by Paul Tobin
“Ahhhh!” one of them screamed.
“Run!” two of the others yelled.
“My tea!” Luria wailed.
“This isn’t over, Delphine Cooper,” Maculte hissed, hurrying off down the sidewalk. I have to say, considering that they were an evil organization of assassins, it was funny watching them run for their lives. Or at least it was funnier than when they’d been about to make me … gone.
So I laughed.
And the giant cat turned to me.
Proton’s eyes narrowed.
“Mwrrr,” he said, which I took to mean, “Oh, hello, Delphine. I almost forgot about you, but now let’s get back to the clawing and the biting.”
He leaped for me.
I dodged.
And the chase was on again.
We were zooming and leaping through the streets. He was snarling. I was loudly explaining that I am far too chewy and absolutely too bony to be tasty. Undaunted by this, Proton was coming closer and closer. His enormous claws were smacking and shredding the pavement with every step, leap, or pounce that he took, sending sparks flying up all around. My belt was sputtering, the rockets misfiring. Proton kept trying to swat me to the ground, and he was only missing by a couple of yards, or only a single yard, or only a measly foot, or even mere inches, with the fur of his leg brushing against me on a couple of occasions, smearing peanut butter off onto my arm. I was twisting through the city streets, looking for any place to hide or any open window I could fly through, or, I don’t know, a giant dog that would come to my rescue.
But there wasn’t any place to hide and I couldn’t quit dodging long enough to look for an open window, and not only were there no giant dogs, I’d left Bosper and Nate far behind, so I was on my own. I’d managed to reach Plove Park, where at least Proton wasn’t destroying the city. He could only destroy the grass, the trees, a few park benches, and, well …
Me.
My rocket belt quit. Entirely. At the very end it wasn’t doing much more than helping me to run really fast, but then it made a blrrrrkkkk noise and completely gave up. The smell of a fire momentarily overwhelmed the smell of peanut butter and I realized that the belt had burst into flames, which was unfortunate since I was wearing it. I didn’t have time to take it off without becoming a cat toy, so I dived into the creek, scaring a toad that made loud and irritated croaking noises, but I couldn’t stay around to apologize or else I would have been making entirely different and far more dire croaking noises of my own. The water put out the fire, but a giant paw smacked down in the stream next to me, creating a wave that washed me a few yards down the creek, and I scrambled out just in time to see another paw come slicing down and it came so close …
… that it tore off my goggles.
I was blind.
Well, I wasn’t blind, but I certainly couldn’t see the invisible giant cat. There wasn’t anything to do but run (which had been my plan, anyway) and I headed for the woods, running as fast as I could, weaving around so my path wouldn’t be quite so predictable, and trying to stay on my feet despite how the ground was rumbling and shaking with every step of the monster cat in pursuit. Proton was making rwwerrr noises and birds were scared up out of the trees and the smell of peanut butter was everywhere and a picnic table just to my right side suddenly crumpled and then I was in the woods.
The trees started smashing all around me. Uprooted. Knocked over. Broken in half. Shattered. They were splintering into bits and pieces. I was running, desperately hurtling through the woods, looking for anywhere to hide, but there is nowhere to hide from a monster cat.
That’s why they’re monsters.
I was exhausted. I was heaving and huffing and puffing. Scraped and bruised. There was nowhere to run. There was nothing to do.
The cat was going to get me.
And that’s when I saw Nate.
He was standing in the woods ahead of me. He smiled when he saw me. I smiled, too. I felt warm. I summoned my last remaining burst of speed, and I ran to him.
“How’d you know I’d be here?” I asked.
“The math was fairly simple,” he said. “I knew exactly how long the rocket belt could possibly last. And you’re the nicest person I’ve ever met, so I knew that you’d lead Proton somewhere that he wouldn’t hurt anyone else. I knew how fast you could run, and a few other factors and, well, this is where I knew you would be.”
“And you have a plan, right? What do we do?” The noises of the monster coming through the forest were getting louder. Trees were crashing to the ground only fifty feet away.
“No plan,” Nate said.
“No plan! Then why did you come here?”
Nate gave me a smile. I’m going to once again point out that Nate and I are not dating, but … it was a very nice smile.
He said, “I came here because all of this is my fault. So, I had to come here. I couldn’t let you be alone.” He reached out and took my hand.
He said, “I guess I wanted to be with you.”
I said, “Oh.”
Together, holding hands, we faced the oncoming monster. Nate’s hand felt comforting in mine. I was entirely happy that he’d finally learned to toss science aside and act from nothing but pure friendship, though I admit I was somewhat disturbed that his victory would be interrupted when we were both stomped into the shape of a cat’s paw. The trees were erupting and splintering all around. Wooden shards were flying everywhere. It sounded like the end of the world. I supposed it was, for us. Even holding on to Nate, I almost fell over when the ground seemed to jump beneath our feet, victim of the impact of a towering oak that was brushed aside by Proton’s enormous body. Without my goggles, I could barely see him. Just a vague outline of orange and white among the trees. Leaves were falling like rain, knocked from their branches, which were themselves smashing down like hail. Nate hugged me closer, trying to protect me from everything, but it was hopeless. Proton’s enormous eyes were looking down from above, fixated on us. His building-size body was drawing breaths that swirled the falling leaves like a small tornado, and one of his paws was raised to …
“Hey,” I said. “How come I can see him?”
“Huh?” Nate said. “You can?” He hurriedly ripped off his own goggles and tossed them to the ground.
“I can see him, too!” he said.
“But … he’s invisible, right?”
“Not if the peanut butter is working! Look!” Nate pointed at the giant cat, whose face had suddenly taken on an expression of … nausea? And there was a weird gluung-glunng-gluung noise coming from him, and Nate’s finger, pointing at Proton’s face, was angled to a spot that was thirty feet in the air, then twenty-five feet, then twenty.
The cat was suddenly shrinking.
Down to fifteen feet.
Ten.
Five.
Four.
And then …
… just a regular cat.
“Meeow?” Proton said, looking at me with a dumbfounded expression, then beginning to lick peanut butter off his fur in an entirely innocent manner.
Innocent?
Hardly.
“Bad kitty!” I yelled, so loud that it startled Nate and sent the birds (who had just landed again in the trees) once more fluttering into the sky. My yell was so loud that it knocked more leaves from branches and sent Proton skittering away from us, running for safety.
No way.
No way that was going to happen.
I was after him in a second, and just as he was trying to leap over a fallen tree, I had him by the scruff of his neck and I plucked him up into the air. He twisted in my grasp, flexed his claws, and was just about to scratch my arms.
“I wouldn’t do that,” I said. I think ice cubes probably fell from my mouth. My voice was that cold.
“Rwwwr?” Proton said, then slowly retracted his claws and hung limp in my grasp. He was covered, of course, in peanut butter.
I was going to enjoy giving the cat a bath.
Cats hate baths.
It was going to take hours.
chapter
12
“What’s that?” Mom asked. “Are you covered in mud?”
“Nope,” I said. “Peanut butter.” It was all over me, compliments of not only when I’d been spreading it on Proton, but from when he’d been attacking me, and also from when I’d been happily giving the passionately protesting cat a bath for almost an hour before I’d had to leave the rest to Nate and rush home for supper. It had been a reluctant departure on my part, because Proton deserved that bath, but even with Betsy roaring along the city streets at full speed I’d barely made it home in time for dinner, sliding into my seat in a frantic dash, because if I’m late for dinner I have to answer questions about why I’m late for dinner, and it’s awkward to tell your parents that you’ve been fighting a giant monster. Of course, it’s also somewhat awkward to be a four-feet seven-inch peanut butter dispenser.
There were stares from my family. Various expressions. Mom was scooping mashed potatoes onto her plate, and Steve was staring at me like I was a particularly mystifying alien. Dad, meanwhile, was wiping down the lemonade pitcher because someone had gotten peanut butter all over the handle.
“How did you get that much peanut butter on you?” Mom asked.
“Umm,” I said.
“Couldn’t you wash up before coming to the table?” Dad asked. He’d moved on from the lemonade pitcher and was wiping up the various other places I’d accidentally spread peanut butter. There were several. In fact, there were multiples of several.
“Umm,” I said.
“It’s all over your hair,” Steve said. “Looks better than usual.”
“Piffle,” I said.
“Seriously,” Mom said, taking a watermelon seed from her mouth, “explain the peanut butter.”
“School project,” I said. “With Liz. We were making a sand castle, except from peanut butter.” You will note that this is not a clever story. Betsy had dropped me off in front of my house and I’d had the entire ride to come up with a plausible story, but I’d instead spent the time thinking happily about how mad Proton had been when we’d dumped him in the bath. I do not feel that time was wasted, but maybe I could have spared a moment to think up a better excuse for what I’d been doing than making a peanut-butter sand castle? It couldn’t have taken long.
“You have the strangest school projects,” Dad said. “When I was in school all we did was write papers.” He had the slightest of grins, as if he knew I was fibbing but was okay with me keeping my secrets. I should mention that, at times, I think Dad is secretly proud of my reputation as a troublemaker. He always encourages me to be active, and he didn’t … for instance … get especially mad the time I tried to build a fort on our roof, or the time Liz and I attached a model rocket to a rope we’d strung all through the house to see if we could get it to travel along the rope like a train track, even though that had resulted in several dents in the walls and also on Steve’s leg, and what some people might call a fire on the couch.
“Don’t encourage her,” Mom told Dad. But she had a smile, too.
Dad said, “Of course not,” but he gave me a wink as he cleaned some peanut butter from the saltshaker.
Beep.
It was a text from Nate. It said, Thought you might like to see this. There was an image of Proton, being washed.
That cat looked SO mad.
THANK YOU! I texted back.
Speaking of being washed, if you ever find yourself covered in peanut butter, a bath is no good. I speak from experience. Sticky, sopping experience. Also, if you’re ever relaxing in the bath, it can be frightening to have a robotic seagull suddenly fly in through the open window. I speak from experience. Shrieking, water-splashing experience.
Luckily, there was a reason for Sir William to come flying in through the window. He was bringing me a ray gun built from a hair dryer, an invention of Nate’s that disintegrated peanut butter.
There was a note from Nate, telling me about the ray gun, and adding,
I just invented this. I thought you might need it to get rid of all the peanut butter. A bath is no good. I speak from experience.
After dinner, after my bath, after using the ray gun to disintegrate the peanut butter, and after hurriedly hiding Sir William when Steve almost caught me carrying the robotic seagull down the hallway, I went around to all my friends’ houses and made sure they didn’t drink any of the strange tea that had shown up on their doorsteps—the tea that had been delivered with cards saying it was from me—even though Nate had assured me the tea was safe.
It’s not that I didn’t trust Nate, it’s just that the tea was from the Red Death Tea Society and I don’t trust a secret organization of power-hungry assassins with anything, not even tea.
So I nabbed the tea from Stine Keykendall, and Ventura León, and from my homeroom teacher, Mrs. Isaacson, who invited me inside her house to look at her paintings, because she knows my mom is an art agent and I think she was trying to hint that my mom should represent her, but the paintings were all of cats and even though they were pretty good they were making me shiver and it wasn’t the best time to show them to me.
I also gathered the Red Death Tea Society tea from my mom, and from Steve (I had Sir William waddle into his room and nab it), and a few others, but failed to get it back from Tommy Brilp, who came to his door actually drinking a cup of it, assuring me he was drinking a cup of it, and wanting to know if I would go to the movies with him on Monday. Or … Tuesday? Possibly Wednesday or Thursday? Or Friday or Saturday or Sunday or any other day of the week, even though I was pretty sure he’d mentioned them all.
I said, “Sorry, can’t. I’m grounded,” which is an excuse I frequently use, because it’s quite believable.
Back home, I buried all the tea I’d gathered in my backyard. Deep. In plastic bags, with warnings written on them.
Beep.
It was another text from Nate. I was stretched out in bed, back in my normal world, with Steve playing music too loud from his room.
The text said, This peanut butter is really a mess. Had to shave off some of Proton’s hair. There was an image of a partially shaved, snarling Proton.
KEEP SENDING THESE TEXTS, I wrote back.
Beep.
It was a text from Liz.
This is my eyeball, it said.
There was a close-up picture of her eyeball.
Right before bed, I went down to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Dad was watching the news in the living room. It was scenes of downtown Polt. Crushed cars. Partially collapsed buildings. That sort of thing.
“Did you hear about this?” Dad said, gesturing to the television. “Some sort of unknown cause, but a lot of property damage.”
“Oh,” I said. “Uhh. Hmm. Ahhh.” It was not my smoothest moment.
“Best guess for the cause is some sort of abnormal weather system. Maybe a small tornado. Basically, a freak storm.”
“Hmm,” I said, walking off. I didn’t want to say anything, because if I didn’t say anything then I wasn’t technically lying by not telling Dad that it wasn’t a freak storm that had caused all the damage.
It was a freak feline.
Beep.
It was another text from Liz.
This is my other eyeball, it said.
There was a close-up picture of her other eyeball.
I fluffed my pillow.
Twice.
I couldn’t sleep.
It felt so weird to be in my normal room at the end of such an extraordinary day. It felt like something else was going to happen. My thoughts were racing about. It felt like I was shivering with energy. It felt like my room was smaller than ever before. The moon felt bright. Snarls, Mom’s cat, padded along the hallway outside my door, and made a meowing sound. I got up and made sure my door was closed, because, duh … cat. When I was walking back to my bed my phone beeped, and for one second I worried that it was Snarls texting me. But it was Nate.
> I can’t sleep, he wrote. And I’ve calculated a 98.94% chance that you can’t either.
Make that 100%, I texted back.
I’m sorry about getting you involved with the Red Death Tea Society, he wrote. There was a picture of Maculte. Nate had given him donkey ears.
It happens, I texted back, although of course it does not, as a general rule, happen.
I’m glad we didn’t die, Nate wrote. There was a picture of his hand giving a thumbs-up.
Me too, I said.
I’m glad we’re friends, Nate wrote.
Me too, I said.
I think I can sleep now, Nate wrote. There was a picture of a pillow.
Me too, I wrote back. I put my phone on my nightstand, fluffed my pillow, smiled, and was asleep in moments.
chapter
13
You might think that Nate and I grew close after that, hanging out together all the time. You’d be wrong. We only went on with our normal lives, the day-to-day schoolwork, with me walking the dogs and joining the soccer team, and Nate … ? Well, for a genius like Nate, there are always projects to work on (I saw him late one night on the football field, testing a spray gun that shot peanut butter), and frankly I’m not sure that Nate’s concept of time was the same as mine, or anyone else’s.
We texted back and forth a few times, but it was harder to talk in person. I think Nate was embarrassed about losing control of his experiment, or about almost getting us killed, and it was one of those times when a silence builds until it almost feels like a wall.
Time passed.
The days added up.
Weeks went by.
I would see Nate in class, of course. He always sat near the front (I usually gravitate toward the back, where the occasional misbehavior is not as readily caught), and I noticed how most of my classmates ignored him. He wasn’t invited to parties. Wasn’t picked to be on any teams in gym class. Nobody hung out at his locker. Nobody sat with him during lunch.
