Wood Sprites (31 page)
Authors: Wen Spencer
“Gecko?” Jillian guessed.
The goldfish was snatched up, crammed into the mouth full of teeth, and chomped loudly. Crumbs rained down on the desktop to be picked up with delicate claw-tipped fingers.
“I-I don’t think geckos have hands.”
Jillian attempted to keep filming and turn on her tablet. “Logically, it’s most likely an Elfhome species of lizard, meaning that it’s dependent on magic to exist, which is why it’s staying near the generator.”
“I think it looks—” Louise squeaked as the thing suddenly leapt onto her shoulder.
They eyed each other nearly nose to nose. It was only about six inches long, covered in scales of a delicate rose color. It clung to her with tiny little pinpricks as claws poked through her shirt. There were five claws on each foot. It had a mane of long slender filaments that seemed too thick to be hair.
It snapped its tiny fingers, opened its wide mouth full of teeth, and said in a tiny, childlike voice, “Cracker!”
Louise blinked in surprise and then fumbled out a small handful of goldfish and held them up to the creature, forgetting to give the training prompt.
It used both front paws to grab up the crackers and shove them all into its mouth, one by one, at express speed. When Louise’s palm was empty, the creature snapped its fingers again and commanded, “Cracker!”
“It can talk!” Jillian whispered.
“She has thumbs.” Louise fed it another cracker while carefully shifting closer to the generator.
“She?”
“She feels like a girl to me.” Louise wondered if the crackers were actually good for the little thing.
The creature snapped her fingers and commanded, “Cracker!”
“Where are the strawberries?” Louise asked.
“Here!” Jillian found the clear plastic container with the chocolate-dipped strawberries.
Chocolate could be fatal to dogs, so Louise picked it off.
“Cracker!” There was impatient snapping of tiny fingers. “Cracker!”
Louise offered the bare strawberry. A giant of its type, the fruit dwarfed the head of the little creature that eyed it dubiously. It looked from Louise to the massive strawberry to Louise and then back to the fruit.
“Strawberry.” Louise took a bite to show that it was edible. “Strawberry?”
The creature plucked the fruit out of her hand, turned it around and around in puzzled study, and then sniffed it. It took one cautious nibble and then, eyes going wide, crammed the entire fruit into its mouth.
“Oh, she’s so cute.” Jillian zoomed in with her camera. “Nom, nom, nom, nom. But what is she?”
“You know, she looks like one of those dragons on Chinese menus.”
The dragon looked up. “Nom, nom, nom, nom.” It snapped its fingers. “Strawberry!”
They took turns feeding her the strawberries and looking up information on Elfhome dragons.
“There’s almost nothing here,” Jillian complained.
“While apparently dragons vary in size, they are reported to be very large, fire-breathing, and dangerous,” Louise read what she found aloud. “Approach with caution. Maybe she’s a baby dragon.”
“Do you think she can breathe fire?” Jillian asked.
They stared at the baby dragon who was munching on the last strawberry.
“Nom, nom, nom.” She licked her fingers and then snapped them. “Cracker!”
“She eats a lot,” Jillian said.
Louise broke open the bag of beef jerky. The baby dragon had learned that new containers equaled new food. The little creature grasped the bag of beef jerky in one hand and with the other was stuffing pieces of the dried meat into its mouth as fast as it could chew. “Nom, nom, nom!”
“Good thing you got so many snacks,” Jillian said.
“We should give her a name.”
“We’re keeping her? What do we tell Mom and Dad?”
“We don’t have to tell them. We’ll keep her in our room. We could get a little aquarium for her when we’re at school.”
Jillian shook her head. “That’s not going to work. Sooner or later, they’re going to find out.”
“We just need to buy some time until we can figure out what to tell them. We can come up with some story about finding her in the subway or something.” It couldn’t be “buying,” because they’d try to make them take the dragon back to the mythical store. There was also the uneasy question of where they’d gotten the money to buy an exotic pet. “Think of it as a challenge.”
Jillian flopped onto her bed. “I never thought I’d get tired of lying.”
“We need to name her.”
“Let’s call her Greedy Gut.” Jillian patted the bed beside her. “Greedy Gut! Greedy Gut!”
The baby dragon stuck out its tongue and blew a raspberry.
“I don’t think she likes that name.”
So while the baby dragon polished off the beef jerky, they tried out names. They had named lots of characters in the past, but nothing alive with a personality that they couldn’t change at whim.
Louise felt like a name was floating on the edge of her awareness, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. “It should be something bright, and happy, and female.”
“Bossy.” Jillian got another raspberry for the suggestion. “She reminds me of some senile old grandmother.”
The name finally came within reach. “Joy. I think her name is Joy.” No raspberry. “See, she likes it.”
Jillian came to eye the baby dragon. “No, she’s just falling asleep now that all the food is gone. I think her name is Bottomless Pit.”
“Her name is Joy,” Louise repeated more firmly. “And you can’t blame her for being hungry; she hasn’t had anything to eat for hundreds of years.”
Jillian gasped. “Oh my God! Lou! What’s in the other eleven
nactka
still in the box?”
“Oh no!” Louise leapt to the codex and quickly looked up the longest passage regarding the device. “Twelve loaded
nactka
! They all have something in them!”
“Eleven more like her?” Jillian eyed the baby dragon. “What would we do with twelve of them?”
Louise was amazed that Jillian even asked the question. “She’s obviously very intelligent. She might even be smarter than a human. It’s been—what—five minutes and she already knows three words of English.”
“‘Nom, nom, nom’ is not a word,” Jillian said.
“We need to get them out of the box!”
“What if the elves took the box? They were going to take three items.”
* * *
They hacked into the museum and checked the security monitors, but the box had always been screened from the cameras. There was no way of telling if the box was still there.
“They would have to tell France that the elves took the box.” Louise dove into the e-mail system to sift through the curator’s mailbox. Dated late Friday night was an e-mail to the curator at the Louvre explaining that the elves had asked for the return of the box. Not surprisingly, there was no answer until early Monday morning Eastern Standard Time—or normal business hours for Greenwich time—objecting and asking the AMNH not to allow the elves to take the box. The answer was short and simple: the elves had already returned to Elfhome with it.
The Louvre sent back a caustic answer that ended with, “Thankfully the EIA spared us the loss of the tiara.”
Jillian swore softly. “That’s right. The EIA told the French just to send the box.”
Louise checked on the other two items. They were both small pieces of jewelry, obviously worth a good deal in terms of gold and gems but otherwise insignificant. “These are decoys. If they just took the box, everyone would talk only about it, but with the obviously worthwhile items, the box isn’t interesting.”
“If they wanted it, does that mean they know what’s in it?”
“Dufae said he stole the box on Elfhome. Maybe he stole it from Sparrow.”
Joy had crawled into Louise’s lap and fallen asleep. She looked so cute asleep. She was sprawled on her back, front paws on her full tummy and one back leg twitching in time with her soft little snores. Louise stroked one finger over Joy’s buttery-soft hide. The baby dragon nuzzled into her palm with a small purr and then lapsed back into snores.
What was Sparrow going to do with the other eleven?
“Hello,” the receptionist said as the twins walked through the door to their father’s clinic. According to the human resources records, her name was Laura Runkle. She’d only recently graduated from business school and started working at the clinic a month ago. She was young, pretty, and very uncertain about her power. Her face and tone said, “Are you lost?”
Louise had Tesla take up an “off-duty” position beside one of the waiting room chairs, and then made a visible production of settling into said chair. She put on her reading glasses, flipped through the projected pages of her holographic book, and squirmed into the chair to read.
Jillian aimed the receptionist’s attention on Louise by staring at her intently and then sighing loudly. “Bookworm.” And then, having established that Louise was the quiet one of the twins, Jillian turned brightly to the receptionist. “Hi, I’m Jillian Mayer. I’m here to see my dad. He works here.”
The receptionist started to smile, and then she came to a full, horrified stop. “Oh! You’re George’s twins.”
Unsaid was “You’re the two that blew themselves up.” Really, do it once and people don’t let you live it down.
“Yup!” Jillian juggled the big box she was carrying, nearly spilling it, to point in the direction of their father’s office. “Our dad is this way—right? I got something to show him.” She started to march down the hall, all but commanding that she be followed.
“Wait. I don’t know if he’s back there!” The receptionist glanced at Louise, who seemed nose deep in a book. Swallowing the bait, she headed after Jillian. “Which one were you again?”
Louise counted to five, and the shrieks started. According to Laura’s social network page, she was terrified of snakes. While Louise loved the ball python they’d found at a small and possibly illegal pet store, Jillian could better act out “accidentally” dropping the box and setting the snake free.
“Follow,” Louise told Tesla and hurried down the hallway toward the cryo-room. They had practiced the extraction at home, using all stand-in material. It should take her only three minutes, but that was assuming that nothing went wrong. Louise swiped the copy of their father’s keycard through the lock. Jillian could keep the office distracted for several minutes but probably not more than five.
There were skintight gloves, big blue protective gloves, a heavy lined apron, and a full-face plastic facemask. She pulled them on quickly as she scanned the blue-capped cryogenic tanks. In an odd design flaw of the security system, there was no camera in the room. They hadn’t been able to determine how the tanks were labeled. There were two tall square units and two tall cylinder tanks and then a host of short tanks tucked under a work counter. The taller units were simply labeled “1” or “2,” while the short ones counted up to “6.” She knew that the babies were stored as H-2-3-2-753694. The initial seemed to indicate a size, but which of the three units labeled “2” was “H”?
“Hello?” Joy suddenly appeared on one of the small tanks under the counter. “Who’s there?” She patted the side of the tank, claws clicking. “Hello?” Without an aquarium for her, they’d been forced to keep her locked in Tesla’s storage compartment. Luckily, like any baby animal, Joy mostly ate and slept.
“Shhh!” Louise cried. Why did the baby dragon have to wake up now? Louise picked up Joy and put her on her shoulder. The tank was a “2.” Was it the right one?
The small tank was on wheels. She rolled it out from under the counter. Louise swiped her father’s keycard through the reader on the cap and typed in 753694. If the vial was inside, the lock would acknowledge the code . . . and unfortunately make a record that it had been accessed.
The reader blinked from red to green. It was the right tank. Louise flipped up the lid and took out the polyurethane cap under the lid. Instantly the air hitting the opened pit turned to misty clouds. There were six wire handles of the racks suspended within the liquid nitrogen. Each was etched with a number. She wanted the second box off the third rack. She unhooked the handle labeled “3” and carefully raised up the rack, wisps of freezing air flowing off it. On the rack were five little boxes inside wire frames, pegged into place by a restraining bar. She removed the bar and wriggled free the second box. She slid off the lid to the box, revealing four frozen vials standing inside slots. She took the first one out and peered closely at the label.
“Hello?” Joy pointed at the one on the far end. “Who’s there?”
Louise put the first vial back into the stand and checked the end vial. 753694. “Score!”
She opened up Tesla’s storage compartment and used the keyword to open the
nactka
. Once the vial was safe inside, she activated it. The babies safe, she replaced the lid on the vial box, put it back into the rack, put the retaining bar back on, and carefully lowered the rack back into the liquid nitrogen. She was pushing the tank back under the counter when she realized she’d forgotten to put the polyurethane cap back into place.
Swearing, she pulled the tank back, flipped up the lid and put the cap in place.
She started to shake once she and Tesla were back in the hallway, Joy tucked into the wide front pocket of Louise’s hoodie with a bag of Cheerios to keep her quiet. The shrieks were still at full volume, and dozens of loud adult voices were coming from the direction of their father’s office.
Jillian was still in full distraction mode. Time for damage control.
Laura Runkle was the one shrieking. She was standing on a desk, prancing, as if she were trying to run up invisible stairs to get even higher. Several other people were sitting on their desks, trying to look nonchalant but asking loudly, “But is it poisonous?” as if such a thing was in the range of possibilities.
Their dad was at least standing on the floor, his back to the wall, looking terrified while trying to seem in control.
Louise felt guilty. It had never occurred to them that their father might be scared of snakes, too.
Her entrance line was “What happened?”
Jillian glanced up and managed not to grin ear to ear with triumph. “I dropped the box.” She did a little voice waver of distress. “Wiggly got loose.”
“Oh no!” It was Louise’s last scripted line. At this point she was supposed to bravely pick the snake up and put it back in the box. She scanned the room, but the python was nowhere to be seen.
They’d rehearsed “the distraction” in their bedroom with a rolled-up towel cord standing in as “Wiggly.” They’d discovered they couldn’t contain Joy anywhere. Somehow she escaped from everything they put her into except Tesla’s storage compartment with a lot of snacks. With her loose, they couldn’t practice letting the real snake loose and catching it again. Somehow they’d overlooked the fact that the python might actively attempt to escape. The videos they’d watched on handling big constrictors all featured very slow-moving snakes.
She glanced questioning to Jillian, who shrugged and spread her hands.
“Louise.” Their father’s voice cracked. “Get the snake and put it in the box. Please! Now!”
“Okay,” she said to at least seem like she was obeying him. She dropped down to hands and knees to peer under desks and behind filing cabinets. So many places it could hide.
“Is it poisonous?” one of the men sitting on a desk asked.
“No, it’s a constrictor.” Jillian joined Louise on the floor. “They kill their prey by coiling around it and choking it to death.”
The man had been extending his foot down, and he paused, freezing in place. “Kill its prey?”
Where was the python hiding? There were many nooks and crannies, but most of them Jillian would have seen the snake moving across the floor to reach. The box canted sideways marked where Jillian dropped it. The desk that Laura Runkle was standing on, still screaming, was next to it. Just beyond the desk was a door marked “Masturbatory Chamber.” She had a weirdly strong feeling that the snake must have slipped unnoticed into the room beyond.
Her father let out a yelp as she opened the door and stepped into the room.
The snake was on the floor, as she expected, coiled in a pair of men’s pinstripe trousers. There was a businessman perched on a table, clutching a magazine to his front.
“No! No! Don’t come in!” the businessman cried.
And her father snatched Louise up and carried her out of the room.
“I need to get the snake.” She squirmed in his hold.
“I will get it,” he said firmly.
“But—but—” She didn’t want to say he was scared of it, but obviously he was.
“I will deal with it.” He caught Jillian by the shoulder as he walked past her and pulled her in his wake. He carried Louise all the way to the back of the warren of cubicles and sat her down in a chair. “Stay here.”
A minute later he returned, looking ashen but holding the box.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Louise said. “I didn’t know you—you didn’t like snakes.”
“I grew up in rattlesnake country. I know that they’re not the same, but fear is not always rational. I’m sorry. I know you want a pet, but Daddy just can’t deal with the idea of a snake in the house.”
* * *
Tesla kept faltering as they backtracked to the pet store, returned the snake, and made their way to the subway. She had forgotten to turn off the magic generator. She was afraid he was breaking down, but she didn’t want to call attention to it. If their father decided he could troubleshoot Tesla, he might find all her changes to Tesla’s programming and the
nactka
in his storage bin.
Luckily, just as they reached the stairs down to the subway, their father’s work called and he wasn’t able to push off their demands.
“Let me put my kids on the express and then I’ll be back.”
He kissed them both on top of their heads. “Go home. Straight home. I’ll be tracking Tesla and will be worried until I see he’s home.”
Jillian barely waited for their father to be out of earshot. “You got it?”
Louise nodded, watching Tesla’s head twist and turn. The subway train came rumbling in and the robotic dog shuddered and pressed up against her.
“Come on, boy.” She patted the wide shoulder. “Keep it together until we get home.”
If Tesla broke down before then, they were going to have a complete mess on their hands. There was no way they could abandon such an expensive machine on the subway system, but if they had to call their parents, they could discover everything.
She pulled Tesla toward the subway train and, as the door opened, dragged him on board. “Just a little longer, Tesla. Please. We need to get home.”
* * *
By the time they hit their stop, Tesla was walking in a wavering line, drifting this way and that on the sidewalk. As they neared the house, Louise stopped being worried about getting home and started to feel bad for the robotic dog. What if they’d totally broken him so he couldn’t be fixed? She’d thought she would be happy to be free from an ever-present spy, but the idea of him going away completely was making her eyes burn.
At the corner of their street, he came to a complete halt.
“Tesla!” she cried.
“Stupid dog.” Jillian caught him by the collar and tried to pull him toward their house.
The dog flinched. “But it’s so big!” he said in his Christopher Robin voice. “It just keeps going and going. And where is this home we’re going to? How far away is it?”
“Tesla?” Louise said.
He cocked his head. “What? We think it’s a reasonable question. We want to stop and see something. Everything is so interesting, but we keep on moving! Why can’t we stop here and look, just for a minute?”
“Oh. My. God,” Jillian whispered as Louise stared open-mouthed at the dog.
There was movement in Louise’s pocket. Joy poked her head out. “Strawberry.”
Tesla cocked his head at the baby dragon. “Hello.”
“Hello!” Joy patted Tesla’s black nose inches from her. “Who’s there?”
Louise took a deep breath as she remembered that Joy had said the same phrase in the storage room as she pointed at the vial holding the babies. “Oh.”
“We think our name is Nikola Tesla.” He tilted his head the other direction. “Or that might be just my name and . . . and the others have their own names. We’re not in agreement about that.”