by Paul Noth
“Is that big spiked eel thing up there?” I asked.
“We’ll never make it to him,” she said. “Florida Pete will kill us all in the first round. Grandma will last the longest against him.”
“Wait,” I said. “Can’t Grandma control Pete? He told me she could.”
“No, he’s too jacked up,” said Kayla. “He’ll rip Grandma to pieces before he even recognizes her scent. He’ll rip us all to pieces.”
Grandma shook her head at me in disgust.
“Why couldn’t you have just brought that damned compact?” she said.
As the ceiling parted above us, I was asking myself the same question. Then the floor began to rise.
CHAPTER 25
DEATH MATCH
The bloodthirsty cheering grew louder as the floor lifted us into view.
Grandma stared down at Kayla.
“Tell me you have something, girl,” she said.
“I think we can buy a little time,” said Kayla. “If you and Happy work together.”
Grandma looked toward Dad.
“No,” said Kayla. “You and Happy Junior. Remember the partnership you were planning? The present you were going to give him in the solarium? It’s still in your pocket.”
“Yeah,” I said. “The present! What was the present?”
The floor stopped. We stood in a corner of an enormous wrestling ring, surrounded by thousands of screaming aliens.
“The offer’s been revoked,” said Grandma. “He threw it back in my face. That partnership is off the table.”
“Well, you’d better put it back on the table,” said Kayla, “if you want to survive the next ten seconds.”
In the far corner of the ring, Florida Pete—his face bloody from raw meat—had risen up on his own platform. He thrashed furiously against his chains. The foam around his mouth turned pink as it mixed with the blood. It was quite a sight.
“Grandma,” said Kayla, pointing at Grandma’s pocket. “The partnership. Reoffer it. Now.”
“Must I?” said Grandma.
“You must,” said Kayla.
Grandma extended her open hand toward me.
“Shake her hand, Happy,” said Kayla.
Shrugging, I shook Grandma’s hand.
“Good,” said Kayla. “You’re officially partners. Try to lure Pete over toward the ropes.”
“Very well,” said Grandma, taking the little black present from her pocket. “This way, Happy Junior.”
As I followed Grandma toward the center of the ring, I watched Florida Pete howl and thrash against his chains. Grandma handed me the little gift. I popped it open and removed a disk of spangled black-and-red fabric.
“What kind of partnership is this?” I asked.
“Tag team,” said Grandma. “Put it on.”
In my hands was a black wrestling mask emblazoned with spangled red roses. I looked toward Grandma and saw that she was fitting an identical mask over her own face, with her long, elegant, and familiar fingers.
It finally clicked.
“Grandma,” I said. “You’re the Masked Flamenco!”
“We are the Masked Flamencos, partner,” she said. “Now put your face on. And tuck in that ridiculous beard!”
I shoved my beard down into my undershirt and put the mask over my face.
As soon as it was down around my ears, I realized that mask was no ordinary piece of fabric, but something high-tech that Dad must have built. I heard faint but irresistible Spanish guitar music. My body could not help moving and flowing to the sound. My fists went to my hips. My right foot stomped. I reached up and clapped twice. Grandma did the same, in perfect unison. Entwining our arms, we began a flamenco stride toward the center of the ring.
This sight made Pete howl and thrash even more violently.
A bell dinged. Pete’s chains fell to the floor. He charged us like a mad rhino.
Grandma twirled me around several times and sent me spinning off toward him like a top. Inspired rather than controlled by the music, I executed a balletic leap, six feet into the air, and slapped Pete twice across the face. Slap-slap. Flipping over his head, I landed on my toes, with a stylish arm flourish.
The crowd roared. Pete howled and reeled around at me. I danced away, keeping barely inches in front of his clawing grasp. He would have caught and killed me for sure if Grandma hadn’t leapt in, tagged my hand, and pirouetted both her boots across Pete’s face. Then he chased after Grandma until I danced in and tagged her reaching hand. By repeating variations of this tag-team strategy, we maneuvered Pete across the ring and up to the side ropes.
As I dove over the top ropes, Pete lunged for me, then got himself hooked around backward as I danced back under the bottom ropes.
The moment Pete became tangled, Kayla leapt into view with something silver shining in her hands: Frank Segar’s handcuffs. She hooked one end around Pete’s wrist, the other around his boot. Not only was Pete caught, he was bent over backward in a sort of pretzel shape.
Now my mom, dad, and sisters leapt into the mix, trying to wrestle Pete down into submission.
“Wait!” Kayla yelled above the melee. “Grandma, make him recognize you.”
Lifting her mask, Grandma stooped down toward Pete. “It’s me, Pete!” she yelled. “It’s the boss lady! Remember, Pete?”
Pete’s foam-drenched face grimaced up at her, his eyes rolling around wildly. She held out her hand, and Pete sniffed it skeptically.
“Boss . . . lady?” said Pete, sniffing.
“Yes, Pete,” said Grandma.
“Did I win, Boss? Do I get my reward?”
“Yes,” said Grandma. “But you need to stop fighting. Don’t fight anymore, and you’ll get your reward.”
“You’re always changing the rules!” said Pete. “I want my Specs! I want my reward now!”
“Here, take them,” said Beth, handing Pete her Specs. “These are your Specs now. Take them.”
This could not have been easy for Beth, and we all appreciated it, especially Pete. A look of blissful relief spread over his face as he finally held the Specs in his own hand. His eyes brimmed over with tears, and he began to cry and laugh at the same time.
“I’ll never have to hurt another soul,” said Pete. And he pulled us all into a big one-armed bear hug. Then we all began to hug each other and laugh with pure relief that the fight was finally over. As we did so, a strange buzzing sound began to come from the audience.
“What’s that?” I asked Kayla.
“They’re booing,” she said.
This brought a big fat grin to my face. I whooped with delight. Their disappointment over us not dying made me so happy that I marched out into the ring holding my arms up in triumph.
The alien booing grew louder.
“Really, Hap,” said Grandma, walking up beside me. “If you must play the heel, at least do it properly.”
Smiling, Grandma wheeled her arm around in several circles and brought her cupped hand to her ear, as though the booing was the sweetest sound she had ever heard and she couldn’t get enough. The crowd really hated this. So I began doing it too. Soon the boos became screams of thunderous anger. It felt great.
“Uh, guys?” said Kayla.
“Not now, Kayla,” said Grandma, thumbing her nose at the audience while I shook my butt at them. “We’re having a moment.”
Mom joined our antics out there and began gesturing and swearing at the aliens in Romanian. I had never heard such bad language, let alone from Mom. It infuriated the aliens, who now began throwing their drinking vessels and half-eaten panini at us.
“Guys!” yelled Kayla. “Guys! Get back here now! They’re about to cut the artificial gravity! Grab the ropes! Everybody grab the ropes!”
We made it back just in time to grab hold of the ropes before they cut the gravity, and we all began to float.
“Who’s doing this?” yelled Dad.
“The Gubbinses,” said Kayla. “This crowd wants a death match. And they’re
going to have a riot if they don’t get one. So they’re unleashing the champion.”
“Oh no,” I said. “Not the spiked eel thing.”
But I was already watching the enormous liquid-like monster flow into the arena.
The crowd raged with bloodthirsty delight.
The horrid spiked eel twirled and climbed through the air like a roller coaster. It shot straight up toward the rafters. Then, baring its long rows of fangs, it plunged straight down toward us.
“Unlock the bracelets,” said Florida Pete. “I got this feller.”
Kayla quickly picked the lock on the handcuffs using the same hairpin from earlier. With lightning speed, Pete pulled himself hand-over-hand to the ropes across the corner from us. Then squatting down, he compressed his body into a ball beneath the lowest rope. He stared up into the monster’s approaching fangs.
“Come’n git it, Jabroni,” said Pete.
Then he yanked down the top rope, stepped onto it, and, like an arrow from a bow, launched himself straight upward.
The spiked eel monster had a moment to look surprised before Pete caught it with a hard uppercut to the chin.
“Whooo-ooop!” whooped Pete. He ran sideways across the beast’s fangs. He plunged one fist into its nostril and began punching it in the eye with his other.
Howling, the spiked eel reeled wildly off into space.
As I stared up at this in amazement, I noticed something interesting float by closer down to the ring: a panini. This, in and of itself, wasn’t unusual. The air was crowded with panini. But this one in particular caught my eye, because it had two little lizard legs kicking out from one end. The webbed feet of the lizard propelled the pressed sandwich along like a kickboard through a swimming pool.
“It’s Squeep!” I yelled. Climbing up, I hooked my shoe under the top rope and reached high up into the air. But the lizard-panini was still several yards beyond my grasping fingers.
“Dad!” I yelled. “Help me get higher!”
My dad grabbed me by the ankles and lifted me higher. Then my mom grabbed him around the ankles, and we formed an extending and weightless human ladder, until I could yank the panini out of the air.
I tried to pull Squeep! out of the pressed sandwich, like a cork from a bottle, but the top half of his body was caught on something. I began ripping away at the bready exterior and the lettuce until I saw Squeep!’s big yellow eyes blinking at me. He clutched in his webbed fingers a disk covered in chipotle mayo. At first I thought it was a tomato slice. But when I wiped away the pink goop, I saw silver underneath. Squeep! had brought us the makeup compact! I couldn’t believe the ingenuity of this lizard! I hugged him ecstatically, and he licked my face in return.
I yelled down to my dad, who still gripped me around the ankles. “It’s the compact! Pass it down to Alice!”
I handed it down to Dad, who handed it down to Mom, who handed it to Alice. I had never seen her happier. She shook the goop off its exterior, readying to pop it open.
“Okay!” yelled Alice. “Everyone hold hands! We all have to be touching for me to pull us in!”
I looked above me.
“Wait!” I yelled down at her. “We can’t leave Florida Pete here! We need to get Pete!”
The world champion was focused on his fight with the galactic champion. But on a close pass he heard me screaming his name. Glancing over, he saw me splayed out in midair waving a lizard at him. He nodded at me like a passing fighter pilot in combat.
Then Pete plunged both his boots hard into the eel beast’s eye and kicked off into a backward dive down toward the ring. His form was perfect until, at the last moment, the whipping tail of the eel cracked into the side of his head, knocking him unconscious and onto a different trajectory altogether. My heart sank. Now I wouldn’t be able to reach him.
“Get me higher!” I yelled down at my family.
Eliza grabbed hold of my mom’s ankles. Beth grabbed hold of Eliza’s ankles. Kayla grabbed Beth’s, Alice grabbed Kayla’s, and Grandma grabbed Alice’s, until our human chain extended me far enough out into space for me to grab Pete’s big red wrestling boot.
But no sooner had I secured Pete than I heard my mom scream down below me. Then everyone started to scream. Looking down, I saw what had happened. In all the excitement, Baby Lu had squirmed free of whoever had been holding her and was now floating into space.
“Grab her!” they were all yelling. “Grab the baby!”
Baby Lu floated up toward me like a little golden soap bubble. I thought I could just about reach out and grab her, if I let go of Pete, or if I let go of Squeep! Who should it be? As I wondered, an enormous fanged face swam into view behind Baby Lu. The spiked monster was rushing straight toward us, jaws opening.
Let go of Pete, I told myself.
I rethought, just as quickly, No. He’s a person. I can’t just . . .
But then I had an idea. I began nodding my head up and down as hard as I could, hitching the entire length of my beard out of my undershirt.
Then I flung the beard out as far as I could toward Baby Lu.
“Grab hold!” I yelled.
Reaching out with both her little fists, Baby Lu clutched hold of it. What an amazing little kid!
“Got her!” I yelled down. “Alice, take us home!”
“Alice, take us home!” yelled Dad. “Alice, take us home!” yelled Mom. And so on . . . As the statement echoed down my family, I watched the fangs of the eel encircle us.
As they snapped down, we vanished from that world.
CHAPTER 26
THE RETURN
The entire family, plus a lizard and a wrestler, tumbled in a pile onto the cedar-planked floor of the Doorganizer.
Rolling to my feet, I looked around to make sure everyone was still there. But where was Baby Lu?
“Baby Lu!” I yelled.
“Shh. I’ve got her,” said Grandma, who stood cradling Baby Lu in her arms.
“Oh, thank God,” I said. “Here, you can give her to me now.”
“You still don’t trust me, Happy?” said Grandma. “After I just saved her life?”
“I just saved her life,” I said. “With my beard.”
“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even have that beard,” said Grandma.
“Quiet, everyone,” said Dad. “We need to get out of the Doorganizer before it becomes catastrophic. This is extra-dimensional space. We can’t be in here. Especially Kayla! Kayla, honey, close your eyes.”
“I feel fine,” said Kayla, but she closed them.
“Alice,” said Dad. “Can you get us out?”
“I don’t know,” said Alice. “Hap opened the last portal to Earth. Where’s the portal, Hap?”
“Uh,” I said, looking around at the mess. “Squeep! knows the way out. Where is he?”
“Is that this sweet little bugger’s name?” said Florida Pete, who sat cradling Squeep! in his tree-trunk-size arms. “He’s a beauty, all right. I bet he’s never hurt a soul. Maybe I won’t be a turtle, maybe I’ll be a Squeep! What’s his natural habitat?”
“An elementary school,” I said.
“Perfect,” said Pete. “Play with the kids, teach them about science, and never hurt a soul.”
“He eats bugs,” I said.
“Do they have souls?” asked Pete.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Do sponges?”
“Good point,” said Pete. “I’m gonna do it now. I can’t risk ever becoming violent again.”
“Uh,” said Dad. “We need to get Kayla out of here. We need to get her out now.”
But Florida Pete couldn’t wait. He put on the glasses, looked at Squeep!, and flicked the switch.
Now we had two lizards instead of one. Knowing firsthand how hard new bodies can be to acclimate to, I decided to carry Pete the lizard in my pocket so he wouldn’t get lost.
As Squeep! led us through the wending pathways of Alice’s stolen stuff, Dad kept his hand clamped over Kayla’s eyes. I wondered why he w
as so worried about her in here. What was the mysterious conflict between Kayla’s powers and the Doorganizer’s? I knew she had never been able to see into it or predict what happened inside . . .
Before I had much time to ponder this, good old Squeep! had returned us to the little shell-shaped mirror on the floor. It was right where I had left it, just past my old library books. We linked hands, and Alice brought us through the portal and back into our bedroom.
As before, it was a great relief to get out of the Doorganizer.
But the relief was short-lived.
The first thing we noticed once we stood safely back in the bedroom was about a dozen FBI agents surrounding us with their weapons drawn.
“Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head!” said a familiar voice.
Looking up, I saw Detective Frank Segar. I had left the portal open, and I was happy that Frank had found his way out. I smiled at him. He did not smile back.
“I said get on your knees and put your hands behind your head,” said Frank.
They cuffed Alice first, then Grandma, then Dad. I guess they figured the rest of us weren’t dangerous.
As the FBI agents led Grandma away, she turned, looked back at me, and smiled.
“Tag you soon, partner,” she said.
CHAPTER 27
LINGERING SIDE EFFECTS
First, they made Dad shut down and destroy all the technology that could lead the aliens into our world or us into theirs. Dad was only too happy to do so. It meant separating Alice from her Doorganizer. The Gubbinses had given him an idea of how this might be possible. But it had to be done immediately, before anything else could be taken out of the compact. So if Alice ever stole anything from you, sorry, you won’t be getting it back.
Then the US government seized control of Conklin Industries, Conklin Manor, and all of my family’s assets. And they took us into custody.
