Changeling (19 page)

Eureka! I pulled a curl into my mouth and studied the board. The buttons were marked with tiny faces: a smiling one; a frowning one; two winking, smiling ones (right eye and left eye); two winking, frowning ones (ditto); four with their mouths turned up on one side and one eyebrow raised; and so on and on in tiny, bewildering variation.

I didn't like the look of the frowny face. The smiley face, however, seemed inviting. I moved my finger toward it.

Changeling leaned over my shoulder, so close that her hair tickled my cheek. “What are you doing?” she asked.

I spat out the curl. “Fixing the computer. Go away, Changeling. You're making me nervous.”

She didn't move. “Do you know what kind of computer this is? What operating system is it running? Do you have the manual?”

“What's a manual?”

“It is dangerous to work on a computer without reading the manual.”

“It's dangerous
not
to work on it. Did you see those heads in the cabinet? Now leave me alone. I have to concentrate.”

Changeling pulled back, but she didn't go away. Irritated, I pushed the smiley-face button and held my breath. The fire curtain rolled up slowly. Behind it was a stage, bare of everything but a hideous browny-yellowy thing as big as my fist.

I looked at the bug; the bug looked back. It had a face like a gargoyle and far too many legs, and its curved mouth parts were busily munching something bright and twitching. I shuddered and turned my attention back to the buttons. There was one with a wavy mouth that looked kind of friendly. I pressed it hopefully.

The bug swallowed the bright thing, stretched its mandibles in a bored kind of way, and scuttled to the front of the stage. I yeeped, and the door opened.

“You got a problem in here?” the Producer asked.

I turned and grinned crazily at him. “No, no. Everything's fine. Just fine.”

“Good,” the Producer said darkly, and closed the door.

I turned back to the stage. The fist-sized bug had been replaced by a whole troop of smaller bugs. I hit a couple of buttons, more or less at random. The first one made the bugs arrange themselves into rows; the second made them march back and forth across the stage. Desperately, I reached for the frowny face.

Changeling slapped my hand. Hard.

“Ow! What did you do that for?”

“You are not approaching the task rationally. You obviously do not know anything about computers at all. You do not even know where to begin.”

I got up, sending the chair rattling across the floor. “Okay, fine. Let's approach it rationally. It's a toy theatre that runs Broadway. Where do
you
think we should begin?”

Changeling held up the Mermaid's Mirror. The silvery surface was filled edge to edge with a complicated diagram.

“I think we should begin by consulting the manual,” she said.

I gaped at it, then wheeled the chair back to the theatre for her to sit in.

Changeling studied the diagram, then punched a winking face and a worried one. The bugs formed a series of concentric spinning circles like an archery target. It gave me an instant headache, but Changeling started to hum happily. She consulted with the Mirror for a while, stared at the buttons, then pressed a surprised face. The bugs changed from yellowy-brown to violent green. She went back to the Mirror.

I was chewing on my hair again out of sheer nervousness. It tasted terrible. I spat it out. Changeling looked up impatiently. “Go away. You are bothering me.”

The Producer's office walls were plastered with posters for plays—
A Midsummer Night's Dream
and
Wicked
and
Peter Pan
—and framed drawings of actors signed with little hearts and
x
's and inscriptions like “With Love and Nibbles” and “Forever Yours” and “For the Big Enchilada.” Judging from the toothy smiles, most of them were vampires.

When I was bored with the pictures, I turned to the desk. It was piled with scripts and letters from theatre managers complaining about the electrical service and striking gaffers and slow deliveries of nectar to the concession stands. When I'd paged through the scripts, I was out of things to look at—except for the cabinet full of Tech heads, which I'd already seen as much of as I wanted to.

Beyond the desk, there was a window covered with wooden slats. I found a string hanging down one side and fiddled with it until I got the slats to raise and then I looked out.

Except when I was dangling from Carlyle's claws, I'd never been this high up. Broadway sparkled below me like a giant's necklace—ruby and diamond, emerald and sapphire. From this distance, it looked oddly peaceful. I leaned my forehead against the window and imagined what it might be like to live among Theatre Folk, meeting supernaturals from all over the City, maybe even other mortal changelings. It might be fun. It would certainly be different. I hadn't seen any trees, for instance, and the lights of Broadway drowned out the stars. The sun, of course, didn't shine at all.

Broadway was a nice place to visit, I decided. But I wouldn't want to live there.

Three different sets of lights flickered and dimmed, one after another, leaving large black gaps in the twinkling chain. I shivered and turned to see how Changeling was doing.

Over at the theatre, things looked hopeful: The swarm of bugs on the stage was a lot smaller than it had been. As I leaned over Changeling's shoulder, though, there was a sudden population explosion. Thousands of huge, gnarly bugs swarmed everywhere, their mouth parts gaping hungrily. They climbed the scarlet curtains, threatening to spill out over the control board and overrun the office.

I screamed.

Changeling pushed three buttons at once.

The bugs disappeared.

A tiny flashing light darted onto the empty stage, tinkled in an annoyed way, and exited into the wings just as the office door burst open and the Producer barreled in, looking ready to bite off the first head he saw.

“The bugs are gone!” I yelled. “Everything's okay now!” But the Producer had already shoved Changeling aside, chair and all, and was staring at the little theatre with horror.

“This stage is empty!” he growled. “Where are the programs? Where is my data? Where is Broadway?” He glared from me to Changeling, who had rolled all the way to the window. “You chiselers. Biting off your heads is too good for you. I will cook you in a pie. I will have your guts for garters.”

I gaped at him helplessly, too scared to think. Changeling rubbed her face and yawned. “There is no reason to raise your voice,” she said placidly. “Your computer is rebooting.”

The Producer eyed her suspiciously. “Rebooting?”

“Yes. I have debugged it and defragged it and installed an antivirus program. The Hard Drive says to tell you that you are one lucky customer and next time remember to back up your data. Only chumps forget to back up their data. What is a chump?”

The Producer looked like he'd been bopped in the beezer. “Say again?”

Changeling repeated what she'd just said, only with a lot more words. To me, it sounded like a foreign language based on English. I don't know what it sounded like to the Producer. He looked so confused that if it hadn't been for the gray cabinet, I might almost have felt sorry for him.

When Changeling finally stopped talking, the Producer shook his head very slowly and said, “I never heard a doll use so many jawbreakers, at that. Give it to me straight: Is my computer busted or not?”

Seeing that Changeling was about to go through it all again, I said, “No, it's not busted. It's as good as new. Better.”

“That is swell.” The Producer cracked his knuckles like fireworks. “If it is true. I know what you mortals are like. You make things up like crazy. I will test the computer as follows, and if it works, you will get a reward. If it does not work, I will not only bite your heads off, but grind your bones to make my bread. You got that?”

I nodded.

The Producer sat down in front of the toy theatre. Suddenly I was horribly sure that the computer wasn't going to work. He must have felt the same way, because he touched a puzzled-looking face as if it might bite him. We both held our breaths.

A dwarflike supernatural trudged onto the stage. “What?”

The Producer let out a whoosh of breath and ordered up a pair of tickets for
Wicked
, pronto.

The Tech dwarf trudged off again.

“See,” the Producer said to me, “the Tech Folk charge many potatoes for computer fixing, but I am thinking, what use are potatoes to a couple of little dolls, except to buy tickets to a show? I propose to you that we cut out the middleman and I reward you with a pair of house seats for
Wicked
, one for you and one for your stand-in. I understand that little dolls love
Wicked
more than somewhat.”

When a Genius offers you a reward, you're not supposed to tell him you'd rather have something else. But the thought of having to do a trade with Sammy the Scalper inspired me. I told the Producer how kind he was, and how seeing
Wicked
was truly what every little doll dreamed about, only this fairy I knew was friends with the original Tinkerbell in
Peter Pan
, and she said it was the best show on Broadway, and I wanted to see it so much, and couldn't he please, please consider making it a ticket to
Peter Pan
instead?

Finally the Producer laughed and said he'd come across with a deuce to the Pan play, and I was a queer duck, at that. But I had plenty of moxie, and he liked that in a little doll.

While he punched a couple more faces and talked to the Tech dwarf some more, I went to the window. The bright necklace of Broadway sparkled below me, unbroken and unshadowed. I wanted to show Changeling what she'd done, but She was gazing at the computer like someone saying good-bye to a friend.

At last the Tech dwarf came on from the wings trundling two shimmering discs, which it rolled out over the footlights. The Producer caught them neatly, slid them into an envelope, and handed it to me. “Here you go, little dolls,” the Producer said. “Orchestra center, with the original Tinkerbell, just like you want. If they give you any lip, tell them the Producer sends you.”

CHAPTER 17

 
 
 
Debugging the Producer's computer had done more than just turn Broadway's lights back on. The elevator zipped us smoothly to the lobby, and all three griffins were sharp and bright and solid. Outside, the sidewalk swarmed with agents waving portraits and scripts and yelling that they had to see the Producer, right away. The door griffin was yelling back at them that nobody saw the Producer without an appointment. Everyone was happy, except Changeling, who started gulping air in a panicky, fairy-fittish kind of way.

Grabbing her jacket, I kicked and shoved my way through the mob of agents and looked around. Every place that wasn't a theatre was a shop or a food stand, lit up like a fairy hill and swarming with Folk chattering and shrieking with laughter. I caught sight of a promising gap between the Belasco Theatre and a store selling shadows autographed by Peter Pan.

It turned out to be a narrow alley, paved with cobblestones. At the far end, I saw a faint, yellowish glow and scurried toward it.

The alley ended in a quiet courtyard. A lamp shed its gentle golden light over a stone fountain with a statue in it. When Changeling sat down on the basin's edge, I noticed that the statue was a large, howling wolf. Beyond it was an arched door with THE BRAM STOKER written over it in spiky scarlet letters.

Wolf plus Bram Stoker equals vampires.

Although vampires sometimes hunted mortals in the Park on moonlit nights, I'd never actually seen one. Of course I'd been taught basic anti-vampire lore: Carry garlic if you're out at night; don't talk to anybody in a black cloak; and if you get caught, don't look them in the eyes. The best strategy, of course, was not to meet one in the first place.

I grabbed Changeling and spun around, intending to head back to the street. But Changeling wasn't going to go back to Broadway without putting up a fight. My panicked attempt to persuade her was interrupted by a long, piercing creak, like a massive ironbound door opening very slowly. I looked up and saw two shadowy figures glide into the courtyard.

“Look, Honey,” one of them said. “Somebody ordered takeout.”

I wanted to close my eyes, but it was already too late. I could see and hear, but I couldn't move even an eyelash. Changeling had stopped kicking me, so I knew they'd gotten her, too.

The vampires strolled toward us. The one who had spoken was a man dressed in a black silk cloak and fancy suit. His companion was a little girl with golden ringlets wearing pink ruffles and shoes that rang brightly on the cobbles with every step.
Oh, great,
I thought.
I'm going to be eaten by Shirley Temple
.