The Tragical Tale of Birdie Bloom

by Temre Beltz

  Bob gasped. “How dare you! You leave my mother out of this! I know your type! I know the sorts of awful things you do! Anyhow, I was only trying to be polite because you seem sort of clueless.”

  Agnes snapped her teeth in Bob’s face. “I don’t do polite,” she said.

  “Fine, then. You want to know the truth? You want to hear how it is? You can’t go over to that side of the store. It’s impossible.” Bob straightened the rumpled collar of his shirt and said to himself, “Man alive, you try to do something nice for someone, and this is how they act. . . .”

  But Agnes was stuck. Stuck on that word.

  Impossible.

  “What do you mean?” she cried out. “You don’t have good magic here? It looks like there’s plenty! Is there some sort of hefty price tag on it, because I’ve got oodles to trade. Name your price, and I know I can match it!”

  Bob sighed. “There is no price. Even if I wanted to, I can’t sell it to you. In fact, the Council’s enchanted the place so you can’t even set a wicked pinkie toe on that side of the store.” Bob pushed his glasses up along the bridge of his nose again. “Look, Aggy Pruneface Munch, you seem like a real good wicked witch. Better than the bunch I see creeping in and out of here in the wee hours of the night. Maybe it’s best not to stir up trouble.”

  “My name’s not Aggy Pruneface Munch, it’s—” But Agnes paused. Suddenly, it didn’t seem all that important. Bob didn’t care about her name; he didn’t care who she was. He only cared what she was: an unmistakably wicked witch. A week or so ago, Agnes might have found that immensely satisfying, but right then, it was nothing more than an impediment.

  “If it makes any difference to you, you’re the first witch I’ve ever met to make such a request. Most of ’em grumble and snarl because they even have to be within ten feet of that side. But people will put up with most anything because, like I said before”—he threw his shoulders back and blared, like he was a walking advertisement—“this here is the finest magical establishment in all of Wanderly. It’s where magical folks come when they want the best!”

  Feeling terribly deflated, Agnes asked, “But how am I supposed to acquire good magic if I can’t get it here?”

  “That’s just it. You don’t. That kind of magic isn’t meant for you, and it’s best to forget you even asked. In fact, you and I can both forget about it. I’d be willing to do that for ya, you know?”

  Agnes supposed he was trying to be helpful, but she wanted to crunch the bridge of his nose in between her teeth. “But I don’t want to be good! I just want a good potion so I can do something evil with it.”

  Bob actually reached out and patted Agnes on the shoulder. “Sure, you do,” he said.

  Agnes smacked his hand so hard it flew up, crashed into his own forehead, and knocked him goofy for a spell. “It’s the truth!” she screeched at him. “Somehow, someway, I’ve got to get my hands on a good potion so I can be evil!”

  Agnes was thoroughly worked up.

  She stomped her feet.

  She clucked her tongue.

  Agnes began to tantrum.

  Bob sputtered. He tripped along after Agnes as she crashed through the store, knocking things left to right. He leaped through the air to catch a skeleton head Agnes tossed high, and he dove to the floor to swoop up a molted rainbow snake’s skin Agnes whacked with the back of her hand. His cheeks began to flush a scarlet shade of panic.

  “Stop!” Bob begged. “Please stop that! I’ll tell you—I’ll tell you everything I know if you just stop!”

  Agnes froze. “So you do know something? Something that can be of help to me?”

  Bob slumped against the wall with his chest heaving. He fanned himself with his hand. “Blue,” he breathed out, “Dragon.”

  “Blue Dragon?” Agnes echoed. And then again, “Blue Dragon?” When Bob nodded, Agnes thrust her big nose centimeters from his forehead. Her voice was a low growl. “You think you’re going to get rid of me with a made-up hokey story like the Blue Dragon?”

  “But that’s just it!” Bob said. “It’s not made-up! It’s true! The Blue Dragon has the power to change people, and you can find him in the Deepest, Darkest Bog. He waits there where the green fog is its thickest.”

  Agnes tried to ignore the shiver that rippled up and down her spine. It couldn’t really be true. In a kingdom where everyone had their roles, everyone knew there was no way to get around that. The Council alone had the power to demote citizens through disciplinary action or, very rarely, to promote citizens as Triumphants. Though the agony of Agnes’s recent boredom had driven her to do unthinkable things like write letters to a child, she hadn’t once entertained the idea of being anything other than a witch. But the thought, the mere possibility of change—real change that didn’t have a thing to do with the Council—made her skin tingle.

  Agnes narrowed her eyes. “If a dragon as powerful as that is really in the bog, why hasn’t the Council gotten rid of him yet?”

  “Simple,” Bob said with a shrug of his shoulders. “No one in Wanderly believes the Blue Dragon is real. If the Council acts as if he’s a threat, people will probably get curious. So, for the past decade or so, the Council’s ignored him, and so has everyone else. Also, considering your story about catching a dragon—”

  “That wasn’t just a story!” Agnes interrupted.

  “Okay, fine, considering you’ve apparently caught and roasted your own dragon, you of all people should know dragons are sort of cumbersome. The Council’s not going to go out of their way to deal with one—by the way, I’ve heard he’s enormous—if they don’t have to. But you could.”

  “Could what?”

  “Go see him. But”—Bob jabbed a short, thick finger right beneath Agnes’s nose—“if you do, you better not go alone.”

  “I do everything alone!”

  “Well, then plan on getting charred! Everyone knows the good guys don’t work alone, and if you want to be good, you’re going to have to offer some solid proof.”

  Agnes rolled her eyes. “If this Blue Dragon’s really real, and if everyone knows so much about him, then why hasn’t there been a single success story, hmm? Anyhow, he sounds ridiculously picky. All I want is one measly potion; I don’t want to be good forever!”

  Bob shrugged again. “It’s probably not worth the risk, then.” He lifted his arms overhead and tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. “Say, Maggie Droopface Munch, I’ve done just about all I can for you. If there’s really nothing you want on your side of the store, do you mind if I escort you out now? I’ve got seven more hours until the next gal comes in to cover my shift, and frankly, you’ve exhausted me.”

  Agnes frowned. Even if the Blue Dragon was real, he sounded like a heap of trouble. Not to mention she’d already traveled miles away from her haunted abode, endured the supreme annoyance of Bob, and was anything but patient.

  Agnes’s gaze flickered over to the north side of the store. It was so close; everything she needed was right there! She nodded in Bob’s direction. She tried her best to sound calm. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. If I can’t get the potion I need, it’s pointless to stay even a moment longer. May you please show me the way out now?”

  Despite the dead giveaway of witchy trickster words—such as “May you,” “please,” and (horror of all horrors) “you’re right”—Bob breathed out a little sigh of relief. He turned on his heel and ambled toward the front of the store as quickly as his feet could propel him.

  That was when Agnes struck.

  She dug the heel of her boot into the shag carpet as if she were a charging bull. She revved up her arms. She sprang—she flew—toward the north side of the store. She flew at it with all her might and with all her small, stony heart, because surely the Council couldn’t keep a witch of her stature out!

  But Agnes was wrong.

  Terribly wrong.

  The Council’s enchantment pushed right back. It pushed so hard her witchy hat was knocked clean off her head. It pushed so
hard she was sent reeling and catapulting toward the south side of the store as if she were being spit out like a distasteful bug. Agnes’s back smacked hard against the wall, and she landed—splat!—on her bottom. A can of green goo from a high-up shelf split open and oozed down, down, down, coating her purple hair in sticky gunk.

  Near the front of the store, Bob stood with his mouth gaped open. He rubbed his eyes as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  Oh, what a pitiful sight Agnes was!

  Hurriedly, she swiped the goo away from her eyes. She gathered her black skirts in her trembling, gnarled hands. She brushed past Bob and that annoying door chime.

  Agnes ran.

  She ran away from Wands and Broomsticks, Inc.

  She ran away from Pigglesticks.

  She ran and she ran and she ran, but no matter how hard she huffed and puffed—no matter how loudly her stone heart rattled in her chest and her witchy boots click-clacked against the cobblestones—it seemed nothing would make that awful word go away.

  Impossible.

  By the time her trusty broomstick caught up with her, Wands and Broomsticks, Inc., was awash with reporters from the Chancellor’s favorite news press, the Wanderly Whistle, and Agnes was spent.

  Eleven

  Eight-Legged Wonders

  Birdie Bloom slipped out the door of Sir Ichabod’s kitchen and breathed a sigh of relief. She had done it, and no one had seen her. Birdie was not in pursuit of more unauthorized storybooks or even looking to ask Sir Ichabod one of the dozens of questions sparked by his Tragical confession three nights prior. No, Birdie was busy protecting the life of a hero.

  Surely only a house full of Tragicals would nominate a fugitive rat as their hero, but a hero was what Sprinkles had become for the sole fact that, despite Mistress Octavia’s most extensive efforts, she hadn’t been able to do away with him (yet).

  Fortunately or not, Sprinkles hadn’t a clue of his peak position on Mistress Octavia’s lengthy most wanted list. He insisted on sleeping cheek to cheek with Cricket; he demanded to ride atop the children’s shoulders rather than be stowed safely away in a pocket; and his silvery plume had never looked quite so dapper. These sorts of antics, however, made the Tragicals’ job of keeping him safe infinitely harder. Indeed, amid the constant shooing, stuffing, cooing, and squeeing, they were very nearly forgetting they weren’t supposed to talk to one another. They were very nearly forgetting they weren’t supposed to do things together.38

  And perhaps that was what made Sprinkles the most heroic of all.

  Even if his reward was being stuffed into a wholly undignified cage constructed of the Tragicals’ formerly useless pencils and long threads unraveled from their gowns. They simply had no other choice—Sprinkles couldn’t accompany them into the Instruction Room nor roam about the manor laden with booby traps.39 And so, the children took turns tucking Sprinkles’s cage away in a remote pocket of Sir Ichabod Grim’s kitchen, because other than the dungeon, it was the one place Mistress Octavia never ventured due to the overwhelming “stench” of blueberries.

  Birdie cast one last glance in the direction of the kitchen and moved swiftly down the gloomy hallway. She was late for trudging and would need to catch up. Still, when she approached the door leading down to the dungeon, she skidded to an abrupt halt.

  The dungeon door was cracked open.

  Just a smidge, but still, unmistakably, unlatched.

  Had Birdie not been the recent recipient of magical letters, well aware that a witch wanted desperately to know her whereabouts, and the recent victim of a rainy curse, she might not have thought anything of it. But she was aware of all those things. And the last time the dungeon door had been left cracked open, a curse had arrived. Certainly that didn’t bode well for—

  Birdie yelped when a shadow flittered toward the crack in the door and a shiny-fanged gray bat pushed its way out. Birdie stumbled backward, but the bat didn’t waste any time. It dove after Birdie. It tangled up its wings in her already-tangled hair and trounced atop her head. Birdie tried to swat the bat away with her hands, but it kept right on coming. Birdie was certain it had to be one of Ms. Crunch’s letters, but this one seemed particularly ornery. Finally, in one last hair-raising nosedive, the bat exploded in a bombastic firework of ash that rained down from the ceiling.

  Birdie didn’t stop to take a breath. She lunged toward the dungeon door and clicked it shut in case anything else was lurking about and looking to be set loose in the manor.

  Meanwhile, the ash began to swirl together. It lifted up and transformed into a letter with familiar, stabby penmanship.

  Birdie bit her lip. Ms. Crunch’s last letter had been so frightening that part of her worried she might never hear from Ms. Crunch again and part of her worried that she would. Why exactly did Ms. Crunch keep writing back? Moreover, for someone who wasn’t at all interested in being BFFs, Birdie hardly imagined she could find a more responsive one than Ms. Crunch.

  Birdie took a deep breath and brought the letter near.

  To Bird-Girl:

  Your last letter was the worst yet. Your little tip about Octavia’s kooky laughter allergy was worthless. And the whole thing ended up in me having the worst day ever. Is that BFF enough for you?

  In all seriousness, we’ve got a problem. Because you seem to be totally clueless about the fundamentals of being a witch. For starters: we don’t do good magic. In fact, we can’t do good magic. And how many spooky, scary, terrifying stories have you read where someone is about to meet their doom and they . . . giggle? GENUINELY? Zero. Zilch. Zippo. Do you see my point?

  So I went to some pokey old magic shop and tried to buy that dumb laughter potion. Get this: the blockhead at the front wouldn’t sell it to me. Me! Agnes Prunella Crunch! And when I tried to take it with a little sweat and muscle, I got tossed out on my behind by the Council’s enchantments. The whole thing was such a disaster the Wanderly Whistle wrote a report on it!

  Lucky for me, the clueless store clerk remembered my name as Maggie Pruneface Punch. So far, no one’s been able to put two and two together. If they had, I would have been hauled in for a detention by the Council faster than you could say “Poof!” If that happens, neither one of us is gonna get what we want.

  Anyhoo, I didn’t wind up with a drop of that laughing potion. I’m considering staking out some character called the Blue Dragon, but considering he (1) lives in the Deepest, Darkest Bog; (2) requires visitors to use the buddy system; and (3) supposedly works by changing people (ha! Good luck!), it seems like a long shot.

  All right, two last things. you asked if I found a way into your manor. Believe me, if I found a way in, I’d stop wasting my time with these chitchatty letters! Also, three hundred rattraps? What in the world sort of rodent problem do you have at your place, and why is a cricket glad none of the rats bit the dust? Don’t rats eat crickets? Finally, for the love of all that is wretched—SEND ME YOUR ADDRESS!!!! Can you tell I’m starting to lose my patience?

  Totally disgruntled,

  AP Crunch

  PS: I’m not purposefully ignoring you on the definition of “doing Octavia in.” But there’s not really an answer for it either. It all depends on how I’m feeling at the moment. Given all she’s done to you, you should focus your attention on throwing me a party.

  PPS: I’m sorry not sorry if I somehow send another curse your way. I think something happened to my magic when I tried to steal that potion. Wicked spells have been flying off my fingertips left and right as if to drill into my head that’s all I’ve got. This morning I got chased out of bed by a swarm of green wasps (the worst kind!), dunked my behind into a pond for protection, and was herded out of that by snapping crocodiles! By the time I finally crawled back into my cabin, the curtains turned into wolves and nearly snapped my favorite rocking chair in half! So, I guess what I’m trying to say is . . . heh, heh . . . good luck.

  Birdie gulped.

  Ms. Crunch wasn’t exaggerating. Her day out to town sounde
d truly horrible. And with a morning full of wasps, crocodiles, and wolves, it didn’t sound as if things had gotten better since. Birdie, of course, had never been allowed to peruse the Wanderly Whistle, but she’d caught Mistress Octavia reading it plenty of times. Sure, there were dozens of cheery celebratory reports about Triumphants claiming their latest (surprise, surprise) victories, but even those weren’t featured on the front page. What was splashed across the front page were those citizens detained for Wanderly’s most heinous crime: attempting to step outside of one’s role.

  Birdie could only guess that was right where Ms. Crunch’s story landed. Ms. Crunch didn’t seem too worried about it, but with publicity like that, wasn’t it only a matter of time before someone figured out who Maggie Pruneface Punch really was?

  And just like that, Birdie grew cold. She had always been told there would be consequences if she failed to accept her Tragic End. That somewhere, someone else—someone better—would have to pay the price. But what if it was even worse than that? Hadn’t Mistress Octavia alluded to as much when, on the day of Griselda Peabody’s visit, she said the Tragicals could “infect” someone with misery? Surely since knowing Birdie, Ms. Crunch had never experienced such a string of bad luck. What if it was only going to get worse? What if Birdie’s doom was contagious?

  Birdie leaned hard against the wall.

  Her chest felt tight.

  Birdie would never have thought she’d have to protect a wicked witch from anything. But maybe in all of Wanderly, there really was nothing worse than a Tragical. Maybe there was nothing worse than . . . Birdie. Maybe the most friendly thing she could do for Ms. Crunch was to stop trying to be her BFF.

  Birdie jolted at the sound of a scream.

  And then another.

  And another still.

  The other Tragicals! Birdie hurriedly stuffed the letter beneath the collar of her gown—decidedly not in her pocket in case Mistress Octavia demanded they be emptied—and pounded down the hallway in the direction of the library. She rounded the corner with a screech of her shoes. The curtains rippled encouragingly as she whipped by, and even the ten spiders swinging from the overhead cobwebs seemed to pump their jointed legs in the air with extra panache.