The Badlings

Chapter 22. One Monkey's Mischief

One of them picked off a large nut and threw it at Bells. She cowered. More nuts pelted the ground like huge hailstones.

"Get her! Get her!" they screamed, hooting and ululating.

"Rusty!" called Bells. "Don't give in! Fight them! You have to— Ow!" A nut struck her elbow, hitting a nerve.

"There you are, badling girl." The Snow Queen stepped out from behind the tree. Her mouth twisted in the smugness of a predator that has at last cornered its prey. Steam rose from her, and every plant she touched immediately frosted over.

The monkeys issued a squeal of terror, dropped the rest of the nuts, and fled, Rusty trapped in their midst. The sounds of them tearing through the jungle quickly faded.

Bells stood quiet, massaging her elbow and searching for a way to escape. Behind her was an impenetrable thicket of vegetation. To her left and to her right rose trees that only monkeys could climb, the gaps between them tangled up with lianas. The only exit from this nightmare was up ahead and it was blocked by the Queen.

"Poor badling," she cooed sweetly, advancing. "You look so tired, so dirty, so bruised."

Bells drew back and stepped on something slimy. It protested by releasing an odor of rotting flesh. It was a cluster of flowers, the same kind she and Rusty encountered upon their rather unpleasant landing in the jungle.

She dashed around it.

"What's your hurry?" cajoled the Queen. "Come. I'll clean your face. I'll give you my cloak. It will shield you from this insufferable heat." Her exhale froze the flowers into an icicle bouquet. The good outcome of this was, they stopped stinking. The bad outcome was, they crumbled under the Queen's shoe, the last barrier between her and Bells.

I'm doomed, thought Bells. This is it, I'm doomed.

She imagined herself as the Snow Queen, sitting on an icy throne, arranging and rearranging crystals into sparkling mosaics.

This is horrible. I'll die from boredom!

The Queen was beside her.

"Wait!" cried Bells. "You're just a girl like me. Don't do this. You want to get home, right? I can help you. Let me go and I'll walk up the dirt wall and get out at the pond and tear Mad Tome in half. I promise. And then you can go home! See your mom..." Bells faltered. For some reason it was the wrong thing to say.

The Snow Queen hissed, steam clouding her face. "Home? I don't want to go home. I'm better off here." And with a greedy glint in her eyes, she doffed her icy crown and took a swipe at Bells, missing her by an inch. Bells staggered. Her foot snagged on a root and she fell. The Queen smiled, the crown poised in her hand like a knife. "Say goodbye to life as you know it, Belladonna." And she slashed her.

Bells focused on the sharp tip, waiting for the pain. But it didn't come. The crown swiftly moved away without touching her. The Snow Queen hiccupped. A puzzled expression spread over her features. She rose and hung in the air, swinging left and right.

"Humph uh uphm uhm mumph?" screeched a familiar voice.

Bells squinted. "Hinbad?"

The Roc chick towered over the clearing, the Snow Queen swaying in his beak. He spit her out and watched her tumble with one amused orange eye. "I said, is she giving you trouble? We were supposed to vote and stuff, like who gets what new badling and—hey, icicle lady, you're not going anywhere."

The Queen was stealthily crawling behind a growth of ferns. Hinbad snapped her by the cloak, shook her like a poisonous snake, and flung her into the emerald distance.