Love Croakies Sam Cheever (red queen ebook txt) 📖

His gaze spun to Archie. “I say, Pudsnecker if you can’t control the peanut gallery…”

Archie shook his head. “Let’s focus on the job at hand, shall we? The girl is right. One of our friends is in danger. We need to do this as quickly as possible.”

Osvald grimaced. “The hobgoblin? Nasty creatures. Not worth dying over,” he murmured.

Sebille’s fingers came up, and he flinched sideways. “Bloody hellcat! There’s no need to be violent.”

Archie lifted the book. “Osvald, if you please?”

Sighing, the professor settled his attention on the pages below him and they started to flicker. Osvald’s black eyes were cast downward. His lips moved as he read the words printed on the quickly turning pages.

Without warning, the ground beneath our feet jolted. I yelped softly, stretching my arms as if to brace myself, and was surprised to find a firm surface beneath my fingers.

The anomaly rose laboriously into the air, seeming to struggle with our weight, and then wrenched so quickly into a spun that we were all thrown against the opalescent walls.

Still spinning, the anomaly shot forward and we suddenly found ourselves high above the trees in The Enchanted Forest, flying at a dizzying speed.

My stomach roiled at the unaccustomed movement and the height. I dropped to my knees as dizziness threatened to topple me, placing my palms against the bubble’s walls.

Being a creature that spends a large portion of her time flying, Sebille was unaffected by the height, but I noticed with some satisfaction that she turned a little green when the orb occasionally kicked into a rapid rotation.

After the fourth time it started to spin, I figured out that the nausea-inducing movement was caused by Osvald’s instruction to change direction.

The trees flying past beneath our feet, I lifted my gaze toward the blue atmosphere high above. I imagined stretching a hand up to touch the fat, fluffy clouds floating through the gorgeous sky.

A wide-eyed bird that had been perched in a dead tree startled skyward. Wings akimbo and feathers flying, the owl screamed a question in our direction as we rushed past.

“Whoooo?”

Something thick and muscular rose from the trunk of a particularly big tree and snapped at the anomaly. The snake looked to be upwards of thirty feet long, with jaws that spread wide enough to swallow a small human whole. I shuddered at the sight, sighing in relief as it missed us and slammed back into the tree.

“Ooh,” Sebille said. “That had to hurt.”

I giggled, my heart and head suddenly feeling light.

Sebille and I shared a grin. “We’re flying!” I told her and she rolled her eyes.

Osvald’s gaze swung my way. “Beware the euphoria,” he told us sternly. “It is the beginning of the end.”

Sebille and I both snorted at his overly-dramatic warning.

“Stop being such a putz,” Eddie said, surprising us both into turning in his direction.

Eddie made a crabby face and Sebille devolved into helpless laughter.

“What’s that up there?” Narina asked. She didn’t seem in danger of succumbing to excess euphoria. Her attractive face was serious as she pointed toward a black shape in the sky ahead of us.

I squinted at it. “Some kind of big bird.”

“It looks like a raven,” Sebille said, stressing the words.

My gaze swiveled to hers and we both spoke at once.

“Rasputin!”

“Morty!” I yelled. “Bump the bird!”

Osvald’s dark gaze narrowed on me. “Archie, I believe we have a problem.”

Archie flapped his hand dismissively. “Let them have their fun. Don’t you remember the exhilaration of your first flight?”

“I do remember it,” Osvald said, his tone dark, “and then I was banished into the pages of my tomes for all time. I’m telling you, this is not good.”

Archie sighed. “The girls are right, Old Man. You’re about as much fun as a snake’s ankles.”

Sebille and I slapped Archie five.

We were gaining on Rasputin fast, but it looked as if we might miss him by a smidge. Sebille and I started throwing ourselves at the wall, trying to change our flight path so we’d bump him. After a moment, Eddie joined us.

Watching us all play and giggle finally teased a smile from Narina.

Osvald’s dark eyes were filled with worry, and I noticed he’d started reading faster.

When we were five feet away from the big raven, Rasputin turned and looked over his wing, his entire body twitching when he saw what was riding up on him.

The big raven’s feathers flared like the hair on the back of a cat, and he lost altitude for a beat before he managed to reorganize his plumage. His head on a constant swivel to keep an eye on us, Rasputin’s wings pounded the air harder and faster. He appeared to be trying to outrun us.

A moment later, we were even with the wide-eyed bird, the bubble’s walls mere inches from his pounding wings.

Sebille, Eddie, and I were sweaty and panting from trying to move the anomaly toward Rasputin. But we couldn’t move it even a fraction of an inch.

“Ssssizzling sssnake ssspit!” Sebille complained, flinging Eddie and me into helpless hilarity.

“Bump the bird,” we all started to chant. Only Narina and Osvald resisted joining.

Finally, as we seemed in danger of passing the big raven without so much as touching his tail feathers, Narina gave in.

“Okay, just a little bump,” she said, and she sent a gust of wind into the air around us. The anomaly shot sideways and banged into the bird. Rasputin’s eyes and beak flared wide, and his clawed feet grabbed at the air in desperation. But there was nothing to grab. He started to roll across the sky in a comedy of flailing wings and grappling claws.

We laughed hysterically.

Just as he began to right himself, the anomaly gave a little lurch. We screamed happily.

The next lurch was harder, throwing us to the ground. Our laughter eased away.

“Oh no!” Osvald yelled. “You’ve done it now.”

The anomaly gave a violent jerk, flinging us around the space. We crashed into each other and fell in a tangle of limbs in the center.

Osvald read frantically from the book. But it was