Tommy could hear Eevie and her mom talking. Oh my God—hello? I’m hanging here by my foot...how hard can it be to get your mom out of your room? Or even better, unhook my shoelace—anything!
Just then the neighbor’s door opened. Mr. Dudley stepped out into the wintry morning, enshrined in what could only be described as a mucous-colored robe that revealed white pasty legs and slippers. He stood regally on his porch, one hand buried in his pocket and the other hand holding a steaming cup of coffee.
“Not fair,” whispered Tommy to himself. Right now, he could pour that coffee all over me and I’d be fine with it...my fingers are turning into popsicles.
Just when Tommy thought things couldn’t get any worse, he watched in horror as Mr. Dudley opened the door again. Champ the Chihuahua strutted out onto the porch in his New England Patriots sweater and booties and pretentiously sniffed the air.
“Go potty!” said Mr. Dudley, gesturing toward the neighbor’s yard. Even from his upside-down perch, Tommy could tell that the “neighbor’s” yard was Eevie’s yard.
I knew it! He’s the jerk that’s been letting his dog poop on Eevie’s grass. That dog is a disgrace to the Patriots’s uniform.
There seemed to be no limit as to how many bushes Champ would claim as his domain. If nothing else, Champ had to be admired for his consistency. One by one he marked his territory. If any intruder dared to venture within the bounds of his domain, he or she would face the ferocity of this five-pound warrior who would gallantly defend this row of boxwoods to the death.
Champ was about five bushes in when he froze in his tracks and sniffed the air. Painfully, Tommy rotated his head, and that’s when their eyes met. Champ was so close he could smell his breath. It smelled of victory, determination, and old socks. Like all great warriors, Champ seemed to assess the situation, and being an opportunist, determined that Tommy was officially declared boxwood number 6.
Tommy looked pleadingly at Champ, but he could see in the dog’s eyes that a decision had been made, and there was no turning back.
“Nice puppy,” Tommy whispered nervously. “I’m a Patriots fan too. Go Brady!”
Undeterred, Champ moved forward.
Tommy also was a fighter, and he tried another tactic. Shifting his weight onto his left hand, he attempted to scoop up snow and shoo Champ away, but his left arm was too weak to support him. Tommy clenched his teeth as his chin hit the ground. He struggled to his forearms and with great difficulty raised his head. There stood Champ. They were nose to wet nose, eyeball to tiny eyeball. “You have beautiful eyes,” moaned Tommy.
Champ gave Tommy a sniff and then, after much consideration, decided that this strange-looking bush was worthy of being part of his protected turf. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Champ’s body was turning sideways, his hind leg raising up. Tommy’s face scrunched up in anticipation of becoming a part of Champ’s territory, while simultaneously Tommy’s face smashed into the ground. His body followed, crumpling to the ground in an undignified heap.
Like the true warrior that he was, Champ leapt backwards through the air, barking his disapproval. Then, with an unrelenting drive to accomplish the task at hand, he dutifully raised his leg and peed on the butt portion of Tommy’s jeans. “I feel so alone,” whispered Tommy.
Champ turned and began kicking out his hind legs, covering Tommy in tiny little showers of snow. Satisfied with his conquests, Champ marched back to his owner’s house with purpose.
Tommy slowly stood, then leaned against Eevie’s house. He was incredibly dizzy, half frozen, and missing one sneaker...at least his butt was warm. Tommy reached up and pulled the lace out of his shoe, then left it hanging on the windowsill. He put his shoe on and hobbled to Eevie’s front door.
Tommy was blowing warm air on his hands as Eevie opened the door. “Eevie Davenport, you are a horrible person. You literally shoved me headfirst out a window, into a blizzard. I’ve had enough bad experiences with windows to last me a lifetime.”
Eevie shook her head. “Remind me to craft a papier-mâché Oscar for you. So much drama. You fell three feet!”
“On my head!” Tommy reminded her.
“Oh, I thought you were the guy with catlike reflexes.... That must have been some other genius athlete.”
“I didn’t fall; I was shoved like a human battering ram through your window. We both know I have catlike reflexes, but my foot got...”
“And what is that smell?” interrupted Eevie as she scrunched up her face. “Did you roll in something? I toss you out my window and in five minutes you come back looking like something from The Walking Dead.”
“Hey, don’t belittle The Walking Dead—they won a Golden Globe! And yes, I smell like this because Champ the Chihuahua decided to treat me like a human bush.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” said Eevie, covering her mouth with her hands. “You can think of some horrific way to get me back later.” She straightened his shirt. “But we have to get to my room before my mom starts snooping.... Oh, and I know this will be difficult, but when I talk to my mom just go along with what I say, please.”
“Or else you’ll shove me out the window again?” said Tommy wryly.
“Don’t tempt me,” Eevie grinned.
Tommy followed Eevie back to her bedroom. Her mom was standing by the edge of her bed. Spread out on the bed was a series of newspaper articles.
“Eevie, where did you get these?”
Eevie’s heart leapt to her throat. She thought her mom had found everything, but all she could see were the articles. She paused before she spoke.
“Grandpa left them for me.” Eevie stood silently, waiting for the next question, hoping this would give her enough time to think.
“What do you mean he left them for you? When?”
“I don’t know when. I just found them last night. I was going to show them to Tommy—that’s what we were Skyping about.... I knew you wouldn’t approve.”
Mrs. Davenport drew in a sigh. “Where did you find them?” she asked, her tone just a touch softer.
“They were hidden behind a loose board in the old family room—where Papa and I used to play hide-and-seek.”
“But you said your grandfather left them for you,” said her mom. She tilted her head, letting Eevie know that she knew there was more to the story.
Eevie walked over to the desk, opened the top drawer, and grabbed the island of Crypticus.
“Grandpa created a fake country and hid it on the globe he gave me. He wrote me a message on the back. See?” Eevie showed her mother the back of the imaginary country.
Eevie’s mom read the back of the country. She shook her head and whispered, “Dad.”
Eevie’s mother was quiet for a moment. She looked down at the bed covered in newspaper stories.
“Eevie, do you realize that you and Tommy are lucky to be alive?” asked Mrs. Davenport, emphasizing each word. “The park ranger said that he told you that there was a dangerous sinkhole. He warned you that it was dangerous...and then for some reason, that I’ll never understand, you snuck over there at nighttime.” Eevie’s mom looked from Eevie to Tommy and shook her head. “You are lucky that there was an underground cavern that connected to that lake, or you would have died.”
She paused. Tommy winced, knowing that she was building momentum. “You’ve been banned from the park, you had search and rescue teams looking for you, and now...now you are sneaking around again?” She looked from Tommy to Eevie, a mixture of dismay and anger crossing her face.
Tommy started to open his mouth, but he remembered what Eevie had said. He decided to do the bravest thing in the world—look down and suddenly become extremely interested in his feet.
Eevie’s mind was racing. She knew she had to be careful. She had to diffuse the situation before her mom went ballistic on them. She swallowed hard, hoping that her strategy would work—and that Tommy would soon be crafting a papier-mâché Oscar for her performance.
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“Mom,” said Eevie, on the verge of tears, “it’s not like that at all. I’ve told you over and over how sorry I am for what happened. I made—”
“We made,” said Tommy, his voice barely audible. He couldn’t take it anymore, and it wasn’t fair for Eevie to take all of the blame.
Eevie started again. “We made a very bad decision, and we learned from our mistakes. I didn’t mean to find the fake country. It just happened. It’s just...when I saw that Grandpa had left me a riddle, I felt...well, it felt like I was playing hide-and-seek again, just this time I wasn’t the one hiding.... I Skyped Tommy to see if he could help me figure out the message Grandpa had left me. I knew you and Dad wouldn’t be happy, so we figured we would search while you guys were asleep. I’m sorry.” Eevie lowered her head and looked at her feet.
Tommy watched as Mrs. Davenport’s face softened. He slowly let out his breath—he hadn’t realized he’d been holding it in.
As he glanced at the articles spread out over Eevie’s blanket, something caught his eye. What was it? He stealthily took a small step to the right. The article closest to him was dated October 17, 1862. The headline read, “George Whitcomb and Darla Rogers Missing at Black Hallow Park.” Under the headline were pictures of the two children, and below that picture was a photo of a park ranger named Andrew Miller. Tommy shook his head. A blurb beside the ranger’s picture quoted the ranger: “I am using all of the resources available to my team to find the missing children.” The thing that shocked Tommy was that...the park ranger was...the same ranger from Black Hallow Park, meaning he would be over 170 years old!
Tommy’s heartbeat quickened. He could hear Eevie and her mom’s voices tapping at his eardrums, but his eyes were quickly scanning the other articles: one from 1929, more children missing, a picture of a group of men. But the one that stood out was of a bearded ranger named Henry Adams. However, Andrew Miller and Henry were the same person!
Several more articles lay scattered on Eevie’s bed, dated 1946, 1965, 2007. The same face, the same evil monster, the same eyes that had been in his house just a few nights ago stared back at Tommy.
Tommy shook his head, trying to wrap his brain around what he was seeing. Slowly, he became aware again of the conversation between Eevie and her mom.
“Eevie, your grandfather meant well, but he could never settle for a normal life. He filled notebook after notebook with stories about ships lost at sea, filled with treasure; undiscovered tombs of Egyptian pharaohs; the Bermuda Triangle.... When I was a little girl he filled my head with fantastic stories. He said one day he would be the one finding the treasures, but...they were only just that, Eevie—stories.”
Eevie could hear the sadness in her mom’s voice. It was the voice of someone who felt like something irreplaceable had been taken from her. Eevie wanted to tell her mom that her dad had truly been on an amazing quest...that magic did exist—she just couldn’t. Maybe someday, she’ll see how great of an adventurer her father truly was.
“Eevie, these disappearances at the park were tragedies, yes, but they were not because of some magical curse, or whatever fantastical story your grandfather told you. They were accidents, like what happened to you and Tommy, nothing more.”
“I know,” said Eevie, gently smiling at her mother. “It just seemed so exciting, and I loved Grandpa’s stories. He seemed so happy, so alive when he told them.” Eevie paused as the words “I miss him” caught in her throat.
“I do too,” smiled Eevie’s mom, grabbing Eevie in her arms. “I do too.”
Eevie’s mom hesitated and then carefully collected the newspaper articles from Eevie’s bed.
Everyone relaxed. The tension had been diffused—for now. A flash of orange light illuminated Eevie’s room as a snowplow rumbled down the street.
“What is that smell?” said Eevie’s mom. “It’s making my eyes burn.”
“And that’s my cue,” said Tommy as he backed toward Eevie’s bedroom door. “Eevie, I’ll call you later. I better get home before the storm gets too bad. Bye, Mrs. Davenport!”
“Bye, Tommy,” she replied, looking somewhat confused by his abrupt departure.
Eevie walked with Tommy to the front door and smiled mischievously. “Be sure to say hi to Champ for me. And oh, stay away from the yellow snow.”
Tommy paused and pulled out his soggy wallet. He handed Eevie a ten-dollar bill. “Here, take this. You need it more than me.”
Eevie tilted her head, confused. “Why do I need this?”
“Put this toward your college tuition, because you will never make it as a comedian,” smiled Tommy. He performed the infamous “mic drop” and then turned and walked out the door.
Genius Alert—Inform the Media
Tommy shut his bedroom door. His eyes flicked over to the nightstand, where a small, discolored ring was all that was left where his lamp had once stood. His eyes traveled to his window. Icy-cold fingers raced up his spine, causing him to shiver. He tried, but he couldn’t help himself—he checked under his bed and opened his closet. He jabbed his fingers between hanging clothes...he let go a sigh of relief. He was alone.
Tommy sat on his bed, opened his laptop, and connected to his Google cloud account. He navigated to the pictures he had taken at Eevie’s. He stopped on the strange circular mechanism. There you are. Next, he launched Google Images and uploaded the picture. Within seconds Google returned over 12,000 results.
Tommy stared at the screen. It’s an astrolabe...that was easy. Tommy read the snippet of text below the image. Evidence suggests that the astrolabe was in use by ancient astronomers more than 2,000 years ago. The astrolabe was an astronomical computer used for navigation by aligning the rotating spheres with the sun and stars. This ingenious device was used for navigation, determining the position of planets and stars and finding latitude and longitude.
The next image showed a man standing on the deck of a ship, his arms outstretched, holding the astrolabe up to the nighttime sky. A cluster of stars shone through the three openings in the astrolabe. Tommy recognized two of the constellations. Small alignment arrows pointed to numbers on the outer edge of the circle as well as the innermost circle. The outer circle was very similar to the photograph that Tommy had taken at Eevie’s, except that there were numbers instead of letters.
Tommy opened the photo of Eevie’s astrolabe and smiled. He was one step closer to breaking the code!
Outside, the wind had picked up and snow was definitely falling harder than before. Disappointed, Tommy opened his weather app, expecting bad news. However, it looked like the storm would move out by late afternoon and the sky would be clear that night. Finally, some good news! Tommy fired off a text to Eevie.
“Genius Alert. I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out how to break the code. You can sing my praises later. Give me a call after you check out the link and the image. This concludes the Genius Alert.”
Seconds later, Tommy’s phone vibrated. Eevie replied by texting, “Awesome, I’ll call in just a second” and a thumbs-up emoji, immediately followed by “He misses you...” with a sad-face emoji and a picture of Champ.
Tommy looked at his phone bewildered. Oh my God, who is this person who’s replaced my best friend? She’s always been the sensible one. Well, I’ll take the high road and let her have her fun. Seconds later Tommy replied, “We’ll see who’s laughing when he takes you to homecoming. I hear he’s a great dancer.” Followed once again with the mic-drop emoji.
Tommy opened the pictures that he had taken of the old book and printed them. He stared at the images. Soon, he hoped, the jumble of letters would make sense.
Eevie called a few moments later. Tommy could hear the excitement in her voice. “If we need to see the constellations,” she effused, “we need to find a place where there isn’t much light, so we can see the stars clearly.”
“What about the football field? It’s only lit up if there’s a game...or...,” he paused, “homecoming.... You
r date Champ told me that’s your special night.”
Eevie ignored the last comment and continued Tommy’s train of thought.
“It gets dark around 5:30. Let’s walk over then.”
“OK,” said Tommy. “I’ll just tell my parents we’re going for a walk.”
“All right. I’ll see you at...”
“Wait,” said Tommy, cutting her off. “There’s one more thing. You know the newspaper articles that your mom took?”
“Yeah,” said Eevie, pausing, waiting for more.
“They were dated from the late 1800s until...well, until now. You know, like present time.”
“Yeah,” acknowledged Eevie. “Some of them looked pretty old.”
“That’s just the thing: Every article was about missing children near Black Hallow Park. But the creepiest thing is, each article had a picture of the park ranger.”
“OK...,” said Eevie, waiting. “That’s because it happened at the park.”
“No, Eevie, the park ranger,” said Tommy. “Not different rangers. The same park ranger who tried to...,” Tommy paused for a second, “...kill me.”
Tommy suddenly became very serious. “The same face, the same eyes—the same person. He had different names, but it was the same person.” For the second time that day, an icy chill traveled like electricity up Tommy’s spine, causing him to spin around in his chair and look behind him.
“Are you sure? How could it be the same ranger? He’d be over a hundred years old.”
“Are you seriously asking me that? Think about it. We escaped from a tree that tried to crush us, and then a crazed, demonic creature whose best friend was some hybrid howler monkey with ginormous fangs tried to kill us. And you’re asking me if this could be the same ranger? You have a wand growing out of your hand...which is wicked cool by the way...so yes, the same ranger.”
“Well, when you put it that way...,” Eevie realized.
“It all seems so anticlimactic now,” said Tommy dryly.
“We already know the ranger isn’t human, but we also have no idea why he is here. All we know is we entered his world, our parents don’t believe the world exists, and he—”
Quest Chasers: The Screaming Mummy (A Magic Fantasy Adventure Book Series) Page 3