“How else would I get anywhere?” I say. But there is a part of me wondering if I’m right about what will happen if Socks just stays in his stall. Will he be ripped into position on the page, like I was? Or will he do what I so badly crave: change the way this story goes?
“Ein… zwei… drei… stoß!”the trolls shout, and Socks whinnies as they shove at him, trying to make him budge.
“Frump,” Orville shrieks, “I’m afraid I can’t make this hold any longer!”
I glance up. By now, long streaks of light are falling on the floor of the barn. “We’re on it!” Glint calls. Abattalion of fairies flutters up to the corner of the scene. Like an acrobatic circus troupe, they arch their bodies over the growing gap, their small faces twisted with determination as they struggle to keep the pages shut.
Stepping into the stall, I sink down to the ground so that I can shimmy underneath Socks. He immediately averts his nose. “I can’t. I can’t.”
“Socks,” I beg. “Please. At least tell me what the problem is so that I can fix it.”
“It’s too horrendously embarrassing.”
“As embarrassing as the time I fell overboard on the pirate ship?”
“Worse,” Socks groans. “I have… I have… Oh, I can’t say it out loud.”
“Chicken pox?” I guess. “Poison ivy? Heartburn?”
“A zit,” Socks bursts out. “A huge, red, swollen zit on my nose.”
“Horses don’t get zits, Socks,” I say gently.
“Oh, great. So now I’m a zoological abnormality with acne.”
“Let me look.” Gently, I pull his velvety muzzle down to my face. I scrutinize from nostril to nostril, finding no blemish of any kind. “Socks,” I say, “there’s nothing there.”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better!” he wails. “I cannot go out in public with a big red clown nose, Oliver!”
There is a commotion as Captain Crabbe comes through the crowd. He is wearing his dentist’s coat and carrying a blue-paper-wrapped pack of sterilized instruments. “Did someone call for a surgical consult?” he asks.
Socks’s eyes widen. “Surgery! Who said anything about surgery?”
“Don’t worry, my little horseshoed friend. You’ll only feel a pinch,” Captain Crabbe promises.
He motions the trolls out of the way and stands directly behind Socks. As he unwraps the sterilized tools, several points of light shimmer from the corner of the scene onto Socks’s back, dappling his hide. “Frump,” Sparks grits out from the top edge of the page, “it’s T minus ten…”
Is Delilah wondering why the book is stuck? Is she attributing the trouble to humidity, faulty binding, a smear of jam?
Captain Crabbe brandishes the dental scraper, a blinding silver hook.
“Nine,” Ember says.
He holds it up to a shaft of light, examining the point.
“Eight…”
Socks twists his neck, looking at the tool with dread.
“Seven…”
I swing my leg over the pony and lean down against his mane. “It’s your call, Socks. You can do this your way, or his way.”
“Six…”
“I love a good lancing at twilight,” Captain Crabbe says with a sigh.
“Five…”
