The room erupted with laughter, as the piano player, a waiter, and a waitress slipped away, for fear of being caught in the impending crossfire.
Shard Pinch rolled his shoulders and marched over to the three strangers. On meeting a new person, most people would worry about being liked, or saying something embarrassing, or doing that thing where you accidently spit a tiny piece of food while talking. But Shard was not most people, and instead was wondering what he could get out of these three strangers, and how he might inflict the biggest amount of suffering while getting it.
“Your friend . . .” Pinch said, pointing with the barrel of his weapon at the third frail figure, “looks pretty close to dead, so why don’t you drop him where you see a space on the floor—and get yourself a drink, ha ha ha, ha ha ha, HA.”
His gang laughed too and made mocking sounds.
“Shut up!” roared Pinch. Then he looked at Mandy Zilch, who was holding a beautiful red velvet cupcake on a little plate. Pinch looked at it, then at Zilch. “And who might this nice yun’ lady in tartan be?” Pinch said, grabbing the cake and shoveling it into his mouth. “Hmmmmmm, wow, hmmmmmmmmmmmm, oh, hmmmmmmmmmm, hmmmmmmm, hmmmmmmm, heaven, hmmmmmmmmm,” he said, completely unaware of the tiny body-swap-bot hidden in the fluffy sweetness. The first cake had been eaten by Thrax moments before entering the tavern.
“That was the tastiest baked thing I ever had! Now, are you some kind of magic bakers?”
“Yes indeed,” said Tubb seriously. “We’re master cooks, but definitely not an evil time-traveling gang that wishes to eradicate knowledge by causing as much loss in the world as possible.”
Mandy Zilch smiled. “And I’m just a lonesome human hybrid, Mr. Pinch, who needed a home for her cupcake.”
Pinch was confused as to how she knew his name, but liked how weak and vulnerable she sounded. The taste of the cupcake was still in his mouth, and the lingering sweetness made him wonder if she had any more.
Then Tubb spoke again. “We have gold for you too, Mr. Pinch.” He emptied out his pockets and heavy coins tumbled to the floor.
Everyone gasped. Pinch’s sudden excitement quickly turned to suspicion. “And what do you want in return?”
“For our friend to die with a great outlaw leader such as yourself at his bedside.”
“Me? An outlaw?” Pinch said, vanity clouding his judgment. If there was one thing Pinch loved, it was himself. “Why, mister, I’m just a law-abiding sheriff, judge, mayor, and president. Who said I was an outlaw? Who?”
Everyone in the room twitched with nervousness.
“You calling me a criminal of some description?” Pinch said, unwisely eyeballing the frail figure of Cava Calla Thrax. “That’s what you think I am, grandpa?”
Then, with the certainty that everyone was under his spell of menace, a corner of Pinch’s mouth curled up into a smile.
“Well, I am feeling merciful at the sight of this gold, and so I’ll forgive y’all for thinking bad of me, and will allow your dying friend to pass away in my good company, in return for something of course . . .”
Pinch turned sharply to a couple of his men, who were sitting with their legs on an empty chair.
“Take them upstairs to one of the rooms! Then guard the door until I get there,” he said, staring down at all the gold coins on the tavern floor. “Your accomplice can die in peace. Then you can tell me where you got those coins—or you’ll be joining him sooner than you expected.”
Tubb pretended to be nervous. “Y-y-yes, Mr. Pinch,” he said, “we’ll tell you everything there is about our coins.”
“And baking! I want to know about that too!”
Pinch’s men escorted the three Losers up the staircase, and into one of the empty rooms on the second floor of the saloon. Pinch watched them disappear, chewing on a slimy cigar end.
While the outlaw’s men guarded the door, Tubb and Zilch got their dying leader into bed.
There was a chair in the corner of the room, and Tubb brought it over to be near the thin, sickly figure propped up on pillows. The chair looked small in Tubb’s enormous hands. There was no way his massive frame would fit, so Zilch sat there instead.
Suddenly Pinch burst in without knocking and plonked himself down on the bed next to the very old, white-haired Roman under grubby sheets.
With each swig of liquor, Shard Pinch’s vanity seemed to get the better of his lingering suspicion. The tiny robot he had swallowed was now working away as it had been programmed, zooming around the brain collecting and downloading data ready to beam over to the other tiny robot now in Thrax’s body.
Shard Pinch truly believed that the gray, sickly figure in the bed saw him as a sort of hero outlaw. The truth is that no one had ever admired Pinch before. Even as a baby, he was ignored and despised. No one held him, or kept him safe. Growing up, Pinch had learned that if he couldn’t earn love, he could command obedience through fear. And so when a withered hand appeared from under the bedclothes, despite how disgusting and claw-like it was—Shard Pinch felt as though he owed it to the old man to hold it. But as soon as he did the old fellow’s eyes opened slowly, and his lips rolled upward into a grin.
Then something very strange happened. Something most peculiar that Pinch did not have any words to explain.
He was suddenly in the bed, holding hands with himself. He watched the grin he had seen on the old man’s face appear on his own, and there he was, lying in the bed in the old man’s body. He felt the impulse to jump up and scream, but there was no strength in his muscles. Worse than that, his eyes wanted to close.
Pinch tried to let go of the hand (his hand), but suddenly wasn’t strong enough. He tried to cry out to the members of his gang, but his mouth was old and brittle. With one final heaving gasp, he shouted, “Help me!” But his two men just stared. They had no idea that through some kind of futuristic technology hidden inside cupcakes, their sheriff was now in the body of the old man dying in the bed.
His eyelids got very heavy then, like two lead curtains. He felt a weakness in his body that he’d never known, but which he suspected must be old age. He wanted to grab his pistols, but he couldn’t move. And whom would he have shot anyway? Himself?
Everyone stared as Shard Pinch cradled the old, dying man in his arms with a large grin.
“Not everyone gets to die with such honor,” said Pinch—who was now Thrax.
Then the old white-haired stranger in the bed croaked, “I’m Shard Pinch!” and everyone laughed as they would laugh at a child pretending to be his hero.
With that, the vicious outlaw took his last breath in the wrong body.
The body-swap-bots had worked.
The new Shard Pinch stood and turned to his men. “Unless you want to die a very slow and painful death—tell me where I can take a bath.”
“Er, yessir!”
“And get me some conditioner.”
“What’s that?”
“Curses,” said Pinch. “It hasn’t been invented yet.”
When the two members of Pinch’s gang had left the room, Mandy Zilch stared at the new Shard Pinch, her circuits blazing under the bonnet.
“Is that you, Master Thrax?”
“Of course it’s me,” Thrax said. “Just be glad you didn’t mess up this mission the way Gareth Milk ruined his chance to destroy the B.D.B.U.”
“It was his sister’s fault,” Zilch said, her circuits fizzing with hatred for the disgusting human quality of compassion Gertie Milk had shown in the ruthless Chinese king’s palace.
“I don’t care,” Thrax said. “If Vispoth’s plan works, we’ll be rid of them both, once and for all.”
Thrax then pulled a flat sheet off the bed, which he quickly fashioned into a sort of Roman toga.
“Now get out while I change,” he said. “And go draw me a bath! I want bubbles! Lots and lots of bubbles!”
“How should I know? Make them if you have to!” Thrax barked. “There are more beans here than a vegan wedding.”
Vispoth’s plan was running like clockwork. All they had to do now was find some disgusting nine-year-old creature named Max Franks, slap a magnetic cuff on his ankle, and pack him off with a one-way ticket to the Black Hole of Calcutta.
12
The Spirit of Keepers Lost
GERTIE AND KOLT STEPPED cautiously toward the golden glow, still hovering in the distance.
As they got nearer, both Keepers realized it was coming from something buried in the ground.
“Be careful!” shouted Kolt. “Don’t get too close until we know what it’s going to do!”
“What could it do?” Gertie said.
“I don’t know exactly,” Kolt said. “Maybe turn us into light balls?”
“Light balls?” Gertie said. “You mean lightbulbs?”
“No! I mean BALLS.”
“Like Cave Sprites?”
“Nah, I was thinking more like ball lightning.”
Gertie tried to imagine herself as a sphere of electricity. “I think it’s going to blind us,” she admitted, “though not permanently, but in a weird way where, say, tomorrow we wake up and have some kind of magical power?”
“Oh, I’d love that!” gushed Kolt. “What kind of power do you think?”
Now they were only yards away.
“Maybe we should talk about this later!” Gertie suggested. “In case it’s dangerous!”
“Good idea.”
“Personally,” she went on, “I don’t think this is a Loser trap anymore.”
“You don’t?” Kolt said.
Gertie took out her Viking ax. “I think I know what it is,” she went on, now chopping at the ground. Kolt joined her, trying not to look directly into the light.
“Because it’s not just a glow,” she said, squinting, “there’s also a vibration!”
Kolt was squinting too. “What does that mean?”
“It’s a key!” Gertie blurted out, remembering the morning she woke up on Skuldark, and her trip through the cliff. “It’s a Keepers’ key, I’m sure of it!”
Kolt didn’t believe her. “This thing in the ground is a Keepers’ key, you say?”
“My key vibrated when I was lost, under the mountain, before you discovered me sleeping at the edge of Fern Valley.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Kolt said. “Vibrating keys?”
“Well, it’s true,” Gertie told him, trying to think of a reason why Kolt hadn’t experienced this phenomenon before. “Maybe I got a newer model than you?”
Kolt whisked the Keepers’ key from the pocket of his shredded, mud-splattered pants and looked at it. “So I got the boring one?”
“This key might even lead us to Robot Rabbit Boy. You did say there were things in the Ruined Village that protected Keepers—maybe this is one of them?” Gertie added, hacking away with her ax.
“I don’t see how, and be careful you don’t chop your hand off!”
“Then I could get a hook, like the pirate in a book I’m reading . . .”
“What book?”
“Look, we’re almost there, Kolt . . .”
He tried to look, but the light was still too dazzling. “Let’s hope it is a key and not something vicious,” Kolt said. “We’re wet, hungry, and tired, the last thing we need is a radioactive worm chasing us around.”
“Trust me, Kolt, it’s not a worm—it’s a Keepers’ key.”
“Well, if it’s much deeper, I say we come back after we’ve found Robot Rabbit Boy.”
Gertie agreed. Then the soil became hot and steamy. Gertie reached in and plucked from the ground a glowing Keepers’ key.
Kolt was lost for words. As soon as Gertie touched it, the small silver instrument for opening doors and operating time machines ceased glowing and was just a normal piece of metal with twirly bits in the handle. Gertie gave it to Kolt to inspect.
“Yes! This is the real thing all right,” he marveled. Then he took a whiff, and turned away quickly. “It smells like rotting fish for some reason.”
“What should we do?”
“Wash it, most likely . . .”
“No! With the key!”
“Since it was glowing and shaking before you touched it, I’m thinking we have to return it?”
Gertie’s body was shaking with excitement. “To a missing Keeper, you mean?”
It was what she had hoped for, but her excitement was dampened by the fact that they still hadn’t found Robot Rabbit Boy.
She slipped the new key into her pocket and got up. She was about to suggest they split up to search the Ruined Village, but then spotted something in the distance. It was something quite small, a gray bundle stirring at the bottom of a half-crumbled wall. Kolt and Gertie exchanged quick glances, then took off running.
When they got there, Robot Rabbit Boy was fast asleep, with one arm still balancing the plate of double-Dutch-chunk chocolate cookies Kolt had asked him to get.
“You’re alive!” Gertie screamed, joy gushing from every pore in her body. Rabbit Robot Boy’s eyes shot open. They were usually pink in the morning, but now they were bright green. He blinked a few times, then handed Kolt the tray of cookies.
“Marvelous,” Kolt said, putting one in his mouth. “I’m starving.”
Robot Rabbit Boy yawned and stretched out his paws.
“What happened?” Gertie asked.
“Eggcup?”
Kolt swallowed and reached for another. “What on earth are you doing out here? You were only supposed to cross the kitchen! We’ve been out all night and were almost killed by prehistoric rhinos.”
“Smushed?”
“Yes, exactly,” Kolt said. “Like dollops of mashed potato.”
“Go easy on him!” said Gertie, scooping the Series 7 into her arms. “He’s only a rabbit!”
* * *
‹‹ • • • ››
THEY ARRIVED BACK AT the cottage sometime in the late afternoon. The first thing to do was warm up with long, hot baths as a slab of cheese lasagna bubbled away in the oven.
When it was ready, they ate together at the table, staring at the Keepers’ key before them.
“Well, it’s not mine,” Kolt said.
“And it’s not mine,” said Gertie. “And Robot Rabbit Boy never had one.”
“Lavender?” the Series 7 said, folding his arms.
“I mean,” Gertie corrected herself, “Robot Rabbit Boy doesn’t need one. So then who does it belong to?”
“Mashed potato?”
“I have a theory, Gertie, based on what I said in the Ruined Village, and it has to do with all your research!”
“You think the B.D.B.U. heard about the Keepers trapped somewhere in history? And wants to help?”
“I don’t know if it heard us, but something weird is going on.”
“I know!” Gertie said triumphantly. “So if we return the key, we find . . .”
“Its owner,” said Kolt. “A missing Keeper of Lost Things.”
“The island might be jam-packed with buried keys!” Gertie said, looking around. “We found this one because it was glowing. Maybe the others will do the same?”
“Something has certainly changed,” said Kolt. “Maybe the B.D.B.U. has decided it’s time for us to start finding them—hence the dazzling light you saw from the Spitfire?”
“Oh, I love that crusty old book!” cried Gertie. “It must have figured out what I’ve been trying to tell it about rescuing lost Keepers!”
“Lavender eggcups!”
“That’s right,” Gertie said moving the fur from his eyes in a gentle, circular motion. “You led
us right to it, you clever little rabbit.”
“He really does love getting his eyes swirled,” Kolt said.
“Well, he deserves it.”
“For running away and almost getting us all killed?”
Robot Rabbit Boy’s glowing eyes went dark blue. “Mush,” he said quietly.
“Don’t listen to Kolt,” Gertie told him soothingly, “you helped us find the key. I don’t think you going missing with a plate of cookies was an accident, it was part of a plan.”
“Hmm,” Kolt said, “it does indeed sound like something that overactive comic in the tower would dream up.”
“That’s right,” Gertie added with smirk, “especially the part where you split your pants.”
Kolt slurped his hot chocolate loudly. They had made it fresh from cocoa beans they’d picked up in the Aztec empire while returning a ceremonial bowl.
“Why don’t we take the key up the tower and see if the B.D.B.U. has anything to say?” Gertie said.
* * *
‹‹ • • • ››
BUT WHEN THEY GOT to the top of the tower half an hour later, everything went wrong. They stood for ages over the B.D.B.U., dangling the key, but nothing happened, not even a flash of light, or a burp. The old, mattress-sized book didn’t glow, shake, or emit even the faintest tendril of smoke—and neither did the key. It was just a plain old piece of metal, hanging above an ordinary monster-sized book in a tower.
“This is useless!” Kolt said. “Like drawing a face on a tomato and waiting for it to speak.”
“It’s as if the B.D.B.U. doesn’t want us to return the key and find the missing Keeper,” Gertie said with bitter disappointment.
Kolt shrugged. “We’ll just have to have faith in the old thing—after all, it did manage to get itself rescued from the evil king who wanted to boil our heads in ancient China, when it got kidnapped.”
“By my own brother!” Gertie said ashamedly.
“He’ll come round, maybe not for a while, but one day he will, trust me on this.”
“I hope so. . . .”
Gertie Milk and the Great Keeper Rescue Page 8
