by Brandon Mull
The man was holding Nate high, so he had a good view of Trevor dashing toward them across the lawn. His friend obviously no longer had a Moon Rock in his mouth. “Well, if you really want to know,” Nate said, talking loudly to cover the sound of Trevor’s approach, “I’m one of the Lost Boys, and Peter Pan wanted us to get in some practice—”
At the last instant, the man sensed Trevor approaching and turned, but he was too late. Trevor extended a hand and touched the man on the chest, and with a burst of light the man was flung across the lawn.
Nate suffered the electric jolt as well, muscles clenching involuntarily, but while the man went cartwheeling across the lawn, Nate took off like a rocket. Recovering from the painful shock, Nate watched in horror as he rose higher and higher, body lazily rotating, first facing the ground, then the stars, then the ground, then the stars. Swinging his arms and twisting, Nate managed to minimize the rotation. Looking down on the post office, then on Main Street, he felt like a slow-motion version of a football during a kickoff. As he curved back toward the earth, Nate realized he was going to land on the roof of a building across the street from the post office. Even though the flight was much slower than it would normally have been, by the time the roof drew near, he had picked up alarming speed.
Limbs flailing, Nate failed to adjust his position for
the impending impact, and he flopped jarringly against the shingles, bouncing high and twirling wildly. He caromed against the roof a second time and, after a disorienting spin through space, finally crashed down into the bushes behind the building.
Spitting out the Moon Rock, Nate sat up, dizzy and relieved to be alive. Although jostled and sore, he felt no sharp pain—no bones seemed to be broken. He considered going back to make sure Trevor was all right, but discarded the idea. Trevor had shocked the man and then surely had gotten away. If Nate went back, he would just be giving the tenacious stranger in the overcoat another opportunity to catch him.
Nate got unsteadily to his feet. Keeping his Shock Bits handy, he hurried out the back of the parking lot, avoiding Main Street, and started making his way home.
Chapter Six
Trick Candy
Only a tiny chip of his last Moon Rock was left, and Trevor flicked it around his mouth with his tongue. The candy was now so fragile that biting it was very tempting.
Trevor crouched atop the Sweet Tooth Ice Cream and Candy Shoppe. After shocking the man in the overcoat and sending poor Nate rocketing off into the sky, Trevor had waited to use his final Moon Rock. He had hopped the fence to the front of the house and turned down a couple of streets, winding deeper into the quiet neighborhood and farther from Main. Finding a bushy hedge with a hollow underneath, Trevor got down on his belly, wormed into the darkness, and waited.
It had not been long before the man in the overcoat came running by. He jogged halfway down the street and then doubled back, scanning the surrounding yards and rooftops, occasionally turning on his powerful flashlight to brighten a dim recess. The man had not looked closely at the hedge.
To force himself to wait, Trevor had counted slowly to three hundred after the man moved out of sight. He had not wanted to leave his hiding place prematurely and get apprehended.
When he finally did emerge from the hedge, he had become nervous walking along the sidewalks, knowing that at any moment he might happen into the man in the overcoat. So he had used his final Moon Rock and made his way home leaping through yards, over fences, and across rooftops. Aside from a few dogs barking at him, the trip from the neighborhood to the candy shop roof had been uneventful.
Confident that he had truly ditched the man in the overcoat, and with the candy in his mouth dwindling, Trevor sprang from the roof of the candy shop, glided over Greenway, and landed on the opposite sidewalk.
After taking an accidental fifteen-foot hop upon landing, Trevor spat out the thin remnant of the Moon Rock. The waning sliver of candy was now so delicate that the urge to finish it off with a bite was almost irresistible. Perhaps biting the candy when it had almost dissolved would be no big deal—Mrs. White had never spelled out the specific consequences of chewing a Moon Rock. But Trevor certainly did not want to find out the hard way.
He trotted along the path to the Nest, hoping the others would think to reunite there. His body began to tingle, his flesh began to ripple, and, an instant later, the freckles were gone and his olive complexion had returned.
Down under the trees near the creek, it became hard to see, so Trevor switched on the little flashlight that he was still carrying. Winding through the undergrowth into the Nest, the flashlight beam soon revealed Pigeon, Nate, and Summer all waiting for him. Like Trevor, their appearances were no longer under the influence of the Melting Pot Mixers.
“Glad you made it,” Nate said, sounding relieved and giving Trevor a high-five. “We were just talking about going back for you.”
“I’m fine,” Trevor said. “The shock to the dude chasing us gave me a good head start. That guy had me pinned down for a while, though. I wound around a lot on my way back to make sure he wasn’t tailing me.”
“You still have the pocket watch?” Nate asked.
Actually, Trevor had forgotten that he was carrying it. He pulled it out of a pocket and shone the flashlight at it. A crack ran across the glass shielding the face. “Did you guys break it?” Summer asked.
“My bad,” Nate admitted. “When I was the doll, and you sounded the alarm, I had to rush. I jumped down from the third shelf of the cabinet.”
Pigeon picked up the watch and held it to his ear. Then he wound the tiny knobs and held it to his ear again. “Sounds like it still works,” he said. “Just needed to be wound.”
“But on top of breaking the watch, we didn’t even get the book,” Summer reminded them. “I knew I should have gone inside.”
“I wish you had,” Nate huffed. “Then we probably wouldn’t have either the pocket watch or the book, and I could be the one complaining.”
“Nate did a good job,” Trevor said. “We didn’t have much time. Who was that guy, anyway?”
“Whoever he was, he had a crossbow,” Pigeon said. “He was going to shoot me.”
“Only after you approached him with lightning crackling from your fingertips,” Summer said.
“He didn’t seem very intimidated that we could jump so high with the Moon Rocks,” Nate said. He turned to Trevor. “I already told Summer and Pidge how he chased us and how you shocked him.”
“Sorry about that,” Trevor said.
“About launching me to the moon?” Nate said. “Better than letting that guy have me. I ended up landing all right. You shot me all the way over Main Street, though.”
“I was afraid you were going to die,” Trevor said. “You really took off.”
“It was scary,” Nate said.
“Summer saved me when the guy had me pinned,” Pigeon interjected. “She shocked him down the walkway. Then I shocked him too. We ran off, but I don’t think he chased us.”
“Because he ended up chasing us,” Nate said. “You guys didn’t take his weapon?”
“No,” Pigeon said.
Nate folded his arms. “Then he probably had it when he was hounding me and Trevor. But he never pulled it on us. We almost got away from him—if he was really ruthless he could have shot us.”
“Of course, we could’ve yelled and brought the whole neighborhood running,” Trevor observed. “Whatever that guy is up to, he’s bad news. We definitely need to tell Mrs. White about him.”
“For sure,” Summer said. “So what now?”
Nate shrugged. “We go home, and hope our folks don’t bust us.”
“Do you think they might have noticed we were gone?” Pigeon asked, sounding more terrified than he had all night.
“I doubt it,” Nate said. “That fudge seems to work. My parents were really weird tonight. They went to bed early and didn’t even check on me.”
“Mine have been out of it too,” Trevor said
.
Summer pinched her lower lip thoughtfully. “Yeah, my dad usually takes a bigger interest in my day, asks lots of questions. But not lately.”
“Well I just hope my mom is still asleep, or this may be the last you ever see of me,” Pigeon said.
“Do we meet up again tomorrow?” Nate asked.
“My family is going to my grandma’s in Walnut Creek until Sunday night,” Trevor said.
“I’m not allowed to play on Sundays,” Pigeon said sulkily.
“Let’s just meet up at school on Monday,” Summer said. “Trevor, you hang on to the watch until then. We’ll bring it to Mrs. White on the way home.”
“Okay,” Nate said. “You want us to walk you home, Summer? You live the opposite way from the rest of us.”
“I’m not worried,” she said. “It isn’t far, and I’m not Chinese anymore.”
“Still, be careful,” Nate said.
“I’m more worried about after I get home,” Pigeon grumbled.
*****
Pigeon lived on the other side of Monroe Circle from Nate and Trevor. He had not been understating his concerns about his fate should his mother discover he had snuck out in the middle of the night. His mom was hesitant to let him walk home from school. It had taken hours of begging for her to allow him to take the training wheels off his bicycle—and the first time he had fallen, she had insisted that his father screw them back on. What would she do if she learned he had crept out of the house well after midnight? He knew exactly what. His friends would officially go into the “bad influences” category, and he would be grounded until he left for college.
Nearing his house, Pigeon stopped walking, a cold feeling forming in the pit of his stomach. A few more steps forward confirmed what he had glimpsed. There was no doubt about it. Several downstairs lights were on. His doom was sealed.
Maybe he could run away, live in the tunnel slide at the park. Maybe he could pretend he had been sleepwalking. Maybe he could give himself black eyes, bind his wrists with duct tape, throw himself in a ditch, and wait for a police officer to discover him. His mom couldn’t blame him for getting kidnapped!
Even as those ideas shuffled through his mind, Pigeon discarded them. There was no getting around this. He had to face his fate. There was no using a Moon Rock to jump up to his window and sneak inside. If the lights were on, his mom had already checked his bed and was sitting downstairs, staring at the front door, waiting for him. She had probably already called the police. And the F.B.I.
With a hopeless sigh, Pigeon trudged up the porch steps and tried the door. He was relieved to find it unlocked, as he had left it. His mom was not in the living room or the entry hall. He heard something rustle in the kitchen. She was playing it cool, pretending not to be worried. Maybe he should just sneak up to bed. No, she would only be angrier if she knew he was trying to deceive her.
Mouth dry, head hung low, Pigeon entered the kitchen, a convicted criminal reluctantly awaiting his sentence. His mom sat at the kitchen table with a tall glass of milk and a platter half covered with white fudge, reading the newspaper. She twisted when he entered, dropping the piece of fudge in her hand. “What are you doing up?” she asked, sounding unmistakably guilty.
Pigeon blinked. “I heard some noise so I came downstairs,” he tried. Had she not noticed he was gone? Did she not notice he was in his street clothes?
His mom laid down the newspaper so it covered the platter of fudge. “Mommy just needed a glass of milk,” she said. “She was having a tough time sleeping. You march back up to bed.”
His mom was sneaking fudge! Earlier that evening, hadn’t she told his dad they were all out? Whatever was going on, he had no desire to press his luck. “Okay, I’ll just go back up to bed.”
Her expression softened. “That’s a good boy.”
Pigeon left the room. Walking up the stairs, he shook his head. It was as if the laws of nature had been turned inside out. He had just escaped an inevitable punishment for no good reason. Whatever was in that fudge had saved his life!
*****
“Is it just me, or has Miss Doulin mellowed out?” Nate asked as he, Summer, Trevor, and Pigeon walked along Greenway after school on Monday.
“You’re right,” Summer said. “She’s a lot more relaxed.”
“I was sort of testing the waters today,” Nate said. “Getting my name on the board is a freebie, and I was in the mood to see how far I could push. No matter how many jokes I cracked, or how little attention I paid, or how much I talked to Scott Simons, I didn’t even get a warning. The class has never been louder than today, and not a single name ended up on the board. And we have no homework.”
“It’s the fudge,” Pigeon said.
“That’s right!” Nate said.
“The fudge?” Trevor asked.
“I gave Miss Doulin fudge,” Pigeon said, “and it took all the fight out of her. Same with my mom. This morning, as an experiment, I took my cereal into the living room and ate it over the carpet. Mom didn’t say a thing. So I used a pair of scissors to pick at my teeth while I had a conversation with her. She acted like she didn’t even notice. Normally she would have screamed. It’s like she’s been lobotomized.”
“My dad forgot to drive me to school today,” Summer said. “He drops me off every morning. Today, he ate breakfast with me, went out to his car, and drove away. I chased him down the block. I ended up walking to school.”
“That’s why you showed up late,” Nate said. “And of course Miss Doulin didn’t even seem to mind.”
“I couldn’t believe it,” Summer said. “Dad bought a huge box of white fudge on Saturday, and has been eating lots of it.”
“My mom bought a ton too,” Nate said.
“My folks brought a bunch to my grandma’s yesterday,” Trevor said. “Grandma kept trying to get me to have one. I didn’t, of course.”
They reached the crosswalk. The crossing guard held up his sign and they scurried across the street and went to the front door of the Sweet Tooth Ice Cream and Candy Shoppe.
The shop was open and busy. Some kids from their school crowded the counter. Several women and a few men waited in line or sat at tables eating sundry treats. The blond dwarf bustled about filling orders, along with a young man with shaggy brown hair and a blotchy red birthmark coloring half his face and neck. A very fit woman wearing workout clothes walked away from the counter holding a large box of white fudge.
Mrs. White emerged from the back and raised the folding segment of the counter. Trevor led the others into the back of the store. Pushing through the batwing doors, he discovered a translucent plastic tarp blocking the doorway. He grabbed a corner of the tarp and lifted it, allowing the others to duck past him before entering himself.
The back of the store was frosty. Their breath plumed out in front of them with each exhalation. Icicles hung from the worktables and some of the shelves, and ice glazed many surfaces. Several large coolers were stacked around the room. One was open, filled three-quarters of the way with medallions of ice and containing a few bricks of some substance snugly wrapped in white paper. Slick patches made the floor treacherous. In a cage on one of the worktables was a pair of odd birds. Black and white, they stood about two feet tall, with heavy, colorful bills. They looked like mutant penguins.
“What planet are those birds from?” asked Nate.
“Ours,” answered Pigeon. “They’re puffins. They live in the Arctic.”
“Very astute, Pigeon,” said Mrs. White.
“The genius strikes again,” Nate grumbled.
“I just like books about wildlife,” Pigeon apologized.
Summer was starting to shiver. Nate and Trevor had goose bumps on their arms. Mrs. White took four heavy woolen ponchos off pegs on the wall and distributed them to the kids, then slipped another over her own head, careful not to disturb her tidy bun.
“And how are the four of you today?” Mrs. White asked.
“Better, now that I’m not freezing,”
Summer said. “Why is it so cold?”
“I’m creating treats called Frost Bites,” Mrs. White said. “The process both requires and causes a low temperature. I’m still finishing up the last two batches.”
“What do Frost Bites do?” Nate asked.
“I expect you’ll find out soon enough.” They gathered around the square table with the purple tablecloth. Mrs. White indicated a quartet of folding chairs, and the kids took the seats. “Business has been picking up lately,” Mrs. White announced happily. “I’ve continued hiring extra help to man the shop. White fudge samples always do the trick. How did your Saturday morning exploits go?”