A World of Trouble (22 page)

“My blankie. That my nana made for me when I was a baby. It's the only thing that helps whenever I'm sad or scared or—”

The helicopter shakes suddenly. Like a turtle in a shell, Abe's head lowers behind his knees. Gabby drops to her bottom and
presses her palms to the couch. I can't tell what Lemon does because I'm gripping the edge of the coffee table with both hands and am afraid to turn around. The motion lasts several seconds, then stops.

“That was weird,” I say, exhaling. “I wonder if—”

There's a loud thud. It makes the table vibrate beneath me. A second, louder thud makes the cabin wobble. A third reaches sonic-boom status and sends the entire helicopter, and its contents, tilting to one side. As gravity pulls Lemon and me to the couch with Abe and Gabby, the thudding turns to a steady, deafening drumming. We watch—eyes wide, mouths open, and hands over our ears—as the opposite wall begins to crumple toward us.

“Get out!”

GS George stands in the cockpit doorway, gripping the thin partition to keep from falling over. Given the way his lips stretch and neck vein bulges, he must be screaming. But I hardly hear him.

When we don't move, he hobbles toward us. He reaches Lemon first and tugs on his jacket collar. Then he grabs Gabby's binocular strap. The brim of Abe's baseball hat. My ear. He pulls until we start pulling ourselves up and over the cushion's edge.
As we shuffle along the front of the couch on our hands and knees, he hobbles to the helicopter door, leans against it, and yanks the handle. The door gives. GS George, apparently anticipating working a little harder, falls through the opening.

My heart stops. Because of me, we all almost died. No thanks to me, we survived. And now the poor man who lives for his cat and loves singing show tunes, who was just trying to do something nice for his girlfriend—

GS George's head pops through the open doorway.

My heart resumes beating.

He helps Lemon down, then Abe. Gabby has one foot out the door when she stops.

“Wait!” she cries out over the pounding. “My stuffed unicorn! It's in my backpack!”

“Leave it!” GS George shouts. “There's no time!”

“But I see it!” Gabby tries to lift herself back in. “It'll just take a second!”

GS George grabs her ankle. His eyes protrude and his nostrils flare. To be honest, he looks a little crazy.

“The chopper's going to
blow
!” he screams.

And now I understand why.

Gabby leaps out. I do too. Once my feet hit dirt, GS George turns and starts running after the others. I'm about to follow, but then a fresh wave of drumming tilts the helicopter further. I'm still standing where I landed, so as the aircraft lowers, my head ends up back inside the cabin. Looking down the length of the interior, I see Gabby's backpack. A white felt horn pokes through an opening in the zipper. The bag's about five feet away, its strap caught around a fallen silver coatrack.

I quickly assess the situation. The air's warm, but not hot. I don't see flames, and I certainly don't hear them over the noise, which I assume is the helicopter's engine preparing to combust. I don't smell smoke either. The opposite wall's still crumpling, probably melting from heat I don't yet feel, but it's pretty far away.

So I press my hands to the wall on either side of the doorway. Push with every iota of strength my linguine-like arms can muster. And lift myself up and inside.

The helicopter holds steady as I scurry down the front of the couch. I can just reach the stuffed animal's horn without coming off the sofa. Trying to take the whole bag might jiggle the coatrack and send things flying, which could make the helicopter fall completely on its side—with me stuck in the cabin.
Instead I grab the horn between my pointer finger and thumb, hold my breath, and gently pull. It takes a little wiggling and a lot of patience, but eventually the unicorn drops from the bag and into my arms. I zip it inside my coat, then shimmy backward as fast as my hands and knees will move.

I'm halfway to freedom when I spot a stick figure screaming for help. He could also be laughing. It's hard to tell when the face in question consists of three dots and one line. The important thing is that he's screaming or laughing from the pages of Abe's drawing pad, which is wedged between an end table and a magazine rack.

I shift my position slightly, reach forward, and tug it toward me, inch by inch. It slides out fairly easily—until the spiral binding catches. The space between the end table and magazine rack is too narrow for it to pass through. Holding my breath again, I give the pad one last, quick yank.

The spiral binding bends. The pad slips out.

The helicopter drops.

I stay perfectly still for a few seconds. When there's no more movement, I look between my legs, toward the door. The ground's closer, but I'm guessing there's still two feet or so
between it and the aircraft. For someone who's barely cracked five feet, that's plenty of room.

There's still no sign of smoke or flames, so right now my biggest concern is getting out before the chopper lands completely on its side, blocking my only exit. Following close behind is my concern that I've saved something of Gabby's and something of Abe's, but nothing of Lemon's.

I scan the cabin. The first thing I see is my best friend's favorite matchstick-shaped lighter. I change direction and lean forward until my belly hits the floor. The lighter's stuck in the other couch, between the cushion and the frame, which is likely where Lemon put it, out of habit, before taking a nap. He always slips fire-starting supplies between the mattress and box spring before going to bed each night. I know, because I always take them out so he can't reach for them in his sleep.

Fortunately, the thickest part of the lighter, the matchstick tip, is sticking out. I strain until my right shoulder feels like it's going to pop out of my socket, and am just able to take the tip between my pointer and middle fingers.

I tug. The lighter slides out.

I shove it in my coat pocket and shimmy backward.

The helicopter drops.

This movement is harder, sharper. It makes pillows fly from the couch. Paintings fall from the wall. Water bottles and juice boxes tumble from an open refrigerator near the cockpit's silver curtain.

I cover my head with both hands. This sends me off balance—and sliding back. Fast.
Too
fast. My legs shoot through the open door. I reach out one arm and flail my hand at something, anything. My fingers graze something cool and hard, and tighten instantly.

“Seamus!” GS George shouts off in the distance.

I look down. The gap between the ground and the helicopter's side is narrowing. But I can't go. Not yet.

I force my left arm parallel to my right. My fingers intertwine around the coffee table leg. A groan spurts from my pressed lips as I pull my body up. My weight shifts the table, which is good and bad.

Bad because something that was lodged between the coffee table and the couch breaks free, falls—and slams into my ribs.

And good because that something is my K-Pak.

I shove the mini computer down the front of my coat. Then I reach my right hand toward the back of an armchair. The left
toward the open refrigerator door. The right toward the cockpit partition. The left toward a dangling seat belt. I move slowly, carefully, as if hanging from monkey bars set over a pit of flames. Which, let's face it, is pretty much what I'm doing.

The pounding grows louder. The crumpling wall closer. My palms sweatier.

But finally I see it. I see
them
. Ms. Marla and Rodolfo.

I inhale until lung hits bruised rib. Stretch one arm forward. Lunge.

I snatch the photo from the scrambled computer screen on the first try. This is good, since one try is all I have time for.

The helicopter drops again. Through the windshield, I see a gray lizard skitter across the ground.

It's inches away.

“Seamus!”

That was Lemon. I had no idea his voice could reach such volumes.

“Sorry, Mr. Rex,” I whisper to the scary cat-rat glaring at me from the out-of-reach cup holder.

Then I slip the photo inside my coat-sleeve cuff. And move.

The next two minutes are a blur. All I can think is that for
the first time, I'm glad I'm short. Because if I were any taller, I wouldn't be able to squirm out of the eight-inch gap between the helicopter and ground a millisecond before the two crash together. Or run as fast. Or duck under cactus arms without having to shift direction and lose time.

Or hide behind the crooked, rusty
DESERT FLOWER FILL 'N' FUEL
sign.

At minute three, though, things start to clear up.

Starting with the air. When the helicopter collapses, the propeller arms, which are still moving slowly, snap off, one by one. The dust settles. Soon I have an unobstructed view of the damaged aircraft half a mile away. It's in bad shape, but it's not on fire. It groans and wheezes, but it doesn't explode.

A quick glance behind me shows GS George and the rest of Capital T hiding behind old gas pumps. An ice cooler. A mountain of shredded rubber tires. I try to catch GS George's eye to see if he has any idea what's happening, but he doesn't look away from the helicopter. It's like he's mesmerized. Hypnotized.

When I turn back, I see why.

The deafening drumming? That wasn't the chopper engine getting ready to combust.

That was people. Kids. They're running around like numbers without decimal points, as Dad would say, so it's hard to know exactly how many there are. I count at least ten. They all yell. Laugh. Beat their fists against metal. Break windows. Climb in and out of the chopper cabin.

All of them, that is, except one. Who stands off to the side and occasionally chimes in with a halfhearted whoop or holler, but mostly stares at the ground.

Fiddling with her long red braid.

DEMERITS: 465

GOLD STARS: 300

E
lin—”

A hand clamps over my mouth. It smells like pencil lead, so I assume it's Abe's. I try to wriggle free, but not for long. Because as we watch, a tall, wide figure scales the fallen helicopter. At the top, which is really the beaten-in side, he pounds his chest with both fists. Howls. Grunts. The other kids form a loose circle around the chopper and do the same. Then the leader, who's so big he makes Bartholomew John look like a munchkin, releases one final
ah-WOOO
, pumps his fists in the air, and jumps to
the ground. They turn and run, abandoning the helicopter and leaving a thick brown cloud in their wake.

“Animals,” Abe says, releasing my mouth.

“Elinor.” I spin around and face GS George and Capital T, who come out of their hiding spots. “She was there. I saw her. We have to go before they—”

“Do to us what they just did to that fine piece of machinery?” GS George finishes. “You're right. We do.”

He pushes past us and starts jogging.

“Don't move!” he calls over his shoulder. “I'll see if I can salvage her!”

By “her” I think he means Elinor and by “salvage” I think he means save. My heart lifts. But then he reaches the helicopter, pats its side, and gives one of the broken blades a peck, like the chopper's a sick Cornish rex in need of some TLC. As he enters the cockpit through the hole left by the shattered windshield, I realize he intends to fix our ride so we can leave ASAP. And my heart sinks.

I turn to my alliance-mates. “We can't go. Not yet.”

“Um, did you see the same thing we did?” Abe asks. “Those kids—if you can call them that—were out of control.”

“All the more reason to rescue Elinor,” I say.

“But how?” Gabby asks. “We don't know where we are, who they are, or where they went. All we know is that they can kill a helicopter with their fists. I'm all for a fun troublemaking adventure, but that's enough to get me on the first flight out of here.”

I try to answer her questions. “We're in Arizona. I saw that on the cockpit computer map before we lost control and started falling. We must be near, if not in, Blackhole because those kids, who are probably Elinor's new classmates, reached us really fast. And they must've run back to their school, because besides this ancient rest stop, there doesn't seem to be anything else around for hundreds of miles.”

“Wrong,” Abe says.

I look at him. He bends down and picks up a faded, rusty sign.

1 MILE TO MAIN STREET!

STROLL & SHOP THE BEST STRETCH IN THE WEST!

TRY OUR WORLD-FAMOUS PRICKLY PEAR PUDDING!

MINUTES AWAY FROM HISTORIC ROUTE 666!

“Isn't it Route sixty-six?” I ask.

“Isn't six-six-six a bad number?” Gabby asks. “Like if you dialed it on a phone, you'd reach the devil?”