by Sarah Cannon
They all shuffle up the steps onto the stage. A few are grinning, excited to be there, but most are obviously Nopesers. Maybe this is even meant as punishment, and a warning to the rest of us.
One girl with frizzy brown curls starts crying. Mr. Mitchell’s hangdog expression shows he knows what he’s in for, but at least he won’t have to grade all our dioramas this weekend, which is for the best. “The Cactus Rampage of 1930” is not my finest effort.
“And, last of all, a very special winner … Miss Ada Roundtree!”
Maggie giggles, loud and wild.
Chapter 34
Mama
My body feels numb in the oddest way, like each individual molecule decided it needed personal space. The puppets knew it was me all along. It really is my fault Pearl’s a puppeteer. Getting rid of me too is a nice, tidy solution, one the town will accept with a minimum of fuss.
Except that things aren’t quiet right now, even though no one has given the crowd the signal to engage in One Minute of Loud and Genuine Applause. There’s muttering as the adults realize the stage is full of kids. I bet some people are thinking back to my daddy’s pleas at that WUT meeting and finally seeing his point. Then someone starts yelling.
“No!”
It’s coming from the street, but there are people being shoved out of the way left and right as the person carves a swath through the crowd toward the stage. I hold my breath, because there’s no way it’s who I think it is, and I’m not going to cry when it isn’t.
But it is.
It’s Mama.
She makes it almost all the way to me before Daddy catches up and grabs her. He must have stopped home to drag her out of bed so we wouldn’t be violating the rules. He’s still wearing his brown animal control uniform. I think Mama might be more than he can handle.
“You leave my baby alone!” she wildcat-screams at the stage.
Whanslaw’s not about to waste his time on her. He turns his head, and Greeley vaults back up beside him like some old-timey actor, dripping with fake sympathy.
“Now, now, my good woman,” he says, like that’s a totally normal thing to say. “It’s beneath you to show such jealousy. And of your own child!”
I’ve never seen so much of the whites of Mama’s eyes at once.
“You think you can spread spin control all over this situation like peanut butter, you giant cartoon? I already lost one child, and I am not letting this one go. Ada, come here!” She’d come and get me, but Daddy is strong, and anyone can see he doesn’t want to lose his only remaining daughter AND his wife in one day. The cords are standing out on his neck like he’s going to cry, but he doesn’t loosen his grip on Mama for one second.
Greeley removes his straw hat and clasps it regretfully to his broad, white-shirted chest, where GREELEY is embroidered across his pocket in red thread.
“Madam,” he says, with more than the usual amount of woe, “I’m genuinely sorry to say I can’t do that. The results of the Sweepstakes are final, and your daughter, much as you might wish to be in her shoes, is the one bound for glory, not you.”
“I’m bound to kick your—”
Just for one second, she looks exactly like Aunt Bets, who appears behind her to clamp a hand over her mouth. Most of her is hidden behind our parents, but I can see her face. Unlike Daddy, she’s not looking at Mama. She’s looking at me. She has tears in her eyes, real tears. If I could make my mouth move, I’d tell her it’s okay, it really is, because no matter what happens now, I’ll know that Mama showed up for me.
For me.
I see Badri behind Bets, carrying Mason, and I’m glad, even though he’s a little too old for that sort of thing. Glancing the other way, I see Song. I take a last look around at all of them.
This is not quite how I planned things, but it’s going to have to do. I just hope Raymond and Cayden are in position in time. I head for the stairs up to the stage, where Kiyo is flashing her demon eyes at me and Maggie is bouncing up and down. I’m almost there when there’s another shout from the far edge of the crowd. This time, it says:
“FIRE!”
My first reaction is a split second of being purely disgusted with myself. I mean, sure, I’m about to have my soul sucked out by a bunch of malevolent puppets, but how could any fifth grader worth her salt miss the smell of a wildfire? Because there is it, bold as day, wafting in over the smell of grilled burgers and hot dogs: the spicy, acrid, unmistakable smell of burning scrubland.
The most level-headed citizens are already raising licked fingers to the sky, testing the wind, then pointing at the source of this latest crisis. I turn. The fire’s coming in from the east. If I strain my eyes, I can see the curls of smoke, even in the white-hot sky. There’s been nothing but dry heat and wind since the night the lucents bloomed. We should have expected it.
There are mutters from the crowd.
“Some fool with a cigarette—”
“—are we allowed to leave?”
“All five buckets, you hear me? Get ’em full, then start spraying the roof. I’ll be there as soon as I’ve finished at your grandma’s—”
Whanslaw’s bullfrog croak rolls out, stifling the chatter of the alarmed Oddiputians.
“COUNTERMEASURES!” he shouts. “All to your stations!”
At once, order is restored. Grills are doused. Carnival rides groan to a halt. The crowd makes way for city personnel. Giving me one last agonized look, Daddy heads for animal control to load a water tank in the back of his pickup and fill it. Bets and Badri each take Mama by an arm, because she looks like she’s about to make another run for the stage.
“—NOW, Veda,” I hear my aunt say. “There won’t be a home for anyone to come back to if it burns down. You’re in charge of Mason, you hear? He’s your nephew, and he needs you now.”
Bets doesn’t say that I’d usually be in charge of Mason, but my mama sees him look over his shoulder for me, and the focus of her agony shifts. She reaches for his hand like it’s a lifeline, and he lets her take it when he’d usually protest.
My family leaves me. They pass Old Joe and his Curtis Clone, Young Joe, who are already hosing down Bodega Bodega. Way down at the other end of the street, I can hear Scoby burbling orders.
I turn to look at the smoke again, and realize it’s gone from pale to black, which means some poor sap’s outlying home is already on fire. We were so focused on the Sweepstakes that this new danger has taken us completely unawares.
Now it’s barreling right down toward Greeley’s, where the four members of the puppet junta stand in the nearly empty Greeley’s parking lot like sitting ducks, with only a handful of Greeley’s blue-shirts for protection.
I think that’s my cue.
Chapter 35
Cavalry
I have to get Pearl out of here.
“I don’t care what you say!” I shout. I start shoving around in the line of winners like I’ve forgotten how to get off the stage, creating pandemonium in the ranks. “There’s a wildfire coming! I have to get to my post! This silly contest can wait!”
I’ve got no intention of getting away, of course. I’m getting this show back on the road. It works, too. Before I can blink, Greeley plucks me out of the crowd of winners with one meaty paw.
“You will make your way into the store,” glubs Lanchester.
No one says another word. We march down the stage steps, past YOLObes, who’s still loitering nervously in the parking lot, though I don’t see the other two Nopesers anywhere. We head for the front entrance.
Either the junta’s as nervous as we are, or they’re extremely cocky. They haven’t bound my wrists, or patted me down, or anything. I’ve still got my Oddity Bodkin in my right front pocket, and I’m lucky my shirt covers it where it’s sticking out a bit. I don’t know why girls’ jeans have to have such eeny weeny pockets, anyway. As we approach the doors of Greeley’s, Dewey reaches to unlock them, and actually salutes Greeley. I could not make this up. From the corner of my eye, I s
ee Snooks’s long, flowered ears flicking in the shadow of an SUV.
Here we go.
The doors whoosh open.
Greeley pushes me forward.
As we move out of the first door’s sensor range and the second set of doors sweeps open, we’re suddenly knee deep in a surf of zombie rabbits. They flow past us into the store, swarming up the side aisles. Greeley roars with consternation.
“Not again!”
“Never mind, Greeley,” says Whanslaw, behind us.
“But, sir,” he groans as we move up the center aisle, where they’re already stocking anti-slip mats for Bath Safety Month even though it’s months away, “they’ll trash my store! I’m still sweeping up rice from the last time!”
Whanslaw is alongside me now, which means Pearl is behind me, next to Greeley. I crane my neck to see her, and once again catch a flash of the locket’s chain. I wonder.…
“Trust to the plan, Greeley,” says Whanslaw.
Before I have time to worry, I hear a chorus of groaning rabbits in the baking aisle.
“Hey! Where are the marshmallows?”
“Keep the ball in your eye!” shouts Snooks. “Think only of regionals!”
Bless his little weirdo heart.
Greeley pushes me ahead of Whanslaw again, and I just about open the swinging doors at the back of the deli with my face.
“Hey!” I object.
“Shaddup,” advises Greeley. With Kiyo, Lanchester, Maggie, and all the other Sweepstakes winners and blue-shirts behind us, we march into the stockroom. There’s another rush of zombie rabbits as, following Snooks, they storm the back of the store, just like I told them. I can see the freezer. It’s open. Its lights are on. The tunnel door yawns darkly, waiting for us. The zombie rabbits stream toward it. And then—
“Ohhhhhhhhhh,” the zombie rabbits intone.
As we reach the end of the rows of shelves, I see what got the rabbits’ attention. Between us and the freezer, off to the right, is the biggest pile of marshmallows I have ever seen. It looks like Greeley and his blue-shirts emptied the store display, pulled out all their back stock, and ordered more marshmallows in, to boot.
Even punkball can’t compete with that.
The rabbits break ranks, rushing the marshmallow mountain and throwing themselves at it like kids at a pile of leaves. They scream with joy, pelting one another with marshmallows, stuffing their mouths with both tiny paws.
Snooks is fidgeting halfway between me and his villainous little crew, like he’s not sure what to do. I’d like to make some suggestions, but Greeley is hustling me toward the tunnel double-time, fueled by his hatred of zombie rabbits.
There’s no way I’m going to get away from four puppets and Greeley long enough to search the pit house by myself. The rabbits are totally crucial. What am I going to do?
A shout rolls through the stockroom, and Angry Hair appears, brandishing an enormous butcher knife and running straight at Lanchester. The Sweepstakes winners scatter, some screaming, others cheering. Two of them plow into Maggie in the confusion, and she and her puppeteer go down in a tangle of strings. Greeley leaps to unravel them.
Kiyo shrieks. Up come her horns, and her eyes flash yellow and red. She goes after the wide-eyed, backpedaling Angry Hair, ramming right into her and biting her arm with her rows of sharp, pointed teeth. Lanchester is pummeling at the Nopeser with his hands, fish-mouth gaping as he burbles in alarm.
But Angry Hair is one tough customer. Pulling Kiyo along with her, she swings her right arm, slicing and sawing her way through Lanchester’s strings until he collapses to the floor. His puppeteer’s hands fall limp at his sides, still holding the controls, as used up as a slowly deflating balloon.
Kiyo releases Angry Hair’s arm and flies at her again, trying to take a bite out of her neck. As Angry Hair holds her back, she raises one booted foot and brings it down on Lanchester’s head. Again, and again, she stomps, jumps with all her weight, until something cracks under her feet, and then she focuses her energy in that spot until it gives. Kiyo swoops at her again and again, biting anywhere she can reach, but Angry Hair doesn’t stop until the whole side of Lanchester’s head is caved in.
There’s a horrible, ghastly silence. Maggie crawls across the floor toward the disaster that was Lanchester, elbows and knees akimbo, dragging her tottering puppeteer along behind her. When she realizes that the spiky-haired Nopeser is still standing on the ruins of Lanchester’s head, she stops, cocking her head at a predatory angle. Now that Angry Hair’s attention is undivided, Kiyo backs off, hovering out of reach of the knife.
Angry Hair’s knife is at the ready, though she’s bleeding from Kiyo’s bites, but instead of taking revenge, she turns her head and locks eyes with Whanslaw.
I step between them.
“No,” I say.
Angry Hair stares at me, and I realize she has no clue who I am or why she should listen to some random kid. Behind us, Whanslaw begins to laugh.
“Oh,” he says. “I see. How sweet. You hope to save your sister.”
The way he says it makes me feel small and sad, and so hopeless.
Kiyo and Maggie are prowling behind Angry Hair, ready to attack as soon as there’s an opening.
“If you kill him, you’ll kill my sister, too,” I tell her. “Help me!”
She doesn’t trust me, and I guess if I were her I wouldn’t, either. The knife flashes as she shifts position. “Get out of the way.”
“Heads up!”
Whoosh! Cayden runs toward us at top speed, making a hissing noise. There are startled cries as he cuts through the crowd of Sweepstakes winners and ducks under Greeley’s ham-size arms.
“What was that?” screeches the frizzy-haired girl.
“Oh!” groans somebody. “What’s that smell?”
It’s BASH!
The hissing is coming from the extra-large cans in Cayden’s hands. He sprays an enormous cloud at Angry Hair as he goes by, then attacks the marshmallow pile.
“Ew!” I hear from somewhere deep within the marshmallows. “Something smells like sweaty Viking!”
“It’s the marshmallows!” shrieks another rabbit. “Abort! Abort!” Zombie rabbits scuttle away from the marshmallows like roaches. Snooks, still lurking around mallow mountain, brightens up like the whole thing was his idea. “This way!” he shouts, and zombie rabbits stream through the freezer and into the tunnel.
Angry Hair circles frantically, trying to keep Kiyo and Maggie at bay within the enormous cloud of stink. Then the swinging doors that lead to the front of the store fly open so hard that they slam against the wall, revealing an empty space that’s dangerously out of focus. The Blurmonster has arrived.
I know my cue when I see one.
“It’s a MONSTER!” My scream is totally B-movie spectacular. Cayden adds his voice to the bedlam, waving his arms over his head and loping through the crowd riling up my now-panicking fellow citizens, who must be seriously rethinking the word winner. Running blows his hair back. He’s grinning as he dodges through the crowd and makes his way to me.
The Blurmonster knocks Angry Hair and Lanchester’s puppeteer flying. The puppeteer rolls over and over, hands still at his sides, and comes to rest against the wall like a giant squeak toy. Angry Hair lands in the BASH!-soaked, half-eaten pile of marshmallows with a wet squelch. Then the Blurmonster turns its attention to the puppets, and their reaction is more than I dared to hope for.
Kiyo and Maggie are in full retreat. Their puppeteers sway backward, maneuvering them through the stampeding crowd, putting human bodies between them and the Blurmonster. People are shoving one another and slipping in marshmallow goo. The Blurmonster plows through them, single-mindedly pursuing the puppets.
And they’re afraid of it.
I’ve never seen the puppets seem afraid of anything. They’re the embodiment of power and control. The Blurmonster is … well, we don’t know what it is. That’s part of what makes it scary. And reports of them fighting it off see
m to have been greatly exaggerated.
There’s a shouty groan from the marshmallow swamp. Angry Hair is rising up out of the morass, coated in goo like she’s the A-marsh-a-mallow Snowman. (They prefer the term yeti, but I think I can be forgiven for a little political incorrectness at this point.)
The Blurmonster turns, and at first I think it’s being lured by the smell of marshmallow BASH!, but instead, the blur starts moving in this direction. I step to one side, and it heads straight for Whanslaw and my sister.
“Time to go,” says Whanslaw, and I know just what he’s going to do. He’s going to pop back down the tunnel and pull the door shut behind him, separating me from Pearl.
“Cayden!” I yell, and dive for him.
Urged on by Whanslaw’s thoughts, Pearl backs quickly into the freezer, which has been emptied for the occasion. Cayden and I scramble after her, and the Blurmonster bears down on all of us with a growling roar.
Whanslaw’s hard wooden hand reaches for a handle on the inside of the tunnel door, and it moves so quickly, balanced far more lightly than I’d ever have guessed. It’s more than halfway shut by the time we get to it, and I thrust my body into the gap, shoving at the door to make room for Cayden.
“Go, go!” he shouts, shoving me so hard that I land face-first on the dusty stone floor of the tunnel. The door slams shut, echoing heavily in the long, empty space. A second later, the Blurmonster crashes against it, making the wall shake. It clatters and roars its rage.
I roll over to see Cayden crouched, hands on knees, panting.
“You okay?” I ask.
“The door almost cut me in half,” he says with a disbelieving laugh. I pull myself to my feet, ignoring my scrapes. If there’s a door on the other end, and Pearl and Whanslaw reach it first, he’ll lock us in here.
“Come on,” I say, and work my way from a stagger to an all-out run. The lights along the tunnel are few and far between, but all I can do is run and hope I don’t break my neck.