by David Lubar
This wasn’t sounding like it would help me. “You said there was other good news?”
“The gardens were closed, but they were never torn down. Everything is still there,” Abigail said. “The flower should be blooming now. It’s a perennial, so it wouldn’t have died out. It will be easy to recognize. It’s silver. They say it almost glows. And even if it died, we should still be able to find some seeds, so we can grow it here.”
“Silver? Glows?” I thought back to RABID’s lab. I realized I’d already had an animus flower in my hand. But I’d destroyed it. I guess that didn’t matter. Not if Abigail had found another one.
“Yup—that’s how it’s described. I think it also might be very sensitive to death. You might not be able to touch the petals. But I can handle it.”
I knew she was right about that. “Great. We can get it tomorrow. Or even this evening, right after I meet with Baron von Lyssa. Where is this place?” I’d never heard of it, but I don’t pay much attention to stuff like botanical gardens. I knew there was one in Delaware, because Mom dragged Dad there every year for some sort of special exhibit. He always threatened to get her to drag me along instead of him, but I knew he’d never actually be that cruel.
Abigail looked away from me and muttered something that sounded like “Brazil.”
“What?”
“Brazil.”
“I hope there’s a Brazil, New Jersey,” I said.
“There might be,” Abigail said. “But we need to go to the one in South America.”
“Oh, man. Maybe we can figure something out. But it will have to wait until tomorrow.”
“It sort of can’t wait,” Abigail said. “That whole area is about to get flooded. They’re damming the river tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow! This isn’t good news, bad news, good news. You forgot to add about five more bad newses at the end.”
“I didn’t want to make you feel there was no hope. There’s lots of hope. But it’s now or never.” Abigail opened her purse and pointed to a bottle filled with a clear liquid. There was a battery taped to the side of the bottle, with wires running through a cork in the top. “I brought the rest of the formula, so we can add the flower as soon as we pick it.”
“Electricity!” Mookie said, pointing at the battery. “I knew that was the answer.”
“It’s part of the answer,” Abigail said. “I have to run a low voltage through the liquid until the blossoms are absorbed. Electricity wouldn’t help at all without the flower.”
Mookie started dancing around and waving his arms in the air. “I was right. I was right. I was right.”
Abigail shut her purse and sighed. Mookie kept dancing. I didn’t feel like dancing. I looked at the clock in the hallway. It was almost two. I felt like I was being torn in half. Though if I’d actually been torn in half, I wouldn’t have felt a thing. “But I can bring down RABID,” I said. “I’m supposed to meet them at three.”
“Maybe you could put an end to RABID,” Abigail said. “You don’t know for sure. All sorts of things could go wrong.”
“There’s no way we can get there in time,” I said.
“There’s a way,” Abigail said. “I’ve got it all figured out.”
“We don’t know for sure if the cure will work, either,” I said. I looked at Mookie. “What do you think?”
He stopped dancing. “You’re asking my advice?”
“Yeah. You’ve been with me from the start,” I said. “I need to know what you think.”
“You’re in fifth grade,” Mookie said. “Save yourself today. You can try to save the world tomorrow. Come on. Abigail is right. We need to get that flower.”
“I could save the world.…” Everything we learned in school—all the books we read, all the movies we saw, all the legends and myths—the hero always sacrificed himself to help others. That’s the way it was supposed to happen.
Abigail put a hand on my arm. “Mookie’s right. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you to do good things for the rest of the world. You’ve already done a lot. Do something good for yourself today.”
Save the world or save myself?
I knew she was right. “But how are we getting there?”
“You were in the room when Mr. Murphy called in a jet, weren’t you?” Abigail asked.
“Yeah. He did it the other day. And I’ve seen him do it several other times.”
“So you just need to log in to the site and get a jet for us,” she said.
“But there’s a password,” I said. “I remember seeing the x’s appear on the screen when he typed it.”
“So you should also be able to remember which keys his fingers hit when he typed the password,” she said.
“No way.”
“Try it,” she said. “Or we could stand here and watch you rot.”
“I’m tired of watching myself rot.” I went to the computer and pictured Mr. Murphy ordering a jet. The Web address popped into my mind. I typed it in. There was a log-in screen, just like the one I remembered. I played the scene back, and watched Mr. Murphy’s fingers.
“It worked,” I said as the site accepted my entry. “I’m in.”
“Great,” Abigail said. “Now we need a fast jet.”
“No problem.” I clicked the box for “highest speed.” I couldn’t believe I was doing this. And I couldn’t believe it would work. But I had no other choice.
Abigail gave me the code for the local municipal landing field. “I have the coordinates for our destination,” she said, holding up a sheet of paper. “Come on. Let’s get going.”
“This is a joke, right?” Mookie said. “You’re just doing this to get my hopes up.”
“No joke,” I said. “You’re getting that jet ride.”
We headed three blocks south of my house, where we caught a bus that went past the municipal field.
“I knew this was a joke,” Mookie said when we got out. “Nobody’s here.”
I looked at the empty field. A couple of small prop planes were parked in a hangar. There wasn’t anything else in sight.
“They’ll be here,” Abigail said. She pointed east, past the landing strip. “They’ll probably come from that direction.”
We stood facing the way she’d pointed, waiting. We didn’t see a thing. Not even any birds.
And then I noticed a shadow on the ground in front of me. I looked up.
“Whoa…” It was high above us, and coming straight down for a landing.
“Yeah, whoa…,” Mookie said.
The jet settled down in front of us. It was like the one I’d been in before, but larger. The cockpit opened up.
I walked ahead. “Transport for three.” Abigail handed me the slip. I passed it to the pilot. He nodded. If he was surprised to see three kids waiting for him, he didn’t show any sign of it.
“We’ll need you to wait to bring us back,” I added as I climbed into the jet. “It won’t take long.” I hoped I was right.
17
A River Runs Near It
“Awesome?” I asked Mookie after we climbed out of the cockpit.
“We left awesome behind when we shot through the clouds,” he said. “That was beyond amazing.”
I was glad he’d finally gotten his jet ride.
“It shouldn’t be more than a mile or two,” Abigail said as we walked away from the landing area. She led us down a trail.
“This is like a jungle,” Mookie said.
“This is a jungle,” Abigail said. “We’re not far from the edge of the rain forest. The growth is tamer here, which is lucky for us. And there should be a trail the whole way.”
Every once in a while, she checked a map on her phone. “Almost there,” she said after we’d been walking for nearly half an hour. “We just have to cross a stream.”
We heard the rush and the whirr at the same time. I looked ahead as we broke through into a clearing. We were facing a river. It wasn’t really wide, but the water was moving along pretty quickly.
“Stream?” I asked.
“Stupid map.” Abigail glared at her phone, then looked at the river. “We’ll be okay. It’s too fast for us to swim, but those rocks should get us across.”
She was right. There were plenty of large rocks we could scramble across. But the whirr was getting louder. I looked over my shoulder.
“Did you ask for a helicopter?” Mookie said.
“Nope.” I watched it hover behind us and start to land. There was just one person in it. He was looking toward the hillside across the river.
“I’ll bet it’s someone from RABID,” Abigail said. “They probably want the animus flower so they can do more zombie experiments.”
“We have to get there first,” I said.
“And we have to keep them from getting there at all,” she said.
The helicopter settled down behind us. I guess the hillside was too steep for it to land.
“Come on,” Abigail said. “We don’t have much time. Let’s get across. We’ll think up a plan after we reach the other side.”
We started to cross the rocks. Some, in the shallow water, were barely large enough to stand on. Others, where the water got deeper toward the middle of the river, were as big as cars.
“I have an idea,” I said. “You go ahead. But stay out of sight once you’ve made it across.”
Abigail looked like she was going to ask me about my plan. I held up a hand. “Look, this is spy work. Trust me. I know what to do.”
At least I hope I do.
I checked the rock to make sure my plan would work. There was no other rock to step on at this point. Whoever was heading for the other side would have to cross this one. It was also large enough for what I planned, and had slick moss on it that would make the job easier. I slipped into the water and let the current press me against the rock. Once I was sure I wouldn’t get carried away, I ducked down below the surface. Now I just had to wait.
It didn’t take long. I saw his shadow before I saw him. The second his foot landed on the rock, I popped out of the water, grabbed his ankle, and yanked hard toward the back of the rock.
It worked. He splashed into the water. I clung to the side of the rock and watched as he thrashed his arms. The current swept him downriver.
I got back up on the rock and hurried across.
“Wow,” Mookie said. “That was cool.”
“Good thinking,” Abigail said. “Come on. The building has to be this way. The sooner we get out of here, the better I’ll feel.” She led us up the hill.
There was a trail, but it was overgrown. The hill was pretty steep. By the time we reached the top of the ridge, I was the only one who wasn’t puffing and panting.
“Man, I’ve got to sit for a minute,” Mookie said.
I grabbed his arm and said, “Watch out!”
“What?” Mookie asked.
I pointed to the side of the trail where he’d been about to plunk down. “That’s agony vera—it’s a cactus full of toxic juices. If you get even a little scratch, you’ll itch for weeks.”
Abigail stared at me. She was usually the one with the knowledge.
“I read about it when I was testing my memory,” I said. “Then I saw it in the lab.”
I thought she’d be annoyed, but she just smiled. “I’ll have to read up about it. It sounds fascinating.”
“It sounds dangerous.” Mookie took a careful step away from the edge of the trail. We moved on and pushed through some high shrubs.
And there it was.
“That looks like one of those scenes from those pocket lick movies,” Mookie said.
“Pocket lick?” Abigail asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know,” Mookie said. “Those movies where life on Earth gets wiped out by a comet or aliens or something.”
“That’s postapocalyptic,” Abigail said. “Not pocket lick.”
“Hey, that’s too hard to say,” Mookie told her. “Besides, pocket lick sounds cooler. It’s like you’re always carrying around something sweet.” He jammed his hand in his pocket, then took it out and licked his fingers.
Whatever the word, he was right about the way the place looked. There was a gate in front, but most of the wall had collapsed. I could see some walkways, but they were broken up and overgrown. Nature was taking back the land.
“There are buildings over there,” I said. I could see a wooden shack and three larger buildings. They all looked pretty run down.
We reached the shack first. The doors had fallen off. I looked inside. It was some sort of toolshed, with a broken-down lawn mower, rakes, shovels, pruning shears, hedge clippers, and a bunch of other rusty tools.
We walked past it. “Let’s try here.” Abigail headed for the next building. A sign in front, written in several different languages, read RESEARCH LIBRARY.
“That won’t be it,” she said. But she glanced in anyhow. Just to make sure, I guess.
The next building was a cafeteria and gift shop. We moved to the last one. The sign read: EXHIBIT HALL.
“That has to be it,” Abigail said.
The door had fallen off, and part of the back half of the roof had collapsed. “This doesn’t look very safe,” I said.
Mookie laughed. “It’s not like it will kill you.”
“But it could kill you,” I said. “Let me check it out first.”
Abigail and Mookie agreed that wasn’t a bad idea. When I went in, the floor creaked a bit, but it seemed solid enough. There were tables all around with flowerpots on them. Nothing was blooming. To the left, I saw a collapsed staircase, like the ones they put in video games when they want you to find a different way to get to the second floor. The bottom half had fallen apart. The top half drooped at a steep angle. A carpet dangled from the steps like a tongue.
To the right, along a good part of the wall, there was a hole in the floor. I went over and looked down. That area was probably a basement, but it was too dark to tell what was there.
Farther ahead, I saw that part of the second floor had collapsed, too. The wood slanted down to the first floor, like a ramp. At the top of the ramp, in a room that ran along the whole rear wall, was a collapsed table and a large, broken flowerpot. In the dirt that had spilled from the pot, I saw a cluster of flowers. Shimmering silver flowers—just like the ones I’d destroyed on my mission. I had to make sure not to touch the blossoms, or they’d wither.
“Hey,” I called toward the door. “I found the flower. It’s safe to come in, but watch your step.”
They joined me.
“Is that it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Abigail said.
“How do we get up there?” Mookie asked.
“I don’t know.” We were so close. “Maybe we can climb this.” I gave the end of the carpet a tug. A piece tore off in my hands. It was too rotted to hold my weight. The stairs swayed and groaned. There was no way anybody was climbing them.
I went to where the fallen part of the second floor touched the first floor and tried to step up on it.
“Oof!” My foot went right through the wood.
“Let me try. I’m lighter.” Abigail managed to go two or three feet before the wood started to splinter under her.
“Careful!” I reached out and grabbed her arm as she toppled back. “This isn’t going to work.”
“Oh, no!” Abigail pointed at the flowers.
As I watched, one of the petals fell. “How long do we have?” I asked.
Abigail squinted up at the flowers. “An hour or two. Don’t worry. The petals won’t all fall off at once.”
“Hey,” Mookie called. He’d moved over to the wall right next to the hole in the floor. “I found a light switch. Maybe there’s a ladder in the basement.”
“No!” Abigail said as Mookie flipped the switch.
“What’s the big deal?” he asked.
“That’s not a light switch. It’s for a generator or something,” she said. “It’s been sitting around for thirty years.�
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Mookie shrugged. “So it won’t work. Which means there’s no problem.”
Lights flickered in the bulbs on the ceiling. More light flickered from the hole.
“Or it will work just fine,” Mookie said.
Whumpffff!
We all looked over toward the hole in the floor.
“Or it will catch fire,” Abigail said as smoke drifted from the basement.
18
The Flower Bowl
Fire.
I had a lot of bad memories about fires. So did Abigail.
I looked at the floor, then back at the flower. “How long do we have now?”
“Ten minutes,” Abigail said. “Maybe less. We need to get some blossoms right now.”
I wasted one of those minutes staring at the flower. By then, I knew what I had to do. “Wait outside by the door,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I didn’t want them breathing too much smoke.
I ran out and headed for the toolshed. There wasn’t a ladder inside. I wasn’t expecting one, but it would have been nice. And it definitely would have been easier than what I had in mind.
Can I do this?
I thought about when I was trying to get the ingredients for the first cure. I’d broken off my little finger. At the time, it was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do in my life. I guess now I was facing the hardest thing I’d ever have to do in my death. It was a thousand times harder. Partly because of my strengthened bones—mostly because it was just about the most awful thing I could imagine. But I guess I was a thousand times tougher. I’d walked through fire and battled monsters.
I already knew I could find what I needed. I’d seen it when I’d first looked inside the shed. It’s a good thing my hands weren’t capable of shaking.
Can I do this?
I had to.
But can I?
I did it.
And then, carefully, I walked back to the exhibit hall and joined Abigail and Mookie.
“You’re a good bowler, right?” I said to Mookie as he followed me inside. More smoke was drifting from the hole. I could hear the crackle of wood catching fire. We had to hurry.
“Yeah. Really good,” he said.
