Mearsies Heili Bounces Back (33 page)

Robin suddenly stopped short. “We can’t go in
there.
”

We’d stopped at the edge of an enormous square. It was
crossed mostly by open carriages with fancy-dressed people in them. A few
walked, or rather strolled, in the garden between the square and the palace.

It was the kind of garden I really hate—all flat, geometric,
the bushes clipped into shapes, the plants so pruned and clipped they looked
like plastic. The few shade trees were all lollipop shapes, and I’ll bet a
squad of gardeners race out any time a leaf dares to drop.

But we could see. I didn’t spot any kids—and wasn’t sure I’d
use a kids’ entrance, if they had such a thing, because it would probably mean
PJ was around. I didn’t want him seeing us before we saw him.

At the entrances (there were three, with balconies and
French doors above, leading into what had to be ballrooms and the like) guards
in powder blue and white stood to attention, with halberds.

“Nope.” I started thinking of ropes—disguises—

“Around back, where the servants go,” Puddlenose said.

Robin’s brows went up. “Oh, good idea!”

“Duh.” I smacked my forehead.

So that’s what we did.

No guards in back, and lots of trade carts and so forth
going in and out. There were plenty of shade trees, and nothing carefully
pruned. I guessed it was to hide the sight of servants and delivery
people—plus, the gardeners weren’t going to waste time on those plants—but I
thought the back side ten times prettier than the front. Including the fallen
leaves.

We got in without any problems. We just followed a bunch of
prentice-aged kids returning from lunch, or chores, or something, and no one
paid us the least heed.

The Auknuges love to have servants in uniforms. All kinds of
uniforms, the important thing being, the army of servants knows its humble
place. We followed a bunch of people to a huge storage area, where grayish blue
outfits were neatly stored, with aprons. Robin looked around with faint worry,
but mostly excitement, as I led the way. My heart was pounding, but I kept
thinking, it’s just Fobo and PJ, not the Chwahir. I can handle these clods,
even without magic.

“Now we get something to carry, and explore,” I said.

So we each picked up a small stack of freshly ironed table
cloths, and out we went. Puddlenose started off in one direction, but Robin
stayed with me.

The bottom floor was just about all for servants, and for
the public who came to talk to the king, or to his officials. We searched
everywhere—starting with the kitchens and the enormous laundry area. There’s
magic for cleaning, but things had to dry and be ironed. I’d thought for sure
Irene would be stuck doing hard work, but I didn’t find her scrubbing,
sweeping, chopping, or mixing.

Up one floor began all the entertainment rooms. Ballrooms,
of course. There was even a library, antechambers of all kinds, full of
paintings and pictures and statuary. I looked carefully at the statues to make
sure none were people.

Biggest was the grand ballroom behind the throne room. Or,
one of the throne rooms, we discovered after trekking a mile or two past grand
paintings fifty feet high, and columns, and vaultings. Fudalklaeb had two
throne rooms, the bigger one mostly shades of blue and gray and white stone,
with golden fixtures up high where sticky fingers couldn’t make a grab. That
one seemed to be for the lower classes. Then he had a smaller but fancier one
for the aristos, made out of rose marble, and different shades of stone that
fit around that.

Once we got beckoned into a dining room, where a woman in a
long blue-gray dress impatiently waved at us to set our table cloths aside. “The
wrong ones—doesn’t anyone listen?” We had to set out some peach colored ones,
making sure they hung exactly, and when more servants came in with silverware
and dishes, we made good our escape.

Meantime, Robin was listening to the blabbing around us. “Is
PJ the Young Highness?” she whispered.

“Has to be,” I whispered back.

And not ten seconds after, some busybody in a long blue robe
and a weird hat said, “You two linen girls? What are you doing up here?”

“We were ordered to take these to the Young Highness,” I
twittered, when Robin totally froze up.

“Your steward should have sent me word,” the man said,
looking so affronted his double chin pressed into three chins.

“Oooh,” I said, like I was scared.

Robin looked scared.

“Run along. Make your delivery. I will have a word with
Steward Kalb. We must have decorum, and you are not to be taking short cuts
through the formal chambers reserved for the Quality! Get back to the servants’
hall at once!” He pointed toward an unobtrusive door behind an enormous marble
table, so off we went.

“We gotta hurry now,” I said as soon as we’d gotten inside
the servants’ door, which opened into a narrow, absolutely plain, unplastered
hall.

“Why? He’s gone.”

“Because he’ll yell at whoever Steward Kalb is, and Steward
Kalb will yell back that he or she didn’t give any such order, and they’ll be
looking for us. Fobo’s servants were all lazy and stealing from her, and they
never paid any attention to us. I didn’t know about all these rules.”

“So what do we do?”

“Divide up and go on the attack. You handle PJ. We’ll find
him first. Ask him which of his billion crowns has Faline, then get her.”

“How do I get him to talk to me?”

“If he doesn’t just tell you because he has to gloat, then
pull a tackle and tickle! He’s horribly ticklish.”

Robin looked scared again, so I said, “I’ll show you.”

We then discovered that PJ and Fobo had their own throne
rooms! Who did they rule? I dunno, but each had a big room with a raised chair
with a crown over it, though Fobo’s wasn’t 200 feet high like at the Squashed
Wedding Cake.

The throne rooms were side by side—and off one way led to
PJ’s area of the castle. This area had younger people in it. They were mostly
busy in the rooms where there were billiards tables, different gambling games,
and so forth. There was even a long room for fencing practice, but PJ wasn’t in
there.

Then I heard his voice, whining and nagging. “Then you have
to come into the throne room. I’ll dethide there. You
know
the ruleth.
That’th where I
alwayth
make the dethithionth.”

“Your highness, with respect, there’s nowhere to sit.”

“Becauthe you’re thuppothed to thtand! My royal mother thayth
it showth proper rethpect.”

No ‘Mumthie’? Wow!

I got an idea. Ran ahead down the servant’s hall to PJ’s
throne room, Robin hard on my heels. I stashed the table cloths on a bureau as
I whizzed past, zapped through the door, ran to the aristocratic door, and when
PJ entered, I slammed the door behind him.

“Keep it shut,” I said to Robin, who leaned against it.

“What do you—how dare you—it’s
you!
” PJ started
nastily and ended up wailing.

I tripped him. It was easy because he always wore so much
lace and gold braid and so forth, he could hardly move. There was a very
scrawny kid inside all that brocade. Once I reached his ribs, I tickled away.
He writhed so hard his enormous crown came loose from his head, and rolled
around in a circle, clinking faintly on the marble.

“Where are my friends?” I asked, lifting my fingers once.

“GUA—”

Back to tickling.

The door rattled once, twice. Robin looked scared, but stuck
to her post. As PJ writhed, trying to get away, I said, “I’ll stop as soon as
you tell me.”

The rattling stopped—his friends obviously weren’t all that
thrilled about standing around in PJ’s throne room, watching him practice being
the big cheese, because they only gave the door a couple half-hearted tries,
and went away.

“I’ll sit here all day if I have to,” I said. “Start by
telling me which crown has Faline in it?”

“Crah,” PJ gasped. “Crah.”

I lifted my fingers. “Thith crown!” PJ gasped.

“Keep talking.”

He did—with the usual lisp, but I’m not going to write it. “My
mother got the other. Personal maid. Gets beaten when she’s not obedient, ha
ha, GUARDS!”

Back to tickling.

“Robin, take over,” I said.

Robin may have been shy but she knew kids. She knelt on the
other side of PJ and tickled away as he whooped and gasped and wheezed and
writhed.

I picked up the crown. It was enormous—the sort you’d expect
to see on the noggin of the emperor of fifty universes. It had tiers of worked
gold, with gems and jewels. There was a kind of archway loopy thing at the top,
with a gigantic blue gem in it, and as soon as my fingers touched it, they
tingled with magic.

I looked down at PJ’s sweaty, gasping face. “Wow, that’s
mean,” I said. And I wondered who thought of it, Jilo or PJ. Whichever one
showed an actual imagination, if a nasty one.

Ugh! I was mad. Mostly because it was so mean, but also
because I kind of felt like imagination belonged to
us
. Villains
shouldn’t have imagination. Especially when they used it against us.

Anyway, I pried the blue stone out, then I marched to the
nearest window, and heaved the stupid crown out. When it splashed below, I
grinned.

“Give me about five minutes,” I said, knowing Robin’d
understand ‘minutes.’ Wishing I had a handy sailor to konk out PJ, I added, “If
Puddlenose shows up, he can maybe tie him up or something, long enough to get
you guys away.” I scrambled up and ran.

Well, I figured Fobo’s own rooms had to be near her throne
room, if PJ’s was near his. Sure enough, after racing around I found them—and
then was guided by her shrieking orders.

Since I was in a maid’s costume, nobody paid me any
attention. Through a zillion chambers and there was Irene, her eyes puffy,
moving painfully as she made an enormous bed all by herself. Standing nearby
was a servant with a mean face, and a stick.

“There you are, worthless slug,” Fobo said from the
doorway—and didn’t recognize me. She didn’t even look at me. “Attend to that
wig!”

I walked past Irene, who glanced up, gasped, and then took
hold of the sheet more meaningfully.

I followed Fobo into the next room, which had mirrors
everywhere, and an enormous makeup table that looked like it was for an entire
stage of actors. As Fobo sat down, pointing to a wig lying on the floor like
some kind of sleeping animal, I grabbed up a crystal holder full of powder and
flung it in Fobo’s face.

At the same moment, Irene threw the sheet over the head of
her guard. I zoomed back in and tackled the clod at the knees as she shoved
with all her might. The guard fell hard, fought the sheet, then froze when
Irene stuck the stick next to his head. “Here’s a knife,” she said
breathlessly. “Move, and you die.”

The guard stopped. I silently picked up a chair and quietly
placed it next to her. She rested the stick on it, so it still poked the
servant. We backed away, and I looked at all the millions of doors. Irene
pointed to the right one, and we took off.

We met Robin in the hallway. Her worried face smoothed as
soon as she saw us. With her was Puddlenose—with PJ hanging over his shoulder.

“I want to try my hostage plan,” he said.

“What happened to him?” I asked.

“I think he fainted.”

“Hostage? Who’d want him?” Irene commented.

We slid down the marble banisters to the floor below as
yelling and shouting started in the floor above. Irene had a good idea—she
flung her apron over PJ. We girls added ours, so he ended up looking like a
swathed rug or something.

We got out the back, when PJ started stirring.

Puddlenose staggered, then looked about. We were passing the
dairy yard. There were wagons; we ignored those, as none were hitched up. But
there was a wheelbarrow. With a grunt, Puddlenose dumped PJ into it, then
tucked the aprons around him.

I watched, really uneasy. I hated this plan. But this was
Clair’s cousin, who was older. “Sure you want to do this?” I asked.

Puddlenose gave me a cheerful grin, but somehow there was
something in his attitude, oh, like one of the girls when they were sure about
something. If you try to talk them out of it, you find yourself in an argument.

“Yep,” Puddlenose said, picking up the wheelbarrow’s
handles. “See how they like it.”

Well, that was that.

The rest of the journey was uneventful, but full of way more
trouble than it would have been with just us. We had to pause behind a shrub
while Puddlenose tied up PJ, gagged him with his own silken sash, then
restuffed the aprons around him. But we made it back to the shore, where there
were fewer people.

The sailor met us as the evening tide came in. I’d kind of
hoped he’d refuse to take PJ aboard, but he just laughed when Puddlenose told
him who the bundle was, and what he intended to do. So out we sailed to meet
the
Tzasilia
, which had spent the day circling the islands.

We held a council of war with the captain, while PJ banged
and yelled in the cabin they’d put him in.

“In short, I didn’t find any sign of the Chwahir—”

“Where’s my manservant! I’m hungry!”

“—leading me to think they are stretched very thin indeed.”

“I
order
you to open this door, or I will have you
killed!
”

“I’d like to keep patrolling. I suspect that some of our
potential allies are hiding in inlets along the north shore, or even in the
islands. Everyone is afraid of the Chwahir,” he said.

“Did you hear? I’m
hungry!
Let me out of this hole! I
wish to bathe, and pass judgment upon
whoever put me here!
”

“I want to go home,” I said. “Maybe if we all go to MH, and
get Clair and the girls back, the rest will work out.”

“Now! Do you hear me?
Now!
”