The Billionaire’s Curse (2 page)

“N
othing…is…certain!”

Gerald raised his head at the blood-freezing roar that boomed through the dank dungeon tunnels. Even under his heavy fur cape, he shivered. The beast was close. He cradled the unconscious Madeleine in the crook of his right arm, her auburn hair cascading over alabaster shoulders, her bottle-green robes spilling across the stone floor like a lily pad on a pond. Gerald muttered an oath. He cursed the foul fortune that had landed him in this benighted place. He cursed the cold and the stench. But, most of all, he cursed the realization that he would have to fight this beast with his left hand. He slid his long blade one more time from the worn leather sheath on his belt, and waited.

And what a beast it was. Barely recognizable as human, the creature stood a good seven feet tall. Its skin rippled with muscles, like baseballs stuffed into socks. Its bristle-covered shoulders burst through the bare rags that clothed it. A shaggy head lolled to the side—a thick tangle of dark matted hair across one eye, the other glaring out with a bloodshot resonance that glowed in the dark mire of the castle’s rank underbelly.

“Nothing is certain!” the beast bayed again, steam spewing from its nostrils and spittle showering from its coal-pit mouth. Its jaws opened wide, exposing rows of yellowed teeth, rotted through from the flesh of other adventurers. The beast lay ready. Waiting. Hungry.

Gerald cared not for this beast. He shot a fleeting look at Madeleine, lying in his arm as if in peaceful slumber, and steeled himself. He would not let her down. They might be mere teenagers, but neither man nor beast would stand in their way. His blade sliced slow silent circles through the fetid air, ready.

Without warning, the beast sprang from a corner about twenty yards from Gerald and the maiden. The creature raised a mighty paw and flung a fireball straight at Gerald’s head. The boy hero ducked; the flaming missile grazed his temple, singeing his hair.

“Nothing is certain!”

The yell was deafening. The beast strode right at them, pelting fireballs at every step, its enormous feet pounding the flagstones like a pile driver. Gerald spun on his heel, clutching Madeleine tight to his side, weaving and dancing through the erupting firestorm. Molten death exploded all around them. His sword flashed through the air, deflecting lethal missiles left and right in a Catherine wheel of sparks and brimstone.

Gerald swung around to fight the fast-advancing foe. He scuttled up a corridor as quickly as he could, his sword a scythe of blazing metal. But then he felt the cold press of a stone wall at his back—and he knew with equal coldness that there was nowhere left to run. He stole a last glance at the vision of beauty at his side, his one true love. He looked back—in time to see the beast unleash one final, fatal fireball….

A stub of white chalk bounced off the middle of Gerald’s forehead and clattered onto the desk in front of him. Gerald blinked.

He blinked again. The face of Mr. Atkinson, his year eight history teacher, was glaring down at him. The vein in the teacher’s temple was throbbing like some claustrophobic earthworm trying to wriggle free. Gerald watched the chalk as it circled to a stop on his desk.

“Not talking too loudly for you, I hope, Wilkins,” the teacher said. “Hate to disturb the sleep of the simple.”

The dank castle dungeon, which moments before seemed certain to be Gerald’s final resting place, melted away. Instead Gerald found himself in the back row of Mr. Atkinson’s history class. He rubbed the spot on his forehead where the chalk had hit. Everybody in the room was staring at him.

“Wilkins,” the teacher breathed, his teeth clenched as if glued at the molars. “I was advancing the theory that nothing is certain—that we are all the masters of our destinies; with some effort we can conquer the obstacles that come before us.” He paused for breath. “Now, apart from an inevitable jail career, what was it that you were advancing toward in your slumber?”

Gerald shifted in his seat.

“Um…you know, I was sorta thinking that same thing…about destiny…and stuff.”

Atkinson was not Gerald’s favorite teacher. Atkinson was tall and angular, with a box-shaped head, no hips to speak of, and a fashion sense that extended to a dozen shades of beige. His rimless glasses magnified his eyeballs and resembled a pair of rifle sights strapped to the front of his head. On this day, Atkinson had Gerald in the crosshairs.

The teacher leaped forward. He plucked a dog-eared notebook from under the boy’s elbow, whipping it away before Gerald could grab it.

“And what do we have here?” Atkinson said in triumph, ignoring Gerald’s protests. He flicked through the ink-smudged pages. “Oh, this is most interesting.”

Gerald let out a low moan and slumped into his chair. This was not turning out to be his best day.

“Well, well. This is very entertaining, Wilkins,” Atkinson said airily as he wandered between the rows of desks. “I suppose all these drawings of castles and little men on horses do have something to do with history.” He held the book up to show Gerald’s classmates a particularly detailed drawing of a dragon spewing fire at a knight who was cowering behind a shield. The room erupted in laughter.

“Please don’t,” Gerald groaned, his head now in his hands.

“Oh, but I must, Mr. Wilkins! I must!”

He flicked through the pages. “Yes, just the collection of juvenile scribblings and smudged adolescent angst that we could expect from you, Wilkins. Oh look—here’s one with a little story under it.”

Gerald sat up.

“No!” he blurted out loud. Then, in a softer voice, “Not that one.” And then even softer, “Please.”

Atkinson glared through his gun sights at Gerald. “But, Wilkins, this one wants to be shared.”

Gerald closed his eyes.

“Let’s see,” Atkinson began in a cheery voice. “The story is under a drawing of a young man holding a young lady in his arms. The young lady has lovely flowing hair and it looks like the young man has been going to the gym rather a lot.”

More laughter spewed from the class as Gerald’s head sank toward the top of his desk. “Oh, crud,” he muttered.

“And the young lady is gazing at the young man with such gratitude in her eyes, such adoration. And this is where Wilkins has written: ‘Brave Sir Gerald saves the love of his life yet again!’”

The laughter showered over Gerald like acid rain.

“Wait, wait! There’s more!” Atkinson said above the noise, waving his hand to quiet the class. “The terrific thing is, Sir Gerald has even named his fair maiden.” The teacher wandered toward the front of the classroom and consulted the notebook again. “Let’s see. It appears her name is…Lady Madeleine.”

With that, Atkinson dropped the notebook onto a desk in the front row. The room fell silent. The girl who was sitting at the desk picked up the notebook and studied the drawing. She flicked a lock of auburn hair from her eyes and swiveled around to look at Gerald. Revulsion was etched across her face.

“Anything you’d like to add to the story, Madeleine?” Atkinson asked, drumming his chalky fingertips together with glee.

The girl in the front row looked very much like the girl in the drawing in Gerald’s notebook—the same strong jaw, the upturned nose and intense eyes, even down to the lock of hair that fell across her face. But there was no adoring look, just a glare that would curdle milk.

The bell rang for the end of the period and the class dissolved into a clatter of voices and scraping chairs. Atkinson, obviously annoyed that his fun was being cut short, called over the rabble, “Enjoy your break, people! At least those of you who have earned it.”

Gerald remained slumped in his seat at the back of the room, staring at the floorboards.

“Well, that could have gone worse,” a voice said. “Not much worse, I grant you, but potentially worse.”

Gerald raised his head to see a round face beaming at him. He grunted. “I notice you were laughing along with everyone else.”

“Well, you gotta admit, it was pretty funny. But top marks for the artwork, anyway.” Ox Perkins slapped his friend on the back and laughed.

“Yeah. Terrific,” Gerald replied.

He went to get out of his chair but paused midway. Madeleine was in front of him. The look of revulsion had been replaced with one of loathing. Her eyes were narrowed to slits and her face was flushed redder than her hair. She held Gerald’s notebook between a thumb and forefinger as if it were a dead fish and dropped it on his desk. The book landed open at the offending page. The face was completely scrawled out. Madeleine leaned down until her nose was an inch from Gerald’s.

“You’re possessed!” she spat. She turned on her toes and stamped toward the exit.

“Oi! Blood nut!” It was Ox, a huge grin on his face.

Madeleine stopped short and spun around.

“What?” she demanded.

“I guess a kiss is out of the question?”

Madeleine scowled death at him and extended a finger before storming from the room.

Ox chuckled.

Gerald dragged himself upright and stuffed his notebook into a worn backpack. He and Ox headed toward the door.

“Wilkins!”

Atkinson’s voice rang out like fingernails down a chalk-board. Gerald cringed at the sound. He looked up to be confronted by his teacher’s face, a smile on it like a split watermelon.

“I’ve seen the student lists for next semester’s history classes. Guess who you’ve got as teacher…again!”

Gerald’s shoulders slumped.

Atkinson’s smile broadened even further. “Now you have a tremendous holiday, won’t you?”

“So what’s with the drawings?” Ox thumbed through Gerald’s notebook as they waited in the school gym for the final lesson of the day to get under way—PE with Mr. Phillpotts. Ink and pencil sketches filled the book. Many were no more than airy doodles, but some were as intricate as the drawing that had inflamed Madeleine and delighted Mr. Atkinson.

“Dunno,” Gerald mumbled. “Stuff I dream about.” Gerald was fastening a harness around his waist. He pulled a rope from a rock-climbing wall and looped it through a ring at the front.

“You must dream about a lot of dungeons and caves then,” Ox said, lying on a mat at Gerald’s feet. He stopped at one sketch and held the page up so Gerald could see. “Shame Atkinson didn’t find this one.”

It was a pencil sketch of a cloven-hoofed monster clutching a trident in one hand and a writhing, screaming child in the other. The monster’s face bore a striking resemblance to Mr. Atkinson.

“Yep.” Gerald grinned, pulling a knot tight. “That’s one of my favorites. Here, belay for me, will you?” He held out a rope for Ox to take.

“What’s with Madeleine?” Ox asked as he pulled in the slack on the line. “Is she one of your dreams as well?”

“Doesn’t really matter, does it?” Gerald grumbled. He lifted his right foot onto a ridge. “You saw how she reacted.”

“Women, eh?” Ox said. “I wonder if one’ll ever talk to me?”

For the next twenty minutes, the class took turns scaling the various faces on the climbing wall. Gerald was trying to traverse a difficult overhang when he stopped for a breather.

“So we’re leaving for the snow tomorrow at ten, right?” he called down to Ox.

“You suffering from short-term memory loss?” Ox called back. “How many times do we have to go over this?”

“Humor me, okay?” Gerald said. “It’s two weeks at the snow with your family and two weeks away from my folks. I’m treating this as a four-week holiday. Okay, hold tight now.”

Gerald eyed the gap to the next face. Then he coiled his muscles and sprang into the void. He soared across like a spider monkey and hit the wall hard. His hands scrambled to find a hold but slipped free, leaving him swinging back across the space on the end of his rope, arms and legs dangling.

“That’s enough mucking around, Wilkins.” Mr. Phillpotts strode across the gym floor. “You’re dismissed early.”

Gerald gazed down from his position hanging above everyone’s heads. He was surprised to see Madeleine standing next to Mr. Phillpotts.

“You need to go with Madeleine to the vice principal’s office,” the teacher said.

Ox lowered Gerald to the floor and helped him out of his harness. “Now what?” he whispered as he scooped up his backpack.

Ox shrugged. “See you first thing tomorrow.”

Madeleine ignored Gerald as they walked down the deserted corridors toward the school office.

“Um, Madeleine,” Gerald said. “Does this have anything to do with that drawing, because I’m really sorry about that and…”

His voice trailed off. There was no response. For once, Gerald decided that shutting up might be the best option. When they got to the office, Madeleine marched off in the direction of the library, her hair whipping the air like an enraged rattlesnake.

Gerald watched her go, baffled by why he could never get a girl to like him—and why he should be summoned to the office twenty minutes before school ended for the mid-year break. Apart from infuriating Madeleine, he hadn’t done much wrong that day. He faced the frosted glass on the door, took a breath, and gave three sharp knocks.

An unexpected voice called, “Enter.”

A shiver shot up Gerald’s spine as he turned the handle. He opened the door to reveal a familiar figure standing behind the desk.

“Mr. Atkinson!” Gerald yelped.

The history teacher sneered down the length of his nose at Gerald, as if inspecting the contents of a handkerchief.

“Don’t worry, Wilkins,” Atkinson said. “I haven’t been promoted yet. I’m standing in for the vice principal, who apparently couldn’t wait for his holiday.”

They regarded each other awkwardly.

“Um…you sent for me, sir,” Gerald said. “If it’s about that drawing—”

“No,” Atkinson said, cutting him short with a flick of his hand. He fixed Gerald with a curious eye. “Your parents are here to see you.”

“My parents?” Gerald echoed in a stunned voice. He followed the direction of Atkinson’s outstretched hand and saw that his mother and father were indeed sitting on a couch in a corner of the office. His mother’s face was buried in a lace handkerchief and his father’s arm lay tentatively around her shoulders. Gerald’s mother was a short woman, stoutly conditioned, with a helmet of rigid blond hair. Violet Wilkins had a manner some described as brassy—which Gerald had never really understood. He thought she was just loud. Vi wore a bright floral dress that Gerald recognized as the one she kept for special occasions.