Max Downstairs: Episode 12

With her small pointed teeth, the kitten gnawed in half the fat, dirt-covered root plastered across Keisha’s mouth. The root pieces tumbled to the ground. 

“A shadow,” Keisha gasped the answer to the third and final riddle. “A shadow is dark but made by light.”

Tilley’s face wrinkled into an angry frown. “Nooooo,” she wailed, falling to her knees. 

The Staff of Truth shook in her hand. It glowed a cool green.

The root attached to Mrs. Patterson’s lips shriveled and dropped to the ground. So did the root covering Max’s mouth.

Tilley Tartmore kept wailing. Long and loud. It was a foghorn was blasting in the clearing.

“You are amazing, Keisha!” Max shouted over the noise. “You are a Master Riddle Solver!” 

“Thank you,” Keisha said, spitting a little dirt from her mouth.

From Keisha’s shoulder, Rascal mewed.

“Well done, dear.” Mrs. Patterson yelled. “And well done, Rascal.”

Malvin gave her a quiet thumb’s up, then covered his giant ears with his giant hands. No one could think clearly with the noise Tilley Tartmore was making.

Poof! The tendrils of smoke holding Max prisoner to the throne disappeared. Poof! The tendril holding Keisha vanished. 

“What happens next?” Keisha hollered. She wanted to say, “How much longer is Tilley Tartmore going to wail?” but thought it would be rude.

“We show Tilley the truth,” Mrs. Patterson cried. She looked at Max and nodded her head toward the crevice where Arty crouched.

“Come out now, Arty!” Max thundered.

Arty leaped from the crevice. He held the stone high above his head. The stone glowed the same cool green as the staff. Arty launched the stone up in the air. 

The staff jumped free of Tilley Tartmore’s grasp. 

Eyes wide as saucers, Tilley closed her mouth and finally silent. 

Everyone watched the stone and staff.

The stone and staff collided mid-air. With a clunk, the stone affixed itself to the top of the staff. The staff, with the stone on top, descended, pierced the ground next to Max and stood straight up.

“Staff of Truth,” Max said, “show us what happened to Tilley Tartmore’s father.” Max pulled the staff free and thumped it three times on the ground.

A cloud of white smoke puffed up from the stone. In the smoke, a hazy scene unfolded.

A scowling man stomped through the forest, kicking trees and stumps and breaking branches. He threw stones at the squirrels and chipmunks. “Show me the opening!” the angry man bellowed. The animals scurried out of his way. A crow cawed and kept its distance. Suddenly, a fissure opened in the earth. The man stumbled. As he fell into the wide crack, the back of his head struck a jagged boulder. The man fell down, down, down to the Underside. Giant fireflies fluttered under him, softening his landing. Blood gushed from his head. Two trolls rushed to the man. They sponged his head and bandaged his wound. 

 

Poof. The cloud of white smoke above the staff disappeared.

“Oh,” Tilley Tartmore said softly. “Oh.”

“Can you see, Tilley, how we really are not the enemy?” Mrs. Patterson said.

Max thumped the staff three more times.

A lemony wind rushed into the clearing. It grabbed Keisha, Arty, Max, Malvin and Rascal. It spun them sideways and upside down and, finally, swirled them up, up, up into the Overside. The wind deposited the group in the cellar of Keisha and Arty’s house, right next to the stone garden.

Keisha ran a hand through her knotted hair. Arty clutched his stomach. He often got motion sick during car rides, and a wind ride was ten times worse. Rascal was a matted mess. 

Max stood tall, clutching to his side the Staff of Truth with the stone on top. Over his leather vest and trousers, he still wore the long robe woven of fine, rosy-colored vines. He still wore the crown of twigs with a large square stone in the center. Only now the crown fit.

Malvin kneeled to the ground. “I have to confess what I did,” he said in a quavering voice.

Ingredients needed for the next scene: What did Malvin confess? Who is Max now? What do Keisha and Arty do next?

—Barrie 

The Recipe: In the comments to THIS EPISODE, give us your best ideas to answer our questions. We’ll collect your answers Tuesday, July 7 at 11 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time) and will use as many as we can to write the next scene. If you want to, sign your first name to your idea so we can give you credit.

Come back next Thursday, July 9 to see what we wrote!

P.S. If we don’t take your suggestion this time, be sure to keep playing—we need your help to cook up a good story!