“This is impossible,” Dex whispered. “I can hear him. He sounds close, but I can’t tell—”
“I AM PICKER!” the voice roared. It was definitely coming from nearby. “I WILL BE FAME—What the—?” Picker’s voice suddenly took on an entirely different tone, a terrified one. “Where did you come from?” he shrieked. “It ain’t nowhere near Halloween you—Holy God! Is it yours? NO! I won’t let you take—”
There then came the sounds of a brief struggle, followed by an awful crack, after which Picker screamed, “AHHH!”
It sounded as if he took off running. He screamed as he went, though his high-pitched wail was interrupted every few seconds by the sounds of him crashing into or falling over something on the ground and then fumbling back to his feet. “AHHHHH!—ooomph! AHHHH!—ooomph. Oooooomph!”
Picker’s last collision was with Dex and Daphna. Standing at the edge of the tire heap, they’d watched helplessly as a reedy orange figure blundered around a blind corner and charged at them with his head down and one arm held awkwardly to his chest.
When the little man neared the twins, he tripped and took a header right into them. They all crashed back into the tires together. Dex and Daphna clambered to their feet, unharmed, but Picker remained where he was, on his back, screaming bloody murder with his eyes closed. Now he was clutching a twisted leg with his good arm.
“Are—are you okay?” Daphna asked, though she wasn’t sure she could be heard over Picker’s howling.
Picker opened his eyes. The sight of the twins seemed to stun him momentarily because he stopped wailing and blinked at them. Dex and Daphna blinked back. He was smaller than they were, and they were average-sized for thirteen year-olds.
“It’s not right!” Picker whined. He tried to get up but couldn’t manage it. Instead he sank further into the tire mound and, red in the face, cried, “I found it fair and square! They can’t mock me anymore. I am Picker!”
“Who can’t mock you anymore?” Daphna asked, though she meant to ask if he was all right again.
“My colleagues,” he answered, bitterly. “Always giving me the heaviest loads just to laugh at me ’cause I’m weak, always teasing me for picking through stuff to salvage for my collections. They’ve been calling me Picker for years. Well, I showed ’em how I pick ’em today, I did! You should’ve seen their ugly mugs! Scared to death, down to the very last one!” Picker grinned at his triumph and tried to sit up again, but he grimaced and lay back down.
“It’s not fair,” he bawled. “That—that—huge thing took it!” Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “It had no skin, and it stank a million times worse than anything around here.”
Dex and Daphna looked at each other. They were thrilled to have guessed right about the Ledger, but they knew this Thing. It was Emmet, burned beyond recognition when he dragged his master, Asterius Rash, back into the inferno that had been the ABC. Somehow, he’d survived.
“Who are you anyway?” Picker asked.
The twins didn’t get a chance to answer because they heard labored breathing nearby.
“Give me back my book!” Picker screamed toward it. “Give me back my book, you lump of foul deformity! Give me back my book!”
Dex squatted down and put his hand over Picker’s mouth, stifling his cries. Crashes now came from the other side of the tires. Emmet was tossing junk out of his way as he came toward them saying something they couldn’t hear clearly. Picker tried to bite Dex’s hand, causing him to yank it away.
Picker opened his mouth to scream again, but Dex managed to whisper desperately, “He’s coming to finish killing you!” This had the intended effect, though the truth was that it would be Dexter and Daphna Emmet finished killing if he found them. Picker paled and remained silent, but Emmet was starting to climb up the back of the pile anyway, repeating whatever it was he was saying as he went.
Dex and Daphna rose, ready to run, but just then the sound of sirens, many sirens, made them freeze. When they turned their attention back to Emmet’s voice, it was gone. Dex climbed tentatively up the pile and quickly returned.
“Disappeared, didn’t he?” Picker finally moaned.
“But, how?” asked Daphna.
“He just popped out of nowhere,” Picker said. “It must be his book.”
The sirens were getting louder, which seemed to please Picker.
“The cops are coming!” he cheered. “That means news crews!” He screamed something that wasn’t English, and the tires began to tremble.
Dex and Daphna immediately jumped off.
“Picker don’t—!” Daphna yelled, but the little man called out the Word again, and tires started sliding off the top of the pile.
The twins knew they didn’t have much time, so they headed quickly into the jungle of junk. Most of the debris had settled, which made it possible for Daphna to retrace her steps. Dex followed on her heels, having learned long ago to trust his sister’s sense of direction. But soon enough, objects were beginning to hurtle past their heads and shoulders. Brother and sister dropped to all fours and crawled the last fifty yards to daylight.
Once outside, Dex and Daphna got up and sprinted for the gate, but halfway there, they stopped. A gigantic and ominous creaking had sounded behind them. Turning back, they saw the entire warehouse lift an inch or so off the ground.
It was impossible, of course, but so was everything else happening to them. The building hovered precariously in the air for one long, tense moment, almost as if it were trying to find the energy to fly away. Instead, it dropped to the ground. On impact, the entire structure buckled, then collapsed.
The thunderous sounds of snapping beams rent the air, then the blare of sirens cut through. Three police cars and two news vehicles raced through the gate past the twins, so the pair tore their eyes away from the calamity and hurried forward into the nearby streets. They walked swiftly without talking for ten minutes, until they felt sure they were safe.
Daphna spoke first. “Do you think—?” she asked. “Picker—?”
“No chance,” Dex said. “But he’s probably going to get his wish.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s going to be famous for a while.”
Daphna didn’t reply to this. The twins walked for a while in silence again. All they could do was, literally, take this new death in stride.
Finally, Dex said, “Where are we anyway?” He stopped to scrape off plastic and newspapers and the filmy lint still clinging all over him. They were standing in front of a long fence topped with coiled barbed wire.
“Dex, Emmet is alive,” was Daphna’s response. “And now he has the Book of Nonsense and Rash’s Ledger. And he can use some Words! That must be how he survived the fire! What should we do?”
“It’s obvious,” Dex said.
“What’s obvious?”
“We have to get the Book of Nonsense back and destroy it. The Ledger, too. There’s no one left to do it but us.”
Daphna didn’t respond, but she didn’t have to. Dexter was right. The pair fell silent again.
“By the way,” Daphna finally said, “I don’t have the slightest idea where we are. Let’s just walk until we see a cab.”
The twins walked on, passing warehouses until they emerged from the industrial section. A taxi sat at a red light.
“Wait!” Dex yelled running to the car. The driver looked at him skeptically through her open window, so Dex pulled a handful of bills out of his pocket. She seemed mollified, if not exactly pleased. The twins jumped in.
“Address?” the cabby asked, still looking unsure about taking them anywhere. The license said her name was Sharon Ferry. Daphna gave it to her, looking nervously at Dex. Fortunately, Sharon turned the car in the direction of the highway.
Relieved, the twins pressed back into the vinyl seats and tried to settle their rattled nerves. It was almost a gift that increasingly incredible things kept happening because each new event prevented them from dwelling on the last.
Sharon turned on the radio. Classical music was on, and Daphna found it soothing. “Lyre,” she couldn’t help saying. Dex rolled his eyes, but it was comforting for him, too. The twins sat and just listened for a few minutes, until Daphna’s thoughts went racing again.
“Dex,” she said, “if that letter from Mom was important enough for Dad to keep in his mattress with all that money—I mean, he’s been saving it for thirteen years—why wouldn’t he read it? He looked at it like it was a prop we made for our crazy story.”
“I don’t know,” Dex replied without much interest. “He doesn’t even know what day it is. He probably just forgot—”
“Quiet,” Sharon ordered. “If you kids are running away, or robbing people, I don’t want to hear about it. Next thing you know, I’ll be on a witness stand.”
Dex and Daphna didn’t bother to reassure her. They turned back to their own thoughts, which were the same: how do you track down a giant, half-incinerated lunatic who wants to kill you? And more importantly, what do you do if you find him? Also, Are we really rich?
A weather report came on as they drove over the river. The forecast was good, finally: sunshine. After that a newscaster said, “When we return, a review of breaking stories, including a disturbance at a rest and rehab home in Multnomah Village.”
Blood drained from the twins’ faces.
Sheer dread restrained the unthinkable from forming fully in their minds, but it was there anyway. They couldn’t even manage to exchange one of their by now routine looks of alarm. Instead, they clutched each other through an endless serious of inane commercials.
Finally, the news returned.
“In Southwest, at the Multnomah Village Rest and Rehabilitation Home, a large man clad in black and wearing a mask and gloves refused to leave when asked to state his business. He fled only when the Director called the police, who are now investigating to determine whether this incident is connected in any way to the recent murders of several residents of the home.”
Daphna let go of Dex’s arm, leaving two sets of deep fingernail marks. She was indescribably relieved, so much so that she didn’t bother wondering if there was still reason for concern. Dex was relieved, too, but he still looked worried.
“What is it?” Daphna asked.
“It was Emmet,” Dex whispered. “He was wearing a mask—that’s why Picker said something about Halloween. He must have taken it off to scare him.”
Daphna, fearful again, sat back up. “What was he doing at the R & R?”
“Looking for one of us,” Dex said, trying to keep his voice down. “He probably tried our house first, then went there.”
“Those are the only places he knows I go,” Daphna said, slightly relieved. “Does he know anywhere you—?”
Daphna stopped short because she and Dex knew exactly where they needed to go.
At the same moment, they asked the same question of their driver. “Can you take us to Gabriel Park?”
“If I don’t hear another word,” Sharon said.
And she didn’t.
CHAPTER 5
monsters
Dexter and Daphna stood at the head of the path leading into Gabriel park, wondering what exactly they thought they were doing. The last time they were here, the twins were fairly certain they were being led to their deaths. In that case, they’d had no choice. Rash’s old partner-in-crime, Ruby Scharlach, had a gun and the Book of Nonsense, and they had no idea Daphna’s reading group was actually the seven remaining Councilors.
It was a miracle they came out of there alive, even with the Councilors giving up their lives to protect them. And now it seemed they were voluntarily going to risk their lives here again. They were going to walk right up to the thing that killed Ruby and took the book.
“He’s been hiding in the woods—in my Clearing,” Dex declared, trying not to focus on his fears.
“But how does he know about it?” Daphna asked. “How’d he find us there with the Dwarves—I mean, the Councilors. I shouldn’t call them that anymore.”
A vague memory came to Dex.
“He—decked me, over there by that tree,” Dex explained, “and when he left, I went to the Clearing to sleep. It’s where I go when I skip school. I thought I heard noises in the woods when I was lying there all day, but I was too messed up to check. It had to have been him. He must’ve seen me go in.”
A wave of hot shame swept over Dexter as he heard himself describe his run-in with Emmet. He hadn’t been decked, of course. Emmet had yanked him off his feet by the neck, nearly strangling him. He’d wet his pants—and it seemed like half the neighborhood had witnessed it.
Dex had blocked out the whole incident as best he could, but he knew it was a doomed effort, even with all the insanity going on. And the humiliation wasn’t even the worst part.
No, Dex had been forced to face a harsh reality that day: he’d never be the type of boy who did what he wanted—he’d always be the type who did what he could. And learning that Daphna had wet herself when Emmet tried to murder her didn’t help in the least. It made him feel even worse.
“What are we going to do?” Dex asked, forcing this all away. “Waltz in there and ask him nicely if we can have the Book and the Ledger? And by the way, please don’t kill us?”
Daphna thought about this for a moment. Then she said, “Dex, I think I should go in there alone.”
“What? Are you crazy?”
“I’m not crazy,” Daphna replied. “It’s just that—no offense, Dex—but I think I have a better chance by myself.”
“But Daphna,” Dex protested, “you lied to him, remember? To get him away from the store so I could take the Ledger. You flirted with him.”
“Yeah, but I’m the one who made him remember he’d been happy in an orphanage before Rash took him and turned him into a killer. I saw the way he looked into my eyes, Dex, when he stopped strangling me. I think I can reach him again.
“Besides,” said Daphna, “if Latty heard about what happened at the Dump, she’ll be freaking out. She might even call Teal’s mom. You should run back to the R & R and tell her we’re okay.”
Dex thought this was a terrible idea, even though Latty probably would be freaking out. He could hardly believe he was considering letting Daphna face that maniac alone.
This was exactly what galled Dex. It wasn’t that he was scared of getting hurt. Since the incident in the park, he’d taken Emmet’s best shots, but he still felt ineffectual. He still felt that his own life was not his to control. He couldn’t even make his own sister give an inch.
“Look, Dex,” Daphna said, sensing some of what her brother was thinking, “I’m not going in there to fight him. Obviously, if I thought that was going to happen, I’d want you to go. I’m going in there so there won’t be a fight. If Emmet looks even the slightest bit violent, I’ll run for it. I’m not stupid, Dex. Let’s make a deal. If I’m not at the R & R in an hour, you can call the cops.”
Dex struggled with the semi-reasonableness of the plan. It was clearly their best option, but agreeing to it was still going to make him feel like a wimp.
“Dex,” Daphna prodded, “we’re wasting time.”
“Fine,” Dex finally agreed. “Half an hour.”
“Deal.” Half an hour was exactly what Daphna was bargaining for.
Dex regarded Daphna severely for a moment. He wanted to say something angry, but he couldn’t find the words. Instead, he took off.
Daphna watched her brother until he was out of sight. After a deep breath, she clenched her fists, gritted her teeth, and strode into the park. Despite the near state of shock she’d been in the last time she walked down this path, she remembered just where Dex had led the group off of it.
Chaotic thoughts swirled in Daphna’s head as she entered the woods again. She hadn’t found time to think any more about how she’d gotten Emmet away from the ABC that day. There’d been no time to lose, so she’d just charged up to him, hoping to come up with something—an
d the next thing she knew, she was flirting away like a Pop girl at school.
It wasn’t something she’d planned. Daphna had no idea she was even capable of such a thing. She’d never been confident enough even to wonder. But now a cascade of tingles raced down her spine as she stepped lightly over clusters of branches and leaves. Everyone knew that girls who could order boys around earned the right to do the same to other girls.
But this thought nearly crushed Daphna. She’d always been one of those other girls! She’d been used! Wren and Teal, those two-faced Pop phonies. Those snobs. They’d lied about going away to camp for the summer so they wouldn’t have to hang out with her. Those back-stabbing liars sat with her at lunch every few days and told her she was their friend.
Oh, she’d been a fool, a stupid, stupid fool. How gullible could she be not to have realized they buddied up to her only when they needed help with their homework? And what was her “help” anyway? Practically doing it for them. No, completely doing it for them. How could she have let that happen to her, especially when it was so obvious the way they manipulated everyone else!
The fury that had overwhelmed Daphna when she first realized she’d been blatantly used returned, though with far less self-pity. She hadn’t had a second to think about how she’d fallen apart in her bedroom over all this, either. Daphna had no idea what she was going to say to those two when school started, but she was going to say something, that was for sure. An angry red haze clouded her vision, and she began knocking aside tree branches and kicking at rotten logs. Daphna completely forgot where she was going, but her feet found their way on their own.
By the time she managed to reach the trees ringing the clearing, Daphna was in a blind, stumbling rage. She barged right through a wall of overlapping limbs, stepped on something soft, then tripped on something else that sent her headlong to the ground.
Daphna scrambled to her feet. It was Emmet, or something that used to be Emmet. He’d been curled up on a blanket wearing a black sweatsuit. There were a pair of black gloves, a plain black ski mask and a portable television lying nearby. Everything had tags still attached.
Book of Knowledge Page 3