by Tara Maya, Elle Casey, J L Bryan, Anthea Sharp, Jenna Elizabeth Johnson, Alexia Purdy (epub)
“So what do they look like now?” Hoke asked.
“It depends who took them,” Aoide said.
“You don't have any idea who it was?” Hoke asked.
“Nor do we know their intentions,” Icarus said. “The Queen's seer tells us they have left the realm of Faerie. These instruments could cause incredible destruction in the human world. In the hands of anyone not properly trained by the Musicians' Guild...”
“It could be a nightmare,” Aoide said.
“The man-world.” Hoke lifted his hat and scratched around in his stringy, dirty hair. “Haven't been there in a century or ten. So, we don't know what the things look like or who has 'em or why. They'll take some time to track down. Buttercake's my best sniffer, though. Next fairy!”
Aoide backed off and let Buttercake sniff Rhodia's hand. Rhodia giggled and tried to pet the unicorn, but the little creature skittered back out of reach.
“Hands off my cornhorse!” Hoke barked. “And where's the scents for the other two instruments?”
“Here.” Aoide opened another pouch. It contained a swatch of Skezg's filthy shirt, to give the unicorn the ogre's smell. It also had a locket of Neus' white fur, since he didn't wear clothes. The faun let the shaggy goat fur on his hips and legs serve as trousers. He didn't even wear shoes, because the bottoms of his stubby feet and toes were coated with hard hoof.
Buttercake sniffed inside the pouch for a couple of minutes. Then she stuck out her tongue and backed away.
“What about the other unicorns?” Icarus asked. Cinnamon and Berrymuffin had wandered away a little bit, to slurp from a pool of sugar water.
“If you think I'm taking more than one unicorn up to man-world, then you're madder than Queen Mab.”
“I warned you!” Icarus reached for his sword, but Aoide grabbed his arm and shushed him.
“It's just a figure of speech,” Hoke said. He snorted, then spat a ball of bright orange elf-snot into a puddle near Icarus's boot.
Icarus opened his mouth. Aoide was pretty sure that whatever he said next would lead to an argument or a fight, so she cut him off.
“Is that all you need to begin your search?” Aoide asked Hoke.
“Sounds like that's all you have,” Hoke said. “Do we at least know through which doorway the thief entered the man-world? Was it Glastonbury Door?”
“We don't know,” Aoide said.
Hoke shook his head and lowered the brim of his hat. He resumed sitting under the shade of the leafy sugar cane by his hut. Buttercake nibbled some flowering weeds beside him.
“When do you intend to begin searching?” Icarus asked.
“After we've had time to rest.” Hoke pulled the hat down over his eyes. “Buttercake's a delicate one. Needs her beauty sleep.”
“This is urgent!” Icarus snarled.
“Then I'd be better get plenty of sleep,” Hoke said. “Don't want me slipping up.”
“He said he'll do it, Icarus,” Aoide said.
“He'd better. Or we'll show him that Her Majesty Queen Mab does, indeed, rule the swamplands!” Icarus stepped away, out through the break in the wall of cane.
“What a sourdrop,” Hoke said.
“He's kind of cranky,” Aoide said. “We really do appreciate your help. We really, really need our instruments back. Sorry about Mister Whineyboots out there.”
“If they can be found, Buttercake will find them,” Hoke said from under his hat. Buttercake looked up and blinked at her name, then resumed grazing.
Aoide and Rhodia walked toward the gap in the sugarcane.
“Will this really work?” Rhodia whispered. “Those unicorns look useless.”
“They say unicorns are more than what they appear to be,” Aoide whispered. She nudged Rhodia's arm and pointed.
Cinnamon raised her head from a sugary pool, grasping a black and red swamp cobra in her mouth. Its hooded head arched above the unicorn's face, and its fiery red eyes glared down at her. The cobra hissed, with its long fangs dripping venom, and poised to strike the unicorn's soft nose.
Cinnamon snapped her head from side to side, whipping the cobra like a rope. Cracking sounds burst all along the snake's spine. When Cinnamon finally stopped shaking, the long cobra lay limp in her mouth. She sucked up the cobra's body like a noodle. When she'd devoured it, she belched, her ears flattening and her mouth flaring wide. Then she trotted off into the swamp.
Chapter Fourteen
Jason decided to stop by The Creamery in the middle of Friday afternoon, well after the lunch rush but before people got off work, so the place would be as quiet as it got. Erin sometimes talked about being bored that time of day, with nothing to do.
As he rode his bike through the streets of the little town, he imagined how it might go. She'd be happy to take a break. They could have an ice cream at one of the little tables outside on the sidewalk (and he'd have a cone of Chocolate Cashew Snowslide, his favorite flavor). He was determined to tell Erin how he felt about her.
Normally, the idea of talking about such things created a tense ball of nerves deep in his gut and stopped his mouth from working properly. The more he played his new guitar, though, the bolder he felt. It made him feel like taking risks.
He'd even brought the song “Angel Sky,” again on a folded page of notebook paper in his pocket, though he'd rewritten some of the verses a number of times since his last attempt to present the song to the band. Maybe telling Erin how much he liked her and giving her the song at the same time would be too much, and she would deem him a creepy stalker guy. But having it in his pocket was like a statement to himself that he was going to make things happen today.
He rode along the sidewalk and glanced into the plate-glass front window of The Creamery. Erin was there behind the ice cream counter, in her paper Creamery hat and white apron. She leaned over the counter, talking intently to someone.
He passed the huge ice-cream-cone-shaped chalkboard in the window. On the other side, he could see Erin was talking to Zach, her boyfriend. He took her hand, and Erin smiled, shaking her head about something while she spoke.
All his nerves crashed. It was scary enough trying to talk about his feelings with her. He definitely wasn't going to do it with her current boyfriend right there. It would just turn into a fight with Zach—not exactly the afternoon he'd envisioned.
Jason turned the next corner and rode up the block, so he wouldn't pass The Creamery again. It was a bad idea, anyway. She was already with someone. He had no reason to think she would rather be with him.
A few hours later, Jason stepped up to the counter at Buddy McSlawburger’s, facing a long line of customers. The Friday night shift was busy. He saw a number of people he knew from school, and all of them seemed to be pointing at Jason and smiling at each other.
Like every McSlawburger’s employee, Jason wore the trademark funny hat. It was like a baseball cap, but with a giant bouncing “slawburger” sewn to the top. The thing was stuffed with cotton and included a bun, burger, cheese and slaw, all made of felt. The top bun tilted jauntily to one side, making the tall fake burger bounce and sway every time you turned your head. There was even a spring inside it to enhance the effect. It looked especially goofy with a group of employees running around behind the counter, the ridiculously tall burgers on their hats swaying and jiggling all over the place.
“Welcome to Buddy McSlawburger’s,” Jason said to his first customer, a hefty tattooed biker couple. “Would you like a Slawburger Special today?”
“No!” the fat, bearded biker guy said. “I want two of them cheeseburgers, but none of that slaw junk. I hate that stuff. What do you want, baby?”
“A hot dog,” the woman said. “No slaw. Got that? No slaw.”
“Two slawburgers with cheese, hold the slaw,” Jason said into the microphone. “One slawdog, hold the slaw.”
“And I want some fries,” the biker guy added. “But none of that canned chili junk on it.”
“One chili-cheese fry, hold the chi
li-cheese,” Jason said.
Jason's next customer was his math teacher, Coach Bauer.
“Hey there, kiddo,” the Coach said. “Kiddo” was his generic name for any student who didn't participate in sports or cheerleading. “Double cheeseburger. None of the slaw, I hate that stuff.”
“Double slawburger with cheese, hold the slaw,” Jason said into the mike. It was already turning into a long night.
A group of four sophomores came to his register next, two boys and two girls. They'd been among those pointing and smiling about him. Jason sighed. As if his day weren't bad enough, now he was about to get ridiculed by younger kids.
“Hi, Jason!” one girl said, waving. Jason had no idea what her name was.
“Uh, hi,” Jason said. “Welcome to McSlawburger’s.”
“I told you it was him,” one of the guys said.
“You're even cuter than in the video!” the other girl said. The guy next to her scowled a little.
“Video?” Jason asked.
“We watched it like twenty times!” the first girl said. The two girls leaned together, held up their index fingers like microphones, and sang a verse of Erin's “Cinderella Night” in screeching, off-key voices:
Cinderella, Cinderella beware,
Don't give yourself up on a dare...
“Would you budge along?” a crabby-looking older man in a plaid shirt said behind them. “Some of us are trying to order food here.”
“What video?” Jason asked.
“I told you it wasn't him,” the scowling boy said.
“It is!” the scowling boy’s girlfriend said. “You play the guitar, right?”
“Yeah,” Jason said. Both the girls squealed. It was so unexpected that he jumped a little. “So, can I take your order?” he asked.
“When are you putting out another video?” the first girl asked.
“Where's your next concert?” the non-scowling boy asked. “We'll totally come.”
“I don't know...” Jason said.
“Does your band have a Facebook page?” the boy asked.
“A MySpace?” the second girl asked.
“Not really. How do you know about my band, again?” Jason asked.
“Nobody cares about your band!” barked the man in plaid.
“Sorry, I have to work,” Jason said.
“Why are you working here when you can play like that?” the first girl asked.
“Hurry it up!” the plaid-jacket man shouted.
“Do you guys just want slawburgers?” Jason asked the four kids.
“No slaw,” the first girl said, and the others hurried to agree.
“Four slawburgers, no slaw,” Jason said into the microphone.
The second girl grabbed a napkin and wrote on it. “I'm Wendy,” she said. “Call me when you're playing somewhere. Or just, you know, if you want to talk. About anything.” She handed him the napkin, which had her phone number and email address under the McSlawburger’s logo. The boy who was with her scowled even more.
“I'd better give him my phone number, too.” The second girl jotted it down on another napkin and handed it to Jason. “Just in case there's a concert,” she explained to her boyfriend.
“You can pick up your burgers at the end of the counter,” Jason said. He didn't know what to do with the napkins, so he stuffed them in his pocket.
“Bye, Jason!” the two girls said as they walked to the pick-up area. Then they broke down giggling, grabbing each others' arms. The guy who seemed to like Jason waved, too, while the other one kept scowling as he walked away.
Jason took the man in the plaid shirt's order—slawburger, hold the slaw. Then there were more kids from school talking about Jason's “video.” Over the next hour or so, Jason collected phone numbers from five girls and two guys, asking to know when the band would play again.
When he finally got his fifteen-minute break, Jason walked back into the kitchen and checked his phone. He had to keep it turned off during work, because the assistant manager, Mona, couldn’t tolerate employees using cell phones.
There were several texts from Mitch, insisting that Jason call him right away. One text linked to a YouTube video.
“Hey, Tadd,” Jason said to the guy at the french-fry station, who was in his grade.
“Huh?” Tadd looked up from the big can of McSlawburger’s Chili Cheese, which he was spooning onto a basket of fries.
“Do you have your laptop here?” Jason asked. He knew Tadd brought it to work to use the fast-food restaurant's free Wi-Fi during his breaks.
“Oh, yeah,” Tadd said.
“Mind if I borrow it?”
“Sure thing. Great video, dude. Though next time, I'd recommend a higher quality camera. Maybe a tripod. I'm into handheld as much as the next guy, but that video was swinging all over the place.”
“Yeah, some sixth grade kid in Mitch's neighborhood shot it with her phone.”
“Kid with a phone. Very raw. Very real. Breaking boundaries. I like it.”
“Thanks...” Jason said, and he continued on to the back door.
He sat on the uncomfortable concrete bench out back, and he finally saw the video everyone was talking about.
It was from yesterday, Jason and Erin and Mitch playing “Cinderella Night” at Mitch's house. The viewpoint bounced wildly from the band in the garage, to the kids dancing in the driveway and front yard, the sky, the street, the grass and shrubbery outside Mitch's house. Jason remembered the middle school girl who'd been waving her iPhone around while dancing. She must have uploaded this.
Jason found himself entranced by the music, swaying as he watched.
It showed the whole song, including the blue cloud pouring up from the garage, and everyone screaming and running as the downpour drenched them.
According to YouTube, the video had been watched 90,342 times since it was uploaded the previous night.
“Totally great song, yo,” somebody said behind him. The burger fryer, a bearded guy named Steve who was a few years older than him, was leaning over Jason's shoulder. Jason hadn't even realized anyone had come outside.
“Thanks,” Jason said.
“Who's the chick? She's totally hot.”
“She only dates high school guys,” Jason lied.
“Oh, bummer. Tell her I said hi, little dude.”
“Right.” Jason closed the laptop. He carried it across the parking lot towards the Dumpster, to get away from Steve. He dialed Mitch.
“Finally!” Mitch said. “Have you seen it?”
“Yeah. How did that happen?”
“Kelly Kaiser, man. Eighth-grader, lives three houses down.”
“Everybody seems to like it,” Jason said. “Lots of people are asking when we're going to do a show. Too bad we don't have any gigs, right?”
“This is just the beginning, man,” Mitch said. “If people like that crummy video with half a song, imagine what they'll say when we put out a good video.”
“That's not a bad idea,” Jason said.
Back at the bench, Steve stood up, stretched and opened the door to go back inside. Mona, the assistant manager, stepped out, smiled at Steve as he passed her, then glared hard at Jason.
“No cell phones!” Mona snapped.
“I'm on break,” Jason said.
“Not for long!” Mona crossed her arms, looked at her watch, and then stared at him.
“Man, forget Bloody McSlobberbooger's,” Mitch said. “You should quit. This thing's going to be very real.”
“I’ll quit as soon as ‘this thing’ pays real money,” Jason said. “Last time I checked, YouTube was free.”
“Yeah, but it's going to lead to everything. Get over here and let's plot some things.”
“Thirty seconds!” Mona called, tapping her watch.
“Are you free tomorrow night?” Mitch asked.
“Yeah, unless Mona gets mad and adds me to the schedule. I should go.”
“Here's what I'm thinking,” Mitch continued. �
�My mom's working at the hospital tomorrow night. Saturday night, you know? So we play at my house, invite some people over so they can dance, like a party. As long as we straighten the place up before she gets home at six A.M., she'll never know.”
“Okay, I'll call you back—” Jason began.
“So we need a bunch of people here,” Mitch said.
“I know some people to call.” Jason thought of the phone numbers stuffed in his pocket. “I might have more by the end of the night.”
“Make sure there's plenty of girls,” Mitch said. “We want it to look pretty, you know? And we need somebody with a good camera.”
Mona tapped her foot loudly on the pavement. Jason hurried her way.
“I think Tadd Gruber has stuff like that,” Jason said. “He's in the A/V club and everything.”
“Sounds good. Get him here.” Jason stepped toward the door, but Mona blocked him with her fist.
“No cell phones!” Mona shrieked.
“Sorry!” Jason hung up, and she moved a step to let him inside.
Jason returned Tadd's laptop to him. “Hey, Tadd, you have a video camera, right?”
“Oh, yeah. Canon VIXIA Camcorder, full HD, a ten-x lens—”
“Is it good for recording sound?”
“I can get some microphones from the A/V room at school. There's a sweet Soundcraft LX7ii mixing board, too—”
“Can you get them by tomorrow night?” Jason asked.
“Sure. The school janitor owes me a favor.”
Jason didn't even want to ask about that. “Great. Want to direct our new video?”
“I'm your guy.” Tadd winked and made a gun with his fingers. “I'm ready to shoot ya.”
“Right. Thanks.” Jason walked toward the front counter.
“Hey, Jason?” Tadd called. “Erin's gonna be there, right?”
“We're all going to be there.”
“Can't wait to frame her up in my lens. Bam! Hot stuff!” Tadd made a squarish frame shape with his hands and looked at Jason through it.
Jason was already starting to regret asking Tadd.
“Welcome to Buddy McSlawburger’s,” Jason said as he stepped up to the counter. “Would you like to try the Slawburger Special?”
