mentos candies felt when they were dropped into the bottles of Coke in that YouTube video: bubbly, fizzy, simultaneously dissolving and expansive, overflowing out of myself. While it was happening, it was out of control and scary. But it didn't hurt, and as soon as it was over—as soon as I realized I'd survived—I thought, That was fun.

  I looked down at myself. I was much taller than the hedges that formed the maze. In fact, my sudden increase in size had uprooted a few of the bushes closest to me. My scales—I had scales!—were the shifting iridescent colors of soap bubbles. I had four legs, the front two short, a bit like Tyrannosaurus rex arms, and I also had wings. It didn't feel weird that I had an extra pair of appendages; it was only weird to think about. They looked too delicate to support my weight, but when I flapped them, I rose off the ground. I gave a couple more flaps, and I rose, sort of helicopter-like, out of the maze, over the garden, so that I could see the Victorian house and the pond with its swan-shaped gondola bobbing at its mooring. It was like looking at one of those 3-D miniature street scenes displayed at the Rochester Museum and Science Center—buildings and bridges and the river and the parks and the High Falls and the cemeteries—that show what the city looked like in the nineteenth century. Not that Rochester ever had gondolas. Or dragons, for that matter.

  Pivoting my wings—dragon instincts must have come with the dragon body—I moved forward rather than straight up, and I circled the world I had explored already: House. Woods. Clearing with the tent. Clearing with the lute guy, where the unicorn had been.

  But no Emily.

  I was surprised to see that the sun was really low in the sky. Playing phone tag with Emily's so-called friends in the real world must have taken just about a whole day in this world.

  That was not good, no matter how I looked at it.

  I still held the magic sack in my talons—I hadn't tied it to the sash of my dress for fear that the bag would transform along with my clothing. And the clothing had transformed. Which was good—because a dragon in a thirty-sizes-too-small-Victorian-dress would have looked downright silly. Not to mention that dragonizing would have been hard on the seams. Now I shook the sack—which was only about the size of one talon—to get the attention of the sprites inside and called, “Where's Emily?”

  When I couldn't hear a response, I shook the sack again.

  Still nothing.

  I put the sack up to my ear and only then could hear the tiny terrified shrieks of the sprites, and I realized I probably shouldn't have shaken the bag. “Oops, sorry,” I said. If I had felt like Mentos mints, they probably felt like chicken drumsticks in a Shake 'n Bake bag.

  “All right, all right, get over it,” I told them.

  Being a dragon, I was perfectly capable of flying while using my front paws. I loosened the drawstring, opening the bag.

  Pink staggered out onto the stiff gathered edge of the sack, looking seasick-green and holding her hands over her ears. “Stop shouting!” she screamed at me.

  Oops, I guess I'd been using my outside-dragon voice.

  “Sorry,” I repeated, whispering. “You and Purple all right?”

  Pink indicated the bag behind her. “Inside. Barfing.”

  Ewww. I didn't care if it was sparkly like the spit had been; it was still barf. And all over my gold coins.

  “Okay,” I said. “No more shaking. Where's Emily?”

  Pink just glowered at me.

  “Where's Emily?” I repeated.

  It took two more tries before I realized my wording was wrong.

  “I wish for you to tell me where Emily is.”

  Grumbling, Pink said, “Wishes for coins.”

  “Go ahead,” I told her. “Take one.”

  She didn't move.

  Sighing, I reached into the sack and used the very tip of a talon to pull out a coin. Evidently, it was one of the ones Purple had been sick on: I could tell by the glittery pink coating. It was slightly tacky to the touch, but at least sprite spew didn't smell bad. It was sort of like talcum powder. “Here,” I said.

  Pink didn't move to take it. All she said was “Wishes for coins.”

  “What?” I demanded, frustrated that I couldn't tell what she wanted, even more frustrated because I could tell that she was enjoying this. “How many coins for telling me where Emily is?”

  “The information costs one gold coin. Transporting you there costs five.”

  Remembering the last time they had transported me, I said, “Okay. I'll start with just the information.”

  She only smirked.

  “I wish,” I amended, “for you to tell me where Emily is.”

  Pink folded her arms over her chest and looked pleased with herself.

  There were thousands of coins in my sack, I knew. What was different from the other times?

  I sighed, and my dragon breath nearly singed a low-flying bird that had let us get too close. I angled my wings to change direction, and now Pink sighed, realizing I'd caught on.

  Okay, if I needed the fountain for the wishes-for-coins magic to work, I'd bring that along with me, too.

  The damn sprites weren't making things easy for me, but they weren't making things easy for themselves, either. I shook a whole dragon-fistful of coins out of the sack and into the water, announcing: “I wish for the fountain to go into the sack.”

  It disappeared from in front of me. From inside the bag, Purple gave a startled “Oomph!” But I knew the coins in there must have cushioned the weight, even if the fountain had landed directly on her, because she kicked the side of the bag and yelled out—in a tiny but very potty-mouth way—exactly what she thought of me.

  “We hate you,” Pink added as I flew up and into a big spiral over the house and grounds.

  “Well, thanks for that free information. Where's Emily?”

  Nothing.

  “I wish for you to tell me.”

  Pink didn't spit, probably more from fear of the wind blowing the spittle back into her face than from fear of me. She mumbled, “Mountain castle.”

  In the distance, beyond the woods with the pavilion, I spotted some peaks. “Those mountains?”

  She gave me a long How dumb are you? stare before I caught on and added, “Take another coin.”

  “Yes, those mountains,” she answered.

  “Don't you want to help Emily?” I asked, since everybody else here seemed to live to please my sister. I was hoping to get on Pink's good side. Did she have a good side? “All I'm trying to do is help Emily.”

  “Hate her worse than we hate you,” Pink said venomously. “Cheaters, both of you. Too many coins.
Too, too, too many coins.”

  “Oh,” I said, not sure what to make of that. Then, not because I had a plan, but because I didn't want to look at her pouty face any more, I told her, “You can go back in the sack.”

  Chapter 13

  Emily

  THERE WAS A LAKE, and then beyond that, the mountains. No foothills: just woods, woods, woods (which sounds boring, except for the fact that: Hel-lo-o! I was FLYING!), then came the great turquoise sea, then mountains. The sky was dramatically pink and orange, and the sun appeared to be perched on the edge of the world when I finally arrived. I could see Emily's castle. Of course, it was on the summit with the best view.

  I drifted in the air currents, feeling guilty about how much I'd enjoyed flying, wondering how I'd get Emily to come outside. And then I saw her, outdoors already. There was a balcony that went entirely around the highest parapet—the castle equivalent of the Victorian house's wraparound porch. She was leaning against a balustrade, watching the birds wheeling over the lake one last time before the sun set, and the dolphins cavorting in the sparkling water. There was even a rainbow—not that it had rained. A fine evening for enjoying the show nature—or rather, Rasmussem—was putting on.

  Did my shadow cross over her? She looked up into the sky and raised her hand. For one exhilarating moment I thought she was acknowledging me, finally greeting me. Then I remembered I was a dragon, and she had no way of knowing that. She was simply shading her eyes, trying to cut out the glare of the sun behind me.

  There were no reference points for her to gauge my distance or, therefore, guess at my size. If she saw me at all, she probably took me for a bird.

  My dragon eyes—and the fact that I was not looking directly into the sun—let me see her clearly: the silver brocade dress that draped so elegantly, her hair ruffled by the breeze. She was the very picture of a queen. I aimed directly for her and dropped at full speed. Rushing ... rushing ... I saw in her eyes the moment she finally realized I was much too big, and moving far too quickly, to be another bird. Puzzlement turned to alarm. I'm not sure if alarm had time to turn into understanding; and by then I was within range.