Labyrinth Read Free Page B

light threw their shadows on the wall, huge and flickering. “All right,” she said, “all right. Come on, now. Rock-a-bye baby, and all that stuff. Come on, Toby, knock it off.”
    Toby wasn’t going to knock it off just for being jogged. He felt he had a serious grievance to express.
    “Toby,” his sister said sternly, “be quiet, will you? Please? Or —” Her voice lowered. “— I’ll … I’ll say the words.” She looked up quickly at the shadows on the wall and addressed them theatrically. “No! No! I mustn’t. I mustn’t. I mustn’t say … ‘I wish … I wish …’”
    “Listen,” said the goblin again.
    Every glowing eye in the nest, every ear, was open now.
    A second goblin spoke. “She’s going to say it!”
    “Say what?” asked a stupid goblin.
    “Shush!” The first goblin was straining to hear Sarah.
    “Shut up!” other goblins said.
    “You shut up!” said the stupid goblin.
    In the hubbub, the first goblin thought he would go crazy with trying to hear. “Sh! Shhh!” He put his hand over the mouth of the stupid goblin.
    The second goblin shrieked, “Quiet!” and thumped those nearest to him.
    “Listen,” the first goblin admonished the rest. “She is going to say the words.”
    The rest of them managed to silence themselves. They listened intently to Sarah.
    She was standing erect. Toby had reached such a crescendo of screaming, red in the face, that he could scarcely draw breath. His body was straining against Sarah’s arms with the effort he was making. Launcelot had fallen to the floor again. Sarah closed her eyes and quivered. “I can bear it no longer,” she exclaimed, and held the howling baby above her head, like a sacrificial offering. She started to intone:
    “Goblin King! Goblin King!
    Wherever you may be,
    Come and take this child of mine
    Far away from me!”
    Lightning cracked. Thunder crashed.
    The goblins dropped their heads, crestfallen.
    “That’s not right,” the first goblin said, witheringly.
    “Where did she learn that rubbish?” the second scoffed. “It doesn’t even start with ‘I wish.’”
    “Sh!” said a third goblin, seizing his chance to boss the others.
    Sarah was still holding Toby above her head. Outraged by that, Toby was screaming even more loudly than before, which Sarah would have not thought possible. She brought him down and cuddled him, which had the effect of restoring him to his standard level of screaming.
    Exhausted by now, Sarah told him, “Oh, Toby, stop it. You little monster. Why should I have to put up with this? You’re not my responsibility. I ought to be free, to enjoy myself. Stop it! Oh, I wish … I wish …” Anything would be preferable to this cauldron of noise, anger, guilt, and weariness in which she found herself. With a tired little sob, she said, “I wish I did know what words to say to get the goblins to take you away.”
    “So where’s the problem?” the first goblin said with an impatient sight. Pedantically, he spelled it out. “‘I wish the goblins would come and take you away, right now.’ Hmm? That’s not hard, is it?”
    In the nursery, Sarah was saying, “I wish … I wish …”
    The goblins were all alert again, biting their lips with tension.
    “Did she say it?” the stupid goblin asked brightly.
    As one, the rest turned on him. “Shut,” they said irritably, “up.”
    Toby’s tornado had blown itself out. He was breathing deeply, with a whimper at the end of his breath. His eyes were closed. Sarah put him back in his crib, not too gently, and tucked him in.
    She walked quietly to the door and was shutting it behind her when he uttered an eerie shriek and started to scream again. He was hoarse now, and louder in consequence.
    Sarah froze, with her hand on the handle of the door. “Aah,” she moaned helplessly. “I wish the goblins would come and take you away …” She paused.
    The goblins were so still, you could have heard a snail blink.
    “ … right now,” Sarah