Amelia Fang and the Memory Thief Read online

Tangine scrambled into the wheelbarrow with Karl the Mummy Maid’s help. Amelia tried with all her might to lift the wheelbarrow, but it didn’t budge. “Yeesh, Tangine, you’re heavy!”

  “Hey! I’m a growing prince!” he said defensively.

  “Argh! I can’t lift it,” said Amelia, growing impatient. She suddenly felt a tap on her shoulder.

  Karl pointed at Amelia and then at the wheelbarrow. He pointed at himself and said, “Me…push you both?”

  Amelia looked at Tangine, who just shrugged, so she climbed in. Karl tried flexing his biceps but decided to stop before an arm fell off.

  Next thing they knew, Amelia and Tangine were whizzing along the streets of Nocturnia in the Royal Wheelbarrow. They passed the fairy exchange students giggling and munching on cookies. Amelia spotted a bunch of sparkly unicorn stickers stuck to their wings.

  “I can’t believe Frankie used unicorn stickers to get everyone to buy her cookies!” Amelia grumbled. One of the fairies caught Amelia’s eye and screamed, then ran into the nearest shop.

  Weird…, thought Amelia.

  Farther along, Amelia and Tangine passed a post-bat staring at his sack of letters like he didn’t know what to do with them.

  “Whose letters are these?” he mumbled.

  As the Royal Wheelbarrow turned a corner, Frankie, who was munching on a cookie, waved and called, “Hello, friends!” which Amelia thought was VERY odd indeed. She frowned. Frankie was never friendly to her!

  But there was no sign of Squashy or Pumpy anywhere.

  Suddenly, Grimaldi appeared from inside the Toad Top Hats store, wearing a top hat and holding a dustpan and brush.

  “Grimaldi!” Amelia cried in relief.

  “Karl! Stop!” Tangine demanded, and the Mummy Maid skidded to a halt.

  “Oh, hello?” said Grimaldi, looking taken aback. He then tipped his hat.

  “Grimaldi, there you are!” said Amelia. “You never met me yesternight to sell cookies for the competition, and you missed my birthnight party…. Are you angry with me?”

  Grimaldi looked at Amelia blankly and blushed. “Um, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize…I, um, I’m sorry. Remind me of your name? I’m quite forgetful.” He looked at Tangine and waved shyly. “Hello, by the way. I’m Grimaldi Reaperton. I collect dead things.”

  Amelia felt like her stomach had been tied up in a big knot.

  “It’s me, Amelia. Grimaldi, do you not know who we are?” Amelia was unsure whether she wanted to hear his answer.

  Grimaldi bit his lip. “I’m really sorry…. Should I?”

  It wasn’t often Amelia got scared. She used to fear unicorns before she found out that they didn’t shoot laser rainbows from their bottoms, and she also used to be frightened of fairies before she found out that they didn’t steal vampire fangs. However, right now, Amelia was terrified. Everybody around her—apart from Tangine, it seemed—was acting very strange.

  She took a few deep breaths and tried to focus.

  “Well, it was nice to meet you, Grimaldi.” Her voice was shaking. “But I’m afraid we must go now. You didn’t happen to see two pumpkins around here, by the way?”

  “No, sorry. But it was lovely meeting you, Amelia. And you-in-the-wheelbarrow!” Grimaldi waved and floated away.

  “What the bats is going on?” said Tangine in an unusually high voice. “Grimaldi didn’t recognize his future KING!”

  “I don’t know,” said Amelia, scanning the streets for Squashy and Pumpy. “But I don’t like it. Maybe we should talk to your mom and dad?” Amelia didn’t know what else to do, but getting help from the king and queen of Nocturnia seemed like the best thing she could think of right now. Maybe they’ll have the answers, Amelia thought. They ARE the rulers of Nocturnia, after all….

  Karl the Mummy Maid wheeled Tangine and Amelia back to Nocturnia Palace as fast as his scraggly legs could carry him. As they burst through the huge palace doors, King Vladimir appeared from the kitchen, munching on a plate of cookies.

  “Oh, no!” Tangine cried, glancing at Amelia. “That was the emergency batch I left in the kitchen!”

  “Isn’t this exciting?” the king said to Amelia and Tangine. Then he suddenly looked confused. “Why are you both in a wheelbarrow?”

  Tangine held out a limp hand. “We actually need to speak to you about that, Dad. But could you help me out of this thing first, please?”

  “Of course!” The king lifted Tangine out of the wheelbarrow and eased him gently to a standing position. “You poor little boy,” he said, touching Tangine’s forehead. “I’m sure you’ll feel better once you meet the king, though!”

  Tangine frowned. “Um…what?” he said.

  “The king! This is where he lives, right?” said King Vladimir. “I seem to have a set of keys for the palace, so he must think I’m super special!”

  “Have you lost your mind, Dad?” said Tangine. “YOU are the king. Stop playing silly games now. I’m sick and need your affection.”

  King Vladimir put an arm around Tangine, who smiled with relief. “I’m flattered you think I’m the king,” he whispered. “Just don’t tell the actual king you said that!” He giggled and chomped on another cookie. “Cookie?” he offered through a mouthful. “They’re really good.”

  “Um, Tangine,” Amelia said through gritted fangs. “Perhaps we should go somewhere private so we can talk.”

  Tangine nodded slowly as Amelia clambered out of the wheelbarrow and took his hand.

  The two of them backed away toward the kitchen as King Vladimir sat himself on the front doorstep, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the king.

  Amelia and Tangine sat in the palace kitchen feeling bamboozled. “I’m sorry your dad is acting strange too. More than strange. I don’t know what’s going on with everyone.” Amelia put an arm around Tangine and gave him a gentle squeeze.

  Tangine let out a groan. “I’m all confused, and one of my least favorite things is being confused. Why doesn’t my dad know who he is?”

  Suddenly, Queen Fairyweather popped her head around the door. When she saw Amelia and Tangine, she gasped, “Sorry, wrong room!” and turned to leave.

  “Mom!” Tangine shouted.

  Queen Fairyweather appeared again.

  “Oh, thank the grave! You remember you’re my mom,” said Tangine, clambering down from the kitchen stool.

  “Sweetling,” said Queen Fairyweather, embracing her son. “Of course. Now, where are the king and queen? The funny man on the doorstep said they live HERE. Come to think of it…how did YOU get in here?”

  Tangine caught Amelia’s eye and raised his eyebrows.

  Queen Fairyweather scratched her head and flapped her glittery wings. “So, what day is it? Wait…I mean, night…” She appeared to be getting agitated. “Sweetling, we should get back to Glitteropolis!”

  Tangine struggled to respond. “Aaah, I, aaaah, uuuh…,” he stammered, sounding like he had an orange stuck in his mouth.

  “Tangine will be out soon.” Amelia smiled, taking Tangine’s hand. “Oh!” she said, looking past Queen Fairyweather. “I think I just saw the king and queen!”

  Queen Fairyweather squealed with excitement and fluttered out of the room.

  “Okay, something FREAKY is happening!” said Amelia trying to stay calm. But Tangine didn’t speak.

  He marched over to the kitchen counter, grabbed a teaspoon and threw it out the window.

  “Tangine,” said Amelia gently. “I know you’re worried about your mom and dad, but don’t be a spoiled sprout.”

  “It’s NOT fair.” Tangine stomped. “We made ALL these tasty cookies that I can’t even enjoy because I have stupid booger-poisoning, and now nobody knows who I am. I AM PRINCE TANGINE LA FLOOFLE THE FIRST!” he yelled.

  Amelia suddenly felt like somebody had dropped a brick in her stomach. “Wait!” she said,
running over to Tangine and placing both hands on his shoulders. “You’ve had no cookies!”

  “Thanks for rubbing it in, Ameeeelia!” Tangine moaned.

  “Well, I haven’t had any, either, because of my sore fang! Remember?”

  “Yes, of course I remember! We have both been deprived of our cookie rights!” Tangine was failing to calm down.

  “PRINCE TANGINE LA FLOOFLE THE FIRST! SIT YOUR ROYAL BOTTOM DOWN AND LISTEN TO ME FOR ONE SECOND, WILL YOU?!” Amelia yelled as loudly as she could.

  Stunned, Tangine slumped to the floor silently.

  “You have GOT to calm down,” Amelia said, sitting down next to him. “Being angry and flustered isn’t going to make things any better. It just makes you get all sweaty and slightly stinky. As I was saying…neither of us has eaten the cookies. Everybody else HAS. Neither of us seems to be losing our minds and forgetting everything, whereas everybody else IS!” Amelia bit her lip. “Perhaps, just maybe, it has something to do with the cookies?”

  “What do you mean? How can the cookies cause this mess?” asked Tangine.

  “I don’t know—maybe there’s something in the cookies that’s making everyone a bit loopy,” Amelia suggested. “Do you still have the recipe book from Mr. Sublime’s cooking class?”

  “It’s on the kitchen counter,” said Tangine. “Look, here.”

  Amelia flicked through the pages until she found the Sublime Cookie recipe.

  “Okay, so the basic ingredients are one hundred and fifty grams of Sunflower Root, two spatulas of Powdered Scorpion Grass, forty-five grams of Rainbow Syrup, fifty grams of Leprechaun Elbow-Grease and a dash of Honey-Bee Essence. Then it says to add ingredients of your choice to personalize.” Amelia studied the instructions.

  “We added Raspberry and Fright Chocolate, Sweat Syrup Surprise and Belly-Button Fluff to our batches, which we know are fine because we’ve eaten all of those things before…so there must be something in the other ingredients that’s affecting everyone.”

  “Maybe it’s Frankie’s cookies making everyone go weird,” said Tangine.

  Amelia considered this. “It can’t be…. She added Armpit Sweat, Slug Slime and Beetle Brain to her cookies—nothing unusual there,” she said. “So it must be one of the basic ingredients in the recipe book.”

  Tangine’s eyes lit up. “I know. We could go and look in Loose Limbs Library in the north wing of the palace! We have every book imaginable in there! We’re bound to find some answers,” he said hopefully.

  “Great idea, Tangine!” said Amelia. “We’ll get to the bottom of all of this, I know it.”

  “I kind of wish we’d at least been able to taste one of the cookies,” said Tangine sadly.

  Amelia frowned. “Well, it’s lucky we didn’t. Those cookies are our main suspects right now.”

  “I never thought I’d see the night when a cookie was a suspect,” Tangine pondered. “Then again, I never thought I’d have a pumpkin with a six-pack! I miss Pumpy.”

  Amelia felt her heart swell for Squashy. She missed him so much too. “I hope they’re both okay,” she said sadly.

  “We’ll find them,” said Tangine reassuringly. “And I’m sure Pumpy won’t let anything or anyone get in their way, especially if it concerns food.”

  Amelia giggled. “Come on, let’s go to Loose Limbs Library and solve this cookie mystery!”

  Loose Limbs Library wasn’t only the home to the king’s vast collection of old leather-bound books about the Kingdom of the Dark and the Kingdom of the Light; it was also where old Mummy Maids came to retire once their limbs had completely fallen apart. Stray hands and feet shrouded in dirty cloth wandered around the stuffy library, in and out of the endless bookshelves.

  The head of the library, Lawrence, attempted to keep things in order. He spent his nights gluing bandages and the odd discarded digit back onto hands or feet with goblin-slime superglue when needed. However, since Lawrence had no eyes and no body, most limbs ended up glued to various books, chairs and shelves.

  “We need to look up every ingredient from the Sublime Cookie recipe,” said Amelia, pointing at the recipe book. “I remember Mr. Sublime telling me that all the ingredients he uses are from the Fairy Forest, so let’s look for any books on Fairy Forest plants.”

  Amelia and Tangine spent the next few hours trawling through book after book, wiping dripping globs of goblin-slime superglue off shelves and books as they went. Tangine had become rather engrossed in a very old and tiny book called Fairy Family Trees, while Amelia searched through the Fairy Forest Encyclopedia.

  “Why are you reading that, Tangine?” said Amelia. “That won’t help us.”

  “I thought it was about trees, but then I realized a fairy family tree isn’t a type of plant,” said Tangine. “Then I got distracted. Don’t you think this looks a bit like Mr. Sublime?” Tangine pointed to a photo on one of the pages.

  “We’re supposed to be looking for suspicious ingredients,” said Amelia. “Not fairy family history!”

  “I know, but just have a quick look,” urged Tangine. “This fairy guy called Ernest Sparkleton…Look!”

  Amelia huffed and glanced over at the photograph. “It does look like Mr. Sublime, actually,” she said. “Maybe he’s related in some way. But come on, let’s focus on the real aim of tonight.”

  “Wait…,” said Tangine, his nose stuck in the little book. “His son, Emilbus, is just like me—half fairy, half vampire!”

  “Wait, what?” said Amelia. “How is that possible?”

  “Looking at the Sparkleton family tree, it seems Ernest’s wife was a vampire,” said Tangine, studying the photos.

  “Why would they make that public?” asked Amelia. “Your dad kept you a secret for years! The Creatures of the Light and Dark were terrified of each other….”

  “I don’t know,” said Tangine. “Maybe the kingdoms used to be friends, once?”

  “But that’s impossible,” said Amelia. “I don’t understand.”

  “I can’t believe there’s someone else like me. I wish I’d known this Emilbus fellow.” Tangine stroked the picture of the young vampire-fairy.

  “Keep the book with you. We can think about this more once we’ve researched Fairy Forest ingredients,” said Amelia. “Come on. Let’s be as quick as we can—it’s really hot and stuffy in here. And we’ve no time to lose!”

  * * *

  After some time, Amelia called out, “I think I’ve found one of the cookie ingredients in this Fairy Forest Encyclopedia!”

  Tangine weaved through the scattered books, careful to avoid stray hands scuttling past, and settled down next to Amelia. She was pointing at a page titled Sunflower Root.

  “Excellent, Amelia! That’s definitely one of the ingredients!” said Tangine. “What does it say?”

  Amelia cleared her throat, removed a mummified finger that was glued to the page and read:

  “Sunflower Root, also known as Helianthus Root, is a great source of vitamin M (which can also be obtained from moon-rays). It can be used as food crops for all Creatures of the Dark and Light; it can also improve the sight of vultures and be displayed as an ornamental plant.”

  “Sounds like our vulture, John, could do with some of this!” said Tangine.

  Amelia continued. “Sunflower Root can be eaten in large amounts without any known side effects. In fact, it is said that three tablespoons of Sunflower Root a day can help one live a longer and happier life.” She paused and looked at Tangine. “It doesn’t sound like Sunflower Root is our problem, does it?”

  “Hmmm, you’re right. There’s nothing about memory loss there,” said Tangine. “What else is in the book?”

  Amelia flicked through the pages. “Ergh, I think Lawrence is sticking more fingers and toes to the inside of these library books than back onto the retired Mummy Maids!” She grimaced and peeled a firmly stu
ck eyeball off the page. “Maybe Lawrence could do with this eyeball?”

  Tangine looked disgusted at the thought.

  Amelia continued to flick through the pages and passed one titled SCORPION GRASS.

  “Wait!” Tangine cried. “That’s another basic ingredient from the Sublime Cookie recipe, isn’t it?”

  Amelia checked the It’s SUBLIME Time! recipe book. “Yes, it is!” Then she read:

  “Scorpion Grass can be found growing near rivers in the Fairy Forest. It thrives in the bright but damp habitat there. It is not to be consumed by living creatures due to its strong memory-erasing properties. If consumed, one’s memories will transform into small blue petals, which will eventually settle in a suitable location and finally take the form of a forget-me-not flower, where the memories are stored until picked.”

  Amelia stopped reading.

  “I think you’ve found our answer, Amelia!” Tangine exclaimed.

  Suddenly feeling like she could faint from the discovery and the hot stuffiness of the room, Amelia wandered over in a daze to open the library window.

  The room filled with a familiar sweet and flowery scent. As Amelia leaned out to breathe it in, she saw a couple of tiny blue specks drift past.

  An idea came to her. Amelia turned around and pointed at the illustration of a forget-me-not in the encyclopedia. “Maybe those blue specks floating across the sky are actually petals—forget-me-not petals!”

  Tangine looked at the illustration, then up at the window. “They’re both blue, that’s for sure…and they do look the same.”

  “Which means they could be memories!” Amelia cried. “Our friends’ and family’s memories. Look, it says right there: ‘If consumed, one’s memories will transform into small blue petals…’ ”

  “I think you might be right,” Tangine said. “What else does the encyclopedia say about Scorpion Grass?”