A TAIL OF NINE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Secret Meetings and Smart-Asses

When I try the doorknob to see if I can force it open, I hear King on the other side, growling. Looks like Mr. Unger decided I needed a guard.

The room I'm locked in is a mess! The yellowed wallpaper's peeling off all over the place. Something black and fuzzy's growing on one of the walls. Doesn't look like he ever cleans around here. This place doesn't need a wipe down. It needs a freaking exorcism!

When I get down on my belly to inspect the huge holes in the base of the wall, I can see right into the next room! If I wanted to, I could put my entire head in the hole I settle next to. I don't think I need to get THAT close to whatever's in the next room. At least I can see what's there and can hear what's going on.

And that's exactly what I do. I watch and listen.

Mr. Unger still hasn't shown up in the room yet. I guess whoever or whatever he's waiting for hasn't shown up yet. Even without him, the room's far from empty. From what I can tell, it's PACKED with monsters. Three brownish-orange things hang from the walls, like they have suction cups on their feet. The way they're huddled there together ... I can't get a good look at them, no matter how much I scooch around. There are spiny things, drooling things, and slithering things. Some shadowy thing with orange eyes stares through the open window. It's like every little kid's nightmare crammed in the tiny room. Everybody's whispering in their little groups, but nobody's talking loud enough for me to figure out what they're saying.

A raccoon with a super long tail rolls a walnut around in his black paws. Every time its tail twitches, it glares at it and grumbles something that sounds like "Tailypo! Tailypo! Po! Po! Po!"

The tail nudges the walnut like it's trying to snatch it from Tailypo's paws, even though they're part of the same body. The raccoon-thing hisses and pounces on the tail. When it thinks the tail has learned its lesson (after two bites), the Tailypo goes back to the nut.

An old woman wearing a fur cape of some kind and a tunic perches on the counter. Her hand brushes the hilt of her sword. That's definitely the Old Bone Woman. She has a beaky nose that you just don't forget. There's a lot about her that I don't know, but I've never heard of her leaving Belle Lake, well, besides the war.

"One more yet to come," she says. "We wait."

An ape-looking thing sulks in a chair. It crunches on something that looks a lot like a woodpecker, smacking its lips after each feathery bite. After wiping its mouth with the back of its greasy hand, it grumbles, "The Dwayyo don't like to wait."

"But they do like to refer to themselves in the third person. Or would that be third monster?" says something that looks like a hunchbacked little gnome covered in black fur. His face, though, is hairless and looks like it's been run over a few times. His rotten teeth zigzag across his black gums below his crooked nose with its three nostrils.

The ape-thing, or what I figure is a Dwayyo, spits out a mouth full of half-chewed chunks of meat and bone. "The Dwayyo do not take to being mocked by the Nain Rouge!"

"Why not? Everyone else makes fun of you!" the Nain Rouge ducks under the table, only to pop up near my peephole. I guess he's too far away to worry about, so the Dwayyo just grumbles. The Nain Rouge grabs up the raccoon-thing's tail and starts jumping rope as it sings, "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear / Turn around! / Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Touch the ground! / Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear / Touch your shoe. / Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear / That will do!"

A creature that looks like a stick flings its blanch-like arms up in the air. "You can't control him! How can you control the Dwayyo?"

Orange Eyes rumbles something from his window spot.