September spun round to see the Headmistress standing behind them.
CHAPTER IX
I PUNISH, YOU PUNISH, HE OR SHE PUNISHES
In Which September Learns a Spot of Latin, Fights Her First Duel, and Is Banned from the Library for Life
“What are you doing here?” Ell demanded sharply. “No one could have gotten here faster than me!”
The Headmistress rolled her eyes. “You are not the only member of the Catalogue in good standing.” She had lost her enchanted school bell at the firing of the starting catapult, of course. But she seemed entirely disgusted with her replacement—a cloud of colored bubbles in the shape of a large and friendly butterfly. It kept trying to wrap its pastel wings around her and nuzzle her ear.
“Ugh! Get away from me, you overgrown cupcake!” the Headmistress snarled. She tried to beat the wings back but the butterfly just snuggled in again to hold her. “It’s utterly useless. It belongs to the Happiest Princess—have you met her? She’s got hot cocoa for blood and whipped cream for a soul. She’s just full of joy and wonder and merriment and she ruled with an army of sherbet ponies and buttercream giants. Oh, but everyone loves her! I tried to bring a little discipline and order to this bucket of lunatics. I had them up at a decent hour and working toward reasonable personal goals. I got them to eat sensible meals and go to bed early! I gave out detention slips only when absolutely necessary and all anyone wants is to go back to Macaroon Mondays and infinite slumber parties! I think she calls this thing Treacle. If I didn’t need it to finish the race I’d have set it on fire.”
Treacle patted her head with one bubbly wing.
“I am a serious person!” the Headmistress wailed. “I do serious things! This is intolerable!”
Ajax Oddson’s voice filled the Mystery Kitchen. A few thrillers trembled from inside the cabinets.
“Do my little eyes spy a pair of Cantankerous Contenders occupying the same square? You know what that means!” A thunderclap echoed through the Great Grand Library and a number of purple fireworks went off high above them, spelling out the words:
The Wonderful World of Duels
The Reference Desk frantically stamped out any stray bits of violet flame before they could singe a single book. When the sparks faded, a handsome oval frame hung in the air, the sort you might expect to hold a very fine mirror or a portrait of someone whose name no one remembers anymore. This frame did not hold a portrait or a mirror, but rather, Hushnow, the Ancient and Demented Raven Lord. Or at least a doppelgänger of him, sent with love by a nice lady in Mummery named Quintuple Pod. Hushnow squawked loud and long. He appeared to be struggling mightily with his new mount, which September recognized as Penny Farthing’s velocipede.
“Curse all bicycles and little girls!” screeched the bird-king. “I ate the sun! I’ll do it again if I get peckish, just you watch!”
“Hush now, Hushnow,” chuckled Blunderbuss, nosing at the cover of Detective Mushroom and the Case of the Peculiar Pooka to see if it seemed tasty. Greenwich Mean Time gave her a look so dark even the Ancient and Demented Raven Lord clammed up. The scrap-yarn wombat let Detective Mushroom lie. “You’re meant to referee, you daft parrot!” she yelled. “On you go!”
“Oh! Er. Yes. A duel. That’s a fancy word for wedding, is it? All right, all right, don’t get your feathers mussed.” He cleared his throat. “We have gathered here together to join together the Headmistress and Queen September in holy matrimony…”
“No!” cried everyone all together.
“We’re meant to fight each other,” September said, and not without a spark of fear singeing her voice. “Though I really would rather not. I’ve never had a duel before, unless you count Martha May at school back home, and I didn’t come out well in that.”
“Right!” cawed Hushnow. “No one cares! As Officious Officiant, it is my duty to choose your weapons so that neither of you can stick it to the other by picking Complaining or Pulling a Gormless Face or whatever human girls excel at. And I choose—”
“No!” roared Greenwich Mean Time. “No dueling in the Library! Don’t you dare! Books are flammable, drownable, rippable, stabbable, and explodable! And very easily shocked! The whole Mathematicks section faints dead away at the sight of blood.”
But the Ancient and Demented Raven Lord quite ignored the spluttering time ball. “I choose … Latin Conjugations! Turn back to back and walk off ten paces!” Hushnow shook his feathers and eagerly puffed up his chest.
“But that’s not fair at all!” protested September. “I don’t know any Latin!”
The Headmistress smiled coolly and turned round, s
howing the back of her gray bustled gown. “But I do, my dear. After all, Latin is a dead language, and I have been dead for ever so long. We’ve learned to get along terrifically over the centuries. And if I can come back to life, why can’t the Roman tongue? I think it’s a perfectly fair choice. Hushnow is such a level-headed fellow.”
“He’s fixed it so you’ll win,” Saturday glowered.
“If you say so,” said the Headmistress, who, after all, cared only for the rules that tipped their hats her way.
“Paces!” squawked Hushnow. His screeching echoed up to the high ceilings of the Mystery Kitchen. “Turn around, you daft monkey! I can’t dawdle all day. I’m having a spot of manticore trouble at the moment and this idiot bike is no help at all!” A growl sounded faintly in the distance. Wherever Hushnow was, he was not alone.
September turned around. The Headmistress stood only a little taller than she. Their shoulders touched briefly, and then the Ancient and Demented Raven Lord began counting to ten. “One for sorrow, two for joy! Three for the bites I gave the Changeling boy!”
“But I have no weapons!” hissed September. She could feel it all closing in on her. The duel, the race, the walls of the Library, everything. She’d thought she left feeling helpless behind long ago—only we never leave helpless behind. It is a country in which we all hold passports. I am going to lose, she thought. I am going to lose quickly. Though at least I’m unlikely to be killed by a verb.
A-Through-L arched his long spine. His eyes twinkled at her. “September, I have known you since the only thing you wanted in the world was a slice of cake and I have never once seen you without weapons. At the very least, you always have me. You don’t need to know a lick of Latin! I know plenty! Latin begins with L! Just say what I say!”