GROUNDED

While the execution plaza fills with howling spectators, and grandiose announcers in headless uniforms proclaim that the pirate king shall be executed at noon, the pirate king's daughter and her roommate are sipping imaginary tea in the dungeon of their ever-changing doll castles, each riding on the back of one of Ayavail's trained mice.

"How long must we languish in this dungeon?" Dakiya moans, reining in her mouse under a shaft of icy light, while sipping from her teacup.

"It's been hours!" Ayavail wails. She drops her head to her chest, and her face falls into shadow.

"I was wrong, Aya!" Dakiya cries, "I realize that now! The consequences of my actions—all this time rotting in prison—has shown me that murder is not right, but wrong!"

"Murder is wrong?" Ayavail sweeps down from her mouse and clasps her hands, falling to her knees and staring tearfully up into the light. "But think of all that we've been taught, all that we've lived for since this morning…"

"All for naught," Dakiya intones. She clasps a fist to her heart, her hair radiant in the glow from above. "We have murdered hundreds of innocent people since we woke up today. We must redeem ourselves with some noble act!"

"But what can we do?" Ayavail cries, "We're grounded!"

"Grounded," Dakiya echoes, sobbing over the fuzzy ears of her steed. "Grounded! We must break out! Not to commit more crimes, but to rectify them!" She throws an arm over her eyes, as if stricken by the horror of her misdeeds.

"But the hall monitor…"

"Oh, we'll throw him off the roof," Dakiya says. "It's for the greater good, and I don't like him. Wait! That would be murder! Agh!" she clutches at her hair, "We can't murder anyone anymore?"

Just then, the dungeon of the doll castle cracks open and daylight showers in. The face of a titan appears in the cleft of light. It is Hannet, their ambassador among the boys, a good friend. He booms, "I was granted license to deliver your brunch." His enormous hand lowers a colossal glass bowl into the dungeon, and it booms down beside Dakiya.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Healed from her moral angsts by the sight of food, she clambers up to the rim and gazes out over the vista of her usual brunch: a hill of cookie-dough ice cream afloat in a lake of steaming hot whiskey.

From the sky above, Hannet rumbles, "I fear that there is little time in which to consume these provisions."

Dakiya burps steam, looking up at him from the bottom of the now-empty bowl. "What's that?"

Hannet pauses, shaking his head in wonder before continuing, "I have conceived a stratagem by which I shall endeavor to smuggle you to freedom, secreting you within this tome of knowledge." He displays an old textbook with a cube cut out of the pages, a secret chamber.

"Fantastic!" Dakiya shouts.

"But," Ayavail asks, "Why would we leave? We were having plenty of fun in here."

"Because," Hannet proclaims, "A transpiration of great susurration has occurred. Our lord admiral of the Imperial Fleet has apprehended the pirate king!"

Ayavail whirls to stare at Dakiya, who falls to her knees, "Noo!"

Hannet frowns, continuing, "His execution is to be commencified at noon."

"How can they do this?" Dakiya rages, firing her pistols randomly in all directions.

Hannet replies, "The grand admiral has bamboozled the pirate king in a conflict of intellect, thus compelling his acquiescence. Even so, it is anticipated that the actual extinguishment of his malignant life shall be a technical challenge of exhaustive proportions. One hundred thousand executioners have been summoned from the surrounding hamlets, and whomsoever is triumphant in the extermination shall become emperor of all the land!"

"We have to rescue him!" Dakiya cries, leaping into her mouse-saddle and rearing, her saber flashing.

"What? Why?" Hannet asks. "I mean, wherefore must we do so?"

"Just do it!" Dakiya shouts.

Hannet and Ayavail both nod, suddenly feeling dazed and focused. (It is Dakiya's special power that whenever she says 'Do it,' others are strongly compelled to do it.)

(Unfortunately, she usually forgets that she has this power, and often uses it unwittingly, as in this case).

"I have arithmetic, though," Ayavail protests weakly.

"Well, he won't die that easily," Dakiya says. "We can still go to afternoon classes, but as soon as we're done, it's straight to the execution square!"

Together, the three conspirators concoct their schemes. Then they furnish the chamber inside the textbook with divans and gilded candelabras, making it a lounge more deluxe than any in Ayavail's castles.

As Dakiya and Ayavail luxuriate beneath glistening chandeliers, Hannet smuggles them to morning classes, where they study and sip tea by candlelight, listening to the teacher's voice vibrate like distant thunder through the textbook walls. The grandfather clock by their jewel-encrusted hot tub chimes noon, then one, then two, but Dakiya suffers no anxiety.

For her father is very hard to kill.