Blondie nodded in Cedar"s direction, opening her eyes wide in warning.
"Oh, right," said Briar. "Um, nothing, Cedar. Never mind. I just... sorry, girl, I"d better not repeat it to you. You understand."
"Sure, I understand." Whatever it was, it was a secret. "Although I get why no one wants to share secrets with me, when you do that, I still feel whittled to my heartwood. Sorry! I couldn"t help saying that. And also, Blondie, there"s a huge black cricket stuck in your curls. Sorry, couldn"t help that, either! Never mind. I"m going."
Cedar ran off, Blondie"s horrified shrieks fading behind her.
A few minutes later, Raven found Cedar knee-deep in the scratchiest, meanest, most villainous blackberry bramble Cedar had ever found.
"What"s up, Cedar?" Raven asked.
Cedar wiped her dry wooden cheeks. She felt like she was crying. A knot of sadness tightened in her chest where her heart would be, running up into her head with a burning, uncomfortable heat. But no tears fell from her carved eyes. It was just her magic-enhanced imagination.
"Oh, you know," Cedar said, shrugging as if it were unimportant. "Puppet girl is cursed to blab, so real girls can"t confide in puppet girl, yadda yadda yadda."
"I"m sorry, Cedar," said Raven. "But... hey, why are you in the middle of a blackberry bush?"
Cedar held up a handful of dark purple berries. "For paints, remember? I like to make my own. The colors are rich and natural and uneven and unexpected and just luscious! I found some black walnuts-their sh.e.l.ls make beautiful black paint-and I even found some turmeric for yellow."
She reached into the thicket for a fat berry, so ripe it was black. Thorns big as shark teeth scratched at her brown arms, but Cedar didn"t feel a thing. She didn"t even feel a thing as something lurking inside the bramble took offense at her probing arm and attacked. When she lifted her hand up again, the something was stuck to her. Furry and fat, like a dog-sized guinea pig, the thing"s two rows of teeth-big-as-thorns were now clamped to her forearm.
"Oh," said Cedar.
"Whoa!" Raven stumbled back with her hands out, as if ready to cast a spell. "What is that?"
Cedar shook her arm, but the beastie didn"t budge. A pale green gas leaked from its nether end, and the girls turned their heads and gagged.
"That... smells... like a very bad ending!" said Raven.
Cedar nodded. She could smell things (unfortunately, at the moment)-or at least, the magic that made her alive enhanced her ability to imagine smells, just as it allowed her to imagine joy and sadness, fear and excitement. But the magical imagination didn"t allow her to experience sickness or pain-not even from the bite of the toothy creature clamped to her wooden arm. Still, that didn"t mean she wanted to keep it there.
She fought her way out of the blackberry bramble, and they ran back toward the amphitheater.
"Headmaster Grimm! Madam Baba Yaga! Help!" Raven called out.
"Um... something appears to be biting my arm," Cedar said softly. "I didn"t want to make a fuss, but..."
"What is that creature?" the headmaster said, his normally robust voice a mere whisper.
Baba Yaga floated forward, sitting cross-legged on her levitating stool. Her fierce eyes and determined nose and chin made her seem formidable. She pushed her tangled gray hair out of her face and squinted. "It looks like a banders.n.a.t.c.h, but that"s impossible. There are no banders.n.a.t.c.hes in Ever After."
Baba Yaga took a deep sniff of the pale green gas and then smacked her lips as if trying to identify a peculiar taste. Cedar winced. She heard Raven behind her trying not to gag too loudly.
"It smells like a banders.n.a.t.c.h," said Baba Yaga. "Or perhaps a thing wearing banders.n.a.t.c.h perfume."
"Yeah, that"s sure to be the hot new scent this spring," said Briar, her nose plugged. "Banders.n.a.t.c.h perfume-for those special occasions when you want everyone to run away screaming."
"Um... could you maybe pry it off my arm?" Cedar asked.
"Hold your piglets, Ms. Wood. I"m still investigating," said the old sorceress.
Cedar nodded. And considered maybe lying down and dying on the spot. All her cla.s.smates were staring at her. And she had a smelly, sticky beastie clamped on her arm. Cedar imagined the warm p.r.i.c.kle of a blush in her cheeks, but she knew her cheeks remained the same shade of warm brown.
"Doesn"t that hurt?" she heard someone whisper.
"Those teeth are, like, an inch long," someone else whispered.
"Yeah, but she"s, you know, made of wood."
"I never realized she was that weird."
"No kidding."
Cedar closed her eyes. Maybe if she tried really hard, she could grow into a tree and disappear behind a wall of leaves. Or maybe if she tried even harder, she could wish herself real like everyone else.
Please, please, please, Blue-Haired Fairy, please make me real now. Please don"t make me wait any longer or follow a choiceless destiny to get my Happily Ever After. I just want to be normal. Please...
"Aha!" Baba Yaga shouted, startling Cedar"s eyes open. The old sorceress mumbled a spell, then shot mustard-yellow light from her hands, and the banders.n.a.t.c.h began to vibrate. With a noise like a souffle popping in the oven, the banders.n.a.t.c.h transformed.
"Oh!" said Ashlynn Ella. "A fuzzy, cuddly bear cub! Look at you, sweetie pie!"
She pranced forward and began to pet the cub. Which was still clamped to Cedar"s arm.
"The question is," said Baba Yaga, "why was a bear cub transformed into a baby banders.n.a.t.c.h?"
"It"s so cute!" said Ashlynn. "What are you saying, cutie sweetie-bear? I can"t hear you when you"ve got an arm in your mouth."
"Uh..." said Cedar.
"But... isn"t a bear cub, I don"t know, dangerous or something?" Raven asked.
"Not nearly so dangerous as your basic fire-breathing dragon," said Daring, "of which I"ve battled dozens."
Several girls sighed dreamily.
"Who"s scared of a teddy bear?" said Faybelle Thorn.
"I am and not embarra.s.sed to admit it," said Hunter Huntsman, putting his fists on his hips. His hair-styled in a sort of relaxed Mohawk-rippled in the breeze. "A bear cub is extremely dangerous not for itself but for who is nearby."
"Like it"s mother?" Apple squeaked, staring at something in the distance.
"Exactly, Apple, like the cub"s mother," said Hunter. "Um... Ash, you should probably leave it alone. If its mother is nearby, she might misunderstand and fear we"re harming her cub."
"Nonsense," said Ashlynn, scratching behind the cub"s ears. "I"d just explain to her the situation."
"In my experience," Daring said, sharpening his sword on a rock, "a mother bear mauls first and listens to lengthy explanations second."
"Uh..." said Cedar again. Baby bear/banders.n.a.t.c.h drool had covered her arm and was dripping into a puddle at her feet.
"Hey, bear," whispered Blondie, crouching down and whispering in its ear. "Where"s the porridge? You and your folks have an unsupervised porridge-filled cabin stashed nearby? Come on, talk."
"Why a baby banders.n.a.t.c.h?" Baba Yaga was asking herself, tapping the wart on her chin with her finger.
"We should let the little fella go," Hunter said. "The momma bear could be mighty angry."
"Or she could, oh, I don"t know, also be transformed into a banders.n.a.t.c.h?" suggested Apple.
Apple pointed. Cedar looked.
A momma-bear-sized banders.n.a.t.c.h was lumbering toward them, drool oozing out of her spiky-toothed jaw, trails of curling green gas sputtering from her nether end, generally resembling a giant people-eating guinea pig that was having a really bad day.
She stood on her hind legs and grunt-roared.
"Off with its head!" shouted Lizzie.
Daring drew his sword with a flash of steel and an equally brilliant flash of a white-toothed smile.
"I"m just the prince for the job," he said.
Lizzie smiled in surprise that someone was actually taking her seriously. Daring winked.
Students screamed and ran, but Cedar still had a bear cub latched to her arm. She yanked at it. "Come on, teddy-weddy, just let go of me, please."
"Fear not," said Daring. "I"ll protect you!"
"As will I!" Hunter loosed the ax from his belt and struck the Huntsman-To-the-Rescue Pose, fists on hips, shoulders thrown back, feet apart. From nowhere, trumpets blasted a heroic fanfare. Hunter nodded to the magical trumpet tune. He had, no doubt, heard it many times in his life.
"Headmaster, I don"t like this," said Baba Yaga, sniffing the air.
"Don"t be alarmed, fair-uh, n.o.ble sorceress," said Hunter. "We are well-schooled in defending damsels-uh, anyone-from ferocious beasts."
The trees around the momma banders.n.a.t.c.h shook. Yellow eyes lit up the shadows, and a herd of banders.n.a.t.c.hes lumbered out. Cedar counted... nine, ten, eleven... fourteen full-size banders.n.a.t.c.hes, eyes glowing, mouths drooling, nethers ga.s.sing.
"Yes, that"s what I don"t like," Baba Yaga muttered.
Students began to scream.
"Magic is afoot!" cried Professor Jack B. Nimble.
Baba Yaga cast a magical barrier, encaging the bevy of banders.n.a.t.c.hes inside a sparking yellow dome. The banders.n.a.t.c.hes grunt-roared and clawed at the magical cage, sparks flying from their paws. Cedar wondered if the cage would hold.
"Students, get out of here!" Headmaster Grimm shouted.
"Help?" Cedar whispered.
"Let! Go!" said Raven. She zapped the bear cub with a bolt of purple magic, and the cub squeaked and opened its jaws. Cedar set it down, and it galloped back toward the momma banders.n.a.t.c.h.
And still the banders.n.a.t.c.hes advanced, the magical dome sparking and twinkling, its yellow color fading.
"Go straight to Ever After High and do not leave that building until we return!" the headmaster shouted.
Mr. Badwolf dropped to all fours and transformed into his wolf shape, growling, his black lips trembling. He turned to howl something over his shoulder.
"Okay!" Cerise Hood answered back. She grabbed Raven"s and Cedar"s hands. "We need to get out of here. Now."
Cedar had never run so fast, partly because she was fleeing a mountaintop crawling with strange, growling, sticky, pungent monsters, but mostly because Cerise Hood was dragging her along at her own speed. And by the Blue-Haired Fairy"s wand, that girl could run.
Madeline Hatter was skipping beside them.
"How are you skipping so fast?" Cedar asked, her words shaking with the force of her pounding feet.
"I don"t know," Maddie said, bounding along, not at all out of breath. "I"d never tried speed-skipping before, but I thought this was the perfect time for it. I am now making a point to not ask you if speed-skipping is impossible in Ever After, because if it is, Cedar will have to tell me the truth and then it might stop working. So, what"s going on, anyway?"
"We"re not really sure," said Raven.
"Oh, good," said Maddie. "It"s a relief when everyone else is as confuse-boggled as I am. I feel so cozy, like a bundle of puppies in a box."
"That"s cozy?" Cerise huffed.
Maddie giggled. "It is if you"re one of the puppies. And if you"re confuse-boggled, of course. If you know you"re in a box, then you start thinking things like awhy am I in a box?" and awho put me here?" It just makes you nervous. I, for one, am glad we don"t know we"re in a box."
"Oh," Cedar said in a small voice. She didn"t feel cozy at all.
THE JOURNEY DOWN THE MOUNTAINSIDE was fraught with peril, mostly in the form of Briar Beauty. Apple White naturally took the lead, searching for sensible paths through thickets and down ledges. But Briar, her best friend forever after, was constantly picking more "interesting" paths.
"Come on, this way looks fun!" she said, grabbing Apple"s hand and nearly vaulting with her over a cliff.
"Briar," said Apple, "perhaps a good goal would be not only to make it down the mountain, but also make it down alive."
"Don"t be such a snooze." Briar lifted her crowngla.s.ses to look her friend in the eye. "We"re fleeing a bloat of banders.n.a.t.c.hes, hurtling ourselves over unfamiliar terrain in a gasping fight for our very lives. This is, like, the best chapter ever after."
Briar grabbed a clutch vine and swung over a boulder.
Blondie Lockes held up her MirrorPad, filming Briar"s daring moves and the dark shadows of the forest, and narrating in an ominous voice. This adventure was going to make a hexcellent episode of her MirrorCast show.
Madeline Hatter, as the only character who could hear the Narrator, was listening intently to the narration. But she did not interrupt. Because she had promised so faithfully she would not interrupt anymore.
That"s right, cutie-patootie Narrator. You"ll get no interrupting from me!
Ashlynn and Hunter kept "accidentally" brushing against each other as they walked, the backs of their fingers knocking together, their knuckles grasping, until d.u.c.h.ess Swan finally yelled, "Oh, just hold hands, already! Everyone knows you"re dating!"
Humphrey Dumpty mumbled rhymes to himself as he walked-or wobbled, actually, his thin legs trembling dangerously with each step. For the field trip, he"d completely encased himself in a thick coat of Bubble Wrap. Just in case.
Raven Queen and Dexter Charming chatted as they jogged through the woods, playing a game called What"s More Evil?
"A pinecone is more evil than a pine needle," Raven said.
"Really?" Dexter said. "What about pine needle versus pine sap?"