Beware the Ninja Weenies (12 page)

His head was thrashing all around, like he was trying hard to unstick his teeth and open his mouth. His cheeks swelled past frog neck, and were moving through water-balloon territory. He clawed at his mouth with both hands. I guess he was trying to pry his jaws open.

The ride jolted so hard, I nearly flew out of my seat. Corbin's eyes got wider, and his whole body shuddered like he'd grabbed an electric eel. Some sort of survival instinct made me duck and close my eyes. It's a good thing. Otherwise, I might have been blinded. As it was, I heard an enormous pop, like when you jump up in the air and come down butt first on a balloon. The pop was followed by a thundering burp that sounded like it would never end.

As the burp finally faded into a moan, and the ride slowed to a drifting stop, I opened my eyes and stared at Corbin. He was sitting straight up now. I think he was in shock. He wasn't moving at all. I looked away when I realized I was seeing the inside of his mouth. His cheeks had exploded, giving me a clear view of the side of his teeth. I unbuckled myself and scooted off the ride.

“I think that kid over there needs a doctor,” I said as I ran past the ticket guy. I had a feeling Corbin would need more than one doctor. I also had a feeling it would be a long time before he came back to school.

“Hey—what did you do to Corbin?”

I looked over at Travis Hatcher, who lived down the block from me. He was standing with Billy Sherman, Jesse Larch, and a couple other kids from school.

“Nothing. He did it to himself,” I said.

They all stared over at Corbin.

“He broke my nose last year,” Travis said.

“He broke my watch last week,” Jesse said.

I started to turn away.

Travis tapped my shoulder. “Come on. You can hang out with us.”

“Really?”

“Sure.” He pointed toward the drink booth. “We were just about to get a soda. You thirsty?”

I nodded. I realized I was still thirsty. I hoped they had lemonade. Somehow, I wasn't in the mood for anything fizzy.

 

SPRING BEHIND, FALL AHEAD

It was that stupid
nerd Herbert Marlock's fault I was kicked out of school. He was always getting in my face with his wheezy laugh and his look-how-smart-I-am wisecracks. Anybody would have punched him sooner or later. It just happened to be me. It was a good punch, too. Knocked him right off his feet. And knocked me right out of school.

I was halfway home when I realized I had to find a way to fix things. If it was up to me, I'd be happy to stay out of school forever. But my parents told me if I got kicked out again, they'd send me to a military school where they wake you up at five in the morning and make you exercise for an hour and hike ten miles before class. No way I'm doing that.

I knew where Herbert lived. I'd chucked a couple eggs at his house last Halloween after he'd gotten an A on this test I'd flunked. I figured I'd go apologize to his parents for punching their son, and maybe they'd talk to the principal.

I mean, I hadn't broken anything on Herbert's stupid face. Just bruised up his cheek a bit. Maybe I could tell them I'd only hit him because I was jealous about how cool he was.
Gosh, Mr. and Mrs. Marlock, Herbert is totally awesome. I really wish I could be just like him.
Parents eat up that sort of stuff.

I stood on the front steps of the Marlock house and took a couple slow breaths. I needed to look really sorry. And worried. Maybe I could cry a little. That would help—especially with his mom. Women will do anything to stop a kid from crying.

I rang the bell.

A guy answered. He looked like a tall, thin version of Herbert, with a lot less hair.

That could work out okay, too. Most dads want their kids to be tough. Maybe I could convince him I'd be a good role model for Herbert.

“Yes?” He seemed puzzled that someone had rung his doorbell.

“Mr. Marlock?” I asked.

He nodded. But he still seemed like he really wasn't paying attention to me.

“I got in a fight with Herbie at school.” That wasn't exactly true. But I rushed through the rest of it as it spilled from my brain to my mouth. “He's okay. Nobody got hurt. It was all my fault. I really wish I could be more like him. I was jealous. He's so awesome. He really knows how to take a punch, too. Anyhow, I wanted to come by, just to tell you how sorry I am.”

His mouth twisted around a bit, like he was thinking about everything I'd just told him. Then he smiled. “Okay. Thanks.”

He turned away. That's not how this was supposed to go. He was supposed to ask me why I wasn't in school. Then I'd start jerking my shoulders like I was trying not to cry, and tell him I'd been expelled. Yeah, I'd been kicked out of school because Herbie was so awesome.

But he was walking away. He didn't even remember to close the door. The guy was a real geek.

“Wait!”

He turned back toward me. “Yes?”

“I got kicked out of school because of the fight.” Oh, no—I'd forgotten to fake the crying part.

“I guess that's the rule.”

“Yeah. But I can't get kicked out. My dad's sick. They won't even tell me how sick he is, so it must be pretty bad. And my mom works two jobs because my sister needs an operation, and they can only do it in France because it's really a rare condition.”

Wow. I didn't know where all this was coming from, but it was good. It wasn't even totally a lie. My dad had a cold last week. And my mom was always saying that picking up after me was like a full-time job. As for my sister, she needed a brain transplant.

“That's unfortunate,” he said.

“It would break their hearts if I got expelled. Do you think, maybe, you could…”

I waited, dangling the opening right in front of him.

“Could do what?” he asked.

I wanted to scream. Or punch him. But I managed to stay calm. “Talk to them. At the school. Maybe? Please?”

“I guess I could do that.”

I had to struggle to keep from leaping in the air and giving myself a high five. I was saved. No military school.

“Let's go.” I needed to get him to talk to the principal before school let out and Herbert showed up. Who knew what that little creep would do to make sure I stayed expelled.

Mr. Marlock glanced at his watch, then did that twisty thing with his lips again. “I just have to wait one more hour. Then we can go.”

One hour? School would be out before then. We'd run into Herbert on the way there. “It won't take long,” I said.

“I absolutely have to start my next test in—” He paused to glance at his watch. “—fifty-seven minutes. After that, the isotopes will have decayed too far.”

He wandered off again. I followed him through the open door and down a hall to the back of the house. We ended up in a room crammed with electronic equipment and tools. Right in the center, there was a chair that looked like it had been yanked out of a sports car. Metal tubes curved around the chair like the ribs of a giant umbrella. I saw wires running from the tubes. One really thick wire ran to the wall, where it was plugged into the big type of socket like they have for clothes dryers.

There was a laptop computer hooked up to the chair, with some large numbers on the screen. The display read
+00:15
. There was a digital time display above that. I noticed it was fifteen minutes fast. That made me think of school and Herbert. Once he came home, I was doomed. He'd probably start screaming and crying the moment he saw me.

Herbert's dad went to a workbench by the wall and picked up a video camera. When he turned around, he finally seemed to notice me. “I guess it won't be a secret for much longer,” he said. “Either I've solved the final problem this time, or it's hopeless.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, so I just waited.

He grabbed something that looked like a cordless phone and attached it to the video camera. “I can transmit with this.”

“Transmit what?” I asked.

“The arrival.” He put the camera down on the seat. “I'm sending it fifteen minutes into the future. I could send it into the past, but it will be more interesting to watch it reappear fifteen minutes from now.”

I thought about that for a moment. “You invented a time machine?”

“Somebody had to, eventually. It was only a matter of time.” He let out a geeky laugh, like Herbert, and I clasped my hands behind my back to fight the urge to take a swing at him.

He fiddled around at the workbench a bit more and kept talking. There was some sort of problem he was trying to fix. It had something to do with the rotation of the galaxy. I didn't understand it. He used a lot of big words and even bigger numbers. All I understood, as I watched the minutes click past on the laptop, was that Herbert was getting out of school very soon.

No—I understood something else. I didn't need his help. Not if I could get a do-over. I just had to change the setting from +
00:15
to −
02:00
so I could go back two hours. That would put me in class before I got in trouble. And this time, no matter how tempting it was, I wouldn't hit Herbert.

I slipped over to the computer. As I'd hoped, it was easy enough to change the setting with the mouse. I sat in the chair and flipped the only switch I saw. I heard a low humming sound from underneath the chair. I also heard the front door slam.

“I'm home, Dad.”

“Just in time! You can watch the experiment.” Herbert's father took a step toward the door just as the computer let out a beep.

He spun toward me and screamed, “No! I haven't adjusted it for the spatial displacement.”

His words were drowned out by a hum that rose to a rumble and then a roar. I felt like my body had been pumped full of seltzer water.

Spatial displacement?

I had no idea what that meant, and no time to wonder. I could swear I was being pulled in every direction at once, and then squished into a tiny ball.

Just when I thought the squishing would get unbearable, I traveled through time. It happened in an eye blink.

I went back two hours.

That's when I understood what Herbert's father meant by
spatial displacement
. I'd gone back two hours. I'd traveled through time. But I hadn't moved from where I was in space.

The earth had moved. It was where it had been two hours ago, leaving me stranded in space. Any kid who's ever watched a science fiction film knows that's a bad thing. As my blood boiled in the vacuum and my flesh froze in the cold, I realized I'd run out of time.

 

THE GARDEN OF GARGOYLES

All the kids at
Camp Wenaloka knew about the gargoyle garden. A lot of them talked like they'd been there. But Candace suspected most of them were lying. Especially Milly Loftshield, who acted like she was some sort of big deal.

“It's really spooky,” Milly said as the girls in the cabin were getting ready to go to sleep. They'd been there just long enough to learn each other's names, but not long enough to establish a leader.

“Can you be more specific?” Candace asked. This was her first year at the camp, so she couldn't even pretend to know about the gargoyles.

“Really, really spooky,” Milly said.

Candace snorted. “You've never been there.”

“Yes, I have,” Milly said.

Candace felt like she was springing a trap. “Then tell us exactly what you saw.”

“It was really dark,” Milly said. “Really, really dark.”

“You're such a liar,” Candace said. She could feel the loyalties in the room shifting toward her. She'd be the leader now.

“There were thirteen gargoyles,” Milly said. “I counted them as I walked down the path. Each one was more scary than the one before it. They had fangs and wings and horns. Their faces were stretched wide open, like they were screaming.”

The room shifted again. Candace hadn't counted on Milly's storytelling skills. The battle might be tougher than she'd expected.

“I thought you told us it was dark,” Candace said, trying to regain the advantage.

“I had a flashlight,” Milly said.

“So it wasn't dark,” Candace said.

“The batteries were weak. The bulb was dim.”

Candace saw this wasn't the way to take Milly down. The girl was too crafty. But there was a way to beat her once and for all. “I'm going there right now. And I'm going to count the gargoyles. Then we'll see who really went there.”

She forced herself not to grin. It would be so easy to walk off, wait awhile, and then come back and claim she'd counted fifteen gargoyles. She could make up descriptions. That would be easy. She'd had years of practice telling tales, saying whatever she needed to get what she wanted. She headed toward the door.

“How do we know you're really going there?” Milly said. “You could just pretend to go.”

Candace's inner grin turned into a snarl. She hadn't expected Milly to figure out her plan. But the game was far from lost. She'd just have to actually go to the gargoyle garden, and take someone with her. “Since you don't trust me, I'll bring a witness. Who wants to go on an adventure and find out what a liar Milly is?”

The other girls avoided her eyes as Candace glanced around the cabin. She considered the possibilities. Eden was afraid of everything. She'd never go. Lucinda was very smart. Candace considered her a threat. Becky was a possibility. The girl was desperately eager to make friends. Candace knew she could get Becky to do anything. She looked straight at her. “So, who's coming?”

Becky, who was staring at the floor, must have felt Candace's gaze, because she looked up. She gave the tiniest nod. Then she opened her mouth to speak.

Perfect,
Candace thought.

“I will,” Milly said before Becky could volunteer.