“We’re looking for a Georgie Porgie,” Loki replied.
“Georgie Porgie?” Axel laughed. “I feel like drowning in a pool of clichéd pudding.”
“That’s the worst metaphor I’ve ever heard,” Loki said. “For your information, Georgie Porgie is the most famous Boogeyman in Sorrow. In fact, he’s the leader of all Boogeymen,” Loki stretched his arms. “Even though I wanted the worst, Lucy said he was the only one who could help with Baby Tears.”
“This can’t be.” Axel insisted.
“Yeah, Loki, “something is wrong here,” Fable backed her brother up for the first time.
“You have no problem believing there is a Boogeyman, and then you complain about his name?”
“The thing is no one names their child Georgie Porgie,” Axel said, “Because it’s a famous nursery rhyme.”
“Huh?” Loki had only spent a year in the Ordinary World, and he hadn’t heard about the nursery rhyme.
“Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie,” Axel started singing.
“Kissed the girls and made them cry,” Fable followed, laughing at this part.
“When the boys came out to play,” Axel raised his questioning eyebrows at Fable.
“Georgie Porgie ran away,” Fable completed the rhyme. “I love it,” she added.
“O.K.?” Loki was confused. “I still don’t get what the problem is. The Boogeyman is named after a rhyme, so what?”
“Well, for one if he is a Boogeyman, he wouldn’t have been described as ‘Running away when the boys came out to play,” Axel said. “Why would he be able to scare girls and be afraid of boys?”
“What Axel is saying is that in a town where we supposedly have the real Snow White, and a Big Bad Wolf, we might have the real Georgie Porgie,” Fable said.
“What are you two talking about?” Loki said.
“That all nursery rhyme characters and all characters in fables are real,” Axel said. “That’s what I partially understood from Jacob Carl Grimm’s diary.”
“Oh, come on,” Loki waved. “You don’t even know it’s his diary. Give me break—”
“And they are all living in Sorrow,” Fable seemed to like the idea.
“Please,” Loki said. “We have other things to take care of, and I’m exhausted. Let’s just focus on how we’re going to get the Baby Tears from Georgie Porgie.”
“How are we going to get inside The Closet anyway?” Axel, the pessimistic, questioned. “We are minors. We aren’t allowed in bars.”
“Please tell me we’re going to break the law,” Fable said with bright eyes. “If you give me some time, I could find the right spell to make the bouncer see us as adults, or I could turn him into a troll.”
“How is turning him into a troll going to make him let us in?” Axel wondered. “Besides, you’re not going in there anyway,” Axel played protective brother again. “No way! She is not going into a bar,” he sneered at Loki, pointing a warning forefinger up at him.
“Yeah?” Fable fired back. “So I can’t go into a bar, but you can get drunk without me knowing? Just for your information, I saw you drinking last Valentine’s Day in your room.”
“You got drunk on Valentine’s Day?” Loki asked in amazement.
“It was that Strawberry Sawdust drink, and don’t be a smartass, Loki.” Axel puffed in anger-coated embarrassment. “Not all of us are good looking and have dates on Valentine’s Day like you.”
“That’s not the point,” Fable said. “You’re underage and you’re not supposed to drink.”
Loki didn’t say anything. Playing big brother was getting annoying, but watching Axel suffering was fun.
“It’s no big deal, Axel,” Loki said. “Just let her in with us. They won’t allow any of us to drink if we manage to get inside anyway,” Loki heard the sound of boogie music being played inside the bar. Nice guitars and a lot of boogie. “It’s better to have her with us than to leave her out here with the likes of Mr. Godzilla,” Loki pointed at the bouncer, who seemed not to like them at all.
“Is smoke going to start rolling out of the bouncer’s ears or what?” Fable wondered, and she was right. The way he was irritated with them was daunting.
“That just might happen,” Axel laughed. “I’m thinking he is an Ogre disguised as a bouncer, or maybe a small dragon.”
Someone tapped the Cadillac’s window. Loki freaked out, thinking about Ogres. Fable and Axel laughed.
It was Lucy Rumpelstein, sticking her nose to the glass again. Loki rolled the window down.
“You need to get yourself together,” Lucy said in her elegant voice.
“We need to stop meeting this way,” Loki smiled. “Always knocking on my window?”
“Yeah, right,” she handed him three fake I.D.s that were very weird. The I.D.s had their names on them, but not the pictures; those were photos of crying children.
“May I ask what that is?” Fable said.
“Under normal circumstances, nerdy birds like you may not,” Lucy said. “But since it’s a crazy day, you should know that Boogeymen take their trophies very seriously.”