by Paul Tobin
“No,” I whispered, knowing what was about to happen, but cursing that I didn’t know more. Why couldn’t I be as smart as Nate? He would have calculated a solution. He would have saved the day. He would have saved Melville. It would’ve been an odd solution, of course, because Nate’s mind is odd, which is why he’d taught a mouse to sword fight, and it was why I was wearing a coat made of . . .
. . . toads.
“Sorry!” I told a toad. Then I grabbed it off my arm and tossed it, needing it to be not only the best throw I’d ever accomplished, but also the most perfectly timed.
The toad said, “Roaak?” as it left my hand, arcing away from me, staring back in wonder. Toads are not accustomed to flying, of course, and I’d positively launched this one.
The toad whooshed through the air, rocketing toward Melville, and then past my confused bee, so that for some few moments both the bee and the toad were staring at each other with a shared expression of bewilderment, obviously wondering what I thought I was doing.
Luria’s finger tightened on the trigger.
She fired.
The disintegrator ray flickered out from her weapon, washing over the exact spot where Melville was hovering.
There was a whiplike zakkt noise and the smell of burnt hair. There was a burst of light. A tremble in the air. The smallest of concussions.
But I’d done it.
The toad, immune to the disintegrator ray, had shielded Melville, passing in front of her at just the right moment. “Bzzz,” my bee companion said in comprehension, finally understanding what I’d been warning her about.
“Kee-roak?” the toad said, still perplexed. It was continuing to zoom through the air, because I’d thrown it with a good deal of muscle, thanks to the “Power” pill I’d swallowed. With all the strength I’d put into the throw, the baffled toad could’ve kept going for miles and miles, except for one little obstacle in the way.
Luria’s face.
Impact sent the toad rebounding into the air, and Luria tumbling over backward. I used the distraction to race closer, using my newfound power to run at twice my normal speed, but I was still too slow. Maculte took out a small pellet from his pocket and tossed it to the sidewalk. There was a sharp cracking noise, and then thick blue smoke began billowing from the pellet. With a touch to one of the buttons on his vest, Maculte started the helicopter’s rotor moving again, spreading the blue smoke all over the street like a fog.
The toads began falling from my arms and legs, peeling off my stomach and back, tumbling to the street.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“Simple,” Maculte said. “Nathan’s charmingly titled ‘Toad Finder’ pill works on the principle of stimulating the amphibian nose into thinking a target smells like a spider, thereby attracting the toad’s attention, as spiders are a source of food.”
“I smell like a spider?” I said, sniffing at my armpits. The odor was that of a sweaty Delphine Cooper. I hoped that wasn’t the same thing.
“You did,” Maculte said. “But my smoke obscures that scent.”
“Should Bosper be biting?” the terrier asked, looking back and forth between me and Maculte.
“Sure,” I said, because I was worried that Maculte would start ranting, and nobody wanted that. I’d heard enough of his opinions in the past few months, none of which were interesting. They were all about how he deserved to rule the world, or how most people were no more than cattle. He never had interesting opinions, such as how Liz thinks Bigfoot actually does exist, but he grew tired of hanging out in the woods so he shaves his entire body three times a day and works at Popples, the hamburger place.
“Bosper is biting!” the terrier said, and he bounded forward, but when he was just about to snap his teeth shut on Maculte’s leg, he ran into a force field. There was a sharp burst of light and a tinfoil rattle, and it was as if the terrier had been kicked backward. Bosper rolled and tumbled along the sidewalk, his impacts luckily dampened by all the toads, acting like little airbags. Squeaky ones, in this case.
“Bosper has found a difficulty,” he said, once he’d come to a stop.
“An impassable one,” Maculte said. “My force fields cannot be breached.” His voice sounded like a storm cloud. Like the rumble of thunder. Like cannon fire. It sounded like . . .
. . . wait a minute.
That wasn’t his voice. It was the winds picking up again. It was the flappings of the awnings all along the street. It was the way the buildings were shivering and shaking, as if several tornadoes were suddenly fighting one another, with forces so powerful that there were sparks in the air, concussions of sound and fury.
There was a blur of yellow and blue and red.
It was Chester.
“I,” he said. He was blocks away.
“Can’t,” he said. He was right next to me, and the force of his speed sent Maculte and Luria tumbling, unconscious, caught up in the slipstream, with Maculte’s force field spraying electrical discharges in all directions, with Luria bombarded by the bursts of electricity, gasping in pain as the winds tossed the two leaders of the Red Death Tea Society into the air, the winds so forceful that they destroyed the helicopter, shredding it to tiny bits.
“Stop!” Chester yelled. He was disappearing into the distance.
There was a moment of calm . . .
. . . and then the storm closed in.
Chester’s relentless and incredible speed was creating an epic storm. I’d barely regained my feet when the lightning began hitting all around, and there was tremendous rain, with raindrops the size of my fist. There were hailstones hurtling down to the streets, plunging through cars and ripping trees apart. There were screams from all around. Everyone was running for cover. Melville buzzed in the air next to me, urging me to find safety, but there didn’t seem to be any place I could reach, no cover to be found. The hail and the rain were battering me as I reached out and grabbed Melville in my hand, providing some shelter for her, at least.
“We have to get out of this storm!” I yelled to Bosper.
“But Bosper is biting!” he said. His statement was most decidedly true. He’d taken advantage of how Chester’s speed had destroyed Maculte’s force field and was now biting at the unconscious man’s legs. Luria, nearby, was dazed, crawling on her hands and knees to the relative safety of an oak tree, though the hail was beginning to strip the tree of its leaves and even its branches, whittling it down.
“Save the biting for later!” I told Bosper. He whined, but did as I asked, releasing Maculte after one final chomp. Then the terrier came scampering back to me, bounding left and right, sometimes stopping, sometimes darting forward. It was an intricate dance of mathematics, as Bosper plotted the courses of all the hailstones plunging down from above, then dodged them.
“The dog has done good biting,” he proclaimed when he reached me, and then I heard a moan from behind.
“Kip!” I yelled. He was still unconscious, and entirely helpless in the ferocious hailstorm. I couldn’t just leave him there, crumpled against the side of an ice cream truck, where the winds from Chester’s passing had hurled him. There was an ongoing river of rain washing through the streets, with countless hailstones bobbing in the water, swept along, thumping off Kip. I had to save him, even if he was a spy, because there were those who would argue that I was to blame for knocking Kip unconscious, merely because I was the one who had done it.
“Remind me to add weather elements to my obstacle course!” I told Bosper.
“There is peanut butter!” he yelled back.
“What?” He’d lost me. Was there peanut butter on my obstacle course?
“The butter of peanuts!” Bosper yelled. “It has been discovered!”
“Seriously,” I said. “What are you talking about?” But then I noticed how a jar of peanut butter had rolled out onto the sidewalk when the wall of the Chandler grocery store had collapsed the earlier time Chester had run past. Unfortunately for the poor terrier, the peanut but
ter jar was partially under the collapsed wall, a chunk of bricks twice the size of a door. Bosper was pawing at the pinned jar, whining, looking back to me, wanting help, as if I, at ninety-three pounds, was strong enough to lift a brick wall and uncover . . .
Oh.
Wait a minute.
“Here!” I yelled, reaching over and picking up the wall, because I was still charged full of power from the pill I’d swallowed. I held the wall above my head, protecting us from the damaging hail, nudging Kip beneath my makeshift shelter with my foot. I had to hurry, because I could see Maculte was waking up, and we’d only stopped him by pure luck the first time, and I was in no way confident that we could do it again.
And so it was that I hurried off down the block as best I could, our escape hidden by the tremendous rains and the cannon-fire hailstones, holding a brick wall above my head, listening to the sounds of the roaring winds, the buzz of Melville at the end of my nose, the grunts of an unconscious spy as I continuously nudged him along the sidewalk with my soggy shoes, and the slurping joy of a terrier with a jar of peanut butter stuck to his face.
Thirty minutes later I’d taken a shower and was just about to use the blow-dryer that Nate gave me. It’s an excellent blow-dryer, so efficient that I only have to blow-dry my hair for about two seconds before it’s dry, and there’s some sort of atomic moisturizer that makes my hair silkier than normal, which is great because my hair usually feels like it’s made out of a combination of uncooked spaghetti and arcs of electricity. That’s one of the disadvantages of being a redhead. Of course, one of the advantages of being a redhead is that I’m a redhead, so it’s worth it.
The only real problem with my blow-dryer is that Nate made the handle from an old robot toy of his, so that whenever I turn it on the robot says, “To space, brave captain!”
I’d just turned it on when my phone beeped. I turned off the blow-dryer and looked at my phone. It was a text from Liz.
It said, Can’t wait for tonight. I’m coming over. I grimaced, because I had a pet bee perched atop the bathroom mirror, and there was a talking terrier in my living room, and an unconscious spy in my room, and somewhere in Polt my brother Steve was being a zebra. Plus, Chester needed to be rescued somehow, and the Red Death Tea Society was on one of its exasperating binges of trying to wipe Nate and me off the face of the planet. Furthermore, I had no idea where Nate was at (he wasn’t answering my calls or texts) and Mom and Dad were going to be home in an hour (they’d gone to a soccer game) and it did not seem like an excellent time to finally explain to Liz all that had been happening in my life, because even a short version would take nearly all of infinity to explain.
Now is not a good time, I texted back, then turned on my blow-dryer again (To space, brave captain!) but had barely pointed it at my hair when my phone beeped with another message from Liz.
Guess where I’m at! it said.
“I do not need to guess,” I said to my phone, because Liz had attached a picture of her standing right in front of my house.
There was a knock on the door.
Melville, buzzing, took to the air. I waved her back down.
The knockings continued.
“There is knocking on the house!” I heard from the living room. “Bosper will chew on the door!”
“No you will not!” I yelled, loud enough that poor Melville tumbled in the gust of my breath.
“Bosper will not!” the terrier called back. “He is a good boy who will chew on the spy!”
“Ahhh! Don’t do that, either! At least not yet.” There was silence for a bit, then the bathroom door squeaked open a few inches, and Bosper peeked in through the opening.
“Bosper will save his chewing,” he whispered, then slowly pulled back out of sight.
There was more insistent knocking on the front door, and equally demanding beeps from my phone. Melville took to the air again, but I waved her back down, saying, “I don’t have time for Liz right now. So, be quiet, and hopefully she’ll go away.” I picked up the blow-dryer and turned it on (To space, brave captain!) but hadn’t even managed to start in on my hair before Liz was knocking on the bathroom window.
“Delphine!” she said. “Are you in there?” The curtains were closed. She was only guessing where I was. If I stayed quiet, she would probably go away, and though I felt like a snake I really didn’t have time just then. I needed to save Chester and question Kip and retrieve all the science potions and the pills from all over Polt, and I needed to find Nate and—
“Nate!” Liz said.
“Huh?” I said. Had she read my mind?
“Hello, Liz,” I heard Nate’s voice say.
He was outside.
With Liz.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
Cautiously moving the curtain aside no more than an inch, I peered outside to see what new complications were developing.
Nate was outside with five zebras.
Talking with Liz.
“What’s up with the zebras?” she asked.
“They’re not truly zebras,” Nate answered. “This one is Delphine’s brother, Steve.” He put his hand on the flank of one of the zebras. I couldn’t tell that it was any different from the others.
“What?” Liz said. She had the kind of expression you might expect from someone being told that a zebra was my brother. It must have been doubly unexpected for Liz, because she and I usually consider Steve to be a baboon.
“I don’t believe Delphine has ever told you that I’m the smartest person on earth,” Nate said.
“Nope,” she said. There were like, nine syllables in the word.
“Well, I am. And that brings certain problems. For instance, the Red Death Tea Society, which occasionally tries to assassinate Delphine and me.”
“Okay,” Liz said. Slowly.
“Oh, there’s my dog!” Nate said. Bosper had gone outside and was bounding around the corner of the house. I was holding on to the window curtains for support.
“Bosper can talk,” Nate said. I was clutching the curtains.
“Hello, Liz Morris!” Bosper said, jumping up and down. “Bosper has been told that farting is okay!” He farted. I was positively clawing at the curtains.
Liz was turning an amazing shade of red, and then she went pale. One of the zebras was nudging at her. It might well have been Steve.
“Anyway,” Nate said. “Because my brain works at such high levels, it’s sometimes necessary for me to create a little chaos, just to keep things amusing.”
“Wwwagf,” Liz said. It was an admirable try at a word, considering the circumstances. “Whagg . . . where’s D-Delphine?”
“I’m calculating a 99.87 percent chance that she’s watching us through that window,” Nate said, pointing to the bathroom window, and to me, without even looking in my direction. Liz’s eyes turned my way. And narrowed. I trembled.
“Every Friday the thirteenth, I specifically do three dumb things,” Nate said. “This time, circumstances have led to Steve Cooper turning into a zebra. Also, I’m suffering from the effects of a truth serum, so I can’t help but tell you all of these things, no matter how angry I make Delphine.”
“The dog is a good jumper,” Bosper said. “Watch Bosper do some jumping!” He did some jumping. Liz watched him for a couple of seconds, then stared back to the window, where I was still trying to hide. I planned on trying to hide forever. I planned on becoming the world’s best hider.
“Bzzz?” Melville said. She was right next to my ear, peering out the opening alongside me, and I guess I hadn’t noticed her, and I guess I might have been a little tense, and I guess I screamed, and then I guess I tried to climb the curtains in order to escape, and it’s for certain that they came tumbling down, taking me with them.
Liz peered in the window, looking at me, tangled in the curtains.
“Hey, Delphine,” she said.
“Hi, Liz!”
“So . . . it sounds like we have a few things to talk about.”
&nbs
p; “Meet you at the door?” I asked.
This time, she only nodded. No more words needed to be said. At least not yet.
And so it was that I left my bathroom and began the slow walk to my front door, where the smartest boy on earth was waiting alongside my best friend in the whole world, along with five zebras, one of which was my brother, Steve.
“To space, brave captain,” I whispered, reaching for the door.
It turns out that the extra zebras were a mailman, a grad student in Mexican American history, a burger chef who’d been on her way to Popples, and, lastly, Susan Heller, our classmate and Nate’s dream girl, who I thought looked better as a zebra.
“I’d been hanging from Steve’s ear,” Nate said, gesturing to one of the five zebras in my living room, where neither Mom nor Dad have ever expressly said I couldn’t have any large ungulates. “And then Luria noticed me and correctly deduced the identity of this zebra.” He tapped on one of the zebra’s necks. I still didn’t know how Nate was telling them apart, or how anyone else could have possibly noticed that Steve was . . . Steve.
“How could you tell?” Kip asked. He was looking through Dad’s bookshelf, the one that’s full of history books, and books on cartography, and on the days of vaudeville.
“His DNA is still identical,” Nate said. “It’s merely a matter of noticing the match on your atomic structure display scanners.” Nate held up his phone, which is a phone, but it’s also a lot of other things, apparently including an atomic structure display scanner.
“Most people don’t have atomic scanners handy,” Liz said. I wanted to high-five her, since I’d been saying similar things to Nate for months now. Ever since I met him, actually. But, high-fiving Liz was currently out of the question. She was miffed at me. She was discovering the monumental number of secrets I’d been hiding from her.
“Bosper,” I said. “Give Liz a high five for me.” Since Liz wasn’t talking to me, we were using the terrier as a means of communicating.
“Five is the only odd untouchable number,” Bosper whispered. He often whispers when he’s talking about math. “It is a Fermat prime number!”