“Stop right there!” I pounce for the speedy not-rabbit and miss.
Freed of me, the creature tests the lighter while bouncing down a crowded galley. Waitstaff, servers, and catering chefs curse and bark in confusion as the pest springboards through gaps between their legs, followed by me shoving furiously past.
“I said stop!” I shout after my enemy. “This isn’tRatatouille!”
The creature is fast. Insanely, supernaturally fast. By the time I’ve advanced past the first row of prep tables, the rabbit-thing has made it to the kitchen’s far end. Near the cake. Oh god. Thecake. Finding the fracas hysterical, the creature flings spatulas, ladles, and pastry cuttersin my direction, making a noise like a teakettle that’s run out of water. “Tee hee ter ho terr herr.”
A caterer claws onto my shoulder. “Raw meat is one thing, but bringing in live animals is another!”
“Is it a monkey?” someone yells in confusion.
Oh god. I can’t let them figure out what this creature really is.
Whatever it is.
Ripping the caterer’s fingers off me, I shout: “Everyone get out, and we’ll tip you each a hundred extra bucks!”
Dodging flying paper towel rolls and measuring spoons, the staff hightails it. Having been a poorly paid caterer myself, I understand completely. But my knowledge of hotel kitchens fails to prepare me for the creature yelling, “Food delivery!” and sending a steel pan whizzing past my head. Sizzling caramel splashes off the side—it’s the most threatening squiggle of melted sugar I’ve ever seen—I shout “Holy shit!” and duck behind a steel table.
“SUGAR!” cries Mandy, becauseof courseshe’s in here. “HOW SAD!”
“Mandy!”
I stand up, locating her on top of a worktable. Waving a ten-inch-long butcher knife.
“Sabby!” she cries. “I think I know who’s ruining your weddings!”
“Why are you holding a—never mind, protect the cake, Mandy!”
Mandy hops from her perch to block the pestilence before it can launch itself at Sidney and Brett’s glorious ten-story masterpiece. Either that or escape through the back exit. Whatever the diabolical, white-furred thing was planning to do, it skids to a stop, registering Mandy’s manic, sharp-toothed smile and knife with appropriate concern.
“Foiled!” it squeaks. “Oh. That’s what I’ll do. Foil!”
Expertly quick, the lighter’s snapped open and the battery taken out into its little paw. I don’t like the look of this, the rapid planning and capacity for destruction. Without question, this is the creature who has been ruining my weddings. I don’t understand its reasoning for assaulting me with such evil intent, but whatever: the sabotage stops here. Today.
“You arenotgoing to set this hotel on fire!” I shout.
“Oh, but I can! And I will!” the fuzzy cretin proclaims. “Behold, the stoves!”
Shit! The saucepans that weren’t hurled at me are rapidly converting salted caramel into fire hazards.
“Do I stab it?” asks Mandy as I lunge for the central range.
“NO!”
“No indeed! We are nonviolent!” agree a dozen voices near my feet. Furiously cutting off the gas to the burners, I notice glints of light and moving shadows among the scattered pots and pans at my feet.
The gnomes. They’re here!YES!
“It’s about time!” I shout.
“What would you like us to do, miss?!” pipes up a particularly heavy pot.
“Get the fire extinguisher! And build a perimeter—blockade that thing in!”
“On it!” cry the gnomes. “Catch the pooka, gnome-men!”
“That won’t help, ter her!” My saboteur—apparently called a “pooka”?—giggles characteristically as a jangling clatter announces the gnomes’ call to battle. A parade of upturned steel cookware encircles the room, carried there by visibly dirty, leather-booted feet. From a tall shelf, a line of measuring spoons flies off, flung by unseen hands. One by one, they bop the pooka on the head.
