LITMIR.BIZ

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she smiled nicely, “you’re still not concentrating very well. Are you able to see the board okay, dear?”

      Great, thought Katherine, now my teacher thinks I’m blind.

      “Oh, yes, everything is just fine, really Mrs. Glean. We did a lot of...um, gardening this weekend, and I’m a little tired. You know, with my parents’ award-winning flowers and everything...” Katherine feigned a smile then dashed past the teacher before she could say anything else. She hoped this rather lame excuse would satisfy her teacher for now. She was getting awfully snoopy.

      “How persistent can you be?” Katherine wondered as she trudged out into the street, looking for her mother’s car. She frowned. Her mother wasn’t there. She stood in the cold for a few minutes, biting her lip.

      Suddenly her mother’s car appeared from around the corner, lurching and careening down the street toward her. The car looked out of control. Students ran for cover, screaming. The car slammed to a stop in front of Katherine, then the back door burst open. Her mother leaned into the back seat from the front, and yelled at her, “GET IN!”

      Katherine was too shocked to do anything but obey. She jumped into the car, and they sped off. She noticed her mother’s hair was loose and messy, jumbled all over her face, and she was breathing in a funny, jagged way. She looked flustered and a little crazy. Katherine was worried.

      “Mom, what’s wrong...” Katherine started, then stopped. That was when she noticed the large cloth bag in the seat beside her. It wiggled slightly.

      Katherine clasped her hand to her mouth. “MOM! You didn’t bring him?!” she shouted. But she knew the answer. Her heart sank. What was her mother doing, bringing the gargoyle in the car to school? At that moment, Gargoth popped his head out of the bag and glared at her.

      She tried not to look too horrified. She even managed a weak smile at Gargoth. He stuck his tongue out at her and dived back into the bag. So much for no more rudeness, she thought.

      “Mom, what’s going on?” she asked. “Why did you bring him? This can’t be a wise thing to do. Mom?”

      Her mother was staring at the traffic, apparently not listening.

      “Mom,” she started again, “why is your hair all messy?”

      “Gargoth has never been inside a car before,” she said simply. That was all the explanation Katherine was going to get. They drove in silence until her mother pulled the car into a parking spot in front of The Golden Nautilus.

      “Bring him,” her mother said to her as she got out of the car, attempting to fix her mussed hair. Katherine could see it was useless to argue, since her mother was already clopping unsteadily across the sidewalk toward the store. Katherine looked toward the bag, then moved closer and peered in.

      Gargoth was huddled, cowering and shivering, in the bottom of the bag. Clearly, he was very frightened. Katherine suddenly felt a tiny bolt of sympathy for him. He glared at her, then shut his eyes, just like she had seen Milly do once when she had hurt her tail and was going to the vet.

      “It’s okay, Gargoth. We’re just going to look in the store. Nothing will happen to you,” she found herself saying gently.

      He looked up at her again, then closed his eyes once more and stopped shivering. He drew his wings tightly around himself and sat still as a statue in the bottom of the bag.

      Katherine picked up the bag and left the car. She entered the store behind her mother. It was a dark dungeon of a store, full of strange and delightful things. Books, comics, unusual toys and strange knick-knacks, candles, skulls and superheroes. There were dragons, monsters and other magical creatures. She and her mother nosed around the shelves but could find nothing resembling a gargoyle.

      “May I help you?” A young salesman finally appeared, looking bored.

      “Yes, yes, we’re looking for a gargoyle? Do you have any?” Katherine’s mother asked.

      The young man was looking at her mother closely. “No, no, we don’t,” he said. “We had one last week, but it disappeared.” Katherine’s mother started to look uncomfortable. “But hold on, I’ll check if there are any new gargoyles in stock in the back.” He left them for what seemed like ages.

      When he returned, he was carrying a gargoyle. It was the perfect twin of Gargoth. He placed it on the shelf in front of them.

      “We just got this one in, but that’s it. The supplier doesn’t make them any more,” he panted. The store room must have been a long way off.

      “Thank you,” her mother said. “Where did you order them from?” she asked as nonchalantly as possible.

      “This one came from New York somewhere,” he said, then walked away to help another customer.

      When they were alone, Katherine’s mother bent down and whispered to Gargoth. “There’s another gargoyle here, he looks just like you. Look...”

      She held the bag up close to the shelf, and Gargoth popped his head out, face to face with the little gargoyle. In an instant, he was out of the bag, with his hands clasped tightly around the statue’s neck, snarling and snapping his teeth together like a possessed demon. Then things really got interesting.

      Chapter Eleven

      Near Escape

      Several things happened at once.

      Katherine’s mother was quicker than Gargoth, and she grabbed him, but only managed to grab him by a wing. This made him angry, and he snatched up his statue twin and started to swing it over his head at her.

      Katherine was trying desperately to get the bag back over Gargoth’s head, but with his wing spread out and swinging the other statue with all his might, he was too big and cumbersome to fit.

      A teenager wearing a black T-shirt and black lipstick had been watching Katherine and her mother over the nearest comic book rack. Now she was running back toward the counter and the young salesman yelling, “Hey! Come see this!” at the top of her lungs.

      A second later, Katherine and her mother saw the store owner running towards them, waving a broom.

      “What’s he going to do with that?” Katherine wondered. Before she knew what was happening, her mother grabbed her, the bag, and the struggling gargoyle, who was still clutching the statue, and was pushing them towards the door.

      “Drop it! Please, Gargoth, drop the statue!” her mother was pleading, as they ran down the sidewalk, Katherine in the rear. Katherine looked behind her for a moment, then back at her mother just in time to see the gargoyle statue fly into the air—Gargoth had thrown it in his rage. Katherine rushed forward to catch the statue and was nearly knocked over by its weight. She placed it gingerly on the sidewalk before tearing off after her mother.

      As they sped off in the car down Queen Street, Katherine saw several employees burst out of the store, with the owner at the head, still brandishing his broom. The young salesman bent to pick up the statue that Katherine had caught and placed, unharmed, on the sidewalk.

      “At least we didn’t steal anything,” her mother gasped, breathless, her eyes on the road. “So we didn’t do anything wrong...”

      Katherine sank back into her seat, taking time to breathe. Then she looked over at the bag, now containing Gargoth. It was shaking. Expecting him to be cowering and frightened, she looked in the top to say something calming.

      There in the bottom of the bag was a strange sight. Gargoth of Tallus was laughing.

      And if you’ve ever seen a gargoyle laugh, you know it’s not a pretty sight.

      Chapter Twelve

      The Flightless Bird

      That night at dinner, Katherine’s mother was trying to explain to her father what had happened at The Golden

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