by Becket
The motherboard powered back up. And almost instantly her nagging started up again too, continuing as if it had never stopped.
“—and another thing, you naughty little mechmage, I will not allow you to simply bring over guests whenever you like because this is my jack-o-lantern house and not—”
Gideon cowered when he heard his motherboard, wheeling back in fright.
“Excuse me, madam,” Mr. Fuddlebee interrupted, “allow me to introduce myself. My name is—”
“Who do you think you are?” the motherboard boomed furiously.
“I was just about to tell you.”
“You can’t just walk in here and interrupt a conversation!”
“Actually, I can, because I already did. What you should have said was that I should not do so because you think it is rude.”
The motherboard snapped her circuits for a second, but all she could come up with was, “Who do you think you are?”
The elderly ghost sighed. “Madam, I am an agent of SPOOK, and we require the services of Gideon Gizmo, who is very bright and knows an awful lot of things.”
The motherboard snapped her circuits again. “Are you sure you haven’t mixed him up with Willy the Widget Werewolf, who lives a few blocks down?”
“Quite sure, madam,” Mr. Fuddlebee said.
Gideon beeped and whistled a little timidly.
His motherboard snapped and clicked. “You most certainly may not! I forbid you to go with them.”
Gates spoke up. “Let him go, or we will take him from you.”
Mr. Fuddlebee coughed in embarrassment.
“What my dear friend is trying to say is that, madam, I fear you must let him come with us. As an agent of SPOOK for the Society of Mystical Creatures in Welkin City, I have the authority to override your programming.”
He gave a little nod to Gates. She turned and immediately hacked the motherboard again.
“However much it might hurt,” the elderly ghost went on, “you must let him go.”
“Done,” said Gates a second later. “The electronic umbilical has been cut.”
Gideon shut down.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Living Darkness
Gates took out a small metal machine, the size of a matchbox.
Mr. Fuddlebee eyed it with great curiosity.
“Is that a crinomatic, my dear?”
“It’s a mechomatic,” she answered.
“What’s the difference?” asked Beatrice.
“Crinomatics make clothes and gadgets,” Mr. Fuddlebee answered.
“Mechomatics only make mechanical devices,” Gates added.
Then she opened a panel on Gideon Gizmo’s chest, held the mechomatic in front of it, and commanded, “Logic board.”
The mechomatic lid opened. And out of this metallic little matchbox poured millions of little mechanical spiders called gossamingles. They went into Gideon’s system and built in his chest his own logic board, complete with processors and memory.
“Now he can think freely,” Gates said.
The mechmage powered back on with a chime.
Slowly his eyes glowed with new life. He looked at Bernard, Beatrice, and Berkeley. He looked at Gates and Mr. Fuddlebee. Then he made a few small questioning beeps.
“Most certainly,” Mr. Fuddlebee answered. “You have been pushed out of the nest, as they say. You are a free man, er, I mean mechmage.”
“Gideon?” his motherboard called out in a voice as timid as a mouse. “Gideon? Are you there? You seem so far away.”
The mechmage’s round eyes brightened. He heard his motherboard sniffling.
“Oh, Gideon Gizmo,” she said through an electronic sob, “I am going to miss you dearly.”
He beeped and whistled at her.
“Do you really promise you’ll visit?” she asked full of hope.
He beeped and whistled at her again, his tone growing in excitement.
“Oh, teatime would be wonderful!” she exclaimed delightedly. “I’ll set out some tea oil and my special diesel macaroon cookies.”
“Dear me,” Mr. Fuddlebee said, intrigued. “Those sound delicious. I would love the recipe.”
The next moment, Gideon Gizmo spun his wheels and sped out of his house in a flash.
“Come on,” Bernard said, “we’re going to lose him.”
So the ghost, the zombie cyber girl, and the three Button children hurried after Gideon Gizmo as fast as they could go.
He led them through the front door and into the thick forest behind his house.
The forest surrounded the whole hollow. It had many names, but it was commonly known as the Wicked Woodlands.
Lots of things lived in the Wicked Woodlands—old things, creepy things, crawling things. The trees were thick and they whispered to one another in a lost language. Some trees were alive, some were dead, and some were coming back to life. The moak trees were wood. The sine trees were stone. The krillows were steel. And the kinterthunk trees were unknown. You only went into the Wicked Woodlands when you had no other choice.
Yet Gideon went in there all the time.
Now he led the others down a narrow path. They were surrounded by darkness. It grew thicker the deeper they went. Soon they could no longer see the lanterns of the dwarves overhead. And soon after that they could no longer see the forest through the trees. And soon after that they could no longer see the trees. The darkness around them was so thick it was like ink. It was as if they were on a path in the middle of nothing.
The mechmage stopped. There was no more path ahead of him, only darkness. He wheeled around to face Mr. Fuddlebee. His circuits were clicking and clacking. He beeped timidly.
“This is it?” the elderly ghost asked, inspecting his surroundings.
Gideon nodded and whistled. He was shaking a little in fright.
“He says that the trespasser is here,” Gates told the Button children.
They all looked around, but they saw only the darkness around them.
“Who’s he beeping about?” Bernard whispered.
Mr. Fuddlebee pointed his onbrella at the darkness. The onbrella buzzed wildly. The elderly ghost studied the readout on the handle. The expression on his ghostly face changed suddenly from curiosity to caution. Then in a low voice he told the others, “I think it would be best if we made a hasty departure.”
He turned them all around and they started walking back up the path to Halloween Hollow.
“Mr. Fuddlebee,” whispered Bernard after they had gone a little ways back up the path, “what did you see?”
“It was the Darkness,” he whispered watchfully, as if someone might hear him.
“Are you afraid of the dark?” asked Beatrice, her voice low too.
The elderly ghost gave a little cough.
“I admit I have been known to sleep with a nightlight on while cuddling my teddy bear, Mr. Smoothie. However, that is not the kind of darkness I am concerned with at present. Do not trust the Darkness around us.”
The two older Button children did not understand what he was talking about. The toddler, Berkeley, did not care in the slightest. He had found a couple of Frightening Fireflies and was now using his power to make them fly around his head like a halo.
“Why is darkness untrustworthy?” asked Bernard.
“What’s so special about it?” asked Beatrice.
Gideon clicked at them.
“Quite true,” Mr. Fuddlebee agreed.
“Do not think of it as a darkness, but as the Darkness,” Gates whispered.
“And we should not think of the Darkness as an it, but as a him,” Mr. Fuddlebee added.
Right at that moment there was a rumbling all around them.
“What was that?” the Button children cried out.
“The Darkness,” Mr. Fuddlebee spoke up. “He is alive. And he is a tad peckish.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Flood of Darkness
The Darkness rumbled again. It sounded like crue
l laughter. Before anyone could say another word, the Darkness began to move. It was as if an ocean of ink had parted around them, yet now was crashing down over their heads.
“Run!” Mr. Fuddlebee shouted at them.
All together they fled. Gideon peeled his wheels. Bernard carried Berkeley. Gates and Beatrice held hands. Mr. Fuddlebee floated along. And the six of them hurried as fast as they could back toward Gideon’s house.
Beatrice took her calculator out of her bookbag. She began doing the math.
“If this Darkness is falling on us at a rate of four feet a second, and if we are running at about seven feet per second, then—”
“We will not make it,” Gates interrupted, who had also done the math in her head.
“Mr. Fuddlebee,” said Bernard, “isn’t there anything we can do?”
Gideon Gizmo was beeping and whistling at the elderly ghost too.
“I’m thinking, dear boy,” he replied. “I’m thinking.”
Everyone kept fleeing as quickly as they could, yet they all watched Mr. Fuddlebee with hopeful expressions.
The three Button children, the zombie cyber girl, and the mechmage did not get far when the elderly ghost had an idea.
“Although I am not sure if it will work. It will depend on some of you.”
“Tell us what it is,” said Gates.
“Yes,” said Beatrice, “we’ll do anything you say.”
“I’m ready,” said Bernard, trying to be brave.
Gideon Gizmo beeped and whistled. Then he wheeled a little closer to Mr. Fuddlebee. He did not want to miss a word.
Everyone else did likewise, all moving a little closer to the floating ghost.
“We’re listening,” said Beatrice. “Come on. Tell us.”
Mr. Fuddlebee started to speak, but the Darkness rumbled again. It was getting closer and closer. The sound was fearsome.
“We didn’t hear you,” said Bernard.
“Tell us again,” said Beatrice.
Mr. Fuddlebee rubbed his ghostly chin. “I fear it might not work after all,” he said with a sad sigh. “I mean he is only two years old. Such a small boy could not do something so magical and wonderful. Could he? I’m just not sure.”
Beatrice stared in wonder at her little brother.
“You mean Berkeley?”
“Exactly so,” he replied. “The one with the unusual ability to make things float through the air. Tell me, has he ever moved a football before?”
“He has,” Bernard said.
“How can all that help us?” asked Beatrice.
“If our young Mr. Berkeley can make a football float,” Mr. Fuddlebee said, “then perhaps he can make a few of these branches float too. Do you see them all?”
There was less black and more light. They were starting to see the trees around them again. There were branches on the ground too, of all shapes and sizes, made of wood or stone or metal.
“What do you want Berkeley to do with all these sticks?” asked Bernard.
Mr. Fuddlebee pointed his onbrella behind them.
“I would like him to lift up all of these branches and stack them in the path behind us—the way a beaver dams a river.”
“How would that stop the Darkness?” asked Beatrice.
“He wants to slow it down,” Gates said, beginning to understand.
“This Darkness is not like any other darkness you might see,” Mr. Fuddlebee explained. “You will feel when it touches you.”
The Button children already could. The Darkness was splashing around their heels, trying to make them slip and trip.
Bernard was still carrying his little brother. He gave Berkeley a worried look.
“Can you do this for us?”
In response, Berkeley used his power to lift up a bundle of branches, float them behind everyone, and drop them in the path.
The Darkness crashed into them and knocked them over. The bundle did not stop the flood, but it did slow it a little.
“Your job is to hold him,” Mr. Fuddlebee said to Bernard.
So the older brother held the younger up a little higher.
The toddler reached out and lifted more branches into the air. But this time he threw them too far into the Darkness.
The flood swallowed them whole without slowing.
“He missed!” cried Beatrice.
“This is where you come in,” the elderly ghost said to her. “You will have to tell him how far he must throw the branches.”
“That will take much calculation,” said Gates.
“That is why your job will be to double check her math,” replied Mr. Fuddlebee.
Gideon Gizmo beeped and whistled.
“Of course you can help too,” Mr. Fuddlebee told him. “Once the branches are thrown, you must cast a spell to set them on fire. That will slow the Darkness too.”
Bernard was having trouble believing this would work.
“How can a few branches stop all this Darkness? A whole forest would have to do it.”
“My dear boy,” replied Mr. Fuddlebee, “a whole forest is exactly what we have. These branches are quite strong, I assure you.”
“If they are so strong, why are they on the ground?”
“They have been knocked off in pieces, some here, some there. But once we have gathered them together, they will be as strong as a forest once more. These branches are like all of us. By ourselves the Darkness might break us. Yet together we might be strong enough to break its power.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Berkeley Saves Everyone
Beatrice calculated the chances of Mr. Fuddlebee’s plan working. The results on her calculator showed her that it had a better chance of success than their trying to outrun the flood of Darkness.
“It is a good plan,” Gates agreed.
Gideon Gizmo whistled and beeped his excitement. He thought it was a marvelous plan too.
So did Berkeley. In fact, even before Mr. Fuddlebee finished explaining it, the toddler had already started using his power to lift more branches off the forest floor and hurtle them in piles on the path behind. Sometimes he overshot and sometimes he was dead on.
The Darkness slowed slightly whenever it crashed against the bundles of sticks.
Mr. Fuddlebee chuckled.
“Wait, my boy, just wait. Wait for your sister to tell you how far they need to be thrown.”
The Darkness rushed nearer and nearer, flooding faster and faster. The path beneath their feet was starting to rumble and shake.
The three Button children, the zombie cyber girl, the mechmage, and the ghost tried to flee a little faster, but they were going as fast as they could, and they were getting tired.
Mr. Fuddlebee told Bernard to hold out his little brother. Then the ghost told Beatrice and Gates to begin calculating the distances. He told Berkeley to get ready to start piling up sticks behind them. Finally the elderly ghost told Gideon Gizmo to prepare to set the bundles alight.
Everyone did just what Mr. Fuddlebee said. They knew that he knew best and they would not argue with him anymore.
He floated nearer to Berkeley and spoke in a low voice.
“My dear sir, I know you are quite young and have not experienced much of the world. And there are many things to try, such as kindergarten, pumpkin rum, and trampolines. Although this is a most difficult task, it is also the most important. I know you can do it.”
He gave the toddler a wink.
Berkeley tried to wink back, but he had not quite learned to do so, so all he gave Mr. Fuddlebee in reply was a blink. It was good enough. They were all ready now.
It did not take long before everybody was working together like a smooth, finely tuned machine.
Bernard was strong. He kept running as fast as he could to outrun the flood of Darkness. And at the same time, he held up his little brother Berkeley.
Beatrice was trying to keep up beside them. But she was not used to running. She focused her attention on her calculator, doing very difficult math.
She had to calculate how fast they were running, how fast the flood would reach them, and how far behind Berkeley would have to pile the sticks and branches. She had never had a more difficult pop quiz in her life. Everyone’s life depended on her solving the problems and coming up with the correct answers.
Gates was right beside her the whole time, holding her hand, and helping her keep going. She heard Beatrice’s answers and double-checked them with the robotic part of her brain.
The only one truly enjoying himself was Berkeley. He loved using his power to pick up sticks and throw them before the flood. He loved to watch the Darkness crash against it. And he really loved when Gideon Gizmo set the bundles on fire.
The mechmage could have wheeled faster than everyone else ran, but he kept a slower pace beside his new friends. He would not abandon them because he enjoyed helping them. So to set the branches alight, he wove a long magic word over them right when Berkeley threw them.
The branches burst into flames and scattered the Darkness, slowing the flood even more.
The whole time Mr. Fuddlebee was floating between them, and encouraging them with, “Well done!” and “Excellent sums!” and “Jolly good toss!” and “Good show of magic!”
They could all see Mr. Fuddlebee’s plan in motion. Hope started to swell inside their hearts.
Soon they could see the lights in the carved windows of Gideon’s home. The jack-o-lantern house was not too far ahead.
“Keep going!” Mr. Fuddlebee urged. “You all are doing wonderfully! It looks like we might make it!”
“Oh no!” shouted Beatrice, wide-eyed with worry. “My mind wandered. I need to restart.”
Berkeley overthrew a pile of branches. They flew past the flood. The Darkness took this opportunity to rush at them faster than before.
“Hurry!” shouted Bernard. “It’s gaining on us!”
“Let me help,” said Gates.
She and Beatrice started saying math problems together, like tennis players hitting the ball back and forth. Beatrice said one number and Gates said another, then Beatrice said another, and Gates sent another right back at her. They worked together beautifully.
