Outlaws by Jen Calonita

Author:Jen Calonita
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2019-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

As Sasha writes furiously, her parchment begins to glow. When she finally reaches the end of the scroll, her words begin to sparkle and jump like they’re ready to take off from the page.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Stories must be uploaded immediately, or the quill ink loses its potency. That’s why ogres work so fast. They’ve got to get all their scrolls in before lunch or dinner,” Kira adds. “Find the gumball machine yet?”

Grrr… Heath shrugs. Logan throws up his hands. Tara is on her hands and knees looking. All I see are parchment and bottles of ink. There’s nothing here that looks like another gumball machine!

I feel movement in my pocket. Lily! She crawls out, shoots down my arm, and I let her run along a table. She scurries over to the nearest wall and flicks her tongue. That’s when I see it. A tiny hole in the stucco. I kneel down. A pink nose and whiskers pop out of the darkness.

“What are you doing?” Kira’s voice is shrill. “Tara said not to engage with anyone other than the group.”

“Who’s there?” says a little voice. “What do you want?”

“Hi, I’m Devin,” I say. “I mean, I’m…” What’s my name again? “I’m here with some friends. I was hoping you could help us find something.”

The mouse peeks out of the hole, curious. “You heard me? How is that possible? Ogres can’t talk to mice.”

Okay, I’m giving myself away here.

“She’s almost done!” Logan hisses.

“We need to find the coin drop to turn on the mirrors. Do you know where it is?”

The mouse looks at me curiously. Then he starts to retreat. “If you’re an ogre, you should know this.”

“We’re, um, interns, and we’re still learning,” I say, but the mouse still looks skeptical. “Please! I have no time to explain, but this scroll is very important—for the whole kingdom, including mice,” I plead. The mouse stares at me. “Are you hungry?” I reach into my other pocket where I know Corden packed us energy bars. I pull mine out and begin to peel off the wrapper. “If you help, I will give you this.”

The mouse taps his foot impatiently. “This is a serious journalistic endeavor we’re running! I don’t accept bribes!” His little pink nose sniffs the air. “Although that does smell good. Is it cinnamon raisin?”

I slide it toward him. “Don’t consider it a bribe. Think of it as a gift from a friend.”

The mouse considers this. “Okay.” It grabs a small crumb and begins to chew, talking with its little mouth full, which is hard to understand. “The gumball machine doesn’t look like the one outside. When a story is done, you need to put gum in the ogre statue’s mouth. It will light up the mirror and feed the scroll out to everyone who has a Happily Ever After Scrolls subscription.”

“Thank you,” I say. “Enjoy the food!” I run back to the table. “We need to find the ogre statue. It activates the mirror.”

“There it is!” Tara says,

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