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  Bubbles and Smush

  Trick or Treats

  Kath Boyd Marsh

  Bubbles and Smush: Trick or Treats

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  Bubbles and Smush: Trick or Treats Copyright © 2017 by Kath Boyd Marsh

  Cover Background and Children Image Copyright © shutterstock.com/Seito

  Dragon Image Copyright © shutterstock.com/notkoo

  Hippo Image Copyright © shutterstock.com/oorka

  * * *

  All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without express permission of the copyright holder.

  For more information, write:

  CBAY Books

  PO Box 670296

  Dallas, TX 75367

  * * *

  Children’s Brains are Yummy Books

  Dallas, Texas

  www.cbaybooks.blog

  * * *

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-944821-98-2

  Kindle ISBN: 978-1-944821-99-9

  Contents

  Front Matter

  Bubbles and Smush: Trick or Treats

  About the Author

  CBAY Books

  The following is a short story set in the same world as

  The Lazy Dragon and the Bumblespells Wizard.

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  Other tales in this series include

  The Lazy Dragon and the Bumblespells Wizard

  and

  Bubbles and Smush: Closet Monsters

  * * *

  For exclusive and free content from CBAY Books, please join our newsletter.

  To Booth Tarkington and Seventeen, where I found delicious words, and my favorite recipe—Bread, butter, apple butter, and powder sugar sandwiches. Don’t tell Bubbles and Smush, but better than river weed.

  Bubbles’ nostrils twitched when something smelling deliciously of slightly dried river weeds bumped his nose. Without opening his eyes, he snapped at the something and crunched. Still not bothering to open his eyes, he nearly hummed his happiness. “Yum! Snacking while napping!”

  He choked it back up when Smush screeched, “Don’t you dare eat my new hat!”

  Bubbles’ eyes flew open, and he spit most of a wide-brimmed hat, the newest one Smush had woven. “Sorry.”

  “It was getting kind of dried out. The dandelions fell out yesterday.” Smush sighed, her big brown eyes sliding to the corners to look at Bubbles. “I’m bored, and I need a new hat.”

  She had that I-have-a-plan look. Bubbles shivered.

  “They’re having a party up at the school,” Smush said, widening her eyes in her I’m-so-innocent look. Her long left ear reached out and snatched the bitten hat as it floated down their river. She tapped it on her head and sighed again. “It’s a Halloween Party. I need a Halloween Hat.”

  “What is a Halloween?” Bubbles had only been to one party, the Primus Party, after Cl’rnce and Great and Mighty Wizard had been crowned. It was pretty good with plenty of food, but it had been in the school dining hall, and Bubbles wasn’t a big fan of Dr’gon and Wizard Technological School and Knights Academy. It was a kind of creepy school with secret tunnels and students who screamed when you walked uninvited into their rooms at night. And besides Bubbles didn't want to go to another party. He was not a fan of new experiences. He liked things to stay the same.

  Smush stared at Bubbles. She stared at the river. Then she lifted her hippopotamus-like face and stared up through the trees that stretched their canopy-arms over this part of the river. She finally turned to Bubbles again. “I’m not sure what a Halloween is, but I know how to find out.”

  The way her eyes slid away again made Bubbles shiver all over once more. “Where?” he asked slowly, the pit of his considerable stomach rumbling with suspicion.

  “You mean how.” Smush used both of her long ears to adjust her soggy hat so it didn’t slide off her head.

  “No. I mean where, as in I’m not going back to Wiz Tech again. Is this party there?” He didn't want to go to a new party, especially at that scary school, but he had to come up with something, or she'd make him. “How about we have a party here?”

  “Nope! We are going to the Halloween Party that Cl’rnce and Great and Mighty are throwing.” She lifted her chubby chin and snorted to show him that she was very serious. Her hat slipped down the back of her head and squatted on her broad back, half its wide brim folded under like woven knees ready to get up and jump away.

  “But we don’t know what a Halloween Party is. And we haven’t been invited,” Bubbles said, sure the invitation part would get to Smush.

  Smush paddled her big webbed feet, propelling toward a particularly lush bunch of flowering reeds. “We’ll be invited. Cl’rnce always invites us to his parties.”

  “We’ve only been to one,” Bubbles said.

  “He’s only had one. Everybody knows invitations go out at the last minute. Now stop being a stick in the mud. We’re going to go find out about Halloween Parties.”

  Bubbles headed for the riverbank. He knew he'd lost the argument. They were going. The worst part was Smush meant that they’d have to sneak back into the school to find out about Halloween. “Why don’t we just ask Cl’rnce what a Halloween is?”

  Smush nipped delicately, pulling away with a ruffled pink flower. She munched on it. “Oh, really, Bubbles. There is no way we can let anyone know we’re clueless about what a Halloween is. They know everything up at the school. We're every bit as smart as they are. Let’s take the tunnel.”

  Bubbles stopped halfway up the riverbank and looked back. At the Primus Party, a cranky old dr’gon countess had said rude things to Smush. Smush had been nicer than Bubbles ever would have been to the countess, but when they got home, Smush had gone down the river and around a sharp turn, alone. He’d snuck up and heard her sniffling. She never cried, but that horrible dr’gon countess yelling about Smush being stupid for wearing a hat made of reeds and dandelions that wasn’t proper for a Primus Party, that had hurt his best friend. Bubbles wished he had farted on that cranky countess. If Smush was brave enough to go to another party, he would go with her.

  “Why take the tunnel?” Bubbles asked, resigned both to the party and hunting down information about Halloween. “Why not just trot up to the gates and corner the first students we see and quiz them?”

  Smush gasped. “No! We have to find this out on our own. Nobody can know we’re … ignorant. You see?”

  He sort of did. At that Primus Party, Smush had stuttered and turned red when she addressed several royal dr’gons by the wrong titles. If only Primus Cl’rnce was not on a trip to visit the Badlands Dr’gons. As dangerous as that sounded, Great and Mighty Wizard claimed that the baddest thing about these dr’gons was that they had awful breath and papery dry skin, which made them cranky. The cranky old dr’gon countess was from that clan.

  Bubbles followed Smush to the tunnel opening in the riverbank, which was only half under water this time of year. They paddled a short way inside, then trotted up a dirt ramp in the direction of the school. The underground tunnel was a more comfortable way for Barforami creatures like Bubbles and Smush, whose skin needed to stay moist. But the cool tunnel turned into a creepy stone tunnel inside the walls of the school. Last time they’d used it there had been that Closet Monsters problem.

  At least now it wasn’t night, and the students would probably all be in classes, not screaming from their beds. But would Bubbles and Smush have to roam the halls of the schools to eavesdrop on someone talking about Halloween? He shivered again thinking about those scary students.

  Smush hummed as they trotted along. Her good humor was infectious, and soon Bubbles was humming too. As much as he hated change and new things, may
be this new party would have food as good as the Primus Party.

  The tunnel turned from boulder-walled and rocky-floored to carved stone and wood walls. They were inside the school.

  “Come on!” Smush said, tapping a large webbed hind foot as she waited outside the first door opening off the tunnel. Bubbles hurried. Smush nosed the door to one side and peered into the closet filled with clothes. Big clothes. Bubbles tried to remember if they’d been in this closet before. He thought they had, and that it had been empty. He guessed this room belonged to a new student at Wiz Tech.

  Smush pushed her way through the clothes to the door on the other side, the side opening on the student’s chamber. She slowly nosed open that door and peered into the large room. “Not a dr’gon,” she said. “This is one of the wizard rooms. You can tell because the ceilings are only twelve feet high. And the bed … well, actually that’s a very large bed. Huh.”

  Bubbles crowded next to her. If dr’gons slept in beds, which they didn’t, this one would definitely be big enough. Dr’gons slept in trees, in hammocks, on the ground, or on a pile of rugs and pillows. But they did not sleep in beds.

  He paced to the bed and peered at a pile of books about wizarding. “Wizard. Big one!” Bubbles said. He turned to Smush, but she was gone. Something crashed in the closet. He hurried over.

  Smush held a hat that was large enough to sit properly on her head and down a bit over the tops of her ears. “I am going to wear this and be every bit as fancy as that snarky dr’gon.” She turned slowly balancing the wide-brimmed purple and pink bow-covered hat. It was rather striking with her brown-with-white-spots hide.

  “If you’re going to borrow that, I’ll leave one of the "Borrowed" notes that I … borrowed from Cl’rnce.” Hazel, the Dr’gon Council leader, had insisted Cl’rnce start informing the owners when he “borrowed” items. Stealing was unseemly for a Primus. Since Smush had the same love of borrowing as Cl’rnce, Bubbles had helped himself to a few of the notes Great and Mighty had magicked up for Cl’rnce to leave when she borrowed. They said, “I borrowed this. Thank you.”

  Bubbles dropped a note on the closet floor next to Smush’s old hat and followed Smush out and down the secret tunnel.

  Smush said over her shoulder, “No one in that room was talking about the Halloween Party. We need a room with wizards and dr’gons chatting about it.” Using her left ear she pushed the new hat as it tipped and started to slide down her head. Her ear gave the hat a strong pat, and it settled down tighter.

  At the next door, Bubbles put his ear to the wood before they barged in. He did it, because Smush refused to take off her new hat and couldn’t quite get her be-hatted ear close to the door.

  “I hear someone talking. Loudly, and a lot.” He waited a minute. “This is a good one. I heard the word Halloween.” He sighed glad they’d found someone so quickly.

  Slowly he opened the door. This closet was lighter than most, but from the chamber side of the other closet door he heard a loud voice.

  He jerked his head for Smush to follow, but she frowned and didn’t move all the way into the closet. “Why is that person just repeating Halloween?” she asked. “Something’s not right.”

  “Something’s not right!” echoed back at them.

  They looked at each other. “It heard us,” Bubbles said. “We have to …”

  “It heard us,” the voice repeated in a high-pitched screech.

  “Weird,” Bubbles said and pushed on the door. “Hello?” he called out before opening it so that he wouldn’t startle anyone and send them screaming.

  “Hello! Halloween! Weird!” the voice said. “Trick or Treats!”

  Pushing the door all the way, Bubbles looked into the chamber. He scanned the room but saw no one. “Where are you?” he called.

  “Where are you?” echoed from above.

  Bubbles looked up. A grey and red bird balanced on a bar hung across the room. “Hello! Weird!” it said.

  “What is that?” Smush pushed around Bubbles and stood in the middle of the room. “It’s a bird. I never saw a bird like that. It talks!”

  “It’s noisy,” Bubbles said. “Let’s go. Birds don’t know anything.”

  “It’s probably magickal. Ask it,” Smush demanded. “Ask it about Halloween.”

  “Halloween. Halloween. Trick or Treats. Trick or Treats,” the bird repeated.

  “I’m getting a headache. Let’s go. That bird doesn’t know. It just repeats words.” Bubbles turned and pushed back into the closet.

  “Repeats. Repeat. Halloween. Halloween. Trick or Treats. Trick or Treats.”

  Smush followed Bubbles. “He was kind of pretty, you know. I like birds.”

  “Well, I don’t. We have a mission, and it’s not to talk with some chatty bird,” Bubbles grumbled.

  He waddled down the hall and put his ear to another door. Silence. He moved on.

  “Chatty bird. Chatty bird.”

  Bubbles turned around. “You didn’t bring …”

  The bird squatted in the middle of all the fluffy bows on Smush’s hat. “Tell me he looks good on my hat,” Smush said. “This hat is fancier than anything that cranky dr’gon could wear!”

  Bubbles sighed. Once Smush was attached to a hat, she didn’t give up. He walked to the next door and heard voices. This time he heard more than one speaker, and they weren’t just repeating “Halloween” over and over.

  He waved at Smush to be very quiet. She nodded, and her right ear reached up and gave the bird a gentle pat. Bubbles was a little more disturbed when the bird purred like a cat. But he had a mission, so he eased into the closet.

  For a second they both just stood and stared. This had to be a dr’gon’s closet. There were no clothes, but there were jewels. Dr’gons owned lots of gems, magickal ones they shared with their Wizard Partners. Most dr’gons only had a jewel or two kept in velvety black boxes. This closet was lined with soft black pillows on which sat many sparkling gems.

  “Nothing here,” Bubbles whispered. The gems made him nervous. Mainly because he knew some had to be magickal, and he didn’t like messing with magick.

  “Au Contraire!” Smush whispered.

  Shaking his head, Bubbles concentrated on listening to the voices in the chamber beyond the closet.

  “What costume are you wearing to the Halloween party?” a voice that sounded like a young girl wizard asked.

  “I think I’ll be a unicorn,” a deeper voice replied.

  There was laughter, and the deeper voice chuckled. “Actually I think I’ll be a castle. I’m big enough,” the voice said.

  Bubbles edged the door open a slice, but at the same time the door knocked into something on the other side inside the door. He froze hoping no one heard.

  But the other voices just remarked on what a good idea the castle was, and there was more discussion about how the others would dress.

  Bubbles silently slid the door closed, and whispered to Smush hoping not to wake her now napping bird. “Halloween is about costumes. Dressing up as something you aren’t.” He pointed to the hat. “You can be a fancy dr’gon.”

  “That’s true. I think these would look extra good in my hat. Just like a countess.” Smush cocked her head to one side, flipping a long ear up and sprinkling gems in her hat. She used the other ear to keep bird and hat from falling off. “What are you going to be?”

  Bubbles was so relieved to hear that they could go home soon, he didn’t argue about dangerous magick gems. He dug in his neck pouch for a “Borrowed” slip to leave behind, but he only had one left. He’d need one for these gems, plus he'd need to leave one for whatever he “Borrowed” for a costume. He felt like things were out of control.

  But what did he want to be? He pretty much liked being a Barforamous, living in the river, floating all day, and eating various water weeds. If he had to be something new, different, he really liked the food at the first party. But, no, Barforami couldn’t be cooks. He also liked when Cl’rnce came to visit and told them
long stories about everything, even about his world famous practical jokes. Bubbles really liked the stories, old ones, not new. “I want to be a story-teller.” He grinned at Smush.

  She shook her head. “How do you dress up like that? You have to pick something else. Like a knight. A dr’gon. No, you can’t be a dr’gon, because I am. A wizard. You could be a wizard. We’ll get that and more dr’gon stuff for me. I don’t think just the hat will be enough.” She adjusted the hat that once again had slipped sideways. This time she awakened the bird.

  “Pieces of Eight! Pieces of Eight!” it squawked.

  Bubbles grabbed Smush’s right ear with his left and took off running. Smush shook loose after a few steps and headed down a wide stairwell in the tunnel. She said, “I know what you can be for your costume.”

  “What?” Bubbles asked, the soft hide on the back of his neck felt like little ants were dancing on it.

  “Cook! You’re always going on about making river weed taste as good as the food at our first party. All we need is one of those apron things Cook wears around his …” She looked him up and down. “You don’t have a waist. You can wear it around your neck.”

  Bubbles sputtered. “The Cook Dr’gon doesn’t have a waist either! I can wear it just like he does!”

  “Good. Then it’s agreed.”

  The stab of pain just over his eye told him Smush had out-witted him again. She led the way down the stairs and to the kitchen door. They stopped and listened—only silence beyond the door and the cupboard they knew stood in front of it inside the kitchen.

  As quietly as two large chubby creatures—that bore more resemblance to hippopotami than any other water creature—could, they slid the cupboard a bit and peered into the kitchen. Cook was packing cookies into boxes. Pieces of Eight flew to the dr’gon’s head and settled down. Cook smiled as the bird squawked, “Trick or Treats. Trick or Treats. For the Party!”