Cloaked by Alex Flinn

and is licking his whiskers. “Enjoy it?”
    “Yes! More! More!”
    “After you help me.”
    “Well, I shouldn’t. You haven’t proven yourself very trustworthy.”
    “But . . .” I take a scone. It’s still warm from the oven, and I blow on it.
    “Oh, okay.” The fox sits back on his haunches, eyes never leaving the scone. “But since you failed the first test, I need you to do something else. Now, instead of just staying in the motel, I want you to steal something for me.”
    “Steal?”
    The fox nods. “In the bar lives a golden bird, the bartender’s pride and joy. It sleeps by night in a golden cage, by day in one of wood. The bar is closed for three hours, from four in the morning until seven o’clock. The bar is locked, but the door is unsupervised, so a guest in the hotel could get in—particularly if he had a magic cloak.”
    “But I don’t steal.” I think of the swans at the hotel, how Farnesworth loves them. Maybe this bird is like that for the bartender. I also think of the guys who could beat me up or worse. “I can’t.”
    “Fine.” The fox turns away.
    “Wait! There’s nothing else I could do?”
    “Nothing. You already failed once. If you want the information to find the frog, I need that bird. I’m trying to help you, you and your poor mother. But no one ever said winning a princess was easy.”
    The scone in my hand is cold now, and hard. “Are you going to kill the bird?”
    “What if I was? Is a bird’s life worth a prince’s? But no. I won’t kill it. I just want to look at it.”
    I think about that. It must really stink to be turned into a fox and have to eat garbage. Maybe the bird is a used-to-be too. “Is the bird a friend of yours?”
    “What difference does it make? Do you want the information?”
    I do. It doesn’t matter. If that’s the only way to get the frog, I’ll steal the bird. Sometimes you have to be a little less picky about things to get what you need.
    “Okay,” I say.
    “Atta boy. There’s only one thing you have to remember. The bird sleeps in a golden cage. His regular, wooden cage waits beside him for morning. Before you take him, you have to transfer him from one cage to another. If you don’t, the bird won’t go with you.”
    “Wooden cage. Got it. But why?”
    “It’s part of the test.”
    I nod. I’m trying not to think about the part where I actually have to steal something from those scary bar guys.
    “And give me that scone now.”
    I do. I keep some muffins for myself and give him the rest of the bag. I start to walk away, leaving him feasting on a croissant, when his voice stops me. “Johnny?”
    I turn back.
    “What is your mother’s name?”
    The question takes me by surprise, but I say, “Marie.”
    The fox nods. “Pretty name.” He goes back to his scones.
    I start toward the motel. It’s a long time before nightfall, a very long time. But I don’t want anything to mess me up today. The fox might not give me another chance. As I walk up the path to the motel, I see a frog. The frog! It looks right at me before hopping toward the bed-and-breakfast. I start to take a step toward it. It lingers there, staring at me.
    No. It’s not real, and I need to ignore it. I turn my back and go to the door of the motel. To my relief, it opens. When I look out the door, the frog has vanished.

Chapter 20
    I enter through the side door, a different door than the one that leads to the bar. Hopefully, a safer door. No one’s at the desk, so I wait. Nothing. After a few minutes, I ring the bell. I do it softly, so as not to enrage whatever disturbed individual might work in a place like this. Still nothing.
    I sit on the floor (because there’s no chair) and wait. An hour later, I realize no one’s coming. I also realize I’m hungry. I’ve had nothing but muffins in the past day, and I gave the fox most of those. I hear rough laughter from the bar. My watch says ten a.m. Those guys get an early start. I smell something like