Good Curses Evil by Stephanie S. Sanders Page B

supposed to make the traps. Wolf Junior’s dad is the expert on this subject. He wrote Grandma’s House: What I’d Do Differently after the whole Red Riding Hood debacle.
    I tried desperately to think of a plan as we sank deeper and deeper into the Magic Marsh. The marsh quickly swallowed us up to our waists, and every few seconds, one of the sprites would release an arrow at us just for fun. One stuck in Jez’s nose, which really ticked her off. She hissed and tried to grab the sprites, but they remained just out of reach.
    A moment later, an enormous bubble erupted from beneath the surface of the marsh. Green moss arced upward as the stinking air escaped.
    â€œGross, Cappy,” I said. He looked at me for a moment, uncomprehending.
    â€œCappy no toot,” he said finally. I raised my eyebrow at Jez.
    â€œIt wasn’t me!” she huffed.
    Suddenly, we started sinking ten times faster than before. My makeshift torch went out. In no time, we were up to our shoulders in foul, mucky marsh.
    â€œOh, no!” Jez yelled.
    â€œIt must’ve been an air pocket holding us up,” I said.
    I racked my brain to think of a way to save us, but I couldn’t come up with anything.
    On the shore, the little chieftain and his gang stopped their twittering laughter. They all crossed their arms over their chests and narrowed their eyes at us. Then a slow, malicious smirk spread across the chief’s face. They weren’t just playing. We were doomed.
    â€œRune, what do we do?” Jezebel asked. I could hear the fear in her voice.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said.
    â€œRune,” Jez said after a moment.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œIf this is really the end, then I just want to tell you— Hey!”
    Out of the woods, a blinding light flashed. I squinted, and when my vision cleared I saw three beautiful flying creatures. They weren’t much bigger than the sprites, but they couldn’t have looked more different. Where the sprites seemed earthy and crude, the flying ladies were creatures of the air, lovely and refined—like royalty.
    â€œHelp!” I shouted to them. It was our last hope.
    At the sight of the beautiful fairylike women, the sprites fell on their faces and groveled. The lady in front held a little stick that glowed at the tip. She reminded me of a white rose. As she raised her magic wand, the sprite chieftain floated up into the air in front of her.
    â€œGobledeegrigglebee?” she said to him in sprite-gibberish.
    He nodded. Then she pointed at us, and he nodded again. Finally, she shook her head at him as if she were very disappointed. He burst into tears.
    â€œOh, Tibix!” one of the flying ladies said.
    â€œWhat have you done now?” asked another.
    The fairies flew in a little circle around the floating sprite chieftain and continued to interrogate him in the weird gibberish-talk.
    All this I watched in silence. I couldn’t speak if I wanted to, because my lips had just sunk beneath the mossy surface of the Magic Marsh. My eyes darted to Jez and Cappy, who weren’t faring much better. Jez’s nose was just dipping into the moss while Cappy had tilted his head back so that his face seemed to be resting on the lake like a floating dinner plate.
    This was it. I was going to die. And what was worse … I was going to die without completing my Plot. Some people might think I had my priorities a little backward, but if they’d been trained as a villain from the time they were two years old, they would’ve felt exactly the same.
    I contemplated the look on Chad’s freckled, bespectacled face when he found out I’d been beaten by a bunch of three-inch-tall pixies. I sucked a desperate last breath into my nostrils before my head sank under.

 
    CHAPTER SEVEN
    Grand Theft Baby
    I’d been under precisely twelve seconds when my head miraculously emerged from the marsh. At first I thought another bubble had risen up