Mr. Fluxnut’s eyes narrowed. “We’ve already sent word we’re on our way with you. With the file. And he is willing to do anything for the formulas. Anything for the powers.”
I looked at my friends and then back toward Mr. Grimeley. “What are you talking about?” I asked. “Who’s where?”
A high-pitched maniacal laugh escaped from Grimeley’s lips. “The man who will stop at nothing to get those formulas,” he said.
“Don’t you get it?” Fluxnut cut in. “With these,” he waved the file in his hands, “he can start over. Destroy Nova and give powers to everyone else in the world.”
I tried not to react as the train door slid open behind the two despicable men. Mr. Fluxnut and Mr. Grimeley heard the swishing of the door too because Mr. Fluxnut slid the file under his arm, hiding its contents from the passenger who entered our car.
It was now or never. On three, I said to whomever would listen, hoping Ellie was on our side after all. One. Two. Three.
In a flash, both Ellie and I used our combined Monday power to propel the two captors across the train. Logan disappeared and then reappeared next to Grimeley, while Sam blinded him with light. Ellie and I held down the scrawny Mr. Fluxnut, and then the woman who entered our car grabbed the gun from Fluxnut’s back and pinned him to the ground with her large body. He wasn’t moving an inch.
The woman’s harsh, nasally voice, a voice I had grown to love and hate, boomed loudly. “What were the five of you thinking?” she asked, struggling to catch her breath.
I smiled. “Headmistress Larriby!”
Headmistress Larriby puffed out her chest and looked at Grimeley and Fluxnut. “Now, the two of you aren’t going anywhere. We’ll be in Nova within the next ten minutes, and from there, you’ll be joining your pal Mayor Masters in Nova Power Prison!”
Chapter Twenty
As the train screeched to a stop, three Nova-appointed train security guards fastened Grimeley’s and Fluxnut’s hands behind their backs while the five of us, plus Larriby, had a chance to settle down.
“How did you know where to find us?” I asked Headmistress Larriby.
Larriby leaned forward. “Well. Let’s just say this. The next time you break into a home, an office, or a school, make sure you leave everything just the way you found it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Larriby leaned back in her seat. “Thank goodness I needed to come back to my office over the weekend to file some paperwork on the incoming students, or I wouldn’t have noticed my bookcase askew.”
Headmistress Larriby continued, “Not only that, but this slip of paper sat in the middle of the carpet,” she said, handing a torn sheet of paper to Logan. “Your parents gave this address to me years ago to use only in a time of urgency. I knew for certain I hadn’t touched it, so it wasn’t me who dropped it.”
“My parents’ address!” Logan exclaimed, snatching the paper from her hand.
Sam smiled at Logan. “So that’s where it went. It’s a good thing you dropped it after all.”
“I called the train station and asked if they’d noticed four young travelers.” She frowned at Mark. “I didn’t realize you’d be with them, but I should have assumed it. Thank goodness for honest people, because a woman said five passengers, two girls and three boys, had boarded at Morlantown. And when the head of maintenance called to tell me Fluxnut didn’t show up for his prison work release, I put two and two together.”
“You saved us,” I whispered as tears welled in the corners of my eyes.
“Oh … save the sappy stuff for another time,” Clothes-too-tight Larriby huffed. But I could tell this tough woman held back tears too.
“So you knew about my parents?” Logan asked.
“I was the only one who knew, Logan.” Headmistress Larriby smiled. “Your parents and Poppy’s parents attended Power Academy with me years ago. In fact, we were actually quite close.” She looked out the window. “I’ll tell you more about that at a later time.”
It was hard to believe my parents and Headmistress Larriby were once friends.
“Nice to see you two again,” Logan called sarcastically, as the policemen pushed Grimeley and Fluxnut into the car with flashing lights.
“Oh … he’ll be coming for you all,” Grimeley said through a yellow grin. The police officer slapped him on the back of the head as he ducked into the backseat.
“We’ll be gathering your statements tomorrow morning,” one of the police officers called to us. “Get home to your families,” he demanded.
“Poppy,” Headmistress Larriby yelled as I stepped toward my ride home—another police car. My parents were gonna be so mad.
Larriby turned to look behind, and then took a step toward me. She reached a trembling hand in her cardigan and pulled out the file Ellie had taken from Mr. and Mrs. Prince. “Keep this close, and give it to your parents as soon as you step foot in your house. He is still out there somewhere,” she said. I knew the “he” she referred to was Dr. Nalsom.
“I will,” I agreed, tucking the file safely into my backpack. “Right away.” As I stepped into the car to leave, I turned to Larriby. “Thanks for saving us.”
“Mm hmmm,” she said through a nod and reached out to touch my shoulder. Just as her finger brushed against me, she pulled away.
Ten minutes later, I arrived home. As I walked onto the front porch, I saw the front door sitting slightly ajar. “Hello!” I said as the door creaked open even more. “Mom!” I shouted. “Dad?”
I dropped my bag in the foyer and then made my way to the kitchen. On the island sat a note from my brother.
Studying with Jack. Be home tomorrow morning.
– Willie
I rolled my eyes. Studying with Jack? Yeah right. More like not studying with Katie Ellerton.
I tiptoed through the foyer and upstairs. Something was off; I could feel it in my core. I got to my father’s office at the top of the stairs and gasped.
“Oh no!” I exclaimed, running into the room. All the desk drawers were pulled open, and papers and files spilled onto the carpeted floor below. Dad’s desk chair was flipped on its side, and the feather stuffing of pillows was scattered across the room. “Dad? Mom?” I called again. Silence. No. No. No.
Maybe there was a valid explanation for the quiet. For the mess. But the feeling of unease fluttering in my stomach told me I was wrong.
My hands shook as I reached for the doorknob of my bedroom. “Pickle?” I called. My eyes darted from the bed, to the dresser, to Pickle’s favorite corner chair, to her empty traveling den. This can’t be happening, I thought. And then I saw a piece of white paper lying atop my desk.
Poppy,
If you wish to see your parents and precious Pickle again, bring the formulas and nothing else to Power Academy. If you are not alone, say ‘goodbye’ to the ones you love. Twenty-two hundred. – Dr. Nalsom
“Twenty-two hundred?” I muttered to myself. I remembered a math lesson two years ago about this. “Military time,” I said to no one but myself.
I rubbed the orange pendant hanging from my neck, swallowed hard, and then tossed Dr. Nalsom’s note on my bed.
I guessed I didn’t have much of a choice. Tonight, alone, I was heading back to Power Academy.
If I’d thought I’d been scared before, this was the peak of terrifying things I’d been asked to do. Every time I thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. My parents and my precious Pickle were in danger. Real danger. And I might be too.
I took the 9:30 bus to Power Academy and arrived just before ten. The full white-yellow moon shone down on the looming academy, its shadows stretching and winding like long fingers down the stone driveway. As I made my way up the staircase, I thought, help me, help me, help me, over and over again in my head, hoping a Thursday would get the message. Hoping Headmistress Larriby would get the message. She would be the only one here this late at night.
But then I thought
about the note I’d left at home.
If you are not alone, then say ‘goodbye’ to the ones you love.
I remembered the gun carried by Fluxnut and Grimeley on the train back from Morlantown. And if this Dr. Nalsom was as crazy as those loony-toons made him out to be, then he meant what he wrote. I needed to get my parents and Pickle out of this mess. But I had no idea how.
I arrived at the large oak door and pulled on the wrought-iron handle. It didn’t budge. A note stuck out from underneath the door.
Use your Monday power.
I stood back, lifted my finger, and willed the door to open. At first, my Monday power didn’t even budge the giant wooden structure. Open. Open. Open. Finally, the door growled as it swung forward, its hollow sound echoing throughout the cavernous Power Academy foyer.
I glanced around from the library to the cafeteria to the dorm hallways, but the only sound I heard was silence. Where next?
A faint light emanated from under Larriby’s office door. Maybe she was in there and could help me. But I doubted it. This Dr. Nalsom—whoever he was—probably thought this whole thing through.
I tiptoed to Headmistress Larriby’s office door and knocked three times.
“It’s about time,” I heard a familiar voice say. The door swung open to reveal everyone inside.
“Wha … What are you doing here?” I whispered.
First, I saw my terrified parents fastened to chairs in the corner of Larriby’s office. To their right sat Larriby herself—rope tied around her thick wrists too.
“But I don’t understand,” I said, unsure why this man stood in front of me.
“In time, Miss Mayberry. In time, you will,” growled the most villainous man I’d ever known.
“Dr. Nalsom?” I whispered in awe. My heart pounded in my chest.
Dr. Nalsom’s evil lips curled up on the edges as he spoke. “Yes, Poppy. Dr. Nalsom.”
He stepped closer as his dark eyes met mine. “But I believe you know me as Mr. Salmon.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Come here.” Mr. Salmon gestured with the gun in his hand for me to move closer to him.
I hesitated.
“Now!” he demanded.
Why did you come? I heard my mother’s voice in my head.
“Don’t even try communicating with her through Thursday powers,” an unstable Mr. Salmon snapped. “You all might have magical powers, but I’m the one in control here. Let’s not forget that.”
My mom’s chin moved to her chest. “Just please don’t hurt her. She did nothing wrong.”
I reached Mr. Salmon and jerked backward as he ripped the backpack from my shoulders and then tossed it on the desk.
“Get the file out, Poppy,” Mr. Salmon said, gun aimed at me as he made his way to the other side of the desk. “Nice and slow.”
I slipped a shaking hand into my purple bag and pulled out the file Headmistress Larriby had handed me after we got off the train.
“Put it here.” He tapped the center of the desk.
I slid the folder across the table and watched as Dr. Nalsom, aka Mr. Salmon, opened it slowly, his eyes moving frantically from the file in front of him back to his four hostages. “This is it!” he spat. Literally. Droplets of spittle landed in the middle of the desk.
“Before the accident years ago, there were enough of the weekday serums to last fifteen years. And now that we’re coming up on fifteen years, the only hope of creating more magic for Nova is in these formulas,” he said, tapping his open hand on the file. “The magic will leave this town, and I’ll take it elsewhere. All over the world perhaps.” A sneer formed on his face. “Or to whoever wants to give me the most money for them.” He paused and paced behind the desk, reaching into a black bag.
“Now,” he said, abruptly changing his thought. He pulled out a spool of rope. “Hands behind your back, Miss Mayberry,” he demanded. “We don’t need you using that Monday power of yours again, now do we?”
Mr. Salmon shuffled toward me and pointed at my arms. I swung them behind my back. “Ouch!” I screeched, as the rough material cut into my wrists.
“And if you don’t want this in your mouth,” he said, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, “then not another peep from you other than when I ask you to speak.”
I narrowed my eyes at Mr. Salmon—the man I’d known the last two years as my weird and annoying math teacher. How could this crazed man in front of me be the same person?
Mom, I cried in my head.
I just wanted to talk to my mom. Hear her reassuring voice.
“And I’ll know if you try to communicate with anyone,” he said, pointing at his toupee-covered head. “Let’s get that right.” Stupid Thursdays.
Mr. Salmon walked over to the mirror attached to a cabinet door and pulled off the thick, black-rimmed glasses I was accustomed to seeing on the bridge of his nose. “It really was simple, you know?” he said, watching us through the reflection. “Here, I thought my career as a scientist was over.” He looked toward my parents. “Did you know right before the incident with Logan’s parents, I was asked to leave N.P.C. due to my experiments?” he huffed. “Ridiculous.”
I remembered what Mr. and Mrs. Prince told us about him experimenting on adults—on Mayor Masters.
“My first lucky break came with that explosion. It served enough of a distraction to make myself ‘disappear,’” he spoke with a flair.
Mr. Salmon’s fingers curled around the brown edges of his furry toupee, and he lifted it gently from his head, revealing a bald, shiny head underneath. Next he pulled back his typically rounded shoulders and tossed his faux glasses to the floor. The final motion of peeling back the skin at the tip of his nose made him unrecognizable. A flicker of recognition lit up my parents’ faces, though. This alter-ego, Dr. Nalsom, was unrecognizable to me, that is.
Mr. Salmon tilted his head to the side while the corners of his lips turned up. “All these years, I thought, maybe, just maybe, the formulas still remained intact. And then luck was on my side a second time.” He laughed a throaty laugh and then moved across the room until he stood just a foot from me. “You and your idiotic friends started asking questions about Logan’s parents.” He laughed. “Right in my classroom of all places.”
I thought back to our conversations during math class while Mr. Salmon fiddled with the seating charts … us conspiring to visit Mark’s mom in jail … Logan telling us about the note he found from his parents.
“That’s right, Poppy,” Mr. Salmon said, reading my mind. “Clues dropped directly in my lap! Ha! And when Grimeley overheard your conversation with Larriby a few days back, I knew it was time for Dr. Nalsom to make his grand reappearance.” He spread out his arms in victory. “Then I had a meeting with my old pal Harold Fluxnut.”
So that’s why he’d visited Nova Power Prison.
“Yes indeed, Poppy,” he said, reading me again. He continued. “But what good did our conspiring do?” he huffed. “Those two idiots couldn’t even make it off the train!” He rolled his eyes, while moving behind the desk once again. “Now … let’s see the formulas that will make me the richest man on Earth.”
Mr. Salmon opened up the file and read over the top page. “What is this?” He flipped through the pages. “You?” he glared at me. “What is this … this nonsense, Poppy?”
“Wha … what do you mean?” I asked. “It’s what you told me to bring. The formulas.”
He flipped from one page to the next. “Did you tamper with these?” he snarled, his beady eyes burning into mine.
My heart pounded harder in my chest. “No. No. These were the ones from Mr. and Mrs. Prince’s house. Ellie took them, and then I got them.” I criss-crossed my pointer finger over my heart. “I swear I didn’t do anything to them.” And I didn’t.
My eyes moved frantically from my mom to my dad to Larriby, and then to a whining Pickle in the corner.
“Please. Don’t hurt Poppy,�
� my dad interjected. “She didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, we can all just forget about all of this. You go your way, and we’ll go ours,” he suggested through a forced chuckle.
Mr. Salmon sighed heavily and ran a hand over his bald head. He moved to my parents and untied the rope from around their wrists. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he warned as the rope slid to the ground. Then he pushed a notepad and pen across the oversized desk.
“Now, you have one of two options,” he sneered, looking at my parents. “Write down all the formulas right here,” he demanded, pointing to the pad of paper, “so I can begin my own experiments in a new town, far away from here.”
“And option two?” Mom asked.
He growl-laughed. “I guess there isn’t really any other option.”
My mother slowly shook her head. “I don’t have the formulas memorized,” she spoke honestly.
“And neither do I,” Dad added.
My mother stuck out her hand. “Let me look at those,” she demanded, her voice sounding more forceful than I thought it would.
Mr. Salmon’s eyebrows curved in. “Well,” he hesitated. “I suppose so.”
My mother glanced over the mash-up of letters and numbers in front of her. “They’re encoded,” she said matter-of-factly.
“What do you mean?” Mr. Salmon demanded a response.
“It looks like the Princes modified them for security purposes. Smart considering … ” her voice trailed off. “We just need twenty minutes, and then we’ll have them sorted out,” she said calmly, briefly glancing at my father.
Mr. Salmon looked at the clock in the front of the office. Pickle whined in the corner. “Twenty minutes. And if the proper formulas aren’t in my hands, then someone’s not going to make it out of this room.” On that word, his eyes met Headmistress Larriby’s.
Poppy Mayberry, a New Day Page 10
