Jacob Wonderbar and the Cosmic Space Kapow (18 page)

“An apology from Sarah Daisy.” Mick laughed. “I never thought I'd see the day.”

“Enjoy it while you can, bucko,” Sarah said sternly, although she let a smile creep through. She even chose to overlook that he had just violated the rules by saying her full name.

She stepped forward and hugged Mick, who tensed with surprise and then put his arms around her. He was actually a decent person for a boy.

But he was no Jacob Wonderbar.

She pulled back and looked him in the eyes. “I'm leaving, Mick.”

“Why?”

Her face glowed and she felt a sudden rush of excitement. She couldn't wait to get off the royal planet and hoped she'd never be forced to relax again. And this time she really would be the one in charge.

“I have to go save Jacob Wonderbar.”

She ran aboard Praiseworthy and left Mick behind.

J
acob stepped slowly to the edge of the forest of apple and coffee trees. He saw a clearing up ahead and heard some faint noises and music. He hid behind a tree and carefully peered around, fearful of what he might find.

In the middle of the clearing was a large swimming pool surrounded by adults wearing old one-piece bathing suits. Many of them were reading magazines and drinking coffee, and they looked as if they had not been out in the sun in years. Several adults were sitting at a table nearby playing Scrabble and some were reading thousand-page books. Classical music was blasting from a nearby stereo.

Jacob snuck closer to a table and heard one of the adults say, “And I told our union rep that we needed to have a spring week like they have in the next county over, but with all the cutbacks, they can't even get my health insurance straightened out, and I don't even know what in the world I'm going to do when the summer comes.”

The other adults clucked in sympathy. “Sounds like Ms. Plummer is going to have a bummer of a summer,” someone said. The other adults tittered.

He racked his brain trying to figure out who these people were. They were dressed somewhat similarly as the substitutes, and yet they were clearly something different.

“Young man,” Jacob heard a woman say.

Jacob turned around and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. It wasn't possible. The woman in front of him was someone he knew, but how in the heck could he actually find someone he knew in outer space? He wiped his eyes and looked again. No mistake. He was face-to-face with his teacher. From Earth. “Miss Banks?! It's . . . you?”

“Jacob? What in the world are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” Jacob shouted.

“That's what I said!”

Jacob reached out and grabbed a tree to steady himself. “I don't believe this.”

“Jacob, how did you get here? Take your time. Do you need an apple?”

Jacob took deep breaths. Miss Banks? On Planet Paisley? He tried to make sense of it all. He looked over and there she was, short blond hair, thin glasses, and slightly twitchy hands. It was really her. But something was very different and very, very wrong. He tried to figure out what was strange about her, and then it hit him.

“Miss Banks, you're wearing jeans!”

Miss Banks looked down and laughed. “When I'm not at school, Jacob, yes, sometimes I wear jeans.”

“I didn't think teachers were allowed to wear jeans.”

“Believe it or not, it's perfectly legal.”

Jacob wasn't so sure that it should be. But he looked up at her and could only think of one thing to say. “What are you doing here?”

“Where do you think teachers go when you have substitutes? Oh, Jacob, this place is heavenly. They have all the fresh coffee you could ever want, we sit around discussing current events for hours, we give each other brain teasers . . .” Miss Banks closed her eyes and sighed. “It's magical.”

Jacob looked over at the adults sitting near the pool. “They're all teachers?”

“You should have heard the wonderful haiku that Mr. Harrison came up with. It was such a hoot, and—”

“Are all of my substitutes from this planet?”

“Of course! The Astrals were getting so scared of Earth, they wanted to try to rehabilitate Earth children, and with all the budget cuts, the free substitutes came in quite handy. But usually the subs are just so bewildered they ...” Something occurred to Miss Banks and she looked back down at Jacob. “What happened to Mrs. Pinkerton? Don't tell me that you terrorized her too. Do you know how hard it was to get someone from this planet to take over my class?”

Jacob laughed nervously.

“You're notorious! I had to promise Mrs. Pinkerton a year's worth of number two pencils just to get her to even consider it.”

“How many Astrals are there on Earth?”

“I don't know about that. Only the king knows for sure. But let me tell you, once you know there are Astrals on Earth, pretty soon everyone starts looking like a space human.”

“The king? What . . .”

Another adult materialized nearby. She handed a pink note to Miss Banks. “From the principal's office,” she said.

Miss Banks peered through her glasses to read the note, then turned her head to Jacob with alarm.

“Jacob, is this true?!”

Jacob wondered what the note said and realized there were any number of messages it could have contained that would have been cause for a great deal of alarm. Jacob decided to tread cautiously. “Is what true?”

“You evaded an angry band of substitute teachers?”

Jacob felt a rush of pride, but he tried not to show it. “They almost lassoed me with earphones, but I got away.”

Miss Banks laughed in that high, chipper way that he sometimes heard in class. She looked around and then leaned forward and whispered, “The subs
are
kind of strange, aren't they?”

Jacob looked over at a group of teachers playing badminton and thought that perhaps Miss Banks shouldn't be the one calling people strange.

“How did you get here?” Miss Banks asked again.

Jacob scratched his head. “Well, I got arrested on a planet full of scientists and they ditched me here. Oh. And I kind of broke the universe.”

Miss Banks's eyes went wide. “That was you? Do you know I can't get back to Earth because of that mess?”

“Earth's okay?!”

“Of course it is! Why wouldn't it be?”

Jacob closed his eyes and thanked the stars. He took a deep breath and steadied his knees.

“Good thing I like it here.” Miss Banks laughed again. “Oh, Jacob Wonderbar. You know what? Of all the kids I've had over the years, I can't say I'm terribly surprised that it was you who found a way to outer space. You're a pretty special kid.”

“Thanks,” Jacob mumbled, embarrassed at the compliment.

Miss Banks looked at him with that serious and earnest expression teachers adopted whenever they were about to impart a piece of wisdom. “Jacob, I know you've had some real challenges the last couple of years. And I'm very, very sorry about that. You're a special kid, and . . . well, I've already said too much, haven't I?”

Jacob blushed when he realized that Miss Banks probably knew everything about him, including his father leaving home, his mom's frustration with his problems at school, and possibly his blood type and dental records. But Miss Banks was different from the other teachers. She looked at him through those glasses and it was like she saw past what was actually happening in the moment and could see what was
really
happening.

Jacob cleared his throat and said, “I'm sorry I let the air out of your bike tires.”

Miss Banks smiled. “It turned out to be a nice walk home.”

She hadn't written him off like nearly everyone else at school. She thought there was more to him. She thought he showed promise.

“Time to run, Jacob,” Miss Banks said. “The note said you're wanted in the principal's office. Trust me, you don't want to go to the principal's office. You'd probably be assigned so much detention, you'd never be able to leave this planet. What do you say we let bygones be bygones and you consider this a head start back to the spaceport?”

Jacob hugged Miss Banks, who patted him on the back in a motherly way. “Now, now,” she said. “Let's not get emotional.”

“Thank you, Miss Banks,” Jacob said. “You're the best teacher ever.”

“Well,” she said, her eyes twinkling, “that's what every teacher wants to hear their kids say someday.” She winked at him. “And Planet Paisley is our secret.”

Jacob nodded and ran toward Substitute City, but he stopped and turned back. “How am I going to get home?” he asked.

Miss Banks smiled. “I think you'll find a way.”

W
hen Dexter woke up, his head felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds. He thought back to what had happened and remembered seeing his parents in the Looking Glass and the scary scientist and the smell of cough syrup and the memory hit him hard ... Had he been drugged? Was he kidnapped?

When he finally had the power to open his eyes, he stared upward at a distant black ceiling. He gathered his strength, sat up slowly, and looked around at his surroundings. He was in what looked like a small room with smooth gray walls on three sides, which opened up to a long corridor. The walls didn't extend to the ceiling, but they were too tall for him to see over.

“Hello?”

He didn't hear a response.

Dexter stood up and started walking slowly down the hallway. He reached the end, and to the right it opened up to . . . another hallway. He walked down that one until it ended and he had a choice about whether to go left or right. He chose right and walked until he had to turn right again and reached a dead end.

Dexter felt his chest tighten when he realized what was happening. He was in a maze.

He remembered the last time he was in a human maze, which was during Jacob Wonderbar's eighth birthday party. Dexter had felt so nervous about being lost and trapped with no escape that he began envisioning scenarios where he would never find his way out and the staff wouldn't be able to find him because they too would get lost, and he had eventually concluded that he was going to end up starving to death at a dead end. Dexter grew so panicked that he charged straight through an emergency exit, which set off all sorts of alarms, enraged a pimply teenaged maze staff member, and very quickly ended what he hoped would be his last maze adventure.

Jacob's mom had taken pity on him and explained in a very calm and rational fashion that he didn't have to be scared of mazes because there was a very simple way to escape them that didn't involve panic attacks and emergency exits.

Dexter took a deep breath. Now he just needed to remember what that method was.

Dexter turned back around and reached the previous crossroads. This time he went left. He reached out and touched the wall and suddenly he remembered. All he had to do was keep touching the wall with one hand and he would find a way out. As long as he never let go and kept walking forward and always turned left, he would never double back and waste time. It worked on most mazes and he hoped this was one of them. Dexter began running through the maze with his left hand on the wall. Dead ends didn't faze him. Neither did crossroads. He kept choosing left, and when he hit a dead end he just kept his hand on the wall and kept right on running.

Finally he saw something different up ahead. It was huge and sparkly and looked like . . . a really big diamond. It was the Dragon's Eye, the very thing that had caused them to fight and split up. He realized that Jacob and Sarah must not have been able to steal it after all. Dexter wondered if it could grant wishes and get him out of a maze and back to Planet Earth.