Camaro thumped her on the head for that and explained, “You want someone else bullying our kids? Some outsiders who aren’t even part of our thing? Think before you say something stupid.”
“No way,” Ed said, anxious for any chance to prove himself. “No way some outside bullies bully our victims.”
“We call them clients, not victims,” Camaro corrected him patiently. “Now, listen up. You see those short, stocky dudes with the long skinny fingers and the sharp teeth trying to pass themselves off as kids?”
The bullies all looked.
“Now, do you see the skinny ones with kind of buggy heads dressed in raincoats and evening dresses?”
Most of them didn’t know what an evening dress was—and no surprise; it’s a totally inappropriate clothing choice for a chaperone—but they were able to spot the suspicious ones nevertheless.
“There are too many for us to take them on all at once. We need to peel them off, a few at a time,” Camaro said. She tilted her head and looked at the golem. Then back at the treasonous Tong Elves and the Skirrit. No, she didn’t know that was what they were, but she looked at them anyway and saw again that they were totally fixated on the golem.
“We use the gol—er, Mack—as bait,” Camaro said. She beckoned the golem and whispered in his ear. “I want you to walk toward the boys’ room. Then, at the last minute, just as you reach the bathroom, you’ll be close to the outside door, right?”
The golem had no idea if this was right. So he said, “Right.”
“When you get there, do something to attract attention. Then run outside real quick!”
Camaro did not specify exactly what the golem should do to attract attention, and this would prove to be a mistake. Because the golem followed her instructions perfectly. He walked toward the boys’ room. And there, just before he would have to go in, he attracted attention by sticking his tongue out.
Fourteen feet.
Golem bodies are capable of amazing things, what with basically being mud thinly disguised to look like skin and hair and clothing and so on.
So the golem didn’t really have a tongue like normal people; he had as much tongue as he wanted to have. In fact he could turn much of his body into tongue, and that’s what he did: first he stuck out his tongue, and then with both hands he pulled more and more tongue out until it was sort of like a limp fire hose just piling up in a coil on the floor as his body got smaller and smaller and—
And then there was a bunch of screaming as kids noticed. Some of that screaming came from Jennifer Schwarz, but pretty soon everyone—regardless of gender, race, creed, or national origin—was screaming.
It certainly did attract the attention of the Tong Elves and the Skirrit.
The golem bolted for the exit. But he was unable to move quickly due to the f
act that he was dragging fourteen feet of tongue using legs now no bigger than turkey drumsticks.
“Oooookay,” Camaro said, somewhat discouraged. “Let’s get ’em!”
She charged at the Tong Elves, who were charging at the golem, who was dragging his tongue out into the common area outside the all-purpose room. Most of her bullies followed her, but none was exactly leading the charge.
So Camaro plowed into the back of a Tong Elf. It was like hitting a statue. Tong Elves are tough. Camaro couldn’t know this—indeed, few people do—but Tong Elves are raised from the age of three in deep underground caves26 where they are required to carve their own living space out of solid bedrock using nothing but a lighter and a hatchet. Their only drink is the condensation on cave walls, and they scrape the lichen from rocks with their specially adapted lower teeth. The lederhosen they wear are the tanned pelts of bears that they kill and skin in unarmed combat.
So, they’re tough, the Tong Elves. Even the treasonous ones.
Camaro literally bounced off the Tong Elf she’d hit. But she landed well and rolled back to her feet.
The Tong Elf turned wicked eyes on her and reached for the trident dagger that was the specialized weapon of his tong (Live Oak Tong). The weapon had three blades, the center one longer than the other two and serpentine in style.
“You filthy bag of seething worms!” the Tong Elf snarled.
“Who are you calling a . . . whatever you said?” Camaro demanded.
The Tong Elf slashed at Camaro and she dodged out of the way, but it was a close call. One of the smaller blades shaved a strand of dark hair from her head.
“Whoa!” Camaro cried.
“I’ll carve you like a Thanksgiving turkey, you vile, hideous, pestilential primate!”
Camaro had been a bully since second grade, but no one had ever almost killed her. This was a new experience and she didn’t like it. Her eyes darted to the wall, to the red steel-and-glass box that held the fire extinguisher. She leaped, grabbed it, and swung the heavy cylinder blindly just as the Tong Elf stabbed his three-way blade at her.