The Lost Lullaby

by Jason Segel

  “So are you going to punish us?” Jack asked meekly. “Please don’t wait and let Charlotte do it!”

  Andrew Laird crossed his arms and glared down at his sons.

  “Now that you mention it, I think that’s a great idea, Jack. I’ll let Charlotte punish you when she gets home,” he said, playing right into Jack’s hand. The kid was a genius, Charlie thought. “In fact, I think I hear her pulling up in the drive right now.”

  Charlie’s father stormed downstairs to greet his wife, with the two boys trailing behind him.

  “They did what to my great-great-grandfather’s headboard?” Charlotte yelped when her husband told her the news. She was a wonderful actress, Charlie thought.

  “They nailed it to the tower door,” Andrew Laird said. “I’m really sorry, honey.”

  “You two did all that while I was out picking up your friends?” Charlotte pretended to fume, pointing outside at the three kids sitting in the backseat of her Range Rover. She was overacting now, Charlie thought, but her performance was still passable.

  “Sorry, Charlotte,” Jack said. Charlie stayed quiet and let his brother do the acting.

  “I’ll remove the nails and see what I can do to fix it,” Andrew Laird told his wife.

  “No, just leave it for now, Andy,” Charlotte said. “We’ll hire an expert to remove it. And you two”—she pointed at Charlie and Jack—“get in the car. I’m taking your friends home, and then you’re both going straight to Hazel’s Herbarium to work off the cost of the repairs.”

  “Come on, Charlotte,” Jack groaned. “We weren’t trying to be bad.”

  “Do what she tells you,” their dad ordered. “I don’t want to hear any complaining.”

  The boys obediently climbed into the car. Charlie took the front seat and Jack crammed into the extra seat in the very back.

  As soon as they were out of sight of the purple mansion, Charlie turned to face his friends. Six long sticks with metal loops on the ends were lying across their laps.

  “Butterfly nets,” Alfie explained. “From my lepidoptera obsession in the third grade. I figure they’ll be perfect for catching small flying Nightmares.”

  “Charlotte told you what happened?” Charlie asked.

  “Yeah,” Paige said. “The invasion must have been really scary.”

  “It was,” Jack agreed. “I thought we were goners for sure.”

  “We’re going to burn down the tower before they try to come back,” Charlie said. “But first we need to locate the gargoyle that escaped.”

  “And INK,” Jack added. “We need to find her too, remember.”

  The kid was way too nice for anyone’s good. “Don’t be so naïve,” Charlie told his little brother. “When we find one, we’ll find the other. Like I said, the gargoyle had a little metal cylinder strapped to its leg. I’m sure ICK was using it to send something to INK. Probably a message to let her sister know she’s coming.”

  “Hold up, Charlie,” said Rocco. “I thought we figured out that India Kessog is a good guy. She saved Jancy Dare’s life this morning, didn’t she?”

  Charlie snorted. “Jancy’s the school bully. Does saving a bully really make you a good guy? Besides, maybe INK just wants us to think she’s good. Maybe it’s all part of the twins’ evil plan.”

  Rocco leaned forward in his seat. “Or maybe she wants us to think that because it’s true,” he said.

  Charlie turned around to look at his friend and understood immediately. Rocco was now firmly on Jack’s side. Charlie felt his heart sink even further. It was a massive betrayal. “Anyone else agree with Jack and Rocco?” he asked.

  The car was silent, and then Alfie began to fidget. “Ummm…,” he said.

  “Spit it out,” Charlie demanded angrily. He could feel the darkness growing inside him. As hard as he’d tried to get rid of it, it had been there all along, hidden beneath the surface.

  “INK made atropine,” Alfie said. “That’s really, really hard to do. I think if she were out to trick us, she could have found an easier way.”

  “So the three of you are all against me,” Charlie said, glad he was in the front seat and not stuck in the back with a bunch of traitors.

  “What are you talking about?” Rocco said. “Don’t make it sound like this is some kind of war. We’re not against you. We just don’t agree with you.”

  Charlie ignored him. “Paige?” he asked. He didn’t know what he would do if she was on their side too.

  “Sorry, guys, but I’m for playing it safe,” Paige announced. “As soon as the tower is gone and the Waking World is no longer in danger, I’ll be happy to have INK over for a tea party. Until then, I’m with Charlie.”

  “I am too,” said Charlotte. “I know it’s not fair, Jack, but there’s too much at stake. If we find INK, we need to find a secure place to put her until the gargoyle is back in the Netherworld and we’ve burned the tower down.”

  “No!” Jack said defiantly. “That’s what will happen if you find INK. That’s not what I’ll do if I find her first. Stop the car and let me out.”

  “You’ve got to be joking,” Charlie said.

  “Actually, I’d like to get out too,” said Rocco. “Alfie?”

  “Really, guys?” Alfie groaned. “Is this necessary? It’s so comfy here in the car.”

  Rocco raised an eyebrow and Alfie gave in.

  “Fine,” he sighed. “I guess I’d like to get out too.”

  Charlotte pulled to the side of the road by the Cypress Creek library.

  “What? I can’t believe you’re going to let them do this!” Charlie told his stepmother. “It’s a mutiny!”

  “A mutiny is when people stop taking orders from a leader. This isn’t a mutiny, Charlie, because you were never in charge,” Rocco said. “You’re our friend and we like you, but you can’t stop us from doing what we think is right.”

  “Charlotte!” Charlie yelped as the three boys slid out of the vehicle.

  “Relax,” Charlotte told him in a low voice. “We have the car.”

  “And the nets,” Paige said, gesturing toward the butterfly nets that the boys had left behind. “Jack, Alfie, and Rocco are unarmed and on foot. There’s no way they’re going to capture that gargoyle.”

  —

  As it turned out, having a car wasn’t much of an advantage. Charlotte, Charlie, and Paige spent the rest of the day driving all around Cypress Creek. They checked every playhouse and garden shed in town—and then they drove into the woods to see if Ms. Abbot had received any unexpected guests. When they arrived at the cottage in the clearing, they found it empty. Charlie briefly worried that the teacher might have fled town after all, but a peek inside the teacher’s house convinced him otherwise. She’d been home since the incident with Jancy Dare, and it looked as though she’d begun to unpack a few of the cardboard boxes that were scattered throughout the living room.

  By six o’clock, the sun had started to set. The three of them were hungry and exhausted, and there was no point in continuing the search in the dark, so Charlotte dropped Paige off at her home. Then, on their way to the purple mansion, Charlotte’s phone began to ring. It was Jack, calling from the other side of town. His search had been a bust too, and he needed a ride home. After Charlotte turned the Range Rover around, Charlie got out. Rather than sit in a car with Jack, Charlie walked the rest of the way to the mansion alone.

  —

  By the time Charlie arrived home, the smell of cauliflower casserole had filled the house. Charlie groaned when he first caught a whiff of it. While he had been out hunting gargoyles, his dad had been home alone for at least an hour. Charlie, Jack, and Charlotte had let down their guard again. Anything could have happened.

  As famished as he was, Charlie headed straight for the stairs. He didn’t have the strength left for a conversation with his father. So he flinched when he reached the landing and heard Andrew Laird’s voice calling to him from below.

  “Where are your brother and stepmother?�
� he asked.

  “They should be home soon,” Charlie said.

  “Did Charlotte make you work hard at Hazel’s Herbarium today?” his dad asked.

  Charlie shrugged. He’d almost forgotten that he was supposed to be in trouble.

  “I ask because I drove past the shop this afternoon and it was closed.”

  Charlie turned around and looked over the railing at his father.

  “Charlie?” Andrew Laird asked. “Is there something going on that I don’t know about?”

  “Yes,” Charlie told him. “There’s a portal in the tower upstairs. A nightmare land lies on the other side. A villain who looks like a twelve-year-old girl has formed an army of monsters, and she’s trying to get into our world. So far, we’ve managed to keep her locked in the tower, but she’s trying to break free. That’s why we had to nail the headboard to the door. If she reaches the Waking World, we’re all in serious trouble.”

  Charlie’s father regarded him with a mixture of disappointment and concern. “I was hoping you’d give me a straight answer for once,” he told his son.

  “I did,” Charlie said. “You just don’t believe it.”

  Charlie let out a deep breath and climbed the rest of the stairs. He walked down the hall to his room and closed the door behind him.

  The sun was long gone and the moon was rising over the mountains. Charlie looked out the window at the wilderness beyond Cypress Creek. What had he been thinking? INK had been hiding out there for at least a week and they hadn’t found her yet. And what hope did they have of locating a small flying creature that looked just like a rock?

  Charlie was about to plop down on his bed when he heard a scratching sound inside the closet. He would have assumed it was mice if he hadn’t lived in the same house as Charlotte’s cat, Aggie, who was every rodent’s worst nightmare. Charlie tiptoed quietly to the closet door and pulled it open in one swift movement. On the floor was a large object with a blanket thrown over it. Something under the blanket was moving.

  Summoning his courage, Charlie reached down and snatched the blanket away. The thing on the floor was a metal cage, but the thing inside it definitely wasn’t a bird. A tiny granite-colored gargoyle growled at him and flexed its wings. Tied to the top of the cage was a small metal canister with a stopper in the top.

  Charlie removed the stopper and pulled out a scrap of paper.

  I have an army.

  Join it or fight it.

  —IZZIE

  Charlie flipped over the paper to find another message written on the back in a different hand. This one said:

  No thank you.

  —INDY

  Charlie Laird, please send this gargoyle back where it belongs.

  The little creature in the cage reached through the bars and tried to snatch the message, but Charlie yanked it back just in time. So the gargoyle had been delivering something to INK. Charlie looked at the message again. She must have captured the Nightmare and brought it back to the purple mansion with her response. Charlie thought it over. INK didn’t want to join ICK’s army. Was it the truth, or just a trick to get access to the tower so she could set her sister loose in the Waking World?

  Then he realized how wrong he’d been. If INK had brought the gargoyle back, that meant she’d been inside the purple mansion on her own. She’d had the chance to remove the locks and the barricades from the tower door—but she hadn’t.

  Charlie raced downstairs to where his father, now wearing a frilly apron, was taking a golden casserole out of the oven.

  “Hungry?” he asked his son.

  Charlie shook his head at the casserole. He’d eat kale pancakes and banana bean balls, but he drew the line at cauliflower. “Was the house’s security system on today?” he asked.

  “Umm, I’m pretty sure I locked all the doors,” Andrew Laird said.

  “But the alarms—were they on?” Charlie asked.

  “Well…,” his dad said with an embarrassed grimace. “I’m afraid the security system isn’t quite up and running yet.”

  “When did it stop working?” Charlie asked.

  “It never started,” his father said. “I couldn’t figure out where the On button was. Someone from the company is coming out to show me in a couple of days.”

  Charlie couldn’t believe it. INK could have set ICK free at any time.

  Charlie felt bright sunshine on his face, and when he opened his eyes he let loose a shout of pure joy. After more than a week of miserable, sheep-ridden dreams, he’d finally made it to the Dream Realm. There was warm white sand beneath his body, and he could hear the crash of waves in the distance. He sat up and looked around, expecting to see his mother lounging on a beach chair nearby. But there was no one in sight but a surfer riding a wave to the shore.

  As the surfer came closer, Charlie could see that he was wearing a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt with an old fedora. Charlie got to his feet and waved with both arms.

  “Meduso!” he shouted. The surfer looked in his direction—and took a brutal tumble into the surf.

  When he rose from the ocean, the hat was off and the three snakes that grew out of his head were all coughing and sputtering. Fortunately, Meduso’s sunglasses remained on. One look from the eyes behind them and Charlie would have been instantly turned to stone.

  “Charlie Laird,” said Basil Meduso as he hauled his board up onto the sand. “Still trying to murder me, I see.”

  “Sorry about that,” Charlie told the gorgon. “I was just happy to see you guys.” Not as happy as he would have been to see his mother, but happy all the same.

  “Charlie!” the snake named Fernando cried as soon as he’d recovered enough to greet him. “You’ve returned victoriousss! Your triumph over ICK and INK isss already a legend here in the Dream Realm!”

  It took Charlie a second to realize that Fernando was talking about the Tranquility Tonic.

  “Yeah, well, turns out we just got rid of the tonic,” Charlie admitted. “ICK and INK are still causing trouble. One of them has started a Nightmare army. She wants to take over the Waking World.”

  “You sssee, I told you it wouldn’t lassst,” hissed a bitter brown snake in a nasal voice.

  “Hi, Larry,” Charlie said politely. “Good to see you too, Barry.” He nodded to the emerald-green snake who never spoke, and it flicked the side of his face with its tongue in return.

  “So I suppose you’re here for some advice.” Meduso sighed theatrically.

  Though Meduso would never have admitted it, Charlie could tell that the gorgon was pleased to see him. He didn’t think any good would come of informing Meduso he’d arrived at the beach by accident. So instead, Charlie nodded gamely.

  Meduso lay down on a bright orange beach towel and Charlie gave the gorgon his side of the story. He and Jack had discovered ICK’s army—and for a while Charlie had been convinced that INK was involved too. Maybe he’d been wrong about that. But Charlie was only trying to do what was best for everyone. It hurt that his brother, Alfie, and Rocco didn’t support him.

  “So Alfie and Rocco chose Jack’s side, did they?” Meduso said.

  “Shhhocking,” sneered Larry.

  “Indeed!” agreed Meduso. “How dare they have their own opinions after you went to such trouble to find weak-willed friends who would always do exactly what you tell them to do?”

  Charlie was about to agree when he realized what was going on. “Wait, are you making fun of me?” he asked.

  “No, I’m making a point,” said Meduso. “Would you rather have smart friends who think for themselves—or lackeys who think only what you tell them to think?”

  “My friends are smart,” Charlie replied. “And I like them that way.”

  “Of course you do. That’s what makes them interesting,” said Meduso. “But if you like smart friends who think for themselves, why is it such a giant betrayal when a couple of them agree with Jack?”

  “Sssnap!” hissed Larry.

  Fernando slithered down far en
ough to look Charlie in the eye. “Larry, Barry, and I disssagree all the time,” he said. “And we ssstill ssstick together.”

  “Yeah,” Larry sneered. “ ’Caussse we’re all ssstuck to thisss guy’sss head.”

  “Let your friends have their own opinions,” Meduso counseled. “It seems to me that the disagreement between ICK and INK is far more important. One twin is starting a war. The other seems to be aiding the enemy. They appear to be on two different sides at the moment. If you want to put an end to this episode, I suggest you get to the bottom of the girls’ little spat.”

  “So you think Jack is right too?” Charlie asked, though he already knew the answer. “INK really might be a good guy?”

  “Absssolutely not!” said Larry emphatically.

  “I’d sssay it’sss cccertainly posssible,” Fernando disagreed.

  “They may be on two different sides, but that doesn’t mean one side is good and the other one evil,” replied Meduso. “It’s never quite as simple as that. Nobody’s perfect—not even you, Charlie Laird. But if you want to know if INK is a good guy, I doubt you’ll find the answer here in the Dream Realm. Why don’t you wake up and ask her?”

  The next morning, Charlie was spying on his little brother when Jack woke up to find a miniature gargoyle making faces at him from a cage resting beside his pillow. First the creature stuck its black tongue out of its mouth and up one of its nostrils. Then it filled its cheeks with air until its head was the size of a grapefruit and on the verge of bursting. And for an encore, it rolled its eyes back until only the whites were showing—and then spun its head around in a complete circle.

  “What the what?” Jack yelped loudly, and tumbled out of bed.

  Charlie snickered and snuck downstairs.

  “Did you like your present?” Charlie asked when his brother took a seat at the breakfast table.

  “So you found the gargoyle,” Jack said miserably. “Did you find India too?”