Unlucky Charms (The Cold Cereal Saga) (6 page)

Scott pulled his head back in.

“So wait …,” said Erno to Mick. “A five is higher than a king?”

“If it’s a trump, yeah.”

“This game is stupid.”

“Harvey’s pretty sick,” Scott mentioned.

“The mongrel has brought it upon himself,” said Prince Fi, who struggled to hold playing cards that were nearly as tall as he was. Like at any moment they might seize him and bring him before the Queen of Hearts, and then off with his head. “Hares are meant to eat vegetable matter, are they not?”

“I think he might have gotten some relish accidentally on his last hot dog,” Scott offered.

“Harvey’s got a little glamour left,” said Mick. “It’ll sort him out.”

Scott watched them a moment, then shrugged. “All right, whatever. I’m going to go play video games.”

The thing about a moving cruise ship was that you couldn’t get
too
lost. There was never any need for the parental admonishment, “Don’t go too far.” Unfamiliar adults, who in any other situation might have reported an unattended child or even tried to corral him like he was an unleashed dog, tended to ignore Scott even more than usual. Over the next few days he ate a sundae for breakfast, saw three movies while floating in a heated pool, failed to watch any whales during a whale watch, and accidentally took a Zumba class.

The fourth night was a formal night, which meant that everybody was expected to dress up extra nice for dinner. John had taken them to a tailor, so all the men and boys had tuxedos. Even Mick, who could wear the clothes off a ventriloquist’s dummy if he took them in a bit. Even Biggs, who’d been greeted as if he were the natural disaster the tailor had been preparing for all his life.

Only Harvey couldn’t come to dinner. His stomach had settled, but his rabbit head was still a rabbit head. If anyone saw Mick, his size could be explained by dwarfism or Made-Up Disease Syndrome or whatever. But Harvey? Harvey was stuck, and getting cabin fever. He claimed he could handle it after decades of confinement at Goodco headquarters, but in truth he’d been sneaking out while the rest were at dinner and idly stealing things from both passengers and crew—bath towels, cell phones, cocktail shakers, sunglasses and shoes left poolside while their owners swam. He didn’t keep any of it; he threw it overboard—he wasn’t a
thief
. It was only to pass the time.

On this night, servers flitted about in feathery masks, offering the adults free champagne. Violinists circled like mosquitoes. There were grand staircases that served mostly as backdrops for having one’s picture taken, since every other passenger exclusively rode the elevators, of which there were twelve. But the staircases were nonetheless wide and made from great slabs of polished marble with gleaming gold banisters. Only if this gold could have been peeled back to reveal chocolate might the cruise have gotten any more stupidly self-indulgent.

John had a personal rule against using elevators if stairs were available, so they were always shooing photographers out of the way as they descended to Triton’s Promenade Deck for meals. Passengers who had never considered using the stairs nonphotographically turned now to watch Scott’s group make its entrance: first John, with his bandaged face and sunglasses; then massive, monstrous Biggs; and then … Polly and Merle. You could see their disappointment—just one wolfman or a Dracula away from a solid theme.

All food was included in the price of the cruise, so when their waiter came to the table Erno indulged his new habit of ordering the first three things on the menu and deciding later what he actually wanted to eat. Scott ordered two things himself, but the second was for Mick. Mick sat in an empty chair and tried not to grumble when the server always took his utensils away.

Their food came. Scott thought he knew what salmon looked like, so he was surprised to find a spiral of green foam topped by a puff pastry covered in yams.

“I think they brought me the wrong thing,” he said. “I don’t see any fish.”

“We need to discuss our plans,” said Emily.

“Oh, wait—I found it.”

“We’re going to want to move fast once we reach England,” Emily added.

They had two good reasons for going to the British Isles. Papers in the Freemen filing cabinet Emily had memorized said that the real queen was being held captive in Avalon, in the west of England. And they also had indicated that Prince Fi’s pixie brothers were prisoners of the Goodco U.K. headquarters in Slough, a town west of London.

“Perhaps I should reach out to … some other knights while we’re near London,” John suggested.

The table swooned with silence for a moment. Merle said, “Yeah. Yeah, maybe that’s a good idea.”

“Just as a sort of plan B, you understand.”

“Right.”

Eventually they all expected to run afoul of a colossal pink dragon, and only knights could beat dragons. But Goodco had been quietly getting rid of knights, so the only one who was preparing for this was John.

Scott had noticed his father’s confidence slipping. One day John would behave as if he was destined to slay the largest dragon in two worlds; the next you could tell he was thinking that a proper knight should be known for something more valiant than performing his own stunts in a stage production of
The House at Pooh Corner
.

Scott swallowed a yam. “You can do it.” He shrugged. “Slay Saxbriton, I mean.”

John’s head lifted; even through the bandages he looked like someone had just given him a tiara and a dozen roses. “Do you think so?” he asked, with such a rainbow of a smile on his face that Scott found he couldn’t look at him.

“Sure. Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe we should get some other knights anyway.”

“Hmm,” Emily mused. “Not to be indelicate, John, but who do you know who isn’t already dead?”

Merle coughed. Everyone picked at their food. Scott excavated a piece of salmon from inside its pastry shell.

“A few people. I know Richard Starkey.”

“Who’s he?” said Erno.

John nearly choked on his Roasted Winter Vegetable Tower with Bacon Lardons. “Richard Starkey? Drummer for the Quarrymen? Only the most important rock-and-roll band of the twentieth century?”

“Oh.”

“We should warn him,” said Emily. “Where does he live?”

“In the Holland Park district of London, in a house formerly owned by the painter Frederic Leighton,” Scott answered, his cheeks still full. Then he frowned at his own mouth, if one can do such a thing.

“Ha,” said Erno. “That might be the first time anyone’s known anything Emily didn’t.”

Mick was glancing back and forth between Scott and his plate. “Wait a minute,” he said, pointing at the fish. “Is that …?”

Scott nodded furiously, his eyes wide.

“The Salmon of Knowledge!” gasped Mick.

“The … what?” said Emily.

“The Salmon o’ Knowledge!” Mick whooped. “First caught by the great Irish hero Finn McCool! One taste an’ yeh gain ultimate wisdom. Yeh know everythin’! But I thought Finn killed it centuries ago.”

Scott shook his head. He pushed the bite of fish around with his tongue. “Dere’s ahways a Salmon ub Knowwige. Iffit dies, one ub iss shildren eecomes da new Salmon ub Knowwige.”

“How do you know all that?” asked Erno.

Scott pointed at his mouth.

“Oh, right.”

“Iss too mush,” he added, wincing. “Too mush knowwige. Can’t concendrate.”

“Finn got all the wisdom o’ the world from just a wee bit o’ salmon fat that got on his thumb,” Mick explained. “For the rest o’ his life he could suck that thumb an’ answer any question.”

“Scott’s the new Emily,” said Erno. Emily scowled and crossed her arms.

Scott was shaking his head again. “Finn ried.”

“Ried?”

“He … didm’t tell da troof. He rost …
lost
all da knowwige as soon as he swawwowed! Juss rike I’m going to! Finn juss
bretended
to know ebrything.”

Emily huffed. “Typical. Boys.”

“’Tis a wonder the Salmon ever came to be in this world in th’ first place,” said Mick.

“Rifts open petween da worlds in oceans, too,” said Scott as he pushed his fists against his eyes.

“It’s hurting him,” said John. “Scott, you should swallow.”

“No!” said Merle. “Wait. We could learn a lot.”

“Everyone ask him questions,” said Mick. “Help him focus.”

“Maybe he could guess what word I’m thinking of right now,” Emily muttered.

Scott stared at Emily in shock.

“
Useful
questions,” suggested Mick.

“Okay, um …,” said Erno. “We spoiled all that Milk-7 back at the Goodborough factory. Did we stop Goodco from putting out a cereal with Milk-7 in it?”

“No. But dey onwy haf enough to sell it in big cities at first. Dey’re trying to get more dragon milg agross so dey gan sell it ebrywhere.”

“Shoot.”

“That doppelgänger of mine …,” said John. “The goblin Reggie Dwight. What’s
he
up to?”

“Da goplins are in London, regording your negst album.”

“Good lord. Can they sing?”

“But lissen,” Scott spat. “Goblin Reshie Dwight is gonna meet wif goblin Queen Erizabef. Live, on gamera. Dey’re gonna bretend to make up, wike eberyone wants dem to.”

The table fell silent.

“This is big,” said Merle.

“If we get close enough to goblin Reggie, I can take his place,” said John. “I could expose the goblin queen as a fake.”

“How many goblins does Nimue have, anyway?” asked Erno.

“Seben.”

“We should split up,” Emily said quietly. “One group helps Scott’s dad, the other rescues the real queen.”

“It’s going to be dangerous,” said John.

“Too bad we can’t all take some of that chemical that makes everyone huge and strong,” said Erno. “Like it did for Biggs.”

“Didn’t make everyone bigger,” Biggs mumbled. “Just the boys.”

“Is Emily right about the queen being held in Avalon?” Erno asked Scott.

“I … dunno? Yeah, I dink so. Ish … hazy.”

“That’s weird,” said Merle to Mick. “Shouldn’t he know?”

Mick shrugged. “Maybe they’ve got the location protected by a spell?”

“I guess it’s a good thing I memorized
an entire filing cabinet
, then,” said Emily bitterly. “I mean, it’s no
magic fish
, but—”

“Wait,” said Scott. “Yes. Afalon. In Somerset. Deffinidly.”

“You can see her?”

“Yeb. She loogs … weird? Dere’s someding weird about her.”

“What a super-useful piece of information,” said Emily.

“You’re being mean begause you habben’t been sweeping,” Scott told her, and their eyes locked.

“Sweeping?” said Erno.

“Sleeping,” Emily corrected. “It’s no big deal.”

“And also you’re sgared. Sgared you’ll get dumb now dat you’re nod daking the Milk.”

Emily curled up in her chair. “Why’d you say that?”

“Id’s drue.”

“That doesn’t mean you had to say it.”

For a moment nobody could think of anything to add. Biggs cleared his sinuses.

Scott grimaced. “It’sh breaking up in my mouf! Too delicate. Hafta shwallow soon.”

“I’m not surprised,” said John. “The chef here is quite good.”

“He shtudied at Le Cordon Bleu!”

“I had the salmon last night,” said Erno. “It was really flaky.”

“The shecret ish a citrus marinade!”

“Maybe we should stick to business?” said Emily.

Polly made a noise, and everyone flinched.

She’d been uncharacteristically quiet that evening. Normally she could keep two or three conversations going all by herself. Now she simply asked, “Will my … will Prince Fi ever forgive me?”

Scott just breathed a moment. “Can’t tell the fujure, Pully. Onwy the present.”

“Maybe I made him mad when I said he could sleep in our dresser drawer?” Polly said as she tore a piece of bread into little pills. “Like maybe it reminded him how I used to make him live in a shoe box? Back when I thought he was a toy?”

“He’ll forgive you,” Scott answered. He had no idea if it was true.

But just then he knew Fi’s story. He knew everything there was to know.

CHAPTER 4

The prince himself had remained in Scott and Erno’s cabin, and from atop the television he was watching an oblivious old woman with headphones clean the floor with a stick vac. He was only four inches tall, but his proud eyes and regal bearing made him appear five, easily. His indigo tabard brought out the faint blue of his dark face.

“I expect you cannot hear me through your ear cradles,” Fi said. “Can you? No. Still and all, I will honor you with my speech. For though you are lowborn and gruesomely ugly, you will be audience to the story of Prince Fi, last son of Dun Dinas.”

The maid didn’t answer. Nor did she look up, which gave Fi a certain freedom of movement, and he paced the television like he was treading some high stage above an imaginary crowd of pixies assembled on the bedspread. Pixies were not naturally invisible to humans, like the Fay; but after ten months as an inanimate toy, Fi was possessed by a powerful need to fidget, not to mention the kind of recklessness that comes of having very rich parents.

“King Denzil XXXIII and Queen Rosevear had four sons: Fee, Fi, Fo, and Denzil. And we were all happy on our islands, away from the savage humans and inhospitable Fay. Beautiful Lady Morenwyn often stayed at court, and my brothers and I undertook contests of courage and skill to win her hand. And the sun never set on the pixie empire. Nor anywhere else, I’m given to understand.