by Jason Segel
Charlie had always known they’d need to find INK one day. Now he and his friends didn’t have to look any farther. One of the villains who’d nearly destroyed three worlds had come straight to them.
—
At Cypress Creek Elementary, INK was on the move again. Charlie slipped out from behind the janitor’s cart. The warning bell rang, and the hallway began to clear. It was Charlie’s lunch period, so he was in no hurry. He wasn’t about to lose sight of India Kessog. He’d track her for hours until he found out what she was up to. Wherever INK went, he’d stay right behind her.
Then a door swung open and closed, and INK disappeared. Charlie came to a halt. He’d follow INK anywhere…except the girls’ room. Charlie glared at the door with its skirt-wearing icon and considered kicking it in frustration. Should he follow INK inside? There was no telling what kind of trouble she might be brewing. But what if there were innocent girls in there, doing…girl stuff? Charlie had faced some terrifying things over the past year, but he worried there were some sights from which even he might never recover. He checked to his left and then to his right. There didn’t seem to be anyone watching on either side of the hall. Charlie reached out his hand to push the door open and a horrible squeal blasted through the crack. It wasn’t the kind of noise human vocal cords usually make. It sounded more like a terrified beast.
Charlie yanked his hand back from the door, and a split second later, a boy burst out of the girls’ room. Charlie instantly recognized Ollie Tobias. As always, Ollie’s yellow hair was perfectly parted, and he wore a natty bow tie and suspenders. But his face was the color of Elmer’s glue, and his clothes and his fingers were splattered with what looked to be bright red blood.
“Ollie!” Charlie gasped.
“Charlie!” Ollie grabbed Charlie’s shirt and clung to it, the fabric wadded up in his fists. “I saw her! The one from my nightmares. She’s here, Charlie. She’s here!”
Ollie Tobias had been one of the first kids in Cypress Creek to be stalked by ICK and INK in his dreams. He’d taken the tonic to get rid of his nightmares, but the stuff hadn’t worked on him at all. He was immune to Tranquility Tonic. And as it turned out, Ollie’s immunity was just the clue Charlie had needed. By figuring out what was protecting Ollie, Charlie and his friends had discovered the antidote to Tranquility Tonic and saved every last one of ICK and INK’s victims.
Charlie pried Ollie’s fingers away from his shirt and tried to get a better look at the boy’s wounds. “I know! I saw her too. What did she do to you in there?” He’d figured INK was dangerous, but he’d never expected her to attack anyone.
“What?” Ollie asked, still panting. He followed Charlie’s eyes to the splotches of red on his skin and clothes and managed a mischievous grin. “Oh, that’s just nail polish.”
“Nail polish?” Charlie asked.
“Yeah.” Ollie gestured toward the girls’ room. “I was making a few improvements for the ladies.”
For a moment, Charlie would have given almost anything to see what Ollie Tobias had been painting in the girls’ restroom. Ollie was not only the school’s most notorious delinquent, he also possessed impressive decorating skills. But there was no time to appreciate Ollie’s artistic achievements. Charlie grabbed the boy’s arm and dragged him into an empty science classroom across the hall. It was time to call for backup.
“Give me your phone,” he told Ollie.
“Phones are not allowed at Cypress Creek Elementary,” Ollie said with a perfectly straight face. For someone who’d been about to pee his pants with terror a few seconds earlier, he’d recovered his sense of humor with impressive speed.
Charlie held out his hand in response.
Ollie grinned. “Would you prefer to use my smartphone or a burner?” the boy asked.
“What’s a burner?” Charlie asked.
“Tsk, tsk.” Ollie rolled his eyes. “And you call yourself an eighth grader,” he said, slapping a smartphone into Charlie’s open palm.
Charlie punched ten digits into the keypad.
“Calling Paige Bretter?” Ollie teased. “What am I asking? Of course you are. She’s the only other kid here with a phone. They let her carry it because her mom’s always sick. And look at that—you’ve got her number memorized. Nobody knows anyone’s number anymore. Unless they…love them.”
Charlie was used to people teasing him about Paige, but that didn’t make it any less annoying. “Paige has been one of my best friends since kindergarten,” he snipped.
“That’s really sweet. Your grandkids are gonna love that story,” Ollie said with a cackle.
“Shut up, Ollie, unless you want to go hang out with your new friend in the bathroom. I bet she’ll think all your jokes are hilarious,” Charlie said, turning his back to the boy. He didn’t want Ollie to see his face burning red.
Paige picked up immediately, and her voice was a frantic whisper. “Charlie! Where have you been? We’re in the lunchroom, and we’ve been looking all over for you. Have you seen the new girl?”
“She’s in the first-floor girls’ bathroom,” Charlie said. “Get Alfie and Rocco and meet me in the hall outside. We need to have a chat with her.”
When Charlie saw his friends round the corner, he breathed a deep sigh of relief. Backup had arrived, and it was capable of kicking some serious butt. Rocco Marquez, the school’s star athlete, was the second-tallest kid in the eighth grade—at least a foot taller than dainty blond Paige Bretter, who had a giant personality that more than made up for her lack of stature. As usual, Alfie Bluenthal was rocking one of his geektastic science T-shirts. It featured a cartoon diamond with a scowl on its face above the line UNDER PRESSURE. He may have been the least athletic of the bunch, but whenever there was a problem to be solved, Alfie and his impressive brain could do some serious heavy lifting.
Alfie, Paige, and Rocco had been Charlie’s best friends since kindergarten. They were smart, brave, and resourceful—just the sort of people you’d want by your side in a crisis. Which, as it turned out, was extremely convenient. Over the last six months, crises had gotten quite common in Cypress Creek.
“We’re here. What’s the plan?” Paige cracked her knuckles.
“INK’s still in the bathroom,” Charlie said, pointing at the girls’ room door. “Let’s go.”
Alfie’s eyes bulged and his jaw dropped. “In there?” he asked nervously.
“It’s a bathroom, Bluenthal,” Paige said with a huff. “It’s just like yours—except a whole lot cleaner.”
“It’s prettier too,” Ollie added, showing off the nail polish splotches on his clothes. “I’ve been working on it all morning.”
Rocco gave Ollie a hearty slap on the back. He didn’t seem to be nervous at all. “A chance to see Ollie’s latest art and have a conversation with a supervillain? Sounds like the girls’ bathroom really has it all. What the heck are we waiting for?” When he stepped forward and pushed through the door, Paige followed him inside. Alfie groaned and reluctantly trailed behind her.
“Stay here and stand guard,” Charlie ordered Ollie. “Don’t let anyone in.”
“Sure thing, but what do you want me to do about the other door?” Ollie asked.
“Other door?” Charlie said.
“Yeah. You mean, you’ve never been in there? There’s another door on the opposite side of the bathroom.”
“What?” Charlie groaned. While he was watching one door, INK could have escaped through the other. “No, Ollie, I haven’t been in there.”
Just then, Rocco popped his head out of the bathroom and confirmed Charlie’s fears. “Unless INK’s invisible, there’s nobody in here. Nice work, by the way, Ollie. Reminds me of the time my mom took me snorkeling in Mexico….”
“These aren’t Mexican species,” Alfie called out behind Rocco, his voice echoing off the bathroom’s tiles. “They’re all native to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.” He stuck his head out below Rocco’s. “You paint a mean turkey fish, Ollie!”
“What are you talking…,” Charlie started to ask as he pushed past his friends and entered the bathroom. “Whoa,” he said, temporarily forgetting his reasons for visiting the girls’ room.
The blue tiles on the bathroom’s walls had been transformed into an underwater world teeming with sea creatures. Brightly colored fish swam in circles around them, while the unmistakable silhouette of a giant hammerhead shark passed across the ceiling. A pair of flipper-clad feet appeared to be sticking out of the beast’s mouth. Anemones waved at Charlie from atop the paper towel dispenser, and a giant octopus embraced one of the toilets with its many arms.
A trash can in a corner was filled to the rim with nail polish bottles, and the air reeked of varnish.
“Yes, remarkable, isn’t it?” Alfie said. “And to think Ollie must have done it all with his mom’s nail polish collection. By the way, this is so much nicer than the boys’ room, Paige. You even have toilet paper, and doors on the stalls!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Paige said. “The girls here are all so civilized and clean. Too bad one of us is a homicidal maniac who may not be human. What are we planning to do about her, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie admitted. He closed the lid on one of the toilets and took advantage of the seat. He’d been trying to figure it out all morning, and he still hadn’t come up with an answer.
“Why is she here?” Rocco asked. “After INK burned down that lighthouse, she could have gone anywhere and we never would have found her. Why would she come to Cypress Creek, where every kid in town will recognize her from their nightmares?”
Charlie looked up at his friends, surprised. Did they really not know? Maybe they didn’t. None of them had any siblings. “She came here because there’s a portal to the Netherworld inside the purple mansion,” he told them. “And her sister is trapped on the other side.” Charlie didn’t have a sister, but he had a brother. And as annoying as Jack could be, Charlie would never leave him stranded.
One of the bathroom doors slammed open against the wall. Charlie’s friends flinched, and he jumped up from his seat. A woman had just barged into the lavatory. She was small—barely taller than Charlie. Her thick black hair was cut in a sleek bob, with bangs that brushed against her eyebrows. She wore a slim black dress and black heels, and her mouth was painted crimson. Ms. Abbot was Charlie’s new homeroom teacher—and the latest addition to the Cypress Creek Elementary staff. She taught Charlie’s science class and was also filling in for a history teacher who’d broken his collarbone in an unfortunate longboarding accident on the way to school.
Ms. Abbot had moved to town from New York in the middle of August—and she’d been the subject of her neighbors’ gossip ever since. Rumor had it that the new teacher lived in a run-down old house deep in the woods outside Cypress Creek. She kept to herself, which just made everyone curious. People whispered about her black clothing, her unusually pale skin, and her penchant for bright red lipstick. Some people speculated that Ms. Abbot was hiding a terrible secret, though no one seemed to know what it was. But her reputation for being a bit odd had been cemented that morning, when she kicked off the school year by showing the class her collection of preserved animal brains. Charlie had dealt with Nightmares of all shapes and sizes, but Ms. Abbot gave him the creeps. She may have been small, and she may have been pretty—but there was something about her that wasn’t quite right.
Ms. Abbot was supporting a little girl whose feet did not appear to be working properly and whose eyes seemed unable to focus.
“It’s going to be okay,” the teacher promised the child. “The principal is calling your mother and father to come get you. We’re just going to put a little water on your face.”
Paige ran to the sink and turned the faucet on for the pair. “Is that Ellie Hopkins? What’s wrong with her?” she asked.
“Ellie’s not feeling very well,” Ms. Abbot responded. “But she’ll be…” Her voice trailed off as she finally noticed Ollie’s artwork and the boys who’d gathered round. “Did you just paint the walls in here?”
Charlie sighed. The last thing any of them needed was to be collared for vandalism on the first day of school.
“No, ma’am, we didn’t.” Alfie’s voice quavered. A suspension would blemish his otherwise perfect academic record. “I swear we had nothing to do with this!”
“Well, when I find the person responsible, I’m going to ask them to decorate my house too. The kid’s got crazy talent,” Ms. Abbot said, returning her attention to the girl in her care. “Will one of you hold Ellie while I wet some paper towels?”
Alfie and Paige each took an arm. “Is there anything Charlie and I can do?” Rocco asked. He lived to be helpful.
“Yes, thank you. You can start by getting out of the girls’ bathroom. Then would you mind going to the lunchroom and collecting Ellie’s things? She fainted near the condiment stand.”
“She fainted?” Charlie asked. A chill trickled down his spine.
Ellie opened her mouth. The four words that exited were barely whispered, but Charlie still managed to catch them. “I saw the girl,” she said.
Charlie nudged Rocco with his elbow. “Let’s go,” he said.
“She looks so…” Rocco paused to search for the right word.
“Diabolical? Homicidal? Bloodthirsty?” Charlie was happy to fill in the blank.
“Harmless,” Rocco said with a sigh. Charlie heard the pity in his friend’s voice, and it sounded like trouble. Though Rocco was taller than almost everyone else at school, beneath that strapping exterior was a soft spot the size of a kindergartner. Rocco Marquez was way too nice.
But Charlie had to admit it—his friend was right about INK. She was sitting on her own at a table in the center of the cafeteria. Not only was her table empty, but so were the four tables that surrounded it. All the other kids were keeping their distance. At the tables on the edge of the cafeteria, a hundred students had crammed into half as many seats, and the air around them swirled with whispers. Charlie knew what it was like to feel so alone. It wasn’t a very nice feeling.
INK was examining the items on the lunch tray in front of her like a scientist dissecting a particularly revolting specimen. She picked up a nugget and gave it a sniff. Her face wrinkled with disgust, and she dropped it back down to her plate.
“Looks like INK’s sense of smell is working just fine,” Charlie noted. “All you need is one whiff of those nuggets to know they’re not made of chicken.”
“But she seems to really be into the tater tots,” Rocco said. INK had already popped one into her mouth. Her face registered surprise, followed by delight. She immediately reached for another. “Maybe she’s not so bad after all.”
“Everyone likes the tater tots,” Charlie replied. “They’re the only things on the menu that actually taste like food. But we didn’t come here to watch INK eat lunch. Let’s go talk to her.”
“Uh-oh,” Rocco said. “I guess somebody else had the same idea.”
A kid was pushing through the crowd, trying to reach the empty center of the cafeteria. “Excuse me! Sorry! Excuse me!” Charlie winced at the sound. He couldn’t see the kid’s face, but he knew the voice all too well.
His nine-year-old brother, Jack, emerged from the mob and set his Captain America lunch box down in front of INK. The whispers stopped and the lunchroom was eerily silent. Standing by the door, Charlie and Rocco could hear every last word. “Mind if I take this seat?” Jack asked the girl.
INK looked up, and the sides of her mouth twitched as if she were struggling to smile but didn’t know how. “Hello, Jack,” she replied in her elegant accent. “I was hoping I’d see you here.”
Jack beamed as if he really meant it. “Hi, Indy,” he said.
Charlie had almost forgotten that the two knew one another. Over the spring, Jack had taken dozens of secret trips to the Netherworld while Charlie and Charlotte were asleep. During one of those visits, Jack had met INK. He later told Charlie that he’d kept the
girl company because she’d seemed lonely. But Charlie suspected their friendship was just part of the twins’ devious plot. There was only one reason a villain like INK would hang out with a nine-year-old. She must have been gathering information on the Laird family, their purple mansion, and the town of Cypress Creek.
Jack opened his lunch box and pulled out a sandwich. “You’re from England, right? Have you ever tried a PB&J? It stands for peanut butter and jelly. Or peanut butter and jam, if you’re fancy. It’s kind of an American delicacy—sort of like tater tots. My stepmom makes the best PB&J in the whole world. She finds these weird berries in the woods and turns them into jam.” He held out half of his sandwich and INK accepted it.
What was Jack doing? Charlie fumed. This time his brother couldn’t claim he didn’t know any better. Was he trying to get himself killed? Who knew what INK would do if someone upset her. What if she hated PB&Js? Charlie took a step forward, planning to push his way through the crowd.
Rocco put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t, Charlie,” he said softly. “I think Jack’s got this one covered for now.”
The old jealousy flared up for an instant before Charlie got control of himself and it died back down. His brother had a way with people—and ogres, gorgons, and changelings—that Charlie would never share. Jack could charm the pants off just about anyone or anything. He’d been sitting with INK for less than a minute and he literally had her eating right out of his hand.
“So do you go to school here now?” Charlie heard Jack ask.
INK nodded. She clearly wanted to speak, but her mouth was sealed shut with peanut butter, and it took several attempts before she could swallow it. “A bomb destroyed my old school in London. I always wanted to find a new one.”
Charlie felt ill. Was that what INK had in mind for Cypress Creek Elementary?
“A bomb?” Jack asked casually, without a hint of concern in his voice. He really was good at this, Charlie thought bitterly.