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(Mud’s notes: This is still in rough stages, and will be revised. Knowing Faith, many, many, and then many more times.)
Longfellow, Upside Down
Part One
Mud was sitting at her desk in school, half watching out the one tiny window, half listening to a biology teacher tell the class how plants grow. Like she knew anything. At All. About how plants grow. “Water, dirt, the right temperatures,” Mrs. Skyfield said, ‘and sunshine, and plants will grow.”
Mud managed to not blow raspberries, but it was a close call. Seeds, some seeds, not all seeds, because there were always duds, had life. Energy. That spark that came from the dawn of the big bang creation. Physicists said life came later, made from the same stuff as stars, but not at the same micro-instant of the big explosion. Also, wrong. Life came at the same moment that everything else did. All time, all life, all everything, all potentialities. Bang. And there it was. LIFE! At least, that was how the Green Knight explained it to her when she talked to him about how she could do the things she did with plants. The how. That was the weird question.
Something red flew past the window. Red. Long and red. Part of a red wing right where it joins onto the body, a pale red belly. A long…long…long tail.
Holy mackerel. That was the Dark Queen’s flying red lizard-dragon. Outside her classroom window. Flying! Jeeze! Suddenly it appeared again, hanging upside down from the roof. Peeking in. One big red opaline eye met hers. Then it was gone and all she saw was a wing tip flapping away.
Mud leaped to her feet and raced to the door.
“Mindy! Return to your seat!”
But Mud was out the door and racing down the hall, her bookbag over one shoulder, dragging her down, shouting behind her, “I’m about to puke! I’m going to the office!”
She barely heard Mrs. Skyfield calling the office on the intercom before the door closed behind her. She raced down the stairs, three flights. Holding to the railing to keep from slamming down face first a couple of stories and dying of a crushed head.
She raced into the office, dropped low, and slid under the flat panel that separated the reception area from the administrative areas. The woman up front was shouting at her to stop but Mud opened the door to the principal’s office and ran full blast into a meeting between some angry parents and Ms. Jenson.
The man was standing, shaking his finger at the principle. Screaming. Red-faced. That was all Mud got before she ran into him full tilt and knocked him off his feet, across the corner of the desk, and to the floor. Mud landed on top of him, her bookbag continuing its range of motion, slammed into his head. With momentum. He moaned, just a little, rotating his head up to her, where she sprawled.
Mud rotated her eyes up to the principal and said, very softly, “Eeek.”
There were all sorts of adult stuff, the stupid things adults said to a kid and to each other when a kid not their own did something stupid. Mud didn’t listen to much of it. Instead, even while she lay on top of the slightly stunned man’s very large belly, she pulled her cell phone from her bookbag and turned it on. And dialed the Queen’s head of security.
The wife of the downed man yanked Mud to her feet by her upper arm, shouting at her. The principal was speaking the usual principal stuff in the usual principal tone of voice that she probably learned in principal school 101. Mud ignored them all and shoved the cell into Ms. Jenson’s hand, while tapping the speaker button.
“Winter Residence of the Dark Queen of the Vampires,” a man said. Alex. Thank God.
Everyone in the room went dead silent, including all the people who had come from somewhere else and gathered at the door.
Ms. Jenson stared at the phone, her mouth slightly open. “Wha … Who … Ahhh.” She wasn’t very articulate all of sudden.
Mud got to her feet. “This is Mud, sister of Nell Nicholson Ingram Occam, and Longfellow just flew by the window of my third-floor classroom, and I’m in the principal’s office probably in trouble because I ran down here and barged in and knocked a yelling man down and now he’s lying on the floor.”
“I see,” Alex said. There was just the hint of amusement behind the two words. And that vanished. “Are you where we might speak privately?”
“No. There’s like a dozen people in here.”
“Is the principal in the office with you?”
“Yes. That’s who was trying to talk when you answered.”
“I see,” Alex said, sounding terribly patient and yet not patient at all. “What is her name?”
“Ms. Jenson.”
“I assume I’m on speaker phone. Ms. Jenson, may we and the young lady speak privately? This is the Dark Queen’s head of communications and the queen’s head of security is on the way.”
Ms. Jenson’s sense had returned or maybe she had remembered how to speak English, because she took the cell phone and said, “Just a moment please while I facilitate this.”
“What is your name again?” she asked me. “Mindy?”
“Mindy Nicholson.”
“Take the phone and go with Officer Benson. Now.” There was steel in that word. Inwardly Mud flinched.
Mud slung her bookbag over her shoulder and followed the uniformed officer out the door and to the security office. He closed the door and pointed to a chair. “Sit. He still on the phone?”
“I’m still here,” Alex said. “You are Officer Paul Benson? Badge number 1467?”
The officer, who was about to sit in his desk chair, halted halfway to sitting. His brain was processing things behind his eyes, most of them clear as day to Mud. They know my full name. They know my badge number. This may really be a call involving the queen of the vampires.
If Mud had to say, the officer looked nonplussed. A little befuddled. Maybe mystified. Mud liked words almost as much as she liked plants, and that was a lot. She was part plant herself, not that she could share that secret with anyone.
The police officer continued downward, though much more slowly, to a sitting position. He tapped a bit on his computer, probably pulling up her file. It wasn’t extensive. Mud didn’t get into trouble. Much. When he got comfortable, and the flummoxed moment had passed, he said, “Yes. And you are?”
“Alex Younger.”
“And this is Eli Younger, in the queen’s official winter residence,” another voice said. “May I count on your discretion, officer?”
“No. You may not. I don’t know you from Adam’s navel. My job is to protect my students, and Mindy is a fourteen-year-old girl. And you most assuredly are not on her list of contacts.”
“Ah. Then I do count your discretion. One moment while I attempt to add Nell to the call.”
The line went silent. Officer Benson considered her. He was an older guy. Her limited experience suggested that most resource officers were in their fifties which was ancient for humans. “How do you know the queen of the vampires? And why did you call her?”
“I didn’t. I called the residence. And I’ve met her but we’re not besties or anything.”
“Fine. Now answer the why question.”
“Because the queen’s personal dragon, Longfellow, flew by the classroom window.”
Officer Benson actually blinked, as if having trouble processing that. Not a lot of people knew about Longfellow, except the queen’s personal people, and Mud had gone to magic camp with the queen’s goddaughter the past summer. Angie knew everything and so Mud knew a lot.
Into the silence on the connection, Nell said, “Special Agent Nell Occam, of PsyLED, unit eighteen speaking, and who is this? I’m in the field and I don’t have time for nonsense.”
“Eli, Alex, an Officer Benson, and your sister, Mindy,” Eli said.
“Mud?”
“I’m okay,” Mud said fast. Nell was a cop. Cops always went to worst case scenario first.
Officer Benson asked, “Is this Mindy’s sister and guardian?”
“Yes. I’m getting in the car.” A door slammed. “What’s happening. Mud are you okay?”
“I’m in trouble but we can handle that later. Longfellow flew by my classroom window.”
“Now may I count on her discretion, Officer?” Eli asked.
The officer was staring at Mud weird. Because she knew people. People who, in his world, would be important. “Yes,” he said.
“Good,” Alex said. “Turn off all recording devices now, please. We know there are two in your office, and you have initiated a call for record to the main office.”
“I can’t do that,” Benson said.
“That’s Okay,” Alex said. “I’ve disconnected your access to the internet and both devices are now dead. Sorry about the expense of replacement.” But he didn’t sound sorry.
Eli said, “The queen is missing. If Longfellow was with her when she took off, he—it—may have come to the one person it thought might help. Though why Mud would be a help I have no idea. The queen’s personal helicopter was already in the air and will be setting down at the front entrance of the school, ETA about four minutes. With her sister’s permission, you will escort Mud to the helo.”
“I have independently verified the issue at hand. Permission given,” Nell said. “I am signing her out of school, effective immediately.”
“This is irregular to the point of dangerous,” Officer Benson said.
“Noted,” Eli said. “ETA Three minutes, twenty-four seconds. Go.”
They went. Officer Benson signed her out, promising the staff, who were all agog, details later. Mud loved the word agog. Someday she’d find a way to use it in conversation. He escorted her to the front of the building just as the bell rang and hundreds of kids moved through the halls. Several stopped and stared at Mud, so there would be gossip tomorrow. She would have to deal with that. And then they were outside, joined by the principal and two others of the staff, making sure the students didn’t follow and get their heads chopped off by the rotors.
End of part one. Part two to follow
I enjoyed “spilling the tea” with you all!
Keep the Faith
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