“Okay. How ‘bout this couch?” Nori said as she gestured at the long old-fashioned sofa sitting in the middle of the room.
“That’s way too big to—” Chase began.
But Nori was already saying, “Couch, corner.” Pop! The couch vanished. A split second later, it popped into the corner as if it belonged there. “Couch, hall.” Pop! It disappeared again and reappeared out in the hallway. “Couch, back here!” Pop! It was back where it started.
“You did it!” exclaimed Andy. “Wow! You’re good at magic.”
“That was…a-amazing,” said Chase, scratching his head and looking like he’d never seen real magic done before that moment.
“Good job, Nori!” said Benjamin, smiling. “You rarely see anyone move something this large right away.”
“Yeah, uh, good job,” echoed Chase. He stifled the small prickle of jealousy he was feeling. It had taken him hours and hours of practicing his telekinesis before he was able to move something the size of a couch.
Nori looked pleased by all their compliments. “Thanks. It was pretty easy, too. Here, let me try the animal one.”
“What’s your favorite animal?” asked Andy.
Nori rubbed her finger around the outside of the shiny yellow bracelet. “I don’t have any favorite ones,” she said with a smile, “but when I was a little kid I always wanted some pet goats.”
The last word was barely out of her mouth when the air shimmered with powerful magic. Nori blinked and gazed around. “Hey, you guys, where’d you go?”
“Maaa!”
Nori felt a tug on her pants and looked down. A small, chubby white goat was now chewing on the hem of her jeans. “What the heck? Where’d you come from?”
“Maaaa!”
She swung around. A much larger black and white goat had started to gnaw on the coffee table, like it was a delicious hunk of chocolate. “Uh-oh!”
“Maaa! Maaa!”
Nori turned slowly to see two brown and white, medium-sized goats munching on the sofa cushions. One of them swiveled its head to stare at her. A clump of stuffing hung from the side of its mouth as its bottom jaw moved round and round in slow chewing motions. Its scraggly chin hairs waggled with each chomp.
“Chase?” she croaked.
“Maaa.”
“Oh no!” cried Nori, propping a hand on her hip and running the other through her hair. “How did this happen? And how do I fix it? I’m usually pretty good at solving problems, but magical ones? I am so clueless. That’s something I’ve never had to do. I mean, controlling my own power has always been pretty easy. I don’t think I’ve ever had any screw-ups before this. At least, none that I can remember. Oh, just stop babbling and do something!” She groaned. “They’re going to kill me.”
She felt more tugging on her pants. While her mind had been on her predicament, the small goat had eaten half her left pant leg and was now starting on the right one. Shaking her leg, she hopped away. “Hey! Stop that! You ruined my pants!”
“Maaa!” complained the little goat as it trotted to a chair and proceeded to tear chunks of padding from the seat. Meanwhile, the large black and white goat had finished with the coffee table and was now wolfing down several books and a lamp shade.
“What in the world can the counterspell be?” Nori asked herself. “There has to be one. Oh, why doesn’t this stuff come with a manual?”
“Maaa.”
Nori looked down. One of the medium-sized goats had stopped devouring the sofa and was now seated on its haunches in front of Nori. It flicked its ears and twitched its nose. Its nose. Nori leaned closer. A small nose-ring twinkled on its hairy little snout.
“Persephone?”
“Maaa!”
“Oh boy, I wish you could talk!” Nori exclaimed.
“Maaa.”
“I don’t speak goat, but I bet you said, ‘me, too.’ “ Nori grinned. “Great. I’m talking to a goat. Ugh! Why am I smiling? I turned my new family into a bunch of furniture-chomping critters! Okay. Counterspell.” She paced back and forth several times. Whirling, she pointed at Persephone. “Change back!”
“Maa!”
“Nothing! Shoot. ‘Person!’ Crap! What the heck is it? Come on, Nori, think! Maybe I should go find Uncle Hiram. He’ll know how to fix this, but then he’ll also know how seriously lame I am. Yep, the one Tinker who completely screwed things up. No. No. Don’t think like that. Everything’s going to be fine. I can fix this on my own. I just need to calm down and concentrate.” Nori chewed on her thumb nail for a few long moments. As she dropped her hand to her side, the tinkling of her bracelets hitting against each other caught her attention. Raising her arm, she stared at the jewelry, then reached out and ran her finger slowly along the sparkling edge of the yellow one. “Goat.” A split second later, she was eye to eye with Persephone.
“Maaa,” bleated Nori. She blinked her big, brown, goat eyes. “Myself again,” she thought.
She gave a delighted laugh when she saw she really was her normal self once again. She flicked her hand at Persephone. “Herself again.”
Magic swirled around the Persephone goat. She rippled like water flowing over rocks and formed into her human self. “Thank goodness!” she exclaimed. “I was worried I was about to spend the rest of my life chewing on the furniture.”
Nori grinned. “Don’t worry. I’d’ve taken you outside to eat some grass and weeds, too,” she teased. She swished her hand through the air. “Themselves again.”
The other three goats instantly transformed into Chase, Benjamin and Andy.
Chase quickly spit out the drapery he was munching on. “Patooey! Gak. Yuck!”
Rubbing his stomach and grimacing, Benjamin wandered across the room. “Ooh, I feel awful. I think I better go get some antacid or something. I’ll see you kids later.”
Feeling guilty, Nori watched him stagger out the doorway. “I hope he’ll be okay. He did eat an awful lot.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Andy. “Look at the mess! Mom isn’t going to like this one bit.”
“Who would’ve thought four goats could cause so much trouble,” said Nori as she twisted her fingers together and surveyed the room.
Nothing was left of the coffee table but a few splintery chunks; the sofas and chairs were shredded, with most of the padding either eaten or strewn all over the floor; books, lamps, and footstools were chewed up almost beyond recognition.
“I think—” began Persephone.
“Oh, man. Gross!” Chase’s angry voice echoed through the room as he hopped around on one foot, his nose wrinkled in complete disgust. “I just stepped in a pile of smelly—Andy, did you do this?”
“I couldn’t help it,” said Andy. “I was a goat.”
“This sucks!”
Nori stared at the carpet. “I guess I still need a lot of practice, don’t I?”
“Aw, don’t beat yourself up over it,” said Persephone. “We’ve all had our magical mishaps. Has anyone told you about the time Chase turned his teacher into a puddle of goo?”
“He did?”
Chase vaulted across the floor with one shoe off and one shoe on. “That was an accident.” If any stories were going to be told, he wanted his own versions to be heard, not someone else’s that would probably make him look like a total loser. “Besides, I think we all need more practice, and Nori promised to teach us some good self-defense moves. So who’s first?”
“But shouldn’t we clean this room first?” asked Nori.
“Oh, yeah.” Chase kicked aside a clump of padding. “Why don’t you use the Tidy Room magic I gave you?”
“Sure you trust me with another power?” Nori said with a wry twist of her lips. “I might turn you guys into feather dusters.”
“Uh…we’ll stand over here, then,” said Chase as he hustled himself and Persephone and Andy out into the hallway. “Okay, go for it.”
Nori closed her eyes and rubbed the green bracelet for extra courage. “Tidy the room,” she whispered. Five seco
nds later, several small tornados popped into the room and swirled around sucking up the dust and debris and repairing the furniture. “All right! It worked!”
“Cool! But can we go now?” whined Andy as he busily scratched his head.
“ ‘Cause I think I have a bad case of fleas.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Off and Running
This afternoon. They were leaving for Blackshire this afternoon. Everything was set. They’d practiced and perfected their magic until everyone had the ability to do it standing on their heads, blindfolded, while thousands of fireballs were thrown at them. Well, maybe not blindfolded, thought Chase as he pulled a bunch of books and papers from his backpack, but he figured they were pretty much as ready as they were ever going to be, even though his dad continued to go on and on about how much he wished they had more time. The thing was, Chase knew if it was up to Benjamin, they would never go.
He paused. All of a sudden his heart had started to pound, faster and faster, and he was having trouble breathing. He slapped his hand to his chest and forced himself to take slow, deep breaths. The nagging worries and doubts he’d worked so hard to keep away for the past several days had popped up again. It wasn’t something he’d say to any of the others, particularly to his dad, but he wondered if they were really ready to face the Marlowes. Besides the ones they’d already met, no one knew how many more of the evil creeps lived in Blackshire, or somewhere around there. The Tinkers might be seriously outnumbered. They might not even stand a chance. No! He wasn’t going to let himself think that way. He shook his head in an attempt to get rid of the unwanted feelings. Grandfather had said that two of the most important things to do were to stay confident and focused.
“I know everything’s gonna be okay,” Chase murmured.
He glanced down at the math papers clutched in his hand—just something else for him to worry and stress about these days. It was a wonder he made it through each day without having a nervous breakdown. He dropped onto the bed and stared at the rumpled pages. Only one had a barely passing grade. The rest he’d failed.
“Why can’t math be easy, like magic?” he said. “Too bad I can’t sneeze on them and make all the answers magically correct.”
Then he remembered something that had happened to him after he’d sneezed the other day. Another power had shown itself, but one he’d never seen before. His dark hair had turned a bright shade of blue and his plain shirt was instantly speckled with orange and purple polka dots. He’d figured out later that his new power was the ability to change things like colors, patterns, numbers, symbols…and letters.
He passed his hand over the page. The large red F slashed across the top instantly changed to the letter A, while all the red checks next to the different math problems became smiley faces. He brushed his hand back over the page. The F returned, along with the red checks. Brushing his finger across just the F, he watched as it turned into a C. He changed it back again and sighed. Being a troublemaker was one thing, but cheating—that was something different. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. But pretty soon, he assured himself, he wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore—because everything would be so much better after the rescue mission. He’d be able to relax and put his mind to studying once Janie and the Shard of Magic were both back in the Tinker house, safe and sound.
He jumped when the door burst open and Andy barreled into the room. The papers flew from Chase’s hand and fluttered to the floor.
“Hey, Chase! What’re you doing?”
“Uh…nothing much,” he said, gathering the papers before Andy saw all the red marks scrawled across them. “Just going over my schoolwork.”
Andy pointed to a strange-looking, crumpled object lying on Chase’s bed. “What’s this?”
“I…um…kind of accidentally put my enchanted sunglasses down the magical laundry chute.”
“Aw, man! Those were way cool. How lame was that?”
“I know. I can’t believe I was such an idiot,” Chase said as he crammed everything back into his backpack. “Not exactly something you want all clean and folded, huh? So, what’s up with you?”
“Dad wanted me to tell you to be sure to eat something before we go,” said Andy. “He said it’s going to be a long night. Why are we leaving so early, anyway?”
“You know how New York is three hours later than here?” said Chase. “Well Blackshire is eight hours ahead of us, so when we get there it’ll be a couple hours before midnight.”
“Oooh,” said Andy with a nod as he darted into the bathroom and slammed the door. “Good thing you guys are in charge!” he hollered. “I never would’ve thought of that.” Two minutes later, he dashed back out, drying his hands on his pants. “Now come on. Quit messing around. We have to go.”
Chase grabbed his warmest jacket and his beanie and slipped them on. Checking his pockets, he found his lucky race car that he’d enchanted with the teleporting power. “Hey, shrimp, you got all your extra magic?”
“Yep,” Andy answered. “My baseball cap, my glasses, my baseball card and…” He grinned and pulled something out of his pocket. A realistic-looking plastic spider sat in the middle of his palm. “…my scary spider.”
Chase shook his head and returned Andy’s grin. “You and your bugs.”
“It’s not a bug, it’s an arachnid.”
“Whatever. Just don’t lose it.”
On the way to the kitchen, where everyone was supposed to meet, Chase sucked in several more calming breaths. Everything’s going to be okay, he told himself once more. He still had a hard time believing that nearly two months had passed and they were finally ready to go kick some Marlowe butts and bring Janie home. It felt good to be doing something at last, and yet, at the same time, the small spark of unease that had started deep inside him just wouldn’t stop burning.
The others were already there when Chase and Andy strode through the kitchen door. Even Mrs. Periwinkle was seated in her rocking chair, busily working on her knitting. Chase squared his shoulders. Persephone’s mom was another important reason for their plan to succeed. She had to get back to her normal self.
“You guys about ready to go?” asked Benjamin.
“Yep. I even peed,” Andy answered proudly, while Chase gave a quick nod.
Benjamin grinned. “Glad to hear it.”
“Oh, and here’s my baseball card for you to teleport us with,” Andy said as he handed over his favorite Ichiro card.
“Thanks,” said Ben. He slipped it into his pocket. “I’ll get it back to you when we’re done.”
Chase grabbed a sandwich from a plate piled high with them. His stomach was a bit queasy, but he forced himself to eat. He needed all the strength and energy he could muster to face whatever was in store for them once they reached Blackshire. He didn’t want his stomach growling at him the whole time, either.
Persephone and Nori were sitting side-by-side at the island counter. They both looked tight-lipped and a little on the green side.
“You guys okay?” asked Chase. It looked as though he wasn’t the only one whose nerves were teetering on the edge of a breakdown.
“I—” squeaked Nori. She cleared her throat. “I mean,” she began in a more normal voice, even though it still sounded a little higher than usual, “I’m hanging in there.” She gave him a small, lopsided smile. “At least I haven’t puked yet.”
Persephone bobbed her head in agreement. “No puking. No fainting. Just my stomach doing back flips, is all.”
“Remember, strong magic is afoot tonight,” said Grandfather from his rocking chair next to Mrs. Periwinkle. “And you have the element of surprise and weeks of training on your side as well.”
“I can’t believe you’re all doing this,” Anne choked out hoarsely. She stood in a corner, her arms crossed tightly across her chest. “I’m worried sick!”
Benjamin crossed the kitchen and pulled her into a tight hug. “We’ll be okay. We’ll be back safe and sound before you know it.”
>
Anne sniffled and pushed away from him. “I’d prefer if everyone stayed here safe and sound! Not out some place being tortured, or—or worse!” She went to give all the kids a hug.
When she reached Nori she said, “I know your mother must be as worried as I am.”
Nori twisted the ends of her hair around her finger. “Oh—oh yeah. She’s…uh…she’s doing her best. As usual.”
“Maybe I’d be better off if I was like Miranda,” Anne said, while she squashed the air out of Chase. “Oblivious to—”
He pulled away from her. “Don’t say that!” he burst out. “Not ever again! That’s a big reason why we’re doing this. To stop what happened to Persephone’s mom from happening to you or anyone else!” He didn’t need to hear more of her negative comments. He had enough worries of his own buzzing around in his head. “Come on, you guys, we better get going.”
The girls hopped off their stools and hurried to Chase’s side. Benjamin gave Anne’s arm a squeeze as he slipped past her, while Andy grasped her in another quick hug. “Don’t worry, Mom,” he said, “we’ll come back okay. We have to. Chase is gonna owe me five bucks pretty soon.”
Chase pulled Andy into their circle. “You don’t know until the bet is over, dork.”
“What bet?” asked Persephone.
“It’s—”
“You can talk about it later,” Benjamin cut in. “Anyway, we decided we’d start looking for Janie in the building where I was held captive—”
“You decided,” muttered Chase.
“They like to use the place as a prison,” said Ben. “I’ve already told you we can’t rely on your so-called ‘premonition’ about her running free.”
“But I think we should go to—”
“Off you go, then!” said Grandfather loudly. “The quicker you get there, the sooner you’ll be back.”
Chase and Benjamin glowered at each other as they all grabbed each others’ arms.
Chase Tinker and the House of Secrets Page 19
