Текст книги "Everfound"

Автор книги: Neal Shusterman

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

“Nick, what’s going on?” Mikey asked.

Nick pointed up, and for the first time, they saw the load of I-beams hanging directly over the playground. “They’re reaping souls,” Nick told them. “But I don’t think it’s right. Do you?”

Mikey didn’t need to answer him. The answer was right on his face.

Clarence, still a rescue worker at heart, sprung into action first. “I’ll help the living, you go do something about those freaking ghosties.” Then Clarence smashed the driver’s window of the nearest parked car, popped the trunk, and grabbed a crowbar in his living hand. In an instant he was racing toward the playground gate, where he pounded the bicycle lock with the crowbar over and over.

Mikey knew he had no power to help the living, and the only weapon he had against the Afterlights was fear. So digging deep into the darkest pit of his imagination he drew forth the most frightening miscreation he could dredge up and transformed himself into a foul-looking, fouler-smelling tentacled thing, the likes of which had never been seen in this or any other world. Then he threw himself into the playground roaring, turning the tips of his tentacles into tooth-filled mouths, each of which roared in a different dissonant pitch.

One look, and all the Afterlights scattered in terror, abandoning their mission, but that didn’t do a thing for the living children still trapped in the playground—and no matter how hard Clarence hit that lock, it wouldn’t break. So instead he used the crowbar to pry the gate from its hinges. . . .

“What’s wrong with you?”

The sky-crane control booth had flown open and Moose was faced with a furious construction foreman.

“I . . . I . . .”

“Why haven’t you dropped them?”

Moose quickly realized that it was Milos, but he was no more relieved. “Maybe we shouldn’t do it, Milosh. I mean, itch jusht a bunsh of little kidsh.”

“We need all ages, you idiot! Mary would expect no less.” And when Moose made no move toward the control panel, Milos said, “Either you do it, or I will.”

“Okay,” said Moose. “Then you do it.”

Milos glared at him. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he reached out, pushed the button, and released the entire load.

Mikey, still in beastly form, frightened the last of the Afterlights away, then turned to see Clarence pry the gate off its hinges, just as the girders above them began a thirty-story drop. A flood of living children escaped from the playground as the girders fell, and just then Mikey heard a voice behind him.

“Mikey, is that you?”

It was Allie! The sound of her voice chased the beast back to the depths of Mikey’s mind in an instant and he became himself once more. She ran toward him, but before they could embrace, a crash exploded in the living world violent enough to feel in Everlost.

No matter how strong the climbing starship was, it could not hold off a crushing onslaught of tempered steel. The load of falling girders didn’t just destroy the jungle gym, it shattered it. Fragments of plastic exploded in all directions, and even the ground beneath it fractured from the weight. The principal and teachers, who were the last out of the gate, were hit by plastic and asphalt shrapnel, and although those wounds were painful, they were not deadly—and their larger bodies shielded the escaping children.

The playground was destroyed but the children were saved.

Then as Allie and Mikey looked to the spot where the climbing starship had been, they saw something amazing. The space-age jungle gym was gone from the living world, but in Everlost a strange swirl of ectoplasmic smoke, almost alive with purpose and design, began to condense and change color resolving from green to shades of blue and gray. It took shape as if the cosmos itself had breathed into a huge invisible mold the exact size and shape as the jungle gym. For a moment it shimmered like a mirage, and then became solid. The entire playground, lost to the living world, was now a part of Everlost.

“Wow” was all that Mikey could say. In all his years in Everlost he had seen many things but had never witnessed a place cross into Everlost. Finally he turned to Allie, ready for that long-overdue reunion, but Allie’s eyes were still locked on the jungle gym, because she saw something he had not yet seen. Not all the children were saved . . . because crawling out of the newly crossed jungle gym was a little boy who Allie recognized. It was the blond boy Milos had skinjacked. Milos must have put him to sleep so soundly that when Milos left his body, the boy remained unconscious within the starship tunnels and was still there when the steel came crashing down.

“There’s always one,” said a man’s voice Allie didn’t recognize. “No matter how many you save, there’s always one.” There, standing just a few yards away from Mikey, Allie saw a man who seemed half in Everlost and half out—but before she could process what she saw, something else stole her attention. A brand-new tunnel now opened before the boy, much different from the climbing tunnels he had just crawled out of . . . and the light at the end of this tunnel was blinding.

That’s when Milos barged furiously past her. “I will not leave this place empty-handed!” He ran, determined to tackle the boy out of the tunnel, and trap him in Everlost—but out of nowhere a brown blur launched itself at Milos, knocking him to the ground before he could get to the boy.

“This ends here,” said Nick with such fury that his chocolate ran as dark as tar. “Let the boy go!” Even as he said it, the blond boy’s eyes lit up and a smile filled his face. He reached a hand toward the tunnel, it drew him in, and the tunnel vanished. Whatever his destination, he got there without any further interference.

Everyone was speechless. The only sounds now were from the living world; the creak of settling steel, the cries of all the kids who survived, the soothing voices of adults trying to comfort them, and the distant sound of approaching sirens.

Milos, now smeared with tar-dark chocolate, pulled himself away from Nick and looked hatefully at everyone around him. In his mind he was the only one wronged here. He was the only victim. Even Moose had betrayed him, and was still up in the sky crane bawling his eyes out like a baby, just because Milos dropped the load of steel. Well, at least he still had Squirrel, who now came up beside him. Then he saw Clarence, and froze.

“Oh my God, oh my God!” said Squirrel with a terrified warble in his voice. “Do you know what that is?”

“I know.” Milos had heard the scar wraith legend, but he had never believed it was real. He figured it was the Everlost version of a fairy tale, a story meant to frighten little children into obedience. Yet here before them was the real thing. Then he realized who had brought it. He turned to Mikey with the kind of disgust usually reserved for the times he was a monster.

“You brought a scar wraith?”

“A what?” said the wraith. “What did you just call me?”

Mikey kept his eyes on Milos and smiled. “The killings stop now,” Mikey told him, crossing his arms. “Surrender, or be extinguished.”

“Run, run!” said Squirrel. “We gotta skinjack and run!”

But Milos stood his ground. He thought about Mary, and how she could stand in the face of anything, how she would never retreat. If he were ever to be an equal in her eyes, he would have to learn that kind of courage, that kind of commitment. Maybe then, he would earn the kind of respect she commanded. Maybe then, he would feel worthy of her. “We will leave here, and you won’t stop us,” Milos said, forcing himself to look fearlessly into the scar wraith’s Everlost eye. “I don’t care what evil you threaten us with!”

“Evil?” said the wraith. “What do you mean ‘evil’? I just saved all those children!”

“You condemned them!” Milos screamed. “Condemned them to live! I offered them salvation. I am the one Mary chose to see her vision through. Me. And I will not let any of you stop that vision.”

“What is wrong with you?” the scar wraith snapped. “Are you the one who caused all this?” Then he advanced on Milos.

“Clarence, wait!” said Mikey, but Clarence was too worked up to listen.

It would be easy to say that what Milos did next was out of selfishness and cowardice—but at the moment, he wasn’t thinking of himself. Instead, he was thinking about Mary and her children. If he were touched by the scar wraith and extinguished, who would lead them? Moose and Squirrel? They couldn’t lead themselves out of an open grave. Without Milos, it would be over. Mary’s dream would die and when she awoke she would be alone, with nothing. He couldn’t allow that to happen.

And so when the scar wraith approached him, he took a diagonal step backward putting himself behind Squirrel like a king retreating behind a pawn.

“Don’t you hide from me!” said the scar wraith. “Face me like a man, if that’s what you are!” Then he reached out to push Squirrel out of the way.

“Clarence, no!” screamed Mikey, but it was too late. Clarence grasped firmly on to Squirrel’s shoulder to push him aside.

Squirrel was not the finest spirit around, but consoled himself with knowing he wasn’t the worst one either. His existence had always been one of ignoble embarrassment. He had crossed into Everlost when he had fallen from a tree while trying to peek inside the window of a girl who would have nothing to do with him. As a skinjacker, his simple pleasures were not all that different, peering into people’s lives for his own amusement. He was not an enlightened spirit and was less concerned with good and bad, right and wrong, than he was concerned with just making it through the day in one piece. That, and having a good laugh. Lately, however, there wasn’t much laughter and he had been trying to convince Moose it was time for both of them to bail. After today, they might have done it too.

But today, Squirrel was touched by a scar wraith.

The power of belief is a very real thing in Everlost. The way one looks, physical strength, is all determined by what an Afterlight believes—and no one can truly control what they believe. We can lie to ourselves, saying we believe one thing, and sometimes we convince others it’s true, with the hope that by convincing others, we can convince ourselves. Wars are often waged not because of what we believe, but because of the things we want others to believe.

Squirrel was not sure of any of his beliefs. He was not so deep that he pondered such things. But when Clarence reached for him with a hand that was clearly a part of Everlost, attached to a body that clearly was not, Squirrel, in the furthest recesses of his soul, believed that the touch of a scar wraith would extinguish him forever and ever.

So that’s exactly what it did.

To those watching, it was undramatic and instantaneous. Clarence grasped on to Squirrel’s shoulder, Squirrel uttered the tiniest little squeal . . . and then he was gone.

No tunnel.

No shimmer of rainbow light.

One moment he was there, and the next he wasn’t. He simply dissolved into nothingness. Extinguished.

Clarence was thrown off balance by Squirrel’s unexpected vanishing act, and Milos, forgetting his resolve to stand against the scar wraith, turned and ran in terror, skinjacking the first fleshie to cross his path.

Clarence didn’t bother with Milos. He was more concerned with the spirit who had disappeared at his touch.

“Where’d he go?” Clarence asked. “Is this another ghostie trick?”

Mikey shook his head, not wanting to believe it. There was a stirring in his soul now, building toward pain—the kind of pain the living felt. “No trick, Clarence.”

“So, where did he go?”

“Nowhere,” Mikey sadly told him. “He went nowhere.”

CHAPTER 28

The Tears of Eternity

The very fabric of the universe mourns the extinguishing of a soul—both in Everlost and the living world. If Squirrel had still been there to see it, he would have been proud, maybe even a bit embarrassed, to see the tribute paid to his memory by all of creation.

In Nevada, an unprecedented thunderstorm formed where none should have been, pouring forth a deluge of water, salty as tears, on the parched earth below.

In Africa, a seven-point-five earthquake rumbled like a heaving sob through the vast Serengeti, a place where no fault line existed before.

In Brazil, a furious tornado cut a path from one edge of the nation to the other, with not a single storm cloud anywhere in the sky.

And ninety-three million miles away, the sun itself fell into sorrow, inexplicably dimming by one hundredth of one percent, henceforth and forever.

Of course such events have never been seen by human eyes, because a true extinguishing has never happened in the history of human life on earth.

Until now.

In the living world, these impossible events would be seen as signs—although no one would agree as to what they were signs of. Global warming? The Second Coming? Solar collapse? Armageddon? The living would come up with endless theories to argue, because the living were exceptionally good at arguing, especially when no one knew the answer.

In Everlost, however, the effect of a mourning universe was very simple and very clear. It was a silent wail that echoed through every soul, culminating in a powerful twinge of pain—yes, pain—deep in every Afterlight’s gut. And with that pain came a sudden awareness that something undoable, something irreparable had occurred.

Awareness.

Few things are more powerful than awareness, and it resonated within the sleeping, dreamless souls of all spirits in transition between the living world and Everlost. The sudden spark touched every Interlight regardless of how long they had slept, and jarred them all back to premature consciousness. It was a Great Awakening borne from one of the most profound pangs of mourning ever to be felt by the universe.

The Interlights in Milos’s bank vault all sat up, wondering where they were, and how they got there.

The Interlights in the arms of the Neon Warriors, who had left the Alamo that very morning, were suddenly walking on their own two feet, and asking lots of questions.

And in a glass coffin, a girl dressed in glorious green opened her eyes and smiled.

“Well, now,” she said to herself. “Let’s see what I’ve missed and what still needs to be done.”

. . . While in a lonely chamber deep beneath the Alamo, a Wurlitzer jukebox, without coin or question, began to play ‘Eve of Destruction.’”

PART FOUR

Mary Rising

High Altitude Musical Interlude #3 with Johnnie and Charlie

London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down . . .”

Sing-alongs, Johnnie-O had decided, were invented by the darkest forces of evil as hell’s ultimate horror.

“London Bridge is falling down . . .”

Johnnie was convinced that whatever memory of a brain he had, had been eaten by big fat everworms, and all that remained were the ghosts of swiss cheese holes.

“. . . my fair lady!”

And maybe cobwebs.

There was no telling how many journeys they had made around the world. Now, thanks to the gravitational tweak the giant deadspot had given them, each revolution left them a few hundred miles farther south. They were spiraling toward the equator. Eventually they would pass it, and wind up spinning in circles at the south pole.

“Take the keys and lock her up, lock her up, lock her up . . .”

With no contact from any of their friends on the ground since that fateful day Mary attacked the train, they had no way of knowing who had won that battle. They could only hope that their sacrifice was not for naught.

“Take the keys and lock her up . . .”

For many weeks now, looking out of the windows had provided no solace. Deadspots were few and far between, and the sight of them was nothing more than a cruel tease from a cold world.

“. . . my fair lady!”

Yet even with his Swiss-cheese, cobwebbed, empty head, Johnnie-O still didn’t reach the same absolute mindless, happy, sing-along stupor that Charlie had found.

“It’s gotta mean something, don’t it, Charlie? The fact that I’m not a complete blithering idiot like you?”

Charlie’s answer was just a vacant smile, and another verse.

. . . But halfway through that verse, a shadow swept across the bulkhead.

“Wait! Did you see that?”

Charlie must have, because he actually stopped singing. At first Johnnie thought that it might be a living-world airplane cutting through their airspace, but as he rose to look out of the window, he saw something flash by. A colorful flash of feathers, and a powerful beat of wings—and then another, and another.

“I think they’re angels, Charlie! The angels came to save us!”

In a moment, he could hear what could only be dainty angel feet setting down on the silver surface of the airship above them.

For the first time in a very long time, Charlie made eye contact with Johnnie-O, and together they sang, “Off we go . . . into the wild blue yonder . . .”

CHAPTER 29

The Great Awakening

Mary could see faces looking down on her, although it was all quite distorted due to the bottles, eyeglass lenses, and random glass objects that made up this strange box she found herself in. Her pallbearers had placed her on the ground and now just stared at her. Mary pushed on the lid, but it wouldn’t give, so she turned to the pallbearer with the sweetest face.

“Excuse me,” she said, “but would you be so kind as to undo the latch?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He knelt down, fumbled nervously with the latch, then pulled open the lid.

As soon as Mary stood up, about half the Afterlights knelt before her respectfully, as if they had been in the habit of doing so. The other half just stood about, looking lost, confused, and startled by living-world traffic that barreled past them.

At first she assumed the kneeling Afterlights were the children she had gathered, but none of their faces were familiar, and there were only about a hundred. When she had been so rudely dragged back to the living world and summarily killed by Milos, there had been close to a thousand.

Mary quickly surmised that the confused ones were all Greensouls—new arrivals to Everlost who had all just woken up from hibernation. But why had they all woken up at once? Clearly something out of the ordinary had occurred here.

“Thank you for the warm reception,” she said. “But there’s no need to kneel.” The kneeling Afterlights reluctantly rose to their feet. “Where is everyone else?” she asked. “Where’s the train?” But no one would field the question.

“Yeah . . . about the train . . .”

Mary turned to see a familiar face at last. “Jill!”

“Hi, Mary,” Jill said. “Uh . . . long time no see?”

Mary stepped out of the coffin and went to her, grasping her hand. Jill, she knew, was not an affectionate girl, but Mary believed everyone could benefit from a warm greeting. “It’s good to see you,” Mary said. “I have so many questions.”

“Yeah, me too!” shouted one of the newly awoken Greensouls. He was rapped in the arm by one of the more respectful Afterlights.

“Quiet! Show respect before the Eastern Witch.”

The Eastern Witch, thought Mary. Not a title she cared for, but for the time being it would do, if it brought her this level of respect.

Another Afterlight came up beside Jill—a strange one. He wore no shirt and his oddly colored muscular body bore spots and a velvety sheen. His eyes were vaguely nonhuman and where other boys his age might be sprouting facial hair, he was sprouting whiskers. Mary would have laughed, but he seemed way too serious for laughter.

“Jill, please introduce me to your friend.”

Jill opened her mouth to speak, but the spotted boy spoke first.

“My name is Jix,” he said. “And you should not be awake.”

“Well,” said Mary as politely as she could under the circumstances. “It appears that I am, doesn’t it.”

“It was not meant as an accusation, just a fact.” Jix said. “Things will change now. The three of us should talk.”

Mary studied Jix closely. “Are you the leader here,” she asked, “or some sort of mascot?” The question was meant not so much to belittle him, but to gauge his confidence. If he bristled, he was weak and easily manipulated. But if he let the insult roll off his back, then Mary would have to carefully finesse this relationship.

Not only didn’t Jix let the insult bother him, he chose to answer the question in a way that gave no answer at all, which meant that, in his own subtle way, he was a force to be reckoned with.

“They fear me because they know what I can do,” Jix said.

“And what can you do?”

“Skinjack.”

“Is that all?”

He offered her a very cool, catlike smile. “What greater power is there?”

“Hey! What about us?” chimed in the same loudmouth Greensoul from before. “Is anyone gonna tell us what’s going on?”

The other Afterlight hit him again, harder this time.

“All questions will be answered,” Mary announced. “Just as soon as mine are.”

Mary looked around to take in her surroundings. They were standing in the middle of a street on the outskirts of a city. By the look of it, they had been marching away from the city. Living-world traffic would occasionally barrel right through them, causing great distress to the Greensouls, who were yet to understand any of this. She turned to address all the Afterlights.

“Thank you all for taking care of me in this difficult time,” she told them. “Now I think it’s best if we all go to a deadspot to sort everything out, for I can see so many of you struggling to keep yourselves from sinking into the living world.”

“Back to the Alamo basement?” suggested someone. Well, at least now Mary knew what city they were in.

“No,” said a girl toward the back of the crowd. “There’s a closer place. I was one of Avalon’s scouts. I know all the deadspots in this city. There’s one just south of here.”

“Wonderful!” said Mary. “Lead the way!” The girl, thrilled to suddenly be important, marched off and everyone followed.

Mary walked with Jix and Jill on either side of her. “Now,” she said to them, “why don’t you tell me what happened while I slept. Start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”

“All right,” said Jill. “But you’re not going to like it. . . .”

The deadspot was a miniature golf course that had been bulldozed by the living world, thus crossing it into Everlost. As it came with a fully stocked ball shack, the Neons, who had been sequestered in the Alamo for so long, were more than happy to entertain themselves playing a few rounds of miniature golf. The Bopper made all the Greensouls act as caddies, as if this were some fraternity initiation.

Jix and Jill sat in the shadow of the pint-sized windmill as Mary processed everything they told her. She began to make some decisions, although she didn’t share all of them. Not yet, anyway. The hardest thing to swallow was the news about the train, and how so many of her children were lost.

“Only some of them were pushed down,” Jill told her. “A lot of them just scattered.”

“Well,” said Mary. “We’ll just have to gather them back, won’t we?”

Although Jix did not respond, Mary could tell that he was not pleased by the suggestion.

Milos was apparently still in San Antonio looking for her. She was pleased by this, if only because she might have a chance to reprimand him for the horrible job he had done . . . but then, perhaps she should be more gracious and charitable to him. After all, Milos had courage and loyalty enough to bring her back to Everlost by his own hand. She could still remember the intense pain of his cold steel blade in her chest—indeed there was a tear in her dress in that exact spot over her heart—and she remembered the conflicted look in his eyes when she died. She also remembered the joy in his eyes when he tackled her from the tunnel. He was clearly in love with her, although her own feelings toward him were still not entirely defined. She did love being loved, though. As for whether she could forgive him for losing so many of her children . . . well, she supposed she wouldn’t know the depth of her forgiveness until she looked into his eyes again.

“We think Milos is with the Chocolate Ogre now,” Jill told her, which was, of course, impossible. Mary had seen Nick dissolve into a pool of dark liquid. He was gone. And yet, the very idea that he might have come back from that horrible end sent the memory of her heart fluttering with the faintest of fear. Not fear of Nick, but fear of the love she once had for him. Mary told herself she felt no such love for the boy anymore. And if she told herself enough, perhaps she might believe it.

“If Milos is here with some refugees from the train,” Mary said, “we will seek him out and bring those Afterlights back into the fold.” Again, Jix stared at her, not giving a hint of a reaction, and so she said, “I trust I’ll have your full cooperation.”

Jix didn’t answer her right away. He thought about it, then he said, “I think instead you should come with me to the City of Souls.”

“I have no intention of voyaging to some distant land,” said Mary, “when I have so much to accomplish in this one.”

Jix nodded. “How might I convince you?”

In spite of her desire to just dismiss the idea, Mary gave the question serious thought. In Chicago, she had come to a dictator, only to be thrown into shackles and humiliated. Of course, Mary eventually rose above all that, and took over his petty dictatorship. But this Mayan King sounded a much more formidable foe than Pugsy Capone.

“I think you should go to the City of Souls,” said Jill—which surprised Mary. Jill never had an opinion unless there was something in it for her. Then Mary realized there was: Jix. Jill was in love with him. Mary smiled at her realization and patted Jill’s hand ever so condescendingly.

“You two go. I’m sure you can skinjack your way there in no time. And you can give my regards, and my regrets, to this king of yours.”

“I can’t return without you,” Jix said simply. “And I know that you can’t be forced. Therefore you will have to go of your own free will.”

“I will do no such thing,” Mary said, with some indignance.

Jix had nothing further to say about it.

With their conversation done, Jix gathered the Afterlights from their golf games. “Mary will speak to you now,” he told them. It was all he gave as an introduction. Then, just to make sure there was no question as to who was calling the shots, he said, “Our plans are still the same.”

Mary ignored him and began her speech, making sure she addressed these Afterlights by looking into as many eyes as she could, and smiling, always smiling, so that they knew she only wanted the best for them . . . although sometimes it took convincing, for so few Afterlights really knew what was in their own best interests.

“Some of you have been lost for quite a while,” she began, “and some of you for only an instant. Well, I am here to tell you that no matter how long you have been lost, you have all been found—and I promise you that I will make your deaths joyful and fulfilling from now until the end of time. That’s why I’m here. And if divine providence saw fit to awaken so many of us before our time, then there is a reason for it. Together, we will find that reason.”

Then, as if by that same divine providence, something extraordinary happened. More Afterlights began to arrive! They looked a little haggard, as if they had been running. They would have been breathless, had they been alive.

“Mary?” one of them said. “It’s Mary! Look! Look! It’s Mary!”

They ran to her, pushing past all the others, and hurled themselves into her arms, nearly knocking her over. She recognized many of their faces—these were her children—or at least what was left of them. There were a few dozen at most. Some spoke of a tentacled monster that had chased them away from a playground, but she didn’t give their tale much credence. If there was one thing she learned about Everlost, it was that tales often grew very, very tall.

If the other Afterlights had not yet been won over, this did the trick. How could they not see her as their salvation? The devotion of her children was a better testimony than anything she could say.

“All is well,” she told them. “All is well.” And it was only going to get better.

“We should just leave,” Jill said to Jix as they hid behind the miniature golf Taj Mahal, making sure Mary couldn’t hear them. “We don’t have to go to the City of Souls, we can go anywhere we want.”

“No,” Jix told her, and it just made her furious.

“Who cares about your stupid mission? You failed. It’s over. Deal with it!”

Jix took a long look at her. He reached out to touch her face, and although he thought she would pull away with anger, she closed her eyes and purred.

“Please,” she said, using the P word she once claimed was not a part of her vocabulary. “Please, let’s get away. Just you and me. I’ll even start furjacking if you want me to.”

Jix had to admit that it was tempting, but he couldn’t leave now. He had to see how this would all play out. “Maybe soon,” Jix said, “but not yet.”

Now Jill pulled away, returning to her fury—which was a much more comfortable place for her. “Why not?”

“Because Mary is right, I think. Maybe there is a reason why there was this ‘Gran Despetar,’ this ‘Great Awakening,’ but it may not be the reason she thinks.”

“So what? Why does it matter?”

“It matters if it convinces her to come with us to the City of Souls. I still have faith she will choose to come.”

Jill laughed bitterly. “You don’t know Mary.”

“No,” said Jix. “But I know the only thing more seductive than power . . . is greater power.”

A few miles away, Milos paced the bank floor, kicking everything in sight—the account desks, the teller windows. Nothing broke, but he kicked it anyway. He wished it would break. Destroying something—anything—would give him great satisfaction at this moment.

On the floor, just in front of the closed vault door, sat Moose, who had not stopped crying since he heard about Squirrel’s tragic end. “He didn’t desherve it,” Moose wailed. “He didn’t do anything wrong. He jusht did what you told him to do.”

“Do not be such a tearbaby! It happened, it’s over, and there is nothing to be done.”

“Itch ‘crybaby’!” yelled Moose. “You get everything wrong!”

Milos kicked over a chair, sending it flying past Moose, but Moose didn’t flinch and the chair didn’t break. “Save your anger for Mikey,” Milos told him. “He’s the one who told the scar wraith to extinguish Squirrel.”