Heads, You Lose!

  We passed through a portrait gallery. Dark paintings of unhappy-looking kings and princes stared out at us. I saw a painting of a sad boy with blond bangs holding a rag doll in his lap.

  The next chamber was crowded and noisy. Silver shields hung on the walls, covering them almost completely. Men in red-and-black robes stood in the center of the room, arguing loudly.

  The guards didn’t stop there. They marched us through the room.

  Ryan grabbed my arm. “Jessica, look,” he whispered. He pointed to the edge of the crowd.

  I gasped when I saw the Duke of Earle and Henway. They were easy to spot. They were the only ones in purple robes.

  They were busy arguing with the others — shouting and gesturing. They didn’t turn around. They didn’t see us.

  The guards forced us down a long hallway. Candles flickered brightly from the huge chandelier above our heads.

  I moved toward the guard at the front. Beneath his red hat, he had straight blond hair that fell to his shoulders. And a blond mustache to match.

  “Where are you taking us?” I asked.

  Please … I thought. Please don’t say you’re taking us to the dungeon!

  “Please!” I begged. “Where are we going?”

  The guard’s pale blue eyes stared straight ahead. “The Prince wants to see you,” he said.

  I let out a sigh of relief.

  A few minutes later, we entered the Prince’s chamber. He sat at his writing desk. His quill moved quickly over a long sheet of parchment. I stared at the stump of a neck poking up from his ruffled shirt collar.

  The guards marched us right up to his table.

  “Your Excellency,” the head guard said, “we have captured the assassins “

  The Prince kept writing for a few moments. Then he set down his quill. He turned his headless body toward us.

  “Excellency,” said the guard, “do you want these prisoners put to death?”

  I didn’t give the Prince a chance to write a reply. I burst free of the guards and pulled the head from under my robe.

  “Prince Warwick, Ryan and I have returned your head!” I shouted.

  The Prince’s whole body jerked in surprise. He shuddered so hard, he nearly toppled off the tall-backed chair.

  I reached the head up to him. “Here. Here it is. I’m putting it in your hands,” I said.

  He grabbed the head eagerly. He wrapped his fingers around it. Then he smoothed the cheeks with one hand.

  He ran his fingers through the tangles of long black hair. Then his hands carefully examined the nose and the dry, pale lips.

  “Your Excellency, we don’t want a reward,” Ryan said. “We only want to go free.”

  “Yes,” I said. “He’s right. We didn’t do this for any reward. We only want to go home.”

  The Prince let the head fall to the table. Then he picked up his writing quill and began to scribble furiously. When he finished, he held up what he had written to us:

  THIS ISN’T MY HEAD.

  The head rolled off the table and landed at my feet with a dull thud.

  I jumped back with a startled cry. Ryan’s mouth hung open in shock.

  The Prince turned to his parchment, leaned low over the table, and began writing again. After a few moments, he held it up for us to read:

  I KNOW THAT HEAD. THE HEAD OF AN ENEMY. MY ENEMIES ALL LOSE THEIR HEADS IF THEY ENTER MY KINGDOM. WERE YOU TRYING TO FOOL ME? NOW IT WILL BE YOUR TURN AT THE CHOPPING BLOCK.

  “No!” I cried. “We didn’t know! We weren’t trying to fool you!”

  The blond guard made a grab for me. I spun away and started to run. Ryan lowered his shoulders and ran right behind two guards.

  The room filled with angry shouts and cries. Boots thudded hard on the floor as the guards chased after us.

  I pushed open the door and tore out of the room. I peered down the endless red-carpeted hallway. No one there.

  “We … can’t outrun them,” Ryan gasped, right behind me.

  I knew he was right. We turned a sharp corner. I lifted a heavy purple drape off the wall and ducked behind it. Ryan squeezed in next to me.

  I pulled the drape back into place. And held my breath as the guards came pounding down the hall.

  I heard them turn the corner. Did they see us?

  No. They went thundering past, shouting and cursing.

  Ryan didn’t move from behind the curtain. We pressed our backs against the wall, breathing heavily.

  “Now what?” Ryan whispered. “How do we get out of this castle? How do we get home?”

  My mind raced. My brain practically leaped around in my head, jumping with idea after idea.

  I realized we had to find the Prince’s missing head. That was the only way they would let us go.

  I pushed the heavy drape away from my face and turned to Ryan. “I think I know where the head is hidden,” I whispered.

  “Huh?” His mouth dropped open. “How do you know?”

  I peeked out. No one in the hall. I stepped out from behind the drape. It was sweltering back there. I wiped the sweat off my face with both hands.

  Ryan followed me out. We kept in the shadows against the wall just in case the guards returned.

  “Look around,” I whispered. “Do you see any cats?”

  Ryan scrunched up his face at me. “Jessica, are you totally losing it?” he demanded. “Why do you want a cat?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want a cat. Just look around. Do you see any cats?”

  “No,” he replied.

  “Have you seen any cats in the castle?”

  “No.”

  “We’ve been chased or dragged or marched through chamber after chamber,” I said. “We’ve been in the Prince’s private chamber twice. And we haven’t seen a single cat — right?”

  Ryan pulled off his sunglasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Then he narrowed his dark eyes at me. “Jessica … I’m beginning to see what you’re saying.”

  “Yes. You got it. That creepy guy Simon? The guy in the rat shack? He lied to us,” I said.

  “You’re totally right,” Ryan said. “He said he kept his house full of rats to feed the Prince’s cats. But the Prince doesn’t have any cats!”

  “That means the rats are there for a different reason,” I said. “Maybe the rats are there to guard something. Something that is hidden there.”

  “Like the Prince’s head!” we both said at once.

  We crept down the endless hallways, searching for a way out of the castle. I kept picturing the piles of straw in that dark shack. Could the assassins have stashed the head in the straw?

  They wouldn’t want to carry it far. The shack was the nearest one to the castle.

  Was Simon really working for the Prince? Or had the assassins paid him to hide the Prince’s head?

  We burst out of a side door and went running across the yellow dirt toward the row of shacks. I pulled the hood down over my head and prayed that Simon wasn’t inside his shack.

  Ryan and I stepped up to the shack and pressed our ears against the door.

  I listened hard. I could hear the chittering of the rats inside.

  A chill ran down my back. Remembering our last meeting with the rats, my skin began to tingle and itch.

  Ryan and I opened the door a few inches and peered inside. A hundred glowing black eyes stared back at us. The sight gave me another chill that shook my whole body.

  Were we really going back into this rat den?

  Yes.

  I pulled the door open just wide enough. Ryan and I squeezed into the dimly lit room.

  No sign of Simon. I breathed a short sigh of relief.

  I pulled the robe tighter and began to slide against the wall toward the back of the shack. Dozens of rats clustered in the center of the room turned to follow me with their eyes.

  Rats darted through the piles of straw. Two rats stood near the door, chirping like birds. Were they calling out a warning?

  Ryan and I began
walking through the straw piles, kicking straw out of the way with our feet. I didn’t want to bend down to search. I knew the rats would climb up my arms. I knew they would bite me.

  I brushed two rats off the front of my robe. I kicked my way through a tall straw pile. I slid my shoes slowly along the floor, hoping to bump something.

  The head.

  The rats chirped louder and began to shriek. Our search was exciting them. A dozen rats surrounded Ryan and me, running in wide circles around our legs.

  And then my foot hit something hard at the bottom of a pile of straw.

  I reached down. Swiped a rat off my arm. Fumbled in the straw. And picked up a burlap bag.

  I brushed a clump of straw off it with my fingers. Pulled it open. And stared at a man’s head.

  The eyes gazed up at me. Round black eyes. The mouth was frozen in a scream of horror. I pushed back the wavy dark hair to get a better look at the face. The hair looked brittle and dry.

  The Prince’s head?

  “Oh, wow!” Ryan cried out. “Oh, wow. I don’t believe it! Jessica — you were right! You found it!”

  He had to shout over the screeching of the rats.

  My stomach heaved.

  For the second time in one day, I was holding someone’s head!

  It took a few seconds to get myself under control. Then I closed the bag and hid it under my robe. “Let’s go,” I said.

  Stepping over the darting, screeching rats, we edged along the wall toward the door. We were inches away when the door swung open and Simon stepped inside.

  He raised his eyes to us and scowled. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  He took a step into the shack and started to pull the door closed.

  But behind him, a boy let out a shrill cry: “The rats! They’re escaping! They’re all escaping!”

  Simon uttered a cry of surprise and whirled around. “Who — ?”

  That gave Ryan and me our chance. We pushed past Simon — and dove through the open door.

  I wrapped my arms in front of my robe to protect the valuable head. And we ran.

  I knew we weren’t out of danger. But I had to laugh. Ryan’s ventriloquism had saved us. Throwing his voice fooled Simon just long enough.

  The sun was nearly down. Long shadows stretched in front of us as we made our way to the castle. A cool wind tried to brush us back. Birds cooed and chirped in the trees, preparing for nightfall.

  Guards met us at the front entrance and quickly took us prisoner. They didn’t listen to our pleas to see the Prince.

  They marched us to the room outside Prince Warwick’s chamber.

  I gripped the head carefully under the robe. “How long are you keeping us here?” I asked.

  Before the guards could answer, I heard footsteps. The Duke of Earle and the Wizard Henway stepped in.

  “You two have led us on a merry chase today,” the Duke said. He swept a hand back over his bald head. “You are very clever it seems.”

  “Yes, we are,” I said. I couldn’t keep a smile from spreading over my face. “We are very clever.”

  I pulled the burlap bag from under my robe and raised it in front of them. “We found it. We found the head.”

  “Now we can return it to the Prince,” Ryan said.

  “No, you cannot,” Henway replied gruffly. He frowned at us. “You are not as clever as you think.”

  “Excuse me?” I said. “Why can’t we return it to the Prince?”

  The Duke shook his head. “Once Warwick has his head back, he’ll figure out that Henway and I are the ones who chopped it off!”

  I uttered a cry of shock. Ryan’s mouth dropped open but no sound came out.

  “We like being in charge of the kingdom,” Henway said. “We don’t want the head returned. We thought we hid it away in a safe place. Our friend Simon promised us no one would find it.”

  “The Prince has no idea we were the attackers,” the Duke said. “We wore costumes and our faces were masked. We chopped off his head. We tried to bury it. We tried to burn it. We tossed it down a well. But it returned. It always came back.”

  “We did not know the Prince’s magic was so powerful,” Henway said. “I taught him too well. His magic is more powerful than mine. That’s one reason he had to be destroyed.”

  “Finally, we hid the head with Simon and his rats,” the Duke said. “We did not know what else to do with it.”

  Henway sighed. “The Prince lived on without his head. But there is little he can do without a head. That means the Duke and I are the new rulers.”

  “But you two would not stop. You two insisted on pursuing your quest for the head,” the Duke said with an unpleasant sneer. He reached out both hands toward the bag. “I will take that from you now.”

  “You will not escape again,” Henway added. “We do not know who you are or why you entered our kingdom. But you know too much, and you have seen too much. It is time for you meddlers to take leave of us.”

  He made a sharp chopping motion with one hand.

  It made me gasp. I stared into his eyes. They were cold as ice. I knew that he meant it.

  The Duke reached again for the head. I pulled it back.

  My mind spun. This was our last chance to save ourselves from the executioner’s ax.

  “How about another toss of the coin?” The words spilled out of my mouth.

  The Duke rubbed his chin. He squinted at me. “I am always ready for an interesting bet,” he said.

  Henway grabbed his sleeve. “I warned you, Alfred!”

  The Duke pulled away from the Wizard’s grip. “You cannot keep the Prince’s head,” he told me. “But if you win, maybe Henway and I will spare your lives again.”

  “No promises,” Henway said.

  “And if we lose?” Ryan asked.

  Henway made the chopping motion again.

  It made my whole body shudder.

  I pictured the chopping block on the tower roof. And again I saw the dark-costumed executioner with his enormous ax.

  “Let’s toss the coin,” I said to the Duke.

  A thin smile played over his face. It made his long scar turn pink.

  I handed the Prince’s head to Ryan. Then I reached under the robe and pulled out the two-headed coin.

  At least our lives will be spared, I thought.

  To my surprise, the Duke reached for the coin. “It is my turn,” he said. “Let me toss it this time.”

  I had no choice. I had to give it to him. But what if he examined it closely?

  He tucked the coin into his palm. He didn’t look at it. “You call it,” he said.

  He tossed the gold coin high in the air.

  “I call HEADS!” I shouted.

  The coin bounced on the carpet and rolled in front of Henway’s purple slippers. He stepped back.

  And we all gazed down at the coin.

  It was TAILS!

  “No way!” I cried.

  The Duke laughed. “I have fast hands, too!” he exclaimed.

  He held up my gold coin. It was still tucked in the palm of his hand. He had switched coins on us.

  Still laughing, he flipped my coin back to me. “You won’t get to use your trick coin again,” he said. “I am afraid your heads will be hidden in Simon’s shack along with the Prince’s head.”

  I glanced down at the burlap sack. Ryan held it tightly in front of him in both hands.

  “Prepare to die,” Henway said. He swept his robe around him. “Follow us to the executioner.”

  He turned and took one step.

  And a voice cried out, “Where do you think you are going?”

  Ryan let out a startled shout.

  The voice came from inside the burlap bag.

  Ryan turned to me. “Did you just throw your voice?”

  “No!” I cried.

  Ryan pulled open the bag. We stared at the head.

  The lips … the colorless lips … they MOVED. And the eyes blinked.

  “I have ears,
” the Prince’s head said in a dry, croaky whisper. “Do you think I cannot hear you?”

  “But — but —” Henway and the Duke both began to sputter. Their eyes bulged in horror.

  “Even from inside this bag, I heard your confession,” the head continued. “I heard you both admit your guilt.”

  “No, Your Excellency,” the Duke said in a panicked whisper. “No, we were teasing the children here. We —”

  “We would never harm our Prince!” Henway chimed in.

  “Silence!” the head commanded.

  Both men shrank back.

  “When I am reunited with my body,” the head said, “I shall send both of you liars to the chopping block!”

  “That’s why that will never happen,” Henway told the head. He leaped at Ryan and wrapped his hands around the bag.

  Ryan tried to pull the bag free. But the Wizard kept his grip. The two of them groaned as they had a fierce tug-of-war battle.

  The Duke stepped forward to help Henway.

  I pointed my finger wildly behind the two men and screamed: “NO! PLEASE! PUT DOWN THAT BATTLE-AX!”

  Henway’s hands slipped off the head. The two men spun around.

  No one there. Just a desperate trick on my part.

  Ryan tossed the head to me. And we both lurched right past the two startled men.

  Ryan pulled open the door to the Prince’s chamber. He held it for me as I ran in carrying the bag with the Prince’s head. Then he followed me as we sprinted to the writing desk.

  “Here it is!” I cried breathlessly. “Prince Warwick — here is your head!”

  And then I gasped.

  He was GONE!

  “Oh, nooo,” I moaned.

  Behind us, Henway and the Duke came clattering into the chamber. “Stop right there. Both of you!” Henway shouted.

  Ryan and I saw an open door. We darted toward it. Out into the night.

  We found ourselves on an outdoor balcony. The air felt fresh and cool. A pale half moon hung low above us.

  And the headless Prince stood leaning against the stone railing.

  “Here is your head!” I cried breathlessly. I pulled it from the bag and shoved into his hands.