“If he is here for the festival, where is his beak?” demanded Günter, waving his French bread in the air.
Bolt scratched his head. “I don’t have a beak. And what festival? I’ve never been to a festival before.”
The paper-cut woman’s smile vanished, and her rosy cheeks turned white. Despair re-iced the room like a snow cone machine.
“I knew it!” shouted Günter, pointing his bread at Bolt. “Why are you here, whale hater?”
“I don’t hate whales. Truly.” Bolt wondered if he might be safer bolting back to the train platform. But then he remembered the penguin lurking outside. No, it was safer here, even with a threatening man wielding a dangerous loaf of crusty bread.
Bolt stood straight. He was here for his family. His real family. The thought made him braver. He stuck his chin up. “I’m here to live with a Baron,” he declared with a confident smile. The crowd gasped. Some people bit their fingernails, and other people bit their neighbor’s fingernails. There was a lot of fingernail biting going on. Bolt’s confidence ebbed. “Maybe you know him? Baron Chordata?”
The rosy-cheeked woman screamed. Three people fainted.
“He spoke the name of the cursed!” shouted Günter.
The bartender gripped a ceramic mug so tightly, the cup shattered in his hand. The broken pieces rained to the floor, but the bartender didn’t seem to notice.
Bolt told himself that he was fierce and strong like a thunderbolt, and not like someone who wanted to bolt out of the room and hide under a bed.
Günter spun, jabbing his loaf of French bread and glaring at Bolt. “This boy is evil. I say we tie him up. Feed him to the alligators.” He looked around the room. “Anyone have any alligators?” No one answered. Apparently, the room was alligator-less. “Well, we could feed him to something else, then.”
“He’s just a child,” said the formerly rosy-cheeked woman. She was no longer screaming, but her cheeks remained ashen.
“Evil comes in all sizes,” said Günter. “You all know that as well as I.”
“I-I’m only an orphan,” sputtered Bolt. “Or at least I was. But I’ll soon be going on picnics and playing water polo with Baron Chordata. Families play water polo together, right?”
No one answered his question, for upon hearing the Baron’s name, two more people screamed and one fainted.
“Don’t say his name,” hissed the bartender.
“He will eat you for dinner. Or maybe lunch!” warned a short man at a table near Bolt. “Or breakfast. I always find a big breakfast is important.”
The crowd murmured in agreement.
“Stop scaring the child,” said the bartender. “No one knows if the Baron eats children. Not live ones, anyway.”
I’m not scared, I’m fierce, Bolt said to himself with as much fierceness as he could muster, which was very little. Surely the Baron could not be as bad as everyone seemed to think.
“I say we tie this whale hater up! Make him talk!” howled the bread-waving Günter.
“I really don’t hate whales,” Bolt said.
“Leave the child alone,” said the bartender. He spoke in a loud and forceful tone. “It’s late, Günter. You should call it a night.”
“But he is in league with the devil, I tell you!” The man hoisted the bread over his head, narrowly missing smashing a lantern that hung from the ceiling by an iron chain.
“Stop living in the past,” growled the bartender. “All you whale folk live in the past.”
“The times are changing,” roared the old man. “Or rather, going back to how they were, so you could say times changed and are now reverting. But the Brotherhood is the sworn protector of Brugaria. It is needed now, more than ever.”
“Go home,” growled the bartender, pointing to the door. To the crowd he shouted, “And the rest of you, go back to your business. Free grog on the house.”
The patrons cheered, the promise of free grog shaking their interest in everything else. As Günter walked toward the door, he grunted and stared at the orphan, his eyes slits of menace. “I’ll be watching you, mark my words.” Before leaving he stopped twice to give Bolt an evil eye and wiggle his loaf of bread. “Whale hater,” he mumbled, and slammed the door behind him.
“I don’t hate whales!” Bolt called out, but the man was already gone.
While the patrons resumed their previous conversations, the bartender waved Bolt over to the bar. “Stay away from Günter if you know what’s good for you,” warned the burly barkeep. “But do you speak the truth? Are you here to stay with the Baron?”
Bolt nodded. “Yes, Baron Chordata.”
In the back of the room, two people screamed and fainted.
“Stop doing that. Remember, some things are better left unsaid. Such as ‘Poor kid poured curd pulled cod’ ten times fast, which almost no one can do.”
Bolt tried to say the tongue twister, but only got as far as saying it twice before messing up. “That’s hard. But why is everyone scared of . . . the Baron?”
The bartender did not answer the question. Instead, he pointed across the bar. “You are being beckoned.”
There was a small table in a cobweb-cluttered corner of the room. Shadows and a dull haze hovered over someone sitting there wearing a gray, floppy, and pointy witch hat. The figure stared at Bolt with glowing green eyes, waving Bolt over with a dark, bony hand,
“I wouldn’t keep her waiting if I were you,” said the bartender. “The Fortune Teller does not like waiting.”
Bolt trudged slowly toward the waving hand. “I’ll be brave, for my father,” he mumbled to himself. If not for that mumbling, he would have likely bolted out of the room and under a bed, as far away as possible.
Later, he would regret that he did not.
5.
The Fortune Teller’s Warning
As Bolt approached the Fortune Teller, he heard music, as if from a wind chime. It sounded a bit like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” but a particularly spooky and off-key version of it.
A woman sat at the table with deep crevices on her forehead and sunken, bloodshot eyes. Wispy gray hair peeked out from her witch hat, which also had a dead, blackened rose sticking out from its side. Her long black dress, with lace and ribbons that looked like spiderwebs, might have been appropriate for marrying a goblin. Dozens of golden chains circled her neck, most holding charms such as small penguins, tiny ornate spice boxes, animal feet, and animal toes. One necklace held a long sharp white tooth.
The chains clanged against one another. That was the wind-chime-like music Bolt heard floating in the air.
“Sit,” she ordered. Bolt did, and shifted uneasily in his too-tight pants. “I am the town fortune teller, Blazenda.” She spoke with a thick, slightly German accent.
Bolt stared at her. “I’ve never met a fortune teller before.”
“I thought every town had a fortune teller.”
“Not where I come from.”
“You must come from far away, then.” Blazenda absentmindedly played with the white tooth hanging from her neck. “You are here to stay with the Baron?”
Bolt nodded. He almost spoke the Baron’s name, but thought better of it.
The Fortune Teller grabbed Bolt’s hands and squeezed. Bolt winced in pain from Blazenda’s tight grip. “Now, pay attention. I have important things to say. Do not be distracted by my floppy hat, my melodic chains, or my outfit that might be appropriate for marrying a goblin.” Bolt tried to yank his hands from the ice-cold grip of the Fortune Teller, but her grasp was like a vise. “Listen to me,” hissed Blazenda while squeezing tighter. “You are in terrible danger.”
“You’re hurting my fingers,” said Bolt, grimacing.
Blazenda did not relax her grip. She peered deeply into Bolt’s eyes. “Leave while you still can. Go back from where you came. Beware the penguins!” she h
owled.
Bolt blinked. “Wait. Pengoes or penguins?”
“Penguins. What’s a pengoe?”
“Never mind.”
The Fortune Teller cackled, but no one seemed to pay her any attention. The rest of the bar patrons were too wrapped up in their own conversations and free drinks to heed a cackling fortune teller. She cackled again, louder.
“Why are you cackling?”
“I’m a fortune teller. We cackle.” She gasped, and stared at Bolt’s neck and the birthmark on it. “The sign!”
Bolt tilted his head. “It’s nothing. It looks like a bird, I know.”
“Not a bird. It is a penguin! It is why you are here, as legend has foretold.” She then recited a chant:
“When the moon is high, beware the mark,
Where danger lurks and penguins bark.
For you shall change, you shall transform,
When penguin spirit inside is born.”
“What does that mean?” asked Bolt.
Blazenda cackled again.
Bolt fought to stop his shaking knees. I am fierce! I am a thunderbolt! He thought those words, but did not believe them. He trembled.
The Fortune Teller leaned in closer. “Your life is in peril. All our lives are in peril. Only you can save us from the Baron’s evil. You are the chosen one.”
“Chosen for what? Save you from what? I’m not brave or mighty, I’m just someone who bolts under beds. And why is everyone so afraid of Baron Chordata?”
Someone on the opposite side of the room screamed and fainted.
“Sorry,” mumbled Bolt.
The Fortune Teller released her grip on Bolt’s hands to his great relief, and clutched the animal-tooth necklace around her neck. “This may be your only chance. If you free yourself, you may free us all.”
“What does that mean? I don’t understand.”
The door opened, and Blazenda looked up and hissed. The room grew quiet. Everyone stared at the newcomer.
He was tall, a giant of a man whose frame took up nearly the entire doorway. He wore a black overcoat over a black shirt, with black pants and, oddly, white high-top sneakers. Countless scars ran across his face, like lines traced into the earth. One eye blinked; the other seemed to be made of glass. A shudder of despair filled the room, as did the smell of raw fish. The man reeked of it. He lifted his hand and pointed a finger out, straight toward Bolt.
“Come with me, boy. But hurry. Your life dependsss on it.” He dragged out the s so he sounded somewhat like a snake, only more slithery.
Bolt shook so much that his seat almost toppled over.
6.
Penguins Calling
Bolt sat at the Fortune Teller’s side, his knees shaking and knocking together like maracas. Together with the Fortune Teller’s clanging chains, it made a jaunty little tune, although no one danced.
“Go,” hissed the Fortune Teller. “Find me in the Old and Seedy Part of Town if you survive, which doesn’t seem very likely. But there is a chance. While you live, there is a chance for us all. Remember, you are chosen.”
“You said that before, but what does it mean? What does any of this mean?”
Blazenda shook her head and said no more.
“Now. Hurry,” grunted the giant by the front door.
With a loud gulp, Bolt stood and strode toward the fish-smelling brute, one foot ready to race the opposite way. It made walking more difficult.
“Are you Baron Chordata?” Bolt asked the man as they stepped outside. Inside the tavern, two people screamed. Bolt heard two thumps, probably from people fainting.
“Me?” the man asked, the word coated with a thick layer of disgust. “I am merely hisss driver. Do I look like a monster to you?”
“Sort of,” admitted Bolt.
Parked in front of the entrance was a carriage led by two horses, black as the blackest part of night and then blacker still, if such a black was possible. The powerful beasts stood at attention, silent except for loud breathing. Clouds of steam blew through the cold air from their nostrils.
A lone lantern flickered from the perch in the cab up front.
“You may call me the Fish Man,” said the giant. He gestured to the carriage. “Our ride.”
“Don’t you have a car?” asked Bolt, eyeing the transportation warily.
“There are no carsss in Brugaria.” The Fish Man stepped up on the footboard and into the driver’s seat.
“How come?”
“Becaussse there are no gasss stationsss.” A penguin bark rang out from deep within the dark forest. The giant quivered and his eyes widened. “We must go. The Baron will be upset if hisss new boy isss delayed. Or worssse.”
Goose bumps climbed up Bolt’s back like an army of leeches. Rather than sitting alone in the carriage in back, Bolt joined the Fish Man on the front bench. It felt safer. As soon as he sat, the horses sprang forward in a frenzied gallop. Bolt grabbed the side rails to keep from flying off. The carriage rambled across the dirt road and into the forest and its dismal darkness.
More penguin barking erupted from the woods, and the horses picked up the pace even more. Bolt could not see where they were going, or where they had been. He could just hear the scraping of branches against the back carriage and the horrid barking everywhere.
“Why such a rush?” asked Bolt, shouting over the din.
“We need to be back, safe, before midnight. There are many thingsss in the night. Thingsss we do not talk about.”
“Like what?”
But sure enough, the Fish Man did not talk about them, just as he had warned. The horses continued racing forward.
The barks were everywhere.
Bolt could feel each one, almost as if penguins were sitting next to him. The sounds echoed inside his head, sounds of anger and, for one fleeting moment, a craving for fish sticks.
Bolt turned to the Fish Man. “Can you understand the penguins?”
The giant glanced at Bolt, his eyebrows arched. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” Bolt touched the birthmark on his neck. It tingled.
The terrifying barks continued, and Bolt wanted the thoughts out of his head. But they remained, growing louder and more vicious as they banged around inside him like Ping-Pong balls sucked up by a vacuum cleaner.
Bolt reached for his bag and the stuffed penguin crammed within, hoping it might bring him a small bit of comfort, but stopped, reminding himself he must be brave. He was home now. His father was waiting. He would be strong. For him.
He wondered how the steeds knew where to go, with only the small slivers of moonlight to guide them. More barking erupted, a large cluster of yaps, closer now, and the horses trembled and fought against their bits.
Bolt took a deep breath. “Is it a long way?”
“Asss long asss the dead rot in their gravesss,” bellowed the giant.
Bolt wasn’t really sure how long that was, but it seemed far. He tried to stop shaking, but despite all his efforts, he only managed to keep his left pinkie still. The rest of him quaked in fear.
Bolt closed his eyes, wishing for the dark to turn to light, the barking to turn to laughter, and the Fish Man to turn into someone a little less spooky.
When Bolt opened his eyes, none of those wishes had come true.
The horses stopped, rearing up on their hind legs with panicked neighing. Bolt clung on to the seat to keep from being thrown onto the road.
“Glub-glub,” said the Fish Man, and the horses quieted. “Glub-glub.” The horses steadied.
They stood on the path, unmoving and surrounded by the dark forest. The barking around them had ceased as well. The only sound was a slow breeze through the icy tree limbs, and the horses’ panting.
“What’s wrong? Why did we stop?” asked Bolt, grabbing the Fis
h Man’s shoulder with trembling fingers.
The Fish Man pointed to the road. In front of them, a fallen tree lay on the path, blocking the way. There was no room to go around it.
The Fish Man peeled Bolt’s fingers from his shoulder and stood up. “Wait here.”
“I was planning to,” Bolt said as the Fish Man jumped down from the carriage.
Bolt thought the obstacle on the road was too big to be moved, but the Fish Man wrapped his brawny arms around its branches and, with a loud grunt, slowly dragged the dead tree off to the side.
Bolt’s sigh of relief was cut short when cold metal pressed against the front of his neck. Someone had crept up on the carriage. He suspected the fallen tree had been a trap.
A girl’s voice spoke. “If you utter a sound, I’ll slit your throat.”
Bolt gulped, loudly.
“I said not to make a sound, and that includes loud gulping,” the girl hissed, her voice firm and cruel. She pressed her weapon against Bolt’s skin, but not so hard as to draw blood. “I should slit your throat for that noisy gulp, but I’ll give you a second chance. Just be thankful I’m the one kidnapping you. The other forest bandits would not be as merciful.”
Bolt gulped again, but this time he gulped much more quietly.
7.
Robbers in the Night
Brutus was the largest and strongest of the Brugarian Forest Bandits, and so he had been chosen to cut down the large oak and drag it into the middle of the road. Annika had watched him, from her hiding spot in a nearby tree. None of the bandits knew she was there. She wasn’t allowed to go on carriage robberies or kidnappings—her father strictly forbade it—but she was almost thirteen years old and that was quite old enough for bandit deeds, thank you very much.
She had followed the gang that night, quietly and carefully, hiding in the shadows. It hadn’t been too difficult. Annika, after all, was the greatest bandit who ever lived.
Or, rather, Annika would be the greatest bandit who ever lived, someday. She just had to prove it by doing something bandit-like. She was ready. She had been training to be a bandit, in private, for as long as she could remember, throwing knives in her tent and speaking in front of a mirror in a firm, cruel voice.
The Curse of the Werepenguin Page 3
