The Prince and the Blight (eBook)

Chapter 1

The Pterodactyl

This stuff is like ogre slobber.

Lily screwed up her face at the paper-mache paste dripping from her brush, and cast a doubtful glance at the mess of newsprint that slouched on the art bench before her. She’d crumpled old advice columns into a lopsided pterodactyl, but the result fell far short from the vision in her mind. She slopped another brushful of paste and wrinkled her nose. I actually wouldn’t mind seeing an ogre right now, if it meant I could be back in the Realm, Lily thought. At least, a friendly one. Is there any such thing as a friendly ogre?

A wadded up gum wrapper thunked Lily in the back of the head. She tried to ignore the kids snickering behind her and the snapping of gum that she knew belonged to Amanda Weatherby, who’d held a grudge against Lily ever since she’d accidentally spilled mac ’n’ cheese all over her dress in second grade (to be fair, it was picture day). Without looking, Lily knew Amanda smirked at her, with her head cocked to one side and with a sticky thread of gum wound around a single finger. Evan Kim would be sitting next to Amanda, elbowing her and joking about her great shot.

Lily bit her lip and tried not to let their whispers bother her. She glopped another mound of glue, and the pterodactyl’s right wing sagged beneath the weight. Finally she threw down her brush in defeat. This feels pointless. I’ve made flames come to life, but I can’t manage a pile of newspaper. She narrowed her eyes and studied the muddle. I guess that corner does look like its jaws. Maybe it doesn’t look quite so bad?

“What do you think?” she asked the pterodactyl aloud.

In response, the pterodactyl stretched its wings, flapped twice, and squawked.

Lily’s heart leapt. She didn’t have to look down to know that the stone fragment in her pocket gleamed its brilliant, blue-white light. She reached for the pterodactyl with both hands, but with a few wing beats the reptile evaded her grasp and swept scraps of newspaper onto the floor. Lily caught the creature by the neck and shoved it, still gooey with paste, into the folds of her cardigan, then wrapped her arms around her abdomen in a mighty hug. She teetered as the pterodactyl thrashed underneath her sweater, and she barely kept her balance when she spun around to flee out the door.

She came face to face with Keisha Reynolds. Keisha stared at Lily, a single beaded braid dangling near one eye. Her gaping mouth told Lily that she’d seen everything: every flying dollop of paste, every flap of the pterodactyl’s wings.

Lily searched her mind for something to say, but nothing could explain away the monster wriggling beneath her sweater. When the pterodactyl squawked again, Lily ran for the door. She flew past benches of students who alternated between dabbing paint and flicking glue at each other. No one look at me, she pleaded. Please, no one else look. Then the pterodactyl bit her arm. Lily gasped, tripped, and stumbled toward the doorway, and all eyes turned toward her.

“Lily! Where are you going?”

Lily froze, then closed her eyes. She wrapped her arms tighter around her middle and prayed the pterodactyl wouldn’t writhe or screech as she turned around.

To her horror, Keisha spoke up. “Ms. Gilson, she’s—”

“I’ve got a stomachache,” Lily blurted, straining to hide the shakiness in her voice. “I need to go to the nurse’s office.”

The art teacher raised an eyebrow. “A stomachache? Again?”

“Yeah.” Lily gritted her teeth against a sticky poke in her gut. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

Ms. Gilson twisted her maroon lips into a pincushion, and Lily feared she’d been caught. How am I going to get out of this one? she thought.

To her relief, after a moment Ms. Gilson relaxed her mouth and nodded. “Okay, Lily. School’s almost over anyway. Feel better, all right? And get checked out so this doesn’t keep happening. Change your diet, or something?”

Still clutching the pterodactyl in a gooey bundle, Lily raced from the room, past the nurses’ station, and out the school building. She ran several blocks until she reached the trail through the forest, the way she’d memorized years ago. She ducked in among the trees and didn’t realize until the cool shadows from the canopy touched her skin that she’d been holding her breath.

The pterodactyl whined as Lily leapt over Silverstream and slipped on the muddy bank. She rounded the boulders, and her aching arms, still held tight around her middle, threatened to loosen like rubber bands stretched to the breaking point. The pterodactyl squawked and thrashed, as if it could sense her weariness.

Finally, she reached the Fortress. The clearing still smelled of lumbered pine and sawdust, relics from her father’s efforts a month before to rebuild the burnt treehouse. Lily collapsed to her knees and relaxed her arms, and the pterodactyl burst free and flapped its wings in panic. It stirred up spirals of leaves that rolled like tumbleweed over the dewy earth, but to Lily’s relief it didn’t escape. Although her arms hung limp at her sides, some glue had dried and the creature, fight as it may, stuck to the inside of her sweater.

Lily closed her eyes as the fanning of the pterodactyl’s wings lapped her face. In the colors that danced through her eyelids, she discerned flecks of sunset, fireworks, the crackle of a fire. For an instant she pretended that she was back at the foot of the mountains in the Realm, with Cedric stepping out into the sunlight, his eyes the same but everything else glittering and new.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Lily opened one eye. Adam stood over her, his arms folded across his chest. He grabbed the pterodactyl by its awkward neck, and it squealed and flapped in protest. “Seriously Lily? Another one? This has got to stop!”

“Just help me with her, please.” Lily pried the pterodactyl from the fibers of her sweater, and its wings promptly slapped Adam in the face. Adam held the creature at arm’s length and used his free hand to wipe a blob of glue from his forehead. He inadvertently smeared the paste into his cowlick, which stood upright like the comb of a rooster.

“Sheila, stop fighting!” Lily scolded.

“Sheila?” Adam said, scrunching his face. “Sheila the pterodactyl?”

Lily shrugged. “It was the first thing I could think of.”

“With a name like that, she should be mad.”

“Hey. Look who’s talking. You named the scrambled eggs Glorf.”

“No, you named him. I only made a suggestion.” With Sheila still flapping in one hand, Adam struggled up the rope ladder, and Lily followed behind him. Rigel swooped down from his perch on the Fortress roof, and together they fiddled with his handiwork: a silver net he’d draped over the treehouse to secure its occupants.

“Your knots are super tight, Rigel,” Lily said, unraveling the cords to free the doorway. After tugging at a few strands that scratched her fingers, she loosened the netting and then shoved the wooden door open.

The scent of new wood wafted toward them, and pine shavings clung to their sneakers as they stepped inside. Bizarre creatures teemed throughout the room, languished on shelves, and lined the walls from top to bottom. A pile of mutant scrambled eggs (that would be Glorf) had slithered atop Lily’s painting set, and now noisily munched some paintbrush bristles. Serpentine shoelaces coiled on the floor and dozed in a patch of sunlight. Beside the shoelaces, a rabbit in a top hat reclined on the floor, one foot lazily draped over the other as he perused an old copy of National Geographic. A fairy floated about the room like a tuft of milkweed silk, and an armadillo with horned-rimmed spectacles rummaged through a box of crackers. After much snuffling, he wedged his head into the box and waddled over to Lily for help.

Lily crouched down to free the armadillo, then Adam, still struggling after ascending the ladder, pushed Sheila the pterodactyl through the door. She flapped a few times, circled the crowd, perched on a coat hook, and cocked her head as if to say, “Really? This is it?”

Lily shrugged. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not home for you.”

“So, do we feed them now?” Adam asked. “I can’t stay long, I’ve got baseball practice.”

“Yeah, sounds good. Did you bring them?”

“Yeah.” Adam swung his backpack to the floor. “But we need to figure out a better solution. I only have a few more s’mores bars left to trade. Plus, I’m getting a reputation as a food hog.”

“Thanks, Adam. I wish they all liked something else, but they’re pretty picky.”

“Picky? Glorf is eating your paintbrushes.”

Lily giggled, and Adam shook his head and pulled a packet of brown paper from the knapsack. He opened the package to reveal a mound of tater tots, all of them procured during trades in the cafeteria. The heap was a sad little offering—half of them were smooshed, the other half soggy, and all of them were cold—but at the first glimpse of them the entire group of creatures pounced, clambering for each morsel and knocking Adam to the floor in their fervor for gummy potato goodness. Lily...