At that moment, something incredible happened. Something amazing, something incredible, something unbelievable.
Bastille smiled.
It was a deep, knowing smile. An eager smile. Almost a wicked smile. Like the smile on a jack-o’-lantern carved by a psychopathic kitten. (Oh, wait. All kittens are psychopathic. If you’ve forgotten, read book one again. In fact, read book one again either way. Someone told me once that it was really funny. What? You believed me in the foreword when I told you not to read them? What, you think you can trust me?)
Bastille’s smile shocked me, pleased me, and made me nervous at the same time. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that is just about the most brilliant thing you’ve ever said, Alcatraz.’
Granted, the statement didn’t have much competition for the title.
‘It’s certainly bold,’ Grandpa said. ‘Smedry-like for certain!’
‘Who would we send?’ Kaz said, growing eager. ‘Could you go, Pop? They’d be certain to send knights to defend you.’
Grandpa hesitated, then shook his head. ‘If I did that, I’d leave the king without an ally on the Council of Kings. He needs my vote.’
‘But we’d need a direct heir,’ Kaz said. ‘I could go – I will go – but I’ve never been important enough to warrant more than a single knight. I’m not the direct heir. We could send Attica.’
‘He’s gone,’ Bastille said. ‘Fled the city. It’s what we were talking about when you arrived.’
Grandpa nodded. ‘We’d need to put someone in danger who is so valuable the knights have to respond. But this person also has to be uncompromisingly stoopid. It’s idiocy on a grand scale to send oneself directly to a palace on the brink of destruction, surrounded by Librarians, in a doomed kingdom! Why, they’d have to be stoopid on a colossal degree. Of the likes previously unseen to all of humankind!’
And suddenly, for some reason, all eyes in the room turned toward me.
π
Okay, so maybe I exaggerated that last conversation just a little bit. Grandpa might have actually said something along the lines of ‘We’d need someone really, really brave.’ I felt that it’s all right to make this swap, however, since bravery and stoopidity are practically one and the same.
Actually, there’s a mathematical formula for it: STU ≥ BVE. That reads, quite simply, ‘A person’s stoopidity is greater than or equal to their bravery.’ Simple, eh?
Oh, you want proof? You actually expect me to justify my ridiculous assertions? Well, all right. Just this once.
Look at it this way. If a man stumbled accidentally into a trap set by a group of Librarian agents, we’d think him stoopid. Right? However, if he charges valiantly into that same trap knowing it’s there, he’d be called brave. Think about that for a moment. Which sounds dumber? Accidentally falling into the trap or choosing to fall into it?
There are plenty of ways to be stoopid that don’t involve being brave. However, bravery is – by definition – always stoopid. Therefore, your stoopidity is at least equal to your level of bravery. Probably greater.
After all, reading that ridiculous explanation probably made you feel dumber just by association. (Reading this book sure is brave of you.)
I burst into the small meeting chamber. The monarchs sat in thrones arranged in a half circle, listening to one of their members – in this case, a woman in an ancient-looking suit of bamboo armor – stand before them and argue her point. The walls depicted murals of beautiful mountain scenes, and a little indoor stream gurgled its way along the far wall.
All of the monarchs turned toward me, eyes aghast at being interrupted.
‘Ah, young Smedry!’ said one of them, a regal-looking man with a square red beard and a set of kingly robes to match it. Brig Dartmoor, Bastille’s father, was king of Nalhalla and generally considered foremost among the monarchs. He stood up from his chair. ‘How . . . unusual to see you.’
The others looked panicked. I realized that the last time I’d barged in on them like this, I’d come to warn them about a Librarian plot and had ended up nearly getting them all assassinated. (The non-donkey kind.)
I took a deep breath. ‘I can’t take it any longer!’ I exclaimed. ‘I hate being cooped up in this city! I need a vacation!’
The monarchs glanced at one another, relaxing slightly. I hadn’t come to warn them of impending disaster; this was just the usual Smedry drama.
‘Well, that’s fine, I guess . . .’ King Dartmoor said. Anyone else would probably have demanded to know why this ‘vacation’ was so important as to interrupt the Council of Kings. But Dartmoor was quite accustomed to handling Smedrys. I was only just beginning to understand what a reputation for oddness my family had – and this was compared with everyone around them, who lived in a city filled with castles, dragons that climbed on walls, grenades that look like teddy bears, and the occasional talking dinosaur in a vest. Being odd compared with all of them took quite a bit of effort. (My family is a bunch of overachievers when it comes to freakish behavior.)
‘Perhaps you’d like to visit the countryside,’ said one of the kings. ‘The firelizard trees are in bloom.’
‘I hear the lightning caverns are electrifying this time of year,’ another added.
‘You could always try skydiving off the Worldspire,’ said the woman in the Asian-style bamboo armor. ‘Drop through the Bottomless Chasm for a few hours? It’s rather relaxing, with a waterfall on all sides, falling through the air.’
‘Wow,’ I said, losing a bit of my momentum. ‘Those do sound interesting. Maybe I—’ Bastille elbowed me from behind at that point, making me exclaim a surprised ‘Gak!’