The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,36

What her detention slips had bumped into wasn’t anything too scary—just a lighter with a drawing of an atom on it. In fact, I recognized that lighter. It was the same one Dr. Dixon sometimes used to do chemistry demonstrations for our science class. But seeing Stheno’s reaction, I got an idea. I took two quick steps backward, then grabbed it. I waved the tiny object at the principal-slash-snake-haired-monster.

“You don’t like fire, huh?” I yelled, shoving the lighter at her face. I could hear it still had a little fluid left in it. “You’re not scared of it or anything, are you?”

“Stop that! You bully!” shrieked Medusa’s less capable sibling, trying to knock the lighter from my hand. “You’re as bad as my sister! It’s not my fault I’m scared of fire since that aromatherapy candle incident!”

Fear seemed to make Stheno faster. Before I knew what was happening, she was on me, scratching and punching. Okay, just waving the lighter around wasn’t going to be enough. I tried to avoid her blows as I looked desperately around for a better weapon. My eyes fell on just the thing: an old half-broken field hockey stick poking out of the dumpster closest to me. With a yell and a superhuman leap, I grabbed it, swishing it through the air like a staff. This bought me a few minutes, but I needed something more. I glanced at the lighter still in my other hand. Of course. Swishing and spinning the staff like a fighter in a movie I once saw, I got Stheno off-balance. Then I followed through on my new plan. It took me a few tries—I’d never used a lighter before—but I got the bendy side of the wooden hockey stick to finally light. Trying not to freak out at the flames, I spun the fiery staff at the Gorgon, swishing it first above my head and then down. I spun around to give myself more momentum, leaping through the air to lunge at the monster with the flaming end of the field hockey stick.

Stheno hissed and spit at me but started to back off. “Put that out! Put that evil thing out!”

“No chance!” I yelled, bringing my flaming hockey stick down from the right, then from the left. In the midst of all this, a blue butterfly flew down between us, landing on one of Stheno’s snaky hairs.

“I’ll get you, my pretty!” snarled the Gorgon, and for a flash, she looked just like a green-skinned witch from a different story. Pointy black hat and everything. Then the butterfly flew off her, and she was herself again.

The distraction gave me an idea, though. The witch in that other story had melted when water was thrown on her. Judging from how wet we’d both gotten from the auditorium sprinklers, Stheno seemed fine with water. But clearly, she had a thing about fire.

“Ned! Flame up those arrows!” I yelled. “Let’s see if she likes that!”

“Oh, you meddling dimension trespasser!” Stheno shrieked. She was so mad, there were drops of spittle flying from her lips, so she looked like she was almost frothing at the mouth. “I’ll make sure this goes on your permanent transcript! You’ll never get into college!”

The Gorgon formerly known as my principal was moving fast now, eyes huge beneath the pink cat-eye glasses, nostrils flared, raining angry spittle. She was doing roundhouse kicks toward my stomach, leaping side kicks toward my head. I backed up fast, brandishing my flaming hockey stick. The body of the stick was burning now, and I was afraid my weapon wouldn’t last too much longer.

“Ned! Come on!” I yelled again. What was taking him so long?

“Your boyfriend’s too scared!” Stheno shrieked, jabbing at me with a one-two punch.

“He’s not my boyfriend!” I don’t know why I felt the need to correct P. Sthenny on my romantic status even as she was mauling me. Then I watched with horror as her jaw unhinged from her face. As it opened up, razor-sharp teeth reached out in my direction!

“Oh, shove it in your hockey puck!” she snarled, knocking the wind out of me with a super-agile jumping front kick to the gut. Her teeth, more like long-stemmed tentacles—or maybe snakes—practically swarmed out from her giant, unhinged maw of a mouth even as her hair snakes hissed and bit at me.

Beside the large green dumpsters were a few regular-sized metal garbage cans. I picked up one of the round lids just as the Gorgon leaped toward me, both hands