Time Stoppers

  “Don’t see us,” she murmured, wishing with all her might. “Don’t see us.”

  The monsters saw them. One pointed and lunged forward, its giant foot crunching through the snow.

  “Food!” it yelled.

  Annie drove the dog ahead. They were close, closing in. There was no way she could outdistance them. Their legs were too long. She tried harder, forcing her muscles to move as quickly as possible. She couldn’t just give up. No way. No how.

  Thud!

  She fell over backward, smacking hard against the snow.

  The white dog leaped on top of her and turned, standing exactly over her, its doggy legs straddling her. He growled at the approaching monsters.

  “No! Run! Run! They’ll hurt you.” Annie shoved against the dog’s legs, trying vainly to move him aside. His lips curled into a warning snarl and he refused to budge. She scrambled out from beneath him, turning to thrust herself up off the snow. Something loud rumbled to the right.

  The dog’s tail wagged the tiniest of bits. The monsters stopped their approach and stared toward the oncoming noise, distracted. A dead chicken dangled from one of their hands. Annie’s heart broke. She scrambled up into a standing position and began to run but stopped, falling again, just as a new rumbling noise broke the cold air.

  A dark oversize snowmobile raced out of the trees. It flew close enough to the beasts to unbalance them, and they both tumbled sideways into the snow. Their ugly feet waved in the air.

  Annie’s mouth dropped open in shock. The shiny snowmobile had glittering pictures of golden dragons painted onto the sides and hovered a good five inches above the snow. The rider pressed a button, and the sled dropped to the ground next to Annie.

  “Um … ,” Annie started. “Help?”

  As if she had all the time in the world, the rider whipped off her helmet and beamed at Annie. Her pigtails smacked across her face. She shoved them away, muttering, “Ridiculous things.”

  “You’re a girl,” Annie said, realizing the moment she said it that it was a dorky thing to say, especially when they should be trying to escape.

  “Duh. And you’re Annie, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Annie Nobody? You’re sure?”

  Annie nodded as the girl surveyed her. The wind blew a passionate gust, and they rocked with it but didn’t fall. The girl’s face solided up. She was small but rugged and seemed like someone Annie would not want to meet on a dark playground. There was something firm about her, too, as if she would always have your back. Annie wondered what the girl was thinking about her—if she thought Annie’s hair was too long, that she was too skinny, or if she seemed terribly un-special.

  Annie’s fingers tightened in the dog’s fur. Fear of losing him forced her words out, “We have to go … Those things …”

  As she said it, the creatures righted themselves and lunged toward the girls.

  “Trolls. Uck. Hop on,” the girl ordered.

  Annie climbed onto the snowmobile. The dog hopped on behind her and rested his head on her shoulder.

  The driver finally grinned again. It lit up her entire face as she said, “I’m glad Tala found you.”

  “Tala? What’s Tala?” Dizziness overtook Annie, and she felt even more confused. “Your snowmobile was … was … hovering?”

  “It’s cool, isn’t it? My dad tinkered with it.” The girl started the engine as the trolls got even closer. “The dog’s name is Tala. I’m Eva Beryl-Axe. Hang on. We need to get you home.”

  “Home?” Annie whispered. “I don’t have a home.”

  Eva snapped her head to stare at her, stunned. “Of course you do. Aurora’s your home.”

  “Aurora?” Annie repeated, but her voice was lost underneath the torrent of the snowmobile’s engine.

  “See you later, alligators!” Eva yelled. She squeezed the handlebars, and the snowmobile roared to life. She pulled it around in a circle and zigged it off across the snow and farther into the woods.

  “Food, come back! Food!” the trolls bellowed at the retreating snowmobile.

  Eva made a sharp left and then another through the trees. She revved the engine and zipped back into the woods, muttering under her breath, “Trolls. They think they’re so much better just because they’re tall.”

  “I’m not tall,” Annie said, swaying on the back of the snowmobile. She couldn’t believe she just said that. I’m not tall?

  Eva lifted her hand from the handlebars and gave her a thumbs-up sign, and they continued through the forest, passing a giant boulder that resembled a dragon and another that resembled an egg. Trees blurred as they sped past.

  “What jerks!” Eva yelled over her shoulder as the snowmobile moved farther into the woods, spewing up snow.

  “Y-y-yeah,” Annie panted out. She clasped Eva’s sturdy back as pigtails whipped into her face. She steeled herself as the snowmobile darted between tree trunks and branches, ducking every now and then.

  “Hold on. I’m going to go into hover mode. Okay?”

  “Okay!” Annie wanted to do a happy dance it was so okay. She was all for her and Tala leaving the cold forest and the Wiegles, and never glancing back.

  Boom! The snowmobile jolted forward and backward. It sputtered and kicked. It let loose a gigantic roar and stopped altogether. Boom! Annie rocked into Eva’s back, and Tala flopped off into the snow.

  “Tala!” Annie screamed, getting ready to dive off the snowmobile. “We lost Tala.”

  Eva smacked the handlebars with her fist and bellowed, “Vampire milk!”

  Her curse echoed through the empty woods.

  “Vampire milk?” Annie squeaked.

  Eva hopped off the snowmobile and lifted up the front part and crankily explained, “It’s how I swear, okay?”

  Annie examined Tala, who gave her a few well-placed doggy kisses. “Okay.”

  “Vampire milk. Goblin goo. Troll cooties!” Eva slammed her fist into metal thingamabobs inside the snowmobile’s hood. “Crud cakes. Werewolf weenies. Unicorn turds!”

  Annie stepped away and gave Tala a hopeless frown. He rolled his eyes.

  “Um, so could you tell me where you’re taking us?” Annie asked.

  “You really don’t know?” Eva glanced up for a second and started grumbling, hiding her head behind the mechanical engine parts.

  “No. You said something about Aurora.”

  “You’ve never heard of Aurora?”

  “No.”

  “Never heard its name whispered to you in your dreams?” Eva’s face became visible again. It was streaked with grease. She scrutinized Annie. Annie scrutinized her back, feeling a little bit like a failure.

  “No.”

  Eva stepped toward her, voice serious, hands on her hips. “You do have dreams?”

  Annie lowered her voice. “All the time.”

  “Phew, you had me going there. I was worried you were one of those people who don’t dream, don’t believe, don’t anything.” Eva shuddered and slammed down the engine hood. “People like trolls.”

  “I would never be like them!” Annie’s hand shot up to cover her mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to shout.”

  “What’s wrong with shouting?” Eva asked, shouting. “I shout all the freaking time! So, anyway, Aurora is a town. It’s magic. There’s this great old lady there, Miss Cornelia. She is made of awesome, like myself, and she sort of keeps it all together somehow. I don’t know how. It’s all beyond me. I’m good with my hands. Not with my head. You should see my social-studies grades.”

  “Magic town?”

  “Yeah. Magic. Those of us who don’t fit into the human world can choose to live there together. It’s sort of like a safe haven.” Eva snorted. From her jacket pocket, she pulled out a dark candy bar and bit off half, holding out the other half to Annie.

  Annie’s stomach growled. “Thanks.” She took a bite. It melted in her mouth. “It tastes like honey.”

  “Really? It tastes like mashed potatoes and stuffing to
me,” Eva said, still chewing. “It’s a ‘What You Want’ bar. It tastes like whatever you’re in the mood for.”

  “It’s so yummy. How does it do that? Taste like what you want?” Annie said. She took another nibble and let the honey taste warm her mouth and puff up her tongue. Her stomach began making happy noises. Then she remembered what they had been talking about.

  “So, you live in Aurora, which is a place for people who don’t fit in?” Like me, Annie thought. I never fit in.

  “Yeah. But I don’t know how safe it is since Miss Cornelia makes us go to school with humans, and well, lately—agh … That’s not something I should be telling you yet.”

  Annie shook her head, trying to figure it all out. “You say that as if you aren’t human.”

  “I’m not.”

  Annie took a step backward. “You’re not—”

  “I’m a dwarf.”

  “A dwarf.”

  “A dwarf. ‘Dwarf’ is not a dirty word. According to the Multiple World Encyclopedia of the Fae, we are ‘a hearty race of industrious workers, inspired tool smiths, fantastic diggers, and jewelry makers.’ Plus, we are darn good dancers,” Eva boasted and began to two-step in a circle.

  Annie laughed while Tala covered his eyes with his paws. “No, really?”

  “Really,” Eva announced. She bowed. “Don’t tell me you’ve never met a dwarf before?”

  Blushing, Annie apologized. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, I’m betting you have. There are tons of us around. We don’t all live in Aurora. Lots of magics live in the world with regular people. Some just don’t ever find their way home to Aurora or the other places like it.”

  “And that’s where we’re going? Aurora?”

  Eva stared for a second, seeming a little disgusted by Annie’s slowness. “Yeah, that’s what I said. Aurora.”

  “And it’s magic, like magic magic?”

  “Yeah. It’s magic magic, but some of the magic has faded a bit, which is why it was so important we bring you back before everything goes kablooey. Personally I’m just glad you’re not dead or stuck in some other dimension or something, which would suck,” Eva explained. She ripped the band off her left pigtail and unthreaded the braid. Then she started tightening it.

  Annie tried to figure out which question to ask first. “And why is it going kablooey?”

  “The Raiff. He’s this guy—really bad news if you ask me. I mean, he used to be one of us before he turned to the dark side or whatever … and he’s super scary-looking, too, all thin with platinum blond hair and eyes that lack any light, eyes like the bottom of a mine, you know? And it’s all because of him that things ain’t been right … sorry, things haven’t been right … I’m not supposed to say ‘ain’t.’ It drives SalGoud wild. There was this epic battle twelve years ago, right after you were born. The Raiff took all the elves away. It really was bad. First it was the Daisies who disappeared, then the Pines, and then Bloom’s parents and all the rest of them. Everything was a mess.” Eva paced back and forth, her fist hitting her hand and her pigtails flip-flopping in the wind as she became more and more worked up. “And then there was an all-out war. I was too freaking young to be in it, which is a darn shame if you ask me. I bet it wouldn’t have ended in a stalemate if they’d let me fight. So what if I was only two years old? Big deal. Dwarfs can fight from birth!”

  “And dwarfs live there, in Aurora?”

  “All sorts of fae live there,” Eva announced. She calmed down a bit, and her fingers moved lightning fast, rebraiding her loose pigtail. “But not elves anymore, except for Bloom. The Raiff got all but one of them in the Purge. Now let’s get you back on the snowmobile before I get in trouble.”

  “In trouble?”

  Eva’s face reddened. “Well … Canin and Tala actually found you when they were searching for the gnome. Nobody even knew to try to find you, you know? We all thought you were dead. But Tala recognized you right away with his keen doggy senses and insisted on staying and keeping you safe. Canin went back to tell everyone, and everyone started debating on whether the girl they found could possibly be you. And then the trolls came, and I couldn’t just hover there. So, yeah … it wasn’t my job to save you. Mr. Nate said I was supposed to rescue this skinny kid who goes to my school, which should have been an easy pickup, but there was a freaking fire on the road. I couldn’t just race right in and save him on this. And then there you were, about to be eaten by trolls.”

  Annie eyed her. “So you saved me instead.”

  “Yeah, suppose so.” Eva bit the corner of her lip.

  Relief filled Annie. She balled up the candy wrapper and put it carefully in her pocket. “I don’t completely get why anyone would want to find me in the first place, but I’m totally glad you did.”

  “Really?” Eva’s face lit up.

  “Yeah,” Annie said enthusiastically, since she noticed that Eva really perked up when she was complimented. “Thanks for rescuing me. You were really heroic, really tough.”

  Eva’s smile got even bigger, and then she started to blush. “You think? ’Cause sometimes I pass out when I see trolls.”

  Annie grinned back at her. “I don’t think. I know.”

  They hopped on the snowmobile, except for Tala, who refused despite Annie’s pleas.

  “He’s stubborn like that,” Eva explained. “You just have to go with it. He’ll be fine. He’s super tough. He just hates hovering. All dogs do. They’d rather run. I’m surprised he got on before, actually. He must really love you to do that.”

  “He’s the best dog ever.” Annie swallowed hard and leaned forward, circling the conversation back to what was tickling at her brain. “And why am I supposed to go to Aurora?”

  Eva revved up the engine, which now seemed to work fine. “Because you are the only one who can save us, save Aurora, and save magic. Duh.”

  Annie’s breath leaped inside her chest, taking her words away. Stunned, she clutched Eva’s back more tightly and finally said, “I think you have the wrong person. I’m not the sort of person who saves people. I’m not special like that. I’m just … I’m … uh …”

  But Eva didn’t hear. The dwarf pressed a button, and the snowmobile lurched and hovered, then zipped off through the trees, screeching through the air like it had never been broken. Annie closed her eyes and held on to the little dwarf, hoping that Eva knew where they were going and that nobody—human or dwarf—would fall off.

  8

  Out the Window

  Jamie staggered backward away from the window and the horrible blaze. In all his almost thirteen years, Jamie knew that his family wasn’t normal. The signs were there:

  1. He was too embarrassed by his weird family to bring friends home.

  2. He had never seen a picture of his mother, ever.

  3. His family was terribly, ridiculously mean.

  And, in all his almost thirteen years, Jamie knew that he didn’t fit in with his father and his grandmother. The signs were there for that, too:

  1. They were quite large. He was quite small.

  2. They were quite loud. He was quite quiet.

  3. They were quite pale skinned with a greenish tint. He was quite dark skinned with a bluish tint.

  4. They were quite evil. He wasn’t. He knew he wasn’t.

  And now there was number five:

  5. They thought that eating boys (specifically him) was quite acceptable. He was quite sure that it wasn’t.

  He remembered all the horrors he had seen, all the ways they’d hurt him, and he knew that they most certainly would eat him, just totally gobble him up like he was potted meat. “Jamie! Get down here!” his grandmother bellowed from the bottom of the stairs.

  Jamie Alexander preferred not to be anybody’s dinner.

  “One second!” he yelled back, trying as best he could to sound like a normal boy who wasn’t about to be eaten or devoured or ingested in any way.

  He opened his window and let the cold air and smoke from
the fire billow into his room.

  “I will not be eaten,” he sputtered as smoke filled the air. “Not now. Not ever.”

  Coughing, he yanked the sheets off his bed and tied the ends together as tightly as he could. Then he added a jump rope to the end and dangled it all out the window. He secured one end to the bedpost, hoping that it would hold.

  “James Hephaistion Alexander! We are hungry!” Grandma Alma Alexander yelled.

  “I know! Coming!” Jamie lied as he pushed his body out the window. His feet dangled over the edge. Reaching back, he grabbed the sheet and turned so that his feet hit the grayish-white siding of the house. He was suspended there, just hanging for a moment, gasping from the joy of being outside, of escaping.

  “I can do this,” he whispered. “I can do this.”

  He began rappelling down the side of the house. It isn’t really that far, he convinced himself. And it would be better to fall and die than be eaten, right?

  “Right,” he murmured, just as the knot attaching the sheets loosened and he plummeted to the ground below.

  Phlump!

  Jamie landed on his feet and then flopped onto his back. The air ricocheted out of his lungs as he lay there in the snow, staring up at the smoke-filled sky.

  “I am dead,” he muttered, but then he realized that dead people didn’t mutter. Sitting up, he brushed the snow off his back and admitted, “I am not dead.”

  “JAMES HEPHAISTION ALEXANDER!” His grandmother’s voice bounced around the house and into the outside air. “I am going to count to three, and then I am coming upstairs to get you!”

  Crud. He skittered backward on the snow, trying to get enough strength to actually stand up. If she came upstairs and found him gone … he couldn’t even think about how horrible things would be. He had to go—now.

  “One!” she yelled.

  Horrified, he managed not to faint. Terror blazed into him, a weight right between his shoulder blades. She would catch him. She would …