Page 7 of Break Out the Girl

Her.

Wump—ppp.

There it is. My favorite soundtrack, dialed right in.

I’m trying to match my hoof-feet to the rhythm of its funky tempo, but that funny, broken duh-duh-duh bit in her chest makes me have to skip-ball-change while leaping over the roots. Not the easiest thing in the dark, especially as the black branches are reaching out, trying to catch my hair with their wooden fingers.

Not today, Twiggys.

This seems like an occasion where an adventurer like me should follow the North Star, but sadly the clouds have decided to make that a no-go.

Follow your gut, boy.

Was that you, Nan?

Oh, there is a pull in my belly. A little golden string tied straight to my navel, tugging me deeper into the thick of the brush. Clever Nan. That’s the way to go.

Behind us, the prison air is still screaming, but the sirens are fading into a dull, rhythmic roar now. Good thing, too—my poor lugs were nearly bleeding from the racket.

As my hooves fly over wet moss, the golden string is vibrating inside my stomach. I like it. It reminds me of leaning against Nan’s fridge while she’d bake an eel pie. Actually, she never baked an eel pie—potatoes were more our speed—but eel sounds much more interesting.

One potato, two potatoes, three potatoes, four.

My lungs feel very unhappy with me. Sorry, lungs. I make a mental note to start practicing holding my breath. The longest breath ever held by a human is twenty-nine minutes and four seconds. That’s going to take some serious work to beat, but we might as well start training.

Oh. My lungs don’t like that idea at all. They want to just expand and contract in their regular, noisy fashion. OK, that’s fine. But don’t stop working until I’ve found Shane and Burt. Deal?

Deal.

A sound ten yards to my left makes my faun-senses wiggle.

Skitter-snap.

I skid to a halt, my hooves furrowing the damp earth.

Something is in the thicket. It smells like a diggery-do if it was a diggery-don’t.

A shadow detaches itself from a cluster of birch trees. At first, I think it’s a bear, but the proportions are all wrong. It’s too long, its limbs spindly and hairless in patches, its spine arching in a way that makes my own bones ache.

And its vibration is totally flipping bonkers. Upside down, inside out.

Mad as a hatter.

Like, I know that vibration quite well, but this guy?

He doesn’t have any happy—he just has cross, cross, cross.

Oh dear. I think he’s going to make me late, and I’ve a very important date.

The monster screams and lunges.

I take a leap and jump over its head-thing, and land behind it. “No time to say hello, goodbye.”

It’s not taking on what I’m saying, silly sausage. Beasty tries to slash at me with claws that look all kinds of ouchy. Not quite sure what to do, but when in doubt, dizzy it out.

So I start running in circles around the creature, faster and faster. Put me a vat of milk and you’d have butter in no time.

The funny little head on top of its frankly ugly body goes all twitchy. “Please fall over, Mr. Monster. I’m late, I’m late, I’m late.”