Amelia Fang and the Memory Thief Read online

  PA-DOOOOOOOF!

  The ground shook.

  A huge shadow loomed across the horizon. And then the biggest pumpkin you’ve ever seen (roughly as big as a small house) came bounding toward them.

  PA-DOOF

  PA-DOOF

  PA-DOOF

  “It’s Pumpy!” Tangine and Amelia yelled in unison.

  Mr. Sublime swung around just in time to see Pumpy launch himself into the air—and land straight on top of him with a big SPLODGE.

  Pumpy then promptly fell asleep.

  “Oh, Pumpy, how I’ve missed you!” Tangine hugged the huge snoring pumpkin. “How much have you eaten while you’ve been away?!”

  Mr. Sublime groaned from underneath Pumpy.

  “That’ll teach you, Mr. Sublime!” said Amelia. “And now we’re going to pick every petal and free everyone’s memories. And then we’re going to tell them what you did!”

  “You’ll never win…,” came a muffled but still-trying-to-sound-evil voice.

  “We already have!” Tangine cried triumphantly.

  Mr. Sublime wiggled his head and an arm free from under Pumpy’s weight. “But you can’t,” he said, puffing and red-faced. He pointed to the book Amelia was holding. “It’s all in there….”

  “What do you mean?” said Tangine. “We’ve read all about Scorpion Grass. We know it turns memories into flowers.”

  Amelia’s eyes widened. “Wait, there did seem to be a page about Scorpion Grass missing….” She opened the book to the Scorpion Grass section, but as she took a closer look, she noticed that the page in question looked thicker than the others, and there were purple smudges around the edges. Amelia gasped. “The pages are stuck together with goblin-slime superglue!” She tried to separate the two pages, but they wouldn’t budge. “Aaaarrgh—Lawrence and his clumsy ways!” Amelia grumbled.

  “Who’s Lawrence?” asked Mr. Sublime.

  “We need some glitter to unstick the pages!” said Amelia, ignoring him.

  Tangine ran over to Amelia and flapped his wings as hard as he could, so that glitter went flying onto the sticky pages. Amelia rubbed the glitter along the edges, and finally the pages began to separate, revealing a whole other side dedicated to Scorpion Grass. Amelia read from where the previous page left off.

  “If the petals are then picked, the memory is freed. However, for every memory freed, the picker will lose a part of their own memory…” Amelia paused and gulped, before whispering, “…forever.”

  “Didn’t you wonder why you couldn’t remember your name after picking some of the petals?” sneered Mr. Sublime.

  “That’s madness!” said Tangine.

  “It’s genius!” said Mr. Sublime. He let out another groan as Pumpy shifted in his sleep, then squeezed out a belated “Mwa ha…ha…ha!”

  Amelia took a deep breath. “If it means my family and my friends get their memories back and the two kingdoms are friends again, then fine. I’m going to pick the petals.”

  “What?!” Mr. Sublime looked incredulous.

  “But, Amelia, you won’t remember your friends or family anymore…,” said Tangine. “You won’t remember me!”

  Amelia sighed. “I guess I won’t know any different, and at least everybody I love will have their memories again.”

  Tangine bit his lip and then pointed at Mr. Sublime. “This is all YOUR fault!” He stomped his feet angrily.

  CRACK!

  ZZZZZAP!

  A jet of blue liquid shot through the air, hitting Mr. Sublime right between the eyes. He squealed, then passed out.

  “Oops…,” said Tangine, lifting his foot to reveal Mr. Sublime’s memory eraser, which was now smashed into tiny pieces.

  Small blue petals slowly emerged from the top of Mr. Sublime’s head and danced in the air for a second, before swirling to the ground to form a bunch of forget-me-nots.

  “You just erased his memories!” Amelia gasped.

  Tangine looked at the forget-me-nots that had just formed and marched over to them. “And I’m going to STAMP on his memories to destroy them!”

  “No, wait!” said Amelia, running to Tangine and holding his hand. “Don’t do that—revenge doesn’t solve anything. There must be a reason why he’s the way he is.”

  Amelia reached for a petal from Mr. Sublime’s forget-me-not.

  “What are you doing?” asked Tangine frantically. “You’ll lose—”

  But Amelia had already picked it.

  She saw an old fairy with glasses. She recognized him as Ernest Sparkleton from the fairy family tree Tangine had been studying earlier. Then a tall, beautiful vampireress walked in and kissed him on the cheek. She was holding a small child. “Ernest, my sparkling, our gorgeous little Emilbus just had his first glitter sneeze!” Then she stroked her son’s cheek affectionately. “Still no sign of our little darkling’s skin-piercingly beautiful fangs, though.”

  Ernest beamed and went to hug them both. “He’s just perfect. He’s going to grow up to do BIG things, I just know it!”

  “Oh, yes, my dark one, let’s give our little Emilbus whatever he wants, whenever he wants!” said his mother.

  Picking more petals, Amelia became lost in a whirl of memories. She watched the bouncing baby Emilbus turn into a spoiled little sprout of a toddler, and then a sulky schoolboy who had so much that he didn’t know how to be nice or share with anyone. When the other children came over, Emilbus refused to play nicely. He pulled their wings, stuck boogers in their fur and scribbled all over their horns.

  In the next memory, Emilbus’s father looked worried. “Our son’s wings are becoming less glittery every day,” he said to his wife. “I fear he’s losing his sparkle and becoming a real spoiled sprout.”

  Eventually Emilbus’s classmates from both the Kingdom of the Light and the Kingdom of the Dark avoided him like the pus-pocket plague. Unbelievably, Amelia sensed a petulant Emilbus feeling outraged that no one wanted to remain his friend.

  Emilbus stood looking out a window in his bedroom, flexing his wings. “If I can’t make people be my friends, then I’ll make sure NO ONE will be friends.”

  The scene changed. Emilbus, now a grown-up, stood at the same window, but his wings were no longer glittery. Any ounce of sparkle and compassion for others was gone from inside him. “I just have to choose which kingdom to begin with,” Emilbus muttered thoughtfully, feeling in his mouth for fangs that still weren’t there.

  The memories began to whirl through Amelia’s mind at the speed of moonlight—Emilbus standing in front of Alpha Unicorn and the unicorn council, passing around books full of lies and made-up stories of how dangerous Creatures of the Dark were; triumphant dances of glee from Emilbus and the unicorn council as the two kingdoms became divided according to his plans. Finally Emilbus stood in a dark room, utterly outraged upon discovering that Amelia and her friends had defeated Alpha Unicorn and revealed the truth about the Creatures of the Light and Dark to both kingdoms.

  Amelia’s stomach dropped as she saw the grown-up Emilbus for who he truly was.

  He stood in front of a mirror, wearing a smart outfit suitable for teaching, with a recipe book titled It’s SUBLIME Time! tucked under his arm.

  “Say hello to Mr. Sublime,” he said, grinning.

  “Are you okay?” said Tangine. “What did you see?”

  Amelia shook her head. It felt light and fuzzy. At first she struggled to find the words. Then she said, “You were right. The two kingdoms have been friends before.”

  Tangine widened his eyes. “Wow…Mr. Sublime really messed things up.”

  “He did. But that’s not all I saw.”

  “What else?” asked Tangine suspiciously.

  “Mr. Sublime is Emilbus. He was a mean, selfish sprout from the very beginning.”

  Tangine looked at Amelia in horror. “The half vampire, h
alf fairy I saw in this old book?” He pulled the little Fairy Family Trees book from his trouser pocket. “A boy just like I was—just like I am?” he said quietly.

  “He is definitely not like you,” said Amelia firmly. “You know that family and friendship are way more important than world domination…. Unfortunately for Mr. Sublime, or should I say, Emilbus…he can’t see that.”

  “I could have turned out like him…,” said Tangine.

  “But you haven’t.” Amelia smiled and put an arm around her friend. “You’re awesome and kind and a bit weird sometimes, but that’s you!” She giggled. Then she looked at the rest of the field full of forget-me-nots.

  “I still don’t think you should sacrifice all your memories,” whispered Tangine.

  “One person’s memory lost to save thousands makes sense, don’t you think?” said Amelia.

  “But what if there isn’t a way to get your memories back?” Tangine picked up the book and scanned the entry for Scorpion Grass again. “Look, there’s more about picking the petals here…but there’s a huge glob of goblin-slime superglue hiding it….” Tangine shook his wings and covered the page in glitter. The slimy smudge dissolved slowly, revealing the following words:

  The only possible remedy to restore the picker’s memories is love. But the bond of love must be stronger than the loss of the memories.

  Amelia felt her stomach drop. She remembered how mad her mom had been before this all happened, and how grumpy Florence had been with her too.

  “What if when everyone gets their memories back, the first things they remember are the fights we had?” she said quietly. “Maybe they’ll still be too annoyed at me for my memories to return.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Tangine said. But Amelia wasn’t sure he sounded very convinced of his own words. “Just please let me help you?” he pleaded.

  “No,” said Amelia. “You need to remember everything so you can tell everyone what happened here. They need to know what Mr. Sublime has done so the Creatures of the Dark and Light never stop being friends again!” And before Tangine could say anything more, Amelia quickly picked a random petal.

  The forget-me-not field and Tangine’s face swirled before her as she fell into her first memory. This time, Amelia saw Squashy as a teeny-weeny munchkin nibbling on a maggot in the Pumpkin Patch. She could almost taste the maggot and felt her little pumpkin’s joy before everything faded once again.

  Amelia looked at the limp petal in her hand as it slowly disappeared, and then she picked another.

  She saw a young Florence on her first day of school, with glasses and a spotty dress, stomping up to a tiny Grimaldi. She felt Florence’s nerves but also her longing for friendship with the little grim reaper.

  “I THINK WE’D MAKE GREAT FRIENDS ’CAUSE I GIVE GOOD HUGS!” said the young Florence, in a still loud but slightly squeakier voice. Grimaldi smiled and the two friends walked hand in hand into Catacomb Academy.

  Another petal gone.

  Amelia opened her eyes and saw a young vampire-fairy with big white hair watching her. He looked worried, but Amelia couldn’t remember who he was. She just knew she had to pick another petal, and another and another.

  She saw a group of leprechauns at a party in a sunny valley with some gnomes; a monster girl holding the trophy for the Catacomb Academy’s Most Spine-chilling Spelling Challenge; a jolly-looking vampire with a mustache putting his pen in the dishwasher, then later wondering where it had gone; and a stern skeleton teacher putting her head in a cupboard, accidentally locking it up and losing the key.

  Another petal…Amelia saw a vampire king at the Wishing Well of Well Wishes marrying a beautiful fairy, then again at the same well, dressed as a ladybug before being turned into a bumblebee.

  Amelia kept picking one petal after another. She was being flooded with memories, playing out like movies all at once. She could feel every emotion from excitement to fear, to love, to hate. But everything was becoming a blur. She saw blue petals all around her. She was picking them as fast as she could…but why was she picking them? Where was she? Why was she there? Who was the strange vampire-fairy watching her, looking so worried? Why was he worried?

  Who was she?

  And then there was just one petal left. She picked it with a POP.

  Amelia saw a beautiful, noble-looking vampire lady with tall hair, standing with her hands on her hips. She was looking at a young vampire girl who seemed to have poured goblin-slime superglue everywhere…. The room was a mess, and a cute pumpkin was stuck to the young vampire’s dress.

  Then the scene cut to the noble-looking vampire lady sitting in a make-up parlour squirting some perfume behind her ears. Amelia could feel a mixture of emotions. She could smell the perfume. Amelia recognized the smell, but she didn’t know why. She could feel the vampire lady’s pride for her family, as well as her sadness for her daughter…and fear.

  A regal-looking ghost wafted into the room where the vampire lady sat. “Your cup of Scream Tea, Countess Frivoleeta,” said the ghost.

  “Thank you, Wooo,” said the vampire lady, before opening a drawer and pulling out a tiny black box with an orange ribbon wrapped around it. She opened the box and smiled sadly. Inside was a tiny fang. “My baby’s first fang…,” whispered the countess. “Oh, Wooo, she’s growing up so fast.”

  The scene faded and Amelia found herself sitting on the ground with watery eyes. She looked at the little vampire-fairy, who smiled at her and nodded.

  Amelia felt herself fall backward. Then everything she’d ever known vanished from her mind.

  “Amelia?” said a voice.

  She heard a pa-doing and then felt something licking her face.

  Amelia awoke to find lots of eyes staring at her. Mostly because a Nocturnian multi-eyed monster was leaning two inches away from her face. Then Amelia noticed a bouncy pumpkin next to her. A huge fluffy yeti wearing glasses shoved the multi-eyed monster out of the way and took Amelia’s hand.

  “AMELIA,” she said. “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT? TANGINE TOLD US EVERYTHING!”

  Amelia rubbed her head. It felt fuzzy. She was in a graveyard, surrounded by all sorts of creatures.

  “I DON’T THINK SHE REMEMBERS ANYTHING…,” said the yeti, looking sad.

  “Oh, Amelia, you’re a hero!” said a little grim reaper with big eyes. “We’re so sorry. We didn’t realize the cookies were taking our memories away.”

  Amelia felt confused. Who were these creatures? Why did they keep calling her Amelia? Maybe that is my name, she thought.

  A vampire with a huge frilly dress and very tall hair ran over. “Oh, Amelia, darkling!” She scooped Amelia up in her arms and hugged her tightly. Amelia breathed in a strong scent of something vaguely familiar.

  Eau de Decay perfume. She remembered that was her mom’s favorite.

  She hugged the vampire lady back and took in another deep breath.

  “Mom?” she whispered.

  The countess gasped, as did everyone else. A goblin burped in shock.

  “You…you know who I am?” said Countess Frivoleeta, placing her hands on her daughter’s cheeks.

  Amelia nodded. “I think so….” She looked around at everyone else sadly. “That’s all I remember, though.”

  The bouncy pumpkin pa-doinged into Amelia’s lap and nuzzled into her tummy. Amelia giggled. “Oh, Squashy!”

  “YEAH!” The yeti punched the ground in joy. “SHE’S REMEMBERING!”

  Amelia looked at Squashy and her mom and suddenly felt so much love she thought she might explode.

  But then she felt a sudden flutter of panic. “You’re not mad at me?” Amelia asked anxiously, a memory of tiny handmade bow ties and ripped dresses slowing coming back to her.

  “Of course not, my silly sausage-skin,” said Countess Frivoleeta. “Darkling, just because I got mad at you doesn’t make me love you any les
s. Oh, my dearest, I love you more and more every night that goes by…. I just want the best for you.” The countess gently moved Amelia’s hair out of her teary eyes. “And I know you’ll grow up into the most fang-tastic vampire, whether you choose frills and party preparations or getting all…grubby in the Pumpkin Patch!”

  Amelia hugged her mom tight. “I love you, Mom!”

  “I love you too, my poisonous little pine cone,” said the countess. “Oh, and by the way, you may have forgotten about cleaning your room, but that doesn’t mean you can get away with not doing it.” Her mother winked.

  A vampire with a big mustache and a crossword puzzle in his hand wrapped his arms around Amelia. “My stinky little bead of sweat!” he said. “You saved us all!”

  Amelia looked up into the vampire’s eyes and felt even more love.

  “Dad!” she said happily. “Oh, and by the way, you put your favorite pen in the dishwasher.”

  Count Drake chuckled. “Got it, my brilliant little bum-hair! It all came flooding back to me!” he said, pulling his best pen out from behind his ear.

  “GROUP HUG!” yelled the yeti, beginning to squish Amelia and Count Drake in a huge embrace. She dragged the little reaper into the hug too.

  “Florence!” the reaper squeaked. “I can’t breathe!”

  “YOU’RE DEATH. YOU DON’T NEED TO!” the yeti chuckled.

  “Florence! Grimaldi!” cried Amelia. The feeling was almost overwhelming. She closed her eyes tight and hugged her friends back.

  “TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH!” said Florence, messing up Amelia’s hair so enthusiastically that she fell over.