by Robert West
Beamer was severely bummed by this and chased her and the pony all over the yard, up, around, and through the castle, while Ghoulie and Alana laughed and laughed. Beamer was hard-pressed to figure out what was so funny. That was when he learned there was such a thing as having too much fun. Alana suddenly jumped back and gave a little “eeek.” There, standing on the open stone patio outside the back door, was the nanny with the pointed nose. She didn’t just look upset; volcanic might be a good description.
“What aah you children doing heah?” she asked on the verge of eruption. “I told you that Alana could have no visitahs! Get out of here right now befoah I call the police!”
“But Nanna,” Alana said, trying to defend them, “I asked them to come over.”
“Out! Out!” Ms. Warrington continued to scream as she scurried down the broad course of steps into the backyard.
Scilla threw down her sword and shield as Ghoulie scrambled around the winding steps of the castle and hopped on the pony behind her. They were going to have to move quickly to get out of this yard before the fire-breathing woman caught up with them. They galloped over to Beamer, who was still out of breath from chasing Scilla. Ghoulie reached down and hoisted him up by one arm, but Beamer somehow ended up sitting backward on the pony. Luckily it was a big pony, and Scilla weighed only a little more than a feather.
As they galloped toward the tree, Beamer yelled, “We weren’t trying to hurt her. We were trying to be nice.” The lady’s expression didn’t soften. Beamer gave up, figuring they’d have better luck feeding candy to a vampire.
As they approached the tree, Alana was running toward them. “Please come back!” she pleaded with them. “I’ll find a way.”
They lofted onto a couple of branches and swung into the tree as the horse ran under it. Beamer thought it was a pretty cool trick. He was wondering if they might have a career doing pony tricks in a circus. But then he saw Ghoulie hanging from the tree by one leg with his glasses on sideways. Ghoulie managed to scramble up out of the way just before the woman ran beneath the tree.
“Don’t you evah come back!” she yelled up at them. “Do you heah me? The next time I will call the police!”
Beamer looked back as they climbed. He saw the woman take Alana into her arms. “Aah you all raht?” he heard her ask Alana. “What did they say to you?” Their voices grew fainter as the woman walked the girl back toward the house.
They were all gasping up air like they were on Mars without a space suit. “Well, that’s that.” Ghoulie coughed. “We take one more step in that house, and she’ll have us on a table in the morgue.”
“She wasn’t just angry,” said Scilla thoughtfully. “Did you notice?”
“Yeah,” said Beamer, “she was scared — terrified even.”
“Like a lioness protecting her cub,” Scilla finished for him. “Knowin’ Alana’s condition, I guess I can understand. Do you suppose she’s her real mother?”
“Uh . . . Scilla,” said Ghoulie with a wry look, “we saw her mother’s picture. Remember? And Pinocchio looks more like this woman than Alana does.”
There could have been all sorts of reasons — they weren’t used to climbing the tree from the ground up or they were dizzy from their quick escape or the wind had a little pixie dust in it — but they couldn’t find the passage, at least for a very long time. And when they did, it didn’t look right. They weren’t even in the same tree. Ghoulie checked his combination compass, GPS tracker, and odor analyzer and gave them a direction. Pretty soon, though, it was clear that they were going the wrong way. They could tell they were in the same neighborhood, though; the houses were just as strange. The one they were now passing was off-the-chart strange. It had a broad, flat roof that was almost completely covered with trees!
Beamer was totally befuddled. How could anyone plant a forest on top of a house? Where would the roots go? The trees weren’t all that big, but the canopy of leaves was pretty dense. Even with shafts of light from the setting sun prying into every nook and cranny, the forest interior looked very murky.
This was no time to explore. Night was looming in the east, and they were already late for supper. Ghoulie tried to call home, but his cell phone was dead. As it turned out, so were Beamer’s and Scilla’s. Good grief! They couldn’t be more than a half mile from home. Before they had time to think about it, things became even more complicated.
A stream of moths suddenly poured out from the forest and crossed directly in front of them. On second glance, Beamer wasn’t sure they were moths. It was really too early in the year for moths, and these were kind of big, the size of a small bird. They were almost white, but not quite. Actually, they were a lot of different colors — blue, green, pink, and yellow — all just slightly off from white. They were so bright that they seemed to glow. Come to think of it, they were doing just that — glowing.
12
The Enchanted Forest
“Hey . . . y’all,” said Scilla in a hushed voice. “Do you see what I see?”
“Uhhhh . . . probably not, because I’m sure I’m dreaming,” said Ghoulie.
“I’m not sayin’,” said Beamer, “because I don’t want anyone to think I’m crazy.”
“Then I’ll say it,” said Scilla. “Those moths don’t have insect bodies.”
“But they’re not really . . . human, are they?” asked Beamer with a squeak in his voice.
“Maybe they’re fairies,” said Scilla with hushed excitement. “I’m gonna find out.” She immediately tumbled off the branch, caught another, and swung over to drop onto the forest path.
Somebody oughtta check her DNA , thought Beamer. There’s gotta be some chimpanzee in there somewhere. “Scilla!” whisper-shouted Beamer. “Where are you going? We don’t even know if they’re friendly.”
It didn’t look like they were going to find out, for as soon as Scilla plunked down on the roof in front of them, the moths shot back into the forest.
“Stop!” cried Scilla. “I won’t hurt you! I promise!”
But it wasn’t her they were afraid of. They heard flapping wings — loud and leathery. Then they heard a shriek!
Scilla whirled around and looked up. She lurched back, fell to the ground with a scream, and then lay there without moving. Beamer and Ghoulie recoiled back into a thicket of tree leaves. The thing flapping its wings and hovering far too near Scilla was right out of a nightmare. It had the wings of a bat and the face of a monster.
“It’s a gargoyle!” Ghoulie exclaimed in hushed alarm. “We’ve got to get Scilla away from him!”
But the gargoyle paid no attention to Scilla. It flew quickly off in pursuit of the moths. Beamer and Ghoulie lost no time in getting to Scilla. Ghoulie checked her pulse, and Beamer listened to her heart.
“What are y’all doing?” she suddenly yelped as she pushed them off her. “This is no time to play paramedic. That thing is after the fairies. We’ve gotta rescue them!”
“Are you sure they’re fairies?” Beamer asked her. “Did they say anything? What did they look like?”
“First of all, the moths weren’t human,” she said after taking a deep breath. “They were sort of human, but their eyes were too big and shaped like . . . uh, maybe rounded diamonds. And their legs were too long and spindly, like insect legs.”
“Whoa! They’d be great for a science fair exhibit!” said Ghoulie. “Could we get rights for a national tour?”
“Would y’all pipe down!” Scilla yelled in frustration as she waved a “Back off ” to them. “Come on, we gotta save them!” Scilla said, suddenly bolting on down the path into the roof forest.
“Scilla!” Beamer yelled again. “We don’t have anything to fight gargoyles with! Scillllaaaaa!”
But Scilla had already charged into a dark corner of the forest. “Oh, brother!” Beamer said with a sigh. “Looks like we’re gonna have to drag her back. Let’s go, Ghoulie,” he said, charging after her.
The forest was every bit as murky as it had looked f
rom afar. The tree trunks were especially weird. They weren’t tucked neatly into the ground like most trees on Murphy Street — or on any other street Beamer had ever been on. They stood above the ground on their partly exposed roots, looking like they might start walking at any moment. The normal assortment of forest animals was skittering around — squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, and the like — even a deer or two. There were also a lot of fireflies beginning to whisk about as it got darker.
Something didn’t seem right about all this wildlife to Beamer, though. First of all, he’d never seen so many forest creatures at the same time. Second, all the animals seemed like they’d just jumped out of Bambi or Snow White. They were just too perfect — like out of a cartoon forest. Even the weeds were pretty with flowers.
Also, unlike most forests, this forest floor was covered with grass. Real grass needed plenty of sunlight, which you couldn’t get in a dense forest. What’s more, the grass was neatly trimmed, not a blade out of place. Beamer was seeing all this on the run, of course. Luckily his legs were longer than Scilla’s. “Scillaaaa, stop!” he yelled as he drew closer to her. “Scillaaaa!” he called again as he dived for her.
He missed her and rolled across the grass. “Hey, what is this stuff ?” he asked as he ran his hands across the turf. The grass was soft and warm . . . like fur! “This is too crazy!” exclaimed Beamer. Beamer picked up a fallen leaf and handed it to Scilla as she came back to see if he was all right. “When’s the last time you held a soft and furry leaf ?” he asked as Ghoulie caught up with them and reached to touch the leaf in her hand.
Before Scilla could say anything, they heard a moan, or was it a muffled roar? They froze in their tracks and scanned the gloomy depths of the forest.
“That didn’t sound soft and fury,” Ghoulie said in a hushed voice.
Very carefully, they stood up and started walking toward the sound. For some reason they seemed to be huddled close together, sort of like Dorothy and her friends in the dark forest of Oz. Ghoulie looked a strong match for the Tin Man, but Beamer wasn’t keen on being either the Cowardly Lion or the Scarecrow. The forest path took a sharp turn to the left. It was when they rounded that turn that their stomachs fell.
Directly ahead, stretched out between two trees, was a huge spiderweb almost as big as the one in Beamer’s attic! The gargoyle was flapping about in front of the web, stalking the fairies who were fearfully scattering in a circle away from it. Beamer saw that one of the fairies was caught in the web. He thought maybe the other fairies were trying to keep the gargoyle away from their friend. Then the danger level jumped to critical. The spindly legs of an enormous spider suddenly appeared through the trees heading into the web. The gargoyle jumped back with a loud shriek!
“No way can we handle both a gargoyle and a giant spider,” said Beamer. They didn’t wait to see whether the spider or the gargoyle would win the day. They shifted into full reverse, then spun about and ran full tilt back the way they had come.
Before they got ten steps, though, somebody turned off the forest!
Suddenly they were on an empty flat roof. The weird trees, cute animals, flowers, and birds were all gone! So were the fairies, they noticed when they turned around. But two trees still stood in a small garden plot on one side of the roof. And the web was still there too, with the spider making its way down the web toward the roof floor.
Whoa! Eight legs against six isn’t fair! “Move it, guys!” Beamer yelled. “Molgotha’s gonna be on our tail any second!” There wasn’t time to figure out what was going on. All they had time to think about was moving their legs.
They ran till their tongues were hanging out and their legs were turning to rubber. They didn’t even stop to climb, but launched into a web of tree foliage. Then they scrambled through the branches like tree nymphs, stumbling from tree to tree, going they knew not where. Twenty minutes later, they finally felt safe enough to stop and catch their breaths. They sat quietly, listening for anything that sounded like what might be a giant spider pushing through the leaves.
By now it was pretty dark but, thanks to an ancient streetlight, they recognized the street corner below them. It was the corner of Murphy Street and Parkview, the street that ran directly into the park. With no tree passage in sight, they found a cluster of both large and small trees and climbed down to the street. Unfortunately, they all got home just in time to be grounded for getting home late.
Beamer didn’t sleep very well that night. Molgotha was alive! At least he thought it was Molgotha. After all, how many giant spiders could there be in one neighborhood? The MacIntyre Web had the uncanny ability to absorb and radiate energy — not exactly a practical function for a spiderweb. The web in the enchanted forest seemed to function more like a normal web — too bad for that trapped fairy.
Everything had happened so fast! And what was that disappearing act all about? Oh well, what was one more mystery to the Star-Fighters? The trouble with the forest was that they’d been lost when they found it and still lost when they escaped it. Beamer didn’t have a clue how to find it again.
13
Monster Bash
Any way you find them, spiders and spiderwebs tend to make people squirm. Dashiell nearly fell backward down the stairs when he saw the MacIntyre Web. He wasn’t supposed to be on the attic steps, of course. Nobody was, except for the scientists.
Once Scilla was through being grounded again — just for a day this time — Dashiell had insisted on following her around. Scilla clearly wasn’t excited about the idea. She’d told Ghoulie how Dashiell had gotten a lot of mileage making fun of Scilla’s “imagined” adventures after their disappointing tour.
Ghoulie was pretty sure that Dashiell wasn’t all he was cracked up to be. Scilla had told him about Dashiell’s science project. Ghoulie had won first prize when he’d done that project two years ago. He’d even put it up online. He showed the site to Beamer. They hadn’t said anything to Scilla, though. After all, he was her brother, and, for some reason, she idolized him.
Anyway, the kids had all been gathered in Beamer’s room when Dashiell just slipped away. Beamer was showing them the new section he had added to his wall-length Lego monorail system.
Dashiell, however, was more interested in proving, once and for all, that his stepsister was a loony tune. Seeing the real McCoy web was a real blow to Dashiell. Before he could stop himself, he yelped.
The next thing he knew he was surrounded by scientists angry at him for intruding.
“Dashiell, what are you doing?” Scilla called as she clambered up the stairs. “We’re not supposed to go up here!”
Oh, great, here comes the rest of the funny farm , Dashiell thought as he saw Beamer and Ghoulie right behind his sister. He quickly recovered from his momentary lapse of cool, though. To tell the truth, Dashiell was pretty impressed with the web and the scientific equipment around it. He had a hard time restraining the urge to punch, twist, and turn every control device he saw. But he had no intention of letting on. He’d spent a lot of time promoting himself as the authority on just about everything. So he had to let them know he was on top of things. The scientists seemed frozen in shock as he swaggered across the attic. He spouted out a few facts about spiders, things he’d heard in somebody’s book report. That should be enough for these second-rate intellects, he thought.
You see, Dashiell believed he needed to put this web business in its place. Right now, this was Scilla’s thing; he had to make it his. Still acting the professor, he picked up a discarded towel rod to act as a pointer. “Notice the circular shape of the web,” Dashiell said. “This is typical of the orb web spider. The female’s web is smaller.”
He heard a scientist choke back a laugh. Was he getting his facts backward? Maybe the female’s web is larger. Dashiell didn’t like feeling insecure. He wasn’t used to it. Still, he went on: “But as big as this web is, spider silk is a very . . . uh . . . weak material — ” He took a swipe at the web to demonstrate his point. He was surprised
when it didn’t break — not even close.
Suddenly he felt body blows high and low as Beamer and Ghoulie tackled him. Then he felt someone pick him up by his belt buckle. The next thing he knew, he was back in the hallway downstairs and hearing the door to the attic slam behind him.
Dashiell’s face was as bright as a sunset, but Ghoulie was pretty sure he saw a thundercloud hovering above his head. At any rate, he stormed out of the house with the force of a gale wind.
“You just wait until I tell my grandma!” he yelled at the three behind him. Then he pointed at his stepsister, screaming, “You think you’ve been in trouble before, just wait! Letting the bird out of the cage was nothing! Rigging the trip wire to make the lamp fall over when you passed by was something else. I can do that kind of stuff all day, and Grandma will never know. You’re going to look like a walking catastrophe before I’m through with you!”
That’s when an acorn bopped him on the head. He looked up. His grandmother was leaning out her second-floor window, staring at him through a major scowl.
“Dashiell, you and I need to have a little talk,” she said before she pulled back through the window and slammed it closed.
Dashiell’s voice dropped to a hush, but it was a voice filled with venom. “I’ll get you!” he growled through clenched teeth. “I’ll get you all.”
He then spun around and stalked toward the tree. “I know about your stupid tree house and the Star-Fighters,” he said with a mocking laugh. “Star-Fighters!” he spat. “Who do you think you’re kidding?”
Dashiell burst out laughing even harder when he saw the plywood, pulley-driven elevator. “I could have done better with rubber bands and Popsicle sticks,” he said. “And you call this a transporter?”
When Dashiell reached a point about halfway up the tree, Ghoulie expected the tree to react to Dashiell’s bad intentions. When that didn’t happen, Ghoulie asked Beamer, “What’s wrong with the tree? It should have bumped him out by now — you know, the hurricane winds, the plague of insects and all?”
