The Traitor of Belltroll

  “Oh, come on!” Leroy shouted.

  For what felt like five hours, but according to Albert’s Counter, was really only two, they hopped and leaped and crashed into the water and came up shivering despite the brightness of the Realm. On and on they went, until Albert began to notice a change in the ground. It was becoming less boggy, more solid, with larger moss-islands.

  Soon, he was able to see the end of the Ring of Entry. Fresh, endless grass sat waiting for them, not half a mile away.

  “Bridges,” Leroy said, groaning, from the very back of the group. “There were bridges in Ponderay, but nooooo, there couldn’t be bridges in Belltroll, could there?! I never thought I’d say this, dudes, but I actually miss that Realm!”

  “I miss Slink and Mo,” Birdie said, hopping onto an island large enough for two people. “I wonder what they’re . . . Oh!”

  Professor Bigglesby stopped in front of Albert and they both turned in time to see Birdie wobble a bit. Then she started to topple sideways.

  “Birdie!” Albert cried out.

  Hoyt leaped across and caught her as she tumbled to the ground, her eyes closed.

  “What’s happening?” Leroy shouted. “Is she dead? ARE WE ALL GOING TO DIE?!”

  “She’s asleep! And she’s getting heavy!” Hoyt shouted.

  “Be quiet!” Albert hissed. He whirled back to Professor Bigglesby, needing answers, fast. “What’s going on?”

  “The toads,” Professor Bigglesby murmured. “Someone has tampered with them.”

  There was a great burp from the back of the group. Albert was about to ask Leroy why he’d burp at a time like this when he spotted the real source of the noise.

  It would have been impossible to see, had the creature not moved.

  Sitting just beneath the surface of the water, the top of its head and eyes the only things visible, was a massive toad the size of a basketball. Its color made it perfectly camouflaged, a muddy greenish brown like the water.

  The toad was just a few inches away from Hoyt, who was starting to tremble under Birdie’s unconscious weight. Albert started toward them, but Bigglesby threw out an arm to block him.

  “Hold it! Don’t move!” Bigglesby stared at the toad, who was now staring back at Bigglesby.

  “Interesting,” Professor Bigglesby said.

  The toad let out an explosive burp, and a slimy black tongue shot out of its mouth, connecting with Bigglesby’s neck.

  “That’s not normal,” the dwarf said, yawning.

  His eyelids fluttered.

  Then he collapsed, landing in a heap on his island, just inches from the swampy water. He looked perfectly content, sound asleep and dreaming.

  “Professor!” Albert shouted. He whirled around to look at Leroy, who was standing frozen about twenty feet away on his own island.

  “Don’t look at them,” Leroy said, his voice steady and calm. “Eyes to the sky, dudes. I think something’s wrong with them. If you look at them, and they notice, they attack. Assuming I’m correct,” he added.

  “Their necks,” Albert said, pointing at Birdie and then at Bigglesby. They each had a small red mark on their skin. “What did it do to them?”

  “Definitely not something I’ve read in a book before,” Leroy answered. “But we need to get them back to the Core and to the hospital wing.”

  Albert checked his Counter. Only three hours had passed since they’d arrived, and already they’d lost two members of their team.

  Hoyt spoke up. “And we can’t move forward with two unconscious people!”

  Another burping noise sounded from the back, and this time, Leroy blurted out, “Uh, dudes?”

  Albert turned to Leroy. His friend was completely surrounded by Poison Toads.

  Leroy stared at the sky, his whole body shaking like a leaf in the wind.

  “Leroy. Don’t move an inch,” Albert said.

  An idea sparked to life in his mind. Hoyt could potentially get them out of this situation. But could he be trusted?

  Albert’s face must have betrayed his doubts, because Hoyt spoke up.

  “I’m not the same guy I was last term, Albert,” Hoyt said.

  “Yeah, I know,” Albert said. Because he did. Or at least, he knew Hoyt was trying to be different. Still, Albert couldn’t seem to shake the lingering hurt from Ponderay. How selfish could one person be?

  But that was then, this was now. He took a deep breath. “You feel like using that Speed Tile a little, Hoyt?”

  Hoyt nodded, still struggling to hold Birdie up.

  “Okay,” Albert said. “You have to distract them, provoke them, and then while Leroy goes back to the beginning of the Ring of Entry, I’ll use my Tile to get Birdie and Professor Bigglesby to safety. You’ll have to move quick enough that they can’t hit you with their tongues.”

  A new spark ignited in Hoyt’s eyes. “If you need speed, I can give you that.”

  Albert nodded, then turned toward Leroy, careful not to look down in the process. “Leroy! Sound okay to you?”

  “There is literally nothing okay about this!” Leroy shouted.

  “All right, Leroy’s good to go,” Albert said, turning back to Hoyt. “Hold Birdie steady. I’ll come to you and then you can go.”

  It wasn’t easy, navigating across the moor without being able to look down, and Albert was afraid the toads might somehow catch on if he used the Double Vision symbol. But Hoyt guided Albert across, and they were side by side in only a few minutes. Albert pulled Birdie’s unconscious figure into his arms.

  “Okay,” he said to Hoyt. “You ready?”

  Hoyt gripped his Tile, nodded, and turned to Leroy.

  “Ready!” Leroy shouted, despite his not looking ready at all.

  “Here goes nothing,” Hoyt said.

  He turned away, and his shoulders moved up and down as he took a deep breath. Then he looked a toad right in the eyes.

  It happened so fast Albert wondered if what he’d seen was really true.

  Hoyt moved like a bullet. The toad’s black tongue shot out to hit Hoyt in the neck, but he dodged it in a blur. He leaped from island to island, looking at toads, provoking them, even poking them with a stick he’d scooped up in a flash.

  Toad burps sounded as black tongues shot out left and right, but Hoyt dodged them like a master. Leroy, who was screaming at the top of his lungs, hopped furiously back toward the very beginning of the Ring of Entry, not stopping for a second.

  Albert had to move, too. He summoned the Strength symbol, then boosted Birdie up over his shoulder. She was feather-light, thanks to the power of his Master Tile.

  He needed to move faster, though. He pictured the Merge symbol, one he’d used long ago in Calderon, and imagined the Speed symbol merging with the Strength one. The two Tile symbols became one, and suddenly Albert was blazing across the moor, with Birdie slung over his shoulder like a rag doll.

  He soared past Hoyt, who was doing some sort of bop-the-frog-on-the-head game, and past Leroy, who was hopping so fast he could give Jemima a run for her Jackalope money.

  They got back to the beginning of the Ring of Entry in a mere fifteen minutes with the Speed symbol doing its thing. Albert gently placed Birdie down on the grass, then turned right back and headed for Professor Bigglesby. The dwarf was so light it was like Albert was clutching air. Still, his legs were getting tired, and Hoyt’s must be, too. He did seem to be losing a bit of his edge.

  “Look out!” Albert yelled as Hoyt nearly got a tongue to the neck. Hoyt dodged and sped off in the other direction. The toads were in a burping, tongue-flicking fury.

  Fifteen minutes later, Albert got Bigglesby onto dry land next to Birdie. His legs were officially jelly. Some sort of weird sludge-flavored jelly. Leroy was still making his way across the moor.

  “Come on, Leroy!” he shouted. “Use those long legs and hop faster!”

  Leroy crashed down into the water, and Albert groaned, then pulled his last ounce of willpower to use both Speed and Strength t
o go after him.

  He made it to Leroy and together they forged their way back to the others. Seconds later, with Leroy and Albert cheering him on, Hoyt leaped onto solid land at the start of the Ring of Entry.

  “Should we pick Birdie up between the two of us?” Albert said, turning to Leroy. “Hoyt can grab Bigglesby.”

  “You got it, bro,” Leroy said. “And if we walk backward up the hill, physics will work in our favor and it won’t be so hard.”

  As they headed backward up the hill that would take them to the tunnel to the Core, Albert stared out toward the Troll Mountain Range and adjusted his grip on Birdie. The mountains would have to wait for another day. His gaze followed Troll Mountain back down to the Poison Toad bog, and he started thinking about symbols that might be helpful for the next time they had to cross it. He was just trying to remember the Animal Control symbol when he spotted it.

  A glittering red thing, probably about the size of a Ping-Pong ball, was stuck in some moss floating on the surface of the moor, not too far out from where they were, but far enough that it was in toad territory.

  “Look!” he shouted. “There’s something in the moor!”

  Leroy didn’t even look up. “Whatever it is, leave it, bro,” he said. “We have to get these two back to the Core.”

  Albert knew he should listen, but there was something inside of him, a tugging, whispering voice that said, That’s important! You can’t leave it!

  “Go without me,” Albert said. “It’s a clue!” He set Birdie down as gently as he could, then took off running back down the hill. He’d use his Speed Tile and grab the thing real quick. No problem.

  A voice piped up from behind him.

  “If I let you do this alone, you’ll get all the glory,” Hoyt said, catching up with Albert.

  Seriously? It was like Ponderay all over again. Albert turned to give Hoyt a piece of his mind, but saw that Hoyt was smiling.

  “It was just a joke, man,” Hoyt said.

  Albert nodded. “Right. Yeah, okay.” He shook his head and turned back to the moor. “Let’s go get that thing.”

  Albert closed his eyes and put all that he had left in him toward imagining the Speed symbol. He ran and hopped like his life was on the line, like he was a character in a video game being chased by a giant, fire-breathing dragon. Hoyt distracted the toads.

  Finally, he reached the moss and his fingers closed over the red ruby. It was heavy, like a paperweight.

  “Got it!” Albert shouted. “Let’s head back.”

  They were almost to dry land again when Hoyt shouted, “ALBERT, DUCK!”

  “TOAD!” Leroy yelped from up on the hill.

  Hoyt tackled Albert and they skidded to a stop on the shore, grass filling Albert’s mouth.

  Leroy ran down and dragged both boys away from the bog. When Albert rolled away from Hoyt, he turned in time to see Hoyt’s eyes flutter closed.

  “Saved you,” Hoyt said, yawning. “Just in time.” He passed out on the green grass, a smile on his face.

  “Well, that was heroic,” Leroy said. “Did you get it?”

  Albert looked down as he uncurled his fingers. He’d been clutching the ruby so hard it cut the palm of his hand. But it was there, bright as blood despite all the dirty mucky mess.

  “I hope that thing was worth it,” Leroy said. “Because we’ve got three unconscious people to drag up this hill before dark.”

  Albert stood up and looked at Birdie, Hoyt, and Professor Bigglesby, all asleep on the hillside.

  “We screwed up bad,” he said.

  But though he knew it was the truth, he couldn’t help but feel they’d found something in the jewel.

  The ground rumbled, gently at first.

  Then all at once, Albert was thrown from his feet, knocking heads with Leroy, as the entire Realm shook.

  Albert gripped the jewel, and when the quake faded, he and Leroy both had the same exhausted, hopeless looks on their faces.

  “Come on,” Leroy said, looking out across the Realm. “If there’s another one of those, I don’t wanna be around for it.”

  Albert nodded. He tucked the gem safely into his pocket, then helped Leroy haul his friends up the hillside and out of the Realm of Belltroll.

  CHAPTER 13

  Another Day, Another Danger

  After they’d waited at the hospital wing for hours, the cyclops nurse finally gave them an update.

  “The poison that the toads produced was an incredibly powerful antihistamine,” she said, her one eye glaring at Albert, like somehow he was the one who had caused it. “It was in such a high dose that it immediately put them to sleep. They’ll wake tomorrow, I’m sure. But you must know, I’ve never seen such a thing happen with those toads. It seems as if they’ve been tampered with.”

  No kidding, Albert thought. This has traitor written all over it.

  “You’ll keep an eye on their vitals until they wake up, right?” Leroy asked the cyclops nurse. “No pun intended, really.”

  Albert couldn’t help it. He snickered, and the cyclops nurse shooed them out the door and locked it behind them, promising to knock them out, too, if they came back.

  The two friends walked back to Cedarfell, wondering how mad Birdie would be that she missed all the action. When they passed through the Main Chamber, the countdown clock still read 6. That’s a good sign, Albert thought. I hope.

  “We’ll figure this out,” Albert said aloud, because he needed to hear it to believe it.

  When they got to their tent, a letter was waiting for Albert. It was sitting on his pillow beside Farnsworth, who wagged his tail in greeting.

  “Hey, buddy,” Albert said. He sat down, relaxing a little as he scratched Farnsworth behind his velvety ears. “It was a rough day in there. Be glad you were here, doing whatever you do when we’re not around.”

  Farnsworth just kept on wagging his tail, and for a second, Albert was jealous of his dog. It would be nice to be able to lie around all day, chewing on blue bones and old shoes without a care in the world.

  Albert turned to the letter, hoping it was from his dad. But when he flipped it over, he recognized the curling, looping handwriting in pink gel pen. It was from his mom! Albert’s fingers trembled as he tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter.

  It didn’t say much, but that was okay. Just holding the letter was a sign that, despite what was happening on the surface, his mom was fine.

  Albert,

  It’s getting worse up here. I know you’re in good hands with your dad and the other Professors, but . . . be careful, son. Please. Say hi to your dad for me, and make sure you’re getting enough to eat. I know you’re not going to listen to me about this—but don’t do anything too dangerous. I need my son to come back to me in one piece when this is all over!

  Stay safe. I love you, always.

  Mom

  P.S. Give Farnsworth a pat on the head for me!

  Albert read the letter twice, a smile on his face, even though his mom said things were getting worse. He imagined his mom sitting at the kitchen table in their apartment, her hair up in a bun, a pot full of spaghetti on the stove behind her as she wrote to him.

  She’d also included a newspaper clipping. Albert smoothed it out on his bed. His eyes widened as soon as he saw the headline.

  Superquakes Sweep the Country: New York to Yellowstone

  “Leroy,” Albert said, waving his friend over. “Check this out.”

  They read the article together.

  “Scientists have captured an alarming amount of seismic activity since last Friday, when an earthquake struck all the way from New York to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, stretching nearly 2,000 miles.”

  “That’s 1,919.6 miles, to be exact,” Leroy said.

  Albert kept reading. “Yellowstone National Park, underneath its pristine beauty, is home to the Yellowstone Caldera, a vast supervolcano beneath the earth’s surface.”

  “Sounds like Calderon to me,” Leroy said
.

  Albert nodded and read on.

  “Peggy Whitman, the head of scientific research at Yellowstone National Park, sat down with one of our reporters and expressed her concerns. ‘Earthquakes aren’t uncommon, even in Yellowstone. But this many, so frequently? Should they rise in magnitude, the Yellowstone Caldera could wake. And that, I’m afraid, could be the end.’”

  Albert set down the article and turned to Leroy.

  “The end?” Leroy said, his eyes wide. “Like, the end, the end?”

  “I know Bigglesby was right about Belltroll being the balance between all three Realms,” Albert said. “But seeing this . . . it just feels all the more real.”

  “It’s felt real since day one,” Leroy said. His stomach rumbled, and he grimaced. “And it feels even more real every time they serve us those awful sandwiches. When we solve this Imbalance, item number one on my list is to fix Lake Hall.”

  Albert smiled, despite the news he’d just received.

  Tomorrow, they’d have to do better in Belltroll.

  The next morning, Albert felt a little hopeless when he and Leroy arrived in the Main Chamber. It was time to go back into the Realm and be the team that everyone was counting on them to be. But without Birdie . . .

  “She’s up!” Leroy yelled.

  And Albert’s hopelessness melted away in an instant.

  “Birdie!” Albert and Leroy cried out, racing across the cave to pull her into a hug.

  “You two are worse than my mom.” Birdie giggled and broke away from the hug. Her eyes were bright, as if she’d just had the best sleep of her life.

  “Are you all right?” Albert asked. “Are you going to be okay to go into the Realm today?”

  Birdie nodded and did a little spin for them. “No injuries. Perfectly fine. In fact, I feel like I could take on the traitor right now and totally kick him into the next Realm!”

  “Something tells me you might actually be capable of doing that,” Leroy said. “Is everyone else awake?”

  “Hoyt is,” Birdie said, pointing over her shoulder as Hoyt walked into the Main Chamber. He waved, and he, too, looked like he was ready to rock and roll.