May Bird Among the Stars Read online

  Pumpkin squatted and took the gum. “Thanks.” He smiled companionably at the goblin, who smiled back, wider than ever. Pumpkin unwrapped the gum and put it in his mouth. Chewing, he let out a sigh of satisfaction and looked back to the others as if to say, See?

  And then the creature smiled even wider, opened its mouth, and tried to bite off Pumpkin’s arm.

  “hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  As if on signal, a score of goblins leaped out from behind the bones and onto Pumpkin. “Ahhhhh!” Pumpkins mouth spread into a huge, crooked, screaming O as he zipped ahead, trying to shake them off as they dangled from his shoulders, his shirt. One held the puff of his hair as if it were a pair of reins.

  Pumpkin zigzagged toward May and the others, waving his arms in the air and screaming furiously, “Help! Help meeee!” With a thud, he knocked into Fabbio, sending him sprawling.

  Like fleas, a few of the goblins hurled themselves at Fabbio’s knees while three more leaped straight for his shoulders and grabbed his military medals, trying to pry them off.

  “Helllpppp!” Bea called, just as a gaggle of goblins leaped onto her dress and untied her sash. She swatted at them with one hand as she rummaged in her backpack with the other, yanking out the large, thick, dusty book on Dark Spirits. She waved it at the goblins, knocking them off of her dress. May started toward her, but Pumpkin crossed between them, three creatures dangling from his legs, trying to tie him with a long rope. The two on his shoulders jumped off and scurried toward May. Hissing and spitting, Kitty leaped before her and reared his claws.

  It was at that moment that May remembered her bow and fumbled over her shoulder for it. Her arrows went clattering out of the quiver onto the ground. She swooped downward and grabbed one, stringing it, her hands shaking as if they’d been electrified. She aimed first at the goblin tugging at the bottom of Bea’s skirt. Then at the one dangling from Pumpkin’s hair. Back and forth, back and forth. Finally, she chose her target and, holding her breath, let her arrow fly. The arrow gently soared into the air, poised there for a moment, and then drifted to the ground like a feather.

  “Mama mia!” Fabbio howled, waving his sword from the ground as two goblins tied a length of rope around his feet in a nice bow. “What those arrows are made of? Spaghetti?!”

  Bea, who’d been tripped and now sat on the ground scooting backward, flipped madly through her book, occasionally using it as a weapon. “Goblins, goblins,” she muttered as she fanned the pages madly.

  May swallowed and gathered her wits, grabbed another arrow, and shot it. Again, it merely sailed into the air gently, then fluttered to the ground.

  She stared helplessly at the wilted arrow, then at the chaos around her.

  “May, do something!” Pumpkin screamed, zigging past her. Somber Kitty had backed up almost against her ankles, fending off the two creatures in front of them.

  May thought frantically. For some reason, John the Jibber came to mind.

  She looked to Beatrice, who was rolling across the dust in a goblin headlock. Fabbio was groaning as two others pulled on his mustache. And Pumpkin had made his way onto the top of one of the giant skulls, trying to shake himself loose.

  Suddenly, May realized why she had thought of John the Jibber. It was something he’d told her once, about goblins. She hesitated for just a moment or two. And then she cleared her throat.

  “How do you solve a problem like Mariiiiiiia?” she sang, then paused, nibbling a nail.

  Fabbio, who seemed to have forgotten completely that he was being hog-tied by goblins, stared frozen, his mouth hanging open in a long oval under his tortured mustache.

  But the goblins, too, paused. They looked interested, but slightly disgusted.

  May continued to warble, her voice coming out squeaky and off-key.

  The goblins shook their heads and went back to what they were doing. One of them leaped past Kitty and grabbed May by the foot.

  “How do you catch a cloud and pin it dowwwwwwn?”

  Everyone stopped. This time they all turned toward Pumpkin. He was standing on the skull, looking at May unsurely She nodded urgently, and he continued singing.

  Several sighs were heard from the goblins. One sigh even escaped from Somber Kitty’s lips. A couple of goblins dropped from Pumpkin’s shoulders and gazed up at him raptly

  Pumpkin continued to sing the song, meeting May’s eyes. When May smiled at him, his own smile grew wide. He thrust his arms into the air operatically and began to really belt it out.

  One by one, the goblins let go of their captives and hobbled onto the ground. As they did, some dabbed at the corners of their eyes. They began to sidle up to one another shyly, then, slowly, they wrapped their arms around one another and hummed along. Some muttered things the travelers didn’t understand. But if they had, they would have heard statements along the lines of “I have always loved those shoes” and “Lavender really is your color.”

  “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” May joined in softly

  “Meoooooooo,” Somber Kitty crooned, low. Beatrice added a slight foot shuffle, and everyone followed suit.

  The goblins began to sit and sway their heads back and forth, snuggling together, some wiggling their toes in the air, humming along. When Pumpkin finished, they began to look restless again. He glanced at May for guidance.

  “Another,” she whispered.

  He nodded. “Climb evvvery mountain …”

  Seven songs later (including two more from The Sound of Music and three from Cats), the goblins had passed out from exhaustion after all the excitement. When the last goblin began to snore, the group looked at one another. And then, very quietly, they tiptoed away.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Walk of the Zombies

  Pumpkin, you were terrific!” Bea gushed.

  “I know.”

  “Little May,” Fabbio added. “Singing. Brilliant!”

  They all remembered very well now the goblins they had seen in the Eternal Edifice and how John the Jibber had informed them that there was nothing a goblin loved more than a musical—except, perhaps, shopping.

  As the group drifted across the Nothing Platte, they wove their way around the junk that dotted the landscape: old slurpy soda machines, worm-eaten billboards, broken-down carriages, abandoned caskets, toasters. To May, the Nothing Platte was hardly what it sounded like. It seemed to be full of everything the rest of the Ever After didn’t want.

  May walked quietly along behind the others, her thin shoulders drooping. She was happy that they had escaped and proud of her friends. But she was bewildered by what had happened with her silver arrows.

  The rest of the group was still busy congratulating themselves when they crossed into the section of the platte that ran a jagged swath through the middle of the Scrap Mountains.

  On either side of them, the mountains rose up lopsidedly. May could just make out the giant mounds of old hearses, broken skull-o-phones and holo-visions that lay up ahead. Already, even this far away from the Scrap Mountains, the air smelled like garbage.

  Pumpkin had started to float along with his chest thrust out, transported by a wave of conceit. Every time Fabbio or Beatrice complimented him, he turned around, looking careless, and blew them a kiss. “It was nothing. Nothing,” he said as he drifted on ahead.

  Even Somber Kitty drifted behind him happily, in awe.

  Pumpkin’s head was held so high that he had no view of the ground beneath his feet. If he had, he may have noticed that it was beginning to break apart.

  “Ahhhhhhhh!!”

  A form rose out of the ground, sand-colored, with long matted hair and sagging features. Its empty black eyes rested dully on them. Its arms stretched out stiffly in front of it. Within moments, several other creatures had burst out of the dirt, surrounding the travelers. They were all chanting, “Eugghhhhhhhhh!”

  May looked to Beatrice questioningly. Beatrice grabbed her hand. “Zombies!”

  The zombies lurched slowly toward t
hem.

  “Run!”

  They ducked and zipped their way out of the circle, Pumpkin shooting way out ahead—right into another zombie just rising from the ground. Pumpkin sprawled backward. Slowly but menacingly, his attacker bent toward him with rigidly outstretched arms.

  “Mayyyy!” Pumpkin yelled, covering his eyes. Just in time, May and Beatrice grabbed him by the armpits and dragged him sideways, dodging the zombie’s mechanical movements and racing ahead. Fabbio drifted up behind them, turning to float backward while he waved his sword.

  They zigged. They zagged. Everywhere they turned, another zombie popped out of the ground beneath them, sending them screaming and racing in another direction.

  Dodging the trash that littered the sand, they looked over their shoulders. The zombies trailed farther and farther behind, but they kept coming relentlessly

  “How do we stop them?” May yelled to Beatrice.

  Bea only shook her head furiously “Zombies are slow … never stop!”

  Up ahead of them, Pumpkin tripped over something and went tumbling forward. May, Bea, and Fabbio skidded to a halt just before they tripped too. Between them lay what appeared to be an abandoned hearse, half buried in the sand.

  May looked over her shoulder. Not far off, they could hear the zombies moaning, but for the moment they were obscured from sight by the scattered mounds of trash. May grabbed the latch on the hearse and pulled. “Help me with this!”

  Everyone looked at her as if her brain had been stolen by zombies, but still, they gathered and gave a collective yank on the handle of the trunk, sending it flying open. “Get in! Get in!” May waved her arms wildly. They climbed into the dark, wide trunk, May last of all. When they were all in, she pulled the latch closed. In the darkness they hunched together. Somber Kitty leaped onto May’s lap and curled into a ball. Pumpkin tried to do the same and had to be content perching on her knee, which was exceedingly uncomfortable. The only sound was that of Somber Kitty and May breathing, their warm breath filling up the cool air inside the trunk and making it stuffy. They listened for the zombies.

  “Euuuuuuuuuuggggggggghhhhhhhhh!” Thud, thud, thud.

  May felt even breathing was too dangerous, so she held her breath and pinched Kitty’s nose. In the dark his green eyes glinted at her quizzically, but he did not resist.

  Thud, thud, thud.

  It sounded like the zombies were right on top of them. Pumpkin shifted in his seat, whimpering. A second or two more …

  And then May heard it.

  Breathing.

  Someone in the trunk was breathing. And it wasn’t her. And it wasn’t Kitty. And ghosts didn’t breathe….

  “Pumpkin, stop squeezing me so hard,” Beatrice whispered.

  “I’m not doing anything,” Pumpkin whispered back.

  “Smells like Uncle Bonino’s pasta fagioli in here,” Fabbio hissed.

  It was true. Someone in the trunk had very bad breath.

  At that moment the back of the trunk seemed to drop out behind them, and with a collective scream, they were all yanked backward.

  Chapter Twenty

  The Colony of the Undead

  There was a loud shuffling sound, then the thudding of what sounded like many footsteps, and then a pause. May and the others found themselves bound together tightly by a net of old, dusty ropes. Whoever had captured them was still breathing loudly in the dark, filling the air with the stench of garlic.

  The thud of zombie feet moved above them.

  “You led ’em straight to us!” a husky voice grumbled. There was something familiar about it, and then May realized what it was: The accent was southern.

  The captives stayed quiet, more out of fear of the zombies above than out of hope that the predicament they were now in was any better. They strained their ears.

  Slowly, surely, the zombies seemed to start thudding away.

  “Well, phew!”

  Their captor began dragging them through the darkness, grunting with the effort and occasionally muttering to itself, until they emerged into a large, starlit cavern, walled completely with junk: crushed-up toasters and billboards and automobiles packed like sardines, forming walls and a high domed ceiling.

  A greeting, cobbled together from various old signs, hung from a fender in the wall: YOU HAVE ENTERED THE COLONY OF THE UNDEAD.

  “Meow?” Somber Kitty said doubtfully.

  Out of the halls from all around them emerged several—maybe forty or so—spirits, all dressed in black, with powder white skeleton faces. Their backs were strapped with spears and tiny net sacks of what looked to May like onyx and silver, and bouquets of periwinkles were pinned at their waists.

  “I’ve never come across spirits like these in my reading,” Bea whispered to May as they sat shivering in their net.

  “I got these here spirits runnin’ from some zombies,” their captor announced. “Almost led them right to us. And, look, they got a cat!”

  There were whispers and mutters from the skeleton spirits, and then with one quick, sharp movement, their captor reached into the dark folds of its clothes and whipped out a gleaming dagger.

  Whoosh. The knife sliced through the air and the net fell aside, and May, Pumpkin, Bea, Fabbio, and Kitty came tumbling out.

  A sharp intake of breath issued from some of those spirits in the crowd.

  “It’s her,” someone hissed.

  “Who?”

  The skeletal figure closest to May leaned forward and yanked back her death shroud with a flourish. The figures let out grunts and sighs of amazement, and then applause rippled over the group, faint at first, then louder. Several fell to one knee and bowed their heads. May swept Kitty into her arms. Pumpkin grinned and took a small bow, patting his tuft.

  Their captor pulled off its cloak, immediately followed by its mask.

  Now it was May’s turn to gasp. The face was colorful, solid, flushed, and breathing. It was pudgy and round, with sly, deep-set gray eyes that matched the halo of wiry gray hair. And it was alive.

  As if on cue, all the other figures pulled off their masks and hoods too. They were all alive!

  May and her friends were speechless.

  Their captor turned to a woman in flight goggles and a jumpsuit. “Amelia, go check the hearse entrance and make sure it’s closed. Elvis, Jimmy, go to the lookout and find out which way the zombies are headed.”

  The three went scurrying off down different, junk-walled tunnels.

  “What?” May asked, incredulous. “How?”

  The woman turned to her, studied her sharply, and then put her hands on her hips. “Why, we’re the undead, honey,” she said. “I’m Bertha.” She took May’s hand and bowed. “Bertha Brettwaller. It’s an honor to meet you.”

  May blinked at her, recognizing the name instantly, too stunned to reply. The Bertha Brettwaller? Of Briery Swamp?

  “And I hear,” Bertha continued, “that you’re going to save us all.”

  Everyone sat at an old picnic table, the Live Ones arguing over who would get to hold Somber Kitty next, as May and Bertha determined that, indeed, they shared the same home in Briery Swamp, though in different eras. Bertha hadn’t seen the broadside of White Moss Manor since 1897.

  “But how are you still alive?” May wanted to know.

  Though her face drooped like melting ice cream and crow’s feet crept out from the corners of her eyes, Bertha talked animatedly, her puffy gray hair wild and wiry “Oh, honey, haven’t you noticed? You never get older here. We’re running on star time, of course. Kind of warps things, you swannee?”

  May didn’t know what “swannee” meant. But it did seem that she hadn’t grown even a centimeter since she’d fallen into the lake. Her toes weren’t poking against her shoes. Her bobbed hair was no longer. And how long had she been here? How long had her mom been missing her?

  At Bertha’s prodding, May told her more about the Briery Swamp of today Bertha was delighted to hear that her library in White Moss Manor was still intac
t and that the house was loved and cared for, though May wasn’t able to tell her whether or not wild garlic still grew in the woods. Bertha’s eyes widened at the tales of electric toothbrushes, inground swimming pools, and astronauts.

  She slapped her knee and let out a husky howl of a laugh. “People on the moon! You don’t say! Won’t be long before they find us up here in the Afterlife, I reckon!”

  May grinned, thinking of living people arriving in the Ever After amid the spirits and ghosts.

  “How’d you end up here?” May inquired.

  “Oh, that old water demon.” Bertha let out a wistful sigh so smelly that it made May’s eyes cross.

  “I bet you wish we had that Ghouly Gum,” Pumpkin whispered into May’s ear. May elbowed him in the arm.

  Bertha stretched her way into her story It sounded as if she’d told it a hundred times before, and each time it became more interesting to her than the last. “I’m out foraging, and I find this lake, beyond the tangle of briars. You know the one I’m talking about, honey. Well, I was never a swimmer anyway So the demon appears, looking all pretty at first—you’ve seen how she does.” May nodded. “Well, I look over thinking I’m looking at an angel, and then slap!” Bertha clapped her hand on the table, making Somber Kitty do an aerial somersault off the lap where he’d been sitting. “She pulls me in. You’d think I was a goner for sure. Except suddenly, I’m getting spit up onto the shore. Only it’s the wrong shore.” Bertha leaned in ominously. “Honey, it was the dead shore.”

  May tried to cover her nose casually.

  Bertha straightened up and sniffed. “Dunno why the demon spat me up like that. I reckon I taste as good as anyone else. Wouldn’t you reckon, handsome?” She winked at Fabbio, grinning to reveal her garlic-encrusted teeth. Fabbio shuddered, twirled his mustache, and pretended to be studying the ceiling.

  After May had filled Bertha and the others in on the changes to Briery Swamp and to Earth in general, Bertha filled her in on the undead.