The Order of Odd-Fish (13 page)

Jo said, “I’ll take it.”

Olvershaw closed his eye and sighed, as if calling upon a rapidly dwindling patience. “Pushy little creature, aren’t you? No. You couldn’t handle this quest. It’s from Lady Agnes.”

At the mere mention of “Lady Agnes,” the other squires began clamoring: “Oooh! Let
me
do it, Commissioner!”—“I don’t have a quest, either!”—“I haven’t had a quest in weeks, sir!”

Ian shouted over the noise: “Commissioner! What if Jo
and
I take it?”

“Silence, all of you! Absolutely not, it’s out of the question! Especially you two—you’re rookies, greenhorns, got it? This quest will wait for Dugan.”

“But I’ve helped Dugan on quests before,” insisted Ian. “And Jo, she’s been Dame Lily’s unofficial squire for years! Doesn’t that experience count for anything?”

Jo didn’t have the heart to point out that most of her “experience” with Aunt Lily consisted of watching old movies and playing canasta.

“For the last time, the answer is no!” said Olvershaw. “And if my remaining eye is any judge, I believe our man has arrived.”

The doors opened, and Dugan Barrows came in—a tall, olive-skinned boy with shaggy black hair and bright green eyes, hauling a squirming burlap sack. A great shout went up as Dugan was surrounded by squires. Dugan hoisted up the kicking, wriggling sack and dumped it onto the refreshments table.

“Finish your quest, Barrows?” growled Olvershaw.

Dugan said, “It nearly finished
me.
”

Everybody laughed—a bit louder and longer than really necessary, Jo thought. Over the hubbub, she asked Ian, “What did Dugan do?”

“A squat-snouted nangnang escaped from the zoo. Dugan’s quest was to catch it and bring it back. He always gets the good quests.”

“Why?”

Ian shrugged. “Because he’s Dugan. You’ll understand.”

Jo watched Dugan; she already kind of understood. With his mussed dark hair and glazed eyes, Dugan seemed more adult than the other squires. He also looked as if he hadn’t slept in days, and seemed barely to be listening when Ian said, “Dugan, this is Jo Larouche. Jo—”

“Oh, the new girl,” said Dugan. “I heard you got barfed out of a fish last night.”

“I travel in style,” said Jo.

“Enough introductions!” coughed Olvershaw. “Let’s have your report, Dugan. How’d you catch the nangnang?”

Dugan bowed to Olvershaw. “Thank you, sir. As you know, I’d been tracking the nangnang for days. I couldn’t go to sleep or I would’ve lost its trail, but I was getting more and more exhausted. And I was running out of fingernails.”

Jo couldn’t help but interrupt. “Wait, fingernails?”

“The nangnang eats fingernails,” said Dugan. “That’s why it’s such a dangerous animal.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad.”

Dugan smiled. “Oh, really? Tell that to someone who’s had his fingernails chewed off. Anyway, I was clipping my own fingernails and using them to bait the nangnang. I was in Lower Brondo, and I thought I had the nangnang cornered, but then the—HEY!
Watch out!
”

Dugan’s sack had burst open, and a wrinkled, yellow, shrieking seahorse-like creature popped out—its nose curling and uncurling wildly, its bulging eyes as big as grapefruits, squealing so piercingly everyone’s hands flew to their ears.

“Catch it! Don’t let it get away!” shouted Olvershaw.

The nangnang stretched out its bony arms, coiled its tail, and sprang straight into the crowd of panicking squires. The squires scattered, pushing each other out of the way as the nangnang bolted across the room, crashing through the cloth walls.

“What are you gutless mollycoddles doing?” roared Olvershaw. “Catch that thing!”

The nangnang exploded out of the waiting room, rampaging through the maze of stalls, tearing down the tattered cloth and splintering the wooden partitions. Squires dashed after the nangnang, blundering through a storm of flying papers; Colonel Korsakov lumbered back and forth, blocking off the exits, and Olvershaw howled at his clerks, who ran around in panic, trying to wheel him out of danger.

“Save my thumb!” screeched Olvershaw. “It’s all I’ve got left! My beautiful, beautiful thumb!”

But Olvershaw’s thumb had a long, juicy fingernail. And the only thing standing between the nangnang and Olvershaw’s fingernail was—

Jo didn’t intend to be there. She had no desire to save Olvershaw’s fingernail. But before she could move, the nangnang barreled into her chest, and she clutched at it as they rolled across the floor, with clerks shrieking and squires trying to grab them.

“Hold on to it, Jo!” shouted Colonel Korsakov.

The nangnang leaped up and smashed through a bookcase, dragging Jo behind. Jo could hardly keep hold of the panicking thing—and then she had an idea.

She shoved her finger, with its new ring, into the nangnang’s mouth.

Her finger exploded. Jo screamed as the nangnang tore through her fingernail, tears sprang to her eyes, stars blinked furiously all around—and then Ian tackled them, wrestled the thrashing animal down, and forced open its jaws.

Jo snatched out her chewed-up finger as the nangnang howled in disappointment, and suddenly Dame Delia and Aunt Lily were there, grabbing the kicking, shrieking thing and thrusting it back into the sack.

Jo lay on the ground, her eyes closed, the world spinning under her. Her fingernail was ragged and crushed, she was bruised all over, she tasted blood—but her heart was pounding so hard and her body felt so electrified that she almost didn’t notice the pain.

“Are you okay?” said a dozen voices. There was a confused babble, and then Dugan said, “I don’t know whether to tell you that was brave or stupid.”

“Tell me later,” said Jo. “Where’s Ian?”

“Right here.” Ian crouched, helping her get up. “Easy…there you go. Is your finger okay?”

The squires gathered around Jo and Ian with a new respect. As Maurice, Phil, Daphne, and Dugan congratulated them, Jo could hear squires from the other orders murmuring: “That’s her, Dame Lily’s squire. I saw her last night, riding on top of that building….”

Clerks started to emerge, blinking and trembling, from the wreckage. Some of them wandered in a shocked daze through the stew of torn-up papers and trampled files; others quietly wept, cradling heaps of documents, singing tenderly to them. A half-dozen clerks fussed over Olvershaw, offering him tea, hot towels, and backrubs, but Olvershaw seemed dryly amused.

“It will take years to repair this damage,” he said with a certain relish. “What a marvelous ruckus…Larouche! Barrows! Front and center!”

Jo looked up at Olvershaw. Dread settled in her stomach like a block of ice. She and Ian limped up to Olvershaw, who glowered down on them.

“As a rule, I do not approve of ruckuses,” he said sternly. “Ruckuses churn up my insides. Of course, I have no insides…just dust and cobwebs, and a tiny pancreas rattling around in me like a gray, shriveled pea. And still…and still…I find myself agreeably invigorated.” Olvershaw rocked back and forth, considering. Finally, he said: “Very well. You may take the Lady Agnes quest. You and this Barrows boy. But I hold—”

He had to pause over Ian’s whoop of joy.

“But I hold you both to the same standards as an advanced squire! My lackey will give you the details. Lackey! Where’s the envelope? Be quick about it! Now get me out of here—I can’t stand the sight of these young, healthy children a moment more. It makes my hair ache.”

A clerk thrust an envelope into Jo’s hand, and then Olvershaw was gone, trundling and coughing deeper into the dark maze of offices. Aunt Lily patted her on the back.

“Well done, Jo. But you do leave a mess, don’t you?” Aunt Lily looked around the torn-up offices with amused satisfaction. “Okay, squires, move out! We’ve got a lodge to clean!”

Jo found her way over to Ian. Olvershaw had given him an envelope, too, and he was already reading aloud its contents, surrounded by a group of curious squires. Ian turned to her, excitedly telling her about the quest they had been assigned. Jo didn’t understand what he was saying; she was still scattered and woozy, and she wasn’t listening very carefully, anyway. She was too caught up in a strange feeling, something she almost couldn’t recognize. For the first time in her life, she felt like she belonged.

W
HEN
Jo and the others came back to the lodge, they found the rest of the Odd-Fish gathered in the common room with brooms, mops, and buckets of soapy water—and Cicero, the head cockroach, already in the middle of a passionate speech:

“It shatters my heart to utter these words,” said Cicero, his voice trembling. “But this is without doubt the blackest day in the history of the Order of Odd-Fish. Before our lodge was stolen, I would defy you to find a cleaner, tidier, tighter-run establishment in all of Eldritch City. And yet now…now…”

“Steady on, Cicero,” said Sefino, handing him a handkerchief.

“And
now,
” wailed Cicero, swatting the handkerchief away, “after three months of festering in the Belgian Prankster’s unsanitary clutches, our lodge has degenerated into a grimy, seething muckpot—a feculent, slime-soaked, filth-dripping crapshack—oozing with the greasiest, scummiest—oh! I dare not say more!”

“Oooh! Say more!” begged the cockroaches.

“Odd-Fish, our mission is clear!” roared Cicero. “With a will, we shall beat back this encroaching wave of putridity, and restore our lodge to its pristine splendor! Who is with me?”

“Hoo-hah!” shouted the cockroaches, exultantly shaking their mops and brooms (the knights and squires shook theirs rather less exultantly) as Cicero went on to announce everyone’s chores.

Jo was assigned to clean out the basements with Daphne and Phil. At first she thought Cicero had been exaggerating—the lodge was messy, yes, but certainly no “filth-dripping crapshack”—but that was before she opened the basement doors and was hit by a stink so foul it was like a punch to the head.

The basement was full of rotting fish slime. A swamp’s worth had oozed into the foundations when it was in the giant fish’s stomach, and now the basement was waist deep in milky, chunky sludge, here and there crusted over with pink mold. The sour air withered Jo’s nose and wrenched tears from her eyes.

Daphne took one sniff and said, “I am
not
going down there.”

“Oh yes you are,” said Phil. “I don’t like it, either, but it’s no good whining. Let’s go.”

They pulled on plastic boots and overalls and got down to work. Jo was sure there was no fouler job than this. First they had to wade through the sea of fish goo and shovel it into wheelbarrows; then they had to haul the wheelbarrows outside and dump them into wagons headed for the eelmen’s neighborhood (who the “eelmen” were, and why they wanted rotten fish gunk, Jo didn’t even want to know).

When they were finally done, Jo was worked to the bone, as wrung out as an old rag. But there was some satisfaction in it. By helping to clean the lodge, Jo felt she was earning her place there. And working with Phil and Daphne broke the ice much better than any awkward conversation could have.

That night the cockroaches served a late dinner out on the roof of the lodge. After cleaning Jo took a long, hot shower, changed into a sweater and jeans, and came up onto the roof. The evening was chilly, with a salty wind blowing off the ocean, and the roof blazed with hundreds of flickering candles. Other knights and squires were already there, eating bowls of steaming beef stew and drinking spicy cider. The cold night air smelled fresh and clean, and everyone’s face looked more intense in the warm light. Jo sat with Daphne and Phil, devoured her stew, took second helpings, and sopped up the juices with warm hunks of bread. When she was finished, sitting back and drinking hot cider, she had never felt so satisfyingly exhausted.

“I still can’t believe you got a Lady Agnes quest,” said Daphne. “Some squires have been trying for months.”

Jo held up her bandaged finger. “It did nearly cost me this.”

“Totally worth it,” said Phil between bites.

“Why?” said Jo. “Have you ever had a quest with Lady Agnes?”

“Yes, just last year,” said Phil. “One of her better ones. Lady Agnes made me take off my clothes and put on a pink furry bear suit and a saddle. Then she rode me around town all day, chasing down children, throwing eggs at them. We got arrested!”

“What!” Jo put down her cider in shock. “
That’s
a quest?”

“Oh, sure. If you have enough money, you can submit any quest you want to the city, and the squires have to do it.”

Jo crinkled her brow. “But isn’t that…”

Daphne said, “I had a quest with Lady Agnes, too. She ordered me to assassinate the mayor’s cat. She swore to me it was broadcasting evil radio signals into her dentures.”

“But…this woman sounds insane!” said Jo.

“Oh yes,” said Daphne. “Mad as mutton.”

“But I don’t understand—if Lady Agnes’s quests are ridiculous—”

“Or pointless.”

“Okay—if Lady Agnes’s quests are ridiculous or pointless, then—”

“Or impossible.”

“Ridiculous, pointless, or impossible—no, wait! let me finish—then why does everybody want one?”

Phil and Daphne looked at each other blankly, as if that kind of question had never occurred to them before. Then Daphne finally replied: “Well—for respect.”

“That’s right.” Phil nodded slowly. “For respect.”

Dinner was over, and the knights and squires started to mingle. The cockroaches had dragged out a xylophone, a clarinet, some drums, and a brass contraption that looked like a half-dozen tubas and a pinball machine mashed together, and they were struggling through a chaotic waltz. Soon Sir Alasdair was dancing with Dame Isabel, Phil asked Daphne out onto the floor, and Sir Festus was teaching an awkward Nora how to jitterbug.

Aunt Lily swung over, looking fresher and younger than Jo had ever seen her. “It’s all just as I remember it,” she said, looking around the roof happily. “I’ve missed this so much. Even when I didn’t remember it. But this is it.”

Jo said, “I still don’t understand this place, but I think I like it.”

“I’m glad to hear that. You’ll make a splendid Odd-Fish.”

“Aunt Lily, why are
you
an Odd-Fish?” said Jo. “How did you come here in the first place?”

“Ah, that’s a long story. Too long for now.” Aunt Lily took a deep breath and smiled. “What a day! You did yourself proud this morning, Jo. All the knights are talking about you. They expect big things.”

“Do they still expect me to destroy Eldritch City?” chuckled Jo.

She was stunned at how quickly Aunt Lily’s face fell. The old woman’s smile shrank to a tight grimace, and her eyes hardened.

“Don’t do that again, Jo. Don’t ever, ever speak in public about that again.”

“I…was just trying to joke about…”

“Not even as a joke.”

Aunt Lily was staring so ferociously Jo had to look away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.”

“This isn’t the time.” Aunt Lily glanced around the party warily. “I’m warning you—be careful. You see all this? Everyone laughing, dancing, having a good time? If they knew the truth, this would all explode in our faces.”

Jo was bewildered into silence. Aunt Lily turned and, as if a switch had been flipped, started laughing and making her way over to Dame Myra and Sir Oort.

Jo moved away, too, and wandered the party, hanging around the edges of conversations. But she didn’t know what to say anymore. She still could feel everyone else’s happiness all around, but she felt locked out of it now. Aunt Lily had never spoken to her like that before.

Then Jo saw Ian and Dugan, quietly arguing behind Dame Myra’s greenhouse. She made her way over to them and overheard Ian saying, “Where were you for the last few days?”

“You heard me,” said Dugan. “Tracking the nangnang.”

“We both know that’s not true.”

“A squire for barely a day, and already you’re lecturing me? You’re not my mother, Ian.”

“I meant—”

“I know what you meant. By the way, what’s up with that mustache?”

“It’ll look better when it’s fully grown.”

“No, it won’t.” Dugan noticed Jo. “Hey, Jo! What do you think of Ian’s mustache?”

Ian muttered, “You don’t have to answer that.”

“I’ll let you two discuss it. I’m off,” said Dugan, seeming relieved to get away.

After Dugan was gone, Jo said, “What were you two fighting about?”

“Nothing.” Ian’s eyes flicked tensely over to Dugan; then he turned to Jo and whispered, “Hey, this party’s almost over. Do you want to go downstairs?”

“What’s downstairs?”

Ian smiled strangely. “There’s something I want to show you.”

Jo hesitated. What, exactly, did he want to show her? But something about his smile sparked her curiosity, and she found herself saying, “Okay, but it had better be good.”

“Make sure nobody notices,” said Ian, and slipped off into the shadows. Jo double-checked that nobody was watching them and then followed him downstairs into the empty lodge.

With all the other Odd-Fish upstairs, the deserted halls felt lonely. Jo could still hear the cockroaches’ music, the thump of dancing, and the buzz of conversation above as they threaded their way down the corridors, turning left and right, and then down some more stairs, and then right and left and right again, and down even more stairs, and the music and conversation became fainter. Soon they were so deep into the lodge that Jo was lost.

Finally they entered a closet with a trapdoor in the ceiling. Ian hoisted himself through the trapdoor, then reached down, gripped Jo’s wrists, and pulled her up into a vast dim room.

At first Jo could see very little. But she smelled something raw and alive, like a forest after a hard rain. Ian lit some hanging lanterns, and as the room became brighter, Jo realized she was surrounded by a huge tapestry.

The more she saw, the more she couldn’t stop staring. The tapestry was dazzling and full of pictures: fire-scorched, blood-spurting battles; immense jungles full of looping, twisty trees, scowling lizards, and secret golden rivers; a ballroom full of laughing girls dancing with beautiful monsters; an army of glitteringly armored spiders; queer-shaped people with sickly smiles and dead eyes cutting open their stomachs and pouring forth floods of centipedes and beetles and snakes. Jo could hardly take it all in, it was too relentlessly detailed, too hugely beautiful. The tapestry hung on every wall, from ceiling to floor, packed with color and detail, every last corner crammed with a capering tiger, convoluted flower, or snickering face.

Ian wound up a large wooden wheel. And then—with a great creaking, clunking, and squealing—the tapestry began to
move.

Jo gasped, turning around, as the tapestry flowed past her—a scroll of tapestries, unspooling from one corner of the room, rolling around the walls in a circle, and disappearing back into the corner. A raucous parade of images danced past, with hardly enough time to take in each scene before it was gone, followed by even more scenes.

The tapestry was full of stories about Eldritch City. In one scene, two enormous walrus-like demons wrestled each other, one neon green, the other candy-apple red, stomping up and down the mountain, kicking down buildings and tearing great gashes in the rock while thousands of people scattered away like ants. In another scene, Eldritch City was attacked from the sea by shambling beasts like a lobster crossed with an octopus, riding out of the ocean on jellyfish-like blobs. In yet another scene, the mountain itself split in half and a great chunk of Eldritch City floated off into the stars as tiny people on both halves reached out their arms, crying out, desperately trying to hang on to each other.

Jo and Ian sat on a couch, watching the tapestry. For a long time there was no sound but the steady creaking of the spindles unwinding. It seemed the tapestry went on for miles.

“It’s my favorite thing in the lodge,” said Ian. “I wanted to show you.”

Jo glanced sideways at Ian. That morning, when Ian said he hated the Hazelwoods, she hadn’t known how to feel; she had been almost frightened of him. But in the end Ian was so earnest, so eager to show her his world, that she couldn’t help warming to him. She tentatively leaned up against him. He shifted closer to her. For a minute they were so close she could hear him breathing, smell his skin, feel his chest rise and fall.

Then Ian became tense. Jo looked up at him, and his face had gone pale. The tapestry rolled on, Ian went very still, and a scene crawled into the room that struck Jo as familiar.

Her bones turned to ice.

It was…she swallowed, tried to stay calm. It couldn’t be anything else.

The tapestry was a blizzard of demolishing gray fire, wave upon wave spiraling wildly outward, collapsing buildings and evaporating people into swirling ashes. In the eye of the storm there was a little white house, and inside the house…Jo tried not to stare, but she couldn’t help it. A thousand times she had imagined what her parents might have looked like. But this man, this woman, were nothing like what she’d expected.

Her father was a gaunt, black-skinned man with round glasses and a mass of tangled hair; her mother boyish-looking, with straight red hair and startlingly white skin. Her father had turned away, hiding his eyes in horror, pointing at her mother, who writhed in bed, her face twisted in agony—and a scab-covered slug was bursting out of her.

It was the birth of the Ichthala. She was looking at her own birth. Jo couldn’t tear her eyes away.