The Fabulous Zed Watson!

by Basil Sylvester

  In the dining room, to the right of the doorway, someone had set up a ping-pong table, and a bunch of people I didn’t recognize were shrieking and swinging their paddles wildly.

  On the stairs, my sister June had set up a mattress toboggan run. The lineup was long.

  So was the lineup for the bathroom.

  Down the entrance hallway was the kitchen. I sniffed. Delicious smells were reaching my nose, but my quest was not the food.

  Cooking usually meant at least one parent was present, and that was my best bet to announce my discovery.

  I marched down the hallway, dodging ping-pong balls, flying mattresses and, for some reason, my brother Zach’s bunny, Mephistopheles, who was running free and skittering between everyone’s legs.

  “This house is awesome,” I said.

  My dad was in the kitchen, as it turned out. He was kneading his famous handmade pizza dough and chatting with “Uncle” Amir, who sat at the counter chopping mushrooms. His wife, Andie, was grating cheese, and they were all laughing about something.

  Mom wasn’t there. She was undoubtedly in her study working on serious lawyer things. She didn’t like to be disturbed before dinner. Ha! How she avoided that in this house was a mystery to me.

  “DAD, I HAVE NEWS!” I yelled, just to be heard over their loud conversation.

  “Indoor voice, Zed,” said my dad. “And don’t interrupt.”

  “Oh, brother.” I rolled my eyes. “In this house, that is my indoor voice.”

  He frowned at me and began chatting with Uncle Amir again.

  “But I have news!” I tried again.

  Amir smiled at me.

  Dad didn’t.

  “Zed, what did I just say? Be patient. I’m talking to someone else. Wait your turn.”

  “But it’s really important!”

  “And you’re being really impatient,” he said.

  “Oh, nice wordplay, Watson,” said Andie.

  “DAD.”

  He held up a finger. “Shh. Quiet, please.”

  “IRONY UPON IRONY!” I threw my hands up in frustration. “Where’s Mom?”

  “You know the rules—no disturbing her before dinner.”

  “I won’t be disturbing, I’ll be . . . enlightening.”

  Before he could protest, I darted out of the kitchen and up the stairs. It got quieter as I left the throng below.

  My strategy had failed with Parent Number One—I had to try a different tack with Parent Number Two.

  I knocked on her study door, but she didn’t answer, so I just walked in. I mean, it’s not like the door was locked.

  She was sitting at her desk, her forehead resting in one hand, eyes squinting at the screen as she scrolled through some (probably booooring) legal document.

  “Sorry, I’m busy,” she said without looking up.

  “MomIneedamap,” I blurted.

  She lifted her forehead from her palm and turned toward me.

  “Zed, what on earth?!”

  I probably did look a bit unhinged by this point, panting and unable to stand still. I was flapping my hands at her. She blinked like she was trying to shake the fog of many “heretofores” and “notwithstandings” from her brain.

  I figured I had about twenty seconds before she stopped being confused and started being annoyed. The perfect window of opportunity.

  “Mother, I need a map of the United . . . States . . . of . . . America.” I said it slowly and clearly, as if I were talking to a spooked animal. You have to appear calm in these moments. Otherwise, a parent will sense your weakness and tell you to take a few breaths or to leave and come back when you’re calmer.

  By then, it’s too late.

  I have learned this from experience.

  “Your father has one in the drawer of his bedside table, I think,” she said, already turning back to her work.

  Success! Parental permission to enter their room.

  “Thanks!” I smiled and sped away before she realized what she had done.

  She called after me, “Don’t be late for dinner, though!”

  No promises, I thought.

  Chapter 4

  Putting the Cartography before the Horseradish

  I stood outside their room and took a breath. I put my hand on the brass doorknob.

  “Lysander rattled the doorknob to see if it was still locked,” I whispered, paraphrasing a scene from chapter 1 of The Monster’s Castle. I felt a little like my favorite vampire in that scene. He discovers a talisman that (possibly) will help him in his quest. Of course, I had no idea if it did help because . . . the book wasn’t published! But I felt that it was true.

  I did not find my talisman, the map, in my dad’s drawer. There were some weird things in there, though, like loose coins from Mexico, Brazil, China and Vanuatu; antacid containers (empty); and an old comic with some angry duck named Howard, of all things.

  “I’m a map, I’m a map. Now where would I be?” I said as I searched around the room.

  I eventually found it tucked under a leg of the dresser, where Dad had put it to stop the leg wiggling.

  “Eureka!” I yelled, yanking it free.

  I ran to my room.

  I stopped and bowed at my door. “May the ancient ones who guard the Monster’s Castle speed my safe passage through its halls.”

  This was an incantation that a stranger had to say to enter the castle. A magic spell instead of a key! Didn’t I say this was the coolest story ever told?

  I walked in.

  My room was a closet. Literally.

  My parents turned what had been the upstairs linen closet into my bedroom. Not that I was complaining—it was a trade-off for not having to share with a sibling.

  My tiny bed was awesome. It leaned against the wall during the day, and I pulled it down at night. It almost felt like a vampire’s coffin. My Dracula comforter was a nice touch, if I do say so myself. And I do.

  My brother Jimi had designed a desk that also folded away (or would have if I ever cleaned off the top). And I think there was a rug. But between all the dirty clothes and scattered homework assignments, I hadn’t seen the floor in years.

  The bed sort of found its own way of settling into the pile.

  So the walls were my only option for the map. I rummaged through the desk and pulled out a box of pins.

  I apologized to the posters of Lysander the vampire, Yves the werewolf, Cassandra the witch and Marion the zombie. I had made them myself, based on sketches others had posted on the website. I was pretty proud of them.

  But even great art must step aside for great adventure.

  I smoothed out the map as best I could, then stood on my desk and used the pins to put it up. Lysander was still able to peek at me around the tip of Alaska—I could even see the rose he held next to his face.

  “Perfect,” I said.

  The entire road map of the United States was there before me. But it had about a gazillion places on it, from historical landmarks to gas stations. Not as easy as I’d been hoping.

  “Well, better get started, Zed,” I said.

  From under my desk, I grabbed a secret file folder that held all the stuff from the website plus my own notes. There are things I don’t post on the fan site because they are just too personal, like the story I was writing about Lysander and Yves playing board games.

  In a balloon.

  Flying over Paris.

  “Oh, Lysander,” I gushed, clutching the file folder and looking at his poster, “how romantic you are.”

  Lysander’s eyes seemed to narrow.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Time’s a-wasting.”

  I pulled out my handwritten copy of Taylor’s poem and read the first section out loud.

  My heart has been taken and buried away

  Perhaps to beat another day.

  To understand these lines it may be

  That you could find it and let me be free.

  That was clearly Taylor talking about themselves, because it echoe
d the letter to Williams.

  It was the next part where stuff got interesting:

  Like Shakespeare’s lovers of deadly fame

  In the company of angels, skulls and names

  Look where he fled, a blue Rosaceae sign

  I lie, uncaring of passing time.

  A few months ago, there had been a debate on the website about whether “I lie” meant to lie down or to not tell the truth. Several people thought it was to not tell the truth, so they spent a lot of time trying to figure out if that meant the whole poem was a misdirection.

  Which is, of course, ridiculous.

  Listen, if Taylor didn’t want us to find the manuscript, why write the poem in the first place?

  I had developed my own theory. I know monsters, and my theory was that the other stanzas in the poem were supposed to be from the point of view of the monsters, not Taylor.

  Why did I think that?

  The second stanza was about being “uncaring of passing time”—that is, being immortal, like a vampire.

  The third was about a bat who flew away. Bats and witches.

  Fourth was about a dead soldier who still walked the earth—a zombie.

  Then a beast who lived in the dark and talked about a “moon” flower. That’s a werewolf talking if I’d ever heard one.

  But now that @FlorAida had me searching for a “route” to find the monsters, I also knew there were directional clues hidden here too.

  Did the monsters name actual places in each stanza?

  That was my working theory.

  But I needed some help figuring out how.

  One cool thing about a household our size was that there was always someone in the crowd who could answer a question.

  Or as my mom put it, “Who needs Google when we’ve got Gaggle?”

  I opened my door and saw my brother Tom clutching a mattress, ready to fly from the top of the stairs.

  “Tom,” I called, “if I say ‘Shakespeare’s lovers’?”

  “Romeo and Juliet, definitely.”

  “And they lived . . . where?”

  “Verona, obviously.”

  Did I mention he was an English major?

  “And any idea what a blue Rosaceae means?”

  “Nope.” He shook his head and flew down the stairs.

  Still, two out of three. Not bad.

  So I had Romeo and Juliet, Verona and some weird Halloweeny stuff with skulls and angels.

  “Hmmm, Rosaceae,” I repeated. I had no idea if I was even pronouncing it correctly. I was saying something like rose-sickeye. I had looked the word up online, of course, and it basically just meant “rose.”

  What did the blue part mean?

  “Any help?” I asked Lysander, but he was silent.

  I did know one other thing, though. Rosaceae wasn’t just in the Lysander section of the poem—Taylor had also used it in “The Vampire’s Grave,” the Lysander chapter of the book. Lysander St. Clair, my fave, the best character in the entire history of the written word. I couldn’t wait to find the missing chapters and learn more about him!

  In “The Vampire’s Grave,” he’s just been exiled from his country. He’s left behind his home, a magical place known as the Monster’s Castle. And he’s also left behind his best friend, a werewolf.

  See, Lysander’s kind of a bad guy (he does bite people), but he wants to be good. The problem is that narrow-minded humans never give him a chance.

  So he’s on a ship to America, staring out over the bow, the full moon rising over the sea. And he hears a werewolf’s howl.

  Calling his name.

  Is he just imagining things? Is he going mad?

  It’s so poetic and so tragic!

  Lysander also says he misses his garden. A special garden. When he’s awake, it blooms with magical plants.

  This is where the Rosaceae thing gets mentioned. Except it’s just some rose in his garden.

  I looked up at the poster again. “Is it a hidden place name?”

  No response. Honestly.

  Sometimes I talk to Lysander when I’m working out stuff.

  “Let’s move on to what I do know. Romeo, Juliet and Verona. Is it possible Taylor was talking about Verona, Italy?”

  I ran a hand through my scruffy hair.

  “No. Doesn’t seem likely. Taylor was from the United States. All the fragments of the manuscript were set in the US. And, Lysander, you were exiled to the US. So I think it’s a safe bet that the clues lead there.”

  But was there a Verona in the US?

  I stood on my desk and scanned the entire map, my nose practically touching the crinkled paper.

  “Bingo!” I yelled.

  Actually, I yelled it twice. Because there was a Verona, Wisconsin, and a Verona, New Jersey.

  They were not close to each other.

  But they were the only Veronas I could find.

  “So at least we’ve narrowed the search to a couple of states.”

  Lysander seemed pleased.

  “Now on to the rest of the poem.”

  After about an hour, a pattern emerged. I love patterns. A two-second look at the awesome sweaters covering my floor is proof of that. But the pattern I discovered now was that words in each stanza linked to words in each chapter. I took each stanza and compared it to each monster’s chapter. By going back and forth between the chapters and the poem, I, Zed Watson (under Lysander’s watchful eye), was able to come up with a series of possible—dare I say probable?—destinations.

  Verona was linked to Lysander. Which Verona? I had no idea.

  The poem fragment for Cassandra the witch talked about somewhere called Arcadia.

  I found Arcadia, Indiana, on the map and circled it.

  But Cassandra also lived in a belfry when she was on the run from the mean humans.

  So maybe Taylor wanted us to go to Belfry, Montana? I circled that on the map as well, just in case I was getting this all wrong.

  Similar deductions about other monsters led me to circle a few other cities and towns.

  Huzzah, Missouri.

  Arcadia, California.

  Cassandra, Pennsylvania.

  Lysander, New York.

  Marion, Ohio.

  Moon, South Dakota.

  A thought occurred to me as I circled: there was nothing in the clues I was finding to say where we needed to start or finish.

  Was the book hidden at one of these places?

  Were bits of it hidden in all these places?

  I thought about the poem. Taylor had written to Williams that all the “beautiful monsters” were buried together. So that suggested there had to be one final location.

  But Taylor had also left four monster-based stanzas and four linked chapters. Why?

  I sat thinking for a long time.

  And what I decided was that Taylor could easily have left just one clue to find the one spot where everything was buried.

  Too easy.

  Instead, the clues said we needed to discover a hidden route. Routes have multiple stops. Which meant, I deduced with my amazing brain, that there were four spots the searcher had to visit to find the final resting place of The Monster’s Castle.

  Or maybe eight.

  I got goose bumps as I realized that Taylor had always intended to set the seeker on a quest.

  When I was sure my Zed-tacular brain had figured it all out, I put pushpins in each location and tied string between them.

  Then I jumped down from my desk and looked at my handiwork.

  I said I liked patterns. Well, looking at the map didn’t reveal anything simple, like pinstripes. It was more of a plaid. And not a particularly well-made one.

  “Of course Taylor didn’t make it easy,” I said. “Someone would have found the book already.”

  But was my quest really going to involve that much traveling? Summer vacation was almost over.

  “There must be a more straightforward route,” I told Lysander. “Maybe I need more help from the Watson Gagg
le search engine.”

  I was still working on a few simpler route options when my dad yelled up the stairs, “Zed! Everyone! Dinner is on the table, and this pizza waits for no one!”

  I didn’t want to pull myself away from the map, but my stomach growled.

  Pizza, as my dad said, waits for no one—not even an epic adventurer.

  I stole one more look at the map, then grabbed a piece of paper and a marker off the top of my desk.

  I wrote: “KEEP OUT! ABSOLUTELY DO NOT COME IN! IMPORTANT PROJECT IN PROGRESS. IF YOU COME IN, YOU’LL GET CURSED FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!!!!!!”

  Then I stuck my sign to the outside of my door.

  In case that wasn’t enough to keep people from opening it, I also drew a frowning stick figure getting zapped by powerful rays from the sky. I stepped back and admired my work.

  As a final touch, I drew an arrow pointing to the stick figure and wrote, “THIS COULD BE YOU! I MEAN IT!”

  Then I bounded down the stairs in search of pizza . . . and answers.

  Chapter 5

  Dinner

  I flew down the stairs.

  I wanted to go on this road trip. Nay, I NEEDED to go, which meant that I needed permission from my parents—and one of them to drive me.

  I prepared to turn my Zed charm-o-meter to 11.

  Then I walked into the dining room.

  SLAM!

  BANG!

  WHOMP!

  SMASH!

  HEYYYYYY . . .

  YOOOOOO . . .

  WHOOOOOP!!!

  Often, when hearing such a clash of loud noises, people are inclined to dive under their beds. Earthquakes are quieter.

  But I have learned from years of experience growing up in my house that these particular noises herald the beginning of dinner.

  My parents were going in and out of the kitchen with waves of pizza, pasta, salads, breads, butter. They were always the last ones to sit. I’d have to be patient.

  “Hey, Zed!” said a loud voice. My sister Lizzie’s friend Bunny . . . I think.

  I bobbed and weaved around at least ten people I’d never seen before, many of whom were scrambling to grab a chair. Most had brought something to the table, even if it was just a half-eaten bag of pretzels.