The Wrong Side of Magic (34 page)

Bonnie took Hudson's hand and pulled him to her room. There, sitting at Bonnie's play table, was Fredericka, the two-foot-long cockroach. Most bugs have hideous faces, and Fredericka was no exception. The huge cockroach would have looked like something out of a horror show, except she was dressed in one of Bonnie's ballerina tutus with a feather boa draped around her thick brown neck.

Bonnie had laid out peanut-butter-and-jam sandwiches, Cheetos, and some old marshmallows on her tea set. The peanut-butter jar sat open on the table, a messy knife lying across the top. The cockroach shoveled part of a sandwich and several Cheetos into her mouth using four of her legs.

Disgusting. “That is just wrong,” Hudson said.

“You're telling me,” Mrs. Brown said. “I didn't raise my baby girl to play with cockroaches.”

“I'm not eating that peanut butter,” Mr. Brown said. One of Fredericka's legs had dipped into the jar and grabbed out a glob.

Bonnie skipped back to the table. “Fredericka has to eat a lot so she can build her cocoon and turn into a butterfly.”

“Cockroaches don't turn into butterflies,” Mr. Brown said. “That's caterpillars.”

Hudson looked around Bonnie's room. “Um, where is the cat, anyway?”

“Hiding underneath the couch,” Mrs. Brown said. “She's barely come out since Fredericka showed up.”

Smart cat.

“Watch what Fredericka can do.” Bonnie picked up a crayon from the table and scribbled something on a stack of paper that lay there. Hudson had been so busy staring at the bug he hadn't noticed all the paper around Bonnie's room. Each of her dolls and stuffed animals had at least one message propped in front of it.

Bonnie put down the crayon and held the paper out to Fredericka. “This is a message for Hudson Brown.”

The cockroach dropped most of her food—she seemed too attached to the Cheetos to let those go—and grasped the letter with one antenna. The bug slid off her chair, dropped to the ground, and scuttled over to Hudson. Fredericka then stood on her hind legs and held the paper above her head. While Fredericka waited for Hudson to take the paper, she popped another Cheeto into her mouth.

The note read,
Welcome Home. Fredericka loves you!
Bonnie had surrounded the words with flowers.

“I bet nobody else has a trained cockroach,” Bonnie chimed proudly. “I didn't even have to tell her where you were. Once you say a name, she knows where to go.”

Hudson didn't take the paper. He didn't especially want Fredericka's love. “It isn't trained—it's enchanted.”

The bug remained standing in front of Hudson, staring at him with flat black eyes. Hudson took a step backward, and the cockroach stepped forward, poking the paper at him. Mrs. Brown shook her head. “It'll keep doing that until you take the paper. Trust me, I've tried ignoring it.”

Hudson gingerly took the paper from the cockroach's antenna. “Uh, thanks.”

Without any sort of indication that the bug understood Hudson's words, Fredericka dropped back to all six legs, scurried across the floor, and climbed onto the table.

Bonnie skipped over to the table and picked up the cockroach like she was a teddy bear. “Where are your manners, Fredericka?” She sat the bug on a seat and handed her a peanut-butter sandwich. “Is that any way for a ballerina to act?”

Mr. Brown leaned closer to his wife. “The bug doesn't ever answer back, does it? I mean, does it understand English?”

“It's just a bug,” she said. “A huge, ugly bug that is now our problem.”

*   *   *

The cockroach problem didn't get solved that night. Mrs. Brown shut Fredericka in the bathroom, and they ordered pizza for dinner. Everyone had too much to talk about and too many stories to tell to worry about bugs. Even Bonnie forgot about her new pet when she found out that Charlotte was a princess.

Bonnie spent the rest of the evening talking about being friends with a princess, musing about what she would do if she were a princess, and asking if they could go visit the palace.

Hudson's parents told her no and wouldn't say more than that. After dinner, they researched cockroaches on the Internet: The bugs lived for about a year and a half, which was about a year and a half more than Mrs. Brown wanted to house a cockroach. Mr. Brown thought they should sell Fredericka to the Guinness Book of World Records, but Mrs. Brown shot down the idea. “I don't want to be famous for having the world's largest cockroach living at my house. What'll people think about my cleaning?”

Hudson's parents were still talking about it when he went to bed. He hadn't slept very soundly at Logos—being pursued by soldiers with bloodhounds did that to a person—and he immediately fell into a deep sleep. A sleep that would have lasted all night, if he hadn't been woken up at four a.m. by something fluttering in his face.

He opened his eyes. Through the light of the streetlamp outside, he saw a giant cockroach standing on his bed holding a piece of paper in its antennae.

There are many good ways to be awakened from a deep sleep. This was not one of them.

Hudson startled, did something that resembled the backstroke across his bed, then yelled, “Bonnie!” Their parents had specifically told her not to let Fredericka out of the bathroom.

The cockroach fluttered the paper at Hudson again. He turned on his bedside lamp, squinted in the light, and took the paper. As soon as he relieved the bug of its task, it slid off Hudson's covers and scuttled under his bed.

There's nothing like knowing a two-foot-long cockroach is hiding under your bed to keep you from going back to sleep. Hudson sighed and was about to crumple the paper up when he noticed that a small box was taped to the end of the paper. He didn't open the box. Instead, he read the message.

It wasn't in Bonnie's handwriting. It was Charlotte's.

Dear Hudson Boudewijn,

Thank you again for helping me regain my throne. I and Logos will always be in your debt. And, although Logos has a fiscal policy of avoiding debt, I don't mind this one.

I wanted to make sure you made it home safely, so I'm sending a box with another enchanted messenger cockroach. That way you can write back to me. I realize you have no way to shrink a letter down to cockroach-carrying size, so write “Yes” on something small and give it to the cockroach in the box. He'll bring your message to me.

Yours,
Princess Erica Nomira Charlotte Colette

PS. I wanted to send a prettier bug, since cockroaches are kinda gross, but my top wizard says butterflies are too easily distracted for the job, ants are too slow, and dragonflies knock into things. I considered a bee, but my top wizard says it isn't polite to send things with six-inch-long stingers.

PPS. These bugs' enchantments only last for three days. After that they'll shrink back to their normal size, so don't take long answering.

PPPS. Pokey sends his regards. He's been adopted as the official mascot of Mermaid Lake and is getting along quite well with the mermaids.

PPPPS. I miss you.

The letter made Hudson smile.

A knock came at the door, and then Mrs. Brown opened it and stepped in. “Are you all right? Why were you yelling in the middle of the night?”

Mr. Brown came in behind her, his gaze sweeping the room for danger. Bonnie came into the room last of all, her expression eager. “What is it? Did something magical happen?”

Hudson read them Charlotte's letter. His parents smiled when he got to the part about the cockroaches shrinking, and Bonnie smiled because “Fredericka has a new friend now!”

She peered underneath Hudson's bed, grabbed hold of one of the bug's spindly legs, and tugged the thing toward her. It slid from underneath the bed, all its legs helplessly flailing against the carpet. “I'm going to name you Fred,” Bonnie told him. “Let's go meet Fredericka!”

Fred was not as calm as Fredericka, and he waved his antennae in alarm as Bonnie hauled him off.

Mr. Brown put his hand on Mrs. Brown's back and led her from the room. “Three days,” he reminded her. “It's only going to last for three days.”

Hudson went to their computer and typed out,
Yes. I miss you too
. Then he changed the first period to a comma. He added,
We have to find a better way to talk. Have your top wizard work on that.

He shrank the message to three-point type, which made it unreadable. Still, he printed it out and cut the sentence into a tiny strip. He set the small white box on his bedroom floor, opened the lid, and gave the piece of paper to the waiting cockroach. “Give this message to Princess Erica Nomira Charlotte Colette.”

The bug took the paper eagerly, holding it in its pincers. Then it crawled out of the box, scurried across the floor, and disappeared into a closet.

*   *   *

It was odd to go to class the next morning. Hudson hadn't thought about school since he'd left Houston. In Logos, he'd had other things to worry about. But that wasn't what made going to school odd. He kept noticing things he hadn't before. The bees that hovered around the flowering bushes, swaying back and forth between blossoms like they were part of a dance. He wondered if they knew people's secrets like the bees in Logos did.

The yellow flowers that grew next to his house seemed different, too. Had their color always been so bright, so happy? The trees along the way had such thick, friendly foliage. He could almost imagine that if he climbed them, they would whisper compliments to him.

Charlotte's house was hard to pass. It stood there forlornly empty, like it knew she wouldn't come back.

Hudson's mother had called the school after he'd disappeared and said he was absent because of personal reasons. When Trevor had called their house, she'd told him Hudson went to visit his sick grandmother.

Yeah, sort of like Red Riding Hood. It wasn't the best excuse. If his grandmother were really sick, wouldn't his mother have gone, too?

Still, Hudson came up with some stories about his grandma's house in case anyone asked.

When Hudson got to school, Andy, Caidan, Isabella, and Macy were leaning up against some lockers near his. They were talking about a rematch of the basketball game they'd had a week ago. Andy predicted “total domination.”

Caidan eyed Hudson and let out a snort. “Well, if it isn't Boil Boy. Your skin finally cleared up enough that you could show your face again?”

Isabella nudged Caidan, telling him to stop it, but she giggled while she did it.

Hudson spun the combination on his locker. “I never got any boils.”

“Oh, come on,” Macy said, chewing a piece of gum loudly. “We broke out just by being
around
you. You must have had them, too.”

Andy made a face, rolling his eyes back in his head. “He must have looked like something out of a horror show.”

Isabella shot Hudson a pointed look. “Really, it was totally uncool of you to go through poison ivy and then show up at the game and infect us.”

Hudson opened his locker door. “You can't infect someone with poison ivy.” It was a plant, not a disease. Had Isabella always been such a ditz?

Isabella tossed her hair off her shoulder. The gesture didn't have the effect it used to have on Hudson. Instead of seeming glamorous, she just seemed annoyed. “Well, you must have infected us with it. We got it after being around you.” Another toss. She looked like she suffered from neck spasms. “And do you really expect anyone to believe you were at your grandmother's? That's so lame.”

Hudson put his backpack into his locker. “You're right. I went with Charlotte to Logos to help her take care of some things.”

Caidan raised his eyebrows and laughed. He clearly thought he'd hit the mother lode of joke material. “Charlotte Fantasmo?” he asked. “You were with wacko girl all this time?”

“It turns out Logos is a real place.” Hudson took his books for first period out of his locker. “She's a princess there. She's got a castle, servants, wizards, amazing stuff.”

“Does she have a psychiatrist?” Caidan asked. “Because that's what you both need.”

“Or a brain surgeon,” Andy said. “To fix whatever is wrong with you.”

Isabella shook her head with disapproval. “You really shouldn't encourage Charlotte's weirdness. She's bad enough already.”

Andy nudged Macy. “That's what she's the princess of—the Princess of Weirdness.”

Andy and Caidan both laughed. Hudson shut his locker door with a thud. He didn't let the laughter rattle him. “Two-foot-long cockroaches,” he said. “She can send them to visit whoever she wants. So I really wouldn't make fun of Charlotte if I were you. You don't want to get on the wrong side of magic.”

“Two-foot-long cockroaches?” Andy said loud enough that several people in the hallway turned to look at him. “That's what you and Charlotte are going to have after you're married.”

More laughter from the group. This time Isabella and Macy joined in. Hudson turned and headed toward his first class.

“Prince and Princess of Weirdness,” Caidan called after him.

They didn't let up all day. And Hudson didn't mind.

He didn't go to the basketball game after school. He had too much homework to make up, but he didn't forget that Andy and Caidan would be there, surrounded by their friends. After Hudson finished up his algebra, he wrote each of them a note that said,
It's not nice to make fun of people.
He gave the cockroaches the messages, told the bugs to deliver them to Caidan and Andy, then opened the door and watched the insects scurrying down the sidewalk toward the park.

It was probably a mean thing to do—to Fredericka and Fred, anyway. But somehow Hudson didn't feel that bad about it.