“I’m not—” He almost saida friendbut realized that would be antagonistic, so he quickly adjusted his words. “—farting for you.”
“What the hell?” He heard Josh’s voice; then his brother stumbled forward. Bruce had been so focused on catching up to Laddin that he hadn’t realized he’d been followed. Josh had arrived. His brother could always run fast, though he too was obviously winded. Behind him was Bing, running silently through the field. And much farther back were Yordan and Nero. Bruce could see they wouldn’t be able to help. The fairy cheeses were already marshaling a perimeter. Josh was being cordoned off by string cheese, and though Bing might not see it yet, they were preparing to launch some kind of hard white cheese boulders at him from the slingshot they’d used the day before.
“Stay back,” Bruce ordered. “The American slices will suffocate you, the string cheese is like steel, and I think the blue cheese is poisonous.”
He watched as Bing nodded and slowed, pointing to his mouth before gesturing back at Yordan and Nero. Bruce guessed his gesture meant he’d tell the other two. Meanwhile Josh was frowning at Laddin. “Why is he talking explosives?”
“—det cord. That’s a thin, flexible plastic tube filled with pentaerythritol tetranitrate—”
“Quiet,” ordered a voice near Josh. “You do not have leave to speak!” It was a fairy made of crumbly cheese with blue streaks in it, with stilts for legs. As soon as it came near, Josh started gagging on the stench. Bruce held back his choking, but only because he was upwind.
“Stilton!” the Cheesy ordered. “Stand guard!”
“Aye-aye, Cheesy!” the stinky cheese answered with a salute.
Meanwhile, Laddin kept talking while his eyes rolled around in their sockets as if he was searching desperately for something.
Trying to keep his voice calm, Bruce spoke as respectfully as possible. “What have you done to Laddin? Why is he talking like that?”
“He broke our bargain.”
Yeah, Bruce already knew, but he tried for logic. “He came here. He was going to tell you what he’d learned.”
“He promised answers at dawn. He broke that promise.” The Cheesy folded his moldy arms. “So he gives answers now. All of them.” The cheese grinned. “Until I say stop.”
“And when will you say stop?”
The Cheesy didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. Nero had come up behind Josh, and he rasped out the answer. “He won’t say stop until the victim dies. No food, no water, no rest. Just endless talking.”
Bruce turned around and stared at the cheese. “Until Laddin….” He couldn’t say the worddies.
“Yes. Unless we negotiate something different.”
It took a moment for Bruce to absorb that, but he always thought clearly in a crisis. That meant thathe’dhave to do the negotiating, even though he had no freaking clue how to do it. “Not we,” he said to Nero. “Me. I’m their… friend.” He turned back to the Cheesy. “Right? You and me, we can discuss this.”
Thankfully, no one scoffed at the idea that he could get Laddin out of this. They were all still recovering from the run, while Laddin kept talking as if he was reading out of a detonation manual.
“You can buy det cord at….”
“He failed to keep his promise,” Cheesy said. “I win.”
“Yes, you do,” Bruce soothed. “But what does the win get you? You don’t need to know how to set det cord.” Or at least he prayed they didn’t. “You need to know how to get to your heaven, right?” And when Cheesy just stared at him, Bruce said the word. “To Fairyland. You want to go to—”
“Fairyland! Fairyland! Fairyland!” The cheese chorus kicked up, right on cue.
“That was his first answer,” Cheesy said as he looked back at Laddin. “He said we cannot go. But he lied.”
At that moment, the fairy chorus changed from screaming “Fairyland” to chanting “lies.” That was bad enough, but while Bruce had been talking to the Cheesy, the group setting up the slingshot had redirected their white cheese chunks. They now pointed it at Laddin and took aim. Bruce didn’t even notice it until his peripheral vision caught the launch of a big hunk of something that separated into three parts in the air, then nailed Laddin in the face, chest, and belly.
Crap!
At least it wasn’t that suffocating American cheese… yet. The boulders landed with heavy thuds, and Laddin cried out in pain. But with his next breath, he continued explaining det cord, though he sagged against the tree.
Now that Bruce looked closer, he realized Laddin wasn’t leaning against the tree—he was tied to it by string cheese. And worse, the places on his body pummeled by the cheese were already welting up.
“It wasn’t a lie—” Bruce argued, but Stilton had come closer and puffed a cloud of noxious air his way.
“You will take us to Fairyland,” the Cheesy said. “Smoked Gouda has seen it.”
