The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Chapter 18: Lord Silurus

Just a liiiiiiiitle more, thought Maila. I can almooooooost reach it.

Sprawled out on her belly on the riverbank (dry this year! Meaning she wouldn't get muddy, only dusty, and dust she could pat off so Mama never had to know), the seven-year-old took a deep breath, ducked her head underwater, and stretched out one arm as far as it would go. Her fingertips just brushed her flute, which was sticking out of the black sand like a crooked flagpole. If only she hadn't promised never ever ever to go into the river by herself! Then she could dive in, grab her flute, and go home.

But no, Mama had said the river was dangerous. A little girl could drown, or get kidnapped by the dragon king to work in his water court (which sounded more fun than working on the farm, Maila thought), or get eaten by that giant monster catfish demon.... So she'd promised never to go into the river by herself, and big girls kept promises.

Even when they were so, so inconvenient.

Wriggling forward a few more inches, Maila strained towards her flute – and froze.

The very edge of the riverbank, where it met the water, was muddy! Now the whole top of her tunic was smeared with mud! Plus her chin and even the ends of her pigtails!

She looked like she'd gotten into a mud fight with her brothers and cousins again, when she most definitely had not. In fact, this time she'd run away when they started splashing around in the river, because she'd known that the next thing they'd do would be to dig out handfuls of mud and start throwing them. Mama hated when they did that. So Maila had trotted off to play on her own – but she'd been so busy peeking through the rushes to look for the duck demons that everyone said lived around here that she'd tripped over a rock and dropped her flute into the water. And now she couldn't get it back because she couldn't go in the river, plus she was covered in mud and Mama would be furious anyway. This wasn't fair!

Maila tried to pinch her flute between two fingertips but only managed to knock it more crooked. Now it was even harder to get!

In the distance, her oldest brother called, "Little Sis? Little Sis?" and then, "Hey, where's Maila?"

Oh no! They'd find her all covered in mud and tell on her! It wouldn't make Mama any less angry at them for the mud fight when she told on them right back – but she'd be in just as much trouble. And she tried so hard to be good, too! It just wasn't fair!

She thrust out her arm again, but she was so upset that she knocked the flute over completely. Now it lay on its side on the riverbed.

"Maila! Maila!" called the voices in the distance.

Oh no, they were coming this way! She had to get her flute and run away to hide now! With a big splash, she jumped into the river.

When a gigantic catfish stuck its head out of a cave and grinned at her with a whole mouthful of pointy teeth, she wished very, very hard that she'd let her brothers tattle on her instead.

I didn't get far before a pair of frogs zipped past me, yelling at the chaotic crowd of water spirits, "It's Lord Silurus! It's Lord Silurus! He's eating a human girl!"

At the sound of the catfish demon's name, the smaller, weaker spirits turned tail and fled.

Captain Carpio puffed up and pointed a fin. "Guards, save her!" he bellowed at the frogs. He did not, however, make any move forward himself.

"That's suicide!" screeched Captain Carpa from her position right next to Yulus, on his other side from Nagi. "You'll get the whole company killed!"