“Hey, Webster,” I heard from above me.
I looked up. Henry was sitting on a branch of a tree by the house. Perched beside him, as docile as a kitten, was the gremlin. Althea was chewing on something, smiling and chewing and leaning into Henry’s side so sweetly it was as if she was not a gremlin at all.
“I thought you’d be in pieces by now,” I said.
“Disappointed?”
“A little. I had a great speech for the funeral. What was all that running around and smashing into windows?”
“Once we figured out we’d be friends, we thought we’d put on a show.”
“Ha ha,” I said. “You guys are so not funny.”
Henry opened the little bag, took out a treat, and held it with the tips of his fingers. Althea smoothly snatched it and popped into her mouth. “You’ll never guess what this stuff is,” Henry said.
“Goat jerky?”
“How did you know?”
I turned toward a thick hedge between the Topper property and the Moss property, the Mason-Dixon Line of our uncivil goat war. On the Topper side was a row of bushes with thick leaves shaped like fat fingers.
I walked up and down the property line, looking for an opening. I stopped when I found a small gap created by a mess of broken branches. I stooped down so I could peer through.
On the other side was a big oak tree, and beyond the tree I saw a woman staring in the direction of the river. She was tall and thin, with long gray hair hanging loose and a robe of some kind wrapped around her shoulders. There were stars on the robe, and planets, and swirls of space dust. I knew who it was right off. The neighbor Moss. And then she turned her head and stared straight at me, as if she knew I was there spying on her, as if she could feel my very presence.
I couldn’t help but jump back from her stare like some warning message, slithery and sharp, had been sent.
Bleat.
MR. POPULARITY
That night after dinner, as my mother corrected papers at the kitchen table, I was tutoring Keir on how to find the area in parallelograms and trapezoids—the easiest of geometry problems, the tricycle of math!—but Keir didn’t even care enough to pretend to care.
“So if you draw imaginary lines here and here,” I said, “you suddenly have two right triangles and a rectangle. See?”
“Those lines aren’t imaginary,” said Keir. “You drew them right on the paper. How old did you say Barnabas was?”
“Older than you,” I said.
Barnabas had worked with Keir on his case at the office and then, following my silent directions, had accompanied him to our house, looking out for him all the while. Barnabas stood outside the door after his mission, his hands hanging loose and his pale skin glowing, until my grandfather brought me home in the Sturdy Baker. The birds had followed them every step of the way, said Barnabas when he gave me his report, but he hadn’t spied anyone or anything else following.
“No one with an eye patch and a dog?” I said.
“No, Mistress Elizabeth, and I surely would have remembered such a personage. Keir told me what happened in the train station. A very troubling development. I could wait outside through the night if you think it necessary.”
“I think we’ll be okay here,” I said.
“Most likely yes. Your mother is a match for anyone.”
“I can get Keir to school tomorrow morning, but you might want to keep an eye on him and his activities after school until the trial.”
“Will do, Mistress Elizabeth,” he said. “You can count on me.”
A moment later Barnabas had disappeared into the night, leaving me alone with Keir and his math homework.
“Can we get back to work?” I said to Keir at the kitchen table. “Now we know how to find the area of a right triangle and a rectangle, correct?”
“Barnabas being so old,” said Keir, “might explain why he’s so sad.”
“Barnabas is not sad, he’s…”
“Sad,” said Keir. “He seems stuck out of place, if you know what I mean.”
“Not as out of place as you are in geometry,” I replied. Just then my brother rumbled into the kitchen and asked Keir if he wanted to play some video games up in his room.
“Video games?” said Keir. “I’ve heard of such things. They sound fun, but I really must do my math. How can anyone get along in this world without knowing how to draw imaginary lines? Buildings would collapse, banks would go belly-up. Unless, Elizabeth, you might…”
“Might what?” I said.
“Oh, please, Lizzie,” said Petey. “I’m so bored.”
“I would never ask such a thing,” said Keir. “It is my homework, after all, and we all know how important homework is. But if you might just make some notes while I play with your little brother, that would be helpful when I finally roll up my sleeves and get to it.”
“Yeah, I get it,” I said, and I did. My mother looked up from her papers and gave me a tilted smile, as if this was just what I deserved for helping my dad bring Keir into her house. “Just go,” I said. “If I spend any more time on this with you my head will implode.”
“Ahh, you’re a friend, you are,” said Keir. “So, Petey, can you bet on these games?”
A few days later, as Natalie and I walked toward the school cafeteria, she said, “I heard you did Keir’s math homework again last night.”
I stopped walking. “What are you talking about?” I said as if I had no idea what she was talking about, when I really had every idea what she was talking about. Somehow my doing Keir’s homework had become part of our nightly ritual.
Natalie stopped also, turned around, and leaned against a locker. “You’re saying you didn’t?”
“No,” I said. “I did. But how did you find out?”
“Keir told me,” she said as she checked her fingernails. Today they were a soft brown with darker spots, which, I had to say, were pretty sweet and something I could never pull off.
I took hold of her hand to get a better view. “New look?”
“Leopard,” she said. “Do you like?”
“Rowr.”
“He spilled the beans while trying to get me to do his social studies homework,” she said as she took her hand back.
“But you don’t even do your own social studies homework.”
“I know!” she said. “That’s why I told him to forget it. Besides, he wasn’t even offering enough for a new pair of sneakers. I might not be diligent, but I certainly don’t come cheap.”
“Wait a second, what? He offered to pay you?”
“Uh, yeah. Didn’t he pay you?”
“No,” I said. “He certainly did not.”
“Wow! Well, you can’t say you don’t come cheap. He paid Charlie and Doug for his science and language arts homework. Mostly with the money they owed him.”
“How do they owe him money? Ice cream at lunch?”
“Not exactly. He’s become quite the thing, your pal Keir. Look behind you.”
Slowly I turned. There was a group moving noisily through the hallway. Henry Harrison, tall as a drum major, was seemingly leading the gang, and the two Fraydens were buzzing about, and Young-Mee was chatting and laughing with a number of other eighth-grade girls. As the roving clique moved down the hallway, kids in their path spun out of the way and jammed themselves up against lockers, like they were facing a rabid swarm of oversized bees. The whole pack seemed to be surrounding someone, someone I couldn’t quite see, until Charlie Frayden skittered out of the way and there he was.
Keir McGoogan himself, long-jawed and angel-faced, with his blue cap and ears that stuck out like thumbs.
There was a sudden sourness in my mouth. Was I tasting the unwelcome tang of jealousy? Maybe. And why wouldn’t I be? There was Keir, ignoring all my stern orders and finding friends in school so much more easily than I ever could. And then there was Keir giving me a sly smile and lifting a hand in a very quiet wave, like he didn’t want to be rude but also didn’t want to be overly c
onnected with the likes of me. I understood—popularity is sometimes so fragile even the smallest flaw could pop it like a balloon.
“Hey, Webster,” said Henry after he spun off from the group and came our way. “Natalie. What’s up?”
“Keir, obviously,” said Natalie.
“So, I was just wondering, Webster,” said Henry, “if this gremlin-wrangling thing was a paid gig.”
“I’ll ask my grandfather,” I said. “Why?”
“Well, you know, I could, like, use some fish-skins right about now.”
“Fish-skins?” I said.
“Why don’t you just do Keir’s homework like everyone else?” said Natalie. “He’s paying.”
“I would for sure,” said Henry, “but I don’t have any classes with him and when I asked if I could do his math homework he said Webster had that covered.”
“He said that, did he?” I said.
Henry looked at me sheepishly, and I mean that literally, like a sheep. I could have sheared him then and there. It was fortunate for his fancy high fade haircut that just then he hurried back along the corridor to join Keir’s little gang.
“He’s in deep to your new friend,” Natalie said.
“In deep how?”
“Like the rest of them, he’s been playing with Keir’s dice. Something called craps.”
“Is that a game, really? Who named that? And are they really betting money?”
“I suppose they’d bet lollipops, but your friend Keir doesn’t want lollipops.”
“I’m getting a little sick to my stomach,” I said.
“Of course you are,” Natalie said. “We’re on the way to lunch.”
A few minutes later in the cafeteria, while Natalie and I sat with our apple juices and our lunch trays, Keir and a group of kids huddled at one of the tables in the corner like they were plotting to overthrow the middle school administration.
Take the study out of study hall! Student power!
“Did you find anything on that girl who attacked us?” I asked Natalie as I watched the strange huddle.
“Nothing yet on her,” said Natalie. “But I called that Academy for Special Cases in Sedona. They confirmed that Dr. Van worked there and they offered to send me a brochure. I’m so excited. I always wanted to be a special case.”
“Oh, you’re special, all right,” I said. Just then a groan rose from the table. As the huddle pulled back, I could see Keir smiling and stuffing dollar bills into a pocket. He looked up, saw me and Natalie staring, and gave us wink. That’s right, a wink.
“Do you ever get the feeling you brought a monster into school?” said Natalie.
“Yes,” I said, still thinking of what that girl Pili had said as she raised the stake above her head. “Yes I do.” Was I scared? I was. And angry, too.
I was trying to figure out what to do about this whole insane thing when I saw Mr. Armbruster standing in the doorway, hands on hips, staring with way too much interest at the huddle at Keir’s table. Without another word, I rose from my chair and headed over.
I waited by the table until Charlie Frayden lifted his head to scan the lunchroom, saw me standing there, and ducked back into the huddle.
“Uh-oh,” I could hear him whisper.
“What is it?” whispered Doug.
“Elizabeth.”
“Uh-oh,” said Doug.
The whole huddle pulled back and looked at me. Keir smiled brightly as he grabbed the dice and dropped them into his shirt pocket. “Hello, Elizabeth,” he said, his face flushed with what I thought was excitement. “We were just talking about—”
“All of you scram,” I said. “Except for Keir.”
Keir looked at me for a moment and tilted his head before saying, “Go on, now. It appears Elizabeth wants to have a chat.”
It took a moment for all the dice players to sullenly grab their stuff and clear out, but eventually it was just Keir and me at the table. I sat down and clasped my hands in front of me. My mom did that whole clasped-hand thing when I crossed a line. Keir kept driving me into becoming my mother!
“Want to play?” he said with an annoying smile on his red and blotchy face. “Your math smarts should make you a pretty penny.”
“I don’t want any of my friends’ pretty pennies,” I said. “Do you even remember what I told you?”
“Keep my head down.”
“Especially when Mr. Armbruster is standing in the doorway.”
Keir looked around until he spied the teacher. “He’s a little too curious, isn’t he?”
“It’s his job.”
“We’re just having a bit of fun is all. That’s what school should be, don’t you think?”
“Is it fun taking money from the other kids?”
“Yes, actually.”
“And is it fun paying them to do your homework?”
“I’m only giving my pals a chance to earn back their losses. We’re just playing around.”
“They might be playing around, but you’re not playing around, are you?”
He stared at me for a moment and then looked down at the table, as if he didn’t like seeing his reflection in my eyes.
“Well, it is money, after all,” he said. “When my father went away to war we were left near to starving. I guess I’m just teaching them the lessons I learned. It is a school, isn’t it? Why do you care so much? You don’t even like half these kids. And the things they say about you.”
“What things? About my hair?”
“Why would they be talking about your hair?”
“Isn’t everyone talking about my hair? It’s pink!”
“Look, if it gets you so cross, I’ll stop.” He winked. “No more dice, I promise.”
“And no more winking.”
“But I give a good wink.”
“Not as good as you think.”
“Okay, okay. No more winking, either.”
“And you’ll do your own homework from here on in.”
“Now you’re asking too much.”
I didn’t say anything to that. I just gave him my angry face.
“Okay, okay, I’ll do my own homework,” he said finally as a drop of sweat fell from a strand of red hair sticking out from under his cap. I watched as the droplet rolled along his flushed cheek.
“Why are you sweating?”
“It’s hot in here?”
“Not that hot. Are you sick? You look a little sick.”
“Healthy as a horse.”
“A three-legged horse, maybe, with stomach issues.”
“I wouldn’t want to bet on any other. Always take the long odds.” He started to wink and saw my face, then stopped in the middle so that one eye stayed open and one eye closed.
Was that the end of that? Had I solved my Keir McGoogan problem? I might have thought so. Sometimes I think I’m in charge of my little world, until my little world grabs me by the ears and laughs in my face.
A CRAZY PACK OF SQUIRRELS
I was in my pajamas, lying in bed, reading a volume of Vampire Knight by flashlight—Yuki rules!—when I again heard the scraping and banging against my window. This time I rolled my eyes.
I closed the book, scooted off the bed, raised the blinds, and waved the flashlight’s beam through the window without much concern. I mean, after all I had just been through was I going to be frightened again by a little bat spy fluttering around, grimacing like a fool? No, I was not, but a bat was not what I saw.
What I saw was a pack of squirrels scuttling in a frenzy to and fro across the branch by my window. As I watched, one of the critters leaped for the light as it would have leaped for a glowing acorn.
¡Splat!
It bounced back as if the window was a trampoline and landed feetfirst on the branch. Nine point eight from the Russian judge! The sound scared the rest of the squirrels and they all scampered away from the window and up the trunk, the leaper following like it’d had one too many nuts.
I leaned forward and aimed the flashlight be
am back and forth through the window, trying to see what was causing all the commotion. There was nothing on the tree, nothing on the ground by the trunk, nothing in the—
Whoa.
What was that pale twisted thing in the middle of the bushes at the far end of the yard?
I aimed the flashlight beam right at it. The thing convulsed and shivered in the light before its upper half twitched toward me.
As I jumped back from the window, I dropped the flashlight and let out a yelp. Was it more like a shout? Maybe. A scream? No, not a scream, certainly not. But it might have been screamlike, and could you blame me? I wanted to dive back into bed and hide between the covers of my manga, but I didn’t. Some sense of responsibility wouldn’t let me. I had guessed who it might be right away, even though its face was a smear of red and it had what looked like a fake beard. The clues were in the way it stood and the way its ears stuck out.
I stepped toward the window and raised it. My flashlight was still shining on the floor, but the moon was half full and there was enough light to see the backyard. I leaned out and looked again at the bushes.
Nothing.
I looked all along the ground, the lawn, the neighbor’s yard with its rusted swing set.
Nothing.
My gaze rose and my jaw dropped. Somehow Keir had twitched himself right into the tree and was now hunched on a branch, shuddering and convulsing as he peered at me from the other side of the trunk. That was when I realized his fake beard wasn’t a fake beard at all, it was a dead squirrel. The squirrel’s chest had been ripped apart and it was being held like a cup of fresh blood as—
Knock knock.
“Elizabeth?” The voice of my mother. “Are you awake?”
I slammed the window closed and jumped for my bed. I was under the covers when the door opened.
“Elizabeth?” my mother said.
“Mom? Mom, what?”
She switched on the light. “I thought I heard something. Did you scream?”
I sat up and rubbed my eyes like I needed to rub my eyes. “I don’t think so. Maybe I was dreaming.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know. I was reading Vampire Night, so…”
Elizabeth Webster and the Portal of Doom Page 10