“Bolt is my friend and I gave him my word. Keeping your word is part of the code, too,” said Annika. “And I think the code needs to be updated, anyway.”

  A moment later, they were running back up the dungeon steps. Felipe knew the direction of the throne room, and he led them through passageways. Just as in her journey into the dungeons, Annika passed no soldiers. “Where are those missing soldiers?” she wondered aloud. Felipe could only shrug.

  As they rounded a corner, Felipe skidded to a stop, almost falling, but grabbing Annika’s arm to keep himself upright. Annika banged into him and was about to mutter an “ouch,” but Felipe whispered, “Hush!” and she cuffed her hand over her mouth and swallowed the sound.

  Felipe jabbed his finger toward the open door in front of them. Hot steam filled the hallway, and a cloud floated from the room. Annika and Felipe peeked inside.

  Peering through billows of vapor, Annika saw the vast fish-frying kitchen. A handful of penguin soldiers stood inside, cramming fried fish nuggets into their greedy mouths. Dozens of thin, groaning prisoners toiled around them, some loading large frying baskets.

  An old woman knelt in front of one of the penguins. Her gray hair fell loosely across the shoulders of her gray dungeon jumpsuit. “Please, sir, just a nibble of your fish tender. I’m so hungry, and so sick of eating burnt food.” She stuck her tongue out, hoping to catch a fallen bread crumb from the coated chunks of fish meat held by the penguin. The soldier slapped her with his wing. She fell backward with a thump! before scrambling to her feet, her face red and swelling.

  “We should help them,” said Annika.

  “We’re bandits, not heroes,” said Felipe. “Remember who you are.”

  Annika nodded. She’d been angry at Blackburn for declining to be a hero, but what right did she have to demand that of him? Felipe was right: bandits weren’t heroes. And neither were pirates.

  Annika had always wanted to be the greatest bandit of all time, and nothing else. But was that all she was? A bandit, and nothing else? Perhaps bandits could be more. Perhaps they could be heroes.

  They slipped past the open kitchen door. The throne room was just ahead. From within it, they heard shouting. A hiss. A mumbled threat. And the sound of wood, perhaps from a throne armrest, splintering.

  Annika crept closer. She peeked inside the room. Her father! She spied him sitting in a cage, but otherwise he appeared unhurt. Bolt was there, too—and being led toward the cage by two large penguins. And there was Pygo—sitting on an egg!

  Annika immediately realized Pygo worked for the Earl, and she felt anger and embarrassment. The world’s greatest bandit would never be tricked by a double-crossing penguin.

  Annika just needed a few more moments to stand here, unobserved, and maybe she could figure out a plan. She silenced her breathing and stood completely still. She was one of the quietest bandits, after all.

  Felipe was not one of the quietest bandits. He bent to peek into the room, too, and sneezed.

  Before Annika could even say bless you, a penguin soldier barked and another kicked her and Felipe into the room. As they tumbled to the floor, a dozen soldiers surrounded them. One of the penguins grabbed Felipe, but Annika spun away and jumped to her feet. She pointed at the Earl. “I demand you free my father, or else!”

  The Earl sucked a little harder on the fish bone he held. “Welcome back, girl,” he said. “But of your two options, I choose else.”

  “Oh,” said Annika, who wasn’t really sure what she had meant by else.

  “You should have stayed away,” moaned Vigi from his cage.

  Annika focused her gaze on the Earl, and her defiant anger mounted. She pulled a couple of bobby pins from her hair.

  “Bobby pins?” scoffed the Earl. “That’s your else?”

  “Bobby pins make poor weapons,” boomed a voice behind Annika. “But how about a sword? Borscht!”

  Blackburn stood behind Annika, waving his swordfish.

  “Blackburn?” asked Annika, shocked. “Why are you here?”

  “I thought about what ye said, missy. Maybe, just maybe, ye were right about me Pirate Handbook. Maybe there’s more to life than what’s printed there. Or, maybe, I just need to add me own chapter to it, a chapter about fighting for yer friends.”

  “I’m going to rewrite our bandit code, too,” said Annika brightly.

  In addition to his swordfish, Blackburn held a smaller, thinner sword. “Let’s see if ye remember yer training,” he said, flipping the extra sword to Annika, who deftly grabbed its hilt.

  Annika had only had a couple of sword-fighting lessons, but she was a quick learner. A penguin soldier rushed toward her, and she parried his beak with her blade. Another penguin swatted a wing, and Annika ducked, rolled away, and sprang to her feet. Blackburn was busy fighting four penguins, but there was no one between Annika and the Earl. She raised her blade and charged.

  “For banditry! For the people of Sphen! And for friendship!” she roared, leaping in the air. She swept the sword down, but the Earl raised his iron fist to block it. CLANG!

  “Puny girl. You think you can fight me?”

  “I hope so,” said Annika, swinging her sword again, and again hearing a CLANG! as it struck the Earl’s iron fist.

  “I can do this all day,” said the Earl with a yawn. “But I’m getting bored.” He swung his fist at Annika. This time she raised her sword to block his punch.

  SNAP!

  Her sword broke in half.

  Annika might have been weaponless, but she was hardly powerless. She spun to her left, rolled twice, and stopped at the foot of the Earl’s destroyed throne. She picked up one of its broken legs.

  “A wooden leg! Aye, we’ll make a pirate out of ye yet, missy!” cried Blackburn.

  “I’m happy staying a bandit,” said Annika, rushing toward the Earl, her wooden leg raised. She leapt up . . .

  . . . and tripped over her untied shoelaces.

  “I forgot to check!” she mumbled, wincing from pain. In her fall, she had twisted her ankle. She could barely move it.

  “Sorry, Papa,” she said softly as the Earl marched toward her, waving his iron fist in the air. She tried to leap out of the way, but her ankle throbbed too much. She was helpless.

  “Stop! I have an egg!” cried Bolt.

  The Earl stopped. The sounds of sword fighting stopped. All eyes stared at Bolt, his backpack on the floor, and Shorty’s egg in his grip.

  55.

  The Yolk of Freedom

  While Annika and Blackburn fought, Bolt had been in the grip of penguins leading him to the cage. Bolt was not as strong as they were, but then again, his muscles weren’t his true strength. Not even close.

  Bolt reached inside the heads of the soldiers next to him, not worrying about being careful or unnoticed. Please. This is not who you are. Let me go. We are family.

  The mist of dread and hate was as thick as a brick door. But Annika and Blackburn would never defeat the Earl and his penguins without him. He kept bombarding them with thoughts of kindness and love, family and peace. Each thought chipped the door, making a hole the way a shark would against the hull of a boat. Then, with one mighty blast, he sent a tendril of thoughts into their heads:

  Tickle, tickle.

  The penguins stumbled, just a little, and Bolt ripped his arms from their wings. He ran toward the throne while tearing his backpack from his shoulders.

  Family was the most powerful weapon of all.

  Bolt pulled out the egg, which felt heavier in his hands than it had in the bag strapped around his shoulders. He shouted that he had an egg, and all eyes stared at him.

  And then the Earl laughed. “What are you going to do, make us scrambled eggs?” He snapped his fingers and pointed to the penguin soldiers, who also stared at Bolt, but kept their distance. “What are you waiting for? Throw the boy in the cage, while I finish the girl.” He nodded toward Annika, who was holding her ankle.

  None of the penguins around Bolt moved. Bolt felt indecision swimming in their heads. To a penguin, nothing is more important than family, and that love of family can never be completely controlled. It was buried far deeper than the Earl could ever go.

  Family was their true strength. And a penguin egg is family.

  The soldiers stared at Bolt, not daring to edge closer and damage the egg.

  “What are you doing? Grab the brat,” demanded the Earl, but his voice echoed throughout the room, unheeded. The Earl pounded his foot on the ground, sending slimy fish nuggets hurtling into the air as he glared around the room, snarling. “If you don’t get him right now, I’ll mince each of you, throw you in our fryers, and bake you into penguin sticks!”

  “They won’t hurt me,” said Bolt, his own anger simmering, but controlled. “They respect family, and the love of an egg. You can turn them into an army, but you can never change that part of them.”

  The Earl scowled. “I will take that egg of yours and crack it in half. And then I’ll crack you in half. And I’ll serve you and that egg and every other egg in this kingdom for breakfast, sunny-side up!”

  The penguins gasped, and Bolt sensed a tidal wave of hate and distrust surge across the room. But those feelings were not from the Earl, but from the penguins around him, aimed at the Earl. You never mess with a penguin and an egg.

  The penguins in the room bared their teeth at the Earl, or would have if penguins had teeth. So they just sort of opened their beaks in a threatening manner.

  “What are you doing?” demanded the Earl. The Earl sent waves of anger toward the soldiers. Bolt could feel it, and the soldiers turned toward Bolt. He sent waves of hope and love back, and the soldiers turned toward the Earl.

  Another wave of anger turned the penguins to Bolt.

  Another wave of love turned them toward the Earl.

  Back and forth. Back and forth. Everyone was getting dizzy.

  And then the great clock tower chimed.

  One chime. Two chimes. It kept going, no one moving, no one even daring to breathe.

  The clock struck twelve. A shaft of moonlight lit the room from the windows high above, and both Bolt and the Earl transformed into penguins.

  56.

  Clash of the Werepenguins

  Bolt’s feet changed first. He shook off his shoes as soon as he felt his toes twitch, and his feet grew, the sharp nails on his three large yellow webbed toes ripping through his socks. A tail quickly followed, and then a white feather belly and two black wings. Finally, a long beak erupted from his nose.

  Bolt saw only blurriness as he transformed, the room spinning and his skin burning. Every feather that sprang from his flesh felt like a pinprick.

  When Bolt had fully transformed, the pain was gone and he stood, barking at everyone and no one. Mighty. Confident. A werepenguin.

  But so was the Earl.

  The oversize ruler of Sphen was now an oversize penguin. The Earl, like Bolt, had horns on his head and big, bushy eyebrows over his gleaming red eyes. He was nearly seven feet tall, towering over the other penguins and Bolt, who felt like a dandelion next to an oak. One of his wings was made of solid iron, just like his hand had been, and he raised it, barking, and brought it down onto the floor, chipping the marble at his feet.

  The Earl’s beak was twisted into a snarl, and spirals of devilish loathing spun from the beast’s raging head, spilling across the throne room, out its windows, and across the land.

  Bolt saw all the Earl’s mad wishes in those twisting loops, his mind an open book. And what a horrible book it was, filled with grammatical errors and sloppy handwriting. Within those pages was the Earl’s yearning to rule all the people in the world and force them to build impossibly large fish fryers. He saw penguins swimming in pools, filled with water from salty human tears. He saw penguins wearing tuxedos that were sewn from human nose hairs.

  Penguins, who already look like they wear tuxedos, actually wearing tuxedos? What a terrifying world!

  Bolt forced his own thoughts out into the room and out the windows, chasing the Earl’s demented ones.

  Love each other. Help each other. We are family!

  The Earl’s thoughts fought back. Hate, maim, wouldn’t you like to own your own tuxedo?

  No, love each other! Family!

  Destroy! Hate! Cummerbunds!

  No, we are family! That is our true strength!

  FANCY CUFF LINKS!

  That last thought slammed into Bolt’s head like a mallet, actually lifting him off his feet.

  He crashed onto his back, his head crammed with images of tuxedos, but ill-fitting tuxedos that were too tight in the shoulders. Bolt closed his eyes to clear the thoughts, to invite peace to fill him.

  He opened his eyes, thinking of family and love, but saw the Earl standing over him, holding Bolt’s egg in his wings, about to smash it on Bolt’s head.

  “This thing won’t hatch,” cried the Earl, his voice half bird and half human. “It’s completely fossilized. You could have joined us, you know. You could have lived your life as a king. Instead, your life will be ended with your own egg.” He raised the egg high in the air. “Who needs scrambled eggs when you can have scrambled Bolt?”

  57.

  Attack of the Were-Gull

  Annika wanted to shriek and run, but great bandits never shrieked and ran, although there were occasions where one of those two might be warranted, such as shrieking to confuse an enemy in a fight or running away from the law.

  As soon as the werepenguin transformations had completed, fighting broke out again. Blackburn’s sword whistled and his cries of “Borscht!” thundered across the room.

  Bolt lay on the ground, the Earl-penguin standing over him and about to bludgeon him with that egg. The Earl-penguin sneered and the Bolt-penguin quivered and, despite her desire to be the world’s greatest bandit, Annika shrieked.

  The crash of glass breaking drowned out the shriek.

  One of the windows high above them shattered.

  Glass shards rained down, and with them, a giant winged creature swooped into the room followed by dozens of dirty white birds.

  Annika had never seen a were-gull before, but she knew that’s what it was. The creature was a little shorter than Gentoo had been, with the face of a seagull but also large green eyes. Gentoo’s wings flapped, whipping air through the room, swaying drapes and blowing Annika’s hair. She wished she had brought more bobby pins.

  Gentoo swooped down and collided against the Earl’s unguarded backside. He dropped the egg, which narrowly missed Bolt’s head and instead fell on the Earl’s foot. “My toes!” he yelped in a half-human and half-bird yowl, hopping and cursing.

  An injured foot was the least of his worries. The were-gull fell upon him, pecking at his head with her long yellow beak. Seagulls also flew in and pecked. The Earl swung his iron wing. The birds flitted out of the way.

  Gentoo hovered above the Earl, her beating wings sending currents of wind around the room. But she was unable to dive closer without being thwacked by the Earl’s mighty iron wing.

  Annika didn’t see the beak jutting toward her own head, but she heard Blackburn cry, “Duck!” which was odd, because there were no ducks in the room, only penguins and seagulls. But Annika ducked, and Blackburn’s swordfish whistled over her head and struck a penguin who had been creeping behind her. “Don’t just stand there, missy! Free yer father!”

  Annika nodded. Everyone was distracted watching the seagull fight, and a great bandit always took advantage of distractions. That was the secret to pickpocketing—nudging someone gently on the shoulder and when they turned, deftly sticking a hand into their other pocket.

  As the battle continued all around her, Annika stepped sideways, gritting her teeth as her ankle throbbed. She moved slowly enough so no one paid attention to her.

  As the Earl swatted his wings at the were-gull hovering above him, Annika eased her way to her father’s cage.

  When she reached it, her father ran to the bars. His eyes were wet. “Annika,” Vigi said. “I love you, but you must go. Quickly, while no one sees you.”

  “Not without you, Papa.”

  “The locks are unpickable, Annika. Please. Leave me.”

  Picking locks wasn’t the only thing Annika did well. Instead of reaching for a bobby pin in her hair, she lifted a set of keys from her pocket. She had deftly swiped them from the Earl’s pocket during their fight. “I knew I’d never beat him,” she said. “But I have a few tricks up my sleeve.” She then reached through the cage bars and pulled a gold coin from her father’s ear. “See?”

  Annika unlocked the door, which swung open silently.

  She and her father embraced. For a moment, Annika completely forgot about murderous werepenguins and flying human seagulls, even though those are not the sort of things that are easy to forget.

  “Are you all right, Papa?”

  “I am now.” He gave her a final squeeze, one that Annika wished could last forever. But they would have time for further hugging later. “Let’s find Felipe and get out of here.”

  Annika and her father kept to the side of the wall as they inched their way toward the main door, still unnoticed by the penguin soldiers. They could leave this cursed city. They would be a family again. They would be safe.

  Annika’s dreams had come true.

  Or had they?

  But what of Bolt? And the people of Sphen? Weren’t they part of her dreams now, too?

  She paused by the door as Felipe sidestepped his way toward them.

  “You’re pausing?” her father asked in a whisper.

  “No,” said Annika. “I’m stopping.” She knew how un-bandit-like her next words were, and that the greatest bandit the world has ever known would never say these words. But she wasn’t just a bandit, but a loyal friend, too. “I told Bolt I would help. And a bandit never breaks his or her word.”

 

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