Then her toe caught some object so that it skipped ahead of her through the grass. Just a stone, surely. Nevertheless, she bent down to take a closer look, and to her surprise she saw that it was not a stone at all, but a shell. It was large too: about the size of her balled fist, and there were a number of short spikes on it. It wasn’t, she knew, a snail’s shell. For one thing it was too big, and she had never seen a snail’s shell with spikes. No, this was a
“Keep your distance from her, John Mischief,” the head advised its big brother. “She may
, John Serpent,” the man said. “And I mean it.”
The head made a face and muttered something under its breath. But it finally stopped talking.
“What’s your name?” John Mischief asked Candy.
“Me?” Candy said, as though there was anybody else in the vicinity to whom the question might be directed.
“Oh Lordy Lou!” another of the heads remarked. “Yes,
Then, having hushed his companion, John Mischief said: “I do apologize for my brother, lady.”
Then—of all things—he
lady
And the impish man called John Mischief, along with five of his seven siblings, smiled back.
“Please,” he said. “I don’t wish to alarm you, lady. Believe me, that is the very last thing I wish to do. But there is somebody in this vicinity by the name of Shape.”
“Mendelson Shape,” the smallest of the heads said.
“As John Moot says:
.”
Before Candy could deal with any more information she needed a question answered. So she asked it.
“Are you all called John?” she said.
“Oh yes,” said Mischief. “Tell her, brothers, left to right. Tell her what we are called.”
So they did.
“John Fillet.”
“John Sallow.”
“John Moot.”
“John Drowze.”
“John Pluckitt.”
“John Serpent.”
“John Slop.”
“And I’m the head brother,” the eighth wonder replied. “John Mischief.”
“Yes, I heard that part. I’m Candy Quackenbush.”
“I am extremely pleased to make your acquaintance,” John Mischief said.
He sounded completely sincere in this, and with good reason. To judge by his appearance, things had not gone well for him—or them—of late.
Mischief’s striped blue shirt was full of holes and there were stains on his loosely knotted tie, which were either food or blood; she guessed the latter. Then there was his smell. He was less than sweet, to say the least. His shirt clung to his chest, soaked with pungent sweat.