by Paul Tobin
“There’s no material that could withstand the strain,” Nate said. “A super-treadmill would be destroyed almost instantly. And, even if it wasn’t, you’ve seen what happens around Chester. The storm, I mean. You’re beautiful today.”
“What?” We seemed to have moved on to a new topic. Had I heard Nate correctly?
“Oh,” he said, turning away from me. “Dang it. I said you’re beautiful today. Aargh.” Nate was blushing horribly, like someone had used a paintbrush to color him a very dark red.
“Is this the honesty potion at work?” I asked.
“Yes,” Nate said. “Though I always think you’re beautiful. Aaagh! Dang it!”
“The dog has ridden in a helicopter,” Bosper said. “And he eats peanut butter, if someone has some. Does someone has some?”
“Always?” I asked Nate, ignoring the terrier.
“Always,” Nate said. “Ahhh! Dang it. I didn’t know this honesty thing would be so troublesome.”
“The dog is moving at 36.789 miles per hour,” Bosper said. “He is a passenger.”
I was settling back into my seat. My skin was tingling as I listened to Nate talking about how beautiful he thought I was, how beautiful he always thought I was. It was weird that my skin was tingling so much, because of course I’ve never thought of Nate as being anything other than a friend, despite how he’s handsome in his own way, and I feel comfortable around him, and his eyes are nice, and it’s amazing how he can make me feel safe even when everything around us is chaos, and I do enjoy how the smartest person in the world always has time to listen to my ideas, and of course he takes a punch well. But, despite how I would never think of letting him be my boyfriend, I was blushing. I was as red as Nate.
Ridiculous.
“The dog sees a zebra,” Bosper said, staring out the window.
“I’m not just some pretty girl, you know,” I told Nate. Sometimes, boys think a girl is all about how pretty she is, as if she’s defined by her looks rather than her accomplishments. But I’d be willing to bet there isn’t anyone in Polt who can go through my obstacle course as fast as I can, or who knows as much about cake as I do, or who can hold her own against the Red Death Tea Society, or who can—
“Of course not!” Nate said. “Part of the reason we’re . . . friends is because you’re not afraid of my intelligence. It doesn’t intimidate you, not the way it does with everyone else. In fact, in lots of ways, you’re just as smart as I am. The way you look at the world, the way you see things, it’s amazing. You have insights I could never understand. And you make me laugh, and you make me think, and you rode that hippopotamus, and you fought a giant cat. You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever known. It’s true that I’m the smartest person on earth, but it’s just as true that you’re the most adventurous!”
“The dog is still looking at the zebra,” Bosper said.
Somehow, Nate and I were holding hands. Why was I holding my breath?
“The zebra is Steve,” Bosper said.
I felt a little like I had in Mrs. Isaacson’s classroom, when I’d leaped out for the rope that hadn’t been there. It was that same feeling of unexpected falling. Sudden weightlessness. The wind was whipping in through the open car window, the window where Bosper had his head stuck out. I was hyperaware of everything, the way my wet clothes were sticking to me, the way water was dripping from Nate’s hair, those bright red cheeks of his, the intense brown of his eyes. His fingers were in mine and his hand was so warm. My hand felt warm, too. It felt burning hot. I hoped it didn’t feel weird.
Nate slid closer to me, or maybe I was moving closer to him, but either way some of my bright red hair was blowing across his face, fluttering against his cheeks, because of the window where Bosper had his head stuck out, and was seeing a zebra that was Steve.
Wait.
Huh?
“What did you say?” I asked Bosper, taking my hand from Nate’s and turning to the terrier.
“The dog eats peanut butter if someone has some,” Bosper said. “Does Delphine has some?” His eyes were wide and hopeful.
“No. I don’t has some. Have some. I don’t have any. And I wasn’t asking what you said about the peanut butter. I meant, what was that about a zebra that is Steve?”
“The Steve was on the sidewalk. Two blocks ago.”
“My brother?”
“Yes,” Bosper said. “Does the brother has some peanut butter?”
“What did you mean about my brother being a zebra?” I asked.
“Uh-oh,” Nate said.
I am seriously going to put that on his list of forbidden things to say.
So, as it turns out, my brother had drunk the “Make Any Animal a Zebra” potion that Nate had hidden in town. And humans definitely do count as animals, especially if they are brothers.
So now he was a zebra.
A crowd had gathered, thinking Steve was an actual zebra rather than my annoying older brother. Although, I suppose he was both now. A few people were trying to catch him, and others were warning the crowd to stay back, saying that zebras were dangerous and that he could stampede at any moment. Nate . . . burdened with his truth-telling . . . was endlessly explaining that it takes more than a single animal to stampede.
“We have to get him back to my house,” I told Nate, trying to coax Steve closer, waving an apple I’d hurriedly bought from a nearby fruit stand.
“Do you think your parents would want a zebra in the house?” Nate asked. “Wouldn’t they ask questions?”
“We have to get him back to your house, then,” I said, waving the apple to Steve, who incidentally smelled like a sweaty horse, which is basically normal for him.
Nate said, “The most important thing is, we need to discover where your brother came across my ‘Make Any Animal a Zebra’ potion.”
“Why?” I asked, taking cell phone photos of Steve for later blackmail purposes. “What difference does it make?”
“Because I hid the potion in Susan Heller’s garage,” Nate said. “Why was your brother in Susan’s garage?”
“Oh,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “You’re jealous!”
“Yes, I am!” Nate said, forced to tell the truth, though in this case through gritted teeth and with clenched fists.
Susan Heller is our classmate, and she enjoys going shopping and being pretty, both of which are particular talents of hers. She’s also quite skilled at irritating me, and at smiling, the latter of which she gets paid to do by several modeling agencies, and the first of which just seems to come natural to her. She smells, in my infallible opinion, like a rotten peach. Her voice is that of a squirrel on helium and she barely knows that Nate exists. What Nate sees in her I will never know. Maybe it’s that thing about “opposites attract,” because Nate is very smart and she is very not.
“Can we ask him about the potion?” I said as Steve ambled closer, intrigued by the apple. His hooves made the clip-clop sound along the sidewalk. People were hurriedly stepping out of his way. Kip Luppert, our classmate, was among them. I gave him a quick wave. He gave a nervous shiver and melted back into the crowd, as if afraid to be seen. Weird.
“We can’t ask him,” Nate said. “Zebras can’t talk.”
“Well, brothers can talk. In fact, they seem to do a lot of it, and Steve might be a zebra but he’s also my brother.”
“True, but zebras don’t have the ability to talk. It’s a matter of structure, the jaws and tongue and so on.”
“Then how come Bosper can talk?” I asked, pointing to the terrier.
“Bosper is not supposed to talk,” Bosper said. “It is a secret!” He was bouncing up and down, the way it’s no secret that terriers are always doing. Luckily, everyone was so focused on my zebra brother that nobody overheard Bosper speaking.
“I had to make some modifications,” Nate said. “And insert some nano-bots.” The nano-bots are the microscopic robots that help protect Nate and me from all sorts of things, like detection by the Red Death Tea S
ociety, or the League of Ostracized Fellows, or other pesky things such as mosquito attacks.
I asked Nate, “So, my brother is a zebra now. But is he still Steve? I mean, is he thinking like Steve, or like a zebra?”
“A little of both, according to my calculations. He’ll be like your brother, but not quite as intelligent.”
“Check your calculations,” I told Nate. “It is scientifically impossible for Steve to be less intelligent.”
Kip was peeking out from the crowd again. He’s about five feet tall. A tad skinny. A bit gangly. He’s often the lead in our school plays, such as Werewolf Versus the Math Test, which we staged last fall, and Helga Has Meteor Fists, which was cowritten by me and Liz Morris and which concerns the adventures of Helga Throttle, who, as you might have guessed, has meteors for fists. Kip played the part of Fred McLente, an astronomer with an interest in meteors.
Kip’s eyes are green. He smells like a baseball mitt. His nose is thin. His voice is strong. He does not look like someone who would be very decisive, but he is, except when he’s distracted, which is often.
Right then, he looked like he wanted to say something. He also looked very much like he did not want to say something. It reminded me of my dad’s expression the time Mom came home and he had to explain how he’d been practicing rock climbing on the side of our garage and accidentally torn off the gutter.
But whatever Kip wanted to say wasn’t important. Having a brother who is a zebra takes priority, although luckily the problem rarely comes up.
I told Nate, “It doesn’t matter why Steve was in Susan’s garage or how he took your potion; what matters is how we’re going to fix him. Don’t you have an antidote? A ‘Make Any Zebra into Delphine’s Brother’ formula?” Steve was nibbling at the apple in my hand, but couldn’t decide if he actually liked it. I was trying to decide if he was going to eat my fingers and . . . if so . . . how I could possibly tell Mom that I was missing fingers because Steve had grown hooves and developed stripes.
Something bumped against my leg.
I looked down.
There was a toad at my feet.
I moved a bit to the left, not wanting to squish it.
“I could probably make a quick antidote,” Nate said. “Help me get Steve to the car.” He walked over and grabbed Steve by one of his ears and started yanking on him, trying to lead him toward our car. This was not a genius-level thing to do. Steve took enormous offense. Zebras don’t enjoy being grabbed by their ears any more than brothers do, and the combination of being a zebra and a brother seemed to magnify his irritation at having his ear pulled.
Steve bucked.
He kicked and whinnied.
He reared back.
Nate was still holding on to Steve’s ear, dangling from it, looking surprised. It was interesting to see Nate surprised, because it doesn’t happen very often. His amazing brain calculates everyday events to such a degree that I sometimes think he knows the future.
“Should I let go?” Nate asked as Steve began to race off. Nate’s question seemed obvious to me, but he was out of hearing range before I could answer, meaning I could do nothing but stand and watch as my brother and Nate quickly trotted off down the street, sending cars into skids as drivers tried to avoid this unexpected zebra.
Something bumped against my legs.
There were several more toads at my feet. Lots of them.
I was staring at this unexpected crowd of amphibians when I heard the footsteps.
“Delphine,” Kip Luppert said, walking up to me. “I think it’s time I told you something. I’ve been spying on you for the Red Death Tea Society.”
He handed me a business card.
It just said, “Spy.”
I only looked at it for a moment before it was torn from my hands by a tremendous burst of wind. The entire street began shaking. The hair on my arms stood up. There was an electrical crackling from all around, several bursts of lightning, and then a blur of blue and yellow and red as Chester went racing by so fast that the concussion of his passing charred the sidewalk and collapsed the outside wall of the Chandler grocery store. Cans of beans and corn came spilling outward. A jar of olives rolled by, as if it had somewhere important to go.
It was at that moment that a helicopter swung low over the street, flying between buildings. It was red and had a teacup painted on the side. It was bristling with strange weapons, and I could see Maculte at the controls, with Luria flying along beside the helicopter, wearing a jet pack harness and carrying pistols in each hand.
She began shooting.
The toads began scattering.
My shoes were still soggy from the flood.
“Nate! Let go!” I yelled out to Nate, who was still hanging from my zebra-brother’s ear, flapping like a flag as Steve trotted away, but there were so many cars honking their horns or screeching their tires that Nate couldn’t hear me. Plus there was the way the winds were roaring against everything, and the lightning was crackling, and there was gunfire, and people were screaming, and Bosper was barking. It was all very loud. I watched Nate recede into the distance and I heaved a sigh.
My sigh was the loudest of all.
“What’s with the toads?” I asked. Even more toads were hopping closer to me, leaping along the sidewalk in their ungainly fashion, emerging from sewer drains and squeezing out from manhole covers. They were making guttural whistles, and there was that booming toad noise of “grrr-roak grrr-ROAK” and also a soft “frhh-flump” noise as the toads leaped along the sidewalk, gathering closer.
“Too many toads!” I said. “Way too many toads!”
Bosper was barking at them.
I was sweating.
Ankle deep in toads.
I started to run.
But I slipped on a jar of pickles and tripped on a can of corn, and then I squished a package of cookie dough, which at first I worried was a toad.
“Gahh!” I said as a disintegrator ray hit just behind me, sounding like a crackling bonfire and smelling like a cauldron of heavily spiced chili.
The ray vaporized three cans of corn, a jar of pickles, and a huge chunk of the sidewalk.
And I was no longer worried about the toads.
Bosper was barking.
He was also shouting “Bosper is the attacking dog!” while leaping up for the helicopter, with his terrier legs propelling him a good three feet into the air, only missing his target by fifty feet or so.
He kept barking and shouting, and he was also dodging incoming disintegrator rays. The toads were making that “grrr-roak grrr-ROAK” sound, and they were hopping and leaping and tripping me up, and also dodging incoming disintegrator rays.
My phone rang.
It was Liz Morris.
I answered while dodging a disintegrator ray.
“Hello?” I said, leaping over some toads and then trying to hide behind a garbage can, which was quickly disintegrated.
Liz said, “Can you come over tonight? I want to discuss space travel.”
“Space travel?” I asked, hurling a bottle of ketchup at a helicopter.
“We should do it,” Liz said, emphatically. “I am in favor of space travel.”
“Me too,” I said, dodging a disintegrator ray, and also a bottle of ketchup that was falling back down from the skies.
“Why do you sound out of breath?” Liz asked. “You on your obstacle course again?”
“Something like that,” I said, leaping over a fire hydrant that disintegrated only a moment later, sending a gushing column of water across the street, blasting a bearded man off his motorcycle and causing a general round of what I assumed was applause from the toads.
“Are you with Nate again?” Liz asked. There was suspicion and mirth in her voice. There was a toad on my head.
“No,” I said. “I mean, kind of, but he and Steve went off together, and I’m fighting a helicopter piloted by an evil genius.”
“Nice,” Liz said.
“Bosper makes more
attacking!” Bosper said, leaping over me in another attempt on the helicopter.
“Who was that?” Liz asked.
“A dog,” I answered.
“Delphine Cooper,” Liz said. “You are the best friend ever.”
Liz hung up after praising my imagination and making me promise we could talk about space travel.
“Imagination,” I said, snorting, looking around.
I hadn’t even told Liz about the toads.
Or the disintegrator rays.
Or how my brother had turned into a zebra.
Or how Chester Humes was running through Polt at unimaginable speeds.
And I hadn’t so much as mentioned our classmate Kip Luppert.
The spy.
“What do you mean you’re a spy?” I asked Kip, holding out his “spy” business card, waving it in his face in an accusing manner, although it was probably too late for any accusations, considering how he’d already confessed.
“I’ve been spying on you for months now,” Kip said, stepping away from some toads. “And I’ve been spying on Nate for years, working for the Red Death Tea Society. Sorry.”
“Sorry?” I asked. He really did look sorry. Also, he looked squeamish about the toads. I couldn’t blame him for that. One toad is a toad. Two toads are still just toads. A hundred toads is a total nightmare.
“Earlier, you almost caught me,” he said. “When I was carrying the red paint? I’m supposed to paint the warehouse where Maculte stores his titanium rockets and sugar cubes. I was so nervous! And it got me thinking . . . I can’t live like this. I can’t keep lying to you.”
A toad looked up at him, shaking its head.
“Kip!” I shrieked. “Why would you spy on us? Why would you work for the Red Death Tea Society? Who else has been spying on me? Do you have anything to do with my brother being a zebra? Look out for those toads!” He was about to step on some toads. This is because he was staggering backward, possibly intimidated by my questions or by the fact that Luria was still shooting at me, and, quite honestly, some people are squeamish about incoming disintegrator rays.