“From who?” PJ demanded, sending looks at his buddies.
Fleering grins made them even uglier.
I crossed my arms. My heart thumped, my knees felt watery, but all I could remember were those slurs against Clair, and that nonsense about cowards.
“Me,” I said. “Or Clair — the Queen, to you.”
“And if we don’t?” The big one in purple spoke from the side. I turned my head, just a moment too early; he put his hand down, and gave me a big bully grin of anticipation.
Fear mixed with my rage, but I stood my ground.
“Then you,” I said, “will be sorry.”
Sharp pain sent stars across my vision. I staggered — another one, a tall skinny one wearing green, had smacked me across the back with the flat of his sword.
They’d edged their horses around me, and I was surrounded. The girl squealed shrill as tearing metal with nasty laughter, the boys yukking it up almost as loud.
I ignored their whoops and whinnies and guffaws with old practice from schoolyard bullies on Earth. Much worse was the fact that I’d let myself get surrounded, just like bully gangs did at school, only these had swords, and were on horseback. If I ran, then they’d have twice as much fun.
I felt or heard something, ducked — and the flat of a sword whizzed right past my ear. But then a poke in the back made me stumble forward. And before I could get my balance, another sword hit me in the side, knocking me sideways so I fell with a splat right in a patch of mud.
At once I was up, shaking all over, hardly able to see for the mud stinging my eyes.
Howling with laughter, they all tried to get closer in order to hit me with their swords, but their horses got in one another’s way. I swung my hands to smack the blades up, my anger giving way to that terrible, sickening sensation you get when you know you’re going to lose — painfully and humiliatingly.
But then one yelled “OW!” in protest.
The girl shrieked — this time not in laughter.
Irene, Diana, and Dhana ranged along the slope above.
Diana’s arm came around, fast as a pitcher back on Earth. A liquid splat! — and an overripe plum splirched right on the purple boy’s forehead. He squawked.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” I bellowed.
In answer the creep leaned down and the sword whistled terrifyingly close, this time edge on. I ducked between two horses who tossing their heads, prancing uneasily, for now the girls were all pelting PJ’s pals. Messy overripe fruit splattered all over their pretty clothes.
“My silk! My silk!” PJ whined, and he slapped his horse’s sides. “Let’s go hooo-ooome!”
They began to gallop off.
“Good riddance!” Irene yelled.
“We’ll be back,” the creep in purple howled over his shoulder.
“Good!” Irene shouted. “Then you’ll get some more!”
“You’ll get it,” he returned, adding a nasty insult, and then they were gone.
“You okay, CJ?” Dhana cried, leaping down in two light arcs.
“Oh, sure,” I grumbled, hating myself as well as PJ.
“You can’t take on a whole slew of those slobs,” Diana grinned at me. “It’s crazy.”
“You shoulda heard what they said about Clair,” I mumbled, though I knew it wasn’t any excuse for putting myself right into the middle of that mess. “Thanks for coming to my rescue.”
“Next time we want in on the fun,” Diana said, dark eyes narrowed.
Fun? I said nothing as we toiled back to the Junky. My first thoughts were wild ones about finding sword fighting lessons, or better, some kind of spell to make me the best fighter in the world — except new as I was to magic, I was aware there was no such spell.
The walk was long, and hot, and the mud itched. By the time we got back, I was not longer boiling, but feeling very depressed.
Irene told the others what had happened. Everyone looked at me with commiseration, and I could see they felt humiliated on my behalf. That did not make me feel the least bit better. I was supposed to be a leader. Well, I’d sure messed that up.
“We gotta get ’em good,” Faline said, smacking her hands together.
“We might start wearin’ knives,” Diana said.
“What’s the use? You know how to use one, but I don’t,” Irene exclaimed.
“Maybe it’s time to learn.”
“Nuh uh,” I said. “I mean, yes, sure. But are we ever going to win against big hulks who are good at that stuff?”
The girls had started muttering, but they fell silent now.
“I think we’d better talk to Clair,” Seshe suggested.
I shook my head. I knew what Clair was working on: big magic, to make certain the Yxubarecs couldn’t come in over clouds any more, and take us by surprise. That seemed a lot more important than this stupidity with PJ.
“No. We’ll take care of it ourselves.”
“I don’t think Clair would like swordfights,” Seshe said slowly.
“No, I don’t either,” I said. “We don’t know how, there isn’t anyone around to teach us, and if someone got killed, she’d feel terrible. No.” I scratched dried mud off my forehead. “I thought about it, walking back. Oh, maybe it’d be good to learn how to handle weapons, but it’s not fighting we got to do, it’s imagination.”
“What?”
Everyone looked at me. How characteristic their faces were! Dhana skeptical, Irene hands on hips, Faline hopeful that something fun was somehow going to emerge, Sherry puzzled, Seshe worried, Diana glowering.
“Imagination. Just a sec.” I ran to the cleaning frame that we all shared, jumped through, and with the itchy mud all gone I ran back again. “All right. What we don’t have are swords, but we do have imagination — and magic.”
“And?” Irene said.
“Did you hear PJ right before they left?”
“He was whining about something.”
“His silken outfit.”
Irene pretended to shudder. “You’d think that someone who’d gotten stuck with crimson silk with black dots embroidered on it, and orange fringe, and yellow lace, would be glad to be rid of it.”
“I’m sure it’s the latest fashion in their court,” Seshe said. “What’s your idea?”
I grinned, remembering one of the few TV things I missed. The three guys who always managed to defeat the villains, and never with guns or fists or knives.
“War ... to the pie,” I said, rubbing my hands.
THIRTEEN — PJ Tries Again
They were just as eager for a rematch as we were, and the very next morning not only brought them back, but more of them.
It was obvious that they’d held a powwow just as we had. Their idea was to come in battle tunics (beautifully embroidered ones — PJ’s with so many jewels it hurt the eyes to look at them in the bright morning sun) and a slew of their servants as well, all of these armed with thin canes made of yew.
“Look at that! They don’t let their servants carry swords,” Irene pointed out.
We were in trees overlooking one of the bends in the main road, knowing that of course they’d come this way. We’d been there about half an hour, which meant they’d left about the same time we had.
“No,” Seshe said in a sober voice. “It means their idea is to have the servants thrash us, while they look on and laugh.”
“That’s funny?” Sherry asked. “Sounds just mean!”
“Well, it’s meant to be a terrible insult,” Seshe said. “You only beat your equals in rank. You have servants beat people of lower rank.”
“Rank shmank.” I counted them up, and mentally reviewed the plan. No ignoring the plan and splatting stupidly out alone for me today. I’d also spent the night preparing. “Any of it is disgusting! Not to mention hurts, whoever is doing the smacking. But those extra twits are just more of ’em for us to splat.”
Faline snickered.
“Ready?” Diana turned to me.
“Go.”
Diana and Irene swung down from trees on either side of the road.
“Go home,” Diana yelled.
“Scram,” Irene shouted, waving her arms. Not that PJ and his gang would know what scram meant. Irene had learned it from me, and she adored the sound of it.
To help them get the idea, though, she held her nose and waved at them as though they stank. They got that one, all right. Faline almost fell off her branch, chortling at their outrage and affront, and I felt that shivery laughter in my middle that almost made me unable to concentrate.
PJ yelped orders at the servants. Seshe had been right. I only listened long enough to gauge how much time I had before things got hot.
It was going to get hot right away.
So I shut my eyes. Took a deep breath.
I’d stayed out in the main room in the Junky, so as not to disturb the others’ sleep and practiced those spells, for hours. Now I began spell-weaving, fast and assured and focused.
And I felt them hold! One by one, the waiting girls got armloads of pies. Sherry gasped, Faline snickered.
Seshe murmured, “Good job. But phew! This one smells awful.”
I opened my eyes, fighting the vertigo that made me feel slightly lightheaded after so much magic-making. “Of course.” I held onto my tree branch. “Realized. This morning.” Closed my eyes. “Why waste good ones? That one is prune and boiled pea.”
I thought Faline was going to die. “P-r-r-une! P-p-p-pea!”
“What’s mine?” Sherry blinked at the pink and orange mess in her hands. “It smells quite icky.”
“Oh, that one is a spam-and-pumpkin supremo.”
“Spam?”
“As close as I could get to this very, very disgusting food on Earth we used to be forced to eat.”
Sherry wriggled with delight.
One by one the pies appeared on the girls’ laps, which was my destination-focus, and they carefully set them aside along the huge, flat branches where we sat.
Meanwhile, the girls and PJ were exchanging insults down below, the girls just out of reach. Nothing had happened yet.
As I finished, my brain feeling like a squeezed sponge, I heard the end of one of PJ’s taunts. “… waiting for that black-haired brat who claims to be a prin-cess.”
Pause, and sure enough, right on cue — just like Fobo’s court — PJ’s pals guffawed extra loud.
It was time for my appearance.
We’d picked our ground, of course. Later I was to learn that that was the first requirement of a commander in battle. At the time, I sauntered slowly, knowing PJ was just waiting for me to get into range, while behind me Sherry, Faline, and Seshe were quickly shifting pies from the branches to a big, flat rock behind the outcropping around which I strolled.
“You’re interrupting our picnic,” I said. “And you weren’t invited.”
“Oh no,” drawled the biggest one, today wearing purple silk with diamonds and crimson spangles. “I’m so-o-o distraught!”
“We weren’t invited to a peasant picnic, how terrible!” the girl proclaimed.
“But since you came — uninvited — why, we’ll include you,” I said, grinning.
Sure enough. PJ urged his horse close, probably to intimidate me, but I didn’t move. I was within arm’s reach of the mossy rocks behind which the girls crouched, screened by leafy shrubs.
“I think it’s going to be our picnic,” PJ snarled. “Harslo. “ He waved a hand to a tall, thin fellow in livery. “Thrash that brat.”
“Now, Seshe,” I muttered.
And as the servant started advancing with the yew wand, out came Seshe’s hands, complete with the pie I’d especially designed for PJ. But the servant looked completely uncertain, and the way he held that wand gave me the sudden idea he’d never hit anything in his life, horse or person.
“Wait a sec.” I held up my palm to him.
“Don’t you dare give my lackeys orders!” PJ squeaked.
“I just want to know why you’re here. What do you expect to get?”
“This territory ought by rights to belong to my mother, Her Gracious Majesty, Queen Glotulae.” He finished in a grand voice, and waited.
For what? He glared at his friends, who hastily bowed from their horses’ backs.
PJ humphed, then went on. “It will be part of my inheritance, and I, in turn, shall grant proprietary rights on my loyal followers.” A lofty gesture toward his pals.
Seshe whispered, “He’s promising his friends they can be dukes and duchesses.”
Huh. Certainly was one way to make sure you kept friends, even if you were a pill. “But this land belongs to Clair.”
“It belongs to whoever has the strength to take it and hold it,” Purple stated. He might have been the oldest one there, but he was definitely the biggest. “Queen Glotulae can call on her brother’s armsmen at need. And her allies — ”
“Not that,” the girl muttered. I think she meant to do it quietly, but I heard her.
Purple’s eyes shifted. Then he leaned forward and said real fast, “Who’s your stupid ‘queen’ going to call on? The palace silver-polishers? Or just leave defense to a bunch of scrawny brats like you?”
“Yeah,” PJ said, grinning smugly.
And who’s the real leader of your gang of fatheads, I thought, staring at PJ, who really was small and scrawny under all that fancy clothing. But I just smiled. “Last chance to leave.”
PJ laughed. Purple howled. The girl. The rest of their gang laughed too- — but only for a moment. They looked around, and saw our whole gang, at the ready.
One by one the girls had slipped around them, forming in a circle. See, I could learn from my mistakes, and that had been my mistake the day before, to let them encircle me. Well, I’d told the girls to encircle them, each to her target, and I counted on the fact that they’d pay no attention to girls carrying pastries, whereas they might have if we’d had weapons.
I had my pie, and right when PJ threw his head back to bray a laugh, I threw it with both hands.
My aim wasn’t that great, or the horse shifted. Instead of getting him square in the face, it clipped the side of his head, but broke apart most satisfyingly, spattering his crimson silk with raspberry-banana-avocado glop.
“Auwk!” he squawked.
“Arrrrrgh!” the girl screamed. Diana had gotten her smack in the phizz with a spam-and-cram (“cram” being spoiled dough) deluxe.
Purple yelled cuss words as Irene’s cherry-filling-and-cottage cheese gorbanzo splorched across his front.
“No, it’s boiled cherry,” Irene said in a lofty drawl. “And rotten cheese — ”
He ripped out his sword blade and took a lunge at her before she could get the rest of the ingredients out. He jumped down, obviously to give chase — way too mad to remember all that about the servants — but the pie had slopped right where he stepped. He slid and took a header — right into the pieces of a sauerkraut-cottage cheese nastarooni.
“Ha!” I bellowed, then got busy magicking up the second round, as the girls converged for more.
This time most of the pies went astray as people and horses dodged, but the horses began slipping on the mess in the road, and most of the servants sprang worriedly to horses’ heads.
The girl (I’ll just call her Pinch Nose for now) slapped her reins across a servant’s face as she shrieked, “Thrash that #!^&@ with the black braids!”
“Is that the way fancy people talk?” Sherry yelled. “Yuk!”
“She’s talking about what she’s got between her ears,” Irene cried in a voice loud enough for a big stage.
Pinch Nose glared at Irene, then tried to force her mount to trample her. Irene hopped over a rock. The horse slipped, and I caught my breath, afraid for those long legs.
The animal’s eyes went wide and it nickered, ears back. Then, despite Pinch Nose’s screeching and her trying to slap the reins either side of its neck, it backed away from the pie mess.
But not before Pinch Nose got a do
uble dose — a pineapple-pea-sourberry fazeemerette and a honey-rotten-banana supremo splorching in her face, and down the front of her clothes. She started shrieking, “EEEEEEE-EEEEEEE-EEEEEE” sounding like a tea kettle gone mad.
Seshe had gotten the practical idea of picking up pieces of pastry from the ground and flinging it — now mixed with dirt — at PJ and the rest. The girls quickly copied.
“Avoid the servants,” she cried, when I stooped.
I’d just thought the same thing. And so had the rest of the girls: wasn’t the servants’ fault, and not a single one was trying to do anything to us with those yew thingies they were carrying.
PJ almost lost control of his mount as he wailed in rage and disgust. When Faline stood on the outcropping, her finger pointed, laughing, PJ’s wail rose into a shrill yelp of fury and he kneed his horse, turned around, and galloped back up the road — leaving behind his sword, all besmeared with pie.
Perforce the rest had to follow, the servants last. I noticed four or five yew wands lying in the multi-colored goo on the road.
I waited until they were out of sight, and then gave a great whoop of triumph. The girls joined in, laughing and dancing around crazily. All our nervous energy made us wild for a little time, until at last we all gathered on the grass under an almost leafless oak, breathless, exchanging gasping comments like Did you see that one with the pie on his head? and Did you hear PJ? and the like.
“I’m thirsty,” Faline said finally. “Let’s go back.” She frowned. “Except what about that?”
Insects of various sorts had appeared from somewhere, and were busy buzzing about the goo on the road.
“I want to make sure I did the magic right,” I said. “I think so — it was very clear about magic and food — but still.”
“You mean it goes away?” Dhana asked, swinging her legs. She alone had climbed the tree shading us.
“It’s sort of illusion and real combined. It does go away, which is why you don’t use it all the time. I mean for good stuff. You would starve,” I said.
“That’s weird. Why would anyone make up food spells, unless they used food for fighting, during the past?”