The Lost Days (28 page)

Like I expected, there was a pretty furious debate when I laid it down, but in the end, when all possible points were tallied and retallied, and Attikol had run out of alternate interpretations to
argue, Schneider ruled that Curls’ hand and mine had tied. I graciously offered to let Curls assign the challenge, and he accepted. I picked Feats of Strength, Skill, and Endurance. And Curls gave us our challenge: Raven would have to fly from the roof of the El Dungeon, or we’d forfeit the round. And therefore the game.

Stunned silence, and then laughter, backslapping, and a general release of tension, as everyone in the room assumed victory was Attikol’s.

Amid general confusion, low-level panic, and loud complaints, everyone relocated outside except for Raven, who appeared a few minutes later on the roof. Attikol was smacking Curls about the head and neck, growling threats on his life if anything happened to Raven. And still no Ümlaut, Jakey, or Vintage Fedora Guy in sight.

Raven stood at the edge of the roof, three stories up. My hands were sweating. I kept thinking about how she said it didn’t hurt when all the bones in her arms were crushed. I kept thinking, “I can rebuild her.” I kept thinking, “Should I stop her? What is my plan? Do I HAVE a plan?”

It was windy up there, three stories high. Raven’s long wig streamed out behind her, and her skirt and cape billowed and whipped. It was all very dramatic.

She just stood there. And suddenly I had a terrible thought.

What if Raven COULD fly?

We would win the game, and Attikol would have to leave Blackrock forever, but…Wouldn’t Attikol then suspect her of being his ancestral enemy?

Was Attikol smart enough to suspect her?

Was Attikol too smitten to care?

Raven stood there at the edge of the roof. As if waiting for instructions.

Just then Ümlaut staggered up to me. He’d been in a fight, it looked like—bloody nose, cuts on his cheekbones and eyebrows,
red splotches that would soon be bruises, and a missing tooth. Clothes all torn up and dirtied. He grinned at me and gave me a thumbs-up. “You’re all good,” he said. “Your Fedora Guy—he never made it to Jakey.”

I pointed wordlessly up at Raven, and watched the blood drain out of Ümlaut’s face. Several of his friends promptly started competing to tell him the events of the past hour, and it looked like he was ready to do some more fighting, if he could decide whom to fight; but none of that mattered, because good or bad, I’d made my decision.

I stepped forward out of the crowd and yelled up, “FLY, RAVEN, FLY!”

She threw back her arms and leaped into the air.

Half of the crowd covered their eyes. The other half looked down, where they expected her to come crashing to the ground. Schneider and Ümlaut and I kept our eyes on Raven. We saw her rise gracefully off the roof and up into the air. We saw her pirouette and dive. We saw her do majestic, soaring figure eights in midair. And once everyone had seen, and the whole crowd was gasping, and swearing, and calling on their ancestors for deliverance, she came elegantly back down to earth and lighted on the ground in front of Attikol.

Attikol cringed.

Then Raven opened her mouth wide in a strange, inhuman way.

And from somewhere deep inside her came this appalling, horrendous bird cry.

I started to sweat again. This wasn’t in the programming. Was she breaking down? I really hoped our big dramatic showdown wasn’t going to end with me performing an emergency tune-up on her.

Then she started flapping her arms, still making the horrible bird cry. And now there was another commotion in the crowd—in a moment I knew why, because there was a second bird cry, and
a big white parrot came flying straight for Raven from the direction of the caravan.

That’s when I noticed the strange dark clouds rolling in. Dark clouds…with wings in them. And beady eyes. Huge dark clouds of birds.

Jakey’s parrot (man, I wish I had asked her name…) was the first bird to reach Raven and Attikol. She wheeled around in the air a few feet over Attikol’s head as he cowered like the big man he was. She gave this terrible parrot-battle-call…and pooped on his shirt.

All the other birds were close behind her, and everyone else had noticed them too, and they were all standing around looking up at the sky…with their MOUTHS OPEN…like a bunch of dummies, until someone yelled “RUN” and everyone started scattering, though not before a lot of very fine clothing was ruined with bird dooky. I found some shelter in the doorway of the El D., and stood there with Schneider, watching Attikol get PLASTERED with caca, and loving every minute of it.

Right in the thick of the running, and the screaming, and the cawing, and the defecating, Raven spoke to Attikol one last time.

“Leave this town,” she said, “and never return.”

Attikol turned to go. No inch of him had escaped the poop-storm. He looked back at Raven for a moment, then trudged off to
his caravan, a large flock of birds following him all the way.

I forgot for a second that he was my ancestral enemy, and felt kinda bad for him; then I consoled myself that bird poop brings good luck.

Later

Raven and I are hanging out in the El Dungeon by ourselves. Ümlaut has just finished saying his farewells to Raven and is on his sorry way.

He was covered in blood and 20 or 30 birdsplats, but compared with Attikol he looked well-groomed. “Raven,” he said, all mournful-like, with anguished love in his eyes, “is there…do I…can’t we…”

“No, Ümlaut. Not now. But Earwig will be joining your caravan. Keep an eye on her for me, and maybe someday…”

Sheesh! Sappy old golem.

Later

Note to Self: Just because you may have an…unusual…secret closet that makes sleeping and eating unnecessary doesn’t mean you should stop sleeping and eating.