Chase Tinker & The House of Magic (27 page)

Andy laughed so hard, he fell to the carpet
out in the hallway.

"Let's go check out another room," said Chase
as he kicked the slithering mustache out of the way and tried
wrapping it around his arms. "When we leave, we should go back to
normal."

"I better!" Clutching his eyebrows, James
stalked to the door.

But James's eyebrows didn't return to normal
and Chase's mustache didn't disappear. They had to go back to the
room and figure out the counterspells. Chase was relieved when they
only had to say, "
Shrink eyebrows
" and "
Remove
mustache.
"

"What a lame power!" grumbled James when they
were finally walking hair-free down the hall.

Chase shrugged. "It was okay," he said,
feeling his upper lip, thankful the hideous mustache was gone.
"Maybe the next ones will be better."

But James hated the Any-Age Room, and the
Gibberish Room. "Where are the fighting powers?" he demanded, after
spending way too much time trying to leave the Slow-Motion Room.
"Why don't you show me those?"

"Fighting powers?" said Andy. He cocked his
head to the side and squinted at his cousin. "What do you
mean?"

"You know!" said James, waving his arms. "The
powers used to hurt and destroy."

"What? You're crazy!" exclaimed Chase. "We
haven't seen any rooms like that. And we don't want to hurt or
destroy anyone."

He paused, remembering the locked room.
Grandfather said it had a dangerous power, but that was only one.
James was talking about a lot more. He thought of saying something,
but decided not to, even though, if anyone needed a spanking, it
was James.

"There's Maxwell's room," said Andy. "The one
with the fireballs."

"Take me to it!" said James, lighting up like
a flashy Christmas tree.

"But those don't hurt," said Chase, rolling
his eyes. "They blow up things, not people."

"Forget it then. Only you two would think
that's cool," scoffed James. "The old man must have the fighting
rooms hidden somewhere." He wandered down the hallway. "This house
probably has a lot of secret places. Those rooms might be through a
secret passage or doorway or closet, somewhere hard to get to. Or
maybe they're being protected somehow. I'll have to give this a lot
more thought."

"And what do you plan on using these powers
for,
if
you find them?" asked Chase warily.

"Afraid I'm going to use them on you?" James
said, glancing back at Chase.

"I wouldn't be surprised," he shot back. "You
haven't proven yourself to be the nicest guy on the block."

"Whatever."

"If Grandfather wanted us to know those
things," said Andy. "He would tell us."

James turned. "Who asked you, four-eyes?" He
stretched out his arm, looking ready to punch Andy again.

This time Andy was ready. He jumped to the
side and flicked his fingers. James never knew what hit him as he
instantly stopped, his arm stretched at least six feet, the sneer
on his waxy face frozen as solidly as the rest of him.

"Don't call me four-eyes!" Andy yelled. He
swung around and stomped away.

Grinning, Chase jogged after his brother. "If
we're lucky, when he unthaws, he'll be lost up here until either
his vacation or ours is over."

"T
hat's cheating!"
yelled Andy. "You can't jump backwards unless you've been
kinged."

"Are you sure?" asked Chase as he bounced his
checker pieces across the huge checkerboard in the spiral staircase
room. "I don't remember that rule."

"Yeah, right," muttered Andy. He wandered to
the middle of the board and poked the black piece he wanted to
move, making it jump itself over one of Chase's red ones. The
captured piece scuttled off the board. "How convenient is
that?"

"You're just mad you're losing."

"That's because you aren't playing by the
rules," said Andy, standing with his arms crossed. "You can't jump
over your own checkers, only mine."

"Cheating, stinker? Tsk, tsk," said a voice
behind Andy.

Spinning, Andy saw James leaning against the
wall, his face wearing its usual sneer.

"James," said Andy flatly, turning back to
the game. "What do
you
want?"

"Oh, nothing," he answered, slipping his
hands into his pockets. "Well…maybe one thing." He pushed away from
the wall and sauntered across the floor. "Cool trick; disappearing
in front of my nose last night. I don't know how you did it. I
might've been wandering around all night if Janie hadn't come
looking for me."

Chase poked another checker piece, making it
hop over one of Andy's. "Too bad, but Janie is a sucker for helping
losers."

"You think you're clever, don't you?" asked
James coolly.

Chase shrugged. "Just trying to survive."

James scooped up a marshmallowy-soft checker
piece and bounced it off his knee and head. "You know, I've given
this a lot of thought, and I've decided to let bygones be bygones.
Start over. What do you say?"

"Ha!" Chase snorted. "Right."

"No, I mean it. I want us to be friends."

Chase gazed at James thoughtfully. What other
tricks was his cousin hiding up his sleeve? He decided to play
along.

"Okay. I'll give it a try." He glanced at
Andy, who was attempting to juggle several checker pieces as if he
hoped James would go away if he was ignored. "Andy?"

"I dunno, Chase," mumbled Andy. "He hasn't
been nice to us at all. Maybe we should ask him why he's changed
his mind."

"That would be an excellent question," said
Chase, sliding his gaze from Andy's scowling face and back to
James.

"We are cousins, after all," growled
James.

"Oh, yeah? That's your answer?" said Chase,
with a you've-got-to-be-kidding-me look. "We were cousins yesterday
too. That didn't stop you from punching Andy or calling him names,
now did it?"

James moved closer and lowered his voice.
"Okay, I want your help to find the fighting powers rooms."

"I see," said Chase. "You want us to waste
our time when we have no proof these rooms even exist."

But what if they do?
he wondered. It
sounded as if they needed something really powerful to stop the
Dark Enemy. What if other dangerous rooms were hidden somewhere in
the house? Grandfather said he had everything under control, but he
was only one man. And, Chase hated to think it, but Grandfather
was
getting kind of old. Then he remembered something else.
Aunt Augusta had fought and defeated the Marlowes. As Keeper, she
must have had more powerful abilities than just animating
objects.

But, again, they would be going behind
Grandfather's back. Chase already had a ton of guilty feelings
piled up. They also still hadn't bounced back from their
time-traveling fiasco. Should they jump right into another crazy
scheme?

"Have you talked to Janie about this?" he
asked.

"No. I didn't think she'd go for it," said
James. "Anyway, Janie's hiding in her room. Something about her
stupid pet getting lost."

"Again?" said Andy.

"Don't worry," said James, sounding like he
couldn't care less. "She found him digging in the garden." He
studied the end of his finger. "Too bad. The little snot-rag bit me
last night."

Way to go, Maxwell,
thought Chase,
before saying aloud, "If I do this, and I'm not saying I will, I'm
not
doing it without her. I need to talk to her right now."
He marched across the floor and down the hallway. "And this time,
I'm not giving up," he muttered.

Five minutes later, he pounded on Janie's
door. At least it was visible today. "Janie! Open up! I've had
enough of this. If you don't open this door in three seconds, I'll
kick it down!"

Two seconds later, the door flew open. Janie,
pink-faced and glowering, snapped, "Do you mind? I'm trying to
sleep!"

He caught the door before she slammed it in
his face. "It's twelve-thirty in the afternoon. Not quite nap
time."

"Aren't you the smart one," she said,
swinging around and leaving him standing in the doorway. "Okay,
what do you want?"

"I want things back the way they were between
us," he said as he entered the room and closed the door. "Before
all the time-travel crap."

"What's the use? You wouldn't
understand."

"So make me understand."

She stomped back and forth from the bed to
the dresser, putting her clean laundry away, yanking drawers open
and flinging underwear one way and shirts another. "All right!" she
huffed. "Everyone leaves! My dad, my brother, Grandfather coming
and going only on holidays, Mom rushing off to who knows where;
even you and Andy are leaving at the end of the summer. But Maxwell
is always here. I couldn't face losing him and you were ready to
fly off and leave him like—like he was some mangy old shoe!"

"Look, I'm sorry, Janie. I didn't know. I
wanted to keep us safe, and not change history any more than we
already had." Chase glanced into an open drawer. The clothes
wiggled and shook. "And I thought he was dead. But I never wanted
him to be dead. You have to believe me." As if he knew they were
talking about him, Maxwell popped up, blue and purple striped socks
dangling from his mouth.

"I know. I'm sorry I said that," she said,
tugging her socks from the ferret and keeping her head down to
avoid Chase's gaze. "I mean, you may have your faults, but you're
not hateful."

"If he hadn't shown up, we planned on
escaping to go look for him," he said eagerly when he saw her anger
wavering.

"And after all that, we didn't even keep the
Relic from getting damaged," she grumbled.

"At least we didn't make things worse. Our
house was still here, all glowy and magical as ever."

"There is that."

"So I'm forgiven?" he asked, leaning
forward.

"I guess," she mumbled.

"Cool! And, I need your help."

"
Now
what?" she said, rolling her
eyes.

Chase grimaced. "James wants to look for the
rooms with fighting powers."

"What!" she exclaimed, tossing her socks
aside. "What rooms with fighting powers?"

"He thinks Grandfather has a bunch of rooms
with dangerous powers hidden somewhere," he answered. "What do you
think?"

Janie plopped onto the bed. "Hm…there is the
locked room. I guess we can't rule out there might be more."

"Where do you suppose they're located then?"
asked Chase, leaning against the bedpost. "I know we haven't been
through the whole house, but do you think they're in some secret
place? I mean,
if
we believe these rooms exist."

"Nothing here would surprise me," said Janie.
"What does he want with them, anyway?"

"He wouldn't say," he answered. "They'd sure
come in handy if we have to fight the Marlowes, wouldn't they?"

She nibbled on her bottom lip. "Yeah, they
would."

"What should we do?"

"After our time-traveling problems," she
said, sighing, "I don't know anymore. I guess I am kind of curious
now. And James will search the house no matter what we say." She
jumped up, grabbed Maxwell, and dashed across the room. "I bet
Persephone will have some suggestions. Come on!"

"The Library!" exclaimed Persephone after
Chase and Janie found her and Andy and James eating cookies in the
kitchen. "That'd be the perfect place to look."

"This house has a library?" said James,
frowning.

"Oh yeah," said Janie, nodding. "I remember
Grandfather mentioning something about it when I first got here,
but I've never been in it."

"So what's so great about the library?" asked
Chase.

"You'll see," Persephone said, smiling and
squinting her eyes a bit in an attempt to look mysterious.

Chase glanced sideways at her. This was the
first time she'd spoken directly to him since leaving the attic
three days ago. And even though it was only two words, at least it
was a start. "So—um—why haven't we seen it before this?"

"We just haven't worked our way there yet,"
said Janie. "Let's go check it out now."

"Good idea!" said Andy. "Libraries in the
movies
always
have secret passages."

"And boring books," said James, while yawning
widely.

"You don't have to come with us," said Janie,
with a saucy toss of her head.

"No, no I'll come," said James hastily.
"Gotta keep an eye on you, don't I?"

"We made it this far without you," she said
as they left the kitchen.

"Barely," he shot back. "You didn't even
think to look for fighting rooms."

"We would have eventually."

They argued all the way to the library, but
when the five kids were standing at the open double doors, every
mouth except Persephone's was too busy hanging open to say much of
anything.

"W
hy didn't you
bring us here before?" asked Chase, once he found his voice.

"I forgot," said Persephone, looking
sheepish.

"You forgot? How could you possibly forget a
room like—like
this
?" exclaimed Chase. He dodged several
flying books as they zoomed past and into the room.

She shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I've
just had other things on my mind. And I've only been up here a few
times to get some books for classes."

The kids wandered into the room, craning
their necks and gawking at everything in sight. The ceiling, at
least two hundred feet high, was sapphire-blue with fluffy clouds
floating across it. A rainbow-striped hot-air balloon bobbed among
the clouds.

One side of the room looked like a castle,
the walls made of stone bricks with tapestries and flaming torches
hanging between the bookshelves, and shiny suits of armor standing
next to the fireplace.