“Can we talk later, maybe? After I get the frog?” After I think of an excuse.
“Were you planning on telling me?”
I don’t have an answer. “I wish I was in the ranger station.”
And then, I am.
It’s even darker in here, but more silent, which is good. I find Wendell’s office. The door’s locked, but I wish myself onto the other side, then walk to the desk where the tank was. I leave the light out but crack open the curtain to allow in a sliver of moonlight. I don’t look out, don’t want to see Meg, still waiting there, angry. The tank gleams like a hidden diamond. I run my hand along its smooth, glass side, up to the top. I remove the cover and stick my hand in.
Sharp pain sears through my finger, then my whole hand. Something bit me. Hard. Frogs don’t have teeth, do they? I pull out my hand and flip on the light switch. No one’s here. When my eyes adjust, I peer into the tank.
Scorpions. The whole tank is crawling with them. I’ve been bitten by a scorpion. And, not only that, but the frog isn’t even here.
My hand is burning like it’s cut in two. I glance back into the tank. He must be there, hidden behind something. He couldn’t have run away.
Then I see a sheet of memo paper. I squint at the writing, but a scorpion’s on it.
My hand throbs, pounds. I wish I could cut it off. It feels like it’s twice its usual size, and now the pain spreads to my arm, my torso, my head. My tongue feels like it’s swelling in my mouth. My legs hurt so, they can’t support me. My field of vision narrows to one red dot. My knees buckle. I’m on the floor.
In my last conscious act, I use my left hand to pull out Meg’s ring. Bring Meg to me. Then, with my thumb and middle fingers, I barely push it onto my left pinky. The red dot gets smaller. Then the pain overwhelms me.
Chapter 33
It’s dark, and I hear rain, very close rain. My hand doesn’t hurt anymore. I hold up my arm, wondering if the hand is missing. I wiggle the fingers. Am I dead? Do I feel better because I’m feeling no pain? No. At least, I don’t think so.
“You’re awake.” The voice in the darkness startles me. Then, a circle of light, a flashlight. My eyes readjust, and I see I’m in a tent. With Meg. Meg!
She holds up a sheet of paper. “Wendell knew you’d try to steal the frog.”
I take the paper in my hand (which feels totally fine). It says:
The frog stays with me until you kill the giants. No tricks.
“But how’d you get the note?” I examine my hand.
“I took it out of the tank, of course.”
“But the scorpions—”
“No big. Not all scorpions are poisonous. And if you’re friendly with them and don’t just stick your hand in and disturb them, they don’t bite.”
I turn my hand. A dime-size, red, C-shaped scar is the only sign of trauma. Is it possible a nonpoisonous scorpion bit me? Then, why did it hurt so much?
But I feel fine now.
“Well, that’s that,” Meg says. “You can’t kill the giants, so I guess it’s over.”
She turns her face away as she says it, and I suspect she’s smiling. She can’t stand Victoriana, and she’s furious at me for . . .
It’s all coming back to me. She knows I agreed to marry the princess. She hates me.
Still, I say, “Guess you’re right.”
But when I think of it, all of it, Victoriana marrying Prince Wolfgang, me and Mom, losing the business, me maybe having to work as a shoe-shop boy the rest of my life, I can’t handle it. I turn away, trying to keep my face out of the circle of flashlight.
Outside is silent. Even the campfire singing has ended, and I wonder how much time has passed. Not even a cricket or cicada chirps.
Meg breaks it. “What is it, Johnny?”
“It’s over.”
“Your quest? Your adventure? Yeah, I think so.”
“It wasn’t just an adventure. It’s . . . everything.”
“What do you mean?”
I don’t want to talk to her. I want to curl up in a ball and sleep for all the days I haven’t slept, sleep until the giants come back and stomp on me, and I won’t even notice because I’m sleeping so soundly. I want to sleep like a little kid who falls asleep in front of the television and wakes the next morning, in bed, not even knowing or caring how he got there. I want to forget. But I have no time. I tell Meg about Mom and me and our debt.
“Marrying Victoriana was a way out. I can’t afford college. We might not even be able to keep the business open much longer.”
“So you want to marry her for the money?”
I hesitate before saying, “Yeah.”
But my face must betray that it wouldn’t exactly be torture because Meg says, “Oh, it’s because she’s hot.”
“It’s mostly the money. It just doesn’t hurt that she’s hot. And she’s nicer than people think. But I’m seventeen, so I wouldn’t want to marry anyone if it wasn’t for the money. The money would fix everything.”
I examine my hand. It’s fixed too, amazingly fixed. Before, I’d have sworn it was the size of a bowling ball. Even the small bite mark seems almost gone. I’m still wearing Meg’s ring, the ring that brought her to my rescue. Now I hand it back to her.
“I have to find the frog,” I tell her. “I made a promise. I can’t let Victoriana marry Prince Wolfgang. He’ll kill her, and it would be on my head. And I can’t let Mom lose her business either, not without trying everything.”
“You’ve already been trapped in a dungeon and bitten by a scorpion. Now you want to be eaten by giants?”
“That’s a chance I’ll have to take.” I start to stand. It’s surprisingly easy. I look around for the cloak. Except it’s not there. It’s missing. I look at Meg. “Give it back.”
“Give what back?”
“You know.”
Meg purses her lips, thinking.
“Come on, Meg. You’re not being fair. I’ve made my decision.”
Meg’s silent a moment longer before saying, “You’re right. I can’t stop you. But I can make you wait. If we’re going to fight giants, we should get a full night’s sleep.”
“We? Did you say we? You’re staying?”
“I can’t let you get killed. Your mother would be miserable. I’ll take the cloak and get in the tree. If I see one coming, I’ll put on the ring and bring you to me.”
“And what will I be doing while you’re in the tree?”
She stares directly into my eyes, then places her hand on my forehead and strokes it lightly. Her hands are cool, and my eyes start to shut.
“Sleep,” she whispers. “Sleep.”
Chapter 34
Just you wait here. I will finish off the giants by myself.
—“The Valiant Tailor”
I wake to the angry beeping of my cell phone, which is out of batteries. I switch it off. There’s no reception here anyway, and Meg called her mother from New York City.
It’s eight in the morning, and I wonder if Meg’s been in the tree all night. I look out the tent and see the cloak. Meg must have thrown it down. I wish myself into the tree, next to her, even though I still don’t know why she’s staying with me. She’s leaning against a branch, resting her head in her hand, staring at the tent. “Oh!”