Invasion of the Road Weenies (3 page)

Nicky stood up.

For a moment, I just stared. Then I blinked.

That was more than Nicky could do. His lips and eyelids were gone. Almost everything was gone. Most of his face had been copied away. Two small holes were all that was left of his nose. A pair of eyes stared out at me from a face like an egg.

Oh man, Dad was going to kick my butt.

My butt!

I raced over to the other machine and grabbed the last copy that came out. Nothing. Just a smooth, round hunk of flesh.

When my hand stopped shaking, I reached down the back of my pants. Smoothness. No crack. Nothing.

Nicky made some kind of noise in his throat, but I
couldn't understand him. Without a mouth, he couldn't talk very clearly.

It was about then that I realized something awful. Truly awful. It was bad enough that Nicky couldn't talk. But I had to go to the bathroom. And without a butt, I couldn't do that, either.

T
here was always fog.
The world was never clear. Ken couldn't imagine what it would be like to see into the distance—to gaze far away without the ground and rocks and trees growing fainter and fuzzier and whiter as they blended into the blank sea that formed the edge of the visible world. But there wasn't always good fog.

Today, it looked like good fog.

“Can we?” Serra asked, sneaking up to the window next to Ken.

“I think so,” Ken said. He slid aside the screen and touched the air. He frowned for a moment as he rubbed the fog between his fingers, testing the feel. Then he smiled and nodded to Serra.

“Yay!” Serra shouted, leaping into the air.

“Quiet,” Ken said. “You'll wake the old man.”

“I'll go get Rowen,” she whispered.

“Okay. But be quiet.” Ken watched Serra tiptoe down the hall.

“Sshhhhh,” Ken warned again as Serra herded Rowen along the hallway.

“Good fog?” Rowen asked.

Ken nodded then opened the door slowly, trying to ease it past the spots where the hinges creaked. He followed the others out to the porch. “Not too far,” Ken said as they crept down the two steps to the moist ground.

He cupped the fog in his hands and pressed his fingers together. The soft dampness grew firm and warm in his grip. He released the ball and watched as it drifted toward the earth. This was good fog. Ken stooped and placed his hand beneath the piece of fog. He raised it up, stroking it gently, pressing and pushing, pinching, forming until it became a small bird.

“Serra. Catch!” Ken released the bird with a gentle push. It glided from his hand, leaving small wisps of fog behind as it slipped through the material of its creation.

Serra giggled and grabbed the bird. She turned it around and sent it floating back. Ken caught the bird and raised it for a closer look. It had already lost most of its shape. “They never last,” he said.

“The old man can make them last,” Rowen said, looking up from the large ball he had formed.

“Yeah. It takes practice. Skill, too,” Ken said. He reached into the fog again and began to gather another piece.

This time, he made a bat. Serra shrieked as it fluttered toward her, slashing her hands with enough force to turn the creature once more into formless mist.

“Sshhhhh!” Ken said.

“Sorry. You know that scares me.” Serra went back to her own sculpting.

Ken stroked the fog and wondered what to make next. He glanced toward Rowen. When he saw what was forming, his heart froze.

“Rowen! No! Never!” Ken rushed forward, waving his hands to create a breeze and puffing hard.

“You ruined it,” Rowen said as the fog in front of him dissolved into drifting tendrils.

Ken stood panting, trying to catch his breath. He shook his head. “Don't ever do that again.”

“I wanted someone like me,” Rowen said. “You and Serra, you're too big. I wanted someone small.”

“If he'd seen . . .” Ken said. “He's told us a thousand times. Never like us. Never make our own form.”

“They do not last.” The voice, soft and sad, drifted from the porch. “Or if they last, they do not obey,” the old man said, walking stiffly down the steps.

Ken tried to explain. “He didn't mean to. He didn't know. He's young. It won't happen again.”

“No,” the old man said. “It won't.” He took a deep breath and gently puffed the air toward Rowen. The boy swirled back into the fog from which he'd been formed. Another breath, and Serra was gone. He took a third breath and faced Ken.

Ken felt himself fading. As his awareness bled into the waiting mist, he saw the old man reach out and gently scoop a handful of fog.

O
n the very day
that Willard decided to organize his life, he found a small notebook at a neighborhood garage sale.
Perfect
, Willard thought as he picked up the spiral-bound memo pad. “How much?” he asked the woman who stood in the driveway next to a pile of musty clothes, rusty tools, and dusty romance novels.

“Quarter,” she said.

Willard knew people expected customers to bargain at a garage sale, so he said, “I'll give you a dime.”

“Sold,” the woman said.

“Okay,” Willard said when he got home. “Now I can list everything I want to do.” He grabbed a pen from the kitchen counter and wrote the first three things that came to mind:
clean my room, finish my book report, watch
Cartoon Cavalcade
at six tonight
.

“Whatcha got?” his sister Tammy asked as Willard was closing the notebook.

“Nothing,” Willard said.

“Can I see?”

“Nope.” He put the notebook in his pocket and started up to his room.

Before he got halfway up the stairs, the phone rang. It was his friend Preston. “I got my new video game,” Preston said. “Want to come check it out?”

“Sure.” Willard rushed over.

He stayed at Preston's until dinnertime.

It wasn't until the next morning that Willard realized he hadn't done anything on his list. He ripped out the page and threw it away. Then he tried again.

“What are you writing?” Tammy asked as Willard made a note to put air in his bicycle tires.

“None of your business,” Willard said.

“Can I write something?” she asked.

Willard glared at his sister. “You don't know how to write.”

“I can write my name,” Tammy told him. “I'll show you.”

“Leave me alone.” Willard went outside to get away from his sister.

The next day, when Willard got on his bike and saw how squishy the tires were, he realized he'd forgotten about the air.

After several weeks of similar experiences, it began to dawn on Willard that anything he wrote failed to happen. From there, Willard made a small leap to a great idea. His hand trembled as he wrote the note to himself.
Fail my math test
.

Willard scored a B on the test, without even trying.

During the next month, Willard got great grades and wonderful gifts. The school bully left town. The movie theater let him in for free. He went to a ton of birthday parties. In every way possible, life was fabulous.

But paper was running out.

Willard held the notebook in his hands and thought about what he should write on the final page. He didn't want to waste it.

Then he got the best idea of all. He wrote one word. Three small letters.
Die
. That was all.

This time, Willard wasn't going to rip the page out. He planned to leave it bound forever between the covers. But he needed to put it somewhere safe. Somewhere it would never be disturbed. Willard left the notebook on his bed and went out the front door to check. Great—they were pouring concrete for the foundation of a new house down the block.

Willard searched in the basement until he found a small metal box. Then he went to his room. “Hey, what are you doing?” he asked Tammy, who was standing by Willard's bedroom door.

“Nothing,” she said. She giggled and ran down the hall.

Willard hurried into his room and shoved the notebook in the box before his nosey sister could come back to snoop, then wrapped tape around it. That evening, right after the workers left, Willard snuck over to the site and pushed the box beneath the concrete.

Forever
. Willard felt great. He went home and celebrated by making himself a hot fudge sundae. It didn't spoil his appetite.

For the next month, Willard felt absolutely wonderful. The secret was so fabulous, he almost spilled it to his friends. But he wanted to keep it to himself for a while.

As great as he felt, he also felt hungry. Willard gained twelve pounds that month.
Can't hurt me
, he told himself.
I'm never going to die
.

The next month, Willard gained eighteen pounds. As he stood looking at himself in a mirror in his room, Willard realized he had to watch what he ate. But at the moment he thought about it, another thought struck him—a thought that made him race down the hall to Tammy's room.

“You wrote in it, didn't you?” he asked.

Tammy shook her head.

“Tell the truth, Tammy. This is no joke. I know what you wrote,” Willard said, feeling the warm sweat of fear flowing down his forehead and the back of his neck.

“Just one letter,” she said. “That's all. I wanted to show you I could write my name. I started to. But then I heard you coming and got scared you'd yell at me.”

In his mind, Willard saw the page from the notebook. With
die
, followed by the start of Tammy's name. Just one letter. Enough to turn
die
into
diet
.

Willard wanted to scream at his sister, but that could wait. At the moment, he had an irresistible urge. There was a huge hunk of chocolate cake in the fridge, and it was calling to him.

J
ulie couldn't wait to
get to the museum. All week, she'd been looking forward to the trip. The museum had a special new exhibit—an actual mummy. It was part of an amazing discovery that had been made last year in Egypt. Julie had heard all about it on the news, and later she'd watched a special on one of the science channels. Archaeologists had uncovered an enormous tomb containing two thousand mummies, all perfectly preserved. The mummies had been sent to exhibitions throughout the world. And Julie was going to get to see one today—right in Grandville at the Junior Museum.

“I'll bet it's real gross,” her friend Tina said as they got off the bus.

“I think it'll be cool,” Julie said. “Come on.” She hurried to the front of the group.

“What's the rush?” Tina asked, trailing along behind her. “The mummy's been around for thousands of years. It isn't going anywhere.”

“I just can't wait,” Julie said. But she figured she'd be disappointed with the display. Her mom had taken her to lots of museums, and the good stuff was always inside glass cases or roped off so nobody could get close.

This time, it was different. Julie gasped as she rushed from the entrance into the main exhibit hall of the museum. There it was—right on a table. No ropes, no bars. It was in a case, but the lid was open.

“Aren't they supposed to be kept sealed?” Tina asked.

“Yeah.” Julie pushed forward with the rest of her class. She walked right up to the mummy and leaned over the case. She jerked back as she saw her hair almost fall across the bandaged body. The long, blond hair she was so proud of made a strange contrast where it dangled next to the dead gray wrappings.

“I told you it was gross,” Tina said from behind her.

“No, it isn't,” Julie said.

“Then touch it,” Tina told her.

Julie was about to say
No way!
But she paused and thought about it.
Why not?
She might never get another chance. As she snuck one hand over the edge of the case, she braced herself, waiting for someone to shout, but nobody in the crowd of students was looking at her. Others were reaching out toward the mummy, but none of them had dared touch it yet.

Julie put a hand on the ancient shoulder. The bandages felt dry and crackly, like fallen leaves. Beneath her fingers, she felt a bit of loose fabric. Checking again to make sure nobody was watching, Julie pulled at the flaked edge. Mine,
she thought.
My own piece of history.
With the tiniest whisper of a rip, the fragment of bandage came free. Julie clutched it in her fist, not believing her luck.

“Kids, line up over there,” the teacher said. “I don't think we're supposed to be this close. Mr. Desmond from the museum will be here in a moment to tell us all about the mummy.”

Julie backed away from the mummy and joined her classmates along the side wall. A moment later, a man came through a doorway on the other side of the room. He put a piece of paper inside the case next to the mummy's leg, and then closed the lid.

Julie saw there was a number on the paper. This was mummy three hundred forty-seven. She suspected that Mr. Desmond had never taken care of a mummy before.

“We're very lucky,” he said. “A museum this small rarely gets to have such an exhibit. It's quite a treasure.” He paused and looked toward the mummy, then started talking again. “We've lost so much of the past. A little here, a little there. So much is gone.”

For an instant, Julie felt guilty. The piece of bandage seemed to dissolve in her palm. She opened her fingers a tiny crack and peeked down. The souvenir was still there, lying dead and gray against the flesh of her palm. Julie thought about what the man had said. If every person took a small piece, there'd be no mummy left. She considered returning the fragment, but there was no way she could repair the damage. It was torn off, and that was that.

No big deal.

The class was allowed to step up to the case after Mr. Desmond finished his talk. Julie took a quick look, but something about the mummy made her uneasy now.