Tune in Tomorrow, page 22
Darlin’, he’d say, the thing you want’s in the last place you look. And his eyes would crinkle up at the sides.
The cabinets still loomed, all more or less alike—except one. At the farthest, deepest, back corner of the cave one stood over twenty drawers high. She’d ignored it for now, as it was the last place she wanted to go.
The last place you look.
Well, then. The drawer on this highest of high cabinets, at the tippiest of tops, had a padlock that glinted in the coinlight. It practically screamed: Don’t you dare come over here.
Starr dared.
Far away, but not far enough away, she thought she could make out the sound of slurping. Of a straw scraping around the inside of a container. A pause and then… slurp. Slurp. SLURP.
“Eight!”
Oleander’s voice carried like a clear bell from outside of the cave and spurred her into action. Stumbling across the coins, occasionally wincing, Starr grappled onto the second file cabinet’s handle and hoisted herself up. And up. And up. One foot on each drawer handle, five, six, seven drawers. Ten. Fifteen. Glancing down from the top, the floor seemed to fall away from her.
Grabbing on to the top drawer’s handle, she gave the padlock a firm twist—and it held fast. “Rats and cats,” she muttered. The whole cabinet might have looked eighty years old, but the lock was naturally the most secure part about it. Her back was damp with sweat, and her chest felt like someone had stepped on it. Focus. What to do about the padlock? She needed a saw. A set of pliers. A lockpick, at the very least.
Aha!
For her latest escapade as Sam, the hairies had begun binding her hair back, holding it in place with spells. But Starr preferred to keep a few old-fashioned bobby pins and clips in her jacket pockets, in case she had to adjust on the fly. Reaching into one pocket now, she rooted around. Her fingers brushed the MARBLE Nico had given her in the park—she was taking a cue from Fiona and holding onto it for an emergency—and landed on one of the bent pins. She’d never picked a lock with one before… but it worked in the movies. And surely this place was as fantastical as the movies.
Jamming it into the padlock, she wiggled the metal bit around and around, bending and twisting… and then it snapped in two. Tossing the pin into the coin pile far, far below she reached into her pocket again for a second. Same result. Third time, she grabbed the pin… and the MARBLE fell out.
“No!” Starr shouted, watching the small white orb fall nearly two stories, landing on a fallen script and rolling over the title page. Well, at least it wasn’t lost. Staring at her third and final bobby pin, she willed it to behave and eased it into the lock. The half in her hand bent downward into an angle, which gave her a bit more control over the adjustment. A rivulet of sweat traveled down the side of her face. And then—the pin slid home. She turned it and the shackle fell away from the lock body. Tossing the padlock away, she clambered to the top of the cabinet and jerked the drawer open with satisfaction.
Reaching inside, her fingers fell on thick sheaves of papers. Scripts. She pulled one out.
Written by Joseph Abernathy.
Starr ran her fingers over the typewritten indentations like a talisman. She grabbed a second script, then a third and fourth. Joseph’s name was on every one of them.
“Twelve!” Oleander’s voice was tinged with panic.
Starr’s head shot up. Twelve was not good. Swallowing, she stuffed several scripts into her bomber jacket and zipped it closed. Now all she had to do was get down and out before Oleander reached “fourteen.”
It was going to be tight. But she could make it.
Just then, the file cabinet rocked. Then it shimmied. The entrance to the cave, some several stories down and many yards away, filled with darkness.
Fourteen! What happened to fourteen?
A low, threatening growl trickled through the neck of the cave.
Thud. THUD. Thud. THUD.
The room quaked. The cabinet was now actively swaying. Small bits of rock and dust tumbled from the ceiling into her hair, and she sneezed. Nico! This was his doing. He sent her in here. Had he and Fiona planned this together? Were they hoping she wouldn’t emerge—
Phil came into the cavern. Yet that wasn’t sufficient, to say he merely ‘came’ into the cavern. Phil stormed into the room. Phil occupied the room. Phil owned the room. The enormous space fit him like tailored pants. The problem was, it wasn’t Phil at all. His eyes were a bright, hard gold, an unseeing mania plain in those lightning bolt pupils. His lips snarled. His tail swished from side to side, stirring up coins and overturning chests. Smoke poured from his nostrils. The room temperature had increased by at least ten degrees.
Starr was out of time. This was an emergency. But her pocket was empty: not only was she fresh out of bobby pins, she was also fresh out of MARBLEs. Swallowing, she scanned the ground, but all the swaying and quaking and rocking and shimmying had shifted the fallen orb—and it had vanished.
Phil opened his mouth. Smoke poured out. “HEARTS. TIME. POWER TOOLS.”
His deep voice reverberated in the chamber. Starr felt her insides shift with the sound. If she’d had any questions left about the Phil-ness of the monster now occupying the cave, it vanished: this was a genuine, fifteen-foot, red-scaled dragon. And his gaze was trained on Starr with the heat of a sun lamp as he slowly made his way forward.
“IDENTITY. JEWELS. YOUR LIFE.”
Could a dragon babble? What was he saying? Did it even matter? She searched her memory frantically for things dragons did, or liked, and came up with nothing. Ogres and giants liked rhyming, centaurs liked games, and dragons—did they like riddles? Was that what this was?
A light above her head suddenly turned on, and at the same time, Starr understood: everything Phil was saying was connected. Like Mama’s favorite game show, $100,000 Pyramid: one person listed the words, the other had to guess what they had in common.
“Things that can be stolen!” she shouted back.
Phil stopped. Smoke trickled from his nose. His stomach glowed. But he wasn’t moving. It was as if he’d been stunned, though Starr wasn’t sure how long this might last.
The glow that had been illuminating her cut out, and something landed on the file cabinet next to Starr. A soft scurrying of feet made her flinch, and she dared to spend a millisecond glancing away from the dragon. “Oleander?”
The brownie latched on to Starr’s jacket. “At—your—service,” she breathed, teeth chattering.
“How did you get here? Why aren’t you out there?”
“St-St-arr Weath-weather-by n-needs h-help so Oleander is h-here.”
“But where did you come from?”
Oleander pointed at the ceiling.
A brownie door? In the cave? Starr didn’t know what to make of it, and didn’t have time to find out.
THUD. THUMP. THUD. Phil—no, the dragon—was on the move. “BONNIE. CLYDE. FORTY,” he bellowed, closing the distance between them.
Starr grabbed Oleander’s hand. “Why didn’t you pull me out of here?”
Oleander’s face paled and she squeezed Starr’s hand. “Too high, Starr Weatherby!” she wailed. And she was right; the ceiling was a good ten feet higher than Starr’s head. Still, a rope might have been more useful than a suicide mission.
“I appreciate your willingness to be eaten along with me,” said Starr. “Because we’re both about to find out what happens when you royally piss off a dragon.”
“JESSE JAMES. BUSTER. ROBIN HOOD.” Phil’s sulfurous breath made Starr think of tacos. He was so much closer now; she could almost see herself reflected in the black of his eyes.
Figure it out! Sam shouted inside her, and Starr put the words together like a puzzle. “Thieves!” she cried, then wilted. This emerging theme was not soothing.
Phil halted again, steaming, tail raised in mid-twitch.
“Starr!” Oleander tugged on her sleeve. “Starr, MARBLE! We can both go if I hold on! I put it in your pocket every morning. Go now!”
Starr pointed at the floor. “The stupid thing is down there. It dropped. I’ll never find it in time.”
Without hesitation, Oleander took two steps back, then leaped from the top of the file cabinet. Astonished, Starr leaned forward as her brave brownie landed on bent legs, then rolled onto the pile of jewels, coins, and scripts. Standing, Oleander took a deep breath, clasped her hands together as if in prayer, and literally dove into the mess. Starr clapped a hand over her mouth.
“GUILLOTINE! HANGING! ELECTROCUTION!” Phil was at it again, stomping forward. The room was heating up further and smelled like burned things. Every THUD and THUMP made Starr cringe, not just because it meant Phil was getting closer, but because Oleander might be squashed beneath his heavy tread at any second.
“FIRING SQUAD! GAS CHAMBER! CRUSHED BY ELEPHANT!”
This time, the theme was enough to make every hair on Starr’s arms stand on end. Down on the ground, a small hand burst through the pile of paper and gold, clutching a tiny white orb. Oleander’s head popped up immediately afterward, and the flash of movement caught Phil’s eyes. He turned his sun lamp gaze on the brownie, who offered a sickly grin. Raising a giant foot, he made as if to slam it on top of Oleander.
“Wait!” Starr stood on top of the file cabinet, waving her arms. Phil turned to her. She hollered as loud as she could, “Methods of execution!”
And Phil froze.
In that second, Oleander scurried from the shadow of Phil’s enormous taloned toes and began ascending the cabinet. Starr started climbing down. It was much harder going down than up; she had to feel around with her toes for the handle of the cabinet. Everything was happening too fast. The chamber was now so hot the metal of the cabinets was searing into her hand.
Fingers closed over her ankle.
She slipped—and dangled, attached to the eighth cabinet’s handle now by a single hand. Oleander climbed up Starr, pausing at her waist, and thrust the MARBLE at her. Behind them, Phil’s foot came down hard. The file cabinet wobbled. Then it toppled. Starr and Oleander were falling.
“STEALING! SAMANTHA! SCRIPTS!”
I’m the theme this time, Starr thought, and clasped her hand over Oleander’s, giving the MARBLE a huge squeeze. Behind her, a belch of fiery heat reached out to envelop her. Phil had finally found the fire in his belly.
But Starr—and Oleander—were gone.
A slight ‘pop,’ and Starr was elsewhere.
She was hot. Seriously, sweat-drippingly, hot—as if she’d been swallowed by a dragon. But that wasn’t possible; she didn’t even feel mildly mangled.
Starr opened her eyes. She was in the lobby, stretched out on the floor behind the waiting area couch. The heat of Phil’s final roar had come with her, along with the strong smell of smoke. It was as if she’d taken a bath in charcoal, then ducked into a sauna.
But she was intact—as were the scripts in her jacket.
Well, Nico had said the MARBLE would bring me to the lobby. He didn’t say where in the lobby, I guess.
Oleander was sitting on her stomach.
The brownie grinned. “We landed!”
We survived, thought Starr, and wrapped her arms around the brownie for a moment. “Oleander, you saved my bacon.”
“Saved all of Ms. Starr,” grinned the brownie. “And my bacon, too.”
“You all have a door to the roof of the cave?” So far as Starr knew, brownies lived in the walls. They had access to all the rooms with actors in them. The end. But a dragon’s cave?
Oleander became skittish. “Mr. Phil is not the show’s first security dragon.” Her eyes darted around the room. “Other one had a brownie helper. Other one got… hungry.”
A few degrees of heat drained from Starr. “Oh, Oleander. I’m sorry.”
“No brownies for security guards again. Ever, ever. Brownies locked the door forever. Until—”
“Until today. Until me.”
Silence fell between them. You could have told me about it, she thought, but bit down on the idea. This had been her big plan. Oleander owed her nothing, particularly access through a door with such horrible memories. She gave the brownie a mighty hug. “Thank you for saving me from myself.”
Oleander practically vibrated in her arms. “Tea!” she insisted. “Teas all around for—”
The lobby shook. The lobby trembled. An enormous wave of heat reached Starr seconds before a THUMP landed mere feet from where she lay hidden behind the sofa. Starr’s eyes went wide: Phil had followed her here. She peered over the edge of the sofa, Oleander mimicking her movement, and bit her lip.
Phil now lay flat on his back in the center of the enormous room. His belly was distended from consuming approximately seventy gallons of sriracha. His grey security shirt lay in ruins. His legs and arms were flailing. He was making great, gasping sobs and small gouts of fire jetted from the corners of his eyes. He looked like the world’s biggest two-year-old having a tantrum.
Nico and Nora stood at a careful distance nearby, holding their script sides, bewildered.
“Gone!” cried Phil. “At the moment I rediscover my glorious fire I am ruined. I have consumed a human!”
“A human?” Nora paled. “Fiona?”
Nico elbowed her. “Phil! That can’t be.”
“It isn’t.” Starr rose carefully on still-wobbly legs. “I’m right here.”
Phil sat up so fast he knocked his head on an overhead lamp. It swung outward and came back to clock him a second time. “Starr Weatherby!”
Her name was getting shouted a lot. “That’s me.”
Phil shot out a short arm and scooped her up, hugging her to his hot, searing chest. “I am pure!” he cried. “I have not consumed living flesh!”
“No, but you’re burning mine,” Starr said, and he set her on the floor. She reached a hand to her cheek: hot, but not actually seared.
“For gods’ sakes.” Nico ran over and paused just shy of embracing her. “You went in there?”
Starr bit her lip. “You told me to!”
“You’re crazier than a soup sandwich.” Nora sank into one of the chairs in the waiting area.
Phil leaned down, glaring at Starr. “You came into my cave. You took things.”
Starr swallowed. He wasn’t wrong. She had to fix this. “I did. I’m sorry.” She paused. The mission had blinded her to how Phil might feel, and the dragon had always been a friend. “Phil, do you have paper and a pen?”
“Starr, maybe this isn’t the time to play games—” Nico began, and she shot him a look.
Phil reached behind his desk and emerged with a pad of paper the size of a truck’s flatbed, and a pencil as long as Starr’s leg. “Um,” she said. “OK, you write this: ‘Starr owes Phil five scripts.’”
“You went in there for scripts?” Nora was screeching.
“Hush,” Nico said.
Phil finished and stared at the paper.
“So, see,” Starr gestured. “It’s not stealing. It’s borrowing… uh, without prior permission. And with a promise to return.”
“Borrowing.” Phil squinted at the oversized sheet. “Well. Borrowing.” His voice was a low growl. “All right. But tomorrow you will return my treasure. And you will always ask permission in the future.” He gave Starr a pat on the head, then lumbered around the desk to file the IOU away.
Starr staggered with relief.
Cigar smoke and the scent of rum filled the air. Everyone turned to find Cris standing at the stage door entrance, fists on his hips, chewing a cigar. Behind him, Mav and a few of the day players lingered in the doorway, holding scripts. “Are we done playing with giant lizards?”
Still sweating, Starr nodded. She had no idea how much he’d heard.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled. Then let’s start shooting this maldito show already, shall we?”
Then Jason MARBLEd into the lobby with a soft pop and a clatter of hooves.
Jason appeared to have spent the afternoon at an extremely ritzy spa. Outfitted in an oversized terrycloth robe encrusted with what Starr had to assume were crystals, he was bare-hooved—a sight that might have thrown Starr off-balance if she hadn’t been minutes from potentially being consumed by a dragon—and appeared both disoriented and discontented.
“Nice duds, Valentine,” said Cris.
“Are those… gems?” Sticking his head back out of the cave, Phil extended a tentative talon.
“Back off, dragon,” Jason snapped. His eyes were hard and green, and when they landed on Starr they only got harder and greener.
Starr cowered. In this moment, Jason scared her more than Phil ever had.
With a grand leap, Jason summited Phil’s reception desk, towering over the rest of the room. His horns had overflowed his head and now curved past his hairline, heading down his back. His hooves were shiny and dark. His eyes burned, their pupils contorting.
“Do you see these?” He gestured at his horns.
The actors all nodded. Cris chewed on his cigar.
“What do they say?”
“They don’t say anything.” Mav sauntered into the room. “They’re horns.”
“Wrong!” Jason pointed. “They say that I am the immortal in charge here! Does anyone question that?”
The extras cringed and ducked behind the cameradryads.
“Good!” Jason cried. “I have come from a meeting with TPTB. And they had footage of Starr riding a centaur! Of Fiona and Nico being tied up by elves!”
Starr swallowed. She’d had no idea they were being filmed in Central Park, and based on the look on Nico’s face, he didn’t, either. “Well, ah—” she began.
“They loved it,” Jason continued. “They want more like that.”
“Yay?” Starr asked tentatively.
Mav hurried to her side. “A centaur? Really?”
Starr swiped her finger over her heart and followed it with a boy scout on-my-honor hand sign.
“All of which means we’re doing something Extra Super Special at the fan convention this year, I’ve now been informed.” Jason’s voice rang around the lobby interior. “Something which, if we fail to do it right, means we are all finished.”
“Don’t keep us in suspense, Il Duce,” Nico called out.
