This Book Is Not Good For You (13 page)

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THE KITCHEN WITCH

“Are you Cassandra’s grandfather?”

“Who wants to know?”

Normally, Grandpa Larry was not very suspicious of strangers, but the woman standing on his doorstep looked like she’d been dropped there by a tornado. Her hair stuck out in every direction. Her lipstick was smeared across her face.

“Her principal,” said the woman, breathing heavily. “You’re listed as an emergency contact.”

“What happened?” asked Grandpa Larry in alarm. “Is she all right?”

“As far I know. She’s not home.”

“So then it’s you who’s having the emergency? I didn’t realize an emergency contact would be responsible for the entire school staff! What a curious system—”

“Well, that’s not exactly—”

“By the way,” Larry continued in a huff. “Since you’re here, I’d like to have a word about assigning homework in summer. This report Cass is doing on tuning forks—”

Mrs. Johnson shrieked like a wounded animal. “Don’t say that word!”

“What?”

“Tuning forks… Fork. That… dreaded thing is why I’m here,” she said, gasping for air. “I… need it back.”

Shaking, she tried to light a cigarette. It fell from her hand.

“It was my ancestor’s,” said Mrs. Johnson in an increasingly agitated and disjointed fashion. “She was… well, I never believed the rumors… so what if her fudge was addictive, that just makes her a good cook, right? It doesn’t make her a… a witch.”

Mrs. Johnson laughed a hoarse little laugh.

“But now I don’t know what to think. She’s punishing me from… the Beyond… for giving up the Tuning Fork… what other explanation is there?… I have this… this kitchen witch… you know those little cloth figures on a broom—doesn’t everybody have one? It’s hanging from a lamp and it keeps swinging and swinging.”

“Perhaps an effect of the heat?” suggested Grandpa Larry.

Mrs. Johnson shook her head vehemently. “Sometimes I think I hear it laugh.… And that’s not all… I… I keep losing at cards.”

Grandpa Larry smiled. “Oh, we all have a bit of bad luck sometimes. That doesn’t mean the ghost of a witch is seeking revenge on us.”

“I’m… losing all my money. Soon, I’ll be penniless.”

Larry shook his head. “Have you considered getting professional help?”

“There’s only one thing that can help me!” Mrs. Johnson gripped Larry’s arm. “Please. Tell Cass to get me my Tuning Fork back! I’ll forgive everything. She and her horrid little friends can come back to school in the fall just like nothing happened…”

THE FIRE HOSE

“Lar-ry!”

When Larry reentered the fire station, Wayne was shouting at him from the most crowded corner of their crowded store.

“What’s so important? I’ve just spent twenty minutes talking to Cass’s school principal and you know how I feel about principals.”

“I went outside to water and the old hose sprung a leak,” Wayne explained. “So I thought, why not use a real-man’s hose…?”

He gestured to the big coil of fire hose at his feet.

“You were going to water the lawn with a fire hose? Isn’t that a little like lighting a candle with a blowtorch?”

“That’s not the point. Look what I found—”

Wayne pushed the fire hose aside, revealing the cardboard box behind it. “You recognize that, don’t you?”

“How could I forget? You’re talking about the birth of our granddaughter… her arrival, anyway,” Larry amended.

“The funny thing is—I could swear it was all taped up,” said Wayne, puzzled.

“Of course it was!” exclaimed Larry. “We were saving it for when Cass turned eighteen.”

Wayne nodded, remembering. “And yet somebody…”

“But whoever comes back here?”

“Nobody… except Cass.”

“Oh, no,” said Larry, anxiously stroking his long, long beard.

Wayne shook his head, twisting the two long braids of his beard with his finger. “I wonder why she didn’t say anything…”

“When would she have? This is the second day she hasn’t shown up for work. And her principal said she wasn’t home…”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Larry nodded gravely. “The note.”

He pushed the box out and opened the top. Mr. Wallace’s letter was in plain view.

THE SWISS SURPRISE

A few minutes later, Mr. Wallace hung up the phone.

He sat at a table in the middle of his beloved Terces Society archives, thinking. He was fairly certain he’d convinced Cass’s grandfathers that he hadn’t seen Cass since she was a baby, and that he barely remembered who she was. But, in truth, he was just as concerned as they were. Perhaps more so.

The question was: if Cass had found the letter, why hadn’t she confronted him? Cass was so hotheaded. It was unlike her to delay something like that. Unless there was an emergency. Or there was some reason she was unable to reach him. Her grandfathers claimed she wasn’t home. So where was she?

He could think of several possibilities, each more worrisome than the last.

“Guten Tag, Herr Wallace.” A man in a pilot’s uniform stepped into the trailer. The uniform was torn and muddy, but the wearer himself was no worse for wear.

“Owen?!” Mr. Wallace stared at the younger man in surprise.

“Why’s everyone always so shocked to see me? Makes me feel like a ghost… Where are the others?”

Mr. Wallace smiled thinly. “In Africa. Looking for you.”

“Ah. Well, they won’t find me there. Or the Midnight Sun either.”

“No?”

Owen shook his head. “I think they planted the Africa idea to divert us. I just discovered they’re much closer. At the zoo, in fact.”

“The zoo, huh?” Mr. Wallace looked at him thoughtfully. “Could Cass have made the same discovery?”

Owen chuckled, taking a seat opposite Mr. Wallace. “Cass? Are you kidding? She’s always a step ahead of us.”

“I know—to her detriment.”

“Don’t start on that again, Old Man,” said Owen testily. He loved Cass like a sister and didn’t like Mr. Wallace’s tone. “The Society is much better off with her as a member. And she’s better off, too.”

“Oh, is that right?” Mr. Wallace snorted derisively. “She’s missing, Owen.”

“Missing?”

“That’s what I said.”

“So you think she went after them herself?”

“What I think is that I’d feel better if I knew where she was.”

“Me, too,” said Owen, his face serious.

“The girl must be protected at all costs,” said Mr. Wallace quietly.

Owen nodded. “We agree on that at least.”

He scratched his head thoughtfully. “Hmmm. Who do you think should pay a visit to the zoo? Large animal veterinarian…? Concerned dad who’s just lost his daughter…?”

He took off his pilot’s hat and started making faces in a pocket mirror, devising his new character.

It was closing time at Wild World. Tired parents and whiny children spilled out of the park gates.

Behind them, a park worker in a giraffe suit waved good-bye.

The crowd thinned as it spread across the parking lot, some people stopping right away at cars parked in SECTION A-ANACONDA or SECTION B-BOBCAT, others drifting toward SECTION C-CAPUCHIN or SECTION D-DINGO.

“What’s a capuchin?” asked Cass. “Is it like the color of a cappuccino or something?”

“No, that has nothing to do with it—it’s an animal, not a drink,” said Max-Ernest in mild disbelief. “Haven’t you ever heard of a capuchin monkey?”

“Well, you don’t have to be so snitty about it.”

The normally talkative friends fell into a restless silence. The vast parking lot stretched in front of them.

Long after all the other park visitors had peeled away, Cass, Max-Ernest, and Yo-Yoji kept walking—all the way past SECTIONS W-WOMBAT, X-XERUS, Y-YAK, and Z-ZEBRA.

“If you’re so smart, what’s a xerus?” Yo-Yoji asked Max-Ernest, interrupting the quiet.

“Uh, I forgot, well, I mean, never heard of it,” Max-Ernest reluctantly admitted. “But there are signs on the poles—it probably says.” He turned around, about to go back and read about the xerus.

“No—it’s not important right now!” Cass and Yo-Yoji said in unison. *

The highway that bordered Wild World was not intended for pedestrians, and for a few minutes they had to walk single file along the narrow strip of cement that passed for a sidewalk. Cars whizzed by, flattening the kids against the park’s tall wroughtiron fence.

“What if somebody sees us?” worried Max-Ernest as a headlight briefly illuminated his face.

“Then they’ll just think our car broke down,” said Yo-Yoji.

“But we don’t have a car. We’re not old enough to drive.”

“So then they’ll think we’re walking to the bus!” said Cass.

When the fence turned a corner, they turned, too. After they’d walked only a short distance, the highway noise faded away and they found themselves surrounded by darkness.

Cass reached into her backpack and took out a flashlight. But when she turned it on they couldn’t see much more than the road below them, now unpaved and lined with muddy tire tracks.

Where the road led they could not see.

Cass moved the circle of light to the right. No longer wrought iron, the fence here was chain link and topped with spools of razor wire. The light reflected in a yellow sign bearing a picture of a hand struck by lightning bolts. Not a fence you’d want to climb.

“Let’s keep going,” said Yo-Yoji. “There’s gotta be a back entrance somewhere.”

“Yeah, but it’s probably for people who work here. Like veterinarians or whatever,” said Max-Ernest. “We’ll need a pass or something—”

“Well, figuring out something has never been a problem for us before, has it?” asked Cass, pushing ahead.

The night was dark, and—except for a few moments when the clouds parted to reveal a bright crescent moon—they relied on Cass’s flashlight to navigate. (It was the kind that recharges whenever you move it, so there was no danger of the battery dying.) They each stumbled a few times—the road was dotted with rocks and potholes—but for the most part they managed fairly well. I think eating at Hugo’s restaurant must have sharpened their senses, just as he’d said it would.

They passed three back entrances to the park, but one was locked up with so many chains it would have taken Houdini himself to open it, and the other two had been welded closed. After forty minutes of hiking in the dark, they were all getting tired and discouraged, but nobody was willing to say so.

Without warning, Cass stopped and turned out her light.

“What is it?” asked Max-Ernest.

“Shh—listen.”

They heard footsteps—very close by. But whose? And rustling. But from where?

Cass turned her flashlight back on and made a 360-degree turn until it landed on the park fence.

Behind the fence, terrified eyes stared out at them. Then bolted out of sight.

“Was that a deer?” asked Yo-Yoji.

“It was an antelope… well, I think it was,” said Max-Ernest. “It could have been a gazelle. Or a—”

“At least we know we’re still next to Wild World,” said Cass, interrupting before he started naming every animal he knew.

They’d almost circled the entire park when a yellow light appeared in the distance ahead of them.

As they got closer, they saw that the light was emanating from a small booth next to a large gate. Behind the gate, the road turned into the park. Inside the booth, a guard was watching a football game on television.

The kids lingered underneath a pine tree about thirty feet away.

“You think we could climb over?” Yo-Yoji whispered. “I doubt the gate is electrified.”

“I don’t know, it looks pretty rickety. Plus, the guard would hear us,” said Max-Ernest.

“Max-Ernest is right,” said Cass. “I think we have to wait for it to open, then sneak in somehow.”

“Is anybody else like totally starving?” Yo-Yoji grumblingly asked.

Cass pulled a bag of trail mix out from the bottom of her backpack. The trail mix—Cass’s “super-chip” recipe of equal parts potato chips, banana chips, and chocolate chips—had been mashed and melted into a single lump.

Yo-Yoji made a face. “How old is that?”

“Do you want it or not…? And don’t take too much. That’s all I’ve got.”

Yo-Yoji broke off a handful. Max-Ernest carefully extracted the banana chips—the only things in the trail mix he could eat. Then he put even those back.

“The chocolate might have gotten on them,” he explained in a whisper.

After only a few minutes, although it felt much longer, they heard a vehicle approaching. Just in time, they slunk farther into the shadows.

A white van drove past, barely slowing as it neared the park gate. It had no back windows and no markings whatsoever. For a second, they could see the driver; he was pale and bald and expressionless, just like his vehicle.

The guard in the booth stood up straight and saluted the van driver. The gate opened with a screech.

“You think we should follow him in?” asked Cass.

“No way. The guard will see us for sure,” said Max-Ernest. “He could turn on an alarm or something. Or maybe just come after us. He might even have a gun—”

“So how’re we going to get in, then?” asked Yo-Yoji.

“Maybe he’ll go to the bathroom,” said Cass hopefully.

“I think we should make a run for it—then hide,” said Yo-Yoji.

But it was too late. The gate was already closing.

“Guess we’ll have to wait for the next one,” said Max-Ernest.

The others gave him a look: no kidding.

In a short while, another vehicle passed by. It was a long truck with an open bed full of bales of hay. The three friends looked at each other and grinned: a hayride! Perfect.

The truck stopped at the booth. This time, the gate remained closed.

“Sign in, please.” The guard handed the truck driver a clipboard.

“Thank you, don’t mind if I do,” said the driver, tipping his ten-gallon hat. His voice had a hint of a twang and his mouth was surrounded by a big handlebar mustache. He was a cowboy.

“Come on!” Cass whispered.

The three kids crouched down and run-walked toward the truck, keeping in the shadows by the fence.

“Don’t get too lonely out here now,” said the cowboy, handing back the clipboard. “G’night.”

The kids climbed on just as the truck started to move.

“Ow!” Max-Ernest scraped his leg as he lifted himself over the side-rail.

“Shh!” Cass motioned for Max-Ernest to squeeze himself between hay bales beside her and Yo-Yoji.

The truck braked. The young stowaways froze. Hearts thumping in their chests.

The cowboy opened his door. “Hey, d’ya hear that?”

“Probably just an animal smelling dinner,” said the guard.

“Guess so,” said the cowboy uncertainly.

He paused, looking around. Then closed his door and shifted the truck back into gear.

The road was bumpy and the cowboy drove so fast it seemed the truck tires were in the air for half the ride. The kids’ butts got a bit bruised, but wedged between hay bales they rode in relative safety.

The truck parked next to the van in front of a low warehouse building with three rolling garage-style doors, one of them open.

The cowboy jumped out and headed for the open door, a piece of paper in his hand. “Hello, anybody home?”

Cass, watching from behind a hay bale, was about to signal her friends to get off the truck when the bald van driver stepped out of the building, stopping the cowboy from entering. The bald man had a clear view of the truck; they would have to wait for another opportunity to escape.

“Well, howdy,” said the cowboy, tipping his hat. “I got a truckload of hay for you courtesy of the friendly folks at Tapper-Perry Farms.”

“I can see that,” said the bald man tersely. He took the paper out of the cowboy’s hand and scanned it.

“This isn’t the price I agreed to.”

The kids slunk farther down between the hay bales, listening.

“It’s only a five percent hike. We just switched over to organic hay, so our expenses are up. All our farmin’s sustainable now,” said the cowboy proudly. “The alfalfa, the soy, all of it.”

“Well, that’s very nice for you, but I don’t think our zebras give a rat’s behind whether their hay is organic or mint-flavored.”

“I thought this park encouraged conservation.”

The bald man snorted. “I’m the operations manager. My job is to conserve money.”

The cowboy peered into the warehouse. “Look at all that sugar. Is that healthy for the animals?”

“Maybe it’s for people—not that it’s any of your business,” said the bald man, moving so that the cowboy couldn’t look inside any longer. “Now you give me the price I was quoted or you just back that hay out of here. Matter of fact, I want a five percent discount.”

The cowboy hesitated, fuming. Then,

“Fine. You have a forklift?”

“What’s wrong with your hands? You can stack it all by the wall over there.” The bald man pointed to the side of the building. “I’ll cut you a check when you’re done.” He headed back inside the warehouse without another word.

“Jerk,” said the cowboy under his breath. He started walking back toward the truck.

Cass measured the distance with her eyes. Should they try and make a run for it before he reached the truck? He would probably see them, but at least they’d have a fighting chance of escape. If they stayed on the truck, they’d be discovered for sure.

“OK, run!” she whispered.

It was the wrong decision.

She hadn’t run ten feet when the cowboy grabbed her wrist with one hand and Max-Ernest’s wrist with the other.

“You little rascals!”

Yo-Yoji stopped on his own a few feet ahead. “Let them go!”

“Not in your lifetime,” snarled the cowboy. “Nobody sneaks on my truck and gets away with it! Where’d you get on? The farm?”

“No, just outside the gate—honest! We’re… animal activists,” said Cass, thinking quickly. “We’re here to spy on Wild World. We heard the elephants were treated badly so we came at night to see for ourselves.”

“Yeah, the African Elephant is endangered,” said Max-Ernest. “Do you know the difference between a vulnerable species and endangered one?”

“No, but I know you little punks are both vulnerable and endangered right now.” He tightened his grip on Cass and Max-Ernest. They squirmed.

“But you’re a conservationist,” said Yo-Yoji. “Don’t you want to help us?”

“Help you? I should tan your hides!” The cowboy shook his head in disgust. “But between you and me, that guy in there really ticked me off. I ain’t in a mood to help this park out right now. So I’ll just pretend I didn’t see you.”

He released his prisoners. Cass and Max-Ernest rubbed their wrists, relieved.

The cowboy chuckled. “You can set all their elephants free for all I care. Now git!”

The kids didn’t need to be told twice.

*????*????*

As soon as he was alone, the cowboy spoke into his phone:

“Change of plan—I’m letting them stay to see what they find out… Don’t underestimate those kids. You should have seen the way they handled me…! You think I don’t know it’s dangerous, Old Man…? Go ahead, call Pietro. I’m sure he would agree with me…”

Then he clicked off and climbed back into his truck.

As the three kids rounded the warehouse the moon came out and they could see Rainbow Rainforest looming in the distance. It was a dark mass about a half mile away, separated from them by the grassy hills of SERENGETI SAVANNA. From where they were it looked less like a rainforest and more like a storm front.

“My mom’s in there somewhere,” said Cass, staring. “Let’s go—we’ve got to save her.”

“We’ll never be able to see in there at night,” said Max-Ernest. “Remember how dark it was?—and that was when there was still a little sun left.”

With Yo-Yoji’s help, Max-Ernest convinced Cass they should find a place to sleep. They could enter the rainforest early in the morning, before the park opened.

After walking for about ten minutes, they settled on a spot nestled between two small hills. Boulders surrounded them, giving them a sense of protection.