Ten minutes later, I was even more determined to save Felix. I was packing everything, and as I was stuffing some food into my bag, the door opened and Ruby and Sam ran in, laughing.
Huh, I thought. Looks like they’re best friends again.
They stopped laughing when they saw me. “Uh… are you going somewhere?” Sam asked, so shocked that he even forgot to call me Cory.
“N-no…” I stuttered. I was so focused on getting to Felix that I had forgotten to make a good alibi. I straightened up, searching for lies in my head… but I was a terrible liar.
Ruby shrugged, not taking my silence personally, and sat down on her bed, picking up one of her gifts and checking it out. “You missed an awesome breakfast, Cora.”
I had already prepared an excuse for this one. “I wanted to play with Chocodot.” I closed my eyes and waited for the string of insults from Sam about my cat’s name…
But it didn’t come. I opened my eyes and he wasn’t in my view anymore. I flipped around, and…
He stood there with my notebook open, frowning at a page.
The page with the riddle written on it.
“Give it back, Sam! Give it back!” I shrieked, jumping over my bed and trying to grab it. But he was much, much taller than me and he held it up.
“What is this? You spend all your time writing little poems now, Cory? Ruby, listen to this- forty eight hours, you shall have, to save your friend with the bloody calf. Ha! Wow, what a creative writing p-”
His sneers abruptly stopped. The color rushed out of his face, and my notebook dropped to the floor. I grabbed it and tossed it aside, shouting, “Sam! Sam!”
He didn’t reply. He was staring off into space, and Ruby ran over and started shaking him.
Suddenly, he screamed. It was a pained scream that shook the walls. He gasped, “Coraline, stop it, please, please… I promise, I won’t be mean to you...”
“The notebook.” Ruby said. I looked at her. “What?” I asked over Sam’s shrieks of pain.
“The notebook. He read it, and now he’s acting like he’s cursed…” Her eyes widened and she staggered away from me. “Do you have evil magic in that notebook? Is that why you’ve been so secretive?”
“No! Ruby, listen, let me try and fix it, okay?” I picked up my wand, and held it at Sam.
“No, no!” Ruby screamed. “You’re going to curse him even more!”
“The words appeared in the notebook! I don’t know where they came from!” I roared wildly. I shoved her out of the way and pointed my wand at Sam. After muttering a few words that were drowned under Sam’s shrieks, he stopped screaming, gasping for breath.
“I promise!” He gasped. “No.. more… being… mean.”
“Sam, what did you see?” Ruby whispered.
He looked at me, and then at her. “Horrible. She’s… evil,” he said hoarsely.
I spoke up. “I have no idea where it came from.” I put on my most innocent face. “Tell me what you saw. And I am not evil.”
Sam scrambled behind Ruby, as if my words were curses. “N-no, of course you're not.” He stuttered.
“Tell me what you saw!” I nearly shouted. I had to figure out what the tiger had done to make the words of the riddle so dangerous.
Sam shuddered and said, “You were hitting me… so much… and it hurt…”
“Cora, if those words weren’t from you, then who were they from?” Ruby said, looking as scared of me as Sam was.
“I don’t know!” I said, frustrated. “Look, Sam, even if you bullied me to the point where I cracked, I would never curse you. Look,” I said on a sudden inspiration, grabbing the notebook and flipping to the page with the riddle. “Is that my handwriting?”
For once, I was relieved my handwriting was so messy. Everyone assumed that, because of the good student I was, my handwriting was all neat. But actually, my handwriting was always scrawled in a font only Felix and I could read.
“O-oh. That isn’t your handwriting.” Sam looked extremely relieved. ‘M-maybe s-someone is trying to curse y- you?”
I shook my head. “Probably not. I don’t know.”
Ruby’s head shot up. “It sounds like a riddle! The bloody calf- Sam, remember Olive Crow? Finch broke her leg? That must be her! We have to help!”
I didn’t object. The less they saw me, the better. Sam’s shrieks still echoed through my head.
I picked up Choco and my bag and ran out the door, waving at my best friend and my worst enemy.