by Henry Clark
There was a moment of silence as we did this. Faint light wavered in the trees to our left, cast by something unseen around the bend. The whistle blew again, much, much louder.
“Sounds like a very big owl,” said Pre.
The tower didn’t deviate.
“Do something!” screamed Modesty.
I decided to hurl myself against the left wall, in case it worked better than hurling myself against the right. I turned, took a step, and collided with the pay-per-view binoculars. I staggered back, turned to go around the metal post the binoculars were mounted on, and stopped. Usually the binoculars swiveled easily. I had hit them hard, and they hadn’t budged.
Suddenly the light in the trees was very bright, and the hoot of a two-hundred-ton owl filled the night. I grabbed the binoculars on either side and twisted with all my might. They slowly turned.
The tower stepped in the direction I had turned them.
We left the tracks just as the 1:35 from Pratchettsburg came barreling around the bend. The wind from the speeding train buffeted the trees, and the base of the tower trembled.
“This is the steering wheel,” I announced breathlessly, and twisted the binoculars a little more to the right. The tower obligingly altered its course.
“How do you put it in Park?” demanded Modesty.
“I have no idea.”
The tower walked alongside the tracks as the train rumbled past. In less than a minute, the train was gone, and I let go of the binoculars to see what would happen. The lenses swung back to their original position, but the tower continued past Deadman’s Curve straight ahead into the trees.
“It still wants to go wherever it thinks it’s going,” I said.
“We should use the steering thingy and force it to go back to the farm,” said Modesty, punching her carrot-crown box back into shape.
“What if we do that,” I said, “and once we get there, we stop steering and the thing turns around and comes back here? We have no idea how to stop it.” I turned to Pre. “Will it stop automatically when we get to the next Magic Minute?”
“Not if it hasn’t reached its destination. The spell has to run itself out.”
I checked my phone.
“It’s one thirty-eight,” I said. “The next Magic Minute is two thirty-four. We’ve got almost an hour. Now that we know we can steer the tower away from danger, we should probably wait and see where it’s going.”
“What if it’s going to Hawaii or someplace like that?” Modesty grumbled.
“Why would it go to Hawaii?” I asked.
“It did the limbo. Maybe it likes to hula.”
I reviewed everything we had done since we had joined Pre in the cab. “The last place I pointed the binoculars at was the Davy Tower,” I said, and got the distinct feeling I was onto something.
“You think that’s where we’re going?”
“Look where we are already,” I said.
We were crossing Oakhurst Road, right at the spot where a sign saying WELCOME TO DISARRAY PLEASE DRIVE CAREFULLY used to be before a truck hit it. A mile farther along Oakhurst was Disarray Middle, where Modesty, Drew, and I went to school.
The tower crossed the road and started climbing Gernsback Ridge.
It was a gentle slope, and the tower was easily twice the height of any of the trees on it. The autumn air was crisp, the full moon had risen, and the view was an ocean of treetops. It reminded me of the SAVE THE RAIN FORESTS poster in Modesty’s kitchen. At the top of the ridge, the glass rectangle of Davy’s Digital Vegetables blocked out part of the star-filled sky. It was probably the way the iceberg had looked from the bridge of the Titanic.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Modesty said to Pre.
“I’m worried about Master Index,” Pre replied. He was leaning against one of the four wooden posts that supported the cab’s roof, with one arm wrapped around it and his cheek pressed glumly against it. “Ever since my parents died, he’s been like a father to me.”
“Both your parents are dead?” Modesty said softly.
“When I was four,” Pre murmured, “something spooked the horse of the carriage they were riding. My mother had the reins, and she was good with horses, but the wheels caught the edge of the embankment, and over they went. I was in an orphanage for two years, and then, after I scored exceptionally low on my SATs—Sorcery Aptitude Tests—I was apprenticed to the Librarians Union.”
I suddenly felt that my problem with the Fireball 50 wasn’t anywhere near as horrible as I thought it was. There were worse things.
“I’ve been with Master Index half my life,” Pre continued. He sniffed and hugged the post a little tighter.
“I’m sure Master Index will be fine,” Modesty assured him.
The tower shifted to the right to avoid a clump of trees, and suddenly the DDV building was directly ahead of us. The central ten-story glass tower, built on the site of the house Elwood Davy had grown up in, was flanked on one side by a four-story wing where they built DavyTrons and on the other by a three-story wing where they made tomato juice. I found myself wishing I had paid more attention during our school trip to the place. All I could remember was not wanting to drink the free sample.
The fire tower stepped, clippity-clop, into the deserted parking lot and approached the main entrance.
A big glass greenhouse, five stories high, stuck out from the front of the building and covered the entrance lobby. Through the glass, we could see the reception desk and, behind it, Elwood Davy’s parents’ house and the garage, where he had invented the DavyTron. A lawn surrounded the house; on the day of my field trip, a tour guide pretending to be Davy’s father had been mowing it. He had invited us in and showed us the house, including the apartment above the garage where Elwood had lived and the workbench where he had created his first carrot.
“We’re going to hit the glass!” shouted Modesty as the fire tower strode straight for the greenhouse.
But at the last moment, the tower sidestepped and waded into a flower bed. It came within five feet of the sheer glass front of the building and stopped, the lower edge of the cab’s windowsill level with the parapet that ran around the building’s roof.
“Wow,” said Modesty. “If the gap wasn’t so wide, we could just step across.”
The fire tower settled more deeply into the pachysandra. It tilted forward, and the five-foot gap became five inches.
“Oh,” said Modesty. “Yes. Better. Thanks.”
The top of the building was a rooftop garden. Trees in huge pots surrounded a central, bubbling fountain, and beyond the fountain, sliding glass doors marked the entrance to a rooftop office, which glowed with a pale-purple night-light that silhouetted a big, important-looking desk.
“So this was the destination,” said Modesty.
“It’s the place the binoculars were pointed at when you played the Magic Bite for walking with stilts,” I replied.
“And you intensified it,” she reminded me, as if she thought we were both responsible. “So the tower’s not going to move again until we tell it to?” She looked at Pre.
“Probably not,” he said. “But then, everything in your world is so unpredictable.”
Modesty consulted her phone. “It’s a little after two o’clock. We’ve got half an hour until the next Magic Minute.”
I dug into my pocket and pulled out some coins, ignoring a couple that fell to the floor, and put a quarter into the pay-per-view binoculars. I grabbed the thing I thought of as the space-alien head and twisted it by the ears. It moved much more easily than it had when the tower had been in motion. I leaned in to the eyepieces and looked across the valley, adjusting the lenses until I found the Halloween lights of Sapling Farm. I made sure they were dead center.
“If we repeat the spell at two thirty-four,” I said, carefully letting go of the binoculars, “it should take us home. And we’ll get Drew back at the same time.”
“So,” said Pre. “What do we do now that we’ve reached the abode of t
he evil scientist who’s draining all the magic out of my world?”
“Do you think there’s an alarm?” Modesty reached out and put her hand on the edge of the parapet.
“I would think,” I said, trying to be as logical as I could, “most of the security would be on the first few floors, where it’s easier to break in. They might also have some sort of radar, to warn about a helicopter trying to drop somebody on the roof. But I don’t think they would have worried much about somebody coming in sideways.”
“Good enough for me,” said Modesty, tucking the carrot-crown box under one arm, then boosting herself through the window, over the parapet, and into the garden beyond.
CHAPTER 19
SQUISHY FISHY FUN PARK
We watched for a moment to see if Modesty would walk through any laser beams. She didn’t, which was encouraging. I gave Pre a boost over the windowsill, clambered over myself, and the two of us joined Modesty at the fountain in the roof garden’s center.
“That has to be Elwood Davy’s office,” Modesty said, nodding at the glass doors. “Who else would have a place at the very top of the building? With its own fountain? If we can get in, we’ve got it made.”
“How do you figure?” I asked as I looked around for security cameras.
“We’ll leave the carrot crown on his desk,” Modesty explained, taking a few cautious steps forward. “With a note, saying it’s from us. Then we show up tomorrow, identify ourselves, and he rushes down to the lobby to meet us, because he’s so curious about how we managed to leave him such an amazing gift. Then we change the color of the lobby, or, or we open a jar of pickles—no, that’s no good—or we… we materialize a storm cloud! Yeah, perfect, we materialize a cloud right there in the lobby and we make it rain on his old house, and that convinces him magic exists, and that we can do it, and if he doesn’t help us save the dragons and save Congroo, we’ll turn him into a newt.”
“That’s your plan?” said Pre.
“Wouldn’t it be better to ask him nicely first?” I suggested. “Before threatening him with the turning-into-a-newt thing?”
“There’s no such spell,” Pre informed us.
“He doesn’t know that,” said Modesty. “I mean, we can’t threaten to get gum out of his carpets. What kind of a threat would that be?”
“We probably shouldn’t threaten him at all,” I persisted.
“And the storm-cloud spell never involves rain,” Pre added. “It’s mainly to provide shade on a hot day when you’re working in the fields.”
“You people have the worst magic,” Modesty muttered.
As she reached for one of the sliding glass doors, my phone said, “Ring, ring.”
Modesty paused with her hand outstretched.
“Ring, ring,” my phone repeated.
“Uhhh… could you get that? Please? Before I try to open this? It might be… you know… helpful.”
“Is that Delleps again?” Pre couldn’t hide his amazement.
“It’s her ringtone,” I acknowledged. I was stalling before I answered because I needed to get my wits together. My wits, as far as I could tell, were all over the place, like spilled Cheerios.
“How can she communicate with the World of Science when this isn’t a Magic Minute?” Pre wondered.
“She’s done it before,” said Modesty. “It might be because our phones are jam-packed with magic spells. Or it might be because she’s the greatest of all your oracles. That’s what you said, right?”
“Hello,” I answered at the last second. You didn’t let the greatest oracle in Congroo go to voice mail.
“Thank you for using the Congroo Help Line,” said Delleps. “I would list our options, but we’re pretty much out. How may we assist you?”
“What’s the most important thing we need to know at this particular moment?” I asked. I was becoming an old hand at talking to oracles.
“I was hoping you’d ask. Listen carefully.”
I hit Speakerphone, and her voice filled the garden.
“The glass will slide but you’ll have to hide and you’re starting to alarm me; the quest will fail and wrong prevail if you don’t make time for the army.”
I waited, as usual, in case there was more. As usual, there wasn’t.
“That’s… pretty cryptic,” I told her.
“It’s not as urgent as some of the others,” Delleps said. “But I wouldn’t dillydally if I were you.”
I wanted to get more information from her, but I knew a second question would end the call.
“We’re all hoping Master Index is all right,” I stated.
“He’s been better,” said Delleps.
“Can you get a message to him?” Pre asked eagerly.
“Sorry. Only one question per call.”
Click.
Pre’s shoulders slumped.
Modesty said, “Is she telling us we’re not going to be able to handle this ourselves? We’re going to have to call in the army?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Delleps always makes more sense after it’s too late.”
“That’s how oracles work,” said Pre.
“She said not to dillydally.” Modesty snorted. “And she also said the glass will slide.”
She reached forward, inserted her fingers into a slot in the doorframe, and dragged the glass open. If an alarm went off somewhere, we didn’t hear it.
“Indoor voices,” Modesty ordered as she turned sideways to fit through the narrow slot she had made. Pre and I followed her in, and the lights got brighter.
“I hope that’s automatic,” said Modesty, “like the hallway lights at school.”
“Delleps said we’d have to hide,” I reminded her, looking around for possible places of concealment.
The lights revealed an office with a big stone fireplace at one end and an inflatable clear plastic sofa at the other. Above the mantel hung a portrait of Elwood Davy. The portrait didn’t show his ears sticking out the way they really did and gave him a little more hair on top than he actually had, but otherwise, it looked exactly like him. Behind the sofa was an elevator, and next to the elevator was a circular hole in the wall with vertical handrails on either side of it. It reminded me of the top of the waterslide at Squishy Fishy Fun Park. I wondered if it was some kind of air vent or if Elwood Davy sometimes left his office through a water-park slide.
“Certainly looks like a boss’s office,” said Modesty, sidling behind the desk and putting the carrot-crown box in the center. She opened a drawer and rummaged in it, then pulled out a piece of paper and a felt-tip marker. She thought for a moment, then began to write, squeakily.
A second, smaller desk next to the mysterious hole in the wall held a computer screen and a keyboard. The screen saver showed vegetables swimming in a fish tank. A carrot wiggled by like an eel; a cauliflower quivered past like a jellyfish. I sat down, tapped the touch pad, and the veggie fish vanished. The new screen invited me to enter my password and press my thumb to a picture of a fingerprint.
Dead end.
I stood back up.
“There,” said Modesty. She held up her note and read it to us.
Dear Mr. Davy,
We made this carrot crown as a special gift for you.
We hope to see you later today.
Your friends,
Modesty Brooker
Calvin Sapling
& Preffy Arrowshot
She placed the note next to the crown.
“Is this a scientifical—uh, scientific—stairway? No steps?” Pre was leaning into the hole in the wall. I walked over and leaned in next to him. The shiny metal tube curved down and to the right.
“Some companies,” I said, “try to be fun places to work. So they do things like let their workers ride bicycles in the building, or they have indoor playgrounds or Ping-Pong tables on the roof.”
“This slide probably goes down to a lunchroom,” Modesty decided. She leaned in and sniffed. “Smells like french fries.”
; “It could also be a trash chute,” I said, although I didn’t smell anything. Modesty was probably hungry.
The elevator made a noise.
We all looked in its direction. Above the door, a row of numbered lights indicated what floor the elevator was on. The 1 winked out as we watched; then the 2 flickered on and off, followed by the 3, the 4, the 5…
“That’s a really fast elevator,” I said.
“Hide!” whispered Modesty.
The three of us took a step in three different directions. Then we froze as we all realized the same thing. There was no time to run back to the fire tower and not enough hiding places for all of us in the room. The transparent sofa didn’t help.
“Fazam!” said Pre.
“You think this goes to a lunchroom?” I leaned into the pipe.
“It might,” said Modesty.
She pushed past me, sat on the edge of the hole, and swung in her feet.
The light above the elevator said 10. Something went ding, and the elevator began to open.
Modesty gave herself a shove and disappeared down the tube. Pre leaned in to see where she went, and I nudged him just enough to send him sliding after. I grabbed the handrails, lifted myself up, and followed my feet down the hole.
It was like being swallowed by a big metal snake that had gotten its tail caught in a propeller: It kept corkscrewing. We started to pick up speed, and I realized that if the slide was longer than a floor or two, and our speed continued to grow, we could get seriously hurt when we shot out the bottom.
Especially if the bottom let out in a dumpster.
Dim little lights in the ceiling flickered by, faster and faster. I jammed my hands and feet against the metal walls in an attempt to slow myself. I watched the distance between my feet and Pre’s head grow to about a foot.
“Slow yourselves down!” I shouted, and the tunnel acted as a megaphone. Pre started doing the same thing I was, and the distance between him and Modesty began to increase.
There was a small bump, and suddenly the metal tube became a clear plastic tube, and we could see what we were passing through. We spiraled down through a conference room with cauliflower-print wallpaper, then through a laboratory where test tubes overflowed with what looked like spinach, then a cafeteria where the chair legs looked like celery stalks, then a huge room full of cubicles with desk lamps shaped like avocados.
