For Those Who Came In Late: Billy and Marisa have cured each of the ten Story Plagues and have told Billy’s parents their dilemma. As the nine o’clock deadline looms near, Billy makes a surprise announcement.
***
“Thanks to Grandma, I know who our mystery villain is,” I announced.
Mom frowned. “Honey, what could your grandmother know about some old magician with a scar running down his face?”
I showed her what was hidden behind my back, the object that I’d found in the attic. I explained my theory.
“It makes sense,” Marisa said, checking off each of the clues in a notebook. “Everything fits!”
Dad ruffled my hair good-naturedly. “Nice work, son!”
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Marisa said. “Look at the time!” It was ten minutes before nine – ten minutes to get to Glamorgan Castle and finish the Story Plague for good. Dad said he’d drive us, since we’d never make the deadline on our bikes.
Outside, Marisa looked everywhere for Pluto, but with no luck. The one-eyed cat was gone!
“Marisa, forget about him!” I pulled her into the car. Huge clouds were gathering above, and lightning flickered in the distance. “Come on!”
She gritted her teeth. “That cat’s the only Plague that didn’t disappear when we cured it - he’s important.”
“Maybe he faded away while we were at the mall,” I offered. It didn’t make her feel any better. She sat in the backseat, clutching the ancient Story Plague book.
Dad turned left out of our drive and took a right onto Glamorgan Avenue. He rolled the four-way stop at Rockhill, not noticing the police cruiser behind him. Red lights flashed, and Dad pulled over in front of the high school.
“Dad, we don’t have time for this!”
He watched in the rear view mirror as the officer strolled toward the car, a citation book in hand. “You kids go ahead, I’ll catch up later.”
We jumped out, our exit covered by a sudden downpour of rain. Marisa carried the Story Plague book, and I carried my attic surprise carefully hidden inside my shirt.
We ran full tilt for the castle driveway. A bolt of lightning lit the surrounding landscape, revealing the most horrifying sight of the day.
The entire castle grounds were crawling with story characters. Hundreds – no, thousands! – of people, animals and outlandish things walked, talked, fought, jumped and crawled around Glamorgan Castle. It was as if every story ever told had come to life simultaneously.
“Marisa, what gives?” I shouted, sidestepping a sled dog team led by an enormous husky. “Our deadline’s five minutes away!”
“Buck!” Marisa called the lead dog by name. “This way, Billy. Excuse us, sir!” She pushed the driver off the sled and grabbed the reins. I jumped behind her.
“Mush!” she cried, and the dogs were off. Snow swirled around the sled as the team fought to grip the slippery surface.
“Our mystery friend decided to release the plagues early!” Marisa said. “We shouldn’t have expected him to play fair!”
Ahead of us, a rabbit lay sleeping while a slow-moving turtle plodded toward him. Marisa swerved to miss them, and nearly collided with a man unwrapping a cloth bandage from his head. Beneath the bandage, he was completely invisible!
Above us, a giant beanstalk stretched away into the black storm clouds. One of the storm clouds looked suspiciously like a pirate ship, and I thought I saw a boy dressed in green fighting with a hook-handed pirate.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To where all this started,” Marisa answered. “The castle steps!
Easier said than done! I thought. The ground between the steps and us was covered with Story Plagues. Here, a dark skinned boy rubbed a lantern with the sleeve of his shirt. There, another rabbit had his paws stuck inside a baby doll made entirely of sticky tar. Nearby, a desperate old woman held a shriveled monkey’s paw into the air and made a wish, although her words were lost in a crack of thunder.
On the lawn next to Union Avenue, two armies clashed. One side was dressed in blue, the other in gray. From behind the ranks of the blue army, one small soldier ran from the battle, staring over his shoulder in fright.
I turned my attention back to the castle. We were zigzagging toward the steps. Just ahead, I saw a glowing yellow ball of fire. At its center stood the same small, bearded man we’d met before. The scar that ran down the center of his face had turned a wicked purple, and he was laughing as he pointed at us.
Nearby, a handsome young man bent on one knee to serenade a young girl on the balcony above. “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?” he asked.
“Ah, true love,” the old man sneered. He turned to us. “Welcome, welcome! I see you two have decided to return, late though you may be.”
“We are not late!” screamed Marisa. “You’re a cheater!”
“If you’re only now figuring that out,” he wheezed, “then you are too late!” He laughed again. “Oh, you’ve done a fine job solving my ten riddles, but you haven’t solved the primary puzzle, have you?”
I jumped off the sled. His cocky attitude was just too much. “You like stories, old man? Here’s one you’ve probably heard. It starts out: Once Upon A Time ...”
I began to tell him the tale of a miller’s daughter who bragged she could spin straw into gold, and the king who locked her in a room full of straw to see if her claim was true. I told him about the little man who magically appeared to her that night and spun the straw into gold in exchange for her necklace.
“The trick worked so well that the greedy king locked the woman away to spin again, “ I said. “This time she traded her ring to the little man in return for his help.”
Marisa took up the story from there. “The king was so impressed that he made her his queen, but was greedy enough that he locked her away a third time, hoping for more gold.”
The bearded man stopped laughing. His scar turned an even uglier shade of purple.
“This time, the woman had nothing to trade,” I continued. “So she promised the little man her first born child if he would help her one last time. He accepted, but when the baby was born the woman couldn’t bear to give it up.
“So the little man made her deal: ‘Guess my name in three days’ time and you may keep your child!’ he said.”
I paused. “Sound familiar?”
The little man shook with rage, but said nothing.
“Well, the poor princess guessed every name imaginable, even silly ones like Muttonchops and Lacedleg,” Marisa said, “but none of these were correct. Lucky for her, one of the king’s messengers had sighted a strange little man jumping and dancing in the woods nearby, singing his name aloud ...”
The yellow ball of energy behind the little man was growing and growing, dwarfing the castle doorway. I could feel its heat from where I stood.
“Don’t say it!” he hissed
I laughed. “Say what? The name of one of my favorite stories? One I had my grandmother read to me again and again?”
“No, please, I can’t bear it! I can’t!”
“You’re not a grim character, you’re a Grimm character,” I continued, pulling my secret weapon from under my shirt. It was a battered old copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and I held it before me like a shield. “What do you have to say for yourself ... Rumpelstiltskin!
“AAAAAARGH!” Rumpelstiltskin held his hands to his ears. “How I hate that name! And how I ... hate ... you!!”
His scream kept me from finishing the story: how the queen guessed his name, and how Rumpelstiltskin, in a fit of rage, stamped a hole in the ground and tore himself in two!
Rumpelstiltskin snickered, staring at us through red-rimmed eyes. “Of course, you’re too late. Look around! The Story Plagues are spreading! Your little town is toast!”
He was right. The castle lawn was no longer big enough to contain the milling hordes of characters. They were racing away in all directions. A tall, pale man lifted his cape into the air, became a vampire bat, and fluttered away toward the east. A huge wolf was torn between stalking three pigs or a little girl wearing a red hood. Another little girl carrying a shepherd’s crook chased a flock of sheep across Union Avenue.
I tried to climb the steps to reach Rumpelstiltskin. Marisa struggled too, but with no luck. It was as if an invisible wall held us back. He was too powerful!
He raised his left hand above his head and tightened it into a fist. It glowed with energy, and tiny sparks flew from it. He grinned like a madman and shouted, “Now I’ll show you how I deal with meddlesome little dolts!”
But just as his hand was about to open, I heard a hissing from behind Marisa. A black blur shot past her and up the steps, leaping into Rumpelstiltskin’s face. It was Pluto, the one-eyed cat!
Stumbling, Rumpelstiltskin pulled at the feline fury that had attached itself to him. As he did, his fist opened, and the energy bolt that was meant for Marisa and me struck him instead. His face split open like a rusty zipper, and he fell into the glowing ball of yellow energy behind him.
With a bone-rending ZAP!, Rumpelstiltskin disappeared, followed by Pluto, hissing as he followed his enemy into oblivion.
Instantly, every character and every object that had been unleashed at the castle disappeared. One moment, the ground and the air were filled with every imaginable fiction. The next, they were gone, leaving nothing behind. Somewhere in the distance, a cricket chirped.
“Wow! What a way to go!” said Marisa.
“Yeah,” I whispered. I looked down at my copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. “Poor Pluto. He sacrificed himself to save us.”
“Maybe not. Look here.” Marisa had opened her copy of the old Story Plague book. On the last page was a picture of a black cat with a white spot on its chest. The cat rested on a thick rug in front of a fireplace, lapping contentedly from a bowl of milk. “That’s not how Pluto’s story is supposed to end,” she said.
“Guess he made up his own ending.” I was glad. If any cat deserved to live happily ever after, it was Pluto.
We stared at the picture until it began to fade. Moments later, the entire book had vanished. The Story Plague was finally cured!
Marisa and I walked toward the parking lot. Dad was sitting on the hood of the car, waving to us.
“You know, I’ll miss that Rumpelstiltskin,” Marisa said. “He sure knew how to bring a story to life.”
I looked at her, and she laughed. “My goodness, did the oh-so-serious Marisa Kingsford just make a joke? Now I know the world’s going to end!”
She punched me in the shoulder. “Hey, think you could teach me to play baseball tomorrow?”
“No way!”
She looked crestfallen.
“I thought you could teach me something, instead.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
I fished around in my wallet. “Could you show me how to use this?” I handed her my library card.
“Billy,” she said, “there might be hope for you yet.”
The End
Credit Where Credit Is Due! Here, in order of appearance, are the titles and authors (if known) of all Story Plagues appearing in our final chapter: The Call of the Wild, Jack London; "The Tortoise and the Hare," Aesop; The Invisible Man, H.G. Wells; "Jack and the Beanstalk," traditional; Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie; “Aladdin and the Lamp” from The Arabian Nights; “The Tar Baby” from Uncle Remus Stories by Joel Chandler Harris; “The Monkey’s Paw,” W.W. Jacobs; The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane; Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare; “Rumpelstiltskin” from Grimm’s Fairy Tales; Dracula, Bram Stoker; “The Three Pigs,” traditional; “Little Red Riding Hood” from Grimm’s Fairy Tales; and “Little Bo Beep,” from Mother Goose.
Happy Reading!
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