“Oh, no—that’s probably just from Thursday. He likes to … go here.” Max remembered that Mr. Grimsrud’s ugly dog had marked his spot on the gazebo steps the last time he was there.
“I thought you said they were called wednesdays?” Dr. Conkle-Smoak looked confused.
“They are,” Max answered impatiently. “Thursday isn’t a wednesday; he’s a dog.”
The doctor continued to look confused.
“There is another place we could try,” Max said slowly.
He led the way to the clock tower in the center of the town square. He was positive that Ninety-nine had been trying to tell him something important when he sang the wednesday song, and one of the song’s lines included a reference to a clock. The tower was the tallest building in the village by a considerable margin, and Max stood at the base, looking up as he recited the lyrics to the doctor:
A wednesday’s job is never done
As long as Wednesdays are.
We heed the clock when it tolls twelve
And come from near and far.
We’re never late–we cannot be–
For then we’d miss the door.
Neither do we dare to leave
Till Wednesday is no more.
“I was planning to come back later to look for some sort of a door on the clock,” Max explained.
“Dear boy, if there’s one thing that I’ve learned from my study of parapsychology, it’s that you should never take things too literally—wait a minute. I’m getting a reading! I’m getting an enormous reading here! The level of cosmo-telluric energy here is positively ethereal!” Dr. Conkle-Smoak was so excited that he sprayed spittle as he spoke.
Max’s mother, who had not said a single word since they left the office, sighed mournfully and pulled a handkerchief from her purse to wipe the spittle off her cheek. “And this means what, exactly?” She sounded utterly unmoved by the discovery.
“Mom, this is important,” Max urged. “One of the wednesdays—one of the nicer ones, that is—was trying to tell me something important about this clock. We need to get inside this tower.”
Unfortunately, they could not enter the building. Max did find a small metal door, painted a scabby shade of mauve, on the side of the tower, but it was locked. He tried removing his helmet and using his wednesday powers to break down the door, but the only thing that happened was that a bluebird flew directly into the wall of the clock tower.
“Sorry,” Max whispered to the dazed bird lying on the ground. He quickly put his helmet back on his head.
“I’m going to march over to city hall this minute to find someone to let us in,” Max’s mother declared.
As she left, Dr. Conkle-Smoak removed a small vial from his pocket and knelt down to fill it with a sample of the soil at the base of the clock tower. “Extraordinary,” he muttered to himself.
“Did you find something?” Max asked excitedly.
“What? Oh, no, nothing like that. I was just thinking about how extraordinarily delicious my breakfast pastry was this morning. Oh, wait—what’s this?” The doctor bent stiffly to examine something low to the ground, his knees popping loudly in protest. He pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil, and then proceeded to rub the pencil over the paper as he held it against one of the building’s bricks. “There’s a faint engraving here. Let’s see what it says.”
Max peered at the image the pencil rubbing revealed on the paper. Several words appeared in an antiquated script:
Psyche Pannuchizein Exodo
“What does it mean?”
“I’m afraid that I flunked the ancient languages semester of my schooling. I’ll have to look it up later.” Looking slightly embarrassed, the doctor stuffed the pencil rubbing into his pocket. Next, he filled three more vials with soil, and then stuck his tongue out and proceeded to thoughtfully lick the wall.
Max watched, baffled, as he tasted each wall of the tower.
“There’s a saying that we parapsychologists have,” he explained. “North, south, east, west, the spirit world tastes the best.”
“So you can tell where they come in and out of the clock?” Max was starting to think the strange doctor might actually be on to something.
“They use the door, it seems.” Dr. Conkle-Smoak did not sound certain. “At least, the door tastes considerably better than the walls. Give it a try.”
• • •
Max’s mother returned to find Max licking the bricks on the clock tower’s east side. “Maxwell Valentino Bernard! What on earth are you doing?”
“Nothing,” Max said sheepishly, not wanting to explain. All of the walls, and the door as well, tasted more or less the same, as far as he could tell. If anything, the door just tasted slightly rustier than the walls.
“Blasted bureaucracy!” His mother was livid. “The ninny working at city hall told me that I had to file a formal request for permission to enter the clock tower, and that it would have to be approved at the next city council meeting at the end of the month.”
That’s too late, Max thought. He hadn’t told anyone about the week of Wednesdays yet. Everyone was treating him so differently already; if they knew he was only a short time away from becoming a wednesday forever, they’d be even more afraid to be around him. He’d have to find some other way into the clock tower on his own.
“Come along, then, Max, if we’re done here,” his mother said, checking her watch. “I need to get home to feed baby Leland.”
Dr. Conkle-Smoak promised to get back to them as soon as possible once he had completed his analysis of the samples and the field readings. Max could only hope that the doctor actually knew what he was doing, since no one else seemed to understand what was happening to him.
oah was already waiting at the base of the clock tower when Max arrived the next morning.
“How’d you manage to get out? I thought your parents would chain you up in your basement once they heard that you were suspended from school.” Max sat down with his friend on the curb, relieved to have someone to share the day with.
“Nah,” Noah said easily. “For starters, the basement is still off-limits till they fix the boiler, no thanks to you. My folks are so busy with the repairs they’ll never even notice I’m gone.”
Max ducked his head sheepishly, more grateful than ever that Noah wasn’t one to hold a grudge.
“But if I’m going to spend the rest of the month doing all my sisters’ chores in addition to my own for that little stunt you pulled at my house on Wednesday, then you’d better start talking. I want to hear everything.” Noah waved his finger in Max’s face jokingly. “And you’re buying ice cream for me every afternoon this week to make up for me losing TV privileges thanks to the suspension.”
“Deal.” Max wasn’t about to protest Noah’s demands. He’d have agreed to almost anything just to have someone to talk to about the last week’s events. He had just started to fill Noah in on the details of his run-ins with the wednesdays when they heard a loud throat-clearing noise behind them.
Max jumped; his first reaction was to panic—to worry that the wednesdays had somehow found him, even though it was a Friday. His panic actually increased when he saw that it was Gemma Swift standing behind them. “G-G-Gemma. Why aren’t you in school?” He hated himself for stammering, but something about her always made him feel nervous and clumsy. She was just so … intense.
She rolled her eyes. “School’s for amateurs. I’m taking a sick day. As in, I’m sick of school. Besides, I’m writing a story for the school newspaper about this wednesday business, and I need a quote from you.”
Max started to object—the last thing on earth he needed was the kind of attention a newspaper article was sure to bring—but Gemma cut him off. “I had a feeling that you might not want to talk to a reporter, so I brought something along to change your mind. I heard you might need this.” She was twirling a single key on a long chain.
Max and Noah just looked at her blankly. “What is it?” Noah asked
finally.
Gemma gave an exasperated sigh. “Duh. It’s the master key to all of the village municipal buildings.” When the boys still looked confused, she sighed again. “It will open the clock tower. My dad told me that you had applied for access. The city council will take forever, so I just … borrowed this key from my dad’s desk drawer. He’ll never notice.”
It suddenly became clear to Max. Gemma’s father was the village mayor. He ran everything and knew everyone; of course he would have the keys to the clock. Max felt himself blushing slightly, though. First, Peter’s dad had spilled the beans about his case of the wednesdays, and now Gemma’s dad had told her all about the clock. “Is it completely impossible to keep anything secret in this village?” he asked irritably.
Fortunately, Noah was there to remind him of his manners via a sharp elbow in the ribs. “Aren’t you going to say thank you?” he prompted Max.
He was right. Max quickly wiped the scowl off his face and thanked Gemma. She smiled back confidently and joined the boys on the curb. “Okay, Max. Start from the beginning,” she commanded. “Tell us what happened.”
• • •
Neither of Max’s new partners in crime said a word until he finished talking. But once he was done, they peppered him with questions.
“So, why haven’t you met One yet?” Gemma looked skeptical. “And are there actually any girl wednesdays? Where are they?”
“Who cares?” Noah interrupted. “All we need to know is how to get rid of them.”
Max stopped them both. “There’s a lot I don’t understand. They’re terribly confusing, if you haven’t already guessed. And these last few weeks have been really, truly awful.” It occurred to him that what he needed most from his friends at that moment was a bit of sympathy—an arm around the shoulders, perhaps, or even a proper hug, though he would most certainly never admit that out loud, especially around Noah.
It was a silly thought.
Gemma was too busy scribbling notes in a spiral notebook that she had pulled out of her purse.
Noah, on the other hand, had jumped up and started to pace. “Why don’t we just get—I don’t know, the police or the military, or the dogcatcher, or someone—to exterminate the nasty things? The whole village hates the wednesdays—everyone would be glad to see them gone.” His eyes sparkled as he began to plot the destruction of the creatures.
“It’s more complicated than that,” Max explained nervously. He hadn’t let on yet that he was halfway to being a wednesday himself. “They’re not all mean—just the older ones. And it’s not like they chose to become wednesdays. I mean, I think they were normal kids who just happened to be chosen by Two. Or One. Or someone … I don’t know. It’s not their fault, really.”
Noah wasn’t convinced. “Ah, would you quit defending them, Max? They must have zapped your brain or something. Come on—don’t go soft on us now!” He clapped Max on the back hard enough to make him sputter.
Gemma’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You do sound as if you’re defending them. You’re obviously not telling us something. Fess up, Maxwell.”
Max looked pleadingly at Noah for help, but Noah wasn’t the least bit inclined to jump to his rescue on this point, at least. He crossed his arms over his chest, waiting to hear what Max had to say. “Go on—answer her. I’m curious, too. I want to know why my best friend is suddenly making excuses for the same little pests who replaced the ball bearings in my skateboard wheels with pebbles just last month. Do you have any idea how much that cost to fix?”
The thought of telling them—telling them everything—filled Max with a combination of dread and relief. But he couldn’t hold it in any longer. He just couldn’t. He drew a long breath, and then told them his shameful secret.
“I’m … Next.”
He tried to act as if it wasn’t any sort of a big deal, but when he heard Gemma gasp and saw the look of deep concern on Noah’s face, he felt tears prickling his eyes. Something about saying it out loud made it seem truly and terribly real for the first time.
“So, how much longer do you have?” Gemma whispered.
“As far as I can tell, a week of Wednesdays means seven Wednesdays. It’s been three.” Revealing the secret he had been carrying around wasn’t easy for Max, but now that he was finally talking about it—dealing with it—he felt a weight lifting from his chest.
“Plenty of time,” Noah said boldly. “But I still don’t understand why we can’t just wipe them out.”
“Oh, that’s kind of you, Noah.” Gemma stood up for Max. “Really sensitive, considering your best friend is basically one of them.”
Max started to protest, but he knew she was right. He slumped against the curb miserably.
“Sorry, Max,” Noah mumbled. “I didn’t mean you.”
“Well, let’s get on with it, then,” Gemma announced. She stood up and dusted herself off, then headed for the door on the rear wall of the clock tower.
Max and Noah exchanged shrugs, then followed. Gemma had a way of making people follow her.
“You two stay out here and keep watch. I’m not supposed to have the key, and I don’t want to get in trouble for skipping school, either.” Gemma turned the key in the lock.
“Maybe you shouldn’t go alone,” Max warned her. “Dr. Conkle-Smoak said the wednesday readings were”—he struggled to remember the correct term—“really high,” he finished lamely. “They might be sleeping in there, for all we know.”
Gemma rolled her eyes at him and then slipped through the door, leaving it open just a crack.
“What a woman,” Noah whispered appreciatively as she disappeared.
Max paced back and forth, his eyes darting from the door to the deserted village square. He realized after a few moments that he had been holding his breath. Just as he exhaled, an ear-piercing scream sounded from inside the clock.
ax V. Bernard might have had his faults—he tended to be untidy, and he was easily distracted, for starters. But it must be said that when he heard Gemma scream, Max reacted as quickly as anyone wearing a heavy steel helmet and increasingly ill-fitting clothing possibly could. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, Noah reacted just as quickly.
“Gemma!” Max and Noah both leapt for the door at the exact same time, colliding roughly. Max’s helmet fell off and rolled away; Noah then tripped over the helmet, hitting his head on the edge of the sidewalk with a frightful thud.
“My nose!” Noah’s nose was gushing a tremendous flow of blood. Max hurriedly removed his sweatshirt so Noah could use it to stop the bleeding. No sooner had he thrust the garment against his friend’s injured face than the door was violently flung open.
“Aaaarrgh! Ouch-ouch-ouch-ouch!” Gemma screamed again as she flew out the door, waving frantically at her hair. She slammed the door behind her, but it bounced back open, sending her tumbling to the ground.
Noah was shouting something, but his voice was muffled by the sweatshirt pressed against his nose, so Max couldn’t understand a word. Noah removed the makeshift bandage just long enough to yell: “Put your helmet back on!”
Gemma shrieked yet again, this time at the sight of the rather impressive quantity of blood flowing from Noah’s nose. Her own face was swelling rapidly on one side.
Horrified by what was happening all around him, Max rushed to retrieve his helmet. “What happened to your face?” he asked.
“Wasp sting,” Gemma explained miserably.
“That’s why you screamed?” Max asked.
“Well, the second time, yes. The first time I did it just as a joke, to scare you. There’s nothing but clock parts inside,” she admitted sheepishly. “And apparently also a wasps’ nest.”
Max insisted on seeing for himself. Watching out carefully for stray wasps, he crept inside. It was a tall, narrow building with a winding staircase climbing steeply to the clock at the top. Sunlight streamed in through decorative openings in the bricks, casting eerie shadows against the inner walls.<
br />
There weren’t many hiding places. Wherever the wednesdays lived the other six days of the week, it certainly wasn’t here. Just to be sure, he crept to the top of the staircase and studied the clock’s gears and levers briefly. Under any other circumstances he would have spent more time looking at the complicated device, and maybe even tinkered with the chimes for fun. Today, though, he had no time for fun. If anything, the clock served as a great big reminder of just how little time he had before he turned into a wednesday forever.
A wasp buzzed by, looking for somewhere to land, or perhaps someone to sting. Max waved it off and then ran down the stairs. He might not have found any evidence, but he could feel the presence of the wednesdays here. His skin prickled and tingled, and his nose wrinkled at their noxious scent. He burst out the door, closing it behind him with a slam.
“What now?” Noah looked at him expectantly. But because he still had the sweatshirt pressed to his face, it sounded more like, “Wud no?”
“I wish I knew,” Max wailed as he took in the sight of his bloodied, battered friends. For the first time since he encountered the wednesdays, he began to feel deeply despondent.
Fortunately, Gemma wasn’t one to despair. “Snap out of it,” she barked. “It’s time for a plan. Let’s list what we know for sure.” She began to tick off items on her fingers, consulting her notepad for reference as she spoke. “First, their song talks about a clock and a door. Second, your psychic told you that he picked up definite readings here, right?”
“Parapsychologist,” Max corrected her weakly, nodding.
“Whatever. Third, you look like you’ve seen a ghost, and you’re practically hyperventilating, so this place is obviously affecting you. Well, either that or you’re just a big coward, but I don’t think that’s the case. Finally—and don’t take this the wrong way—your eyes are starting to look really bizarre.”
The Wednesdays Page 10