The Knick Knack Nightmare Read online

  Arvin shook his head and hunched.

  I enunciated through clenched teeth, “You can only get them at Clover Crossing.”

  Arvin, eyes round as Kaila’s Sweet 16 party plates, shook his head ‘no’.

  I nodded ‘yes’ and took an M80 from my pocket. I lit the fuse and pulled back on the slingshot, aiming for the knight. “Let Arvin go!”

  The knight nudged Arvin’s side and closed his fist over the coin piece.

  “Arvin!” I let loose the M80.

  Arvin fell backwards and hit his head on the floor. The knight swung his sword at the firecracker, slicing it in two. The fuse half popped, rattling windows but caused no damage. The other half fizzled and rolled away. I tried again, pulling out an M80, lighting the short fuse, and flinging it from the slingshot at the knight. Again, I failed. The M80 missed the knight and exploded against the wall above his head, blowing a small hole into the marble. Debris rained on the knight. Arvin crawled away. He pulled the nesting doll’s hollow, wooden head over his body. I reached for another M80, but I was out of ammo. I removed the ominous BOOM! cube from my waistband, lit the fuse, and stretched the sling back until it rubbed my nose. The knight took a batting stance and raised his sword.

  KABOOM!

  M80s on Emilia’s gate detonated, rattling crystal chandeliers up and down the hall. Display windows cracked and shattered. Glass spread out over the floor. The knight swung his sword and slipped on the glass. BOOM! cube exploded against the knight’s shoulder, ripping his arm from his body. The knight shot backwards and smashed through Terry’s Trinket’s gate. The arm - sword in hand - flipped in the air and landed in a crystal chandelier twenty feet above the floor.

  I pulled the hollow doll’s head off Arvin and untied the knot holding his hands together. He looked around at the shattered windows, smashed gates, holes in the wall, and the knight’s severed bronze arm and silver sword swaying in the chandelier above his head. Arvin pulled the mushy jerky, dripping with saliva, from his mouth and spat on the floor. “I’ll never eat curry beef jerky again. Bleh!” He rubbed his ears. “And you told me not to get you killed?”

  “I thought you were hiding somewhere. Well, dead at first, but then hiding.”

  “Me? You’re supposed to be dead.”

  “Stop saying it like that. I’m alive enough to save you. Besides, you ran into the fire.”

  “I ran through the house to the front door. I thought you were right behind me. I called your name when I saw you weren’t there. Then the roof collapsed.”

  “I remember. Why did you come here? You should’ve gone to Nelson.”

  “I thought you ran after me and got stuck in the house. I couldn’t tell your mom I abandoned you to die like that.”

  “Well, I’m fine. When did the Knight get you?”

  “Not even an hour ago. And then someone tried killing me with a bunch of M80s.”

  “I saved you with M80s and a BOOM! cube. There’s a difference.”

  “Tell it to my ears. You were aiming for them.”

  “Well, be glad you fell back when you did. Otherwise, you’d be a head shorter.”

  “I didn’t fall. The knight tripped me. And I’m glad he did it, too.”

  “That was awfully nice of him.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  Kaila, Emilia, and her parents ran over.

  Kaila hugged Arvin, “I’m so happy you’re all right,” and hugged him again.

  Emilia pointed to the Knight. “Perry? Did you and Arvin do that?”

  “We did.” Arvin smiled and reached for Kaila’s hand, puckering his little pink lips for a kiss.

  Why am I still playing wingman for Arvin? “Sure. Arvin’s a hero. He distracted the knight long enough for me to get a good shot.”

  Kaila gave Arvin a peck on the forehead.

  “I knew it,” I grumbled under my breath.

  Emilia’s nose twitched. “What’s that smell?” She pinched her nose and backed away. “Is that cat pee?”

  “I think so. Long story.” I felt a blurt coming. My mouth dried up. I bit my lip, but it was too late. I couldn’t help it. The words rushed out of me. “So what’s this about Double D asking you to Harvest Dance? I heard you said yes. But you’re moving back to Hawaii before the dance. When were you going to tell me?”

  “You couldn’t help it, could you?” Arvin said.

  I scowled at Arvin. “Get out of my brain.”

  Emilia looked at her parents, at me, at Kaila and Arvin, and back to me. “How did? Never mind. I don’t care.” She pointed to four padlocked gates at the other end of the floor. “Can’t we just help those people before the hula dolls return?”

  “Not yet.”

  I picked the strip of cloth off the floor and tiptoed to Terry’s Trinket’s smashed gate. The store lights swung by red and black wires, flickering over the still knight. It hadn’t moved since smashing through the gate. Where the bronze knight’s left arm blew off, the brownish metal sparked in the light. No bones. No blood. Only bronze flakes like glitter. The coin piece laid on the floor. Blue waves of energy rolled over it. I bundled the coin piece into the damp cloth. It felt warm in my hand. I squeezed as hard as I could. “Knick-knacks stop!” Nothing happened. They continued to play on the lower levels, clanging and banging, and breaking things, uninterrupted by the Knight’s defeat or my demand to the coin. “What did Leora say to make Levi change into a boy?”

  Arvin thought about it. “It was something like ‘TT-Sequencer Change’ or maybe ‘go back?’.”

  I squeezed it as hard as I could. “TT-Sequencer Change!” Nothing happened. “TT-Sequencer Go Back!” The knick-knacks played, and the knight stayed the same. “What about other commands?”

  Emilia tapped my shoulder. “What are you two talking about?”

  “Not now!” I snapped.

  She backed away and stood with her family with her arms crossed.

  Arvin rolled his eyes. “Give it over.” He took the bundle and squeezed. “TT-Sequencer Home!”

  “We are home, Genius.” I grabbed the bundle out of his hand.

  “It was worth a shot.” Arvin snatched it back. “We didn’t get a tutorial. Besides, the knight’s better at using the coin than we ever were. Even if he had only the top edge of it.”

  “How could he use any of it? He wasn’t alive until a few days ago. How did he even know where to look?”

  “Or he was alive. Mom could’ve been right all along.”

  “Levi was a prankster, but he never tried to hurt us.”

  “He didn’t? He let us hurt each other and watched us make fools of ourselves while he laughed and hissed. Sounds the same to me.”

  “We’ll never know for sure until we get the coin back together.”

  Emilia stomped over. “Are we going or not?”

  “Yes.” Arvin squeezed the coin. “To Perry’s house.”

  NINE

  Arvin stuffed the coin in his jeans pocket, and I took the lead to the second floor side entrance. We stopped at the salon. Arvin and Emilia followed me in while Kaila and her parents kept watch outside.

  Emilia watched me turn in circles. “What are you doing?”

  “They’re all gone.”

  “What’s gone?”

  “The firecrackers. Everything. We can’t open the other gates without the M80s.” I would’ve loved to kick the knight into next week.

  Ding-Ding

  I crouched behind the brunette stand-up. “Get in quick.” Everyone hid the salon. Arvin ducked under a hair cutting station, and the Wrens cowered behind the cash register. Sad clown pedaled into the entrance with an M80 glued to his back. The lit fuse sparkled and shrank. I counted down.

  Three - The clown looked at me. I gasped.

  Two - Ding-Ding-Ding

  One - “Duck!”

  KABOOM

  The M80 exploded, hurling a thousand pieces of clown and tricycle into the air, shattering the shop window and puncturing shampoo bottles. The silver b
ell tore a hole through the cardboard brunette’s smug expression and hit the clock - bullseye - in the center.

  I waved away the smoke and shook out my ringing ears. “Let’s go.”

  We sprinted to the side entrance, and I pushed hard against the the door. The lock pushed in and clicked, but the door didn’t open. “I don’t understand. I came in this way.”

  “Let me try.” Mr. Wren pushed past his family. He leaned on the door, jostled the lock, and kicked the wide handle. Its beige, plastic casing cracked end-to-end, but the lock wouldn’t release.

  Ms. Wren stood with her husband. “Let’s go through the food court.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Wren wore matching brown slacks and green knitted sweaters. Horrible. I hadn’t noticed their identical outfits until they were standing next to each other. Ms. Pewter’s fashion sense had rubbed off on her over the last year, and now she thought couple outfits were cute. She was wrong about the food court, too.

  I shook my head. “We won’t make it. The food court’s a trap. Knick-knacks are running wild down there, and now they have my fireworks.”

  “If we can’t go through, maybe we can go over.” Mr. Wren pointed to a narrow flight of stairs blocked by a big red bow. “What do you think?”

  Garden Glen Skywalk, the mall’s latest gimmick to attract reluctant customers, was a rickety steel walkway arching over the mall’s half dome roofs. It started here and exited into the science museum at the far end of the parking lot. The mall claimed it had the best pee-your-pants view of the laser show above, and the mall’s many attractions below. But the opening had been delayed until next summer. Something about minor safety checks.

  My legs wobbled at the thought. “There’s got to be another way. Any other way.”

  “Dad’s right,” Kaila said. “Your house is ten miles and a million knick-knacks away. You got here all by yourself. You can climb over a roof.”

  Arvin held Kaila’s hand. “I’m with her.”

  Emilia tilted her head and tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear, showing off my favorite freckles. She rubbed my arm and smiled. “You can do it.”

  My knees turned to jelly, and I forgot how to speak. It wasn’t fair. I didn’t stand a chance. I smiled and nodded.

  Arvin stopped in front of Terry’s Trinkets busted gate and told the Wrens to go ahead. “Where is he?” The bronze knight had disappeared from atop the smashed gate. A trail of little bronze chips led down the hall, and the arm swayed in the crystal chandelier above. “Whoever he is, he’s unarmed now.”

  “Not funny.” I walked away to join the Wrens at the skywalk entrance.

  “It was a little funny.”

  We tore down the ribbon and climbed stairs to a pair of shattered glass doors. Cold wind blew through the opening. A sign flapped in the breeze. Coming in April. That was over five months ago. We went out on the platform and climbed the steep, metal stairs.

  This high up, the wind blew fast and freezing. The girls’ long hair twirled in their faces, and our clothes pressed against our bodies. One by one, we climbed the stairs. My knees shook almost as much as the slender, steel rails. As the stairs arched over the roof, they became shallow, moving toward a square landing suspended over a sunroof at the top. Light from inside the mall shined up through round holes in the landing, and for a moment, I saw the walkway’s appeal. Laser lights cut through the clouds, shining bright beams against the dark sky. Below, moonlight glistened off square, white houses and long, black streets. If Shelbyville had power, the city lights would’ve made it all worthwhile.

  I was a few yards from the landing when the wind kicked up and the downpour started. Cold wind and rain swept over the walkway, saturating my clothes within seconds. The roof became a plunging water slide. Lightning flashed across the sky. Thunder shook the stairs as the wet metal squeaked under my feet. I pulled myself up one at a time while losing sensation all over. My fingers froze. Fierce winds gusted, blowing me against the rails. I lost my grip and fell to my knees.

  “Sit down! Hold on!” Mr. Wren sat on the top stair and held onto the railing and his wife.

  We held on as tight as we could, wrapping our arms at the elbows around the railing on either side. The wind screamed over the roof. Stinging rain, sharp as knives, cut into the back of my neck and ears, stabbing at my exposed hands as I covered my face. And then it was over. The rain dwindled to a slight trickle, and a gentle, quiet breeze blew through my hair.

  “Why did I let you talk me into this?” I asked Arvin.

  “Me? It was her.” Arvin pointed to Kaila.

  “It was the only choice,” Kaila said.

  Emilia kicked the rail. “Shut up. All three of you. It doesn’t matter.” She climbed onto the platform with her parents.

  I stepped onto a steel square full of holes with no rails or nets around. “Minor safety checks, my butt!” I inched across the platform toward the descending stairs. “I think I’m going to puke.”

  “Wow.” Arvin peered off the edge. “Don’t puke, Perry. You got to see this.”

  Thirty feet below the sunlight, knick-knacks swam in a massive pit overflowing with five million multicolored plastic balls.

  “It’s Ball Sea.” I backed away from certain death.

  Emilia smiled. “I’ve always wanted to try that.”

  “Not me.” Kaila shook her head. “If you knew what the older kids did in there, this is as close as you’d get.”

  ZAP

  A bolt of lightning shot across the sky, striking a copper dragon as it darted through a cloud, scaring the other two away. It glowed red hot, steaming through the moist air, plummeting toward us.

  WHACK

  The dragon’s lifeless body sparked against the railing and smashed through the skylight. The landing teetered. In a split second, Mr. and Mrs. Wren locked hands and vanished over the edge. Plastic erupted into the air and flowed over the Wrens, burying them under a tsunami of balls and knick-knacks.

  “Mom!” Emilia screamed.

  “Dad!” hollered Kaila. Balls rolled and knick-knacks played, but there was no answer from the Wrens. “We got to get down there.”

  Arvin put his hand on her shoulder. “We can help, but we can’t do it from here.”

  I knelt next to Emilia. “We have to get to my house. There’s something that can stop the knick-knacks.”

  “Like what?” Emilia searched for any sign of her parents but found nothing but balls, a flurry of knick-knacks, and streams of smoke from a copper dragon smoldering somewhere under the sea.

  “I can’t tell you. But trust me, just one more time. We can fix this.”

  Emilia wiped her eyes and glared sideways at me. “If you can’t?”

  I grabbed hold of the descending rail. “We will. I’m sure of it. But we have to go before the knick-knacks find us.”

  The stairs coming up were smooth, but these stairs were rough. Sandpaper pads covered the stairs and circled the railings. In half the time it took to get up, we passed over two buildings and arrived at the Shelbyville Science Museum a thousand feet from where we started. Our soggy shoes squeaked as we crowded onto the exit landing, eager to get off those treacherous stairs.

  I backed away from the doors and made my best Kung Fu movie stance. “Guys?”

  Arvin, Kaila, and Emilia joined me in front of the door and chanted “Three, Two, One.” We kicked the door, breaking both the lock and the frame. The doors swung open, and we entered the museum.

  All the lights were on in the building, but unlike the mall, it wasn’t finished. The smell of fresh paint lingered in the air. A few spools of black wire, drywall pieces, and unassembled science displays scattered around the top floor. Various items and signs leaned against walls - most still wrapped in plastic sheets.

  We walked down the stairs, gawking at a huge atom painted on the bottom floor, lit by three small spotlights on the ceiling. To one side, a metal mushroom hummed next to a wire box. A plain white sheet of paper read, Faraday Cage. A few mammoth bones, st
uffed animals, and a Shelbyville Settlers diorama stood on the other side. Tiny footprints in fresh white paint lead from the display into a hole in the wall. Under two spotlights in the rear, a sideways cross section of a massive redwood tree rested on a pedestal. Arrows labeled its rings with nine hundred years of events. We tiptoed through the museum, wet sneakers squeaking on concrete, echoing like screams in the half-empty building.

  Kaila walked past the metal mushroom, and her hair stood three feet high. “Emilia, look at me.”

  Emilia got closer. Her hair sprung up. “It tickles.”

  My eyebrows and eyelashes tingled. Nothing spectacular, but I guessed a little kid might enjoy it.

  “Let me try.” Arvin rushed to the mushroom.

  Tingle powered upped to vibrate as Arvin approached, and the humming became growling.

  ZAP

  Electric fingers shot out of the mushroom, reached passed Emilia and I, and enveloped Arvin in a net of crisscrossing blue waves. The bundle in his pocket sparked, blowing Arvin across the room. He slid on his back over the polished floor at twenty miles per hour and plowed into the feet of a giant stuffed bear. The snarling animal wobbled. It fell forward, crashing snout first into the concrete. The fangs snapped off and tumbled in opposite directions.

  I pulled him out from under the bear’s legs. “Are you all right?”

  Arvin stared up at the plain panel ceiling, one pupil double the size of the other.

  “Arvin?” Kaila nudged his foot.

  Emilia snapped her fingers. “Earth to Arvin.”

  “Arvin, say something.” I waved my hand over his eyes.

  He blinked and his eyes returned to normal. “Perry.”

  “Yeah, Buddy?”

  Arvin took the bundle out of his pocket and dropped it into my palm. “Please stop trying to kill me. It hurt that time.”

  I smiled, “I’ll try. I promise,” and helped him to his feet. Something was different about him. Was it his good outlook? No. Same Arvin. His charming personality? No way. His hair? Still curly, red, and wet. His height? “Arvin, did you have a growth spurt?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Because you’re taller.”