by Matt Solomon
“I don’t care about stupid giants—I want the gold. All of the gold! Why do you think I tricked the two of you into leaving it unguarded in the first place? Your brother beat me to it. Now I’m going to get it back.”
A scream from the beach caused both Wertzie and Charlie to jerk their heads. It sounded like the wormy scientist, and his shrill shriek was one of pure terror. Both of them looked up in the sky to watch a flailing figure soar out over the gulf. “What’s going on?” shouted Wertzie.
Charlie saw his opening. He searched the sandy ground in vain for a rock or stick he could use as a weapon. In desperation, Charlie reached into his pockets and found something that would have to do.
Charlie lunged forward and stabbed Wertzie right in his sensitive stub with the peekaboo pen, the girl’s clothes disappearing as the carny let loose with a horrendous squawk. His pistol flew from his hand and landed with a splash among the rubber ducks. He dropped to his knees in pain, clutching at the pen that was still stuck in his flesh. Wertzie hadn’t been kidding—the nub did hurt when you touched it. When you stabbed it, the pain got downright excruciating.
“I’ll kill you!” he shouted, pulling the peekaboo pen from his hand. Blood the color of brick oozed from the wound. Wertzie lunged to his feet.
Charlie took off running for his life. He looked for someone, anyone, who might help him, but the carnival grounds were hopelessly empty.
Wertzie grabbed a crowbar near a pile of crates left over from the day’s carnival setup. He held it in his good hand while clutching his injured mitt to his T-shirt, trying to stop the bleeding. “I’m going to beat you like I should have done to your brother a long time ago!”
Charlie thought about making a break for the beach, but Wertzie was definitely faster than he was, a sure bet to catch him in a flat-out race for Bruce. Charlie would have to lose him.
He shot across the midway and darted around the lemon shake-up stands and down the row of carnival games that backed up to the beach. He turned a corner and hurdled the counter at Tim’s “Guess Your Weight” booth, ducking beneath the prize table and hiding there in the shadows. He didn’t move a muscle. Determined not to let his breathing betray him, he listened for the telltale sound of Wertzie’s footsteps. His own pulse pounded in his throat. He could hear Bruce and the Stick continuing to battle down by the water—Charlie even thought that the giant was winning—but there wasn’t a sound along the midway. He was just about to attempt to sneak back to the beach when the crowbar smashed a novelty mirror that hung among the stuffed animals. Shattered shards of silver rained down around the prize table.
The carny was dead serious about wanting to break a few bones as payback for the peekaboo-pen puncture. The boy pulled the booth awning down on Wertzie and scrambled out while the man untangled himself. Then Charlie tore across the carnival grounds looking for any place he could hide, the furious sounds of a stumbling Wertzie not far behind him.
Most of the rides were closed up, offering no escape. Finally Charlie found one into which he could at least duck—the Gravitron. He tumbled in, looking for refuge.
Wertzie burst inside just behind him, waving the crowbar like a flyswatter.
“No place to run, Lawson!”
The crowbar crashed into the Gravitron control panel at the center of the ride, just inches from Charlie’s head. The boy dove for the controls, remembering his brother’s claim—“Any idiot can run the Gravitron”—and pushed the big red button in the middle of the control panel. The door to the outside slammed down.
“Oh no, you don’t!”
Wertzie lunged after Charlie with his free, bleeding hand, missing the boy by the length of a missing finger just as the ride roared to life.
The crowbar flew backward. Wertzie tried with all his might to reach inside the control booth and strangle Charlie even as the laws of physics denied his progress. Then centrifugal force slammed him back into the padded Gravitron wall. The ride spun faster and faster, sucking Wertzie to its surface like a magnet snatching iron filings. His complexion got pasty and pale, while motion-sick tears filled his eyes.
“Slow it down,” he pleaded. “I’m going to hurl!”
“It’s just going to come flying back at you,” warned Charlie from the ride’s motionless center. He wasn’t ever going to let the Gravitron stop, even as Wertzie began making awful retching sounds.
Charlie felt something uneven beneath his feet. He looked down to find a maintenance panel on the floor. He got on his hands and knees, twisting a silver handle that caused a door to flip open with a sudden click and reveal the sandy dirt beneath the ride. He took one last look back at Wertzie—someone was going to have a smelly mess to clean up. Then the boy slipped down through the passage and ran like crazy for the beach.
38
Arriving at the ocean, Charlie watched the Stick tumble out of the way as an enraged Bruce pounded crater after crater into the wet sand. With amazing speed, the mercenary bundled four rods that were strapped to his back. The metallic shafts locked together with a menacing clank, and the Stick slung the four-barreled weapon over his shoulder.
“For you,” he said, “I brought the biggest stick.”
A warning was useless, so Charlie did the only other thing he could: throw himself at the Stick just as the terrible weapon fired dozens of Taser wires in the giant’s direction. Despite the boy’s small stature, the collision was violent enough to knock most of the projectiles off course. Only four of the cruelly barbed tendrils hooked in Bruce’s side, but their violent electrical discharge was still enough to shock the giant to his knees.
Now the Stick was angry. He tossed the Taser weapon aside then punched Charlie in the midsection. The blow cracked two of Charlie’s ribs and forced him to the ground. The Stick put his boot on Charlie’s throat.
He looked up just in time to see someone kick the Stick in the forehead. The boy brought himself up on his elbows and watched Tiger launch another fierce series of kicks at the Stick’s skull.
“Tiger’s got this. Let’s move!”
Juice Man pulled Charlie away from the fray and to their fallen giant friend, who was still writhing in the cold damp of the beach. “Don’t touch those!” warned the Juice Man as Charlie reached for the wires. The man pulled insulated gloves from his work pants, then carefully removed the pulsating Taser cables from Bruce’s rib cage. The giant moaned and rolled over onto his side. He had a dazed, expressionless look in his eyes.
Charlie’s ribs hurt so bad he couldn’t talk. Juice Man grabbed him hard by the shoulders. “See that concession shack over there?”
Charlie turned, and the movement made him wince in pain. He’d seen the shack when they’d arrived, halfway down the closed-off, rickety pier that barely stood on its tall stilts. “Sure, but what does that…?”
“I know it doesn’t look like much, but that’s the giant’s ride out of here. You got to get him inside, but whatever you do don’t set foot on the pier! Wood’s all rotten and it probably won’t hold two ordinary people’s weight, much less yours and his. There’s a door on the underside of the dock, you get in that way and everything should fire up.”
Bruce was going to escape in a refreshment stand? “Okay, I’ll get him there. But then what?”
“Just go!”
“Heeyahhh!”
Twenty feet down the beach, Tiger ducked the Stick’s hard right cross. She delivered a powerful knee to his midsection and pulled the last remaining weapon from his back. She used it to bash his face, which knocked him backward into a flip. With an angry sneer, he landed on his feet, reached into his boot, and withdrew a small baton.
Tiger scoffed at the unimpressive cudgel.
The Stick snapped the weapon with a violent flick of his wrist, and the rod telescoped, doubling in size. Once more, the end crackled with electricity. “You’re good, but good isn’t going to be enough.”
“No!” Even in his disoriented state, Bruce wasn’t about to let the Stick take out Tiger. The
wobbly giant rose to his feet, but the Juice Man jumped in his way.
“Leave that guy to us! Charlie, get him out of here, now! Come on, kid, what are you waiting for?”
Tiger screamed in pain. A brutal blast from the weapon sent her reeling into the sand, followed by the Stick brutally bending her arm the wrong way at the elbow. She slumped to the ground, and Juice Man ran to cut off the Stick’s next attack.
“Bruce, let’s go!” Charlie grabbed the giant by the tunic and started toward the pier. Bruce took one last look back at Tiger, then staggered after his friend with unsteady footsteps. “Under there!” Charlie pointed to the dark underside of the stilted pier below the snack shack. Bruce scooped him up and waded into the gulf. The water didn’t help Bruce shake off the Taser’s effects. In fact, the cold seemed to stagger him even more. They made their way under the shadowy pier, searching for what the Juice Man promised Charlie he would find. Finally, he saw a hatch near the end of the dock.
“Up there, Bruce. That’s got to be it!”
The unsteady giant set Charlie down on the wooden support webbing on the underside of the pier, then labored to shinny up. He struggled to the top, pushed the door open, crawled inside, and pulled Charlie behind him.
With a long, low creak, the door slammed shut, which triggered some kind of mechanism inside the shack. Digital equipment began to glow and hum. Bruce slumped in the corner and held his head in his hands, trying to reorient himself. Charlie’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, revealing the indistinct outline of dozens of helium tanks that he’d first seen in the back of the Juice Man’s generator truck. They were hooked up to red hoses that ran to the roof. The GPS system that the Juice Man had been working on back in Peoria sat atop a central computer system. It beeped twice, and the tanks began releasing helium into the hoses, which in turn inflated a large canvas balloon that slowly filled the roof.
Holy cow, thought Charlie. This thing is a blimp.
At the far end of the shack, two huge exhaust fans began to spin. Are those propellers? he wondered. Got to be. Maybe they even steer this thing!
To the left of the tanks, Charlie saw another familiar sight: the pallet of gold. Tim hadn’t stolen it after all! The ceiling began to waver and crack.
“Ride?” asked Bruce.
“Yes, sir. And there’s your gold!” The floor rumbled and the whole shack began to detach from its anchoring. It wouldn’t be long before the blimp took flight—with Charlie on it. Nothing was going according to plan, but at least for now, it looked like he and the giant would be together.
Without warning, five glowing wires sailed through the window. They struck Bruce dead in the chest. The giant shook uncontrollably.
“Bruce! No!”
Charlie spun. Out a crooked window, he saw the Stick at the end of the rickety pier, his glowing, four-barreled bazooka-stick once again on his shoulder. Charlie looked down the beach. Tiger and Juice Man lay unconscious on the sand. Even as fast as the balloon was filling, the Stick would reach Charlie and Bruce long before the blimp took off. Apparently satisfied that the giant was unconscious, the Stick turned off the flow of electricity. The giant stopped shaking, but he was barely coherent.
Charlie knew then what he had to do. There was no way Bruce could stay. Tim had been right: Charlie had to do what was best for the giant.
“I’m your friend, right?”
Bruce looked up at Charlie as if to say “Are you kidding me?” Even in his weakened state, he held out his fist.
Charlie bumped it, holding it against the giant’s for a long moment before finally taking a step back. His throat felt thick and he couldn’t swallow. Remembering the phone in his pocket, he withdrew it and left it by the window for the giant to find when he got home. Movies for later, something to remember him by. Charlie dashed out the front door, leaving Bruce alone in the snack shack. The giant wouldn’t have his back this time. This one was on Charlie.
The Stick was almost halfway down the pier, the end of his weapon blazing the way. “You again?” he said. “For being such a pain in the ass, your buddy gets another one.” The treacherous wires crackled with energy. The dock shook as Bruce writhed inside the shack.
Charlie needed to stop him right then and there. The boards creaked and groaned beneath his feet. The Stick looked to be more than two hundred pounds. All the rotting wood needed to give way was some extra weight.
The Stick laughed, amused at the boy’s pursuit down the dock. “What do you think you’re going to do when you get here, kid?”
Charlie leaped in the air and hollered. “Fight without fighting!”
He landed on the rickety boards right in front of the Stick and the entire section of dock gave way. All the wires from the Stick’s weapon pulled free from Bruce inside the shack. The boy somehow managed to reach up and grab hold of a fractured beam dangling from what remained of the pier. His fingers gripped hard as he watched the Stick plunge into the gulf. An eerie electric zap erupted when his shimmering weapon hit the surface. A wide circle of water lit up blue for a brief second, then darkened to match the night sky.
“No!” came a shout from the snack shack. Bruce bumbled forward, trying to make his way out to help Charlie, to help his friend, but the concession stand had torn away from the pier. The zeppelin was expanded to its full size, carrying the giant away into the night. Bruce’s sorrowful shouts were still audible as Charlie watched him float away safely into the night sky, his unlikely ride silhouetted against a silvery moon.
“Bye, buddy,” Charlie said. He felt light-headed, and one of his hands slipped from the timber. He tried to swing around to grab hold just as the damaged lumber splintered and released from what remained of the dock.
But someone grabbed him by his wrist before he could fall.
“Got you,” said Tim, hoisting him back up onto the pier.
39
It was the middle of the night. Charlie sat at the shore end of what used to be the wooden dock, trying to shake the ache of his sore ribs and waning adrenaline. Tiger approached. She had one arm in a sling, but she still tousled his hair. It was a gesture Charlie usually hated because it made him feel like a little kid. But he didn’t mind it right now.
A bark from down the beach made Charlie look up. There in the moonlight was Powder, plaster cast around her front left paw, but still managing to chase gulls on her three good legs. And sure enough, farther down the beach, he saw Hank on crutches, hobbling alongside his good friend Parran. They were getting the download from Tim and the Juice Man. The old man recognized Charlie and gave him a wave with his crutch. Charlie couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Tim laughed a lot in his big horse-guffaw.
Tiger wasn’t nearly as relaxed as the other giant smugglers. She stalked the sand along the edge of the water, searching its surface, smooth as glass and dark as a shadow. Charlie couldn’t imagine any way the Stick could have survived the jolt he’d received, but he felt a measure of comfort knowing that the carny roughie wouldn’t rest until she was sure trouble was gone for good.
Then Charlie saw the old man put two fingers in his mouth and whistle. Tiger joined the smugglers as Hank presented each of them with a package wrapped in plain brown paper. Even in the dim moonlight, Charlie knew what they were. Each package contained a handful of cylinders made of pure giant gold, enough to make each of the smugglers rich. Wertzie was stupid to have given up his share for a chance to grab it all for himself.
Juice Man approached with a bag of ice and presented it to the boy. No one had wanted to send Charlie home more than the Juice Man, but his fat-lipped smile, collateral damage from his fight with the Stick, communicated a newfound respect. Charlie took the bag and put it under his shirt, feeling the sting at first but then a numbing cold.
“Where’s Wertzie?”
Juice Man laughed and jerked his thumb back in the direction of the carnival. “Hank says to keep him spinning for a while longer.”
“He’s still in the Gravitron?”
&
nbsp; “It’s only been a couple of hours,” said Juice Man with a shrug.
“Are you going to call the cops?”
“I don’t think so. He knows too much. Tiger will have a chat with him.”
Charlie imagined the different ways Tiger could make Wertzie sorry for what he’d done, things that would make losing a measly index finger seem like a slap on the wrist. The guy would probably be better off in jail.
“Going back up to the carnival,” said Juice Man. “Anything else you need?”
“I’m good.”
“I figured you wrong, kid.” He nudged Charlie’s shoulder and patted his jacket, fat with gold. “You showed me something.” Then the bald man headed back to his truck.
Charlie allowed himself a smile. The smugglers, especially his brother, deserved their rewards. They had all been there when it counted. And in the end, Charlie had helped his friend, even if it was not at all in the way he’d planned it.
He stared up into the heavens. The blimp, so monstrous and imposing when it yanked free from the dock, was long gone. He’d watched it spirit his friend silently across the sky, swift and subtle, until it appeared to be nothing but a dot. Then it disappeared.
The whole thing felt like a dream now. Meeting Bruce, hopping the train, fighting off a giant bully and the professional thug who’d tried to stop Charlie and the other giant smugglers. He tried to imagine telling his mom, or anyone else for that matter, what had happened to him over the past few days. No one would believe him, ever. Except Adele.
He wondered if Bruce was angry with him. Charlie had gone back on their deal, after all. Leaving him alone in the shack hadn’t been easy, and he didn’t like the feeling.
“You really believed Wertzie when he said I called DJ?” Charlie looked up to see his brother grinning that dumb grin of his. “Come on, man. DJ?”
Charlie smiled. “I didn’t want to go home.”
“When you told me what Wertzie said, I thought he might be up to something,” explained Tim. “So I stashed the gold and called his bluff. ’Course, I had no way of knowing he’d hooked up with Mr. Stick. Speaking of which.” He reached inside his own stash and held out a stick of gold to Charlie.
