Into the Wild (15 page)

The mouse grew into the ogre. “Good show,” the ogre said. “Nicely done.”

Not trusting her voice, she nodded thanks. Her heart rate slowly returned to normal. She tucked the wand in her back pocket.

“Would you like that ride now?” the ogre asked. He held down his hand.

Julie hesitated for a second. What if he closed his hand on her? Stay brave, she told herself. You’re almost to Mom. It’s almost over. Picking up the cat, Julie climbed onto his palm. The ogre lifted them to face level. “Um, sorry about earlier,” he said. “Part of the rules, you know.”

“I know. You wouldn’t really have eaten me.”

The ogre looked embarrassed. “Actually, I would have. But don’t worry, I’d have cooked you first.”

 
 
Julie and Boots rode on the rim of the ogre’s hat as he trampled the trees beyond the castle. “You know, I fought by your mother’s side in the Great Battle,” the ogre said, after introductions had been made.

Surprised, Julie almost lost her grip on the hat. “It’s true? She was in a battle?” she asked eagerly.

“She led the battle,” the ogre corrected. “And she organized all the attempts before that. She was the leader of the rebellion since its inception. Your mother was a great swordswoman.”

“Swords? Mom?” Mom, who always yelled at her to be careful with scissors and knives—
Mom
was a swordswoman? Wow. What else? She had to know it all.

“She learned in her tower,” the ogre said, “trained visit by visit by her prince—or so the story goes. She was the inspiration of many a knight in shining armor.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Julie asked Boots. When he opened his mouth, she added, “
Before
yesterday.” She had lived with Boots all her life, and he had never said a word. He’d kept this all a mystery.

“Do
you
like to dredge up all of your least favorite memories?” he asked. “Besides, she wanted to leave this behind, and it wasn’t my story to tell.”

No, it was Mom’s story.

Mom should have been the one to tell her. Julie felt . . . She didn’t know how she felt. Mom had kept secrets from her. She’d kept secrets from her own daughter.

Five centuries ago, Mom had written in her own blood, ridden a griffin into battle, and led a rebellion. And Julie never knew.

It hurt.

Julie wasn’t even sure she knew the woman who had been described to her. She thought of her mom in the kitchen the other morning, laughing, applying makeup, baby-talking with her ridiculous “oobe snooby uppy wuppy.” How did this mom mesh with the warrior?

Julie looked out across the landscape—hints of highways and houses buried under green—and tried to imagine how the Wild Wood had looked to Mom five hundred years ago. Mom had led a rebellion in order to leave her past behind. Julie tried to wrap her mind around this new image of her mother. Mom had masterminded the escape from the Wild.

And now she was back in it, and it was growing. Had it taken over all of Massachusetts? Did it control all of New England? How fast was it growing, and how much of its speed was due to Julie feeding it with her rescue stories? I’ll find you, Mom, she promised herself. I’ll set it right. “I think that’s Route 9,” Julie called to Boots. White City Cinemas had transformed into an ivory castle, and Stop ’n’ Shop was a peasant town. McDonald’s now had a thatched roof.

The ogre laid his hat on the ground. Julie and Boots lowered themselves over the lip of the felt. “He’ll be asleep now,” the ogre said. “You’d better hurry.”

“Can’t you help us get it?” Julie asked.

“Oh, no, you already have a companion,” he said. “Besides, I have to be going. Villages to terrorize. Peasants to eat. Ahh, I’ve missed this—at least the parts until I’m murdered.” Waving, the ogre stomped off, squashing a Hallmark hut and Ye Olde Blockbuster Shoppe.

Julie faced Spag’s warehouse store. Through the cobweb-coated, bat-lined door, all she saw was a whole lot of darkness. “You first,” she said to Boots.

“No, no, please, be my guest,” Boots said.

Julie poked a finger at a cobweb. It broke and clung to her finger. Ew.

You can do it, Julie, she told herself. She was so close now. One more of the Wild’s stupid games and she would be with Mom. If Mom could wield a sword in battle, Julie could get one measly ring from a magician. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d be the one facing down the Wild. Covering her face with her hands, she walked quickly into the cobwebs and through the revolving door. Cobwebs stuck to her hands, her arms, her legs, her hair. On the other side, she wiped them off as quickly as she could. Yuck, yuck, and very yuck.

Rubbing her arms, she looked around her. It wasn’t completely black inside the store-cave. Sconces with torches lit the walls instead of the normal fluorescent bulbs. Flickering shadows stretched across the hardware section. Under a layer of moss and lichen, paint cans still sat on shelves and drill bits in open drawers.

“Spooky,” Boots commented.

Julie agreed. The shadows looked like they could hold dozens of monsters. “Let’s go,” she whispered to Boots. She crept forward into the aisles.

Silently, they passed the jewelry cases. Her image flickered in dusty mirrors. She watched out of the corner of her eye as her image followed them into the cookware aisle.

Boots sniffed the air. “Up ahead,” he whispered.

She crept as quietly as she could, following the cat through electronics. The VCRs looked like black blotches. Anything could be hiding behind the TVs. Coming out of electronics, she heard a soft rumble.

She imagined monsters: drooling, bloodthirsty monsters.

Julie and Boots crept through patio furniture. Fast asleep, the magician was facedown on a patio table. His cheek was smushed against the glass next to the umbrella hole and his half-eaten lunch, and he was snoring—the soft rumble she’d heard was his snoring.

“That’s him?” Julie said.
That
was the magician? He was a kid. He looked high school age. Pimples and everything. He wore a Harry Potter wizard hat and a blue bathrobe with stars and moons on it. The hat still had a price tag.

“Shhh!” Boots said, but the magician didn’t wake.

“Come on,” she whispered. Dropping to hands and knees, she crawled closer. She hid behind a barbecue grill. Boots joined her. “Grandma said he keeps it in his mouth,” Julie whispered. Leaning around the grill, she peeked out at the kid. His mouth was shut. His nostrils flared with each snore.

How could she make him spit out the ring in his sleep? What would make someone spit in his sleep? Or how about sneeze? What would make him sneeze?

“Cat hair,” she said.

“Excuse me?” Boots said.

She grinned at Boots. “You can make him sneeze.”

“Um, let me think about that: magician, me. Uh, no. Absolutely not.”

“Come on,” she whispered. “You said you wanted to go home.”

He backed away. “It’s not
that
bad here. You heard the ogre—he missed parts of this place. Who knows? Maybe I gave up too early before. Maybe if I stick around, I will meet the love of my life. If I’m magician lunch meat, I’ll never know.”

She couldn’t believe he was talking like this. “What about Mom?”

“She’s a hero,” Boots said. “I’m just the hero’s companion.”

Julie shook her head. “You almost drowned, you flew on swans, you faced an ogre, you followed me in here, and
now
you want to back out?”

“This is where I draw the line,” he said. “Besides, maybe he’s not allergic to cat hair.”

“Okay, fine,” she said. She wasn’t going to waste time arguing with him. “What else makes people sneeze?”

“Dust,” he suggested. “Pepper?”

The magician had been eating a submarine sandwich from the food aisle. His hand rested in a soggy mass of shredded lettuce and ham remnants. She bet it had pepper.

She couldn’t waltz over to him and stick pepper in his nose without his noticing. He’d hear her. If Boots would do it . . . or an even smaller creature . . . Yes! “Wait here,” Julie whispered. “I have an idea.”

She pulled the ogre’s wand out of her back pocket. Taking a deep breath, she tapped her head with its tip. “From a girl to a mouse.”

Whoosh.
She shot toward the floor, and the barbecue grill ballooned in front of her. Heavy and awkward, the wand fell out of her hands as her fingers curled into paws. Her back slouched as her bones shifted. Her skin itched as she sprouted fur. Her nose twitched, her whiskers moved, and she was suddenly assailed by more smells than she’d ever imagined existed. She swallowed back a cough, tried to cover her mouth with her front paws, and fell flat on her chin.

Paws scrabbling, she righted herself. Gingerly, she laid her tail straight out behind her. She looked down at herself. Wow, wait until she told Gillian about this. Gillian would love it. She’d say it was super-cool—and she’d be right, Julie thought. “Boots, look at me!” She lifted her head and twitched her whiskers.

Oh, my, he was huge. And feline.

Boots towered over her, lashing his tail. “I want Beef Feast for the self-restraint I am showing here.” His teeth glittered.

Julie bolted for the patio furniture. Her hind haunches waddled faster than her front, and she somersaulted over the linoleum. Adjusting herself, she zigzagged toward the magician’s table. Okay, here’s the plan, she thought as she ran: I climb up the table leg . . .

At the foot of the table leg, she looked up—and up and up. Okay, here’s the plan: I
don’t
climb up the table leg . . . She waddled to the magician’s robe. Oversized, it draped onto the floor in a puddle of terry cloth.

A mouse could climb this, she thought.

Before she lost her nerve, Julie dug her front paws into the cloth and scrabbled behind her with her hind claws. She started to climb. Memories flashed back at her: how she hated gym class, how she hated jungle gyms.

Suddenly, the mountain leveled off. She had reached the magician’s thigh. She looked down—a long, long way down—and bit back a squeak. Paws clenched on the robe, her legs shook. The linoleum swam beneath her. She clung to the terry cloth. Her mouse heart pattered like a snare drum. What a terrible idea this was. She couldn’t do it. She wasn’t a mouse acrobat.

She had been much higher in the ogre’s hat and on the griffin’s back, she told herself. After a long minute, she was able to move again. She gritted her mouse teeth and continued her climb: up the front lapel of the bathrobe and along the sleeve. She focused on one inch at a time. Concentrating, she forgot to be afraid.

Before she knew it, she was at the table. She scurried across the magician’s arm and onto the table, landing with a sharp click of claws on glass.

Oh, wow, she did it. She couldn’t believe she did it. She looked down. The frosted glass table warped her view of the floor below. She saw Boots watching her, and she waved with her tail. He flicked his tail in the air as if snapping a whip.

She hurried around the magician’s head. His pimples were the size of anthills. His nostrils widened like sails as he breathed. The wind of his breath ruffled her fur. She sniffed at his sandwich.

Yes! He’d used pepper. She dipped her tail into the olive oil smeared on the bread and then rolled her tail in pepper; then she scurried over to the magician. Leaning onto her front paws, she stuck her peppery tail up his nostril. She wiggled it.

The magician sneezed, and the hurricane blew her across the table. She tumbled, paws over tail. The ring clanged as it hit the table and rolled. He snorted. Scrambling her paws under her, Julie ran for the ring. As it tipped toward the edge, she caught it.

The magician rubbed his nose, and his eyelashes fluttered.

Ring in her mouth, Julie ran for the umbrella hole in the patio table. She dove through and slid on her stomach down the table leg. Crashing onto the ground, she oomphed, and the ring fell out of her mouth and clattered on the tile. The magician shifted above her. “Wha . . . wha . . .” he said. She bit the ring and ran across the floor toward the barbecue grill. Butting her head against the wand, she squeaked, “From a mouse to a girl!”

She popped back into her original size.

The magician lifted his head. “Hey, who . . .” Spitting out the ring, she shoved it on her finger. Boots tucked the ogre’s wand into his boot and leapt into Julie’s arms.

“Take me to my mother,” she shouted at the ring. “Take me to Rapunzel!” The magician charged up the aisle—and the store vanished.

Part Three

Chapter Eighteen

The Problem with Short Hair

For the thousandth time, Zel peered out the window. The view hadn’t changed much since she’d been imprisoned here. Occasionally, a beanstalk rose and fell. Once in a while, a glass hill appeared. Earlier, she had seen a giant-ogre stride across the landscape. Leaning out over the sill, she scanned the horizon for any hint of the one thing she wanted to see: if the Wild had trapped Julie.