Of Giants and Ice (Ever Afters, The) (3 page)

Lena shivered and started counting on her fingers. “Besides fire, weapons include teeth, claws, tail—”

She seemed way more into the role-play deal than I was. I sighed, but another step in making friends was developing shared interests. “So, where are we going again?”

“Yellowstone National Park,” said Chase.

“Oh. I’ve never been there.” Yellowstone was thousands of miles across the continent, not just a short walk down a creepy corridor, but I played along anyway. “Are there other rules I should know before we start the game?”

“Uh-oh.” Lena stared at me. “You didn’t have your orientation yet, did you?”

“There was an orientation?”

Lena gasped. “Oh, my gumdrops.”

“This should be fun,” said Adelaide.

The triplets behind us laughed.

I ignored them. Lena looked like she might have a panic attack any second. “What problem are we supposed to be looking for?” I asked.

“Nobody tell her,” said Chase quickly. “It’ll ruin the surprise. Who wants to bet we have a screamer?” Someone patted my head in the dark.

“Hey!” I swatted at the hand. The other kids were really laughing now. My hands curled into fists, but I didn’t lose my temper. I just told myself that this was better than the usual gossip, even if I wasn’t totally sure that was true.

“I don’t think I’ll tell you either,” Lena said, more worried than teasing. “You’ll either freak out or not believe me.” There was a light up ahead. We were almost outside. The air felt cooler than it had in the courtyard. “I just hope that we don’t see anything bigger than a buffalo.”

We stepped out into a forest. I blinked in surprise. It looked
nothing like the woods outside my school. No oaks, no maples, no roads, either—just hills covered in pines as far as I could see.

“None of them waited?” Lena said, horrified. “The Director specifically said that someone would be stationed outside in case we had any problems.”

“I’m sure it’ll be okay,” I said, a little distracted by the exit. It looked a lot like the mouth of a cave.

Lena pulled me to the side. “We’ll just wait here.”

“Do what you want,” Chase said, leading Adelaide and the triplets over a small stream. Part of me wanted to ask who put him in charge, but I bit my tongue.

“Wait!” Lena called after them, but none of the sixth graders looked back.

Apparently, it was also against the rules to stay there alone.

Tagging along behind the others, Lena comforted herself by repeating all the rules that the Director had told them before I arrived. I tried to pay attention, but I couldn’t stop staring at the tall, skinny pines and the yellowish hills with hidden pockets of melting snow.

“Travel in squadrons of no less than seven,” Lena said, huffing a little as Chase started up a ridge. We passed a sign that said
OLD FAITHFUL
—15
MI
. Ever After School really went all out with this role-playing deal. “If we see any signs of the beast, we’re supposed to send up a flare and wait for one of the high school squadrons to reach us.”

One of the triplets pointed over the ridge. “There’s one.”

“Where? Is Hansel with them?” Lena rushed up to look.

When I saw the drop, bile rose to my throat. I stumbled back behind the others, hoping that no one could tell that I’d broken out in a cold sweat. Heights aren’t my favorite thing in the world.

After a few steadying breaths, I made myself peer over the ridge with everyone else.

A hundred feet below us, a herd of buffalo grazed on a plain of short yellow grass, steam billowing around them. Smaller figures—the teenage squadron—passed just beyond them. One of them playfully swung a long, pointy thing that looked suspiciously like a sword. “What’s that he’s carrying?” I asked.

“One of these.” Chase lifted a short silver sword. It had a blue-colored jewel on the hilt and his name etched on the blade.

The triplets looked impressed—and kind of jealous.

That was about the time I started to feel like I was dreaming.

“Oh,” I said. A bald eagle soared in and landed directly opposite us in the top branches of a pine tree.

“You weren’t supposed to bring that!” Lena cried.

Chase shrugged. His grin took up half his face, and he had a dimple in his right cheek.

Mom always said to be careful of someone with dimples. They usually know how cute they are, and they’re used to getting away with stuff. Of course, my dad had a dimple too, on his chin, and since the divorce, she’d been a little biased.

“Need to be able to defend any damsels-in-distress.” Chase looked over at Adelaide and me.

Adelaide smiled in a syrupy way, and I liked her even less.

Lena eyed Chase’s sword like it was going to come to life and bite somebody. “The Director said that we aren’t supposed to attack it ourselves. She said if we—”

“Shut it already.” Chase slid his sword back in its sheath. “We were all there. We know what she said.”

Lena looked hurt. If we were going to be friends, I couldn’t let anyone talk to her like that.

So, even though I was kind of tired of hearing about it too, and even though I felt the blush creeping up again, I said, “Well, I missed it. And I think it’s important to know what’s going on.”

Chase only rolled his eyes and started over the next ridge, but Lena smiled gratefully. “Signs of the beast include fire, fewmets, scales—”

The tallest triplet pointed up ahead. “Does smoke count as a sign?”

A dark gray cloud rose in a plume to our right, and everyone perked up.

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Lena stopped walking. “Quick—who has a flare?”

Chase shook his head and hurried toward the smoke. “The Director also said there have been a bunch of fires already. You don’t want to send up a false alarm, do you?”

Lena was obviously torn, but she kept quiet as we approached the smoldering tree—a smaller pine, charred gray. A little orange flame danced on one of the bottom branches, the only part still burning.

Chase blew it out.

“Well done,” said one triplet.

His brother examined the golden embers glowing through the trunk. “That fixed it.”

“Hey. Only
we
can prevent forest fires,” Chase said, and they all cracked up. Even Lena smiled tremulously.

I stared at the smoking tree. If this wasn’t a dream, and if Ever After School was setting fire to trees, then they took the role-play game
really
seriously. I could get in a lot of trouble. If the wrong people found out about it, I could get my
parents
into a lot of trouble. I edged away, wondering if I could find the way back by myself.

My foot found a hole in the ground, and I almost tripped. It was about the size of a manhole, but it had five jagged points, like claw marks. A few feet away, there was a groove in the yellowish chalky soil.

Lena noticed it too. “The Park digs trenches to contain the forest fires.”

“But aren’t they supposed to be bigger than this?” The groove was only a foot deep and a couple feet wide, but it stretched from the burning tree all the way across the ridge and down the slope.

“Look,” I said, pointing.

Beyond the spot where the groove disappeared over the hill, smoke rose in another cloud, much bigger and darker than the one above us.

Maybe it would’ve been smarter to make a hasty escape, but I was curious. Chase sprinted toward it, and I ran after him.

“Flares! Who has the flares?” Lena shouted.

“The Director would want visual confirmation of the target, Lena!” Chase yelled back, just as we reached the top of the hill.

I took one look into the valley below and screamed.

alled it!” Chase smirked as the others joined us.

I froze dead in my tracks and stared below us, too stunned to be annoyed.

Below the smoke, there was a dragon—or at least it
looked
like a dragon. It
had
to be a robot or something, but it seemed so real. It stalked two hundred feet away against a backdrop of burning trees and black smoke. One of the giant pines cracked and fell in a flaming arc. It landed across the dragon’s back, but the robot thing shook it off like a twig.

“Smaller than the one last fall,” said Adelaide.

“I don’t know—I think it’s about the same size,” said one of the triplets.

“We’re bigger though,” said his tallest brother.

“No wings. We’re in luck.” Lena’s voice quivered a little bit, but she seemed calmer now that we had found what we were looking for. “We don’t need to worry about it flying away before the others find our position.”

“So, who
does
have the flares?” Chase asked.

No one answered.

Okay, role-play didn’t cover it. This was insane. And these props and special effects were good enough for one of Dad’s movies. I
had no idea how an after-school program could afford them. The dragon lumbered in our direction, dragging its tail on the ground. It didn’t see us, but as we watched, it blew a long thread of fire. Another tree went up in flames. Watching it burn, I felt a little hypnotized. Pyrotechnics, maybe?

“Flares? Anyone?” Chase said. When nobody spoke up, he added, “Did
anybody
think to grab one?”

“I thought you were getting it,” one triplet said to the tallest one.

The tallest triplet looked at the one with darker hair. “I told Kyle to take one.”

“Don’t look at me,” said Kyle.

“Wow,” Adelaide said. “Great teamwork, everyone.”

My brain kept telling me that robot or not, I should be freaking out. But no one else seemed that upset, so the dragon thing had to be fake, right?

“It’s fine,” Chase said. “We’re far enough away that we can watch it without getting in danger. We’ll split up. Half of us will keep an eye on the dragon, and the other half will go find a group that actually remembered their flares.”

The others nodded, but Lena repeated, “Travel in squadrons of no less than seven.”

“Come off it, Lena,” Chase said. “Now, who wants to—”

Then someone else screamed. It wasn’t one of us—it came from the valley below, but it made me feel a little better about screaming myself.

“Oooh, is it the fifth graders?” Adelaide said, scanning the horizon.

“I don’t see anyone,” said one of the triplets.

She screamed again, and I saw her—a girl down there, about fifty feet from the dragon and a hundred feet from us. Her legs
were tangled in a mass of hot pink. She tried to stand, but she couldn’t shake herself free of the neon canvas.

“Wow,” said one of the triplets. “That’s a really bright tent. How did we not see that?”

“Do we know her?” Chase asked.

“I don’t think so,” said Lena. “That’s a campsite.”

The dragon took a few steps closer to it.

I swallowed hard. “Um, Lena . . . there’s like a remote or something to stop the robot, right? To make sure that no one gets hurt?”

The other sixth graders glanced at each other uncomfortably.

“Rory, it’s
not
a robot,” Lena said, slowly and carefully. “The Director sent us to find the dragon before it burned down Yellowstone—well, more of it, anyway.”

If it had been anyone besides Lena, I would have thought that she was pulling my leg. I wanted to believe her—it just didn’t make sense.

“But—” I said stupidly. “How did we get to Yellowstone?”

The dragon was even closer to the girl now, head to the ground. It looked like it was smelling her out. I was suddenly sure it would eat her if it found her, and the thought shook me out of my daze. “Shouldn’t we
do
something?” I said.

Everyone looked at Chase, like he was supposed to know.

“Uh.” Chase sounded nervous for the first time since I’d met him. “Hope the dragon doesn’t notice her?”

The girl screamed again, and this time, the dragon spotted her. It blew another stream of flame triumphantly and walked forward.

If someone didn’t act fast, we were going to watch this girl die.

“Oh, my God,” Adelaide said horrified.

And without really deciding to move, I started to run.

Down the hill.

Toward
the dragon and the trapped girl.