by Dan Elish
“This way!” Thelma barked, and trotted up a back stairway.
“So were we right?” Daphna asked. “Ignatious gave Cynthia the Insanity Cup?”
“Not only was your friend declared the winner, but old Ignatious only allowed five other contestants to even enter!”
“No!” Harkin said.
“It’s true,” Thelma said. “And no one good either. The first was this young kid with a giant tuba.”
“You mean Blugle-horn,” Harkin said. “We met him.”
“Who else?” Daphna asked. “Was there a dancing rat?”
“Yeah, a tap-dancing rodent was there,” Thelma said. “Along with some guy who wrote poetry in Finnish and a girl who said she had evidence of ice cream on Mars.”
Daphna and Harkin followed Thelma out into a small storage closet filled with erasers, boxes of chalk, and other assorted school supplies. Thelma pushed open a door and slowly stuck her head into the lobby. Daphna stood behind her and held her breath.
“Coast is clear,” Thelma said. “Everyone must be at the TV studio.”
“Which is where we’d better get going,” Harkin said.
The three children stepped into the lobby. As always, it was impossible not to be drawn to the giant statue of Ignatious Peabody Blatt or to notice the school credo in bold black lettering:
“What a joke,” Harkin said.
Daphna sighed. “After all these years of thinking the great Ignatious Peabody Blatt was the most amazing person on Earth, it’s hard to get used to the fact that he’s a cheat.”
Thelma chewed a pigtail. “Tell me about it.”
Despite Ignatious’s shady motives, his school had been a wonderful place for many of his students.
Daphna looked at Harkin and Thelma. “Just because Ignatious doesn’t live up to his own motto doesn’t mean we can’t, right?”
“Right,” Harkin said.
Thelma turned to the door. “Let’s go!”
Daphna and Harkin followed their guide through the back playground and out a side exit that led past the Indian restaurant to 97th Street.
“What are we going to do once we get to the studio?” Daphna asked. “Complain about how Cynthia won? We’ll just look like a bunch of bad losers.”
“That may be,” Thelma said. “But we have to find a way to expose Ignatious and stop Cynthia.”
Daphna shivered. It was still hard to believe that one of her best friends had betrayed her.
“What’s wrong?” Harkin asked her.
“Just trying to get used to the new reality,” Daphna said.
As if to put to rest any nagging doubts, Daphna got her final proof. Across Columbus Avenue stood a newsstand with a computerized news feed running across its top. The headlines were big enough to make out from a distance.
“FAMOUS CHILD ACTRESS TO APPEAR ON ‘CODY MEYERS’!”
“TRUSTWELL TO PERFORM ONE-WOMAN ‘MACBETH’ ON TV! THEN BLATT TO PRODUCE SHOW ON BROADWAY!”
And finally: “CODY TO CYN: C YA SOON!”
As if to rub it in, a cab whizzed by with its radio blaring: “That’s right, friends! Ignatious Peabody Blatt has a new product. The X-Head! Magical contact lenses! What will this man come up with next?”
“It stinks, doesn’t it?” Daphna said.
Harkin could only nod.
“Come on, guys,” Thelma said. “If we want to stop them, we’ve got to hurry!” She turned to Harkin. “Don’t you have some sort of flying car we can use?”
“That’s the Thunkmobile to you,” Harkin said. “Now follow me!”
Chapter 26
Chaos at the Studio
Can you unscrunch it?” Daphna asked. The children stood by the side of Harkin’s contraption. “I mean, Cynthia has your wristwatch.”
Harkin grinned. “The Thunk plans for every contingency.” He reached for a small emergency valve on the back right hubcap. With a cough and a shudder of pink smoke, the car rolled sideways into the street and unscrunched to its full size. Harkin jumped behind the wheel, Daphna took the passenger seat, and Thelma climbed over her to the middle.
“Okay,” Harkin said. “Hold on till I get this puppy airborne!”
He gunned the engine, then slammed it into gear. The Thunkmobile rocketed past cabs on Columbus Avenue.
“Yee-haw!” Thelma cried. “I like the way your buggy moves.”
“But watch the bus,” Daphna called. “The bus!”
Indeed, Harkin was gaining rapidly on a bus. Instead of slowing down, he pressed hard on the accelerator.
“Fly, Thunkmobile!” he cried, yanking on the green lever.
The car whooshed into the sky, barely skimming the top of the bus and a delivery truck before soaring high over the buildings of Central Park West.
Thelma beamed. “Awesome takeoff. Look at those people down there. They’re squirrel size!”
“Where’s Cody Meyers’s studio?” Daphna asked. “Downtown?”
“Yep,” Thelma said. “On Fourteenth Street.”
“Hold on,” Harkin said. “This is gonna be a short ride.”
A short ride but plenty of time for Daphna to look more closely out the window and see what had become of New York. The lines out of stores they had seen earlier that morning were now twice as long. New owners of X-Heads filled the streets, walking aimlessly down the sidewalks staring blankly before them. On 59th Street, a young woman came within inches of getting run down by a cab. On 54th, a man walked directly into an open manhole as another bumped into a hot-dog vendor. And the theater district was chaos. Cars honked and slammed on their brakes as passersby wandered in front of traffic, staring at websites only they could see.
“It’s a city of zombies,” Daphna said.
“No wonder Billy wanted the formula destroyed,” Harkin said.
“Billy?” Thelma said.
Daphna caught Thelma up on their African adventure, from their introduction to Billy through the battle of the Tops and the discovery of the formula in Billy’s old textbook.
“So he let Cook-Top burn the formula?” Thelma said.
Daphna nodded. “Yeah. But not soon enough.”
“Look!” Harkin called. “That must be the studio.”
Across Union Square Park, swarms of people stood behind a series of police barricades. Reporters and TV crews wandered around looking for something to report or someone—anyone—to interview. Lines of people waiting to buy their very own X-Heads came out of every single store.
As Harkin circled closer to the ground, the same blue limousine that he and Daphna had seen outside the opening for The Dancing Doberman pulled up to the front of the hall.
“It’s the mayor again!” Daphna said.
Harkin and Thelma pressed their faces to the window.
“Look at him waddle out of the car,” Harkin said.
“He’s a bowling ball, and his wife is a pencil,” Thelma said.
Harkin was hovering no more than a hundred feet over the crowd. Once the mayor was inside, people below finally began to look up and point.
“It seems we’re making an entrance,” Harkin said. “Let’s find a place to land.”
Daphna grabbed the door handle and looked at the street.
“That’s weird.”
“What?” Thelma said.
“It’s not us they’re looking at.”
Pedestrians stared past the Thunkmobile to something else flying even higher in the sky. Daphna wheeled around to see a small dot floating above them.
“What’s that?” she asked. “A plane?”
“I think it’s a helicopter,” Harkin said.
Daphna squinted. “Is it a blimp?”
“It’s a balloon!” Thelma cried.
Daphna’s heart jumped. She looked at Harkin, giddy with disbelief.
“Do you think it’s him?” Daphna asked.
“I think so,” he said.
Who else could it be?
“It’s Balloon-Top!” Daphna said.
The
balloon—for it was a balloon—was close enough for Daphna to make out a large man with a red beard, waving both arms. Next to him was a laptop computer holding a spatula and a pot.
“Is that Billy B. Brilliant?” Thelma asked.
“It is,” Daphna said, laughing. “And look. He brought along Cook-Top!”
Chapter 27
Two Landings
Though Daphna had left Kilimanjaro only a short time earlier, it seemed like a lifetime since she had last seen Billy. Excited, she waved wildly out the window. Billy saluted in return and made a funny face. Daphna stuck out her tongue.
“What are you doing here?” she called, even though she knew he couldn’t hear her. She turned to Harkin. “I wonder what he wants.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Thelma asked. “He caught wind that Ignatious had the X-Head.”
Daphna knew Thelma was probably right, but she had hoped that Billy’s reason for traveling back across the world was more personal. Maybe it had something to do with her?
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Harkin said.
Heart pounding, Daphna gave Billy a final wave, then turned to the street. A sea of people was looking up at the two strange flying contraptions. The police tried to wave them off, but as soon as they saw that the flying car and balloon were both determined to land, they helped clear a short runway on 14th Street. Daphna saw the street rushing toward her, growing larger and larger before they hit the ground with a sharp bump. Harkin slammed on the brakes and the car skidded to a halt by the studio door. Daphna rolled down the window and took a deep breath. Reporters and onlookers pressed up to police barricades. Across the way, a group of vendors sold anything they could.
“Special X-Head contact-lens solution!” Daphna heard a man call. “Get it here! See those websites more clearly!”
The minute Daphna set her feet on the street, reporters began shouting questions from behind the barricade. Harkin winked at Daphna and Thelma.
“This’ll shut ’em up.”
He pressed the button on the Thunkmobile’s left hubcap.
Scrinch!
The car collapsed, then rolled into a narrow space between two police cars. As the crowd whistled and cheered, Harkin took a bow. But he was about to be shown up. Daphna looked over just in time to see Billy bring Balloon-Top to the ground twenty feet down the street. Billy and Cook-Top bounded out of the balloon’s basket. Grinning mischievously, Billy typed a command into Balloon-Top’s keyboard. With a blinding flash, the balloon deflated, then rolled back into the basket, which then collapsed into an ordinary orange laptop.
The square was stone silent. But when Billy picked up the computer and waved to the crowd, wild applause filled the street. Even reporters and police cheered long and loud.
“I get it!” someone called. “He’s a magician!”
“It’s Ignatious Blatt in a fat suit!”
“No! The Wizard of Oz!”
Billy laughed, then ambled over toward Daphna.
“You came,” she said.
Billy nodded. “That I did, Daphna.”
Daphna’s heart began to pound wildly. Billy’s hazel eyes seemed to be dancing in their sockets. He shambled back and forth like a great, big, nervous bear.
“Why?” Daphna said. “Is everything all right?”
As Billy began to answer, the reporters broke through the police barricade and charged forward.
“Let’s get to the bottom of this!” one cried, waving his microphone in front of Billy’s beard. “Who are you? What’s the story on this crazy balloon? Are you part of a circus?”
After twelve years of solitude, the microphones, questions, and people were overwhelming. But he was soon spared the spotlight.
“Who is this?” Harkin said, stepping squarely in front of the microphones. “This man is the true inventor of the Hat-Top, that’s who. The true inventor of Blatt-Global and Peabody-Pitch. And the true inventor of the X-Head. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Billy B. Brilliant!”
“Inventor of the Hat-Top?” a policeman cried. “Impossible!”
“Of Peabody-Pitch? Him? Never!”
“The kid’s insane!”
“It’s absurd!”
“Ridiculous!”
“How dare he?”
Then a familiar voice rang down the street.
“It’s true, my friends! It’s all absolutely true!”
Daphna wheeled around, then nearly fell over. Stepping out of a black limousine was the last person on Earth she ever thought would defend Billy B. Brilliant: Ignatious Peabody Blatt himself!
Chapter 28
The Triumph of Ignatious
Wearing a suit of light lavender, Ignatious walked calmly toward the crowd. His vest was bright red. His sideburns were dyed a pale shade of copper.
“Can you believe it?” Harkin whispered. “He changed again!”
As reporters furiously scribbled notes and photographers snapped pictures, Ignatious smiled broadly at Billy.
“There he is! My long-lost friend!”
Ignatious locked him in a quick embrace. Billy patted his back hesitantly.
“Yes, and I see you’ve made quite a name for yourself, Iggy.”
Ignatious laughed and looked around at the teeming crowd. “Yes, I have, haven’t I? By using some of your work, I’m afraid. I do hope you’ll forgive me. When you left college, you left behind your notes. I couldn’t resist.”
Daphna was confused. Was Ignatious admitting everything he had done?
“Wait a second,” a reporter said. “Is that true?”
“It is!” Daphna cried.
“And he didn’t even try to share the credit,” Harkin said.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Ignatious called, directing his words to the crowd. “I did try.”
Thelma blinked. “You did?”
Reporters pushed closer. The event was being recorded on everything from TV cameras to cell phones.
“Of course I did,” he said. “I tried to find Mr. Brilliant for years. But he had disappeared. Isn’t that right, my friend?”
“It is, actually,” Billy admitted. He tugged on his beard. “I’ve been out of touch for a while.”
“You heard it here first, folks!” a reporter shouted. “Blatt tried to share credit! He tried to share the credit!”
The crowd cheered. Daphna felt a twinge of panic.
“Wait a second,” she said. She turned to Ignatious. “You said that Billy tried to steal from you. You said he was living in a hut making a living by hosing down giraffes.”
The crowd quieted. Reporters pushed their microphones closer. Ignatious chuckled. “Oh, yes. I suppose I did. Got me on that one.” He shrugged and turned again to the swarm of reporters. “You see, when I was first starting out, I wanted to share my success with him. Make him my partner. I looked for Billy far and wide.”
“Over the past year, you’ve been looking far and wide to get his formula for the X-Head,” Daphna said.
“Right,” Thema said. “And once you found it, you made me make it work.”
“And you had Myron steal Gum-Top!” Harkin cried. “Which was my idea!”
“Yes, yes,” Ignatious said with a laugh. “Guilty as charged. On all counts!”
Reporters shouted into microphones. Onlookers murmured wildly, amazed by the news. Daphna had never been more confused. Had Ignatious been suddenly stricken by a guilty conscience? Why was he admitting everything?
“I suppose you might say that my success has gone a bit to my head over the years,” he went on. “Where I once tried to include Billy, I’m a bit more greedy now. Power mad, some people say. I don’t deny it. Which is why I so wanted to find the X-Head.”
Billy narrowed his eyes. “I know why. For mind control.”
Blatt grinned widely, then held a finger to his lips. “Shhh, old friend. Not so loud.” He glanced at his watch, then went on at a whisper. “But since you mentioned it, in about four hours’ time I should have control of the entire city
.”
He snapped his fingers. The back doors of his limousine opened. Out stepped a group of teachers from school. Bobby D’Angelo, Horatio Yuri, and Josie Frank walked onto the street. A moment later, Wilmer, Wanda, and Jean-Claude popped out of a back door. To Daphna’s horror, the very last person out of the car was none other than Mrs. Zoentrope. Each of them carried a bag that read: BLATT SCHOOL. Daphna could see from their vacant stares that they were all wearing the X-Head.
Ignatious laughed and called out: “Thank you, students and teachers. Please distribute the product.”
On cue, the students and teachers walked directly into the crowd.
“X-Heads!” Josie Frank called. “Get your free X-Heads!”
“Put the X in your eyes!” Wilmer called.
“You and the Great Blatt!” Jean-Claude announced. “Perfect together!”
Anyone in the crowd who wasn’t already wearing an X-Head pushed close to get one.
“See this little scene?” Ignatious told Daphna. “Other students and teachers are doing the same throughout the city. Sure, it’s expensive to give away all my X-Heads for free. But think of the benefits.”
Billy turned to the crowd and yelled at the top of his lungs.
“Don’t put them on! They’re not safe!”
Ignatious laughed harder. “Gallant try, Brilliant. But I’m afraid your X-Head is simply too popular now.”
Daphna was about to shout herself, but another limo pulled up to the front of the TV studio.
“Ah, excellent!” Ignatious said. “She’s finally here!”
“She?” Daphna said. “Who?”
Ignatious grinned wildly. “You’ll see soon enough!”
Daphna knew. She turned back to the limo just in time to see her old friend step onto the street. Gone were her customary jeans and cardigan sweater. In their place, she wore a flowing red gown. Her hair was up in an elegant bun. Her fingernails were painted bright blue.
Cynthia.
Chapter 29
A Rhapsody for the City
In Daphna’s mind, none of Cynthia’s performances lived up to the one she was giving now. At least, Daphna hoped that Cynthia was giving a performance. If her old friend felt at all badly about what she had done, she wasn’t acting it. Cynthia strutted to the front of the limo and waved twice to the crowd.