The Tiny Curse: Werewolf High Book 2(24)

I had to outsmart him. Even at two inches tall, surely my brain was  still bigger than Astor's. It was my one advantage. I had to create a  diversion so that he didn't see where I went to hide. I ducked under a  broad leaf to give myself a moment to take in my surroundings and come  up with any ideas. I spotted something almost immediately. Rats. They  were cowering out of harm's way and it was kind of a jerk move of me to  disturb them but I was sure they'd be safe. Astor would be looking for  anything small and running around on the ground. He'd know in a moment  if it wasn't me but that moment might be long enough to save me. I  grabbed the biggest pebble I within reach and climbed to a slightly  higher vantage point then threw the pebble with all my might to crash  down just behind where the rats sheltered so that they fled in all  directions.

As I'd expected, Astor let out a yelp and flailed around, trying to  stomp on the scampering rats, but they were too fast for him. I took my  chance and ran as fast as I could in the other direction. I ran blindly,  only thinking to get away from Astor, to find somewhere to hide. There  was nothing. Nowhere was safe. My time was running out. Astor was stupid  but even he would soon realize the rats were only a distraction and  come after me again.         

     



 

The bamboo had shot up rapidly since I'd been in there last and there  were new shoots all over the place. I leapt up onto the nearest bamboo  shoot and began to climb. It was slippery, difficult to find a grip or a  foothold, and I'd lost track of where Astor was to know what was safe. I  climbed as far as I could, and when I felt as if my muscles were about  to give up completely, I found a spot where two wide leaves crisscrossed  over an offshoot from the main stalk. The offshoot was wide enough for  me to sit comfortably and the leaves provided ample coverage. I settled  in and waited for Astor to give up, not yet daring to hope that I'd get  out of this in one piece.

As I waited for it to be safe, I kind of wished I wasn't alone. Of  course, there was no way I could've told the others my plan, they'd  never have let me go through with it. I missed Hannah. I wondered if she  missed me, if she worried about what had become of me, if she'd  realized she'd been wrong about me. Before her, I'd never had a proper  friend, a girly friend, to talk about boys and TV shows, and it had been  a different sort of luxury for me to hang out with Hannah. More  precious than all the diamond chandeliers or medieval tapestries, but  special because of the rare sweetness of it. Kind of like the Special  French Toast, only not edible. If Hannah had been there with me, well I  mean that would suck for her of course. It wasn't as if she'd be able to  do anything to help and we'd both be facing tiny doom, but at least we  wouldn't be facing it alone.

The bamboo forest became still again. The rats stopped scurrying, there  were no clomping footsteps. Even the wind in the leaves had stopped. It  was quiet enough that I could feel every thud of my heart, and I  listened as it slowed down, as my body became calm. Maybe everything  wasn't lost after all. I could get back to the Golden House. Tennyson  Wilde had that video of Astor as back up against any scandal, so they  were free to act against him. Even if Astor didn't know how to break the  spell, surely he knew who he was taking orders from. We could get the  information from him somehow, or maybe the Wildes knew someone who could  break the spell on me, or even just stop the shrinking. I mean, not  that I wanted to be tiny forever, but it was better than nothing. People  coped with all sorts of disabilities in this life, being two inches  tall was hardly something to complain about once you got used to it.

I waited and waited but still couldn't hear anything. Maybe Astor had  given up already. I started to feel a bit cheered. Everything had been  seeming so bleak but really if you looked hard enough you could find a  way out of any tight spot, right? I waited some more just to be sure,  and then a while longer. I started to need to pee, so I knew I'd have to  stop waiting soon, but held out as long as I could, just to play it  safe.

Finally, I decided I'd waited long enough. I'd been sitting there at  least half the night and I was sure Astor didn't have the patience to  stay still and quiet for that long. He'd obviously given up and gone  back.

I stood up on the offshoot and stretched out all my limbs, feeling my  joints pop from where I'd seized up being in one spot for too long. I  wasn't sure which direction I'd ran into the forest, so I pulled back  the leaves that were covering me so I could figure out the best way to  get back. That's when I saw it, covering the entire sky. Astor's big,  ugly head grinning down at me like a vengeful god.

It was the face of my doom.





Chapter 17


He snatched me up with a triumphant snort, squeezing so hard I thought my eyes would pop out.

"Careful," I told him. "I have a very tiny bladder."

"Shut up," he said. "I've had enough of your talking. If I hear another word out of you I will rip your tongue out."

He didn't seem to be kidding, so I didn't say anything as he stuffed me into his pocket.

This was bad. This was really bad. The worst, even. The actual worst.  Astor had made it clear that he didn't want anything from the Golden,  and if he wanted me dead, I would already be dead. That didn't leave a  lot of options and none of them were good.

Astor's pocket had a funny smell, strong and sharp like burning rubber.  It was a far cry from the soft warmth of Tennyson Wilde's pocket, that  was for sure. I started to feel motion sick with the smell and the  jiggling around. The Green House wasn't terribly far from the bamboo  forest but of the three houses it was the farthest, and by the time we  got there and the jiggling stopped, I felt super gross.

If I'd been hoping for some sort of explanation when we got back, an  evil villain monologue that provided the solution to all my problems, I  was in for disappointment. Astor said nothing, just pulled me from his  pocket, shoved me into a box. Then, before I had a chance to even look  around, he shut the lid up tight. I was left alone in the darkness. I  still really needed to pee.         

     



 

In some ways, it was better than I expected. I'd seen pictures of lab  experiments on animals, horrific stuff, and I'd been thinking along  those lines. That'd he'd pin me to a board by my hands and feet and do  awful stuff to me until I died. Force me to inhale chemicals and drink  poison and then just watch me and laugh as my insides turned out. Being  stuck in a box wasn't painful. It wasn't scary. It was a different kind  of awful than that. I couldn't tell the passage of time, for one thing. I  could judge a bit on account of the need to pee getting more urgent,  but it might have been minutes, maybe hours, I had no way to tell. I  didn't know if he'd ever let me out of there or just leave me to starve  and die.

I couldn't hear anything beyond the box, had no way of knowing where the  box was placed in the room or if Astor was still there. It was getting  hard to think of anything besides wanting to pee. No way was I peeing in  that box, being shut in there with the pee smell, so that Astor could  find me all urine-ified, and laugh and call me some pee-related nickname  for the rest of my high school career. I needed to get out of the box  and find somewhere dignified to relieve myself. And then maybe escape.  Mostly pee though, to be honest.

I thought about making a lot of noise. Maybe Astor had a roommate and  they could find me and let me out. I quickly ruled that idea out though.  Whoever Astor roomed with would no doubt be a similar shade of buttface  in the whole buttface spectrum and I couldn't rely on them for any sort  of help. No reason to give Astor an ally in his torturing of me. I was  worried that the box might be perched precariously on the edge of  something and any sort of commotion would lead to a plummet to my death,  but in the darkness I had no way to tell how deep the box was to climb  out of. I tried jumping as high as I could and I couldn't reach the top,  so it wasn't an option anyway. It seemed to be a fairly sturdy  cardboard box - stronger than a shoebox but not as big. There was no way  I could come up with some elaborate escape plan when the need to pee  had driven everything else from my mind, so with no other options, I ran  as fast as I could and threw my full weight at the side of the box,  hoping to tip it over or break through it. In the dark, I couldn't  actually tell where the side of the box was, so I ran with my arms out  in front of me and just hoped for the best. My first attempt knocked it,  but it didn't tip. I tried again back the other direction and the same  thing happened. The run up wasn't helping, it was just tiring me out. I  tried kicking it in like a door but the cardboard was too thick to hit  through, though that seemed to shake the box up as much as running at  it. I jumped at the wall with my shoulder, propelling myself at it with  all the force I could muster up, and finally, the box tipped over.