He felt Risky’s breath on his lips. He knew he would die.
Then, millimeters from her deadly kiss, Mack put his arms around her, held her close, and in a loud, clear voice cried, “E-ma edras!”
A small nuclear weapon went off.
Mack’s body became light. And heat. Approximately 27,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit—the temperature of the sun’s core.
Mack didn’t feel it, didn’t really even see it. It wasn’t outside of him, it was him. The Vargran spell had turned him into a creature of blinding light and terrifying heat.
Risky’s pale, soft skin and her lush red hair burst into flames.
The light lasted only a split second, but in that split second the desert was bright daylight.
Bushes caught fire.
The sand beneath Mack’s feet melted to glass.
The animals nearest were incinerated. The rest turned and ran, blinded, panicked.
The gas tank of the buggy exploded.
But mostly, Risky burned. She staggered back, a living torch.
The storm ended in a shower of falling sand.
Risky screamed in pain but much more in rage.
She pointed a flaming, crisping hand at Mack. “You!” she screamed. “You!”
And then, Princess Ereskigal became a pillar of black, oily smoke. Her body was gone and in its place a thing of twisting, writhing smoke, and within that smoke a seething mass of shiny black insects.
Suddenly she was gone.
Gone.
“Yeah,” Mack said as the killing light died out, “I think I’ll do Darkness and Light.”
* * *
DEAR MACK,
IT SEEMS A STOMACH ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH. YOU CAN’T JUST PUT FOOD IN, ALL THE TIME. ANYWAY, MINE BECAME TOO FULL AND I NEEDED A WAY TO GET THE FOOD OUT OF MY BODY.
DAD’S POWER DRILL WAS VERY USEFUL, MUCH BETTER THAN A SPOON.
YOUR FRIEND,
GOLEM
* * *
Twenty-eight
A REALLY, REALLY LONG TIME AGO…
Grimluk left the island continent after the death of Miladew.
He had failed to kill the princess. And so long as she lived, her mother, the Pale Queen, must live as well. She at least was bound for all eternity. Or three thousand years. Whichever came first.
Well, it turned out that three thousand years was not eternity.
He remembered it all still.
His body had rotted. His powers had faded. But he still remembered Gelidberry. And the baby. He even remembered the cows. And he remembered Miladew, murdered by Princess Ereskigal.
Of the long, long walk to his final home, the lightless cave where he had remained ever since, he remembered only a little.
Grimluk no longer remembered the spot. He could not have found his hiding place on a map.
But he remembered those he had loved.
And now, with evil once more rising from its foul World Below pit, he would strive with all his power to take his revenge and do all he could to guide the new Magnificent Twelve to ultimate victory.
Then, and only then, could Grimluk allow himself the peace of death….
Twenty-nine
It was many hours before the ambulance came and took a battered and injured Karri away to the hospital in Alice Springs.
At the hospital Mack’s broken nose was bandaged. And the strange sunburn that Stefan and Jarrah had suffered despite being in the lee of the overturned buggy was covered with salves.
Karri would be in hospital (as they say in Australia) for at least two weeks. Jarrah promised she would call her father and go with him to somewhere safe.
But once outside the hospital room, Jarrah looked at Mack and said, “Okay, where to?”
“What do you mean?” Mack asked. “You’re going off with your dad.”
“Like fun, I am,” Jarrah said. “We’re the Magnificent Twelve, right? I only see two of us, plus Stefan.” Actually, she didn’t see Stefan just then because he was in the men’s room.
“Jarrah, we almost got killed. And I don’t think we’re done with her. Or the Nafia or the Tong Elves or the Skirrit or—”
“No, we’re not done,” Jarrah said grimly. “Not by a long shot. So I’ll ask again: where to?”
Mack took a deep, shaky breath. He missed home. He missed his parents. He felt terribly alone in some ways, but at the same time he was beginning to see himself as part of a history that stretched a long way back—maybe for eternity. Or at least three thousand years.
And there was the fact that he didn’t want to live in a world dominated by Risky. Or her mother.
Well, he thought (wrongly as it turns out), at least Risky’s done for.
“I don’t know where we go next,” Mack admitted.
Which was when Stefan strode up. “Yo. Dude. In the men’s room toilet, there’s a call for you.”
Princess Ereskigal took some time to rebuild herself after the burning. It was unpleasant and time-consuming. It was hungry work, too. She called for and ate two of the Tong Elves. After all, if they had done their job…
She had suffered one death. In all her long, long life, Risky had never suffered a death. She still had eleven lives left, but eleven, as even the ancients knew, was not as big a number as twelve.
Hanging over all her thoughts was the realization that she would have to go to her mother and explain that she had failed.
There were times when Risky really didn’t get along all that well with her mother. It wasn’t easy being the chief spawn of the Breeder of Monsters. Sometimes Risky envied girls who were the daughters of the Mother of Cheerleaders or the Mother of Pop Stars.
Living up to all those high expectations, having to be the perfect, distilled essence of evil? Sometimes Risky just wanted to be a normal girl.
No, not really. Are you kidding? What, and ride a bike to school every day? Learn algebra? Date middle-school boys? Please.
Once Ereskigal had put her beautiful self back together, she summoned her personal flying craft, climbed aboard, and headed for the closest portal to her mother’s underground lair and prison.
Before she got there, she knew she’d better have a plan. The Pale Queen, her mother, was not sentimental. She, too, sometimes ate those who had failed her.
Risky looked at her reflection in the black glass as she raced through the stratosphere at supersonic speeds and thought, I could hardly blame her; I would be a tasty snack.
Mack. He was the key. Take him out of the game now, before he could rally any more of the twelve. A simple killing now. Or war later, with consequences that no one could foresee.
“I missed you once, Mack of the Magnificent Twelve,” Risky vowed. “The next time you’ll be my dinner.”
The Golem was sent home from school with a message for Mack’s parents. The message was from Mack’s school adviser, Mr. Reed.
The message read:
* * *
RICHARD GERE MIDDLE SCHOOL
Dear Mr. and Mrs. MacAvoy,
This is going to sound crazy, but three different students report seeing Mack remove his hand and attach it to the side of his head. They say he did it as a joke. And of course we know Mack didn’t actually remove his hand and attach it to the side of his head and then proceed to use it to feed himself popcorn. But it sure looked real on the security camera tape. Anyway, I felt you should be made aware, especially coming on the heels of the now-infamous fart balloon incident. Any more bizarre and disruptive behavior from Mack and I’m afraid we may have to consider transferring him to the Arizona School for Excitable, Disruptive, and Unmanageable Pupils.
* * *
The note was puzzling to the Golem as it seemed to indicate there was something wrong with relocating various body parts. And he was very concerned about this transferring thing. Mack would almost certainly be upset to find himself enrolled in a different school.
This was not something he felt he could manage on his own. He needed Mack’s advice if he was going to avoid trouble.
Which was why Mack received a text message that read:
* * *
Sup Mack? Im GR8 FYI. I no u r busy/dead but IMHO Mr. Reed H8 me. Do you want 2 go to ASFEDUP? BTW what is bizarre & disruptive behavior? Can u make me a list? Yr BFF. Golem.
* * *
Fortunately for Mack’s peace of mind, he did not get this text before climbing on the flight to China.
The flight from Sydney to Shanghai was long. And since even a quick glance at a map will show you that there’s quite a bit of ocean between Australia and China, you know that Mack spent most of the flight gripping the armrest, sweating, and muttering under his breath like a crazy person.
Stefan spent the time thinking about…okay, he didn’t really think about anything. He played the video games in the seat back. Then he watched movies. And at one point he socked Mack in the jaw, but only because Mack’s panicky weeping was causing a little boy across the aisle to start crying, too.
Jarrah cried a little as well, but for different reasons. Her mother and father had not wanted her to go. And having now seen just a little of the evils ahead, Jarrah wasn’t so sure she wanted to go, either.
But that’s the thing about saving the world: when the call comes, you pretty much have to answer.
At least you do if you’re one of the Magnificent Twelve.
About the Author
MICHAEL GRANT has spent much of his life on the move. Raised in a military family, he attended ten schools in five states, as well as three schools in France. Even as an adult he kept moving, and in fact he became a writer in part because it was one of the few jobs that wouldn’t tie him down. His fondest dream is to spend a year circumnavigating the globe and visiting every continent. Yes, even Antarctica. Michael is the author of the bestselling Gone series. He lives in Southern California with his wife, Katherine Applegate, and their two children.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Praise from Bestselling Authors
“Michael Grant has concocted a hilarious adventure with The Magnificent 12. Pretty much every line made me smile or chuckle—it’s laugh-out-loud funny—which is really saying something since it’s about a kid who has to save the world from destruction. It’s a Monty Python–like invasion of middle school that keeps you turning pages just to know what the young hero will say next.”
—D. J. MACHALE, author of the Pendragon series
“Welcome to Monty Python meets The Lord of the Rings. The future of all civilization rests in the hands of a middle school wimp with more phobias than muscle groups, and saving the world has never been funnier.”
—GORDON KORMAN, author of Pop, Zoobreak, and two books in the 39 Clues series
“Fantastically funny and fast-paced, The Magnificent 12 is written with a dry wit and a wonderful economy of words.”
—ANGIE SAGE, author of the Septimus Heap series
“A thrill ride through time with cool monsters, relatable heroes, and big laughs. What more could a kid ask for?”
—PATRICK CARMAN, author of the Land of Elyon series, the Atherton Trilogy, and Skeleton Creek series
Also by Michael Grant
Gone
Hunger
Lies
Credits
Jacket art © 2010 by David McClellan
Logo by Jason Cook
Jacket design by Amy Ryan
Copyright
THE MAGNIFICENT 12: THE CALL. Copyright © 2010 by Michael Grant. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grant, Michael.
The call / Michael Grant.—1st ed.
p. cm.—(The Magnificent 12)
Summary: A seemingly average twelve-year-old learns that he is destined to gather a team of similarly gifted children to try to save the world from a nameless evil, which is threatening to reappear after having been imprisoned for three thousand years.
ISBN 978-0-06-183366-3
[1. Fantasy. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 3. Good and evil—Fiction. 4. Humorous stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.G7671Cal 2010 2009044815
[Fic]—dc22 CIP
AC
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition © July 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-200797-1
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Michael Grant, The Call
(Series: The Magnificent 12 # 1)
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