Hamster Princess--Giant Trouble Read online

  Then it occurred to her that this probably wasn’t the best time.

  It was a very, very long way to fall, but she still probably wasn’t going to get a chance to be bored.

  Wind howled around her. Her cheek pouches flapped.

  She wasn’t particularly afraid of dying. Falling from a great height had this to recommend it—it was going to be really, really quick.

  It was the bit where she wouldn’t be alive anymore that bothered her.

  She liked living. Living was great. She’d been looking forward to living for quite a long time yet.

  She waited for her life to flash in front of her eyes. She’d lived a very exciting life, and was hoping that there would be some really cool bits.

  It did not happen. Harriet was bitterly disappointed. The time she’d shoved a lobster into an Ogrecat’s ear would have been awesome to see again.

  Below her, the giant managed to catch the ends of his huge ears in his hands. They belled out like a parachute.

  The giant’s descent instantly slowed and Harriet shot past him.

  Oh, maaaaan. He’s gonna land just fine, and I’m gonna get smooshed! This is the worst day.

  Something plucked at her that wasn’t the wind.

  Harriet twisted around, trying to look over her shoulder. Had Mumfrey somehow caught up to her?

  No, the quail was a large speck above her. He was going to have to spread his wings out soon and start gliding, or else he was going to be too close to the ground and might crash. She didn’t want him to crash. Just because she’d been dumb and was going to die horribly didn’t mean anybody else needed to follow along.

  Invisible hands plucked at her again.

  “What the heck . . . ?”

  The strange unseen hands pressed down on her feet and pointed her toes. She plummeted toward the earth like a javelin, feet-first, as if she were . . .

  Cliff-diving.

  Nevertheless, she seemed to be doing so.

  There was a spell on her that let her cliff-dive safely, but surely it couldn’t work if there wasn’t water to dive into!

  Harriet peered down. The magic hurriedly pushed her head back up, but she had caught a glimpse of the green earth rushing toward her.

  Green, not blue. Blue might have been water. She might have had a chance if there was water, but how was she supposed to dive into solid dirt?

  She risked another look.

  She was actually getting quite near the ground now. She could make out trees as lumpy corrugated green and grass as flat green and there was a road like a giant’s shoelace wending through the countryside.

  The magic corrected course, tilted her a little, and then—rather strangely, Harriet thought—lifted one of her knees up so that she was leading with a single toe.

  “I’m very confused,” she informed the wind.

  She took one last look, and thought she saw the tiniest flash of light from beneath her, like a glint off metal.

  Then the magic grabbed her and pressed her into a very peculiar shape, foot down, hands at her side.

  She saw the trees suddenly grow enormous as she fell past them, and then she struck the ground.

  Something around her toe went FWOOOM-squish and she felt an absolutely

  indescribable sensation around her foot, as if she had kicked a block of concrete and someone had pulled it away at exactly the same speed she was kicking.

  She was standing on the ground.

  Harriet looked down.

  Her foot hurt. Not because she had just fallen from an unimaginable height, but because it was crammed into the mug that she had left out the morning before.

  Impossibly, magically, Harriet Hamsterbone had just executed a perfect cliff-dive from thousands of feet up, into a four-inch deep mug of tea.

  CHAPTER 24

  There was not a great deal of tea left. Most of it had splashed out and some of it appeared to have boiled off. Also, the mug was now sitting in the middle of a shallow crater that had been blasted into the earth.

  Harriet very carefully put her foot down. The ground was hot.

  Even magic has to put all that extra energy somewhere.

  “Okay,” said Harriet. Then she said it again. She wasn’t sure whether she should laugh or cry or do a little dance, so she tried to do all three at once and had to sit down.

  Mumfrey thudded to the ground next to her, flapping frantically to slow himself. Strings jangled wildly on his back. A minute later, the goose made a graceless landing and honked frantically.

  Strings hastily detached herself from Mumfrey’s saddle. The goose ran to her and buried her beak in the harpster’s side, making tragic honking noises.

  “It’s all right,” said Strings. “You’re fine. No need to keep laying eggs. Please.”

  “QWERK!” screeched Mumfrey, which is Quail for “You’re alive, I thought you were dead, thank the feathery ancestors you’re alive, I was so worried—” and flung himself at Harriet, bowling her over.

  “Yeah, I’m glad to see you too.”

  “How are you alive!?” said Strings. “I mean, not that I’m not glad, but how?”

  “Magic,” said Harriet. “I can cliff-dive. It’s my only magical skill these days.” She extracted herself from under Mumfrey. “Did anyone see what happened to the giant?”

  “Well, there was rather a lot of dust from that direction,” said Strings, pointing.

  Harriet sat up. “Do you think he’s . . . um . . .”

  “He managed to parachute down on his ears,” said Strings. “But you didn’t. You should be dead as a doornail.”

  “Well, they don’t call me Harriet the Invincible for nothing,” said Harriet.

  She started to laugh. She couldn’t help it. After a minute, Strings joined in.

  “Qwerk,” said Mumfrey, which is Quail for “I can’t believe you’re laughing like an idiot after you nearly died.”

  “Honk,” agreed the goose, which is Goose for “Mammals are weird.”

  “Sure,” said Harriet, wiping her eyes. “Sure. Okay.”

  She sighed. “I suppose we should go deal with the giant . . .”

  • • •

  They re-settled Strings more comfortably on the goose. Harriet climbed back on Mumfrey and took out her sword.

  “I’m really done with this giant,” said Strings. “Like, emotionally. I have moved past the giant. I’d like to get on with my life now, in a giant-free fashion.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Harriet, with feeling.

  “We still seem to be riding in the direction of the giant, though,” said Wilbur.

  “You and I will be good friends,” Wilbur said to Strings. “I tell her that all the time. She doesn’t listen to me either.”

  They reached the clearing where the giant had landed, and saw immediately that there was not going to be a problem.

  “Is he . . . dead?” whispered Wilbur.

  “No, he’s breathing,” said Harriet.

  The giant lay flat on his back, in obvious pain.

  “Fee fie foe fack,” he said. “I think I’ve thrown out my back.”

  Harriet didn’t sheathe her sword, in case the giant was faking. He didn’t look like he was faking. He looked like he was afraid to move.

  “Uh . . .” said Wilbur. “That happens to our gardener sometimes. His back just stops working and he has to lie down. And you’re not supposed to move him.”

  Harriet eyed the mass of the prone giant skeptically. “I don’t think not moving him is gonna be a problem.”

  “If you’re done talking about me, this is reasonably excruciating,” said the giant, through gritted teeth.

  “If you’re expecting sympathy, you’re not getting it!” said Harriet. “You squeezed me! You threatened to eat Mumfrey!”

  “You kept m
e chained to a wall for months!” shouted Strings.

  “Fine,” said the giant. “Look, how about you just get me a heating pad and we’ll call it even?”

  “Goose, carry me over there so I can kick him,” said Strings.

  “Honk?”

  They stared glumly at the giant.

  “I suppose we should contact the local authorities?” said Wilbur.

  “I’m a princess,” said Harriet. “We’re in the hamster kingdom. I kinda am the authorities.”

  “Yeah, but you’re more a hitting-things-with-a-sword princess than a rehabilitating-villains princess.”

  “Being hit with a sword can be very rehabilitating, under the right circumstances.”

  They sat and looked at the giant some more as he lay groaning.

  Harriet was just about to suggest that maybe they make some tea and send a message to her parents’ castle when a familiar voice said, “Princess!”

  CHAPTER 25

  Qwerk . . .” muttered Mumfrey, which is Quail for “Not that guy again!”

  The cloaked chipmunk stepped out of the bushes. “Princess! I have an offer that only a fool would—”

  He stopped.

  He looked from Mumfrey to Harriet and back again. “Oh, bother. I’ve already tried to sell beans to you, haven’t I?”

  “You have!” said Harriet indignantly. “And now there’s a ginormous beanstalk sitting over there that somebody’s gonna have to clean up! You should warn people about those beans!”

  He waved his remaining two beans in front of Harriet. “But I’ve got these others! Guaranteed magic! Less likely to pose a threat to air traffic!”

  Harriet folded her arms and glared.

  “. . . I could offer you a discount?” tried the chipmunk.

  “What do they do?” asked Harriet.

  “Um . . . I think this one turns into a ninety-foot-tall pillar of flame and this one grows snow peas, which freeze everything that touches them . . .” He poked the beans in his hand. “Problem is that they aren’t labeled, so I don’t know which is which.”

  “Why do you even have magic beans like that?” asked Strings.

  “Well—”

  “Excuse me.” Wilbur stepped forward. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the giant. “Do you see that!?”

  The chipmunk squinted. “Looks like a giant,” he said. “That wasn’t one of my beans. None of my beans turn into rabbits.”

  “He fell off your beanstalk and hurt his back! It’s your fault!”

  Harriet’s mouth dropped open at the enormity of this—well, it wasn’t exactly a lie, but it was certainly a long way from the whole truth—coming from Wilbur of all people!

  “I’ll give you emotional trauma,” muttered Strings, not quite under her breath.

  This was a side of Wilbur that Harriet had never seen. She was impressed.

  “Look,” said the chipmunk a bit desperately, “how was I supposed to know that would happen?”

  “It was negligent!” said Wilbur.

  “We ought to report you to the fairy godmothers for that! Or the Witch of the Blighted Waste!” added Harriet helpfully.

  The chipmunk sighed. “I’ll clean it up,” he muttered, and vanished sulkily into thin air.

  “You’d better!” shouted Harriet, starting to get into the spirit of things. “Or you’ll be disbarred and disbanded and disemboweled!”

  “Maybe not disemboweled,” said Wilbur hurriedly.

  “We’ll write letters to the editor! We’ll put your face on WANTED posters! We’ll—”

  They looked at the space where the giant had been. It contained a distinct absence of giant.

  “You’re really not supposed to move people with back injuries, though,” said Wilbur.

  “I don’t think teleportation counts,” said Harriet. “Where do you think he went?”

  “Wherever the chipmunk put him, I guess . . .”

  “In his bed,” said the chipmunk, re-appearing. “With a heating pad.”

  “Can you add a copy of Why We Don’t Keep Other People Chained Up in Our House?” asked Strings.

  “Sure,” said the chipmunk. He waved his hands. “Anything else you want, while I’m recklessly burning through magical power here? Immortality? Fairy gold? Access to the Supreme Chicken of Enlightenment?”

  “I’m good,” said Harriet.

  “We’re cool,” said Strings.

  “I believe that my client will not pursue legal action,” said Wilbur.

  “He’d better not,” grumbled the chipmunk, and vanished again, this time for good.

  CHAPTER 26

  How’d you learn to talk like that, anyway?” asked Harriet.

  “Oh.” Wilbur looked embarrassed. “Back when I was working for the mouse king. You remember what he was like. There was this guy hanging around the quail stables who was always threatening to sue people. If he stepped in quail poop, he would yell ‘I’ll sue!’ at the quail.”

  “Did he ever sue anybody?”

  “No, he mostly shoveled manure. And I mean, quail don’t even have lawyers. That was a weird place to work.”

  He looked like he didn’t really want to talk about it. Harriet recalled that Wilbur had been shoveling quail manure as well, so she decided to change the subject. “It’s cool. We’ll just start calling you Wilbur the Giant-Slayer now.”

  “So hey, Strings, what will you do now? You’re free.”

  All three were riding along toward Harriet’s castle. The beanstalk cast a long shadow behind them. Harriet was not looking forward to having to explain that to her father.

  “Well, I still want to form Ironstring,” said Strings. “But I’ll need to find a few more people. Somebody’s gotta play bass.”

  She glanced over at Harriet. “You still want to be a drummer?”

  “Absolutely!”

  “Cool. I’ll look you up when we’re ready to start practicing.”

  “Just don’t plan on a regular tour schedule,” said Wilbur. “Harriet attracts adventures like a quail attracts feather-fleas.”

  Strings shook her head. “And I thought being an enchanted harp was bad . . .”

  “Well, I’d hate to get bored,” said Harriet.

  Behind them, there came the quiet sound of a gigantic beanstalk vanishing into thin air. (This sounds like “blorp!” incidentally.)

  They rode off toward the castle and, most likely, the next adventure.

  THE END

  “Move over, Babymouse, there’s a new rodent in town!”

  —School Library Journal, starred review

  “Harriet is her own hamster, but she takes her place proudly alongside both Danny Dragonbreath and Babymouse. Creatively fresh and feminist, with laughs on every single page.”

  —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

  “A book with all the makings of a hit. Readers will be laughing themselves silly.”

  —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “A joy to read, and we can only hope that Harriet—long may she reign—will return in later installments.”

  —Booklist, starred review

  “Maintaining a keen balance between silly and sly, this sequel will have readers snickering.”

  —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

  “A quick and satisfying read that is as hilarious as it is fun. Make room on the shelves for this not so frilly princess.”

  —School Library Journal, starred review

  “Harriet is as delightful as ever. . . . As long as Vernon keeps Harriet’s adventures coming, fans new and old are bound to keep reading them.”

  —Booklist

  “Hand this can’t-miss installment to followers of the series, fans of comedy mixed with adventure, and those seeking an alternative to traditional princess st
ories.”

  —School Library Journal

  ABOUT the AUTHOR

  Ursula Vernon (www.ursulavernon.com) is an award-winning author and illustrator whose work has won a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award, and been nominated for the World Fantasy Award and an Eisner. She loves birding, gardening, and spunky heroines. She is the first to admit that she would make a terrible princess.

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