Sasha and Puck and the Cure for Courage Read online

  Puck bounded up beside her. He was very pleased to have made new friends.

  When they entered the shop, they saw Papa, revived with new excitement, rushing around, pulling different items from the shelves.

  “Come in,” he said. “We’ve got preparations to make, ho-ho!”

  Sasha and Puck glanced at each other. Papa continued to bustle around. “I had the greatest idea. We could set up a market stall on the fairground and sell to all the people at the festival!”

  Sasha’s heart sank.

  “Um, Papa. That’s a lot of potions, and what about quality? Alchemy is a very delicate craft, you always say.”

  “I know,” said Papa. “That’s why we’ll sell your delicious mulled honey.”

  “Regular mulled honey?” said Sasha.

  “No. Delicious mulled honey.”

  “But no magic, right?”

  “The magic of perfectly balanced flavors,” said Papa.

  “Yes, okay, but no magic ingredients?” said Sasha.

  “The magic ingredient is love.”

  “Papa!” said Sasha.

  “Okay, okay. No magic.”

  “It’s a great idea,” said Sasha.

  “Guh! Guh!” said Puck. For the first time, Sasha felt all the tension release from her shoulders. It was a good plan. They could buy more supplies from the local greengrocer and still make enough gold to pay their taxes. And no one would ask for any potions. For a moment, everything was simple and easy.

  Then the door of the shop slammed open, and a man came running in. “Mister Bebbin,” he said, “I need your help.”

  It was Sergeant Latouche. His coat was clean and well pressed. His mustache was thin and sharp, like his nose. He was a handsome man. And he came from a family of soldiers. He was too brittle to have ever been a soldier, but he had the title of sergeant.

  “Come in, Sergeant Latouche. Would you like some cider?” said Papa.

  Latouche shook his head. “No, no, I need a potion,” he said. “A magical one.”

  Sasha was growing nervous. But she knew that Latouche was a wealthy man with a good life. So he couldn’t possibly want anything too magical.

  “In fact,” said Latouche, “I need a potion more magical and wondrous than anything you’ve made in your life!”

  Uh-oh, thought Sasha.

  “All right,” said Papa. “Just tell me what you want the magic potion to do.”

  Sasha hoped it wasn’t something too impossible.

  “I want to become the bravest in the world, even braver than the knights from the Kingdom of Daytime,” said Latouche.

  Sasha nearly fainted.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Wander Inn was cozy, joyful, and loud.

  Even though it was already a dark winter night, all the windows shone brightly. At the center of the back wall sat a fireplace. The fire roared under a black cauldron. A rabbit stew bubbled in the cauldron.

  The smell filled the air and made Sasha’s belly warble. She sat in a booth near the door, with Sergeant Latouche. The rest of the inn was taken up by dozens of soldiers, knights, squires, and merchants, all visiting the Village to attend the festival the next day.

  The innkeeper, Uncle Nestor, was a barrel-shaped man with a bushy red mustache. He stood behind the oak bar, serving cider to the guests, laughing at their jokes, and bellowing orders if any of them got too rowdy. His daughter, Mina, had red hair like her father’s, in a big bun on top of her head. She ran from table to table serving bowls of stew. The place was so busy that she hadn’t gotten to Sasha yet.

  Sasha was a detective and a scientist. She was there on a mission. She was also hungry. But she tried her best to observe as much as possible. The first thing she noticed was that everyone was a little nervous. It was the night before the jousting tournament, so a lot of the soldiers seemed to have that on their minds.

  A group of them were passing the time with a game of dice. When one knight turned over his cup and revealed all ones on the dice, he got a panicked look on his face. It was apparently a very unlucky result. He immediately put one hand over his right eye and spit into the dice cup. It must have been a superstition to ward off bad luck, Sasha thought.

  At the bar, a couple of soldiers kept asking Uncle Nestor for advice. This made Sasha guess that he had been a great warrior once upon a time.

  On the wall behind him hung a row of portraits. Sasha wondered what they were. She nudged Latouche and said, “What are those pictures, do you suppose?”

  Sasha had followed Latouche to the Wander Inn after he had purchased his potion. He was so distracted that he hardly noticed.

  Her question snapped Latouche out of his troubled thoughts. “Huh? Are you still following me? Where are your parents?”

  Sasha ignored his question.

  “The paintings. Do you know about them?”

  “Oh, that’s Nestor’s wall of bravery and knavery.”

  “Sounds silly,” said Sasha.

  “That’s because you’re a child and there are no pictures of candy.”

  Sasha was annoyed but let him continue.

  “The wall of bravery is for the greatest heroes of our village. Remember when that wild boar was menacing the Willow Wood and attacking travelers?”

  “No,” said Sasha, even though the description sounded a lot like Otto.

  “That’s because you weren’t born yet, but it was a big deal. The miller’s son, Khabib, wrestled the boar into a cage and saved everybody. So Nestor asked Mina to paint him. That’s him up there with the scar on his face.”

  Latouche described other heroic deeds that got people onto the wall. Each time, Mina had painted their portrait.

  Sasha asked, “And what about knavery?”

  “Nestor loves a good joke,” said Latouche. “That’s why they called him the Laughing Knight. One time, the milkmaid painted a spider on the bottom of the tax collector’s cup, and when he saw it, he spilled all over himself and fell off his stool. Nestor laughed for a week. That’s the milkmaid’s picture up there, with the spider on her shoulder.”

  Latouche went silent again as he lost himself in the stories of the heroes on the wall. Sasha watched as Puck ran back and forth from the bar to Mina, getting her cups and towels or whatever she needed. It seemed that he was friends with Uncle Nestor, who tousled his hair every time he ran under the counter to get Mina another bowl of radishes or rye bread.

  Sasha wondered how they knew each other. She still knew so little about Puck. He would disappear sometimes. She’d find him asleep a few days later, curled up by the back door of their house, as if nothing had happened.

  When Sage the hedge knight reached for a mug of cider and accidentally toppled it, Puck scampered to the spill almost before it hit the floor. A piece of the mug broke off, so Sage made the knightly salute—one hand over her right eye—and spat into the fireplace.

  Her brother, Coral, did it, too, as extra insurance against bad luck.

  Latouche sighed as he pulled the cork off the glass bottle he’d bought from Papa Bebbin.

  “So I just drink it, and it’s magic?” he said.

  Sasha didn’t believe in magic.

  “That’s what it says on the label,” she said.

  Latouche tipped the bottle and drank it all in one gulp. His face turned red. That was probably from the volcano peppers Papa liked to use. Sasha waited as Latouche coughed, guzzled his cup of cider, coughed some more, then fixed his hair. Sasha thought Latouche was distracted enough, so she decided the best thing to do would be to come right out and ask what she wanted to know. She said, “Why would you want a bravery potion, anyway?”

  “That’s a good question,” said Latouche.

  “What’s the answer?”

  “The answer is that I’m not going to answer that.”

  Sasha wasn’t getting anywhere. Thankfully, Mina appeared with their bowls of stew. She set them down quickly but gently, so none of it sloshed onto the oak table. She put a hand on Latouche’s sho
ulder and said, “Sorry for the wait. Can I get you anything else?”

  Mina smiled at Sasha, and Sasha noticed splotches of food and paint all over her apron. If Sasha could have had an older sister, she thought Mina would have been a good one. Anybody who was kind to Puck was probably a good person. For a moment, Sasha thought, Is he trying to be brave in order to talk to Mina?

  But that seemed unlikely. The last time Sasha had seen Latouche, he was wooing the local chocolatier, Ms. Kozlow, and he hadn’t been shy at all.

  “Packed house tonight,” Latouche said, looking up at Mina. “Are you going to the festival tournament?”

  “Probably not,” said Mina.

  “Okay,” said Latouche.

  His tone didn’t sound like horrible disappointment. Sasha decided that Latouche was probably not in love with Mina.

  A roar of cheers came from a table in the far corner of the inn, where several knights were arm-wrestling. A tall soldier with a missing tooth, long, greasy black hair, and mean eyes had won again.

  Uncle Nestor scowled whenever he looked at the arm-wrestling knights.

  Mina rolled her eyes.

  Sasha watched as Puck scooted up to the table, under the winning soldier’s arm, to take a few of the empty glasses back to the kitchen. But the soldier turned at the wrong moment, bumped into Puck, and leaped back as if he’d seen a spider.

  “Oy! What’re you?”

  Puck didn’t seem to understand. He said, “Guh,” and reached for the soldier’s cup. The soldier pulled the cup out of Puck’s reach and said, “You some kind of black cat?”

  The others at the table laughed. Puck was almost always covered in dirt, and he did look a little like a cat if you weren’t paying attention.

  The room was suddenly quiet. Everyone had stopped their conversations to watch. From behind the bar, Uncle Nestor growled a warning. “Scolario…”

  Someone in the crowd whispered, “That’s Scolario the Bad Hander.”

  But Scolario didn’t pay attention.

  He said, “A black cat’s bad luck.” Then he made the knight’s salute and spat right on Puck’s head.

  Sasha slammed her palms on the table and stood up. “Hey!” she said. But no one noticed. Puck stood in front of Scolario with his tiny hands balled into fists. He was barely bigger than Scolario’s boot. His eyes were angry slits. His whole body shook.

  Scolario laughed and turned back in his seat.

  Sasha started to squeeze out of the booth to rush to Puck’s aid. But it was too late.

  Puck gnashed his teeth like a baby bear, then let out a roar as he leapt at Scolario’s face. He had to grab the knight’s greasy hair to climb up his shoulders, but Puck was very nimble when he wanted to be.

  “Oy!” said Scolario in surprise.

  All the soldiers at the table jumped up and began to shout at once. Puck held on to Scolario’s hair with both hands and began to head-butt the man in a wild flurry.

  It only worked for a moment. Scolario reached back and grabbed Puck by the neck and wrenched him around. Sasha was about to scream.

  Just then, the door of the inn flew open, and a deep, commanding voice said, “Enough!”

  Everyone turned.

  In the doorway stood a knight who was thicker, wider, and taller than the door itself. In the silence, Sasha could hear Coral leaning over to his sister to say, “Who’s that?”

  “Belfort,” said Scolario with a sneer.

  The man named Belfort had a thick yellow beard, cut straight at the chin like a row of wheat. On his chest, he wore the crest of the Knights of the Kingdom of Daytime.

  “Put the creature down,” said Belfort.

  “And what if I don’t?” said Scolario. But he put Puck down as he said it.

  The two knights stared at each other. Finally, Scolario spat on the floor and sat down, grumbling. Belfort didn’t have anything else to say, so he approached Uncle Nestor and greeted him. The crowd slowly began to resume their conversations.

  Puck ran to Mina and hugged her leg. She didn’t seem bothered by how dirty he was. She picked him up—even though he made more smudges on her apron—and whispered nice things to him.

  Sasha was still trembling. When she sat back down to finish her stew, Latouche said, “See that? That’s why I bought the potion.” He nodded at Belfort the knight.

  “You want to be like Belfort?”

  “Who wouldn’t?” said Latouche. “Look at him. Magic or no magic, everybody in here knows that he’s not afraid of anything. I want that.”

  Sasha nodded. She had what she’d come for.

  Latouche wanted to be just like Belfort the knight.

  Sasha wondered what Latouche could possibly do to be more brave.

  Then she remembered.

  Sasha dropped her spoon into her bowl.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “Are you planning to enter the tournament of knights?”

  “Yes,” said Latouche.

  “You can’t,” said Sasha.

  “I can.”

  “Just so everyone will know you’re brave?”

  “The bravest,” said Latouche as he flicked the empty potion bottle onto the table.

  “I was afraid you’d say that,” said Sasha.

  CHAPTER 4

  Sasha stepped out into the wintry night, shivered, and pulled her hood over her head. It was quiet. She was alone.

  Back inside the Wander Inn, the knights and merchants laughed and told stories. Puck stayed to help Mina and Uncle Nestor. Latouche sat at his table, wondering when his magic bravery potion would kick in. The good knight Belfort and the villain Scolario sat at their tables and enjoyed their dinners.

  Outside, the snow had made a white carpet for all the Village.

  Sasha walked toward home, worried that this mission was simply too hard. Latouche had no chance of winning the knights’ tournament, not with Belfort and Scolario competing. What would happen to their shop if Latouche complained that the potion did not work? Sasha stared intently at the ground, hoping for an answer.

  Then she saw something strange.

  Footprints in the snow.

  The prints looked fresh, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around.

  One pair of prints were made by a fine, pointy shoe, like the kind the mayor would wear. The other set of prints included a round boot and a stubbed peg.

  Both led around the inn, toward the stables.

  “Of all the odds and oddity,” said Sasha.

  Who was in the stables at this time of night?

  Sasha was so curious that she forgot her troubles and followed the tracks around the building and up a hill. As she strayed farther from the windows of the inn, the night became darker, and the tracks became harder to see. Then she saw a faint light coming from the stables.

  She entered through the back doors, which were already open. There was no snow inside, so the footprints disappeared. The light she had seen from outside was coming from behind a post at the far end of the stables. Horses and mules huddled in their stalls, trying to find some sleep.

  As Sasha approached the faint light, she was suddenly struck by the idea that maybe she was unwelcome.

  Right then, she heard an angry voice. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  Sasha knew the voice. As she stepped into the edge of the light, she saw Vadim Gentry, the gruel baron. He was the one wearing the fancy shoes. He stood over an older man, hunched in the shape of a lump. It was Gorch, the village lamplighter.

  Sasha gasped at the sight of them.

  She leaped backward, out of the light.

  “What was that?” said Vadim, twisting around to see behind him. Gorch made a low grumbling sound and lifted the lamp in that direction.

  Sasha dove to the floor to avoid being seen. She crawled on her hands and knees into the nearest horse stall.

  Inside the stall, a nervous horse snorted at her. Please, please, please don’t stomp me, thought Sasha. Thankfully, the horse moved away. Sasha crawled
into the far corner and tried to breathe quietly.

  She heard Vadim say, “Dumb animals. Probably saw a mouse.”

  Sasha leaned down and peeked through a hole in the slats on the side of the stall.

  Gorch lumbered on his good leg. The other was a wooden peg. Gorch’s job was to keep the lamps in the Village full of oil, and light them when the sun went down. In the mornings, he would snuff them out. Some people said he lost his leg when he was a pirate on the King Sea, but no one ever asked.

  His teeth were missing or black. His smell was sour.

  Sasha couldn’t imagine why Vadim Gentry, the richest man in all the valley, would ever want to meet with Gorch. But Sasha also knew that Vadim was a greedy man. And greed made people do odd things.

  Gorch searched the pockets of his tattered coat and finally came up with a scrap of paper. “Urm. Here,” he grumbled. “Urm. Here it is. I wrote it. Hold on. Urm. I wrote it down.”

  He unwrinkled the paper and squinted to read. “Here it is. First round. Latouche goes against Volkov. Urm. And Belfort fights some hedge knight by the name of Sage. And Bad Hander’s got one named Coral.”

  “There,” said Vadim. “Coral. Find me his horse.”

  “Urm. Hold on.”

  Gorch limped toward the first stall, where Sasha was hiding, and squinted into the darkness. Sasha tried to make herself as small as possible.

  Please don’t be this one. Please don’t be this one.

  Gorch turned away with a grunt and looked at the next stall. Sasha breathed out a sigh as quietly as she could.

  “This one.”

  Vadim nudged Gorch aside and said, “Good. I’ll do it myself.”

  Sasha could hear the sounds of a knife cutting into leather. She wished she could be sure of what they were doing, but it was too dangerous to look.

  When the horse made a sudden neighing, Sasha gasped by accident. Vadim twirled around once again and seemed to look right at her through the crack in the stall door.