Full-Blooded Fantasy

by Steve Erickson

  Mallory shook her head. “That could have been written there ages ago.”

  “It wasn’t,” Jared insisted. “I saw the desk and there was nothing written there before.”

  “Calm down,” Mallory said.

  “Mallory, I saw it!”

  Mallory grabbed his shirt in her fist. “Be quiet!”

  “Mallory! Let go of your brother!” Their mother was standing at the top of the narrow kitchen stairs wearing a less-than-pleased expression. “I thought we already went through this. If I see any of you out of your beds, I am going to lock you in your rooms.”

  Mallory let go of Jared’s shirt with a long glare.

  “What if we need to go to the bathroom?” Simon asked.

  “Just go to bed,” their mother said.

  When they got upstairs, Jared and Simon went off to their room. Jared pulled the covers over his head and scrunched his eyes shut.

  “I believe you…about the note and all,” Simon whispered, but Jared didn’t reply. He was just glad to be in bed. He thought he could probably stay there for a whole week.

  CLEMENCY POGUE:

  FAIRY KILLER

  by JT PETTY

  illustrated by WILL DAVIS

  Clemency Pogue, upon finding herself attacked by a wicked fairy, remembers a lesson learned from Peter Pan. She shouts, “I don’t believe in fairies,” until the creature drops dead. After a mischievous hobgoblin arrives to tell Clem that she’s killed six other fairies, Clem decides it’s her duty to set the world aright. Clemency Pogue: Fairy Killer is the first book in Clem’s hilarious adventures.

  JT PETTY is a screenwriter and director. His film Soft for Digging was an Official Selection for the Sundance Film Festival. His film Mimic: Sentinel is in postproduction. This is his first book. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

  WILL DAVIS has an animation background, with experience working as a storyboard artist on television shows and commercials. This is the first book he has illustrated. Will lives in Pensacola, Florida.

  Visit www.SimonSaysKids.com for more on Clemency Pogue: Fairy Killer.

  Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

  New York • London • Toronto • Sydney

  PROLOGUE

  OF EVERYTHING there is good and bad. This is just how things work.

  Ideas, dogs, smells, behavior, songs, guys, machines, cheeses, rabbits, shoes, friends, enemies, days, dreams, fairies; of all of these things and others, there are good and bad.

  But rules cannot be viewed except by exceptions, and the exceptions are these: newborn mammals and bees. Newborn mammals are invariably good. Bees, however, are all bad.

  If you are a bee sympathizer and find yourself insulted by the above remark, you can petition for the refund of the cost of this book. If this book was a gift and cost you nothing, the author will gladly refund you the love of the giver. If you paid for this book yourself and would like a refund, you may mail the author a self-addressed stamped envelope and a brief note explaining your case.

  The author will promptly throw away everything but your address, which will be passed on to the authorities, in the hopes that they will detain you as a bee sympathizer, obviously insane, and in need of either treatment or imprisonment before you can do yourself or others harm.

  CHAPTER 1

  CLEMENCY POGUE was a child who listened to the stories she was told. It was a quality that saved her life once, and started her on a great adventure.

  These stories were spun for Clem by her parents, who were good, kind, and creative people. Unfortunately they worked far away in the mansion of a very rich, very fancy man on the other side of the forest. In the gray of every morning they would march off to work, leaving Clem to her own devices until twilight time, when they would rush back home, her father carrying the evening’s meal, her mother percolating with richly embellished stories distilled from the day’s events.

  “We met a polo player today with a face longer than his horse,” she would say, or, “This afternoon the millionaire’s nephew was pushed into a river by the lady he was courting. The young man was kidnapped by beavers and ended up as part of a dam. The millionaire is waiting until tomorrow to pull the boy out because the fishing on the other side of the dam is so good.”

  As Clem’s mom unraveled these tales, her father would prepare the meal he had brought home, piling cornucopious gobs of savories and sweets onto the big wooden kitchen table. During dinner Clem would describe what discoveries and imaginations had occupied her day.

  “Today,” she would say, “I made cold sassafras tea that was sweeter than makes sense. So sweet, so sweet that when I left it alone, it was overwhelmed by its own sweetness. It bubbled and fizzed and could very well change the world.”

  After supper, from huge earthen mugs, they would drink steaming hot cider or tea or chocolate, and Clem’s dad would sift through one of the many old and good stories he knew.

  Her dad’s stories were far too fantastic and sensible to have taken place in the world we take for granted. He told the old stories like Peter Pan and Wendy. He told stories that he made up as he went along like The Epic of Gilbert and His Ambulatory Tub. He told stories that were combinations of the two, mongrel tales like The Tragi-Comic Blinding of Three Mice.

  The steam from her hot chocolate rising to tickle the cuddle of her chin, Clem sat listening to her dad:

  “…and as soon as Wendy had spoken, Tinkerbell dropped dead. Dead as a gossamer-winged doorknob.

  “‘What have I done?’ cried Wendy.

  “‘You’ve killed her, you brute!’ said Peter. His shadow covered its eyes in horror.

  “‘But how?’ she asked.

  “‘Why, you disbelieved her to death.’ Peter explained, ‘Fairies are strong, but such delicate things. Not too much more than intentions with wings.’”

  Clemency listened, and a good thing, too.

  CHAPTER 2

  IN EARLY GRAY of the morning, Mr. and Mrs. Pogue marched off through the woods to work.

  The sun crept upward sluggishly, fat and golden. As it just passed the horizon, setting aglow the tops of the trees but leaving the forest dark and secret below, Clemency walked out into the woods to begin the day’s distractions. There would be no school until the leaves began to turn brown and the days began to shorten. That season was not so very far off, and Clem intended to make the most of her remaining vacation.

  She held in her left hand a walking stick that she slung over her shoulder, with a basket hanging from the back end like a hobo’s satchel. The basket was for the collection of sassafras roots; she intended to continue with her experiments in fizzing bubbly sweetness.

  The walking stick was not for walking. Clem knew that there were places in the forest where danger lurked. And where it did not lurk, danger squatted, crouched, or lounged. There was one place where danger reclined, but Clemency usually avoided it. The walking stick she carried in case of danger, in case she came upon a wolf or a troll who needed to be shown what for.

  Clem’s pants rasped softly, swst swst swst, as her knees brushed with every stride. The pants were made of burlap and were a point of pride for Clemency. She had sewn them herself, and they were quite stylish. Unfortunately, the only fabric she could get her hands on was burlap, so they were a little rough around the seams.

  The trees in the forest were as dark as cast iron, older than the dirt they grew in, fatter than walruses, and more twisted than yours truly. A carpet of moss covered the earth and climbed the trees, and was faintly luminous in the green light filtering down through the leaves.

  Clem walked slowly about, following her nose toward the patches of sassafras saplings. The tingly, earthy smell led her farther and farther into the deep, dark woods, her path dotted with sassafras that she pulled from the soft earth, shook clean of dirt, and tossed over her shoulder into the basket.

  As the sun approached its zenith, Clem came to a great gorge that dropped abruptly from the edge of the trees. The ground just stopped at
a rocky precipice, the exposed roots of ancient oaks dangling precariously into empty space.

  Clem, tempter of fate and gravity, kicked a pebble over the edge and watched it tumble slowly down—a tiny white dot that grew tinier as it tumbled through space, falling and falling and falling for ages before tapping against the side of the gorge and bouncing out to tumble farther and farther still, before plunking into the lazy stream at the bottom.

  Clem whistled in admiration of the gorge’s depth. She felt the weight of her sassafras basket and decided it was about half as heavy as she could bear. She turned and started back home through the woods.

  The moss underfoot had dried with the noon sun and crunched slightly as Clem wove her way through the trees. The woods were otherwise quiet. The slight crunch of moss underfoot, the swishing of her burlap pants, and a light rustle whenever Clem shifted her sassafras basket, but no more. Until a small waspish buzz entered Clem’s ear for the briefest moment before a burning pinprick presented itself on her basket hand.

  “Oh! Drat!” Clem dropped the walking stick and basket, sassafras spilling out aromatically. She looked at her hand, a tiny red dot midway between her thumb and pointer finger, a wasp’s sting perhaps. But then another, near her elbow.

  “Drat! Drat!” Clem swatted at the air by her elbow and saw the culprit, a tiny insect, slightly smaller than a wasp, the color of yam flesh. The insect descended onto her side and stung her again.

  The otherwise peaceable Clem, thrice stung, lost her gentle disposition. She slapped the insect against her side mightily, with a gesture like a very fat man swarthily admiring his own girth.

  The insect took no heed, and stung her again, by the navel. She slapped it again, with surely enough force to kill a cow, let alone this bug. Despite the blow, the tiny scoundrel stung her again on the arm.

  Clem turned and ran. The insect pursued, diving between Clem’s flailing arms and stinging her again several times. Clem stumbled over the giant roots of the ancient trees, calling out a forlorn “Drat!” with every sting.

  Clem turned, focusing on the buzzing sound, and swatted at it. She batted the tiny aggressor against one of the great oaks. The tiny monster was stunned momentarily, and Clem turned again, falling over a root, but still moving, still running.

  The great trees whirred past like locomotives. In the back of her head Clem could still faintly hear the buzzing. The little beast was on her again. She tried to run faster, but her legs had filled with lead, her lungs were white and frozen for lack of air.

  Clem burst through a low hedge of shrubs and out onto the gorge. The exposed roots of the mighty trees dangled before her over the void.

  “Oh.” Clem was so tired. “Drat.” She turned just in time to see the infinitesimal fire bug buzz right up to her face. In the brief instant before it stung her on the tip of the nose, Clem realized what the tiny creature was.

  Its body was that of a human, tiny arms and legs, little fingers and toes like threads, a little person perfectly formed save for any bits that you could not show on television. It had a sweet-potato pallor, its skin the vibrant orange of cooked yams. From its back, four dragonfly wings whirred and buzzed like water spattering on a hot griddle.

  The tiny aggressor was a fairy, and a mean one. In its hand it held a wand like a tiny cigarette, dull white all the way up with a searing orange tip, which it thrust into the end of Clemency’s nose.

  Clem swatted at the imp in a mad-ape rage. The fairy dodged backward with malicious grace, dove forward again and stung Clemency’s cheek. Only an inch away from her eye, Clem could see the fairy grinning, bubbling over with her own evil.

  Clem drew in a great bellowsful of air, shaped her lower lip like the spout of a pitcher, and puffed upward. The fairy was blown from her face, tumbling in midair. Clem raised her arms and brought her hands together in a clap that would easily have brained an elephant.

  The fairy emerged from her hands unshaken, grinning like a barracuda. It was invincible. It dove forward at Clem’s neck, and she fell backward, trying to evade the tiny burning barb.

  She realized an important thing as her legs buckled and she fell backward. She realized that there would be no ground to catch her for the next thousand feet or so; she was falling into the gorge.

  Clem’s breath left her as the treetops arched away in a rush. Her arms pinwheeled backward. Straight as a board, she fell like a domino into the emptiness.

  Hard wood smacked her in the back; the exposed roots of the mighty oaks dangling over the nothing caught and cradled her in their gnarled bark.

  Clem was thankful for the roots, not for saving her so much as for delaying her doom. She knew there was no escape. Above her, she could see the whirring wings of the fairy glowing in the afternoon sun. It hovered, seeming to savor the anticipation of cutting off a girl’s life after a scant ten years, just on the verge of a great discovery in cold sassafras technology. She knew the fairy would not let her back onto land, and she knew that all that awaited her in the other direction was the “Big Fall,” followed by the “Big Splat.” She imagined she would not be in any state to care when it came time for the “Big Getting Eaten by Ants.” Even if she somehow managed to land in the stream at the gorge’s bottom, it would only mean that she would end up soup instead of porridge.

  And how could she fight? The fairy was indestructible, as had been amply demonstrated. But then again…

  Clem, as I said, was a child who listened to the stories she was told. Balanced over her final resting place, and the “awfully big adventure” waiting for her when she fell, the story of Peter Pan and Wendy returned to her.

  There was, in the story of the little boy who never grew up, instruction for the extermination of fairies. Clem, secret weapon on her tongue’s tip, saw past the certainty of her own death.

  She looked at the little yam-colored beast hovering above her and narrowed her eyes like a gunslinger.

  “I don’t believe in fairies,” she said.

  The fairy lurched backward and crossed its arms in front of its face. An uncertain, tense moment passed like a fart in a crowd, and then the barracuda grin returned to the fairy’s angelic face. The little monster descended on dear Clem.

  “I don’t believe in fairies!” she said again. “I don’t believe in fairies!”

  The fairy landed gracefully on Clem’s burlap pants and hopped upward toward her face.

  “I don’t believe in fairies! I don’t believe in fairies!” Clem edged backward, trying to keep the fairy away from her face. The roots began to creak, as her weight leaned more heavily on their extremes.

  “I don’t believe in fairies!” Clem stopped edging and wrapped her fingers tightly around the roots below her. The fairy arrived at her neck, took its burning-hot wand in both hands and raised it above its head like an ax.

  “I don’t believe in fairies!” Clem shouted, her words tumbling down below her into the gorge.

  The fairy’s grin faltered. An expression crossed her face as if, despite scale, she had just swallowed a bug. She did a tiny pirouette, and dropped dead as a gossamer-winged doorknob, lying in the tiny hollow where Clem’s neck and chest met.

  Clem lay for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts, which had scattered like elephants from a mouse. A perilous creaking in the roots below her put an end to her ruminations, and very carefully she turned herself around so that she was facing the edge of the cliff. She gathered herself onto her hands and knees, and the fairy fell from its cradle at the base of her neck.

  The tiny imp spiraled down into the gorge, a sunlit glint that flickered and twirled down slowly toward the rocks.

  Clem crawled up the fattest root and onto the safety of the ground just as, near the edge of the woods, the ground, in a mighty soil geyser, exploded.

  THE CONCH BEARER

  by CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI

  Turn the page to be swept along the teeming streets of Kolkata and high into the Himilayas as twelve-year-old Anand faces a magical conch shel
l, the darkest forces of evil, and the most important journey of his life.

  “A grand and magical adventure.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI was born in India and currently lives in Texas, where she teaches creative writing at the University of Houston. She is the author of four adult novels, including the acclaimed The Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, The Vine of Desire, and the newly published The Queen of Dreams; two short story collections, Arranged Marriage and The Unknown Errors of Our Lives; four volumes of poetry; and a novel for young readers, Neela: Victory Song. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and the New York Times.

  Visit www.SimonSaysKids.com for more on The Conch Bearer, including a reading group guide.

  Aladdin Paperbacks

  New York • London • Toronto • Sydney

  2

  THE NIGHT VISITOR

  It was dark by the time Anand got off work, and he was very angry. Haru was supposed to let him go by 4 P.M., but he often found an excuse to keep Anand longer. Today he had claimed that Anand had not wiped the tables properly and made him do them all over again.

  Anand had scrubbed the pocked wood of the tables furiously, biting his lip to make himself stay silent. Arguing, he knew, would only earn him a slap. Now he was going to be late for the market! Today was payday, and he had promised his mother that he would stop at the vegetable bazaar. For days now they’d had nothing to eat except potatoes and white radish boiled with rice, and he was tired of it. He had hoped to get a bunch of fresh, crisp spinach, or some sheem beans to fry up with chilies. But by now most of the pavement vendors would be gone. If only I had the power to run my hands over the tables and make them new and shiny! he thought. But no, if I knew how to work that kind of changing magic, I’d start with Haru’s black heart.

  Bone tired though he was, Anand ran all the way to the vegetable market. Just as he had feared, the bazaar was deserted, the ground littered with wilted cabbage leaves and banana peels. Only the big stall with the neon lights, the one that charged extra for everything and had a big red sign that said NO BARGAINING, was still open. Anand walked up to it warily, knowing that most of the items there were beyond his budget. But maybe there would be something not so fresh. Then his eyes were caught by the pile of mangoes. Mangoes in winter! Where had the store-keeper found them? They were plump and soft and just the right ripeness, their skins a glowing orange streaked with red. How long had it been since Anand had eaten a mango? He swallowed, imagining the sweet juice that would fill his mouth when he took a big bite, and asked how much they were.