by Temre Beltz
“I don’t like this, Pooky,” Agnes said, low. “I don’t—”
“MWAAAAAAAAAGH!” The great, big, booming roar sent Pooky into near hysterics. She yowled; she howled; she clawed all the way up Agnes, exploded off the top of her purple frizzy hair and landed in the bough of a nearby tree.
Agnes stomped her foot on the ground. “Look at what you’ve done, you miserable kitten! Get down here! Get down here at once!”
Now, if Agnes would have adopted a slightly softer tone, and commented on how bad that monstrous creature was to make such a naughty sound, there was at least a 15 percent chance Pooky would have (slowly) obliged and climbed down from her impossible position. Instead, crouched in the tree’s leafy confines, Pooky simply gave Agnes an unblinking stare.
Agnes growled. She lifted her fingers to summon her broomstick, but stopped snapping when she spied it swaying lazily back and forth a short distance away, emitting a steady stream of snores.55
With no other choice, Agnes hiked up her muddy skirts, sloshed through the mud, and began shimmying up the tree trunk herself. Perhaps feeling a bit sorry for Agnes, Pooky slithered on her belly a wee bit closer, but when another even louder roar erupted, she froze. She bent low, as if about to spring up again!
“No!” Agnes said. “Don’t do it! Don’t even thinking of jumping onto some other tree. You get one save and one save—”
“Birdie? Birdie, is that you?” a voice called out.
Agnes clamped her lips shut. She and Pooky looked at each other and then looked down. Just a few trees away, wandering around in the mud and swatting at the green, smelly fog was dinner—er, Ralph! Birdie’s friend! But where was Birdie?
Agnes watched with disdain as Pooky’s fur resumed its normal position, i.e. it was no longer standing on end. She even vibrated a bit and made googly eyes at the boy because that blasted little turncoat had nestled on his lap the entire miserable broom ride to Castle Matilda and looked pleased as pie at his return. Agnes wasn’t. She wanted nothing to do with that rowdy kid. She plastered her finger against her lips and sent Pooky a dire, witchy warning. Until she could be certain Birdie was around, too, they would remain quietly planted in that tree for as long as it took, thank you very much.
Crack!
Creak!
Snap!
Or maybe not.
With everything that had gone wrong in the past twenty-four hours, Agnes didn’t even try to avoid it. She didn’t try to grapple her way back to the tree trunk. She didn’t try to wriggle her fingers in time and dash off a half-baked spell. Nope, she just fell. Agnes, Pooky, and the branch broke clean away from that tree and crashed down with an enormous muddy splash a mere six inches or so from Ralph.
Ralph jumped at least two feet in the air. “Ah! It’s you!” he exclaimed.
“Hmph, it’s you,” Agnes said, slowly ambling to her feet.
“What are you doing here? Are you trying to finish me off?” Ralph darted backward as if trying to escape Agnes’s wicked grasp.
But Agnes hadn’t lifted more than an eyebrow in his direction. “Stop flitting around so. You’re giving me a headache, and you’re going to injure yourself. I also don’t know how many times I need to say it, but in case fifty wasn’t enough, I repeat: I never wanted to cook you or finish you off or anything else of the sort!” Agnes blew out a little puff of air. She straightened her collar. She tried to put on the closest expression to pleasant she could muster without throwing up. “Now, if you could just point me in the direction of Birdie, I’ll let you get back to whatever it was you were doing.”
But Ralph just stared at her.
Agnes cleared her throat. “Do you have a hearing problem?”
“No, I just, well—”
But Agnes didn’t wait for Ralph to finish. She brushed past him. She looked around him, behind him, and even in the trees up above. Her shoulders hung slack when she finally turned to face him and asked, “Where is she?”
Ralph swallowed. “Birdie’s gone. She went back to the manor.”
“Back to the manor? As in back to Foulweather’s Home for the Tragical? Where Octavia is? Why would she do such a thing?” Agnes lunged close and grabbed the front of Ralph’s shirt. “Why would you let her do such a thing?”
“Because it was her choice. She wanted to go back. Mistress Octavia threatened to put Cricket in the Drowning Bucket, and Birdie went back to save her.”
Agnes threw her hands up into the air. “But how? How does Birdie think she’s going to beat a Council member?”
Ralph’s cheeks flushed a soft shade of pink. “Well, I suppose she was hoping I could help with that.”
“By lollygagging around in the Deepest, Darkest Bog, miles away from the manor?”
“I’m not just lollygagging!” Ralph said. “I was on my way to see the Blue Dragon when you fell out of the sky.”
Agnes’s eyes lit up. Agnes licked her lips, and she took a few stalking footsteps in Ralph’s direction. “Yesssss,” she hissed while drumming her fingers together.
Ralph began to fidget. “You, uh, look pretty scary when you do that. Can you stop, please, because a moment ago our conversation seemed almost productive.”
“Oh, it’s productive, all right,” Agnes said. “Because someone’s got to help Birdie, and you’re going to be my ticket to see the Blue Dragon.”
“No, wait, I think you misunderstood. I didn’t say we’re going to see the Blue Dragon. I said I’m going to see the Blue Dragon.”
“Yeah, and the Blue Dragon’s not supposed to take kindly to solo visitors. He prefers the buddy system. That’s you and me.”
Ralph paused. He looked down at his bare feet. Finally, he said in a quiet voice, “No thanks.”
“‘No thanks’? Don’t be a fool! I’m not asking you out to tea! From what I hear, that Blue Dragon will roast you before you even get close!”
“Well, um, funny you should bring up roasting since you very nearly roasted me a few hours ago!”
“Stop being such a baby and get over it!”
“Being cooked is hard to get over!” Ralph yelled.
“Well, fine, then—”
“MWAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!” the Blue Dragon roared.
The ground shook. The leaves on the trees trembled. And thick green fog wafted up to Agnes’s knees.
Ralph’s eyes widened. Both he and Agnes looked up toward the canopy of trees being tossed to and fro and shoved this way and that way as if something very big was approaching.
“MWAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!” the Blue Dragon bellowed again as yet another thick wave of smelly green fog tumbled near.
Agnes bent close to Ralph. “Look, kid, if either one of us is going to have any chance of helping Birdie, we have to work together.”
Boom, boom, boom. The ground began to shake.
“What do you suggest we do?”
A shadow crossed over Agnes’s face. “The same thing Birdie and I would have done if she was here with me. We have to act like we’re BFFs.”
“You and me?” Ralph exclaimed.
Agnes thrust her crooked hand in front of his face. “Hold my hand!”
Ralph’s mouth gaped open. “But—but what if you try to nibble on my finger or something?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Just hold my hand. Do it! NOW!” Agnes roared.
“Oh, dear” came a voice from up above.
Agnes and Ralph froze. They looked up. They looked straight into the dangerously long snout of none other than the Blue Dragon. The Blue Dragon looked from Agnes to the boy. Two thin tendrils of green smoke—the same smelly green smoke blanketing the Deepest, Darkest Bog—snaked out of his nostrils. He tilted his magnificently long head. His electric blue scales gleamed. He thumped his endless tail along the ground, and great, knobby boulders rolled forth like pebbles. Agnes had dealt with her fair share of dragons before, but never one so extraordinarily large as the Blue Dragon.
Agnes gulped.
Ralph made a sound not unlike a whimper.
<
br /> When the Blue Dragon bent his head near, Agnes and Ralph actually did grab ahold of each other’s hands.
“So it is you,” the Blue Dragon said. “I must admit, after twelve long years of dreaming of this moment, I never once imagined it would be anyone like, well, the two of you.”
Agnes stiffened. She grappled for something, anything that would make sense. “‘Twelve long years of dreaming’? Dreaming of what? Of—of peanut butter?”
“Peanut butter?” Ralph exclaimed.
“Peanut butter?” the Blue Dragon said with a swoon. “Oh my, it’s been simply ages since I’ve had peanut butter! But no, that’s not at all what I’ve been waiting for.” The Blue Dragon batted his long, fringed eyelashes. “Why, I’ve been waiting to be saved, of course!”
Ralph gasped. Agnes snarled. She dropped Ralph’s clammy hand like a hot potato and crossed her arms against her chest. “But we’re not here to save you! You’re supposed to save us. Well, not us, really, but Birdie. You’re supposed to save Birdie!” As Agnes raged, Pooky took the opportunity to poke her head out from Agnes’s sleeve and give the dragon a once-over. Despite the Blue Dragon’s astonishing size, she tried very hard not to look a bit impressed.
“Birdie?” the Blue Dragon repeated. “Who’s Birdie? Is he Birdie?” he said, gesturing at Ralph.
“No, but I get mistaken for her more often than you’d think,” Ralph said with a pointed look in Agnes’s direction. “My name’s Ralph.”
“Oh, well, hello, Ralph.” The Blue Dragon glanced at Pooky. “And who may I ask is that?”
Agnes crossed her arms against her chest. “That’s Pooky.”
The Blue Dragon tried to lower his voice to a whisper, but dragons don’t whisper very well. “And have you considered that your Birdie may have wound up inside of Pooky’s belly?”
Pooky rose up on all four legs with a nasty hiss. Agnes blew out an exasperated sigh. “Birdie is not an actual bird; she is a person. She is a little girl.”
“Oh, I find children quite delightful!” the Blue Dragon exclaimed.
“Yeah, well, today she’s going to die.”
The Blue Dragon hiccupped. “That’s awful! Just terrible!” A moment later, his eyes widened. “Oh my! And that is why you are here? You—you thought I would help save the life of your Birdie? How did you think I could possibly do such a thing?”
“I was told you had the power to change people.” Agnes paused, and she lowered her voice. “I thought you might be able to change me.”
“But aren’t you, uh, well . . . I hope I’m not being impolite by saying so, but you look to be, uh, well, uh—”
“A wicked witch?” Ralph finished for him.
“Yes, that’s right. What he said.” The Blue Dragon cleared his throat. “Why would a witch want to change? No one in Wanderly ever changes except by Council decree.”
Agnes fluffed out her skirts. “Look, if you can’t give us the help we’re looking for, there’s no need to stick around this miserable, stinking place a second longer.”
The Blue Dragon jerked upright. “You think it stinks?”
“Worse than the Dead Tree Forest,” Agnes said with a sharp nod. “Worse than my socks after I’ve had a bout of toe fungus and haven’t scrubbed ’em in the creek for a month. Worse—”
Ralph gave Agnes a swift poke in the ribs. “How ’bout you tone it down a bit, huh? Look at him!”
“Bah! Who cares about something like hurt feelings! That sorry sap of a dragon is a waste of our time, and time is the one thing Birdie doesn’t have!” Agnes whirled around on her heel and snapped her fingers for her broomstick that had finally woken up and sailed faithfully toward her. But right before she could climb aboard, something fell atop her head.
Plip-plop!
Agnes looked up.
Plip-plop! A big, fat drop of green splashed into her eye.
Plip-plop! Plip-plop! Plip-plop!
“Oh, what a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day!” the Blue Dragon wailed. “Your Birdie is going to die; no one has come to save me; and I shall always stink!”
Beside Agnes, Ralph lifted his black gown up and over his knees. The swamp mud mixed with the dragon’s tears was becoming awfully soupy. And it was rising fast. Pooky floated by on a hollowed-out tree log, and Agnes snatched her up in the nick of time.
“Do you have any idea what it is like to be full of smelly green gas? No dragon wanted a thing to do with me on Snaggletooth Isles, and when the gang of magicians came for me, even my own colony threw a never-ever-come-back party! The magicians trapped me here, but I think even they’ve grown tired of my smell because I haven’t seen a single one in ages!”
“But how is it possible to trap a dragon?” Ralph asked.
“Just look,” the Blue Dragon said with a miserable sniff. He lifted high the arch of his massive wings. But when he strained and flexed, nothing happened. His wings couldn’t unfold. They had been bound together with invisible and unbreakable thread so that he couldn’t do what dragons did best.56 The Blue Dragon couldn’t fly.
“If you can imagine, it gets even worse,” the Blue Dragon continued. “The lonelier I get, the more smelly gas I seem to produce. Add to that the ridiculous rumors you mentioned, that somehow I have the power to change people when—ha!—I can’t even make my stink go away! Oh, it’s no wonder no one but the two of you has ever bothered to come looking for me. And now I shall have no hope left. Now I ought to just curl up in a little ball so the smell can finally do me in.”
“Just a thought,” Agnes said, “but if you were really looking for someone to come and save you, why not tone down the scary noises?”
“You mean, my super-specific-exhaustively-practiced roar? But I thought . . . The magicians told me that . . .” The Blue Dragon paused. “I suppose it’s not Wander-speak for ‘help,’ is it?” Upon seeing Agnes’s expression, the Blue Dragon burst into another loud, sobbing round of tears.
“Are you happy?” Ralph said, glaring at Agnes. “Why don’t you insult him again and see if we can get the whole bog to flood!”
“We were tricked!” Agnes exclaimed.
“But it’s not his fault. He didn’t advertise the whole change thing.” Ralph paused. His face fell. “All he’s ever wanted to be is . . . free.”
Agnes rolled her eyes. “So what?”
“I think we have to help him.”
“No, we have to help Birdie. Birdie’s my BFF, not that big lug!”
“But Birdie would want us to help him.”
“Then why don’t you stay and help him?”
“Because you’re the witch. You’re the one with magic.”
“Gah! Will none of you ever understand that dark magic is not the helping sort of magic?”
The Blue Dragon’s big snout dipped in between Ralph and Agnes. “Pardon me, but did I eavesdrop correctly? Are you, a wicked witch, really thinking of saving me? How is that possible? How does such a thing—” The Blue Dragon’s eyes lit up, and he surged closer to Agnes. “Hey! Maybe you don’t need to be changed after all. Maybe you were never really wicked to begin with! Did you ever think of that?”
Before Agnes could squash flat his theory by ticking off all the very many egregiously wicked things she’d done through the years, the Blue Dragon’s snout twitched. His tail began to thump, and his whole body trembled so violently the trunks of the trees knocked about and the leaves clattered like tin cans.
“Oh—oh—oh no!” the Blue Dragon yelped.
Agnes reached back and yanked Ralph toward her through the sloshy swamp soup. “What is it?” Agnes said. “What’s happening?”
But the Blue Dragon’s snout wrinkled up. His oversize teeth gleamed! He sucked up a huge, gulping gasp of air.
“WA-WA-WA-WA-WACCCCCHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOO!”
The Blue Dragon sneezed a sneeze unlike any other sneeze.
And out tumbled a flickering, raging ball of smelly green flames. The flames licked up the trunks of the trees and toast
ed the leaves. They dove down to the floating logs and seared them as if they were filets mignon. Without a single shout of warning, Agnes sucked up a breath and dunked her, Ralph, and an irate Pooky beneath the swamp slush.
By the time they surfaced, with green mud dripping off their noses and dribbling down their chins, the fireball was gone. But so was something else. The one thing Agnes had been unable to grasp for.
The Blue Dragon bent near. In the palm of his giant hand, nestled among his shiny blue scales and razor-sharp claws, was a small heap of ash. “I-I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I have terrible allergies. It happens without warning. I hardly meant to. I—”
“AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!” cried Agnes as she surveyed what was left of her broomstick. Agnes raced along the Blue Dragon’s snout and butted her big, witchy nose against his gawking eyeball.
“You singed my ride!” she said. “I’ve had that broomstick since I was thirteen—thirteen! It did everything I wanted it to! It knew when to hush up; it knew when to be delightfully disobedient; it knew when I needed a little pick-me-up; and it knew how fast to fly to keep my hair properly frizzed. But worst of all, that was how I was going to get back to Birdie! And now it’s gone! You ruined it! You ruined everything!”
Agnes’s feet slid out from underneath her. The brim of her hat slid down to her nose. Pooky crawled out from her bell sleeve, and with a very pointed swish of her tail and backside, began using the dragon’s snout as a scratching post.
“I—I suppose this means you aren’t much interested in rescuing me anymore, doesn’t it?” the Blue Dragon asked softly.
Agnes huffed and Agnes puffed. A few hissing and spitting noises slipped off her razor-sharp tongue, but before she could properly berate the Blue Dragon, Ralph spoke instead.
“Actually, it means that is exactly what she’s going to do.”
Agnes ripped her hat off and tossed it into the air. “No! No! I’m DONE! I never wanted to help him in the first place. He’s nothing more than a crybaby who deserves to sit here in his stink!”
