The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories Read Free Page A

excited crowd.
    The names of the charioteers were announced as they paraded their chariots to the starting line. The trumpets sounded, and the chariots bolted from the star as the drivers whipped up the horses. Jamie watched enthralled as they rolled around the spina for the first lap, and then shouted in surprise at the sight of Don Quixote galloping onto the Circus Maximus, shouting that he was about to stop this group of rampaging demons from destroying the land, and planted himself directly in the path of the oncoming chariots. Jamie shouted along with the crowd for the Don to get out of the way before he got killed.
    Fortunately Quixote's horse had more sense than he did, because the spindly animal saw the chariots coming and bolted, throwing its rider. One of the chariots rode right over poor Quixote, and there was a horrible clanging noise, but after the chariot passed, Quixote sat up, apparently unharmed. His armor had saved him.
    Jamie jumped from his seat and was about to run down to help Don Quixote off the course, but Becky grabbed his arm. "Hang on," she said, "someone else will look after him, and I have an idea."
    She explained that Don Quixote would make a perfect man for Princess Gigunda.
    "But he's in love with Dulcinea!"
    Becky looked at him patiently. "Has anyone ever seen Dulcinea? All we have to do is convince Don Quixote that Princess Gigunda is Dulcinea."
    After the races, they found that Don Quixote had been arrested by the lictors and sent to the Lautumiae, which was the Roman jail. They weren't allowed to see the prisoner, so they went in search of Cicero, who was a lawyer and was able to get Quixote out of the Lautumiae on the promise that he would never visit Rome again.
    "I regret to the depths of my soul that my parole does not enable me to destroy those demons," Quixote said as he left Rome's town limits.
    "Let's not get into that," Becky said. "What we wanted to tell you was that we've found Dulcinea."
    The old man's eyes widened in joy. He clutched at his armor-clad heart. " Mi amor! Where is she? I must run to her at once!"
    "Not just yet," Becky said. "You should know that she's been changed. She doesn't look like she used to."
    "Has some evil sorcerer done this?" Quixote demanded.
    "Yes!" Jamie interrupted. He was annoyed that Becky had taken charge of everything, and he wanted to add his contribution to the scheme. "The sorcerer was just a head!" he shouted. "A floating head, and a pair of hands! And he wore dark glasses and had no body!"
    A shiver of fear passed through him as he remembered the eerie floating head, but the memory of his old terror did not stop his words from spilling out.
    Becky gave him a strange look. "Yeah," she said. "That's right."
    "He crashed the interface!" Jamie shouted, the words coming to him out of memory.
    Don Quixote paid no attention to this, but Becky gave him another look.
    "You're not as dumb as you look, Digit," she said.
    "I do not care about Dulcinea's appearance," Don Quixote declared, "I love only the goodness that dwells in her corazon. "
    "She's Princess Gigunda!" Jamie shouted, jumping up and down in enthusiasm. "She's been Princess Gigunda all along!"
    And so, the children following, Don Quixote ran clanking to where Princess Gigunda waited near Jamie's house, fell down to one knee, and began to kiss and weep over the Princess' hand. The Princess seemed a little surprised by this until Becky told her that she was really the long-lost Dulcinea, changed into a giant by an evil magician, although she probably didn't remember it because that was part of the spell, too.
    So while the Don and the Princess embraced, kissed, and began to warble a love duet, Becky turned to Jamie.
    "What's that stuff about the floating head?" she asked. "Where did you come up with that?"
    "I dunno," Jamie said. He didn't want to talk about his memory of his family being turned to stone, the eerie glowing figure floating before them. He didn't want to remember how