by Paul Tobin
“Nothing like that,” Nate said. “What I mean is, Maculte, the leader of the Red Death Tea Society, would like nothing more than to see me destroyed by my own creation, like Victor Frankenstein in the novel.”
“So, this Maculte guy thinks it would be funny if you were gobbled up by Proton?”
“Not funny, exactly. Maculte doesn’t really have a sense of humor. He just thinks it would be satisfying. Also, he loves creating chaos, and this way he can kill two birds with one stone.”
“Or two sixth graders with one giant cat. Is the Red Death Tea Society really all that dangerous? I mean, what else have they done? What would happen if they took over the world? How come I haven’t heard about them before? The first I really knew of them was when they stuck that hypnotic octopus on the car window and … OH!”
“What?”
“Hypnoctopus! That’s what I should have been calling it. Hypnoctopus.” I was a little disappointed in myself. I should have thought of that word right away.
“Nice,” Nate said. “But the reason you haven’t heard of the cult is because I’ve been stopping them, for the most part. Me, and others like me. Still, they were responsible for the Voluptuous Balloon Attack in Madrid, and the Invisible Oink Incident, with that herd of warthogs that nearly took over London, and for a time in the 1980s they managed to replace all the cats in Des Moines, Iowa, with robot doubles. There’s probably still a few of them left.” Nate was walking along with me, holding up his scanning device, tracking the molecule. I was still slogging along in the stream, looking for a goldfish. I’d never before realized how good they are at hiding. Mostly, I see them in fishbowls, where there’s not much in the way of prime hiding spots.
“There are robot cats in Iowa?” I asked.
“Sure,” Nate said, with the most minimal of shrugs, as if the thought of robot cats created by a society of assassins was just the way things are, barely worth mentioning. It made me wonder what other things hadn’t been mentioned.
“Why would the Red Death Tea Society make a bunch of robot cats?” I asked.
“Spies,” Nate said. Again with the shrug. Of course the cats were spies.
“Some plot to take over the world?” I asked. “Or destroy the city, plunging it into darkness and despair and that sort of thing?”
“No. They were searching for a tea recipe. A master tea-maker used to live in Des Moines. Well, she did before the Boomerang Ape Event. There was an orangutan that Maculte taught how to throw boomerangs so that—”
“There was a Boomerang Orangutan and you didn’t ever think to call it the Boomerangutan Event?”
“Uh, no.”
“That’s weird, Nate. That one’s really obvious.”
“I suppose,” he said, then, “Hey! It’s moving!” He was looking at his scanner.
“The goldfish is moving?” I said, looking all over the area of the stream where the scanner was promising the goldfish was. “Then why can’t we see it?”
“Not sure. Unless …” His voice faded off. He sounded troubled. And that was troubling.
“Unless what?” I asked. “And do not ask me to dress up like a goldfish in order to lure Jaime’s goldfish out of hiding. For one thing, I’m not submersible. For another thing, the stream is cold. And third, no.”
Nate said, “I’m worried the stream might have washed the molecule off the goldfish. I certainly hadn’t planned on the goldfish being in a current like this. So we’re not really looking for a goldfish, we’re …” His voice faded off again. It was even more troubling than the first time.
I said, “So, we’re looking for a molecule in a stream?”
“Maybe. Probably. Chances are. Yes.”
“You realize that’s significantly harder than looking for a needle in a haystack?”
“Considerably!” His face lit up. He was about to talk math. “The proportionate odds are—”
“Not now, Nate. How should we do this?”
“Oh, hmm.” He frowned. He reached into his shirt and brought out a small technological device (it looked like a thick wire with beeping lights) and considered it, then put it back in his shirt. He took out another strange gadget (it looked like a tiny cheese grater with wires sticking out) and shook his head. He put it back in his shirt. Then he pulled out what looked like a tiny barbell, two small spheres with a bar connecting them, about five inches long. One of the spheres was entirely see-through and the other was pitch black. It started to hum. Nate frowned, then put it back in his shirt.
“Um, do you have any ideas?” he said. He was looking at me. The genius was looking at me.
So now what?
There were two hours and fifty-six minutes left before Bosper couldn’t hold Proton anymore, and then a giant cat would begin rampaging across Polt. I knew exactly how much time was left because I was looking at Nate’s souped-up cell phone. It showed the remaining time, counting down. And it showed a small blip that was moving away from Black Stream, moving in jerky movements. It looked like it was going … right past our feet.
I looked down.
It was a toad.
“Catch that toad!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
“Huh?” Nate said.
“Look at your scanner! The molecule is on that toad somehow!”
“You’re right!” he said, looking at his phone. “It must have washed off the goldfish and now it’s on the toad! Catch him!”
I was quite lax concerning knowledge about goldfish, but I do know three things about toads. One, they are quite slimy. Two, they jump weird. Three, they do not appear to enjoy being caught by humans. In fact, they do their very best to avoid being caught at all, and in doing so they employ their two main skills, that of jumping weird and being slimy.
Every time Nate and I would try to pick it up, it would jump away.
Every time Nate and I actually managed to grab it, it would slime its way out of our grasp.
And every time Nate and I dived for it, the toad jumped out of the way, resulting in an unending series of Nate/Delphine belly flops. Totaled up, it meant my clothes were stained and my shoes were soaked and my hands were slimy.
“Errrgh!” I said. “It’s so slimy!”
“Actually, it’s not. Frogs are slimy, but toads aren’t. He might be wet from the stream, but toads, in fact, are—”
“If a girl helps a boy fight a giant cat, and she says toads are slimy, do you know what the boy should do?”
“Um. Just agree?”
“Good answer, genius.” He smiled an apology. I’d made him nervous. I forgot how little he probably knew about girls. We aren’t math.
“There it is!” Nate said. “There’s the, uh, slimy toad! Right there!” He was pointing maniacally.
“I know!” I said. I was a little exasperated. What would Bosper say if he knew that Nate and I were having such trouble catching a toad, while he’d caught a giant cat? We were really failing. And really slimy.
“I got him!” I said, leaping for the toad.
“I’ll get him!” Nate said, as he also leaped for the toad.
So, the thing is, Nate and I both dived for the toad. We smacked our heads together, and I knocked him out. Cold.
“Seriously?” I said, looking down at the unconscious genius. The toad was using the distraction to hop madly away, heading back for the stream.
“Stop!” I told it. The toad did not stop.
“Wait here!” I told Nate, who, being unconscious, did wait right where I told him as I dashed off after the toad.
I raced a few feet past the toad and cut off its path to the stream. Now, all I had to do was catch it, but that hadn’t worked before, so I needed a new plan. Maybe I wasn’t as smart as Nate and didn’t know how to build molecular scanners or string theory nets, but I was the only one conscious, so I had to do something. I looked around the park. There was a couple in their midtwenties playing catch. There was an old man flying a box-shaped kite. There were three squirrels skittering up and down trees, cha
sing each other. There were trees, a lot of grass, and there was a stream and park benches and a garbage can, but there was nothing that screamed “toad catcher.”
Maybe I could borrow the old man’s kite string and make some sort of toad lasso that could—
Wait.
Yes! The garbage can! There had to be something inside that I could use to catch the toad.
I quickly rooted around in the garbage can. Yes, me, Delphine Cooper, was diving into the remains of picnic lunches, soggy newspapers, and so on. Living the dream.
“Chinese takeout,” I said, holding up a couple of boxes. Not good unless I could get the toad to overeat, making it so slow that I could catch it.
“Chopsticks,” I considered, and then dismissed them, remembering how I’d launched a piece of sushi across a restaurant last time I’d tried to use them.
“Newspapers,” I said, tossing them aside. They were no good. Unfortunately, I doubted the toad could read.
“Coffee cup, coffee cup, coffee cup,” I said, sorting through the garbage. There were lots of coffee cups. And they were less than no good. The last thing I wanted to do was coax the toad into drinking some coffee, because that would only make it more excitable.
“Plastic bag,” I said, tossing it aside. I didn’t really have any use for a—
“Plastic bag!” I said, grabbing it again. It was perfect. It was full of a takeout meal, but I shook a half-eaten sandwich and a water bottle and bits of cherry pie into the garbage can and then raced back to the toad, brandishing the bag, feeling like I was a Roman gladiator facing off against a lion, though of course I’m actually a sixth grader at Polt Middle School and I was fighting a toad with a plastic bag.
“Ha!” I said, scaring the toad. I did this on purpose.
It leaped into the air.
I put the bag under it.
It slid inside with a thlooop-ing sound.
I held the bag up to the skies in triumph.
“You are caught!” I shouted. No Roman gladiator ever looked quite as dynamic and imposing as I did.
The toad (I had decided to name him Timmy) was secure in the bag. I tied it shut (making sure there were air holes) and ran back to Nate. We needed to hurry, as there were only two hours and forty-five minutes left before Bosper couldn’t hold Proton anymore.
“Wake up, Nate,” I said. He didn’t.
I said, “Nate, wake up!” He still didn’t.
“Nate?” I nudged him with a toe. “You okay?” He moaned. But he did not wake up. I noticed there was a bruise on his forehead. The old man with the kite looked over at us, making sure everything was okay. I gave him a thumbs-up to show that everything was fine, and he smiled and waved in reply, proving that he did not have a lie detector.
“Nate?” I said, my attention returning to the unconscious genius.
I nudged him again, a bit harder this time, and his phone started ringing and I fell over backward onto my butt, because at first I suspected that I’d triggered some self-destruct device when I nudged Nate.
“Ah, phone,” I said in relief. On reflex, I grabbed his phone and answered it.
“Ahh, phone,” I said again, still out of reflex, and this time much more embarrassing.
“Excuse me?” the woman on the other end of the phone said, obviously perplexed. “Is Nate there?”
“He is,” I said.
“Oh. Could you put him on? This is Maryrose. His mother.”
“That’s great,” I said, because apparently I wasn’t finished embarrassing myself. I wiped a bit of sweat from my forehead and tried to think of what to do. I looked down to Nate. I nudged him with a toe. He was still unconscious. He was very good at it.
I said, “Nate’s busy right now. He’s … doing math.” Would that work? It was the only thing I could think of. It sounded better than “Nate made a monster and we’re fighting it, but I accidentally knocked your son unconscious and now it’s just me and a toad.”
“Oh, Nate and his math,” Maryrose said. I could hear a lot of pride in her voice. Maybe a touch of exasperation. “Well, could you tell him that his father and I won’t be home until later on Monday? He’s found another cliff he wants to scale. And … is this Delphine?”
“Yes?” I said, as if I was unsure, but mostly I wasn’t sure how she’d known it was me.
“Nate said you might be stopping by. Try to get him out of the house, will you?”
“I’ll do that!” I said.
“We should have you over for dinner sometime.”
“That would be great,” I said, and I stopped my sentence right there, again because it sounded better than “That would be great, IF the city isn’t destroyed by a giant cat, which is currently looking probable.”
“Okay, ’bye!” she said.
“ ’Bye!” I said, and then we disconnected and I nudged Nate with my toe again, a nudge that was verging on being a kick, because there were only two hours and forty-three minutes to go.
He didn’t react.
“Please, Nate! Get up!” Timmy the Toad was staring at me through the plastic bag. His eyes were accusing. I suppose he felt that I’d trapped him in the bag for nothing. He shook his toad head at me and then started licking a smear of cherry pie off the inside of the bag.
“C’mon, Nate!” I yelled. I shook him. I pinched his arm. I even slapped his face a little, like they do in the movies, which I’m fully aware is not a proper medical procedure, but I was frantic.
“Ooo, water!” I said. I needed to splash water in Nate’s face. Now, how to do it? I did have the stream, but I didn’t have anything to hold water (besides the plastic bag, which was toad-occupied) and so how could I—
Of course!
“Hello, again!” I told the coffee cups from the garbage. I grabbed three of them, poured the remaining coffee in the grass, and then filled them up with stream water before racing back to Nate.
I poured a cup of water on him. Just onto his chest. I was trying to be nice.
Nate only groaned and rolled over. I held the two other cups against my stomach and nudged him back into position for my second volley.
This time, I didn’t hold back. Both cups. Right in the face.
“Hee-gahh!” he approximately said, sputtering and coughing and spitting. He shook his head. He looked around. Water was dripping off his nose.
“What happened?” he asked.
I said, “You dived for the toad and hit your head.” No reason to go into any details about what he’d hit his head on. No time for that, either.
“I caught Timmy,” I said.
“Timmy?”
“He’s the toad. I caught him.” I was holding the plastic bag, practically shoving it at Nate.
“You’re magnificent!” Nate said, which verified that he is, indeed, a genius. Seriously, I’d begun to wonder.
Nate used his scanner on the toad, and more of those numbers appeared on the readout. They meant nothing to me. Just numbers, letters, and a few more of those squiggles.
“Make any sense yet?” I asked Nate.
“A little,” he said, but he was very hesitant. “It reminds me of something, but I just can’t quite understand. We need to scan those other molecules.” Piffle. I was hoping we could skip some steps.
I released the toad and told it I was sorry for everything, but my apology was abrupt. Nate and I needed to go. After all, time was running out.
I could almost hear the ticking.
My phone beeped just as we were getting into the car.
It was a text from my best friend, Liz Morris.
She’d sent me an image of … a bag of tea?
The only thing in the message besides the bag of tea (which seemed to be about the size of a soda can and was bright red with “Red Tea” in black letters and some sort of strange circle around the letters) was a long row of question marks.
I texted Liz back, saying, What’s this?
She texted back, Exactly.
I sent her a two-second video o
f me shrugging in confusion.
Liz then sent me a three-second video of her shrugging in a bewildered fashion.
I called her and said, “Liz, what’s with the tea?”
“First of all, where are you?”
“Plove Park. The land of slimy toads.”
“Are toads slimy? I thought that was eels. Anyway, why did you send me this tea?”
“I didn’t,” I told her. I looked over to Nate. He had a magnifying glass in his hands and was looking at some equations on his pants, writing more numbers on them and mumbling about binary modeling, which I suspected didn’t have anything to do with fashion.
“Weird,” Liz said. “I found the tea on my porch, and there was a card that said it came from you. But I wondered.”
“Why?”
“What’s my birthday?”
“July fifteenth,” I said. Nate, not really paying me any real attention, nevertheless mumbled, “Hmm. Yes. Fifteen. That could work. At least reverse transgressionally.”
Liz said, “Right. That’s my birthday. But the card said ‘Happy Birthday’ on it. I didn’t think you’d forget.”
“I wouldn’t,” I said. “Did you drink any of the tea?”
“Ick. No. Why would I do that? It’s tea. Are you coming over tonight?” I looked to Nate and thought of Bosper holding on to the sonic leash. I thought of the damage Proton could do if he got loose and rampaged through Polt, because that’s what giant creatures do. They absolutely rampage. It’s in their nature, I guess.
“Doubt it,” I said. “I’m with Nate Bannister. We’re fighting a giant cat.” I would never lie to Liz, because friends should never do that to each other, and also because of a certain vow we’ve made that if we lie to each other we can’t eat any cake or pie for a month, the thought of which sends shivers down my spine and makes my stomach jiggle nervously.
“You’re with Nate?” Liz asked.
I said, “Yes.”
There was a pause.
