“Wait!” I said as he slobbered all over me.
“WHAT?!” he yelled, his eyes bulging from his face.
Okay, Javi, you have maybe three seconds to think of something. If you don’t, you will die, and all the bad guys will go wreak havoc on the world. Three seconds to save yourself and save the world. No pressure.
I looked around. All the adults were out of commission. It was just Hyde and little old me. And I was so terrified, I was shaking.
Shaking! The entire room seemed to shake when Hyde destroyed Andy. What was that rumbling below? Maybe it wasn’t an earthquake. Ooh, hold on. Remember the rumors, Javi. Remember what kids say lives under the school.
Okay, I had an idea. If I was wrong I’d be dead, and if I was right I’d probably be dead too, but I might save everyone else.
“Well, I…I thought of a more fun way for you to kill me.”
“OH YEAH? HEY, THAT’S PRETTY SWEET OF YOU! WHAT IS IT?”
“There are a bunch of awesome medieval weapons in the basement, down there. D-d-do you like swords and spears and stuff?”
“DO I EVER! LEAD THE WAY!”
I ran over to the door that students were always afraid to open and swung it open. I glanced back and saw Brady’s and Wiki’s confused looks. Then I ran down the dark stairwell with Hyde barreling down the stairs behind me.
“DO THEY HAVE FLAILS? THAT’S THE SPIKY BALL AND CHAIN ATTACHED TO A STICK. I’M REALLY MORE OF A FLAIL GUY. THEY’RE JUST WAY MORE FUN.”
We got to the bottom of the stairs, and the room ahead seemed to be lit by fire. Wow, it was really hot too. What was that dreadful heat about? My face felt like it was about to melt off. Well, nowhere to go but forward. We dashed into the room and—
“RRRRRRAAAAAAAAWWWWWWRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!”
I’d seen a lot of crazy things since Andy came into our lives—giant bats, loco monsters, flying beasties. But nothing could prepare me for what smashed through the stone wall in a furious rage. It practically made my eyes explode.
A hideous creature reared up on its hind legs. It looked like a crazed, deformed dragon, but bigger. It had a huge head with bulging eyes that were literally on fire and giant fangs that looked razor-sharp. It had thick, trunk-like legs, and thinner, spindly arms—but at the end of each arm were little hands that had insanely long claws. It was easily the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen, and it probably haunted everyone who saw it for life. It also reminded me of a drawing I’d seen somewhere.
The psycho-dragon spread his wings and threatened Hyde with a roar and a hiss. Then I remembered where I’d seen it—in one of the Alice in Wonderland books Dad used to read to me. This was the Jabberwock, the most dangerous, murderous nightmare of all time! Oh, and—no big deal—Hyde freaked out, threw me at it, and I landed on this horrifying creature’s neck, clutching on for dear life.
Then Hyde screamed, ran up the stairs, and the Jabberwock chased after him, crashing right through stone walls with me riding on its neck. “I’m dead!” I screamed as we crashed through the first wall. “I must be a ghost!” I screamed as we crashed through the second. “Being a ghost is highly overrated!” I screamed as we crashed through the third and final wall, flying into the pool area as everyone else screamed.
The Jabberwock must have wondered what a pirate ship was doing in the pool, because he flew straight to it and hovered above the deck, probably getting ready to give the Queen Anne’s Revenge a taste of his fire breath. The pirates went pale, but Ahab, Ms. Kahlo, and Hanzō had just crawled back onto the deck and seemed less afraid. I guess the teachers knew this humongo horror hung out in the basement? Just as the Jabberwock breathed in, getting ready to let loose a fireball or two, I saw a familiar face step into the middle of the ship, make eye contact with the beast, and shake her head firmly. Aunt Nancy? The Jabberwock seemed to see her and flew back to Hyde. I glanced back and saw Ahab and Hanzō rushing toward the horde of distracted pirates. Welp, those weren’t good odds.
The Jabberwock landed with a thunderous thud on the basement floor, right in front of Hyde, who screamed and fell onto his butt. “HEY, I’M SUPPOSED TO BE THE BIGGEST MONSTER!” he said, terrified and also… crying? “NO FAIR! NO FAIR! I’M THE BIG MONSTER!” He curled up into a ball, sobbing. “NO FAIR! NO FAIR!” He kept repeating it and slowly his body started shrinking until it was just Jekyll, who looked up to see a nightmare staring him down.
I got super excited that I’d defeated Hyde! And then, 0.3 seconds later, I realized that we now had a gargantuan, psychotic dragon-beast to defeat. Replace the monster with an even bigger monster. Classic Javi move.
“GRRRRRRRRRRRRR…” the Jabberwock growled as he turned his fiery eyes to look straight at me. Yikes. He wasn’t super stoked to have a rider. I waved dumbly. He tilted his head, wondering what to do with me. Then he glared and started sucking in air. Oh. OH. Was this dumb dragon about to fry his own neck just to kill me?
“Somebody help!” I screamed. But no one seemed to be conscious on the ship.
“Hey! Hey you, beastie! Come pick on someone your own size, why don’t you!” I looked down and couldn’t believe my eyes. Jekyll was poking the Jabberwock’s scales, taunting him. The beast looked down at him, and Jekyll smiled nervously. “Heh heh… Not to say that I’m your own size…” Then he cleared his throat and stood up straight. “But put the boy down at once! Or else…or else…”
The Jabberwock brought its head down until it was inches away from Jekyll. I could almost hear him saying, “Or else what?” Jekyll stepped a few paces back, trying not to get burned by the dragon’s eyes. Oh man. Jekyll saved my life, awesomely and unexpectedly, but now what? Either the monster burned Jekyll to a crisp, or Hyde would come back and we’d be back to square one. Could someone else help, please?
“Hold tight, Javi!” Aunt Nancy yelled, running up to the monstrosity. She put her hand on the beast’s neck and patted it. The Jabberwock calmed down instantly and brought its head in front of Nancy, who started whispering into its ear.
Then—POOF!—the Jabberwock disappeared, and I fell onto the cold floor.
37
“Aunt Nancy! We did it!” I said, giving her a big hug. “But…how did you do that?”
“You came up with the clever plan, Javi,” she said sweetly. “And don’t you forget it. I just told him to go home. Now you know what lives in the basement.” She winked, and I felt like a million bucks for approximately two seconds, until I remembered.
“Wait—Blackbeard! We’re doomed!” I raced to the ship imagining what must have happened while we were duking it out with a psychotic dragon. Blackbeard probably captured the teachers and was in the process of chopping off Kid Mozart’s head. Oh no! Poor headless Mozart!
I was so in my own head that I didn’t notice Aunt Nancy chuckling as she jogged behind me. When we walked across the gangplank we were greeted by Frida and Ahab. Behind them were fifty-odd pirates tied up. But that didn’t quite look like rope…
“What about Blackbeard? The pirates had the upper hand.” Beardo was tied up extra tight in the middle of the ship, cursing quietly.
“Javi,” Aunt Nancy said, putting her arm on my shoulder, “Don’t you worry about it. The ninja took care of the pirates and the captain took care of Blackbeard. The dragon was the perfect distraction.”
“Told you he wasn’t a true captain,” Ahab chuckled. “Just a stinking pirate.”
The rest of the faculty were either getting out of the pool and joining us or on the ship and making sure the pirates were tied up tight. Antar was trotting his horse back and forth on the deck and pointing his sword at any scalawags that were getting too loud, while Hanzō and Wiki inspected an extra-large pirate. I walked over as Hanzō pulled a little bit of the rope off and studied it, showing it to us. It wasn’t rope at all—more like silk or something even thinner and stickier. Weird.
“Where is Brocéliandus?
” Ms. Vlad asked as she climbed up the gangplank, squeezing the water out of her hair.
Just as I was starting to feel good, I remembered. “Hyde. Hyde destroyed him.” Jekyll looked at me sheepishly.
We walked over to the spot where Andy’s remains were scattered. Gale, Brady, Wiki, and the teachers were standing over them, staring down sadly.
“I…I’m at a loss,” Gale said quietly. “Brocéliandus…”
Brady started crying softly. Wiki’s eyes were welling up with tears.
Aunt Nancy walked over to Andy, smiling. She patted Gale on the back and shook her head. “Why the tears, Dorothy? Do you think this is the first time someone’s tried to destroy Brocéliandus?” She leaned over the remains of the table. “Hey B, stop being so dramatic and making everyone cry already!”
There was a whooshing noise, and it felt like all the air in the room was sucked into a vortex right in front of us. Then I noticed all the little fragments of wood trembling on the ground, jittering wildly. And all at once they magnetized together and WHISK!
There was Andy, good as new, purring louder than ever!
“Andy!” Brady yelled, jumping on him and giving him a huge hug.
“Oh, thank goodness!” Gale gasped.
Wiki and I just hollered and clapped awkwardly because we were excited and didn’t know what else to do.
“That’s more like it,” Aunt Nancy said, winking at me. “Now let’s send these jokers back to their homes.”
Between the teachers and Brady’s squad, we made short work of it. They plopped each pirate on Andy’s chairs, and Brady insisted on ringing the bell every time, saying “Take that, suckers!” or “See you never, sewer stench!” as she banished them away.
The enormous pirate ship floating in the pool took a few minutes to figure out, but Brady put a chair on its deck, rang the bell, and the whole thing vanished. For a second she was suspended fifty feet in the air, and then she did the most epic cannonball of all time. Leave it to Brady to make anything into an extreme sport.
Blackbeard was the last to go. “You’re going to leave me to that grisly death, are you?” he asked quietly, but a little afraid.
Brady shook her head. “Stop being the world’s deadliest pirate and I bet you can 100 percent avoid it.” He gave her a small nod like he was actually considering it. Then she got really close and whispered in his ear, “Now find yourself another Pirate Queen, ya scurvy dog!” as she rang the bell in his face. POOF! The guy who almost murdered us a dozen times, gone just like that.
“Well done, everyone,” Aunt Nancy said as she took a few steps away from the group. She waved at Principal Gale. “Until next time.” Then her body stretched and mutated in front of us until she transformed into a giant spider and scuttled away on eight enormous legs. UM, WHAT? Half of us froze in shock, though none of the teachers seemed too surprised.
Wiki looked at the spider. Then at me. Then back at the spider. Then at me.
“Um, Javi… I don’t know how to put this… Did my aunt just…”
“Turn into a spider?”
“Yeah.”
“Yes. Yes she did. You know what? That actually explains a lot.” I picked up some of the spiderweb that had tied up the pirates.
Principal Gale smiled and patted me on the back. “It’s a long story, Javi.”
“Maybe it’s a story we can share over dinner?” Kid Mozart asked, walking up to us. “I see a dinner table that’s itching for some company…”
“Oh, Kid Mozart,” Brady said sweetly. “Do you ever have any bad ideas?”
38
It was midnight two Saturdays later, and Brady, Wiki, and I had fallen asleep watching sloth videos in our living room. That’s when I heard the noises, faintly at first and then closer and louder. Someone knocked on our door. Then there were a bunch of different knocks from different people. Then one shout. Then a lot of shouting. I jumped up and raced to the door, opening it wide as a bunch of people marched inside. All at once I turned the lights on and they began shouting.
“Asalto! Surprise!”
Wiki and Brady shot up from their sleeping bags, Brady leaping into a full karate stance, Wiki screaming like he was getting murdered. In front of them was Principal Gale, Aunt Nancy, Kid Mozart, Ahab, Ms. Kahlo, Jekyll, Hanzō, Mr. Bottom, Cleopatra, and Don Quixote.
They started playing the instruments I’d given them and tried their best to sing the Puerto Rican parranda song I’d taught them, but it was pretty much the worst rendition ever. Still, it didn’t matter, the point was freaking out Wiki and Brady, and mission accomplished! But now Wiki and Brady were overjoyed. Brady was hugging Kid Mozart, and Wiki and Hanzō were bowing to each other.
Five minutes later we were all gathered around Andy and having the dinner party to end all dinner parties. I’d spent days secretly planning the menu, setting up the decor, and finding the perfect music. And I must say, everything was looking, sounding, and tasting pretty darn great.
“Pass the tostones, please. Is that how I should pronounce it? Toast-tone-nes?” Cleopatra asked, taking the basket of deliciousness and putting a few more on her plate.
“Exactly right,” Brady said. “But that’s just the second-best thing you can do with a plantain. Javi, bring out the mofongo!”
Brady was right. Tostones are actually the second-best thing in the world. Mofongo is king. (Here’s the one-sentence recipe: cut up a plantain, fry it, mash it, add garlic, and pork rind, and then stuff it with your favorite meat. Bliss!) I brought out a heaping plate of shrimp mofongo, and everyone’s eyes went wide as they took a whiff of it.
“You’re all far too focused on the food and not paying attention to the music,” Ahab said, doing a little jig around the table. “This is my favorite sea chantey!”
“Ahab, if sea chanteys be the food of love…dance on!” Mr. Bottom proclaimed, raising his glass.
Yep, I was blasting sea chanteys. Good dinner parties have themes, and there was really only one option for the theme of this dinner party.
“Pirates!” Brady said to Kid Mozart, who’d leaned over to ask her about the decor. “See, this is pirate music, some of this food is seafood (which pirates eat), and Javi even dressed up Andy like a pirate ship.” I’d made a mini mast out of a broom handle and some of my sheets. It wasn’t quite the Queen Anne’s Revenge, but it didn’t look half-bad, really.
“You throw a superlative dinner party, Javi,” Jekyll declared. Yep, that Jekyll. He was my guest of honor. “I would like to thank you again for inviting me to your soiree, all of you. I apologize profusely for having to deal with my, ahem, other self, and am thrilled that you understand I want nothing to do with him.”
“Hey, you did risk your life to save mine,” I reminded him. “You’re pretty rad in my book.”
“Have you burned all the feathers in your house?” Ms. Kahlo asked. She wiggled her fingers at Jekyll like she was tickling the air and they had a good laugh.
“I would like to propose a toast,” Principal Gale said, reaching for her glass as she stood up. “To Wiki, the brains; Brady, the brawn; and Javi, the imagination. Thank you for letting our humble Finistere continue its mission of becoming the greatest school in the world. And, hey—you just might have saved the world too.” Wiki and I blushed. Brady curtsied.
“And this time,” Aunt Nancy said, “You didn’t have to call on your old friends to save the day.” She winked at Principal Gale, who winked back.
Everyone clinked glasses, but I leaned over to Brady. “What was that about? Who are her old friends?”
Brady chuckled. “Have you not figured it out yet? Principal Gale. Who always wears emeralds. And has flying monkeys as pets. Have you never noticed the little toy scarecrow on her desk? Or the framed photos of her tiny dog? Who do you think her old friends are?”
“Oh,” I said, eyes getting as wide as they could get. �
��Oh wow. Our principal is actually—”
Jekyll cleared his throat. “Now, I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I for one am very curious who our dear principal plans to summon as our next teacher.”
Gale nodded. “Ah yes, I suppose now is as good a time as ever. There’s need for an American history teacher in the high school, and I think I’ve found the perfect one. Now, nobody peek. I want it to be a surprise.” She carefully placed a card on the table in front of her and stood up.
“Javi, if you would please do the honors.” She smiled.
I rang the bell, and after the blinding flash of light someone very familiar was sitting in her chair.
“Rosa Parks!” Brady and Cleopatra exclaimed.
“Brady, Cleopatra, so happy we’re dining again.”
Everyone looked at Brady and the queen in shock.
“How exactly are you acquainted with Rosa Parks?” Principal Gale asked. Brady shrugged and gave her a look that said “long story.” Then the principal turned to our new guest. “Ms. Parks, I wonder if you and I could take a walk. I’d like to talk to you about an educational opportunity.”
“I would be delighted,” she said, and the two of them walked out the door.
“I thought she’d want to summon more than one teacher,” Wiki muttered.
Ms. Kahlo turned to him and nodded. “We have a second teacher who is going to come in and do guest lectures once a month. And I think you’ll be pleased with who we’ve chosen.”
Kid Mozart took a little bow in his seat. “I’m excited for my new position and even more excited that I will be able to visit you three regularly.”
Brady, Wiki, and I stood up and clapped. “That’s the best news ever!” I said.
“And how about hosting one of these dinners when I visit?” Kid Mozart asked. “I think we should do this regularly too.”
“Eat dinner with this cast of characters? I can carve out some time from my whale hunt for that,” Ahab said, then muttering. “Though if this table can summon anything, I might be in luck…”
Time Villains Series, Book 1 Page 17