Ida said, realizing what a dastardly deed had been done. "He can"t possibly get back here in time!"
"It"s another one of my brother"s horrible tricks!" Gwenny said, devastated.
"But then we don"t have a champion," Jenny said.
"Noon!" Gobble cried exultantly. "Come on, Smithereen! Time for the bashing!"
Okra, standing beside Ida, jumped. The jump wasn"t noticed by anyone else in the general hubbub, but Ida wondered what had caused it. So she inquired. "Why did you jump?"
"Smithereen-that"s the ogre I was to marry! He was on his way south when I fled home."
"Oh, then you have met him halfway. That"s nice."
"But I ran out on him," Okra said. "He won"t like that.
"Maybe he doesn"t know, since he hasn"t yet reached Lake Ogre-Chobee."
That seemed reasonable.
The ogre crunched the last of his bone and tramped to the center of the chamber. "Me bash, make hash!" he grunted, pounding his hairy chest with his ham fists. Then he lifted his club from the harness on his back and waved it in the air.
Ida was disgusted. But she noted that Okra was licking her lips. Tastes certainly did vary!
"So where"s your champion?" Gobble demanded. "If he"s not here, Smithereen gets to crunch your bones first, sis!"
The horror of it was that he wasn"t joking, because it was the nature of goblin males to be awful and the nature of ogre males to eat folk.
Gwenny"s life really was on the line.
"You changed the sign!" Gwenny accused him.
"So what? So show your champion or forfeit," Gobble said exultantly. It was obvious that he had planned exactly what had happened. The girls had been trusting, while the brat had cheated without hesitation. Ida could see that it really would be better for the goblins to be ruled by a female chief.
"I"ll have to do it myself," Gwenny said bravely. "I"ve got the wand, at least."
"Hey, no wand!" Gobble cried. "That"s magic at a distance! That"s outlawed!"
"Oh, no, he"s right," Gwenny said, looking ill.
"You mean he can cheat and you can"t?" Mela asked.
"I didn"t catch him cheating in time," Gwenny said.
She handed the wand to G.o.diva.
"No, you can"t!" Jenny Elf said. "I"ll do it instead!"
She stepped out into the center.
"Hey, four-eyes is coming in!" Gobble cried. "Only now she"s bat blind instead! What a show!"
"She can"t see?" Okra asked.
"Her spectacles were lost, and she didn"t have time to get new ones," Che said. "She can see in a special way, but that won"t help her against the ogre."
Mela glanced at Okra, sadly. "It seems that your desire is about to be granted. You"ll be rid of Jenny Elf."
Suddenly Okra strode forward. She caught the elf by the collar and hauled her away from the arena. "Get out of here, girl. I"ll do it."
Astonished, Ida tried to protest. "But this isn"t your quarrel, Okra!
You don"t care about the goblin succession, and you have good reason not to help Jenny Elf! And you can"t fight Smithereen either! None of us can!" Yet even as she spoke, the idea was growing that maybe it was possible.
Okra bent to pick up the roc talon they had brought.
"It"s a dirty job, but somebody"s got to do it. " She walked out to meet Smithereen.
The male ogre stared. "Who you?" he demanded.
"I am Okra Ogress, whom you were supposed to marry. Instead, I am going to bash you into oblivion," Okra said.
She poked at him with the point of the talon.
It was evident that Smithereen didn"t recognize the name. He might never have been told, or he might have forgotten, since bad memory was part of ogre stupidity.
"Ho-ho! You no O," he said, grabbing the talon in a ham hand. Okra was jerked off balance. She was only half his size, and lacked muscle. She was obviously no match for him.
Gobble and the henchmen were doubling over with laughter. "What a silly filly!" Gobble exclaimed.
"She"s no filly, she"s an ogress," Che muttered. "And a brave and selfless one."
Then Ida got another idea. "The madcap, Okra!" she called. "That"s what you need!"
Okra heard. She reached into her pack and pulled out the cap. She jammed it on her head.
"Ho ho!" Smithereen roared. "Fat hat!"
But Okra was changing. Her body seemed to be growing larger and hairier, and her face uglier. She was enraged. "Sneer he at she?" She jerked on the talon, pulling him forward, then pounded a fist into his belly. "Smelly belly!" she screamed.
"OOOF! POOOF!" Smithereen gasped, surprised. The blow had evidently had a good deal of force.
"Never underestimate the ire of an ogress scorned," Che murmured, intrigued.
Ida"s belief increased. After all, Okra had fought the dragon. The madcap made all the difference. Perhaps even more so than usual, for Okra had seemed to like the ogre, and it might be reversing the power of her liking, turning it into hating. As Che observed, women did not like to be scorned.
Now Smithereen was catching on that there was after all some opposition.
He straightened up, forming a ham fist. He lifted his ma.s.sive club, whose ma.s.s seemed to be almost as much as Okra"s whole body. He swung it viciously at her head.
But Okra stepped back and swung the talon. It met the club and stopped it. Ida realized that the talon itself must have magic, to enable the roc to land on the toughest surface with all her weight and not break a nail, and to hold on to whatever it touched. It made a good weapon.
Then Okra took the offense. She swung the talon, bashing his arm out of the way, then stabbed him in the chest with the point. The thrust wasn"t strong enough to impale him, but it did make him stagger back.
She followed up with another stab, this time at the head.
But Smithereen did know how to fight. He swung his club around again, and when Okra countered with the talon, he reached down with his free hand and grabbed her by the hair. He lifted her into the air. Her cap tilted crazily, but remained in place.
"Hey, that"s a foul!" Jenny Elf cried.
"There are no fouls in this type of combat," Gwenny said morosely. She seemed not to have phenomenal confidence in the outcome.
Okra heard that. "No fouls?" she asked. "I can do anything I want?"
"That"s right, hair-face!" Gobble answered. "Whatcha going to do, kiss him?" And he rolled over again with laughter, and his henchmen with him.
To a brat his age, kissing was contemptible.
Okra hauled up both knees and bashed the ogre in the chin. He fell back, dropping her. She landed neatly, then used the talon to stab between his legs. She wedged it around so that it made him stumble and fall. Then she leaned over him, taking the talon in both hands. She was using her hidden advantage, and fighting intelligently.
Suddenly Gobble got nervous. She was actually making a fight of it!
"Ha-ha!" Jenny Elf cried, getting into it. "Your ogre can"t match that madcap!"
"Madcap!" Gobble exclaimed. "That"s magic!" He ran into the arena behind Okra, made a terrific leap, and grabbed the cap from her head.
"Hey! Ida cried, outraged. "That"s cheating! You can"t interfere!
"So whatcha going to do about it, girl-face?" the goblin brat demanded, tossing the cap to a henchman.
Without the madcap, Okra lost her furious power and initiative. She stood there over the fallen ogre as if not knowing what to do next. In a moment he would jump back up and pulverize her. She couldn"t even give him her asthma, because she had already given it to Hugh Mongous the monoceros.
"You can do it, Okra!" Ida cried, desperately believing.
Che could only shake his head. Optimism was about to collide with reality.
Then Okra threw herself down on Smithereen"s body.
Her face landed on his face. She put her mouth to his mouth.
"She"s doing it!" Mela cried, astonished. "She"s kissing him!"
For a moment Smithereen lay still. Then he threw Okra off, clambered to his feet, and opened his huge ugly mouth. "Ugh! Ugh! " he cried. And charged out of the chamber.
The goblins gaped. "Huh?" Gobble asked intelligently.
Then Ida caught on. "She did what you said!" she called. "She kissed him! And he couldn"t stand it! He fled! And Okra"s the winner! She beat your champion!"
Yet Ida realized that this had been a sacrifice for Okra, because she would rather have made Smithereen like her instead of being revolted by her. She had thrown away whatever chance she might have had to get together with him.
Gobble"s mouth dropped open. "No fair!" he cried.
But Gwenny seized the moment. "It"s fair! There are no fouls. She beat him by disgusting him so much he fled.
He lost and she won. And you have lost and I have won!
Now I am chief."
"No!" he cried despairingly.
Gwenny whirled on the henchmen. "Now you will obey me, or be banished. Arrest Gobble!"
Stunned, the henchmen stood still. But Moron, Idiot, and Imbecile strode eagerly forward, ready to do their duty.
"No, she"s just a stupid girl!" Gobble cried, as his henchmen blocked off Gwenny"s three goblins. "You can"t obey her! Kill her!"
"Now that makes me mad," Okra said. She lifted the talon and strode toward Gobble. The henchmen scattered at her approach.
"You can"t be mad!" Gobble said. "You lost the madcap."
"I don"t need the madcap to be mad at a sniveling brat like you," Okra said. She caught him by the collar and lifted him into the air, much as Smithereen had lifted her.
She brought the talon around.
"No! No!" he screamed, waving his stubby arms and legs helplessly.
"Don"t kill me! Don"t kill me!"
"Why not?" Okra demanded. "You were going to kill Gwenny."
"But she"s just a stupid girl!"
"Well, so am I. And you"re just a bratty boy," Okra retorted. She aimed the point of the talon at his face.
Gobble burst into tears.
"This is what you want to be chief?" Okra asked the henchmen. She let Gobble drop and turned away.
She had made her point. One by one the henchmen turned to Gwenny. "You are chief," one said. "We don"t like it, but we must obey you."
"Thank you," Gwenny said, as if the issue had never been in doubt. She faced Gobble. "Get out of here, brat.
I hereby banish you from Goblin Mountain. If you ever return, the first goblin who sees you will kill you, or suffer the consequence himself."
Gobble got up and attempted some bravado. "You can"t do this! I"ll get you!"
"If you don"t leave immediately, I might change my mind about letting you live," Gwenny said evenly.
The brat hesitated. Then Okra took a step toward him.