There are plenty of ways to be stoopid that don’t involve being brave. However, bravery is – by definition – always stoopid. Therefore, your stoopidity is at least equal to your level of bravery. Probably greater.
After all, reading that ridiculous explanation probably made you feel dumber just by association. (Reading this book sure is brave of you.)
I burst into the small meeting chamber. The monarchs sat in thrones arranged in a half circle, listening to one of their members – in this case, a woman in an ancient-looking suit of bamboo armor – stand before them and argue her point. The walls depicted murals of beautiful mountain scenes, and a little indoor stream gurgled its way along the far wall.
All of the monarchs turned toward me, eyes aghast at being interrupted.
‘Ah, young Smedry!’ said one of them, a regal-looking man with a square red beard and a set of kingly robes to match it. Brig Dartmoor, Bastille’s father, was king of Nalhalla and generally considered foremost among the monarchs. He stood up from his chair. ‘How . . . unusual to see you.’
The others looked panicked. I realized that the last time I’d barged in on them like this, I’d come to warn them about a Librarian plot and had ended up nearly getting them all assassinated. (The non-donkey kind.)
I took a deep breath. ‘I can’t take it any longer!’ I exclaimed. ‘I hate being cooped up in this city! I need a vacation!’
The monarchs glanced at one another, relaxing slightly. I hadn’t come to warn them of impending disaster; this was just the usual Smedry drama.
‘Well, that’s fine, I guess . . .’ King Dartmoor said. Anyone else would probably have demanded to know why this ‘vacation’ was so important as to interrupt the Council of Kings. But Dartmoor was quite accustomed to handling Smedrys. I was only just beginning to understand what a reputation for oddness my family had – and this was compared with everyone around them, who lived in a city filled with castles, dragons that climbed on walls, grenades that look like teddy bears, and the occasional talking dinosaur in a vest. Being odd compared with all of them took quite a bit of effort. (My family is a bunch of overachievers when it comes to freakish behavior.)
‘Perhaps you’d like to visit the countryside,’ said one of the kings. ‘The firelizard trees are in bloom.’
‘I hear the lightning caverns are electrifying this time of year,’ another added.
‘You could always try skydiving off the Worldspire,’ said the woman in the Asian-style bamboo armor. ‘Drop through the Bottomless Chasm for a few hours? It’s rather relaxing, with a waterfall on all sides, falling through the air.’
‘Wow,’ I said, losing a bit of my momentum. ‘Those do sound interesting. Maybe I—’ Bastille elbowed me from behind at that point, making me exclaim a surprised ‘Gak!’
‘Protect your straw!’ one of the monarchs cried, taking off his large straw hat. He looked around urgently. ‘Oh, false alarm.’
I cleared my throat, glancing over my shoulder. Bastille and Grandpa Smedry had entered the room after me but had left the door open so that the knights guarding outside could hear what I was saying. Bastille’s stern mother, Draulin, stood with folded arms, eyeing us suspiciously. She obviously expected some kind of shenanigan.
Very clever of her.
‘No!’ I declared to the kings. ‘None of that will do. They’re not exciting enough.’ I held up my finger. ‘I’m going to Tuki Tuki. I hear that the royal mud baths there are extremely intense.’
‘Wait,’ King Dartmoor said. ‘You think skydiving through a bottomless pit in the ocean isn’t exciting enough, so instead you want to go visit the Mokian palace spa?’
‘Er, yes,’ I said. ‘I have a fondness for mud baths. Exfoliating my homeopathic algotherapy and all that.’
The monarchs glanced at one another.
‘But,’ one of them said, ‘the palace is kind of besieged right now, and—’
‘I will not be dissuaded!’ I exclaimed with forced bravado. ‘I am a Smedry, and we do ridiculous, unexpected, eccentric things like this all the time! Ha-ha!’
‘Oh dear,’ Grandpa Smedry said in an exaggerated voice. ‘He really does seem determined. My poor grandson will be killed because of his awesome, Smedry-like impulsiveness. If only there were a group of people dedicated to protecting him!’
With that, we turned and dashed away from the chamber, leaving the kings and knights dumbfounded. Bastille, Grandpa, and I entered the main palace hallway, which was lined with frames containing rare and exotic types of glass. They glowed faintly to my eyes, as I was still wearing my Oculator’s Lenses.
‘Do you think they’ll buy it?’ I asked.
‘Wait,’ Bastille said, frowning. ‘Buy it? Did you try to sell them something?’
‘Er, no. It’s a figure of speech.’
‘The figure giving a speech?’ Bastille said. ‘If you’re that interested in her figure, you should be ashamed. Queen Kamiko is a married woman and as least forty years older than you are!’
I sighed. ‘Do you think,’ I rephrased, ‘they’ll believe the act? It seemed a little exaggerated to me.’
‘Exaggerated?’ Bastille said. ‘What part?’
‘The part about me going to Mokia – into a war zone – just to take a vacation. It’s kind of ridiculous.’
‘Sounds like a Smedry activity to me,’ Bastille grumbled.
‘They’ll buy it, lad,’ Grandpa said, jogging along beside us. ‘The knights in particular tend to be very . . . literal people. They’ll assume the worst, and that worst – in this case – is that you are going to blunder off into a war zone because you feel that your pores are clogged. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble getting them to—’
A clanking sound came from behind us. I glanced over my shoulder.
No fewer than fifty Knights of Crystallia were rushing down the hallway in our direction.
‘Gak!’ I cried.
‘Alcatraz, would you stop saying—’ Bastille looked over her shoulder. ‘GAK!’
‘Scribbling Scalzis!’ Grandpa exclaimed, noticing the fleet of knights charging in our direction. Most wore full plate, the silvery metal clanking as their amored feet hit the floor. It sounded like someone had opened a closet filled with pots and then dumped them all onto the ground at once.
We redoubled our efforts, running in front of the storm of knights with all we had. But they were faster. They had Warrior’s Lenses, not to mention Crystin enhancements. They’d catch us for sure.
‘Alcatraz, lad,’ Grandpa Smedry said in a confiding tone as we ran down the wide hallway. ‘I believe I may have discovered a slight flaw in your clever plan.’
‘You think?’
‘I knew this would happen!’ Bastille said from my other side. ‘I’m such an idiot. Alcatraz, if they can catch you before you leave, they can take you into protective care for your own good!’
‘Protective care?’ I asked.
‘Usually involves a locked door,’ Grandpa said. ‘Padded cell. Bread and water. Oh, and a jail. Can’t forget that.’
‘They’ll throw us in jail?’ I exclaimed.
‘Hmm, yes,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘The knights are bodyguards, lad. They have the right to determine when someone under their charge is going to be put into too much danger. They only have power to do it while we’re inside Nalhalla.’ He smiled. ‘They rarely invoke the privilege. We must really have them worried! Good job, lad! You should feel proud.’
This is a very exciting scene, isn’t it? You’re not too tired, are you? From all that exciting running?
Wait, you’re not running? Why am I doing all the work? Don’t you realize that you’re supposed to be acting out these scenes as I describe them? Don’t you know how to read books? I mean honestly, what are the Librarians teaching people these days?
Let me explain it to you. Everyone always talks about the magic of books being able to take you to other places, to let you see exotic worlds, to make you experience new and interesting things. Well, do you think words alone can do this? Of course not!
If you’ve ever thought that books are boring, it’s because you don’t know how to read them correctly. From now on, when you read a book, I want you to scream the words of the novel out loud while reading them, then do exactly what the characters are doing in the story.
Trust me, it will make books way more exciting. Even dictionaries. Particularly dictionaries. So go ahead and try it out with this next part of this book. If you do it right, you’ll win the bonus prize.
‘Come on!’ I yelled, ducking into a side room. I figured that the knights would have trouble following through smaller chambers, since there were so many of them. The room was filled with furniture, however, and I was forced to leap up on top of a couch and hurl myself behind it.
‘What do we do?’ Bastille asked, looking over her shoulder. The knights were rushing into the room behind us.
‘I’m not sure!’ I said, picking my nose.
We burst out of the room into a hallway, where I hopped up and down on one foot three times, then punched myself (softly) in the forehead. After that, we pranced down the hallway flapping our arms like chickens. Then we twirled around, smacking our brother if he happened to be near. Then we stuck our feet in our mouths before dumping pudding on our heads while singing ‘Hambo the Great’ in Dutch.
Now see, didn’t I tell you it would be more exciting this way? You should act out all books you read. (And by the way, the bonus prize is getting to smack your brother and blame it on me.)
‘Why are we doing this?’ Bastille cried.
‘It’s not really helping, is it?’ I replied.
‘I don’t mean to be depressing,’ Grandpa noted, ‘but I do think they’re gaining on us.’
It was an understatement. They were right behind us. I yelped, bolting down a side hallway, Bastille easily keeping up. She had Warrior’s Lenses on and could outrun Grandpa and me, but she hung back.
‘Only one thing for me to do!’ Grandpa Smedry said, raising a finger.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘Switch sides!’ he replied. And then he stopped running, letting the knights catch up to him. ‘Come on, let’s get him!’ Grandpa cried, pointing at me.
I froze, looking at him, shocked. Bastille tugged me forward, and I stumbled into motion, running again. The knights didn’t take Grandpa into protective care. One did pick him up and carry him, however, so he didn’t slow them down. In seconds, we were being chased not only by an entire force of Knights of Crystallia but my moustachioed grandfather as well.
‘What’s he doing?’ I demanded.
‘Burn him at the stake!’ Grandpa yelled from just behind.
‘Well,’ Bastille said, ‘he never was going to go with us. Remember? When we acted in front of the kings, his part was to claim that he didn’t want you to go and couldn’t stop you.’