Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

P aige stared down at the golden container, unsure of what to do next.

"What do you mean something else is in there?" Rochelle asked with a shrug. "What?"

"Sebastian is green. He's in there. And Eudora is pink. She's in there. But there's some kind of yellow stuff in there, too. I don't know what it is."

"Yellow stuff?" Dewey questioned, his fleshy eyebrows knitting. "Could it be some sort of bacteria that is attacking them?"

"I can run it through the database," Rochelle said. "We can see if there is some known predator to Living Goo that works in this way."

"Can I see it again?" Dewey grabbed the gold container.

"Should we open it?"

"The worst that can happen is Sebastian shoots up your nose and tells you what's going on," Dewey argued.

Paige shook her head. "That's not the worst. Who knows if that yellow stuff is poisonous to us humans or dragons."

"I doubt it. I'll just take a quick peek. "

Dewey batted her hand away and whipped open the container. He peered closer at the gel-like substance inside.

As he studied it, the green substance flew from the box and landed on Paige's green skin.

"Ugh," she cried out as it slid across her lips before disappearing up her nose. She doubled over, squeezing her eyes shut as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "Ohhhh, that burns."

Dewey snapped the lid shut on the golden box, his eyes wide. "Oops, sorry."

After a second, she straightened, blinking away the tears that developed from the painful sensation. "Whew. I'll never get used to that."

"Are you okay, Paige?" Ronnie rubbed Paige's arm as she stared at her with a concerned expression pinching her features.

"Yeah. I'm fine. Sebastian? Where are you?"

"Here," the British accent called from a corner behind Paige.

She whipped around to find him, dressed in his nineteenth-century explorer outfit. He twirled his handlebar mustache. "Hello. Whoa! What happened to you?"

"Hi, Sebastian. A little allergic reaction to growth spaghetti."

"Bizarre."

Paige brushed the comment aside, trying to focus on the task at hand. "Sorry for the rude awakening, but we need your help. Although, it's a good thing we checked, huh?"

"Good thing?" he questioned.

"Yeah. That yellow stuff that's made its way into your case. We're still trying to identify what it is, but we'll get rid of it. Don't you worry."

"Get rid of it?" he shouted. "Are you joking? "

"No. We'll figure it out, I promise. Do you have any details about it that we could use to help eradicate it?"

"Eradicate? Oh, heavens, you cannot possibly be this dim."

"Any info from him on the parasite?" Dewey asked.

"No. He's confused, I think. I wonder if this is affecting their minds."

Sebastian slid his eyes closed and shook his head. "Please stop talking. You sound stupider with every statement."

"Not affecting his snarkiness, though," Paige reported.

"What's he saying?"

"Listen carefully and try to understand this. That is not a parasite inside with us."

Paige crinkled her brow. "Not a parasite?"

"Paige, explain. We can't hear him. Try to remember that," Dewey said with a huff.

Paige clicked her tongue. "He says the yellow stuff isn't a parasite."

"The ‘yellow stuff' as you call it is my daughter, Adelaide." The Goo's human form rolled his eyes. "Don't touch it. She's still quite young. We do not want her traumatized."

Paige's eyes went wide and her jaw dropped.

"What's that look?" Dewey asked. "Please, explain! Stop keeping all the information to yourself."

"He says…" Paige shook her head as she slid her eyes closed, still trying to process the information. "He says the yellow stuff is his daughter."

"Say what?" Dewey exclaimed.

"Aww, it's Baby Living Goo. I've never seen that either. Wow," Ronnie said with a chuckle. "That's something."

"Baby Living Goo…" Paige stared straight ahead as she imagined a child form of Goo.

"To be fair, I didn't look like this when Adelaide was conceived. I looked like this." Sebastian's form morphed into the form of Devon. "It was a moonlit night, and we were walking in aisle 27B when–"

Paige waved her hands in the air. "Stop that. Go back to the other form. I don't care what you looked like or what the night was like. I just didn't know what that was. That's…well, congratulations to both you and Eudora."

He switched back to his older form and lifted his chin. "Thank you. Now, what is this emergency you need my help with? And where are we? This isn't Shadow Harbor."

"No. We're in Paris. And we need your help communicating with the Golem. I thought maybe you or Eudora could go up its nose and meld with its brain, then help us communicate with him."

Sebastian crinkled his nose. "What a convoluted method to speak with a Golem. Simply use a Kindercom."

Paige slid her head forward, her eyes sliding from side to side. "A what?"

"What's he saying?" Dewey buzzed around her head, his paws tightening into fists.

"He says to use a Kindercom, and we'll be able to talk to the Golem without him. What's a Kindercom?"

"Never heard of it." Dewey shook his head. "Are you sure that yellow stuff isn't a brain-eating bacteria?"

"Now, see here, dragon!"

"Sorry, he's sorry he said that," Paige said before she faced Dewey with a clenched jaw, "You made him really mad. Stop saying stuff like that."

"Sorry, Bub. Here's the thing…I've never heard of a Kindercom."

"Which obviously means they don't exist," Sebastian shot back. "Because the tiny dragon has never heard of it."

"What'd he answer?"

"Nothing," Paige said with a shake of her head.

Rochelle tapped on her phone's display. "Kindercom. An ancient communication device that allows conversation with normally incommunicative subjects such as Golems, Fox Shifters, and Drows."

Sebastian waved a hand in the air. "Thank you. Now, if that's all–"

"No, wait," Paige said. "Where can we find one?"

"I'm checking," Rochelle said with a few more taps on her screen. "Nowhere in the library network."

Paige let her shoulders slump. "So, that's useless. Okay, Sebastian, no one has a Kindercom, so we need–"

"Make one. Heavens, it's not that hard."

"Make one?" Paige asked.

Rochelle glanced up from her phone. "How do we make one?"

Paige shifted her gaze to the Goo. "How do we–"

"I can hear, thanks." He held a hand up in the air. "Give me a moment, it's been a while since I oversaw the making of a Kindercom. Let's see…we'll need–"

"If you say chocolate, I'm going to scream."

"While I would love a bite of it, I wasn't planning to ask for it after the last time. Now, we'll need some sort of speaker…"

"A speaker," Paige reported.

"Speech powder."

"Speech powder," Paige repeated.

"Whoa, whoa, what's speech powder?"

"One part ground bat larynx, two parts sound powder."

Paige passed along the concoction's mixture.

"And a brainheart synthesizer."

"And a brainheart synthesizer," Paige finished.

"I can get those," Rochelle said. "We have all of that here. I'll collect all the materials, and we'll proceed."

Sebastian ambled across the room as Rochelle disappeared from it. He stretched his arms up and down before he bent at the waist. "It feels wonderful to stretch my legs. Say, you should meet Adelaide."

"Oh, no," Paige said with a shake of her head. "I don't want to scare her. Leave her with her mother."

"Nonsense! She has to learn sometime."

"What's he want?" Dewey asked.

"He wants me to meet Adelaide."

Sebastian narrowed his eyes at her. "Open the box, Paige."

"Uh-uh," she said with a shake of her head.

"Open it."

She puckered her lips as her head wagged back and forth.

"Go on. You can't resist the urge to open the box."

Paige's hand rose in the air against her will. She grabbed it with her other hand and pinned it against her body. "Stop it."

"What's happening?" Ronnie asked.

"He's making me open that stupid box. Stop it!" Paige's nose wrinkled as she struggled to stop her arm from rising against her will.

She stumbled a few steps forward colliding with the table. "No!"

She lifted her hand to grab the wayward one, but she couldn't catch it. It landed on the gold box and flung it open.

"Adelaide. Come out, darling," Sebastian called.

The tiny yellow Goo quivered in the box.

"That's it, darling. Just leap onto the redhead's face."

"No, don't just leap onto–"

She stumbled back a step as the yellow Goo flung itself in the air, landing square on her nose.

"Now, slide down just a tad and go up that hole. You'll find a nice warm area. Daddy's waiting for you there."

"Oh, n–" The Goo flitted up Paige's nose. Tears stung her eyes as her nose burned from the experience. She blinked a few times as she wiggled her nose .

"There we are. Yes, that's right. Take any form you'd like. Oh, that's quite nice. I'm impressed."

Paige let her eyes stay open and focused on the image of the explorer. He stood with his arm around a holographic child who took the form of Drucinda as a ten-year-old. "Paige, meet Adelaide."

"Hi," Paige said with a smile. "Nice to meet you."

The little girl grinned up at her father. "Daddy, this is fun!"

"I know. Auntie Paige is a lovely person who can take you for walks all over."

"No," Paige said with a shake of her head.

"She takes wonderful care of us. And we live very safely thanks to her."

Paige's shoulder slumped as he sang her praises.

"What's he saying?" Dewey whispered.

"He's saying we take good care of them. And Adelaide looks like child Drucinda." Paige heaved a sigh. The door opened and both Rochelle and Drucinda returned, juggling the items they needed to create the Kindercom.

"Time to return to Mummy, darling. Daddy has important business."

"When you're back, can we go for ice cream?"

"Of course. See you soon."

"Wait," Paige said, flinging a hand in the air before the burning began and the yellow Goo seeped from her nose.

She leapt back into the golden box and nestled close to the pink substance.

Dewey snapped the box shut. "Okay, let's get this show on the road. What do we do with this stuff?"

"Mix the powders in the amounts that I told you," Sebastian said. Paige passed along the information. Dewey mixed the two powders together.

Sebastian oversaw the work before giving the next set of instructions. "Now, give the Golem a teaspoon under the tongue, then sprinkle the rest onto each of the components."

They followed his directions, and, after a command from Paige, got the Golem to open his first mouth for the powder. Dewey sprinkled the rest on the speaker and brainheart synthesizer. The light pink powder melted into the components, leaving no trace.

"Alright. Connect the speaker to the synthesizer."

Dewey shook his head, wiggling his digits in the air. "Someone needs to help with this. My fingers are too fat."

After Drucinda connected them together, Sebastian gave the final instructions. "Now, take the pointy end of the brainheart synthesizer and stick it into the crook of his arm."

Paige eyed the needle-like tip. "I don't think that's going to go well."

"I don't much care," Sebastian said. "It will work. Good luck. Oh, let me back into the box before you do this."

Paige snapped her gaze to him. Was it going to be so bad that he wanted to escape before it happened? "Just a second."

"No seconds to be had. Must go."

He blinked out of sight, and a burning sensation filled her nose as he slid out and leapt to the table.

"Coward!" Paige shouted at him.

The green Goo rose up, forming a hand that made one obscene gesture before it raced toward the golden box.

"Jerk," Paige said as she opened it and allowed him to rejoin his family.

"What do we have to do now?" Drucinda asked.

"Poke that into his arm." Paige pointed to the needle.

"I'll leave it to you," Drucinda answered. "He likes you."

Paige let her shoulders slump as she approached the Golem with the object. "I said be calm. I said let me put this in your arm."

The Golem studied the needle with a frown. Paige slid it into the opening between the two stones that separated his forearm from his bicep.

An earsplitting shriek emerged from his lips. The room's occupants clamped their hands over their ears. The brainheart synthesizer blinked out of sight, disappearing into the Golem's stony body, and dragging the speaker with it.

The forlorn wail continued before he turned into something else.

"Owwwww!"

Paige crinkled her brow and pulled her hands away from her ears. A child's crying echoed off the room's walls. "It hurts. It hurts me. You hurt me."

Paige took a step forward and patted the Golem's hand. "You're okay. It's okay. You're not hurt, see? And now we can talk."

The crying waned. The Golem placed a stony finger against his lips. "You can understand Granite?"

"Granite? Is that your name?"

The Golem's head bobbed up and down.

Paige offered him an unsure smile. "Hi, Granite. I'm Paige. I'm glad we can talk now."

"My goodness, it worked," Drucinda whispered.

Dewey landed on her shoulder. "Yes, it did. I wonder what he'll say."

Drucinda narrowed her eyes at the creature. "Maybe now we can get some information on Reed."