Hard work beats monsters if monsters don't work hard.
—PEP TALK FOR HUMANS DURING LAST YEAR'S MINION GAMES
On the way to my first-period class with my new mentor, the head groundskeeper, I thought about the Minion Games and how they weren't going to be as much fun without Syke. The Minion Games are made for monsters, but Syke always found a way for us to help our team. We'd always been teammates. But now she was gone.
It was nearly spring, and the air felt fresh and cool. On my way to Tootles's tree house I noticed new growth popping up from the ground, along with two dirty hands. One of the new zombies liked to sleep buried in the garden.
Tootles and his wife, Riga, had been at the school longer than anybody. He'd been castle groundskeeper to Dr. Critchlore's father, and Riga worked in construction, assembling many of the mock buildings that we used for training and the sets that we used for the fashion show.
They'd also raised Syke when Dr. Critchlore had agreed to take care of her after her parents died. Dr. Critchlore was too busy for most parenting tasks, and Tootles and Riga had always wanted a child of their own.
While Tootles didn't teach a class of minions I could help lead, there was an upside to working with him. Now I'd have some time alone with him to ask some questions. I had a feeling he knew more about why Dr. Critchlore had burned down Syke's mother's tree than he'd told me. Didn't he know it was a hamadryad-protected forest? If so, why'd he let Dr. Critchlore destroy it?
If I could find the answers to those questions, maybe Syke would come back.
Tootles wasn't in his tree house, but Riga, dressed for work in her overalls, with safety glasses perched on her graying hair, told me where to find him: out behind the castle, working on the Forest Restoration Project. The FRP was a peace offering Dr. Critchlore had made to the hamadryads when they'd come to check on Syke. Syke had left before work had started.
The new forest was going to be located on the far side of the Aviary, stretching out from the base of Mount Curiosity, with a narrow river running along the far edge. It was a wide patch of land, now speckled with small tree saplings.
I found Tootles planting a group of white-trunked birch trees near the river.
"Hi, Tootles," I said.
He stood up, removing a glove to shake my hand. He wore his white hair in a ponytail, and his skin was weathered and tan. "Runt, how are you?"
"Okay, I guess," I said. "I can almost imagine how the forest is going to look."
"It will be perfect. I'm going to put a little clearing in the center, with a pond. Just like Syke wanted."
"That's nice and all, but she won't come back," I said. "Not while she believes that Dr. Critchlore killed her mother. Plus, she knows some people here are mad at her because of the sabotage."
A few weeks ago, when I'd gone to the Great Library with Professor Zaida to collect some books, Syke had barely talked to me. But Sara, the girl explorer/vaskor who'd saved me from Dr. Pravus, had. She was close friends with Syke now, and she'd told me that Syke knew her acts of sabotage were unforgivable. Syke didn't care, because she wasn't ever coming back.
Tootles looked sad. "She may not come back," he agreed. "I'm going to finish it, though. I owe it to them."
"Them?"
"Syke and her mother, Karya."
"Tootles, I've asked you a million times, but can you please, please tell me what happened? You've worked here forever. You must have known it was a hamadryad-protected forest."
"I did." He turned back to his work, trying to cut off this conversation.
"So why did you let him burn it down? I know it wasn't to make a boulderball field. He could have made it right here, in this clearing. It's not that far from the castle."
"Runt, I've told you—I can't talk about it."
Why not? I wanted to scream. But that strategy hadn't worked when I tried it a few weeks ago. It hadn't worked with him or Cook or Riga or Uncle Ludwig or anyone who'd been living here when the fire happened. Nobody would tell me anything.
"Tootles," I said, "you and I know that the story you're telling me doesn't make sense. It makes no sense that Dr. Critchlore burned down the forest. First of all, why burn it down? Why not have the giants pull out the trees? They could have cleared the land in a day without the risk of a fire."
"Runt, these are grown-up things. It's complicated. Now, did Professor Murphy send you here?"
"Yes," I said with a sigh. "He said you needed help with something."
Tootles led me over to where he'd grouped the trees he was going to plant. There were hundreds of planter boxes covering the field. A few were turned upside down, and I assumed that Tootles had already planted those trees. Six boxes were upright and empty.
"Those are the ones that got away," he said.
"Huh?"
"They were going to be a surprise for Syke: enchanted weeping blue atlas cedars. They're strongly rooted as adults, but as saplings, they tend to wander off."
I did not know that.
"How? Why? Where?" I mumbled.
"I thought these were firmly rooted. I don't know how they got out of their boxes. There are six of them. I raised them in my secret greenhouse. I'm pretty sure they won't go far. They're attracted to water: streams and lakes. They're also somewhat ..."
"Weak? Slow? Easy to catch?" I prompted.
"Uh ... no."
"Cuddly? Friendly? Helpful?"
"Sadly, no. They are mischievous and sneaky and very strong. You won't be able to subdue them physically."
"What do you want me to do, then?"
"Convince them to come back here."
"Convince them?" I said. "Like ... with words?"
"Yes," he said. "As adults, they're quite charming and excellent conversationalists."
"But as saplings?"
"Not so much."
I sighed. "Should I start looking by the river or the lake?"
"Actually ..." He winced, like he was afraid to go on.
"What?"
"My biggest fear is that they've gone to the swamp. I don't want them to secure their roots there."
"Um ... you do know there's a swamp creature in there."
"Yes, thanks for your concern," Tootles said, putting his gloves back on and returning to his work. "But the trees are hardy. They'll be fine."
"I was talking about me!"
Tootles laughed. "You'll be fine too. I saw you evade a swamp creature in the hedge maze, remember?"
I did. "Okay, fine. I was planning to go to the swamp after school. For ... something else."
"Perfect. Thank you, Runt."
With luck, I could round up the trees and have a new mentor by the end of the day. A real mentor. With monster minions.
