Ella Enchanted

chapter 14

THE MORNING after I left the elves, an ogre woke me by poking me with a stick. "Wake up, Breakfast. How do you like to be cooked? Bloody? Medium? Or done to a crisp?"

Eight ogres surrounded me.

"It will only hurt for a minute." My ogre (the one who woke me) stroked my cheek. "I'm a fast eater."

I looked at the others, searching vainly for a sympathetic face. Not far off, I saw my saddlebags, next to a pile of bones. Whose bones? I hated to think.

Then I realized. The elves' pony. I swallowed convulsively. My stomach heaved and I threw up.

When I was done, my ogre spat at me. His spittle burned my cheek. I wiped it off with my hand, and my hand burned too.

"forns uiv eMMong FFn00 ehf nushOOn," he growled. ("It will taste sour for hours.") I was an it -- I had studied sufficient Ogrese to understand almost everything.

One of the women spoke. I think she was a woman because there was less hair on her face and she was shorter than my ogre, and I think he was a man. She called my ogre SEEf and asked him if he thought he was going to eat it all by himself. He answered that he'd found it and caught it, so it belonged to him.

Anyway, he added, if he shared, there wouldn't be enough to go around. And besides, he'd allowed everyone to eat the pony.

Her answer was that the pony had been last night, that they were hungry again, that he always had a hundred reasons not to share, and that he didn't care if the whole tribe starved so long as he got his special treat.

He lunged at her and she lunged at him. In a moment, they were rolling on the ground, with everyone watching.

Except me. I looked for a place to hide. Not far from where I stood was a low tree still covered with leaves. If I could get there and climb it, maybe they wouldn't think to look up when they searched for me.

I edged sideways. The combatants were pulling each other's hair and biting and yelling. I was halfway to the tree.

"It's escaping, SEEf!" one of the ogres yelled.

The brawl ended immediately.

"Stop!" SEEf commanded in Kyrrian.

I took a few more steps and almost reached the tree, but the curse wouldn't let me go farther.

SEEf dusted himself off, although there was no visible difference between dusty and dusted. "I told you how obedient it is," he said in Ogrese. "No need to be persuasive with this one. It'd cook itself if we told it to."

He was right. If they wanted to fry me, I'd step right into the pan. I stood where I was and pretended I had no idea what they were saying.

After further bickering, they decided to take me with them, hoping to capture additional people or animals on the road to eat along with me. Side dishes, I supposed.

I was allowed to take my saddlebags and my carpetbag. SEEf wanted to know if there was food in them, and there was great excitement when I said yes. But when they opened the elves' flasks, they spat in disgust.

"lah1FFOOn! ruJJ!" ("Vegetables! Fish!") The ogres pronounced the words as though they were poisonous.

SEEf scratched his head. "I wonder how it can eat those things and still taste good," he said.

"Maybe it doesn't taste good. We haven't eaten it yet." The speaker was the ogre who had warned of my escape. He was younger than the others, approximately my own age.

We set out on the road, moving almost as quickly as my pony had. I had to ride on their shoulders, holding their oily hair. We were traveling away from Uaaxee's farm, back the way I'd come. I assumed the ogres meant to go to the fork in the road and proceed to their Fens. It made no difference. What did it matter if I were devoured ten miles from my destination or forty?

No one was on the road, and the hills through which we marched were empty of habitation. The ogres began to grumble.

"It gets heavier every mile."

"Perhaps it brings bad luck."

"We should eat it tonight and find more tomorrow."

They watched me enviously while I drank the elves' supper. I was surprised I could eat, but I was ravenous. I offered to share with them, but my only answer was a collective shudder.

"You might enjoy it," I said. "Perhaps you'd find that you prefer broccoli to flesh and legumes to legs."

The last suggestion made them laugh.

The youngest ogre told SEEf in Ogrese, "Maybe we should get to know our meals better. This one makes jokes."

"Don't make a pet out of it," SEEf warned.

After dinner the young ogre sat next to me. "You mustn't be frightened," he said.

No?

"My name is NiSSh. What's yours?"

I told him.

"My father's name is SEEf. He could convince you that we won't harm you. I'm not as good at convincing people yet. But we hate for people to be upset." He touched my arm sympathetically.

I felt calmer. I couldn't help it. His voice was so soothing.

"You must be tired, after such a terrible day."

I yawned.

"Why don't you stretch out right here? I'll make sure nothing harms you while you sleep."

Wasn't he going to bind me? A bubble of hope swelled in my mind.

"But don't run away."

The bubble burst.

IN THE middle of the night I awoke. SEEf slept closest to me, making gurgling noises and grinding his teeth.

Ogres are sound sleepers. I stood and picked my way over them, which was difficult because they slept almost on top of one another. I bumped the leg of one, and he or she kicked at me but slept on. Beyond the heap of their bodies, I found my saddlebags.

I tried to leave, but as soon as I crept more than a few yards beyond the pile of ogres, my complaints started: thudding heart, tight chest, spinning head., A few feet more, and I was on my knees, crawling in circles. I crept back to the farthest spot the curse let me feel comfortable.

The ogres wouldn't wait much longer to kill me. I had to break the spell now.

"The spell is broken," I announced aloud, but softly. "I need not obey NiSSh. I will escape."

But in a moment I was on my knees again, helpless and sobbing.

I tried again. Mimicking the ogres, I made my voice as persuasive as I could.

"What is a spell?" I asked myself. "Only words. I can walk away from these ogres. I can do it. No magic can stop me."

I stood and took confident steps. I was moving quickly, fearlessly. The spell was broken!

Then I saw SEEf almost at my feet. I had gone the wrong way.

I bit back a scream of rage. I was going to die soon, and I would never have found Lucinda, would never have lived uncursed.

I returned to the end of my invisible tether and battled my despair. My voice had been persuasive; might not persuasion have other uses? Could I mimic the ogres? Could I speak with their persuasive power?

For a while my voice sounded too harsh. It needed honey for sweetness and oil for smoothness. I imagined swallowing a mixture of the two and coating my throat with them.

"SSyng lah1FFOOn, haZZ IiMMOOn. lah1FFOOn eFFuth wAAth psySSahbuSS." It meant "One should eat vegetables, not humans, because vegetables taste more delicious." It sounded persuasive to me. I was convinced.

I practiced for hours and fell asleep practicing.

And woke up to NiSSh, practicing on me. "Wake up, dearie. You were wise not to leave us during the night. These lands are dangerous. An elf might have gotten you."

The image of a fierce, spear-carrying elf came to me.

"Let's eat it now," said a female ogre. "You can't have all of it, SEEf. We'll get more food soon."

"All right, if I get a leg." He held my shoulders.

She nodded. "I'll be content with an arm if I can have an ear too."

In a moment all my parts were claimed. NiSSh wanted to keep me alive awhile longer, but he gave in when he was allowed to have my neck.

"The best part," he said, coming close and patting it.

SEEf said, "I want to be the one to kill it." He jerked me away from NiSSh.

"You're..." I began in Ogrese. It came out as a squeak.

SEEf bared his teeth. The points glistened. Saliva dripped from his lips.

I tried again. "You're not really hungry. You're full." My voice was raspy. More honey! More oil!

The ogres stared, as surprised as if a rock had spoken.

"I knew it was smart." NiSSh sounded proud of me.

"Too bad we're hungry." SEEf crouched. "It would have made a good pet." He held my leg, his portion, and lowered his head, his teeth inches from my thigh.

Honey and oil! "How can you eat me? You're too full to eat -- all of you are.

Your bellies are as heavy as sacks of melons."

SEEf stopped.

I went on. "You just had a wonderful meal of eight fat ladies. If you eat me too, you'll get sick. You want to go back to sleep, to sleep off your big meal."

SEEf let me go. I stepped away from him.

"You feel tired. The ground is so soft, so comfortable," I said.

NiSSh rubbed his eyes and stretched.

I continued, soothingly. "It's much too early to be awake. The day has barely begun, and it will be a lovely, lazy, sleepy day."

SEEf sat. His head rolled onto his chest.

"You can sleep and have delicious dreams. While you're sleeping, I'll find you another enormous meal, of piglets and people and elves and elephants and horses and..."

"No hornets," NiSSh muttered from a dream.

Sleep had claimed them. They had returned to their heap of the night, again grunting and snoring and groaning.

I almost laughed and broke the spell. Who was giving orders now?