The Carnivorous Lettuce Competition

CHAPTER 1

A week after the Bestial Revolution, Quibbletown had returned to its usual unhealthy rhythm—that fragile equilibrium between magical catastrophe and municipal negligence, where citizens managed to simultaneously grumble about the howling of the singing sewers and shudder with anxiety if they ever went silent. The narrow streets, tangled like the thoughts of an absent-minded wizard, were clogged with manure carts. Their steam rose with the same deceptive dignity as a street vendor praising a "barely used" magic wand. The streetlamps flickered in violet, maintaining the illusion that they hadn't gone out for hours the previous day due to a scheduled replacement of their eternity. The sewer system performed something halfway between a hymn and a grievance against an ex-wife. The air carried the bitter scent of ozone, burnt toast, and that specific nervousness that grips the city whenever the troll delegation starts counting the days.

Six days and eleven hours until the pumpkin invasion. The calculation was Granite's, who had hidden a miniature hourglass in his inner pocket, shaking it every hour with the same dismal routine of a clerk ticking off the days until the end of his vacation.

In the back room of The Crooked Spell Tavern—an establishment masquerading as a teahouse to the world, while serving its inner circle as a safe house and a storage unit for stray illusions—sat four conspirators and one Dragonling. The space was so cramped that whenever Granite stood up, he risked disrupting the silencing spell affixed to the ceiling. Felix, whose glasses looked unnaturally farsighted today, had assembled a scale model of the main square out of crumbs, corks, and two spent magic crystals whose origins Mira stubbornly kept to herself.

"The pumpkin," Felix announced, pointing to a lemon-yellow cork in the center of the model, "could appear from the north along the river, through the city gates, or, if bad omens follow us, directly in The Old Square. My money is on the gates."

"I don't bet," interrupted Mira, who sat with her back to the door out of professional habit. "I plan."

"And what are you planning?" Willy asked.

His hair this morning resembled a nest where a pigeon had not only failed at architecture but had evidently invited friends over for a joint demolition. On his shoulder, the Dragonling—nameless and bearing a scorched copper badge it flatly refused to return—was chewing on a piece of smoked cheese with intense concentration.

"I plan to uncover who is pulling the strings of The Third Councilor," Mira said, "before the pumpkins decide for me."

Tibbles, who had arrived an hour earlier with three invisible cats and a mood balancing on the edge of eccentricity, remarked in a voice that skipped pitches like an unstable staircase:

"Sir Fluffington is outraged that you call her 'The Third Councilor.' She is a stickler for terminology and suggests 'that scoundrel whose name the universe refuses to remember.' The second cat agrees. The third has no opinion—she never does. I'm beginning to suspect the third cat is a metaphor."

"Sir Fluffington makes a fair point," Archibald chimed in from the rim of a teacup. He carefully removed a crumb with his beak, disturbed by its unaesthetic placement. "But 'scoundrel' sounds far too weak. I propose 'an outrageous specimen who probably irons his robes with a spell,' considering the guild strictly forbids ironing without a Form Nine-E."

The Dragonling puffed a thin pillar of smoke of a color somewhere between green and offended, then went back to its cheese.

At that moment, the door creaked in the particular way that, in Quibbletown, heralded either a crisis or an unpaid bill. Granite entered. Despite the inconvenience of tilting his head at a nineteen-degree angle to avoid snagging the silencing spell, he filled the room with the presence of a mountain range.

"Six days," he rumbled. "Ten hours. Fifty-three minutes."

"You're forty seconds late," Archibald noted.

Granite gave him a stony glare—not exactly an insult, but a reminder that the pigeons in Quibbletown were now a sentient race and answered to the law. He pulled out his notepad—a bulky tome that looked exhausted from frequent and ruthless use—and touched his pencil to the page.

"Fine for criticizing troll punctuality," he announced. "One goat. Subject to review."

Archibald bristled, and two feathers fluttered aside in a dramatic gesture that had become his calling card. He didn't get the chance to reply because Felix, having paled to the color of his lenses, pointed at the window.

"We have a postman," Felix said. "Carrying a notice. That's a bad omen."

In Quibbletown, notices were delivered via a peculiar brand of magical scrolls. If ignored, they would begin stalking the recipient—a rule introduced after an incident where a fine tailed the city clerk into the bathhouse and began reciting his infractions to an inappropriate audience.

The scroll slid under the door with mild disappointment, cracked open down the middle, and distinctly announced:

"The Great Magical Gardening Competition, proclaimed by the United City Council, in conjunction with the Mages Guild and under the patronage of the reinstated Department of Cultural Activity. In six days, at the main square. All varieties of magical flora are eligible, including—for the first time in history—the 'Pumpkins' category, officially recognized following a proposal by an anonymous donor."

The scroll fell silent, as if pondering something, and added more softly:

"The anonymous donor has also provided the prize fund."

A silence descended, so profound that even the ambient noises felt out of place.

"Six days," Felix said.

"Six days," Mira repeated.

"Pumpkin. Category. New," Granite stated, each word costing him visible agony.

The Dragonling lifted its head and snorted a little cloud of smoke, which briefly took the shape of a small pumpkin or perhaps a startled mayoral clerk.

"This isn't a competition," Mira concluded. "It's a smokescreen."

"Exactly," Archibald croaked. Realizing he had used a word he typically disdained, he added, "That is to say, I align myself with Mira's professional suspicions with my utmost academic respect and without a drop of sarcasm."

"An anonymous donor," Felix murmured. "In Quibbletown? Out of the question."

In this city, anonymous donors were about as common as selfless parking inspectors. They only appeared on official coats of arms that no one understood. When someone funded a competition anonymously, ten times out of ten it turned out they harbored political ambitions, religious manias, or—most frequently—an ancient grudge over a soup recipe that had won an award two decades ago.

"Tibbles," Mira cut in with businesslike sharpness, "it's time to separate the silence from the busywork. Does Sir Fluffington know anything about this competition?"

Tibbles half-closed his eyes and tilted his head. He listened to three invisible voices, then looked at the others with mild disappointment.

"Sir Fluffington says the scoundrel's trail had been cold for five days. Since last night, however, it's warm." He paused. "And it smells like pumpkin."

"Wonderful."

"I," Willy spoke up, "think we should enter the competition."

Everyone stared at him.

In the narrative voice of Quibbletown, there existed a specific measure of silence known by the city's chroniclers as a "Quibbletown second." It lasted approximately three ordinary seconds, filled with such concentrated collective skepticism that time itself began to apologize for passing by.

"Listen," Willy fired off, before Mira could interrupt him with one of those expressions of hers that killed any thought in its infancy. "If someone is trying to sneak something into the city under the guise of gardening, we can't just watch from the sidelines. Mrs. Pickleton already asked me to help with her lettuces—they're wilting, she's on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and the competition is in six days. If I get into her garden, I'll be right on the playing field. If I stir up enough chaos, our anonymous donor will have to deal with me instead of hatching their schemes."

"That," Archibald interjected, "is the first strategically sound thought I've ever heard from you."

"That," Granite added, "sounds like at least four fines."

"That," Mira noted slowly, with the intonation of a professional gambler realizing their opponent has accidentally revealed their hand, "isn't bad. Wait." She looked at Willy with a mix of astonishment and reluctant approval. "Who are you, and what have you done with Willy Spellburn?"

"I'm tired of apologizing," Willy replied. His voice sounded more confident than he had anticipated, and for a moment, he surprised himself. "Last month, during The Parking Meter Incident, I realized something. The chaos I manage to create isn't a mistake. It's a tool. The guilds insist on order because they can control it. Chaos, however, slips right through their fingers." He took a breath. "Mrs. Pickleton wants a boost for her lettuces. She's going to get it."

The Dragonling puffed an approving stream of smoke in a color that suggested either pride or a peculiar digestive reaction to a portion of smoked cheese.

"So be it," Mira snapped decisively. "Willy, take on the lettuces. I'm going after the pumpkin trail. Tibbles—to the Council. Felix—to the market. Archibald—to the pigeons."

Granite raised his pencil.

"I won't ask what my task is," he said. "I know it."

"Fines?" Willy asked.

"Fines," Granite confirmed. "Preventative." He stated it with the same stony triumph with which he might announce the end of the world.

An hour later, Willy stood in the yard of Mrs. Pickleton—an elderly witch with eyes resembling dried raisins. Her voice was so harsh that, three weeks prior, she had levied two fines against her own kitchen wall for lacking sufficient deference. Behind him, Archibald perched on a rusted fence with a dignity indigenous only to a fowl that had survived the Feline Revolution with its ego intact. On Willy's shoulder, the Dragonling surveyed the wilting crops with an interest hovering somewhere between sympathy and scoping out a potential snack.

The lettuces looked pitiful. Mrs. Pickleton was renowned in Quibbletown for a harvest that didn't just sing but performed a three-part chorale, ending with a slightly indecent cadence copied from the sheet music of a dubious, insolvent bard. This year, however, the leaves hung like bedsheets forgotten in the rain. The lead lettuce let out a sound resembling the wheeze of an old concierge before her first cigarette.

"Spellburn," Mrs. Pickleton barked without turning her head. She gripped her staff—adorned with ceramic zucchini bearing aggressive expressions—with a strength unexpected for her age. "Tell me you have a plan."

"I do," Willy replied. Then, because honesty sometimes ambushed him at inappropriate moments, he added, "In the broadest sense of the word."

"Spellburn!"

"Look," he continued. "You've tried everything. The vitality spell turned them yellow. The ancient potion led to complaints from the sewer system. You read them poetry, and one even laughed in your face. Right?"

"How do you know that?"

"In Quibbletown," Archibald chimed in from the fence, "gossip travels faster than a magical missive. And it comes out cheaper."

"Their problem isn't a disease," Willy said. "They lack a boost. You said it yourself yesterday."

"A boost," Mrs. Pickleton repeated slowly, with the tone of an elderly relative warning that the next broken item will be paid for in organs.

"Mrs. Pickleton." Willy looked at the lettuces, then at his magic wand. He realized his hands weren't shaking. It was a novel sensation. "The stakes in this competition are bigger than your prize. The city is in danger. I can't explain everything right now, but I need to act rashly. We'll all benefit from this."

She stared at him for a long time. Something flickered in her eyes—perhaps sympathy, or perhaps pure arithmetic. In Quibbletown, the two often overlapped.

"If you destroy them," she said heavily, "I'll turn you into compost."

"Understood."

"If you improve them in a way that shames me, I'll turn you into a compost bin. It's worse. Bins have much more time for reflection and regret."

"Understood."

"Proceed."

Willy closed his eyes. He had spent the last seven nights in Felix's back room, absorbed in an old book Tibbles had smuggled out of the Council's archives. Its author—an anonymous mage—had developed a theory that chaos wasn't a defect but a specific form of energy. The spell Willy found didn't feature in the usual catalogs for growth or healing. It was for momentum. A powerful thrust that cared nothing for the final destination, so long as the target was propelled into action at lightning speed.

He gripped his cheap, slightly crooked wand, which the street vendor had sworn was "barely used." Willy loved it precisely because of that dishonesty.

"Chaos maximus," he whispered, and just as Mrs. Pickleton opened her mouth to object to the phrasing, he added more loudly, "Vegetus minimus regallus!"

The ground beneath the lettuces trembled. Then trembled again.

Then, with a sound like the uncorking of a bottle of vintage magical wine, accompanied by a disgruntled chorus of baritones, the lettuces stood up. They didn't grow. They simply straightened themselves out. With dignity. With intent. With palpable irritability.

The first—the largest among them—opened a facsimile of a mouth and emitted a sound. It wasn't a song. It sounded more like a warning growl.

The noise resembled the groan of a culinary critic who had ordered a gourmet salad, only to be served a scorched wizard in crumpled robes. Willy would later name the creature Toothy.

"Spellburn," Mrs. Pickleton uttered.

"That," Archibald called out from the fence with the tone of a man who had just won a bet against himself, "was a mistake."

Toothy extended a leaf the size of a barn door and grabbed Willy by his robes. It hoisted him three feet off the ground with the delicacy of a hunter scooping up a rabbit—not out of malice, but with a businesslike air, as if merely checking the texture of the fabric before deciding whether the prey was worth it.

"I can," muttered the dangling Willy, "explain."

"No," Mrs. Pickleton cut in, adopting that specific calmness that overcomes Quibbletown mages a second before they start slinging spells that will be talked about for the next three winters. "You cannot."

The crowd gathered with the speed at which crowds in Quibbletown always formed—instantaneously, and armed with a slew of inappropriate suggestions. Mr. Fuzzlebert, whose beard served as historical proof that in this city, every magical drama eventually degenerated into facial hair, attempted a sleeping spell. As a result, Toothy, without letting go of Willy, leaned down rhythmically and tried to eat him. Fuzzlebert's beard survived but was restyled into a cut he would later describe to his wife as "vegetable butcher rustic."

Prudence Puffin, the petite witch with the basket of muffins, observed the scene while chewing on one of her own baked goods.

"This is simultaneously delightful and potentially lethal," she noted with the professional curiosity of someone who had studied explosives long enough to know the difference.

Then she tossed a muffin—not to help, since no one could be saved by her baking, but purely out of habit. The muffin detonated into a cloud of pink glitter. Mr. Fuzzlebert slowly wiped his glasses with the expression of a man whose faith in the universe had thoroughly evaporated.

Basalt, one of the younger trolls in the rocky delegation, evaluated the situation with the same restrained disapproval that Granite usually reserved for reviewing forms. He threw a rock. The projectile bounced off Toothy's leaves like a brick wall, ricocheted back with pedagogical precision, and struck Basalt right on the forehead. The troll sat down on the cobblestones with a low, thoughtful rumble, which in his dialect meant: "There will be a form for this."

At that moment, the Dragonling, perched on Willy's shoulder, decided the situation had spun out of control. It took flight—its movement somewhere between functional gliding and a furious denial of gravity—and lightly singed the edge of one of Toothy's leaves.

Toothy looked at it in sheer astonishment.

"Down," the Dragonling hissed.

Exactly that word. In Draconic, of course, but the meaning was perfectly clear to anyone who knew how to read smoke: "Down, or you're going to be roasted."

Toothy returned Willy to the ground with an almost polite carefulness.

"Thank you," Willy said.

The Dragonling landed back on his shoulder and resumed chewing on the piece of Toothy it had bitten off during the "confiscation."

Right then, Granite arrived.

He lumbered onto the scene with the sluggishness of a geological era that had decided today was the day for bookkeeping. He pulled out his notepad. His pencil. He examined the lettuces with the scrutiny of a man who had seen stranger things, but never without the proper paperwork.

"Article seventy-two, paragraph four," he recited. "Unlicensed incitement of aggressive flora in a residential zone. Fine: five goats." He paused. "Article seventy-two, paragraph five. Said flora traveling on a public thoroughfare without a warning sign. Six goats." He glanced at Archibald. "Article eighty-eight. Unlicensed use of feathered fauna as aerial artillery. This fine is applied automatically in any case involving Wilfred Spellburn. Seventeen goats."

"I was not used!" Archibald bristled indignantly.

"Preventative," Granite replied.

"Please note for the record," Archibald said, using the voice of a lawyer entirely out of arguments but whose dignity demanded a presence, "that pigeon citizens are entitled to defense when preventative sanctions are imposed."

"Noted," Granite said, without writing anything down. "Fine for abuse of civil rights: two goats."

The crowd began to disperse toward the main square. The lettuces, spearheaded by Toothy, were marching in that direction with a single-mindedness quite unfitting for vegetables. They had clearly decided that this yard was too small for their ambitions. They left behind a faint green trail on the cobblestones, some dirt, and one squashed magical muffin, which erupted into a cloud of fine pink particles a short while later.

"Wilfred," Mrs. Pickleton materialized suddenly, displaying that specific agility veteran mages develop toward the twilight of their careers. "Six days until the competition. Six."

"I know," Willy mumbled.

"And my lettuces just marched off toward the square."

"I know."

"In front of the entire city."

"I know."

"Wilfred Spellburn."

"Yes, Mrs. Pickleton?"

"You are going to chase them down. You are going to bring them back. And you are going to make them worthy of victory. Or else I'll be seeing you in a flowerpot at the square." She pondered for a moment. "A large flowerpot. With a sign reading: 'Warning: Former Wizard.'"

"Understood."

"Proceed."

Willy took off running. Archibald soared above him with a feathery dignity, maintained despite the specks of compost clinging to his wings after his collision with reality. The Dragonling landed on his left shoulder and puffed a soothing stream of smoke. For the first time in days, Willy felt something he might call "confidence"—though in Quibbletown, that word was usually followed by "premature."

Behind him, Mrs. Pickleton was directing something at the sky that wasn't exactly a prayer, nor a curse, but contained the words "compost" and "masterpiece" in an alarmingly balanced proportion.

As Willy rounded the corner, a streetlamp flickered. On the edge of the roof, sitting in a perfectly motionless pose, was a pigeon. It wasn't glowing—at least not visibly. But in its eyes gleamed that specific gloss which, in Quibbletown, everyone knew meant one thing: I am recording.

This wasn't Archibald. Nor was it Sir Percival. It wasn't even a member of The Syndicate of Intelligent Pigeons, whose feathers, according to the latest regulations, had to imitate a lawyer's wig.

This pigeon's feathers were unsettlingly neat. And in Quibbletown, that was the most suspicious thing a bird could afford to be.

Willy didn't notice it, preoccupied with the fleeing lettuces. The pigeon tracked his departure, and something clicked in its eyes—not just a look, but an instruction. Then, without a sound and without an apology to the world, it tilted its head and flew off to the west. Toward the rooftops of Pumpkin Street.

There, at that very minute, a gigantic pumpkin named "The Thunder Queen" had just arrived in a wagon pulled by horses that yearned to be ants.

The pumpkin let out a quiet rumble. And from within, if one listened very carefully, they could detect a sound highly reminiscent of a form being filled out.