Heads, You Lose! Read online

  Ryan and I stared at him. We didn’t know how to reply. He waved a bony hand like a limp white fish. “Did you bring me a treat? Can I have my treat now?”

  “Sorry. No treat,” I said. I pressed my fingers over my nose. The man smelled like rotten meat.

  “But … my name is Innocent!” he rasped. Then he spotted a fat black spider on the dungeon floor. He grabbed it and popped it into his mouth. “Thanks for the treat,” he said. He sank back into the shadows of his cell.

  I shivered. Ryan was still hugging himself. I could see my reflection in his silver glasses. My hair was totally messed up. I had a smear of dirt down one cheek.

  “We have to think hard,” I said. “Some kind of magic brought us to this awful place. Maybe some kind of magic can help us escape.”

  Ryan nodded. “Maybe …” he said in a tiny voice.

  “The coin,” I said. “It was the two-headed coin.”

  Down the row, a man began to sing. His voice kept cracking. His song had no melody. And the words made no sense.

  The singing made other prisoners shout and howl. One prisoner meowed like a cat. The noise echoed off the low ceilings.

  “The coin brought us here,” I said. I had to shout over the deafening howls. “Don’t you remember?”

  Ryan blinked. “You’re right, Jessica. It was in the grass. On the playground. And we both grabbed for it at the same time.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Our hands both wrapped around the coin, and … and then we began to flip over and over.”

  “So maybe if we both grab the coin again …” Ryan said.

  My heart began to race with excitement. Maybe it would work. Maybe the coin would flip us out of here. Back to the playground, where we’d started.

  I grabbed the coin in my pocket and pulled it out. Holding it between my fingers, I raised it in front of us.

  “Okay. Grab it on the count of three,” I told Ryan. “Are you ready? One … two …”

  But my hand was shaking so hard, the coin slipped out.

  “Nooo!” I screamed as it fell. I swiped at it wildly.

  Missed.

  The coin bounced onto the floor and rolled into the thick straw.

  “Oh, no. Oh, no,” I muttered.

  Ryan and I dropped to our knees. I began sifting through the straw with both hands.

  Where was it? Where?

  “It’s too dark,” Ryan moaned. “I can’t see anything.”

  “Keep searching,” I said. I swatted a fat bug off the back of my hand.

  Frantically, I brushed the straw floor. I turned and searched behind me.

  I searched until I’d made a complete circle. Searched with both hands, brushing and scraping straw out of the way.

  “It couldn’t roll far,” I murmured. “It couldn’t!”

  Finally, Ryan sat up. He pulled off his sunglasses. I could see the fear on his face.

  “Jessica, we lost it,” he whispered. “We lost the coin.”

  Ryan helped pull me to my feet. I brushed off my legs. I pulled a bug off the front of my shorts.

  I shut my eyes. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream.

  I wanted to howl like the other sad dungeon prisoners.

  When I opened my eyes, Ryan had a smile on his face. I blinked a few times. Was I seeing things?

  “What?” I said. “You’re smiling?”

  He pointed down to the floor. I lowered my gaze. He was pointing at my left sneaker.

  I cried out when I saw the gold coin caught in the laces.

  “It didn’t hit the floor,” Ryan said. “It landed on your shoe.”

  I let out a long sigh of relief. Then I grabbed the coin. I held it tightly in my fist. “You’re not getting away again,” I told it.

  Did the coin have the magic to take us out of this dungeon?

  All around us, prisoners began to shout and cheer. They banged on their cell bars until the noise was so loud, I covered my ears.

  I saw a ragged man with long, stringy white hair moving from cell to cell. He stepped up to our cell door. He carried a flat wooden tray stacked with metal bowls.

  He set it down and pulled out a small ring of keys. He put one of the keys in the door and opened our cell. Just wide enough to shove in two bowls filled with gray muck. It looked like wet plaster.

  “Feed time,” the man muttered. “My last stop.”

  Ryan stepped to the door to pick up the bowls. “What are we having for lunch?” he asked the man.

  The man squinted at Ryan. “Lunch? What is lunch?” he asked. “Did you find that word in a book?”

  Ryan just shook his head. “Don’t we get spoons?”

  The man rolled his eyes. “Crazy prisoners,” he muttered. “Spoons? Making up your own words?” He slammed the cell door shut.

  We watched him walk away, swinging the tray at his side.

  Ryan set the two bowls down on the wooden bench. The soup or whatever it was smelled like sour buttermilk.

  Was this our only meal of the day?

  I felt sick. I grabbed my stomach.

  When I turned to Ryan, he was grinning again.

  “What’s up this time?” I demanded.

  His grin grew wider. He reached behind his back and pulled something out of his pocket.

  I gaped at it in amazement.

  The food man’s keys!

  Despite my fear, I burst out laughing. I slapped Ryan on the back. “Wow! You haven’t lost your touch!”

  “When you’re good, you’re good,” Ryan said.

  He raised the keys and we both stepped to the cell door.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  I didn’t realize how hard that would be.

  The keys clattered on the key ring. Ryan leaned against the bars and fumbled a key into the lock. He tried to turn it.

  “No,” he said. “Wrong key.”

  There were at least ten keys on the ring.

  Ryan took the key out. The space between the bars was narrow. His hand barely fit through.

  He tried the next key. Then the next.

  My heart pounded harder with each try. “One of them has to work,” I said. “We saw that guard open the door.”

  The cell door popped open on the next try. “Yesss!” Ryan whispered.

  I glanced at the man in the next cell. Was he watching? No. He was flat on his back, sound asleep. We were in the very last cell. No one else could see us.

  I slowly pushed the rusted door open. It squeaked as it swept across the straw floor.

  “Good work, Ryan,” I said. “Let’s go!”

  I didn’t think about where we would go. I just wanted to leave that horrible cell.

  We both hurried out. Ryan tossed the keys back into the cell and slammed the door shut.

  “Which way?” he asked.

  I glanced from one side to the other. In the dim light, I could see only the endless row of cells.

  “We’ve got to find the stairs,” I said. “The first thing is to get away from this dungeon.”

  Ryan pointed to the left. “I think we came that way.”

  We started to run. Our shoes scraped the straw. I squinted hard into the darkness, trying to find the stairway.

  Prisoners shouted at us and howled.

  “Let us out!” someone yelled. “Set us free!”

  “Freedom! I want freedom!”

  “Johnny is hungry! Johnny is hungry!”

  We ran until we reached a wide aisle. I saw a break in the row of cells.

  Ryan turned. “Let’s try this way,” he said breathlessly.

  We took off — then stopped.

  I heard heavy footsteps. The thud of boots on the floor. A man coughed loudly, a booming cough that echoed off the walls.

  I grabbed Ryan and pulled him behind a cell. “It’s a guard. He … he’s coming this way!”

  “He’ll see us!” Ryan gasped.

  “Hurry,” I said. “Back to our cell. We’ll wait for him to leave.”

  We bot
h spun around, our shoes slipping in the straw.

  The other prisoners shouted and howled and begged as we hurtled back to our cell.

  “Freedom! I demand freedom!”

  “Let us out! Let us out!”

  “Johnny is hungry!”

  I glanced over my shoulder. The guard was taking long strides, heading our way. His sword swung against his leg. He wore a loose black cape that flapped behind him as he walked.

  We both were gasping for breath by the time we made it back to the cell.

  My head throbbed and my throat ached.

  “Hurry — he’s coming!” Ryan’s voice cracked. “Get back in the cell before he sees us!”

  I grabbed the bars and pulled. The door didn’t budge.

  “It — it’s locked,” I gasped.

  Ryan grabbed the door. He pulled hard. Then he pushed it.

  No way. The door was locked.

  I stared into the cell. Stared at the keys on the straw floor where Ryan had tossed them.

  We were locked out.

  Trapped.

  The guard was moving fast, swinging his arms as he walked. He had a sour look on his face. His eyes were locked straight ahead.

  I pressed my back against the bars. I pulled Ryan beside me. We tried to flatten ourselves against the cell. Maybe if he kept staring straight ahead, he wouldn’t come all the way down the hallway.

  I held my breath as he strode closer, down the long row of cells.

  Suddenly, he stopped. His eyes bulged in surprise. “You there!” he shouted.

  I let out a gasp. “He sees us!”

  Too late to run.

  The guard gripped his sword handle as he began to charge toward us. He narrowed his eyes at us, and his expression turned angry. “You there! Do not move!”

  I felt Ryan tremble beside me. My throat tightened in fear. I struggled to breathe.

  The guard drew his sword. He raised it in front of him. His cape billowed behind him.

  “Prisoners! You have been captured!” he boomed.

  “We’re … doomed,” Ryan whispered, pressed against the bars.

  The guard stopped a few yards in front of us. He was a big man, way over six feet tall. Powerful looking with broad shoulders and a huge chest under his uniform jacket.

  He swung the sword in front of him. The blade glimmered in the flickering candlelight.

  And a girl’s voice behind him called out: “Hey, you jerk! Watch where you’re going!”

  Startled, he dropped the sword. It clattered to the floor. He spun away from us. “Who goes there?”

  I gave Ryan a shove. “Move!”

  I pushed myself from the cell bars and took off running. We ran side by side down the long aisle of dungeon cells.

  I glanced back. The guard stooped to pick up his sword. He still had a confused look on his face.

  Prisoners hooted and howled. They banged the bars of their cells and screamed at the guard.

  “This way!” I cried to Ryan. We spun around a corner and headed down a narrow passageway. “Maybe we can lose him.”

  “Who was that girl?” Ryan asked, running hard to keep up with me.

  “Who do you think?” I replied.

  “It was YOU?” he cried.

  “Of course it was me,” I said. “All that practice throwing my voice paid off.”

  The passage narrowed until it became a low tunnel. It was barely wide enough for us to squeeze through, and so low we had to stoop.

  I lowered my head and kept moving through total darkness now. I could hear Ryan close behind me.

  I stopped to listen for the guard’s footsteps — and Ryan came crashing into me.

  “Ow!” I cried out as we both toppled to the tunnel floor. I landed hard on my elbows and knees.

  The floor was wet and mucky.

  Was this some kind of sewer?

  “Jessica — sorry. I —” Ryan started to climb to his feet.

  “Shhh.” I held my breath and listened.

  Silence.

  I could hear my heart beat over my wheezing breath.

  No guard.

  “I think we lost him,” I whispered. My voice sounded hollow in the narrow tunnel.

  “But … where are we?” Ryan asked. “I can’t see a thing. Where does this lead?”

  “We escaped from the dungeon,” I said. “Now let’s just keep going and see where we come out.”

  “But, Jessica —”

  “We don’t have a choice, right?”

  “Right,” he replied. “We can’t go back. There are probably a hundred guards looking for us now.”

  I lowered my head again and pressed my hands against the tunnel walls as I led the way through the darkness. The tunnel twisted and curved, and I could feel the floor tilt as we headed up.

  “It has to lead somewhere,” I murmured to Ryan. And then I saw a patch of gray up ahead. Just a small square of brightness in the distance.

  “The end of the tunnel!” I cried.

  It glimmered like a light. I ducked my head and ran toward it.

  Was that the sky?

  We can do this, I told myself. We can find the end of this long black tunnel.

  But then I let out a moan as my hopes all faded.

  I staggered to a stop.

  I sobbed.

  And stared at the tall guard standing in the center of the tunnel opening. Watching us, waiting for us, blocking our escape.

  Behind me, Ryan gasped. He dropped wearily to his knees.

  We were too exhausted to turn around and run back. Besides, there were probably guards waiting for us at the other end.

  We had no choice.

  “Okay,” I called to the guard. “We give up.” I raised both hands above my head in surrender.

  “We give up. You’ve caught us!”

  The guard didn’t move.

  “We’re coming out,” I called. “Please — don’t hurt us. We are surrendering.”

  He stood still. Eyes staring. Back rigid with his hand on his sword, waiting for us.

  “Weird,” Ryan muttered. “What’s up with this guy?”

  I stepped out of the tunnel into a large chamber. I stood up straight and stretched my arms above my head. I had been walking stooped over for so long, my back and shoulders ached.

  I kept my eyes on the guard, standing so stiffly in the gray light up ahead. “Sir?”

  Ryan came flying out of the tunnel. Then he froze, staring at me beside the guard.

  “Sir?” I took a step closer. Then I burst out laughing. “Ryan — he isn’t real!”

  We both stepped up to the guard. I made a fist and tapped his chest. “Wood,” I said. “He’s carved out of wood.”

  Ryan grabbed the sword handle. “It’s wood, too.” He pounded his fist into the guard’s stomach. “Gotcha!”

  I stared up at the stern carved face. “I guess he’s here to scare people back into the dungeon,” I said.

  Ryan tapped the wooden boot with his shoe. “If I had my Swiss Army knife, I’d carve my initials in the wood!”

  “Don’t be dumb,” I said. “We don’t have time for that. All the Prince’s guards must be searching for us by now. What are we going to do?”

  “The coin,” Ryan said. “Set it down on the floor. Hurry. Then we’ll both grab it at the same time. Maybe it will send us back home.”

  I pulled the coin from my pocket. I bent down to set it on the stone floor. Then I gasped. “Footsteps. Someone is coming!”

  I tucked the coin back in my shorts pocket. Then I gazed around the large chamber. Several doorways lined the walls.

  I ran to the nearest door. Ryan followed close beside me. We peered into a small room. It held a ladder and a lot of brooms and buckets.

  “A supply closet,” I murmured. “No place to hide in here.”

  The next room was more interesting. It had shelves piled with red-and-black robes. “Quick,” I said. I ran into the room and began pulling robes off the shelves. I was searching for one
that fit me.

  “What are you doing?” Ryan asked from the doorway.

  “Find a robe,” I said. “Hurry. Pull it over your clothes.”

  “I get it,” Ryan said. “A quick-change act. They’ll be looking for us in our shorts and T-shirts. So if we’re in robes …”

  “Maybe we can fool them,” I said.

  Ryan pulled a pile of robes off a shelf. They were all too long for him. Finally, he found a shorter one and lowered it over his head.

  The robe had a rope belt. He pulled it tight and knotted it. He looked totally ridiculous with his silver sunglasses and his black sneakers poking out from under the old-fashioned robe.

  I found one, too. The robe was very heavy and smelled stale. “Pull the hood over your head,” I instructed Ryan.

  He snickered. “And mess up my hair?”

  “Get serious,” I said. “This isn’t a joke.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said with a groan.

  The hoods fit loosely. But they covered our faces pretty well.

  We both listened. Silence out there now. No one coming.

  We tried the coin again. I set it down on the floor, and we both grabbed it at the same time. Ryan’s hand closed over mine. We waited.

  Nothing happened.

  “What are we doing wrong?” Ryan asked.

  “Maybe we have to try it on the other side of the wall,” I said. “The spot where we landed.”

  He frowned. “How do we get out of this place? We can’t just walk out. The grounds are surrounded by walls. And the guards will be looking for us.”

  “Maybe we can steal those two horses from the blacksmith,” I said.

  Ryan shook his head. “No way. I don’t want to mess with that guy. He’s a giant!”

  I thought hard. “First, we have to get out of this castle,” I said. “That won’t be easy.”

  Ryan scratched the front of his robe. “This thing is totally itchy,” he muttered. Then his mouth dropped open. “Hey — here’s an idea.”

  I stared at him. “Yes?”

  “What if we help the Prince?”

  “Help him?” I said. “How?”

  “He wants his head back — right?” Ryan asked. “What if we help him find it? Then he’ll be happy to let us go home — right?”