mine. I know that smell.”
Another voice spoke up, smoothly, from behind Vater.
“I was going to tell you, Milord,” said Urdo. She stood relaxed at the top of the roof peak behind us.
Vater turned to face her. His snout twisted into a snarl. “She’s an elf!”
“Yes, milord,” said Urdo.
“I’ll not have her kind back here,” said Vater. I could feel his rising anger. He squeezed my neck uncomfortably. “This is my mansion now.”
He lifted Beth up and held her out over the four story drop to the snowy plain below.
“An elf,” he muttered, disgustedly. “No wonder I sensed something different about her.”
“What are you doing?” I shouted.
“You can stay, Connor,” he said. “You’ve impressed me. I’d say you are the best of the crop that I sowed here so long ago. I see myself in you. Today I declare you to be a full-fledged member of my clan.”
Urdo clapped her hands together, “Well done, Connor!”
“A good choice, Milord!” said Waldheim, who’d shown up from somewhere.
“You can’t drop her!” I shouted.
“She’ll be fine,” said Vater. “She’s an elf. Her kind don’t weigh anything, and they’re practically made of rubber. She probably won’t even break a leg. You are like me, Connor. She isn’t and she must go.”
“I don’t want to be like you! Look what happened to your own family!” I snarled at him angrily.
He looked, for the very first time since I’d met him, surprised.
“You dare, rodent?” he said, turning his dangerous gaze fully on me.
“The Stranger came and told you what you were,” I said. “He told you about the Maker. We’re not better than she is.”
“The book,” he said as if to himself. “I’d almost forgotten it. You are even more resourceful than I imagined.”
He dropped Beth then, over the side, without a word. She fell, clinging to the rope. It snapped like a whip as it caught her weight. He reached down for the rope to finish the job.
I bit down on his wrist, as hard as I could. I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I couldn’t let him hurt Beth.
Something huge and pink and sticky came out of nowhere and snapped around Vater’s wrist. It took us all a shocked second to realize what it was. Jake had snapped his tongue out and wrapped it around Vater’s wrist, in what I took as a bizarre attempt to save me.
After that I felt like I was strapped into a rollercoaster that had jumped the tracks. I heard wild shouts and a strange croaking sound.
I flew through the air and landed in the snow in a heap next to Jake.
“Couldn’t stay away, could you?” I said to Jake.
Jake’s tongue was still stuck to Vater’s wrist. Vater shook his tongue-wrapped arm about like a man who has walked into a mass of cobwebs in the garage. Jake couldn’t speak with his tongue fully extended like that, but he did look at me and grunt affirmatively.
I got up painfully, but quickly, and ran to where the rope holding Beth dangled over the side.
“You defy me to protect this creature?” asked Vater seriously.
“Yes, I do,” I said, pulling at the rope. I could feel his hulking presence behind me. But I didn’t care.
When I had her up on the roof with us, I turned to face the frowning patriarch of my family. He had one hand on his chin. The hand was bleeding, but he took no notice of that.
“Resourceful, tricky, willing to fight, and able to find loyal friends. Hmmm. I don’t want to throw them both out, but I can’t have open defiance,” he said.
“Milord,” said Urdo, stepping forward. Her boots crunched on the snow. “By clan law, he is allowed to declare her to be under his protection. You made him a full member of the clan, after all.”
“What?” said Vater, turning upon her. “I suppose next you’ll tell me I wrote that law.”
She inclined her head, giving the slightest nod. A tiny smile played over her lips.
Waldheim cleared his throat. “What good is a law, milord, if it isn’t followed? Even if you did write it yourself.”
“You’re on thin ice yourself, lizard,” growled Vater. “I know you gave them that rope.”
Waldheim studied the snow at his feet. “Remember that Romeo and Juliet were only thirteen,” he said quietly.
“Hmph! They were fourteen,” muttered Vater. He eyed everyone in turn. “Very well. I’ll follow clan law. But there must be no further defiance!”
He turned back to me. I had managed to get Beth up onto the roof with us. She stood behind me and we both looked up at Vater warily.
He nodded. “You may keep her as a ward, but there had better be no trouble. Somehow I’m sure there will be, but at least I’ve warned you.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
When my alarm went off for school, I was ready, but I gave no sign of it. I didn’t even hit the snooze button. I just let it ring.
It was less than a minute later that my sister Heather came into the room with her dastardly camera.
“Time for a new brother-blog update!” she said cheerily.
I had my head pushed under my pillow and had the blankets pulled tightly up to my neck.
“Get up little loser brother!” said Heather, “It’s show time!”
I moaned and wriggled a bit under the blankets, enticingly.
She took the bait and whipped them off me.
This was the golden moment I’d been waiting for. I sprang up, hissing and snarling, all fangs and bristling whiskers and long pink tail.
She screamed, and I will tell you from that day to this, it was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard her make. It was a long, wailing type of scream, the kind that went on and on.
Standing on my bed in a crouch, I faced her, while my tail whipped and curled about my legs like a snake. She backed away and dropped the camera. I sprang at her, hissing like a wild beast. I snatched up the camera and followed her with it.
She scrambled away with more terrified shrieks and I chased her to the bathroom. I was pleased to see her own cat’s tail begin to sprout as she ran.
“You’re a rat, Connor! A dirty rat!”
“Are you blind?” I shouted back. “I’m just a huge mouse!”
“What’s the difference?” she said as she slammed the bathroom door.
I stood outside and scratched my claws slowly down the bathroom door. She gave a little shriek on the other side. Wood splintered and I knew mom would be mad, but I didn’t care at this moment of sweet revenge.
Then I had a thought, and I walked off down the corridor and back to my room. I check the camera and grinned. Everything was recorded: Heather’s reaction, her desperate flight and those tremendous shrieks were all there.
“What are you up to, Connor?” asked Heather’s muffled voice from behind the bathroom door.
“I’ve got your camera.”
“Give it back.”
“Come out here and I will.”
“No.”
I messed with the camera a bit more and got it to play back the scene where she was shrieking and running. I laughed to see and hear it all.
