Sasha and Puck and the Brew for Brainwash Read online

  SASHA’S FATHER SELLS MAGIC POTIONS.

  THERE’S ONLY ONE PROBLEM—HIS POTIONS DON’T WORK.

  Sasha knows they don’t work—they can’t work! Magic isn’t real! But everyone in town buys Papa’s potions, so Sasha has to take magic into her own hands.

  When greedy Vadim Gentry asks for a potion of persuasion, Sasha is suspicious. But it’s not until he slips it into Papa’s tea and orders him to sell the shop that Sasha sees the problem: If Papa says no, everyone will see that his potions don’t work. If he says yes, Sasha and Papa will lose their home! Either way, Sasha has a big problem to fix.

  Albert Whitman & Co.

  More than 100 Years of Good Books

  www.albertwhitman.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  Jacket art copyright © 2020 by Estrela Lourenço

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.

  Text copyright © 2020 by Daniel Nayeri

  Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Estrela Lourenço

  Front matter and chapter opener illustrations copyright © 2019 by Anneliese Mak

  First published in the United States of America in 2020 by Albert Whitman & Company

  ISBN 978-0-8075-7246-7 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-0-8075-7256-6 (ebook)

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Printed in the United States of America

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  Design by Ellen Kokontis

  For more information about Albert Whitman & Company, visit our website at www.albertwhitman.com

  To Xylophones

  THE STORY SO FAR…

  Sasha Bebbin lives in a village tucked away in a far-off corner of a world, between the mountains and the sea. She lives with her papa in an alchemy shop named the Juicy Gizzard. Her mother was the alchemist, but she has gone off to help fight against the Make Mad Order.

  Now, Papa makes and sells the potions. But he’s not a very good alchemist.

  And Sasha, who doesn’t even believe in magic, is worried that customers will start to complain. Then, Papa will be taken to the constable, who will give them a fine that they cannot afford to pay. And then, the wealthy gruel baron, Vadim Gentry, will buy up the Juicy Gizzard, and Sasha and Papa will be homeless.

  And so, Sasha has her mission. Along with her sidekick, Puck—a mysterious wild boy from the woods—Sasha must use her detective skills to investigate the real reason every customer wants a potion, whether it’s luck or love or just a cure for the hiccups. She has to do this without being discovered. And the hardest part? She has to find a way to make the potion come true, to give the customer the magic they were looking for, before anyone finds out!

  CHAPTER 1

  Sasha ran as fast as she could through the forest, but it was still not enough. Springtime had come to the Willow Wood. All the flowers bloomed. The butterflies were so big they could have been fairies. Sasha jumped over a tree root to take a shortcut but landed in a puddle of mud. Her boots sank up to the ankles.

  “Oh crumbsy bumsy!” said Sasha. She watched as Otto, her disobedient piglet, raced to the foot of a giant hornbeam tree, where they had spotted a precious clump of truffles. “Don’t you dare,” said Sasha, as she yanked on her foot to free herself. But Otto didn’t listen. He ate up the truffles in three bites.

  “Gah!” said Sasha. She had spent the entire morning hunting for truffles. Just one would have fetched enough gold at the Village market to pay their bills all season. And that was important because in the springtime, people got all sorts of ideas. Every miller’s son would come to the Bebbin family alchemy shop and ask for a love potion, even though everybody knew love potions were the second-most dangerous kind.

  And with a stern warning, Papa would sell them.

  But it wasn’t the dangerous magic that worried Sasha. Sasha didn’t even believe in magic. She only believed in science, which meant as far as Sasha was concerned, those millers’ sons would be extremely disappointed with their potions. And that would make them unhappy customers, which meant they would complain, which meant the Bebbins would lose business, which meant they’d lose the shop, which meant they’d lose their home, which would be a disaster! That was what worried Sasha. And it was why she much preferred selling truffles over potions.

  Sasha shook her fist as Otto chomped on the last of the truffles. “Of all the odds and oddity,” she said. “How did we end up with such an unhelpful creature?” Sasha scraped her boots on a mossy stone to remove the mud.

  Just then, she felt a cold, wet nose on the back of her left hand. She startled and turned to see Puck crouched on the ground behind her, smiling. If he’d had a tail, it probably would have been wagging. “How many times have I told you not to sneak up on me?” said Sasha.

  “Guh,” said Puck, who spoke mostly in grunts, burps, and toots. Puck, as usual, was covered in dirt and tangled hair. Most people in the Village thought he was a dirt fairy or some kind of ogre baby. Nobody knew for sure. But Sasha didn’t believe in magical creatures like dirt fairies. She had never seen a fairy, after all. She figured Puck was some kind of wild boy from the Hill Country. Or an orphan from the war.

  Puck sat in front of Sasha like a puppy, a wicker basket under his arm. It was Mama Bebbin’s foraging basket. Before she’d been called to the war front, Mama had often walked through the Willow Wood, searching for ingredients for her potions and medicines.

  “It’s all here,” she would tell Sasha, waving at the knobby trees and whispering rivers and mossy stones. “All you need to add is knowledge.”

  As Sasha stood in the middle of the woods, watching Otto eat the precious truffles, she wished once again that Mama would come back soon. Sasha sighed. Her foraging trip had been a bust. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go home.”

  Sasha bent down and picked up the basket Puck had brought. To her surprise, it was as heavy as one of Papa’s books. “What’s this?” said Sasha.

  “Guh, guh!” said Puck, jumping up and down.

  “Did you put rocks in the basket?”

  Puck shook his head, offended.

  Sasha lifted the cover, revealing a treasure trove of forest mushrooms. Fuzzy coral ramarias—perfect for curing diarrhea in people who had it, and causing it for people who didn’t. Black trumpet chanterelles, which made a paste that did wonders for the skin. Tree ears for sore throats. Turkey tails for sore bones. And even a few morels, which didn’t have any effects but were delicious when cooked in a pan with butter and garlic.

  “Amazing!” said Sasha. “Did you…?”

  “Guh!” said Puck, jumping in excitement.

  “How?”

  “Guh!”

  “Really? All of them?”

  “Guh!”

  “That’s amazing.” Sasha never quite understood Puck’s grunty language, but she understood what he meant. And she was thankful that he had gone off on his own to discover all those mushrooms. In the meanwhile, Otto had gobbled up all the sprouts and truffles in sight and was lying on a patch of moss, breathing heavily.

  “Welp,” said Sasha, “I guess we can go.”

  She started down the forest path. Puck scrambled up beside her. Otto would catch up eventually, after a nap.

  “Can’t wait to show Papa,” said Sasha as they crossed a giggling stream and watched tiny river fish playing together. The sunlight glimmered through the branches. Everything seemed happy in
the Willow Wood.

  Ever since the winter festival, when she’d learned from a traveling knight that her mother was safe, Sasha had found it easier to hope that the war would end soon, and Mama would return for good. All the new leaves and flowers made it feel like the start of a new story—one that wasn’t so tense and troublesome.

  Sasha was almost skipping as she left the Willow Wood and approached the old alchemy shop where she lived.

  “Papa,” she said as she opened the back door and entered the house. “Are you here?”

  “In the front,” said Papa.

  Sasha rushed to the front of the store, shouting, “You’ll never believe what Puck found! We’re all set for the whole season—”

  But Sasha was interrupted, and all her joy was ended the moment she entered the room and saw the baron Vadim Gentry and his spoiled daughter, Sisal, standing at the counter with evil smirks on their faces.

  CHAPTER 2

  Vadim Gentry had more money than anyone in the Village, but it was still not enough. He had schemed for years to take the Juicy Gizzard. He had tried a dozen different plans. Once, he had hired a ratcatcher to set all the Village’s extra rats loose in the Bebbins’ attic. But Mama had prepared a special soup that made them all fall asleep, and then she’d collected them and released them into the woods.

  Sasha stopped short as soon as she saw the Gentrys. And she stopped smiling and started glaring instead. “Hello,” she said, because she couldn’t help it. Papa had taught her to be polite to all customers, even though Sisal Gentry had once snuck behind Sasha and dipped her hair in a bucket of printer’s ink.

  Neither Vadim nor Sisal said anything to Sasha.

  Papa made a nervous chuckle and said, “Hello, darling. Come in. The Gentrys are just paying us a visit.”

  Sasha took a step forward. “Can I get you some tea?” she said through gritted teeth. She knew she had to be a good host.

  Sisal crossed her arms and curled her lip in disgust. “You’d have to bathe about seven times before we took tea from you.” Sisal looked around the shop at all the bottles and herbs and books, as if it were all junk.

  Sasha looked down at her clothes and realized she was a bit dirty from the day’s work. She placed the basket of mushrooms on the counter in front of Papa and went to the water basin to wash her hands.

  “Where have you been, anyway?” said Sisal.

  “In the forest,” said Sasha.

  “Gross,” said Sisal.

  “The forest isn’t gross.”

  “Okay, what were you doing in the forest?”

  “Digging for mushrooms.”

  “Gross.”

  “With Puck.”

  “That’s even worse.”

  Puck would have lunged at Sisal if Sasha hadn’t held him back with her foot. She wiped her hands on a towel and whispered, “She’s not worth biting, Puck. And besides, she would only taste rotten.”

  Sasha took a small cloth out of her satchel and dampened it in the washbasin. Then she returned to the mushrooms on the counter and began to wipe them gently to remove the dirt.

  “Did you find anything special?” said Papa.

  Sasha nodded. “We found tree ears.”

  “Is that supposed to be special?” said Sisal. “What does it do?”

  Papa and Sasha spoke at the same time. Sasha said, “It cures sore throat,” while Papa said, “It cures rainy days.”

  Sasha glared at Papa. She wished he wouldn’t make such claims about magic in front of the Gentrys. They would just love to complain to the constable if his potions didn’t work.

  “I don’t care about rainy days,” said Sisal as she played with some potion bottles. “I send the servants out to get me things.”

  Under the counter, Sasha could hear the low rumble of Puck’s growling.

  “Puck found a bunch of other things,” said Sasha, hoping to soothe him. “Even some morels for dinner.”

  “Ooh,” said Sisal. “That sounds good. I’ll have that.”

  Vadim Gentry shrugged and said, “We’ll take the morels, then.”

  Sasha stared at the large man and said, “That’s our dinner. It’s not for sale.”

  Sisal rolled her eyes and said, “Whatever. Do you have any potions that make skin shine?”

  “Two kinds,” said Papa.

  “And what about potions to make skin itch?” said Vadim. “Supposing I wanted to make sure my servants weren’t so comfortable sitting around all the time?”

  “We have itching powders,” said Papa, laughing nervously. “But we don’t recommend them for use on people.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Vadim. “I said it was for the servants.”

  Puck was grumbling under the table and snapping his teeth with every word from Vadim. It was obvious to Sasha that the baron wanted some kind of potion. But the mystery was what kind and why. He was acting like he was just browsing, but Sasha suspected he knew exactly what he wanted, and he was just trying to fool Papa by pretending to be curious about alchemy.

  As Sisal wandered around the store, the baron leaned one elbow on the counter and asked Papa about the limits of magic. “Can I make a servant stay up all night in order to organize my library?”

  And Papa, who loved to explain alchemy, was falling for it. “I suppose a sleepless syrup would do that, but they’d still be tired from the work.”

  “And how would you fix that?”

  “I’d let them rest.”

  That answer got a scoff from Vadim. Finally, Sisal chimed in. “What about death potions?”

  “You mean to cure death?” said Papa.

  “I mean to cause death,” said Sisal. She seemed to take pleasure in saying awful things.

  Papa made a tsk sound. “No, no. We can’t make death potions.”

  “Why not? You aren’t smart enough?” said Sisal.

  “He’s smart enough,” said Sasha. She realized she had been squeezing a ramaria mushroom so hard she’d almost squished it.

  “A death potion is just a bottle of poison,” said Papa. “There are poisons everywhere. Nightshade mushrooms, juniper berries, shoe polish, leather wax, perfumes, all kinds of things. It doesn’t take any work to find them. What takes work is to make things better in this world.”

  It was a beautiful idea. Sasha always loved Papa’s hope for a better world.

  “Pfft. Whatever,” said Sisal, completely missing the point.

  Vadim also seemed to ignore Papa. “What about a potion for persuasion?” he said. “Something to make someone obey all my commands. A mule, for instance.”

  Papa stroked his mustache. “I could mix that. But it’s a dangerous and permanent potion. It will cost four hundred gold.”

  “Deal,” said Vadim. He put a bag of coins on the counter. “Let’s have it right now.”

  That made Sasha even more suspicious. As Papa set to work making the potion, she wondered why the baron had jumped on such an expensive item without even haggling to bring down the price. Out of nowhere, the baron turned to Sasha and said, “On second thought, let’s have that tea while we wait.”

  Sasha couldn’t refuse, since she had already offered it. She nodded and began to pour tea from the samovar into tulip-shaped glasses. “Two sugars for me,” said Sisal.

  Papa mashed a few roots with a mortar and pestle. Then he mixed the paste with the purple oil from an orchid that had come from the other side of the Queen Sea and poured it all into a small bottle. The mixture made an angry sizzle.

  Sasha placed four glasses of tea on the counter and one on the floor for Puck.

  She was startled by a frothy sound. Papa’s potion was coming to a boil, even without a fire underneath it.

  Papa let out a long, satisfied sigh and took off his goggles. He placed a cork stopper into the round bottle and offered it to Vadim.

  “Careful,” said Papa. “It’s still hot.”

  Vadim, who was wearing riding gloves, grabbed it without so much as a “thank you.” Papa seemed so pleased
with the experiment that he didn’t notice. Then he remembered something else. “Oh! Right. You must also take this.” He pulled out a small glass vial from his pocket and offered it to Vadim. “It’s the cure, in case you need to reverse the persuasion potion. Careful with it. They take months to make.”

  “We won’t need it,” said Vadim.

  “We insist. For any dangerous magic. It’s permanent otherwise.”

  Vadim thought about it, then grabbed the vial. “Very well,” he said as he stuffed it into his coat pocket. “On second thought, I better take it.”

  Sasha went back to cleaning mushrooms but kept an eye on the Gentrys. Papa started to put away his ingredients. For some reason, the baron and his daughter stuck around. It was unlike them to dawdle.

  “It’s a wonderful shop you have,” said Vadim, as if he and Papa were friends on an evening stroll. It was even more unlike the Gentrys to be friendly.

  “Thank you,” said Papa.

  “Right near the Willow Wood,” mused Vadim. “Perfect location for a factory.”

  “A what?” said Papa. “We would never.”

  “You could harvest all the plants in the wood and make a fortune.”

  Papa tried to hide his disgust at the idea by turning around to place a box of silkworms back on a shelf. As soon as his back was turned, the baron quickly uncorked the round bottle and poured half the potion of persuasion into Papa’s glass of tea.

  Sasha had been scrubbing mushrooms and watching all. She couldn’t believe what she had just seen.

  Vadim handed the bottle to Sisal, and she poured the other half into Sasha’s glass. Sasha wanted to shout, but she was dumbstruck. She knew the baron was a mean man, but this was true villainy. Before Sasha could speak up, though, Vadim lifted his own glass from the counter and said, “Now, shall we drink to everyone’s health?”

  “Wait,” said Sasha.

  “Come on,” said Sisal.

  “But—”

  “Let’s be done with it,” whispered Papa.