Geek Fantasy Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

you had a good reason for dressing up.”
    “I’m seven,” Daphne repeated.
    “Do you know any magic spells?” Ralph asked.
    “Don’t be stupid.”
    “Have you ever climbed this tree?” Ralph tried.
    “It’s too old. It doesn’t have any low branches anymore.” She was right; the lower trunk bore only the scars of branches long since broken away. A person would have to be twelve feet high to begin a climb. Ralph reached a hand out and touched the rough bark.
    “We’re both wet,” Daphne observed. Then she said, “Do you want to see something?”
    Ralph nodded.
    “You have to put me on your shoulders first,” she said.
    Daphne outstretched her arms and waited for Ralph to approach. He crossed the clearing, the toadstools making cardboard protests beneath his feet. When his knees touched the ground he became a new wet, a muddy and wetter wet. He watched the brown of the soil penetrate the fabric of his pants, felt its chill direct on his skin. Then he sensed a light pressure on his shoulders, and Daphne was upon him. He crossed his arms over her shins, and when he stood up they were one fantastic beast. Daphne hooted and slashed her scepter through the air. “Onward!” she cried.
    “Onward where?”
    “I’ll direct you.” Daphne gripped Ralph’s ears and tugged them this way and that. She was agile with her fingers, and communicated to Ralph not only the direction she wished to go, but also the velocity. There was no delicacy to the impulses, however; he was directed by a jockey, not a dance partner. They left the tree’s canopy and crossed a glade at the far end.
    They passed over the meadow at a jostling clip, Daphne’s hands slapped across Ralph’s forehead, her weight no more than that of a knapsack. Once the grass eventually gave way to dirt road, her fingers directed Ralph to turn, then to turn again when they came to a trail.
    “How much farther are you taking us?” Ralph asked. He imagined them getting lost in the deluge, arriving back at the house stricken with pneumonia, Gert buying him a one-way ticket back to New Jersey.
    “Hush, noble steed!” Daphne instructed.
    Ralph awaited further instruction.
    Eventually Daphne flattened her palms against Ralph’s ears, signaling him to slow down. When he twisted to peer up at her, she placed her finger mischievously to her lips and directed him toward a slatted fence. Ralph wiped the water from his eyebrows with the hem of her dress and approached.
    A knot of wood had fallen from one of the higher planks, leaving an eyehole to which Daphne directed Ralph. The soggy splinters of the planks pricked through his shirt as he pressed against the fence. Daphne put her face to the hole and, after a moment, started giggling.
    “What do you see?” Ralph asked.
    “Men,” Daphne responded.
    “Men? What kind of men?”
    “They’re guards. Mummy had them set up all around the vale.”
    “What? Why?”
    “I don’t know. I heard her saying to the groundskeeper that we would need protection for a few weeks.”
    “And you have no idea why?”
    “Nope. Mummy’s crazy about stuff like that, though.”
    “You always come here to watch over the vale?”
    “Yes. Sometimes I make up stories about the brownies and things.”
    “Let me see the guards.”
    “You can’t. You’re not tall enough. It’s the same for Cecil, when he comes with me. I’m the only one who gets to see anything.”
    “I think you’re making this up. There’s probably some boy out there you have a crush on,” Ralph said.
    “Ugh, put me down. That’s so not right. I don’t like any boys. I’m not even
eight
yet.”
    “Sounds like I struck a nerve.”
    “You think you’re funny. Let’s go back.”
    Ralph headed back to the castle, Daphne remaining on his shoulders.
    “You’re as weird as all boys,” she said after a few moments’ silence, as they crossed beneath the canopy of the giant tree.
    The burden on Ralph’s back suddenly disappeared. He turned to see