Knight-napped!

by Ursula Vernon

  Danny had to admit that the iguana was onto something. “Right. More reconnaissance. And no, I’m not going to spell it.”

  He looked up at the pigeon.

  Fluffy thought for a minute. “Coo!”

  They went back through the doors and up a shallower flight of stairs. There was a closed door at the end of the hall, next to a poster of a sad-looking rhinoceros.

  “. . . Coo . . .” said Fluffy, in what, for a pigeon, was probably a whisper.

  Danny and Wendell approached the door and Danny leaned his head against it, listening.

  “Crowd noises,” he reported to Wendell.

  Wendell nodded.

  Danny reached for the doorknob and eased the door open.

  The door led to a narrow balcony. The seats were empty. Danny tiptoed to the edge and looked down.

  It was the arena.

  Honestly, when Danny heard the word “arena” he thought . . . big. Amphitheater big. Hockey arena–sized, at least. Lights! Big video monitors with instant replay! Rows of seats that went up so high that you got altitude sickness!

  The arena in Castle Wanderpoll was a small sawdust circle, about the size of the little rings where people show farm animals at the county fair. It had a low wall and two doors opening into it. There were three rows of seats in a circle around the railing, slightly raised, and the balcony had another two rows. (Actually, parts of the balcony didn’t even have that. Somebody had taken out the seats on the side opposite Danny and was using it to store some boxes and an old pool table.) There were banners with the familiar parsnip-and-chicken, but they looked old and faded and at least one had been a bedsheet in a former life.

  It was . . . well, pretty dinky, actually. And it looked like Wendell had been right, because there were only four knights in the audience, and another very small knight in the middle of the arena.

  “Do you see Spencer?” whispered Wendell.

  Danny shook his head. “They can’t have slain him already—they didn’t have time!”

  “The one in the arena,” said Wendell. “That must be Freddy?”

  Danny studied the small knight. “He’s awfully small,” he said slowly. “And he’s having a lot of trouble lifting his sword. I don’t know if he could slay Spencer.”

  “Just ’cause you’re small doesn’t mean you’re not fierce,” said Wendell. “I mean, piranhas are small! And shrews. And rabid lemmings.”

  “I wish we had some rabid lemmings,” Danny sighed. “They’d be a great distraction for the knights.” (He could actually see a number of uses for rabid lemmings in everyday life, but this didn’t seem like the time to get into it.)

  “There must be at least one more knight somewhere,” whispered Wendell. “And Christiana should be here somewhere too . . .”

  The castellan was one of the four. He stood up and spread his hands.

  Danny leaned over. “Say, Wendell—”

  “People get invested with an office or a rank,” said Wendell. “That’s why judges say ‘By the power invested in me.’ The act of investing Freddy is his investiture.”

  “If the nerd thing doesn’t work out, you have a future writing vocabulary quizzes.”

  “Our old traditions have gone un-honored for too long!” cried Freddy’s grandfather. “Too many of our sons and daughters have never slain a dragon. But one more Wanderpoll shall stand forth to face the foe! Release the dragon!”

  Danny stopped worrying about vocabulary.

  One of the doors leading to the arena opened. Danny caught a glimpse of a knight behind the door, and then—

  Spencer stumbled out into the arena. The small knight in the middle lifted his sword (not without difficulty).

  “Let the battle commence!” cried the castellan. “Let Sir Frederick prove himself worthy of knighthood!”

  He sat down with a jangling thump.

  Spencer looked at Freddy.

  Freddy looked at Spencer.

  Danny put a hand over his face in sheer embarrassment.

  “This is not going to go down as one of history’s great battles,” said Wendell.

  The two combatants circled each other. Freddy couldn’t turn very fast because his sword was too heavy for him, so Spencer slowed down to match.

  “So that’s why he didn’t want us to interfere,” said Danny. “He and Freddy set it up. It’s a fake fight.”

  Spencer charged. The crowd (what there was of it) roared. Freddy quickly realized that he couldn’t do anything useful with his sword, dropped it, and prepared to take Danny’s cousin on barehanded.

  Wendell put his hand over his mouth and tried to stifle hysterical laughter.

  “This is horrible,” said Danny. “Either one of them is going to trip on the stupid sword and cut himself, or the knights are going to send somebody in to finish the job.”

  “You think so?”

  In the arena, Spencer and Freddy rolled around on the ground. Freddy managed to get on top and sat on the small dragon’s chest.

  “Um—um—I have you now!”

  Danny tensed. Wendell bit the side of his hand to keep from laughing.

  “You’ll never slay me!” yelled Spencer.

  “I’ve got—um—a sword! Somewhere!” Freddy went for the sword.

  He actually had to climb off Spencer to get to the sword. Spencer waited politely on the ground.

  “And now, with this sword, I’ll slay you, you—you—nasty dragon, you!” shouted Freddy, raising the sword over his head.

  The point of the sword wobbled downward.

  “Aaaargh!” cried Spencer. He stood up so that he could dramatically fall again.

  For a minute, Danny thought they were going to pull it off. It was a stupid fight, but maybe the knights didn’t know any better.

  But there was a long, awkward silence . . . and then the castellan stood up and said, “Now cut its head off!”

  Wendell stopped laughing.

  Danny swung over the railing, hung from it briefly, and dropped to the last row of chairs below.

  He vaulted over the railing around the arena and ran toward the fallen Spencer. It looked like the sword was sticking straight up out of his chest.

  Freddy, his eyes very wide, fell back. He ran for the far side of the arena.

  “Spencer!” hissed Danny, feeling a hot, fiery pressure in his throat. “Spencer, get up!” He dropped to his knees. “If you get your head cut off, your mom is gonna kill me!”

  “Go away!” whispered Spencer out of the side of his mouth. “You’re ruining everything!”

  “Say what now?”

  “It’s a fake! He’s pretending to slay me so I can get out of here! We worked it all out with his sister—oh—except for the head-chopping bit, we didn’t think of that—”

  “Fetch the Lady Christiana!” he cried. “This is a foe more suited to her size! Let her earn her knighthood as well!”

  The door to the arena opened. A figure in full armor clomped out, and unlike Freddy, she didn’t have any trouble carrying her sword.

  Danny was pretty sure that Christiana would not actually try to stab him with a sword. Sure, she’d said some pretty insulting things, but Wendell had said it was acting, and Wendell was usually right about that sort of thing.

  Plus, they were buddies! Danny would have had a hard time stabbing anybody with a sword—I mean, really doing it, in real life—let alone a good friend. They’d braved pack rats and fairies and jackalope smugglers together! They might not have a perfect friendship, but he and Christiana totally had each other’s backs.

  This certainty lasted right up to the point where Christiana lowered her sword and charged at him.

  “Yerrkk!” said Danny, and dove out of the way.

  He hit the sawdust floor of the arena and rolled. Chris
tiana swung her sword at him. She missed by a mile, but there was a nasty little whistle as the blade sliced through the air.

  “Christiana!?”

  “Die, foul dragon scum!” yelled Christiana.

  “But—”

  She swung.

  He ducked.

  Now he was starting to get mad. Again.

  She lowered the sword point until it was facing directly at his chest.

  “Christiana—”

  “Die, draconic lackwit!”

  Danny was pretty sure that was insulting, even without Wendell there to tell him.

  “But—”

  She charged him.

  He closed one eye, took aim, and spat fire at her feet. It wasn’t anywhere near enough to burn her, but the puff of smoke looked awfully impressive.

  (Truth was, he felt horribly guilty about breathing fire even near Christiana. His mom would kill him if she ever found out. And “But she was coming at me with a sword!” just wouldn’t cut it as an excuse. His mom would probably say: “Then you should have found a grown-up and told them,” and never mind that all the grown-ups in the area were wearing armor and yelling for his blood.)

  The knights were going crazy. Danny caught a glimpse of Wendell in the stands.

  The iguana had apparently climbed down without anybody noticing. A knight was elbowing him in the ribs and Wendell was elbowing him back, like two spectators at a soccer game. Fluffy was clinging to Wendell’s head, flapping wildly.

  Christiana shook herself off, wiped ashes from her face—and charged him.

  Again.

  “Seriously!?” Danny yelled.

  She slammed into him, shoulder first, and drove him back against the arena wall.

  The knights leaped to their feet, straining to see the action.

  “Come on!” hissed Christiana in his ear. “We have to make it look good!”

  “Ah-wuh?” said Danny.

  “We’re acting! It’s an act! Now pretend I’m killing you!” She clouted him over the head with the hilt of the sword.

  “OW!” said Danny. He didn’t have to pretend very hard—that hurt!

  Christiana put him in a headlock. “Foul—capitalist—running dog—” She leaned in. “Once you and Spencer both look slain, Freddy’s sister will come in to help clean up. She’s super-nice, she’ll help us escape.”

  “But she’s a knight!” Danny pretended to struggle. Christiana’s headlocks were better than Wendell’s, but he was mostly worried about the sword, which was perilously close to his face.

  “Yeah, well, she’s also the one who gave me the key!”

  “They’re fiberglass,” Christiana said. “I checked. Far as I can tell, they haven’t seen a real dragon out here in years and years.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But they wanted to cut Spencer’s head off!”

  “It’s mostly the granddad. I think the others just do what he tells them, since Freddy’s mom is out of town, and she’s the one who stands up to him. Now breathe fire!” she whispered.

  “Um . . . I kinda have to be mad . . .” Danny wasn’t mad anymore, just very confused.

  “Remember that time in third grade when your pants ripped and Big Eddy wrote ‘Danny wears Super Skink panties!’ on the board?”

  Danny took a deep, roaring breath and shot smoke out of his nostrils. Christiana took a step back.

  “Why—you—you— They called me Skinkypants for days!” Danny stomped across the arena, breathing fire. The knights were screaming. Christiana retreated, waving her sword.

  Even as annoyed as he was about the Super Skink panties incident, Danny was careful not to actually hit Christiana. But if the knights wanted a show—well, they were going to get a show!

  He flamed. He frothed. He ran at Christiana waving his arms and spouting smoke.

  Freddy cowered on one side of the arena, over the “body” of Spencer, who had forgotten he was supposed to be dead and was watching with wide eyes. Fortunately the knights were much too intent on Danny and Christiana to notice.

  He flung himself at Christiana, caught her sword under one arm, and threw himself to the ground, kicking wildly.

  “I am slain!” he cried. “You’ve slain me, you—uh—horrible knight of dooooom!”

  “Well,” said Christiana, “thank goodness that’s ov—”

  “SLAIN!” screamed Danny, thrashing around on the floor of the arena. “OH THE PAIN!”

  “He’s dead,” said Christiana.

  “Everything’s . . . getting dark . . .”

  “Really truly dead,” Christiana added, kicking him. “As in the not-talking-anymore kind of dead.”

  Wendell scrambled over the wall and down into the arena. “Right!” said Christiana. “Let’s get out of here . . .” She raised her voice again. “We shall take them and cut their heads off for the library wall!”

  The knights were cheering wildly. Christiana took a bow and then pulled Freddy out into the center of the arena and made him take a bow too.

  Meanwhile, another knight had come out of the doorway. She was taller than Freddy, but not by much, and she was chewing gum rather loudly. She and Wendell grabbed Danny by the wrists and ankles and carried him through the door while Christiana and Freddy kept the knights distracted.

  The doorway led to a small chamber with benches like a locker room. Danny sat up. “That was awesome!”

  Freddy’s sister shook her head and laughed. She looked about fifteen years old. “That was quite a performance, kiddo. Even if you hammed up the death scene. Let me go get your cousin . . .” She went out again. A minute later, she and Christiana carried Spencer into the locker, followed by Freddy, followed by Fluffy the pigeon.

  “Are you Danny?” asked Freddy. “I mean, I guess you must be . . . Spencer told me all about you!”

  “It’s fine,” said Wendell, making soothing gestures. “You can both be endangered species.”

  Freddy’s sister grinned. “Not nearly as endangered as Granddad’s gonna be when Mom gets back from her trip and finds out what he’s been doing. Kidnapping kids in the middle of a sleepover!” She shook her head in disbelief. “And endangered kids! Mom is gonna be furious.”

  Freddy stared at his feet. “Granddad’s usually not like this—he’s pretty nice, most of the time—but he just goes crazy when dragons are involved.”

  “It’s cool,” said Danny. “Well, not cool, but you know. My grandfather Turlingsward gets really weird about knights too. Although he’s never actually kidnapped one.” (Privately he thought this was because it would require far too much effort, not because of any great virtue on his grandfather’s part.)

  “They’d probably get along really well . . . until they tried to slay each other,” said Freddy sadly. “Anyway, when Granddad found out that Spencer was a dragon, he got this stupid idea I should slay him to uphold the tradition of dragon-slaying knights. I think he’s mad because he never got to slay a dragon himself.” He looked up at Danny worriedly. “I’m really sorry, Danny. Spencer and I had it all worked out, so I’d pretend to slay him and Granddad’d be proud of me and everything would go back to normal, but I didn’t think you and Christiana would have to fight too.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mind . . .” said Christiana, grinning. “I’ve wanted to hit Danny with a sword since third grade.” She elbowed him in the ribs.

  Danny elbowed her back. “Yeah, well . . . we’ve still got a score to settle about the Super Skink panties thing.” Christiana snickered.

  Apparently she hadn’t minded having fire breathed at her. It occurred to Danny that if Christiana really and truly believed he was a dragon, life might be a little easier now.

  “So now what do we do?” asked Wendell. “Can we just leave?”

>   “And what stops Freddy’s granddad from going after any other dragons he runs across?” Danny added.

  “You could press charges,” said Christiana. “I mean, that’s the usual thing to do when you’ve been kidnapped.”

  “We’d have to explain about the dragon thing,” said Danny.

  “And we’d have to explain about the knight thing,” said Freddy.

  “Mythical creatures like us survive by keeping a low profile,” said Freddy’s sister.

  “Anyway,” she added, “I don’t think you have to worry about Granddad. He doesn’t get out of the house very much. And I called Mom this morning when I realized what had happened, so she’s on her way home. When she gets back tomorrow morning, he’ll wish he’d never even heard of dragons.”

  “There were like three other knights, though,” said Danny. “Don’t we need to worry about them?”

  Both Freddy and his sister laughed.

  “Them?” Freddy’s sister rolled her eyes. “Those are my cousins. They’re super-lazy. They’ll do whatever Mom tells them . . . unless they want to move out and get jobs and get their own apartments.”

  “Yeah, she’ll totally tell ’em,” said Freddy. He hitched himself up and said, in an angry falsetto, “When you’re under my roof, mister, you’ll do what I tell you or you can hit the highway!”

  “Cousins can be a problem,” said Danny, and looked innocent when Spencer gave him a suspicious look.

  Honestly, he was just as happy to let another knight handle it. The dragon method of handling knights mostly involved a lot of fire and swords and it would be awfully messy.

  “Well,” said Freddy’s sister, “if that’s settled—”