Jacob Wonderbar and the Cosmic Space Kapow (13 page)

“What in the heck is a carbon allotrope?” Jacob asked.

Dexter stared at the pedestrians in front of the building, who were bowing before a mouse that was sunning itself on the sidewalk. The mouse seemed oblivious to the attention, but everyone who passed by stopped to pay their respects.

“You know, Earth is actually a very normal planet,” Dexter said. “I never thought I'd say that.”

Jacob and Dexter shrugged their shoulders, walked over and bowed to the mouse, and then tried to catch the attention of the guards in front of the museum, who were engaged in a spirited conversation.

“Excuse me . . .” Jacob said.

The guard thrust a mechanical duck into his hands. “Ah, good, an impartial observer. Tell me, young man of science. Does this look like a
Harrietus Walkalitus
or a
Liliputus Ricktogramus
?”

“He is hardly an impartial observer,” the other guard said. “As I have been trying to tell you, we must establish an independent control group to establish the margin of error, after which we can . . .”

“Have you seen a small blond girl around here?” Dexter asked. “Probably not wearing a lab coat? Sometimes has an attitude problem?”

The guards shook their heads and kept arguing. Jacob suddenly noticed that the duck looked familiar. “Dexter,” Jacob said. “Don't you think that duck looks like it belongs to
Mickus Crackenus
?”

Dexter's eyes widened in recognition.

“Oh!” the first guard shouted. “Now don't you go trying to claim credit. As I have repeatedly asserted, I saw it first, and the first scientist who sees a new species gets to name . . .”

“I saw it first . . .” the other guard said. He lunged for the duck, but the first guard slapped his hand away.

“What's in the museum?” Jacob asked.

The first guard sighed and pointed at the banner.

“I know what the sign says, but what's a carbon allotrope?”

“Ha!” the guard laughed. “Ha-ha! He doesn't know what a carbon allotrope is.”

“Ha-ha . . .” the other said. “He probably couldn't even get an A plus in multi-planar geometric physics.”

“He probably needs a spectrograph transometer to calculate his electromagnetic pulse trajectories.”

Jacob clenched his fists, but remembered that he needed to be patient. The first guard rolled his eyes and spoke very slowly. “You might know it as a diamond. Diamond? Yes? Comprehend?”

Jacob's heart raced. If a carbon allotrope was a diamond, that meant the museum held . . . the universe's largest diamond. The Dragon's Eye. Sarah must have been trying to steal it.

Jacob and Dexter ran into the museum.

“Hey,” the first guard shouted. “The museum has not yet opened!” The second guard used the distraction to grab the duck, and they tumbled to the ground in a heap, grappling for control.

The museum was dark on the inside save for the little bit of light that came through the entrance, which made the monster skeletons cast huge shadows on the far wall. Jacob had a very bad feeling. What if something went wrong when Sarah was trying to steal the Dragon's Eye? If she had gotten caught or arrested or hurt stealing the Dragon's Eye . . . Jacob started running.

Dexter stopped near the entrance and hesitated. He had liked the idea of going after the Dragon's Eye and wishing for a million wishes, but not when it entailed actually breaking into a museum with crazy guards. They could get into much bigger trouble than he had ever anticipated. Dexter's heart raced. “Wonderbar!”

Jacob turned back in exasperation. “Come on! We have to find her!”

Dexter crossed his arms nervously. “I don't think this is a good idea. What if they think we're trying to steal the Dragon's Eye? We could get arrested.”

“We don't have time to discuss this!”

“There's a better way to do this.”

“Come on! Don't be such a chicken.”

Dexter leaned forward in anger. “You are always getting me into trouble!” he yelled, his words echoing around the rotunda. “I'm not going any farther.”

They stared at each other for a tense moment before Jacob turned and stomped away toward the Dragon's Eye exhibit, furious that Dexter had chickened out yet again. Dexter was always so worried about getting into trouble that he never stopped to thank Jacob for helping him have any fun at all. Dexter never appreciated any of it, not even that he walked home safely most days because of Jacob's protection. And now he was too scared to even help find one of his best friends.

Jacob heard frantic voices as he reached the rear of the museum. One of the voices sounded like Sarah's. He turned a corner, and had to shield his eyes from the glare of a massive diamond.

“I can't believe you lied to me!” Sarah shouted, pointing a finger in Mick's face. “How could you do that? You swore on your buccaneer's honor!”

“Buccaneers don't have any honor!”

Jacob tried to make sense of what he was seeing. “Sarah, what . . . what are you doing here?”

Sarah swallowed and stood for a second in shock. She pointed at the Dragon's Eye as if it were an explanation. “Well, he lied to us.” She tried to make her voice sound confident, but it wavered a bit. “This stupid diamond doesn't grant any wishes.”

Jacob scowled. “Why didn't you come back for us? Do you realize what this jerk did? We could have been stuck on that planet forever! I told you he was lying!”

Sarah shrunk back a little bit, but Jacob didn't feel any sympathy. She deserved to feel guilty for trusting a stupid space pirate more than her own friend.

A loud alarm suddenly sounded throughout the museum, and the lights turned on. Security cameras swiveled around quickly until they settled on the children, and darts began firing from the walls. A floor tile nearby fell into the basement, and laser beams shot out from every corner. A mechanical voice shouted, “Intrusion! Intrusion!”

“Wonder-something, look out!” Mick shouted.

Jacob turned, but too late, because he felt a firm hand on his shoulder.

Mick ran toward an emergency exit, where a metal gate was slowly lowering.

“Sarah, come on!”

Sarah looked over at Mick. She looked back at Jacob. He was struggling against the scientist's grasp. Suddenly Mick ran back and grabbed her and pulled her away.

“Let go of me!” Sarah shouted.

“Come on! We have to get out of here!”

She finally relented as he pulled her toward the door, and they slid under just before it closed.

“No!” Jacob yelled. “No, no, no!!”

The scientist spun him around, and Jacob saw that he had retractable binoculars over his eyes and chalk dust all over his hands and lab coat.

“Hold on, I can't see you,” the scientist said, fiddling with the controls for his binoculars. “I . . . There you are. What . . . You're wearing a disguise? Well, Mick Cracken, very clever, but I have you now.”

“I'm not Mick Cracken!” Jacob said. “Let me go.”

“A likely story. I have one thing and just one thing to say to you right now.”

Jacob gulped and braced himself.

“The hypotenuse is seventy-three point five three nine one zero five two four three four zero one meters.”

Jacob tried to make sense of what he had just heard.

“Also, you're under arrest.”

E
very step Sarah took sunk her further and further into despair. She and Mick were running away from the museum, through a park with rolling green hills and colorful wildflowers, which was littered with giant, elaborate ant farms and talking statues that recited scientific equations. The air was filled with ugly flying insects, and they had to dodge scientists running around haphazardly with butterfly nets.

Sarah had left Jacob behind twice. Twice! She couldn't forget the hurt look on his face. He would never, ever forgive her. She felt so guilty and selfish for saving herself just as he was caught by the scientist. She suddenly stopped running, unable to go any farther. She couldn't even imagine how much Jacob must have hated her. She was so embarrassed at how wrong she had been.

“Hey!” she yelled. “Hey, jerk! We have to go back.”

“We can't go back! We have to keep running. If we get caught, that's it.”

Sarah felt a lump forming in her throat. “But ... we can't just leave him there!”

Mick beckoned for her to keep going. “He'll be fine.”

Sarah sat down in the grass and felt her eyes fill with tears. She tried to stop them. She needed to be strong and smart, not hysterical and weak. Crying was such a girly thing to do, and it wasn't at all how she wanted to conduct herself. “I'm too strong to cry,” she said as the tears began streaming down her face.

Mick sat down beside her.

“I hate you,” she cried. “I hate you for lying to me. I can't believe I didn't go back for him. He would never, ever have done what I did. Never in a million years. I feel so terrible.”

She pounded the soft grass with her hand. “He's never going to forgive me.” She wiped tears away from her cheek. “And I don't even blame him.”

They watched as a scientist ran past them, chasing after a hopping serpent. “He'll forgive you,” Mick said.

Sarah glared at Mick. “Why would he?” Her voice caught. “I wouldn't forgive me. I'd hate me.” She began sobbing again.

Mick's voice was quiet and he dropped all attempts at being a cocky space pirate. “Because you are really good friends. And that's how it works. It's all my fault anyway. You guys just weren't very excited about stealing the Dragon's Eye, so I made up the thing about the wish. And we were so close! If only Praiseworthy had come in time, we would have had it and—”

“I don't care about your stupid diamond!” Sarah stared at the horizon through her tears. She missed her parents and her cat, Susan B. Anthony, and her older sister, whom she never got to see ever since she moved away to college. She even missed The Brat. They might have all been gone because of the space kapow, and she didn't even have a diamond to wish them back.

Mick cleared his throat. “I'm sorry.”

Sarah wiped tears away. “We have to go back for Jacob. Right now.”

Mick stood up and reached for her hand. “It's too dangerous to go back right now. Let's go find Praiseworthy. Then we can come up with a plan.”

She looked up at Mick and though the sight of his face filled her with rage, Sarah knew she didn't have much choice but to go along with him. He had the spaceship and she didn't know the first thing about rescuing someone from a bunch of crazy scientists. If she was going to save Jacob she would need his help.

She refused his outstretched hand and got up on her own. “Fine. Let's go,” she said.

They ran to the far end of the park, where Praiseworthy was sitting peacefully in a meadow. Sarah exhaled with happiness when she saw his dainty exterior and shoddy black paint job. They ran through the cargo door and Sarah went into the bedroom with the plush bed and jumped straight onto it. She was so tired. But she had work to do. She had to figure out how to save Jacob Wonderbar.

“Praiseworthy!” she shouted. “I missed you.”

“Oh, Mistress Daisy,” Praiseworthy said mournfully. “You shouldn't have come back.”

Sarah sat straight up. “What?”

She heard a commotion in the hold and she ran to the door and flung it open. Ten men wearing red spacesuits with gold crowns printed on their chests and arms were gathered around Mick, who was backed into a corner with his hands raised. Sarah knew immediately they were the royal guards. It was a trap.

Mick saw Sarah and shook his head sadly.

The leader of the guards stepped slowly toward Mick, his footsteps echoing through the hold. He looked tough and imposing, and Sarah's breath caught when he drew close. Then he knelt to one knee in front of Mick and bowed his head.

“Time to go home, Your Highness.”

J
acob struggled against the handcuffs. It was all a huge misunderstanding. He sat restrained in a chair in a huge auditorium, his face projected onto a large screen behind him. The head scientist wore a bright white lab coat and a purple polka-dotted bow tie, and he seemed unduly excited. The floor of the auditorium contained several lab stations, which were piled high with Bunsen burners, beakers, vials, microscopes, and spare computer parts. Every seat in the room was filled. The scientists had brought their favorite calculators and were rowdy with excitement.

Jacob didn't want anything to do with the Dragon's Eye from the very start, and he jerked his wrists with rage when he thought about Dexter refusing to follow him and Sarah running away with the idiot pirate. He wondered if he was really so untrustworthy that his own friends wouldn't believe him. He may have been notorious for misbehaving at school, but he had never once lied to his friends. Well, other than the time he convinced Dexter his skin was going to start glowing in the dark because he swatted a firefly.