by Jason Segel
Alfie gaped as if Charlie had lost his marbles. “School just started four days ago, and you already want to play hooky?” he asked.
“Yeah, what’s this all about, Charlie?” Charlotte asked from the front seat. “You owe me an explanation too.”
“We’re going back to the purple mansion to make plans. We need to find INK,” Charlie said. “Before she poisons the entire town.”
He told them everything he knew about the missing belladonna.
“Oh no. Poor Samantha,” Charlotte groaned. “She’s been through so much. This is the last thing she needs.”
Charlie could hardly believe it. He’d just said that everyone in Cypress Creek could be murdered—and Charlotte was worried about Samantha Abbot.
“What exactly has poor Ms. Abbot been through?” he asked. “Don’t you think it’s time for you to tell us the whole story?”
“I promised I wouldn’t,” Charlotte said. “But I suppose I can’t stop you from Googling Beatrice Swanson.”
“Who’s that?” Rocco asked.
The answer came to Charlie in a flash of inspiration. “I’d bet you anything that’s Ms. Abbot’s real name,” he said. “How did you figure it out, Charlotte?”
“I recognized her the first time I saw her,” Charlotte said. “I think I must have been the only one in Cypress Creek who did. To be honest, I’m something of a fan of hers.”
Paige typed the name into her phone. Dozens of articles came up in the search, most from New York newspapers.
BROOKLYN TEACHER ADMITS SHE’S THE SCIENCE WITCH
RUMORS SWIRL AROUND THE “WITCH OF BROOKLYN HEIGHTS”
PARENTS PROTEST AT “WITCH” SCHOOL
The photos that accompanied the headlines were just as shocking. Before she’d moved to Cypress Creek, Ms. Abbot had been blond and blue-eyed, with a fondness for flowery sundresses.
“So she is in disguise! I knew it!” Charlie said.
“You would be too,” Rocco replied. “Look at all those articles!”
Paige had settled on a story in the New York Times. A teacher at a fancy school in Brooklyn had been exposed as the author of The Science Witch, a popular website devoted to the magic of nature and science.
Charlie felt his stomach churning. He knew that a discovery like that could lead some people to think that the pretty blond teacher might be hiding a sinister side. And according to the newspaper, that seemed to be the case. Rumors about Beatrice Swanson had spread quickly through Brooklyn. People said that she grew deadly plants on her apartment’s rooftop terrace. Some claimed that she kept venomous snakes and a Gila monster as pets. Children reported that she refused to kill spiders—no matter how large or hairy. And teachers whispered that Beatrice was always cooking up foul-smelling goop with equipment that looked like it came right out of a mad scientist’s lab.
And all of it was true.
The Times reported that when the principal of the Brooklyn school confronted Beatrice Swanson, the teacher immediately confessed to keeping snakes and sparing spiders. But when a committee investigated, they found no cause for Ms. Swanson to be fired or arrested. Instead, they recommended that the brilliant and dedicated science teacher receive a promotion.
A few parents complained, but for a while it seemed as if the scandal would go away. And then a new round of rumors began on the Internet, and the second batch was far more potent. They each took a little speck of truth and wove a thick web of lies around it.
An anonymous neighbor said her baby had been sickened when a bird dropped a poisonous seed from the teacher’s garden into the child’s mashed potatoes and peas. A parent writing under the name WITCHHUNTER said that the students in one of Beatrice Swanson’s classes had all come down with a mysterious illness the day she brought a plate of homemade cookies to class—and that lab tests on the baked goods had confirmed the presence of Gila monster venom. An anonymous school employee wrote that security cameras inside the school had filmed the teacher placing dangerous spiders in the lockers of the students who’d exposed her as a witch. He even included a picture of a plastic baggie filled with spider corpses that he claimed to have plucked from the students’ belongings.
And worst of all, someone who claimed to have grown up with Beatrice Swanson said she had been practicing witchcraft since the age of fifteen, and there was evidence to suggest that one of her first victims had been her own twelve-year-old brother.
Charlie gasped when he read that part. Paige scrolled down, and a photo appeared. Charlie should have been shocked, but he’d half known what was coming. The picture showed the street outside a beautiful brick school somewhere in Brooklyn. It was packed with angry parents who, according to the caption, were demanding that Beatrice Swanson be permanently removed from the building and arrested. The Times had interviewed a few of them. One claimed that his little boy had developed a strange and horrifying rash in Ms. Swanson’s class. (When the Times checked back in with the father a week later, he admitted that the boy was just allergic to their new laundry detergent.) Another parent said she’d overheard her daughter casting a spell while she was taking a shower. (The girl in question insisted she’d been singing a popular rap song.)
In the end, Beatrice Swanson had fled New York. But she was still being hounded. The papers continued to write about her. Websites were full of posts from people who claimed to have seen her taking part in New Orleans voodoo ceremonies, dressed like a Celtic priestess in Ireland, or wearing a Maleficent costume at a comic-book convention.
Meanwhile, Beatrice Swanson had been in Cypress Creek the whole time.
“Wow,” Charlie said. “And I thought witch-hunts ended hundreds of years ago. Who would make up that kind of stuff just to get back at someone?”
“Me,” Paige said. Her face was as white as a sheet and her lips were trembling. “I would.”
“What are you talking about?” Rocco asked. “You are definitely not that kind of person.”
“Yes, I am,” Paige insisted. “Yesterday I was mad at Alfie for stealing the show in Ms. Abbot’s class. So I accused him of making Jancy Dare sick with his special water recipe.”
“That’s okay,” Alfie said with a shrug. “I can be a bit of a show-off, and I know you didn’t really mean it.”
“No,” Paige said. “I didn’t really mean it. I was just mad and feeling mean. I didn’t want to hurt you. But I could have ended up doing something unforgivable. By saying what I did, I could have accidentally started a horrible rumor about you. I bet that’s exactly how the stories started about Ms. Abbot in Brooklyn.”
“Hey, Paige!” Alfie put his arm around her. “Really, it’s okay! I forgive you!”
“Thanks, but I don’t deserve it,” Paige said, hugging him back.
“It’s just proof that what happened in Brooklyn could happen here too,” Charlie said. “And no one deserves to be treated the way Ms. Abbot was.”
“That’s right,” Rocco said. “We’ve got to help her.”
“Then we need to find INK,” Charlie said. “If anyone in this town gets poisoned, Ms. Abbot will be the first person people blame.”
Inside the purple mansion, the four kids and Charlotte huddled around the breakfast table with a map of Cypress Creek laid out in front of them.
“Charlotte, you should take downtown Cypress Creek,” Charlie said. “Whatever INK’s making, she may need more supplies. You should go door to door and ask all the shop people if they’ve seen any weird kids wearing old-fashioned uniforms.
“Alfie and Rocco, you guys split up and check as many backyards as you can. INK seems to have a thing for playhouses and garden sheds.”
“Wait a sec,” said Rocco. “I’m happy to look, but what am I supposed to do if I catch her?”
“Text the rest of us,” Charlie said.
“And then?” Alfie asked.
Charlie frowned. “I haven’t gotten that far yet,” he admitted. “First we find her; then we figure out what to do with her. Paige and I are going to go
back to search through the woods around Ms. Abbot’s house.”
“Why do both of you need to go to the woods?” Alfie asked. “Why doesn’t one of you go check out the library or something?”
Neither Charlie nor Paige had a response ready. Charlie saw Charlotte struggling to hold back a smile and Rocco shaking his head at Alfie’s cluelessness.
“Am I missing something?” Alfie asked. Charlie felt his face burning red.
Rocco rolled his eyes. “And I thought you were a genius,” he said. “Come on, let’s hit the road.”
“I still don’t understand!” Alfie hurried after Rocco as the taller boy headed for the front door. “Seriously, Rocco, what is it?”
Finally Rocco took pity on Alfie, stopped, and bent down to whisper something in his ear. By the time he’d finished, Alfie’s mouth was hanging open in shock.
“You’re joking!” he said, running to catch up with Rocco, who was already halfway out the door. “Wait, Rocco—are you pulling my leg?”
As the door swung shut, Charlie found himself staring at the exit and wishing he too could make a mad dash for it.
He heard Charlotte grabbing her handbag and keys off the kitchen counter. “I’m off too,” she announced. “Unless somebody finds INK earlier, I’ll see you guys this evening.”
“Bye, Charlotte,” Paige said. “You ready, Charlie?”
He couldn’t find the guts to turn and face her. So instead, Charlie offered a hearty grunt.
“I guess I should take that as a yes,” Paige said. “But if you’re planning to act weird all afternoon, maybe I’ll head to the library by myself.”
Charlie cleared his throat and forced himself to look Paige in the eye. “Act like what? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
Paige laughed. “Whatever you say,” she told him.
—
It was a warm fall day in Cypress Creek—until they turned down Freeman Road. The trees overhead blocked out the sunlight, and the temperature dropped twenty degrees in the shade. Charlie shivered and wished he’d taken a jacket from the coatrack by the purple mansion’s front door. If he had, he would have offered it to Paige. In the forest, the leaves were already falling, and their brittle brown carcasses littered the ground, sometimes piling so high they hid the road from view.
Riding side by side on their bikes, Charlie and Paige moved cautiously as they searched for signs of life between the trees. Charlie spotted four deer, a rabbit, a raccoon, and something he hoped might be Bigfoot but turned out to be the blackened stump of a tree that had recently been struck by lightning. While there was no sign of INK, he had a hunch that they’d find her when they reached Ms. Abbot’s house. With the teacher at school, it was the perfect time for a thief to break into a house and stock up on supplies.
Charlie glanced over at Paige. Her hair was blowing in the wind, and she looked like a girl from a television commercial. They hadn’t spoken much since they’d hopped on their bikes, but somehow the awkwardness was totally gone, and Charlie was just glad to be hunting for villains with one of his best friends since kindergarten.
When they reached Ms. Abbot’s house, they parked their bikes out of sight and scouted the property. The garden shed was empty, and there were no signs that anyone had been inside for a while. Several new locks had been added to the greenhouse door. When Charlie and Paige peered through the glass, they could see the empty space where the belladonna had once been, though it didn’t seem like any of the other plants had disappeared. The house was locked up tight as well, but Paige insisted they have a look inside. She located a window that was open a crack. Standing on Charlie’s shoulders like an acrobat, she was able to slip inside.
“Whoa, you’ve got to see this place,” she whispered when she unlocked the back door for Charlie.
The living room was one giant laboratory. There was very little furniture, just several tables that seemed to be devoted to different experiments. There were so many beakers, tubes, coils, and extractors clamped together that Charlie could barely make sense of it all. Corked flasks of strange liquids waited their turn to be studied, along with bowls filled with poisonous berries and toxic leaves.
“What has Ms. Abbot been doing?” Paige asked, just as Charlie caught sight of a black car pulling up in front of the house. Without pausing to think, he grabbed his friend and pulled her into a closet in the hall.
“Why are we hiding?” Paige whispered. “It’s probably Ms. Abbot, and she knows we skipped school to look for INK.”
“Yeah, but we forgot to mention we’d be snooping around her house,” Charlie said. “It’s lunchtime. She’s probably just stopping by to get something. We won’t have to hide for long.” Though Charlie had to admit—he was perfectly content to share a closet with Paige for as long as possible. The smell of her shampoo always made him giddy.
They heard the front door open. There were light footsteps on the floor. And then came the sound of shattering glass.
“What’s happening?” Paige whispered. It sounded like someone was taking a hammer to the laboratory.
The ruckus lasted a full minute. Then the shattering ended, something heavy fell with a thump on the floor, and the footsteps walked away. Terrible fumes began to fill the closet. Charlie opened the door and peeked outside. All that was left of the laboratory was broken glass. Chemicals of all colors had splattered the ceiling, and acid had burned holes the size of tangerines in the plaster. Blobs of goo left trails of slime as they oozed down the walls toward the floor. Smoke rose from the remains of the destroyed equipment.
Someone had destroyed Ms. Abbot’s lab, as if in a fit of rage.
The house was silent, aside from a few rumblings coming from the bedroom. Together, Charlie and Paige tiptoed toward the door. They found Ms. Abbot inside, yanking clothing off hangers in her closet. She tossed an armful of dresses onto a suitcase lying open on the bed. She looked at the suitcase for a moment, then burst into tears and collapsed into a miserable heap on a nearby chair.
“I give up,” Charlie heard her say between sobs.
Paige’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and they checked the screen. The text was from Rocco. FOUND INK AT PARK NEAR LIBRARY. GET HERE FAST. Charlie glanced back up at Ms. Abbot. Something was terribly wrong with her, and he hated to leave anyone alone in such a state, but there was nothing else to be done. India Kessog had to be caught.
—
Rocco was crouched behind some bushes at the edge of the park when Charlie and Paige sped up on their bikes.
“Where is she?” Charlie asked.
Rocco stood up and pointed to the opposite side of the park. INK was there, all right, sitting primly on a bench with a basket in her lap and her legs crossed at the ankles. “She’s been there for the last thirty minutes.”
“You’ve been watching her for that long? Why didn’t you grab her?” Alfie had arrived.
“What for?” Rocco asked. “She hasn’t been bothering anyone.”
“Rocco,” Charlie huffed. “Do I need to remind you that INK stole a deadly plant? She could poison the entire town and ruin our science teacher’s life.”
“Maybe,” Rocco said, being unusually stubborn. “But she hasn’t.”
The argument stopped as the four of them ducked down behind the bushes. Someone was wading through dried leaves a few yards away. Then a small figure walked out into the park.
“Jack!” Charlie groaned. “What’s he doing here? Why isn’t he in class?”
Paige checked her watch. It was three o’clock. “School just got out,” she announced.
Charlie’s little brother waved to INK from across the park. When he reached the bench, he took a seat beside the girl. They chatted like best friends for a few minutes, and then INK reached into the basket on her lap and pulled out a small bottle.
“Oh no!” Paige whispered.
INK handed the bottle to Jack. And he took it.
“What’s he doing?” squealed Alfie.
> Jack examined the contents, then uncorked the bottle…
“Ummm, Charlie?” Rocco said nervously.
…and lifted it toward his face…
“STOP!” Charlie shouted, bolting from his hiding spot. “JACK, DON’T DRINK THAT!”
The bottle slipped out of Jack’s hands, and INK leaped up from the bench. Before Charlie could reach them, she’d disappeared between the trees. Jack dropped to his knees and grabbed the bottle off the ground. Most of its contents had spilled, but there were still a few drops of a milky-white liquid left at the bottom.
“Look what you did!” Jack shouted at his brother.
“Look what I did? Are you kidding?” Charlie yelled back. “I just saved your sneaky little butt!”
“I wasn’t going to drink the stuff, you doofus,” Jack growled. “I was just smelling it! Indy said I could!”
Charlie snorted bitterly. “Don’t you know smelling stuff can be dangerous too? Besides, what were you doing taking anything INK handed you? And why were you meeting with her in the first place?”
Jack didn’t answer right away. And when his lips stayed shut for longer than they should have, Charlie knew something was up.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“She asked me not to tell you,” Jack said.
For a minute, the shouting had seemed to be over, and Charlie’s friends had started making their way toward the brothers. Now they stopped in their tracks again as Charlie let loose on Jack. “ARE YOU COMPLETELY INSANE?” He could barely believe what he’d heard. “A creature who nearly destroyed three worlds wants you to keep something a secret from your own brother and you agree?”
Jack narrowed his eyes. “Indy is not a creature. And she only asked me to keep the secret because she’s scared of you.”
“SHE SHOULD BE SCARED OF ME!” Charlie shouted. “I’M TRYING TO CATCH HER.”
He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked to his left to see Paige, with Rocco and Alfie standing beside her.