Part 16 (1/2)

She swung the sword recklessly at the tail in her face and managed to snip off an inch.

The creature roared. It spun around with startling speed. Cedar scrabbled out of its way. But Lizzie just stood and stared at a small opening in the air the sword had left behind, as if the air was just fabric, and the vorpal sword had sliced it open. Lizzie's eyes widened, peering through the slice till it snapped shut.

The Jabberwock turned around completely and slammed down a taloned paw. Lizzie only just managed to dodge it, rolling across the floor with the force and slamming into Cedar.

The monster began to do a cheeky dance, making that horrible, fingernails-on-chalkboard kind of raspy chuckle.

”I don't know how to save Maddie's dad,” Cedar said, splayed on the floor beside Lizzie.

”Saving things. This is not normally my specialty,” Lizzie said, crawling to her feet.

A toddler-sized furball in a fetching white jacket burst through the double doors at the opposite end of the Grimmnasium.

”Grra-ha!” Daring-beastie announced. It charged the Jabberwock and was swatted unceremoniously aside by the beast's tail.

”That's Daring!” said Cedar. ”And saving things is his specialty.”

”Good,” Lizzie said. ”I will keep distracting.” She yelled as she ran at the Jabberwock, who kept dancing away, whiffling and burbling as if enjoying itself tremendously.

Cedar and Maddie helped Daring-beastie to his feet. Earl Grey popped out of Maddie's hat and squeaked emphatically, pointing at the Jabberwock with a hat pin. Earl Grey was a mouse, but he had no problem imagining himself as a hero.

You spent your entire life imagining emotions, smells, textures, Cedar thought. Imagine yourself a hero now.

Daring-beastie searched around frantically. ”Groooard,” he howled, asking for a sword.

From across the room Lizzie threw something that clanged to the floor at Daring-beastie's feet. It was an ornate b.u.t.ter knife with a beautifully engraved heart on the handle.

Daring-beastie brandished the b.u.t.ter knife.

”Squeak?” Earl Grey asked.

”Squeak!” Daring said, pointing at Maddie's dad.

Cedar squared her shoulders. She imagined herself: fearless, bold, powerful. Successful.

”Let's do this,” Cedar said. ”With fuzzy help.”

”Groar!” said Daring.

Cedar and her furry friends tried to climb up the monster's leg, but it was moving around too fast in its odd sideways crawl. Staying in the Jabberwock's blind spot, she gestured at Lizzie, trying to tell her they needed help.

Lizzie was swinging the vorpal sword, taunting, ”I'll chop you up like salad! Like a really big, nasty salad no one wants to eat! Not even vegetarians! Or... especially not vegetarians! Ah-ha!”

”A walking joke is thee, me wee heartsp.a.w.n.” The Jabberwock hissed, breathing magic on her so powerful her crown melted into golden icicles. ”Hee-hee-saw.”

”My crown!” Lizzie hollered. ”I had hoped to spare my little friends this, but you deserve it.” She raised her sword. ”Hedgehogs! To your princess!”

A chittering roink heralded the sound of a hedgehog moving at an incredible speed. It darted across the Grimmnasium floor and stopped solidly in front of Lizzie.

Lizzie held the sword like a croquet mallet and swung, striking the hedgehog hard with the flat of the sword. The hedgehog flew, straight and true, directly into the snout of the approaching beast, quills burying themselves in its soft nose. The Jabberwock froze as if stunned.

Cedar took advantage of the Jabberwock's momentary stillness and boosted Daring-beastie up, climbing after him and Earl Grey. She was expecting skin like a snake's or a lizard's, but the Jabberwock's hide was slick as jelly and left pads of stickiness on her fingertips.

Thunk! A hedgehog struck the Jabberwock's shoulder and stuck. The little beast smiled at Cedar as she tiptoed up the monster's ridged back.

I'm light as a leaf, Cedar thought, trying to imagine it to be true. I'm as bendable as a branch. I fly like a seedpod. I tear my way through problems like an oak's deepest root through rock. I am a hero.

From her art tools pouch in her pocket, she pulled her pencil-sharpening knife. It was the very one that had sliced her newly real fingertip. Did that only happen a few hours ago? It felt like years. She joined Earl Grey and Daring-beastie, slicing at the vines.

Finally free, the Mad Hatter slumped into her arms, snoring softly. He was sometimes a small man, but it looked like he'd been playing with the grow potions again and was tall and thin. Cedar could barely hold him. How to get down?

”I got him,” a mouth said in front of her, expanding into all of Kitty Ches.h.i.+re. She took the Mad Hatter in her shaking arms and quickly disappeared with the unconscious man, reappearing to lay him down near Maddie and the purple tunnel. Daring-beastie and Earl Grey leaped away.

”Maneuver C,” Lizzie said from below. She broke a golden icicle from her melted crown and tossed it on the floor.

Shuffle, the last hedgehog left in Lizzie's armory, picked up the icicle with her tiny pink hands, nodded, and curled up into a ball. Swift and strong, Lizzie slapped the hedgehog with the flat of the blade, and the little beast stuck right between the Jabberwock's eyes.

Shuffle poked it in the eye with the icicle, the Jabberwock roared, and Cedar was violently bucked off.

Light as a leaf, Cedar thought, and fell, landing on her back.

Ouch. There was pain but not as much as she'd feared. She sat up and realized why. Daring-beastie had leaped to her rescue, attempting to catch her but mostly just breaking her fall. He gave her a fuzzy thumbs-up.

Cedar had only just gotten to her knees when the Jabberwock noticed her. Its head swung around on a giant snakelike neck, fiery eyes inches from her face. Its huge nose snuffled her. If not for the cheerful icicle-waving hedgehog affixed between the creature's eyes, Cedar was sure she would have starting crying, or screaming, or both. The enormous mouth opened and exhaled over her. Its breath was hot and cold at once and stunk of wet dog and burned turnips. The breath magic was so strong it rustled Cedar's clothes and changed them into paper, her dress now made of st.i.tched-together pages ripped out of a book about Pinocchio.

”The game's score is Wonderling naught,” the Jabberwock gargled. ”Why does the bitsy playsqueal not change?”

Daring-beastie was punching the Jabberwock in the neck, but the Jabberwock didn't budge.

”Why?” it insisted, its bucktoothed mouth leering over her. ”Wordspew! Tell my greatness why you normal stay and change not!”

Lie, Cedar thought. She could say she was magic, beyond its power, poisonous to eat, destined to slay a Jabberwock, anything to scare it and make it leave her alone.

But Cedar chose to tell the truth. ”I am changed,” she said, her voice quavering. ”But it's wrong, like all your changes. Right now, I'm supposed to be made of wood. I've got little bra.s.s pegs on my joints, and I don't feel pain or breathe, and I can only tell the truth. One day the Blue-Haired Fairy might turn me into a real girl forever after. But it's not my time yet.”

”A lie,” the beast said, pointing one claw at her. ”A most ridiculish lie.”

Lizzie had crept up to its neck, and now she swung. The vorpal sword went snickersnack.

Hearing for the first time the telltale noise of the vorpal sword, the Jabberwock jerked away just before the sword reached its neck. It reared its head, knocking Lizzie. The sword flew out of her hands, and she landed several feet away.

”Lizzie!” Cedar said, running to her.

”Where is the sword?” Lizzie whispered.

The Jabberwock was staring at the s.h.i.+mmering trail the sword had cut in the air.

”Vorpal!” sloared the Jabberwock. ”Vorpaaaal!”

”Grrrr... ha!” Daring-beastie growled, reaching the sword first. He lifted it up, struggling with the weight.