“Oh dear, where are my manners? Allow me to introduce myself. I am Theodous Alvin Yazzie.” He holds out a little claw to me.
“Yes, I know.” I gently pinch his claw between my thumb and finger and shake. “I gave you that name.”
“You did?” he murmurs. “Indeed, indeed. How could I forget? That’s what sitting on a shelf will do to the old brain. Don’t suppose you have any coffee?”
Of course my previously stuffed horned toad wants coffee. Totally normal.
“I’m not allowed to drink coffee. Dad says it will stunt my growth. But if you really want some, maybe later I could warm up some instant.…” If I ever get out of my room, that is.
He makes a disgusted face. “Instant? Bah.”
I’ve never understood the appeal of a drink that smells like gym socks and dirt, but adults—and talking horned toads, apparently—take it quite seriously. Wait, why am I thinking about coffee? Focus, Nizhoni! Recently animated stuffed animal here! “So why are you talking to me?”
He smiles. Or at least I think he does when the sides of his wide mouth curl up like that. He could just have gas for all I know. “Because you need me. To help you fight the monster.”
“You mean Mr. Charles?”
“Most assuredly.”
“I seem to be the only one who can tell. My dad thinks I’m making it up.”
“Because he’s not familiar with the old stories,” Mr. Yazzie says with a melancholy sigh. “Or he has forgotten them in his grief over losing your mother.”
I wonder how the lizard knows so much about my dad…and my mom. Everyone seems to know more about her than I do. It’s getting frustrating.
“The elders don’t pass things down the way they used to,” continues Mr. Yazzie, “and the young people don’t care to learn. Back when I was just a small toad, we were taught all the old stories—the Four Worlds that came before this one, First Man and First Woman…My personal favorites are the Hero Twins,” he says. “No one tells any of these stories very much anymore, so people have forgotten how to live in the world.” He sighs again.
“I’m sorry,” I say, seeing his spiky mane droop sadly. “I mean, I’m sorry no one’s learning the stories. My shimásání taught me some when I had my kinaalda.” Then something occurs to me. “In fact, now that I think about it, I saw my first monster soon after that.”
“Your coming-of-age ceremony surely awakened your powers,” Yazzie says matter-of-factly. “So shall we go slay the monster, then? But I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? Never lock a gift horse in the house.…No, you can lead a horse to fodder.…No, no.…Oh, yes. We must not put the cart before the horse!”
He looks so happy, recovered from his moment of melancholy, that I hate to bust his bubble. But bust I must. “I’m all for fighting Mr. Charles, but I’m stuck in my room, if you hadn’t noticed. Besides, what can one girl and a once-stuffed horned toad do against a monster with a knife? No offense about the stuffed part.”
Mr. Yazzie huffs a bit, as if he was indeed offended by the stuffed part, but he says, “He had a knife, did he? Of course he did, being a monster and all. Don’t expect him to fight fair. We’ll just have to procure you some weapons of your own, won’t we?”
“Weapons?” That sounds promising.
“Yes! But we’ll have to go get them.” He looks at me. “Do you have the map?”
“What map?” I ask. “I don’t have any map.” Maybe the weapons are buried somewhere, like a treasure chest. “Maybe we can Google Map it?” I ask hopefully. Well, once I get out of my room and have my phone back.
“My dear,” he says, puffing out his collar a bit, “we are looking for the Glittering World, which, I can assure you, is not on any Google Map. Umm…what exactly is a Google Map? Never mind. The map must have been lost. We’ll need a new one.”
“How do we get a new one?”
“Na’ashjéii Asdzáá can help us.”
“Who?”
“Her map,” Mr. Yazzie continues, ignoring my question, “will show us the path to the House of the Sun. Once you get there, you will ask him politely for the right weapons.”
“I am trying to keep an open mind,” I say carefully, “but you say ‘him’ like the sun’s a person, and last time I checked, the sun was a huge star millions of miles away in outer space.” Or at least I think that’s what the sun is. Where’s Davery with his science facts when I need him?
“The Sun is much more than a star in the Glittering World. There, the Sun has a fine house at the end of the Rainbow Road. Lovely, really. I’ve been there often. Well, a few times, anyway. But, a warning, he can be rude. His nickname is the Merciless One.”
“Umm…maybe we should skip his place, then?”
“No. If you want your weapons, that’s where we must go.”
“Can we do all this before my dad gets home? Because if he finds out I went on some crazy quest to a glittering rainbow place for monster-killing weapons when I wasn’t even supposed to leave my room, I’ll be grounded until high school.” It’s supposed to be a joke—my way of dealing with all the scary things Mr. Yazzie’s telling me—but the horned toad doesn’t laugh.
“If you don’t succeed, Nizhoni,” Mr. Yazzie says, his tone serious, “you won’t have to worry about high school.”
I swallow the lump in my throat.
Mr. Yazzie peers at me with one big eye. “This is important, Nizhoni. I want you to understand that the dangers we will face are very real. You must be prepared. Throughout history, other people have tried to fight monsters and failed.”
“What happened to them?”
“They disappeared and were never heard from again. I can only assume they perished.”
“‘Perished,’ as in ‘d-died’?”
“Well, yes. What do you think happens to monsterslayers who fail to slay monsters? They’re called monsters for a reason, and it’s not because they’re warm and fuzzy.” For a long moment, Mr. Yazzie looks at me without saying anything. Little beads of sweat trickle down the sides of my face.
“Death is always a possibility,” he says finally, “but this is your destiny. You must put a stop to this enemy, and not only for your own sake, but also for your people. If you are brave enough, and determined enough, I will do what I can to help. Are you willing to try?”
My destiny. I’d thought my destiny was to be a sports hero or an internet sensation. But instead, I’m supposed to be a fighter. For my family.
What did he call me? A monsterslayer? That sounds kind of cool. It’s not what I’d expected, but I’m okay with that. I mean, I’m not okay with dying, but this is a chance to do something real, something important. It’s what I’ve been waiting for all this time.
I nod, crossing my fingers that I’ll be up to the task. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
“Very good. Then wake up!” And with that, Mr. Yazzie gathers his powerful legs beneath his reptile body and leaps from the shelf.