The Badlings

Chapter 14. The Underground Throne Room

Book characters must lead remarkably easy lives. Rarely do you read about them wasting time on such trifles as eating, sleeping, or making trips to the bathroom. This presents a curious problem for new badlings: food and drink are hard to find, as are places to take a shower or lie down for a nap.

Filthy, tired, and hungry, the children climbed out of the opening in the wall, dusted themselves off, and looked around.

They were standing in a dark room. A tall wardrobe flanked a simple wooden bed on which a child slept under the covers, blond locks spilled on the pillow. By the bed stood a chair and a desk with carefully arranged papers, an inkbottle, and several quills. A clock tick-tocked in the corner. Apart from that no other noises disturbed the night.

"What story is this?" whispered Peacock.

Bells shook her head. "No idea."

"I wish it was 'Hansel and Gretel,' " muttered Grand.

Rusty's eyes rounded. "Is that where a witch catches two children and eats them?"

"Um," began Grand calmly, "not exactly. It's about a cannibalistic woman who forced Gretel into slavery and locked Hansel in an animal cage. Then she fed him to fatten him up so she could fry him in an old-fashioned stove. It operates similarly to a funeral incinerator, except that it burns at lower temperatures and more unevenly, so his dying throes would be longer and more painful, and nobody would hear his screams. Once she decided that he was sufficiently crisp, she would take him out and start carving him and—" He stopped under his friends' mortified stares. "I'm just exploring what could happen. She doesn't eat him in the end. They escape."

"Thank you for clarification," said Peacock nervously. "Why would you want to go into a horrible story like that?"

"Her house is made of cakes and candy," said Grand dreamily. "Which is almost as good as doughnuts."

His last word rang out a bit too loudly.

The sleeping child mumbled something and turned to the side. The bed springs groaned, the blanket billowed then sagged, and all was still again.

"Shhh!" hissed Bells. "You'll wake her up."

"How do you know it's a girl?" asked Peacock. "Maybe it's a boy."

Bells goggled at him. "Are you blind? Look at her hair." She continued before he could answer. "I hope this is The Secret Garden. I would like for it to be The Secret Garden, because there's food there."

"Is that about an orphan girl who lives with her uncle?" whispered Rusty.

"Yes, it is," said Bells, impressed. "Her parents die of some disease and she comes to live in this mansion with her sick brother, and all they do is play in the garden and eat muffins and cakes and currant buns."

"For the whole book?" asked Rusty.

"For the whole book," confirmed Bells.

"Cool. I'm in!"

Peacock smirked. "Sounds like a nice life."

An irregular clop of hooves echoed from the street. Bells frowned and stole to the window, drawing back the curtain. Two stories below a horse pulled a carriage across a bridge that was dusted with snow, yellow in the light of the lanterns.

"It's a city," whispered Bells. "It shouldn't be a city, it should be a garden."

"Do you recognize it?" asked Grand.

"No. And it's winter. Are we in 'The Snow Queen' again?" She glanced back at the child. "Maybe it's Gerda."

"Would be cool if we were in 'Dwarf Nose,' " said Rusty. "Grandma read it to me when I was a kid. It's about this boy who lives in a witch's house with guinea pigs and squirrels. They wear nut shells on their feet and skate on this glass floor, and he learns how to cook all these dishes." He poked Grand. "Hey, if we asked him to make doughnuts, I bet he would."