Heaven Cent Read Free

Dolph pondered names. His strategy was simple: he would make a series of suggestions so awful that his mother would reject them with queenly outrage. She was good at that. Then he would slip in the one he wanted, and it would seem so sensible by comparison that she would agree before she really thought about it. She might regret it later, but she would be committed. A Queen never went back on her word; it looked bad, and she was very conscious of her appearance.
    The one he had in mind was Grundy Golem. Grundy was an obnoxious, loudmouthed little creature, fashioned from wood and string and rag and later made real by the Demon X(A/N)th. He had an insult for every occasion. Therefore he could be a lot of fun. He also spoke every language that existed, both animal and plant, and that could be handy on a trip into the wilds of Xanth. He was married to Rapunzel, who was a sickeningly nice little woman at all times except when she got a snarl in her hair. That was because her hair was endlessly long. Then she could speak almost as interestingly as Grundy as she fought with the tangle. Grundy was devoted to her, but he liked adventure too, so would probably agree to travel with Dolph.
    Now all he needed was a suitably awful list of names. Who would really turn off his mother? Well, there was Brontes the Cyclops, the huge one-eyed monster who lived -in a cave and ate people. There was the Gerrymander, who was continually dividing and conquering, changing his shape into the most grotesque configurations. And Pook, the ghost horse. But he needed more names, in case his mother was too canny to be fooled by only three.
    Dolph jumped on his bed, bounced a couple of times, then swung his legs over the side. A cold hand shot out from the shadow under the bed and grabbed his ankle.
    “Hey!” he cried. “You aren't Handy!” Handy was his regular bed monster.
    “How can you tell?” a voice inquired from under the bed.
    “His hand is big and hairy. Yours is skinny.”
    The hand let go. There was a scramble and clatter under the bed. “I resent that! My hands have no skin. They are skeletal.” Then the thing under the bed crawled out. It was a walking skeleton.
    “What are you doing under there, Marrow?” Dolph asked. “Where's Handicraft?” He now used his bed monster's full name, because he was alarmed; he inherited that from his mother.
    "He went to visit Snortimer. I agreed to fill in while he was gone. We thought you wouldn't notice.”
    “Not notice!” Dolph exclaimed. “Your hand isn't anything like his! And you only have two of them!”
    “True,” Marrow agreed, disgruntled. “I suppose it was a foolish attempt. But he did so want to see Snortimer again, and I had nothing to do, so—” He shrugged, his bones rattling apologetically.
    “Why should he care about Snortimer?” That was Ivy's monster under the bed, who had departed for the realm of the fauns and nymphs, taking Ivy's bed with him. Ivy never had gotten over her snit about that, even though a bed-bug had moved in that was twice as big and soft as the bed she had lost. She had declared herself to be grown up, so that she no longer believed in bed monsters. It was Dolph's private opinion that Snortimer had gotten out just in time. It was doom for monsters when children stopped believing in them. Dolph intended never to do that to Handy.
    “It wasn't Snortimer so much as his situation,” Marrow said. “The news circulated that he had more nymphly ankles to grab than he could possibly keep up with, and was liable to perish from sheer delight. Handy thought he should investigate the situation, in case Snort needed help.”
    “What's wrong with the ankles around here?” Dolph demanded.
    “Oh, nothing, nothing, I'm sure,” Marrow said quickly. “But it just would not do to have poor Snortimer expire from overwork.”
    “Any monster who would rather grab a nymphly ankle than mine is a jerk!” Dolph declared righteously. “What could he possibly see in