The envelope was lumpy in the middle, but whatever was inside didn’t weigh much. The return address said it’d been mailed from Little Rock, Arkansas. As far as Miles was aware, they didn’t know anyone in Arkansas.
“Go on. Open it,” Mr. Taylor urged.
Miles tore open the top and pulled out a wad of tissue paper wrapped around something hard. He unwrapped the paper, and what he found inside he wouldn’t have expected in a million years. In his hand, he held a nine-inch, handmade Gilded action figure.
“Well?” Mr. Taylor asked.
Miles wasn’t sure how to answer. If his dad had meant to surprise him, he’d definitely succeeded. “Thanks?”
“No,” Mr. Taylor said, grabbing the toy excitedly. “How do you like it? I searched around, and this one was the best I could find. It wasn’t cheap, but what the heck. Might as well splurge a little.” Mr. Taylor rubbed the toy gingerly, gazing at it with a euphoric grin.
“It’s, um, great,” Miles lied. Whoever made the toy had obviously spent time on it, but some of the details were wrong. The color of the clasp was off, and the cloth cape had stitching around its border. Henry wouldn’t have approved.
“I know!” Mr. Taylor beamed, not detecting the hesitation in Miles’s response. “I would’ve killed for something like this when I was a kid. The best I got was a Gilded throw pillow your great-grandmother crocheted from some leftover yellow yarn.”
Realizing he’d been hogging the toy to himself, Mr. Taylor sheepishly handed it back to Miles. “I got this one online. Much better quality. Check it out.”
Miles turned the toy over in his hands. If it had been given to him weeks ago, he probably would’ve liked it. Sure, it was a little lame for a twelve-year-old, but it was still kind of neat—a tiny Gilded he could fit in his pocket.
Miles wasn’t the same kid he was weeks ago, though. Had the toy been made since he’d been given the cape? Did the toy maker stare for hours at grainy photos and newsreels of Miles as Gilded, straining to duplicate every detail (but still getting the eyes just a touch off center)? If so, then in a way Miles was holding a miniature version of himself. Identities crashed together in his brain like a five-car pileup. He felt like he was himself and outside himself at the same time. If he pricked the toy with a pin, would he bleed?
Mr. Taylor dropped an arm across Miles’s shoulders. It was a rare moment of contact for a man used to staying at arm’s length, and it signaled that the conversation was about to get much more serious. “I know why you’ve been reading those comic books, son.”
The blood drained from Miles’s face. His insides were a blender churning guilt, fear, and a million other sickening emotions into a thick anxiety puree.
How had Miles ever convinced himself that he’d be able to keep the deception going? Should he have told his dad from the start, no matter what the old man in the garage had warned? He wanted to explain, but he didn’t know where to begin. Two words were all he could manage. “I’m sorry.”
“Nonsense. There’s nothing to apologize for. You had that run-in with the . . . thingamajig from outer space, and it scared you.”
“Huh?”
“You’re not alone. Everyone is scared. I suspect sales of Gilded Age are through the roof right now. It’s good to remind yourself once in a while that the whole world isn’t your responsibility. That there’s someone else out there who’ll take care of things. Don’t ever forget that.”
Miles should’ve been relieved—his secret hadn’t been discovered—but he just felt worse. He’d never thought of things on such a grand scale. The whole world was his responsibility. He and Henry had been concentrating just on Atlanta, but there were crimes and catastrophes everywhere, right? How could he ever possibly deal with it all? The invisible weight of it pushed him downward, suffocating him. “I’ll try, Dad,” he croaked.
Silence fell over the room. Neither Miles nor Mr. Taylor knew what to say, so they said nothing.
vrrrrrrr
The familiar sound was just barely audible coming from inside Miles’s backpack.
Uh-oh.
Miles had heard it, no question, but his were young ears. Surely the sound was too muffled to be detected by his dad, whose eardrums had spent more than their share of nine-to-five shifts bombarded by the din of nail guns and jackhammers.
Miles ignored it. Whatever Henry needed, it could wait. Actually, it was entirely possible that whatever Henry needed couldn’t wait, but it’d have to wait anyway. Miles already had an emergency on his hands.
vrrrrrrr
“What’s that?” Mr. Taylor raised an ear, already homing in on the source of the sound.
“What’s what?” Miles answered innocently.
“Don’t give me that. I know you hear it. It’s sounds like a . . .” His eyes settled on the backpack, then narrowed owlishly. He’d heard the rustle of his quarry and was about to swoop. “What do you have in there, son?”
Mr. Taylor had Miles caught between a rock and a really big rock, and Miles knew it. He could either hand the cell phone over to his dad, or he could let his dad find it himself and discover the cape, too.
Miles trudged over to the backpack and unzipped the pouch with dread. He held the phone forward, offering it in an open palm.
The phone vibrated again, as if to introduce itself.
vrrrrrrr
Mr. Taylor snatched the phone from Miles’s hand. “Where’d you get the money to buy this?” he demanded.
“I didn’t. Henry gave it to me.”
“Henry gave it to you? You’re such good pals he’s handing out cell phones? You expect me to believe that?” Mr. Taylor was exasperated. “I suppose he’s footing your monthly bill, too, since I know you don’t have the money to pay it yourself.”
“It’s prepaid, so there isn’t a bill.”
“Well, isn’t that nice,” Mr. Taylor said in a tone that indicated it wasn’t nice at all. “I know the times have changed, but I doubt they’ve changed so much that seventh graders have started paying for each other’s phone plans. Henry is some kind of Scrooge, is that it? He’s discovered the spirit of Christmas, and he’s decided to give all his money away?”
“Actually, it’s his parents’ money. His dad is an engineer.” As soon as Miles said it, he wanted to take it back. He didn’t have to continue the thought for his dad to understand exactly what he meant: Henry’s dad earned a lot more than an electrician did.
“I see.” Mr. Taylor tossed the cell phone onto the bed. “Well, you can tell the engineer’s son that the Taylors can take care of themselves. You’re going to give that back.” He pointed at the phone like it was a juice spill, and he was tasking Miles with cleaning it up.
“But, Dad!” Miles shrieked. “I have to be reachable!”
“Reachable?” Mr. Taylor replied.
Miles had gone from simply being surreptitious to running headlong into disobedience. Disobedience wasn’t allowed.
“What’s going on with you? I never see you. You stroll in whenever you want, and when you’re home, you’re holed up in your room. You’ve been through some upheaval and I’ve tried to give you space, but this has gone on long enough. I want answers.”
“Henry—”
“I don’t want to hear about Henry!” Mr. Taylor’s voice grew louder. “Henry isn’t my son! You are!”
Miles didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything.
“Miles, I need this right now like I need a hole in the head. I got a call today that I have to head out to Dobbins on Friday and give a statement about what happened in the parking garage.”
Miles blinked. “With who?”
“A General Breckenridge. He wants to know every fascinating detail of what I saw from the pitch-black circuit breaker room I was trapped in. I’ll have to use sick time to cover the hours I’m gone from work. Which, at the pace the government moves, will most likely be all day.” Mr. Taylor ground his palm against his forehead in frustration.
Miles swa
llowed hard. “You think they’ll want to talk to me?” Miles imagined himself seated at a metal table in a concrete room, a single bare bulb shining in his face. He’d seen enough movies to know he didn’t have what it took to withstand a military interrogation.
“Knowing my luck? Absolutely. Which means I’ll have to take another day to bring you down. So you’ll understand why I’m in no mood to debate with my twelve-year-old about his constitutional right to a cell phone.
“Speaking of which,” Mr. Taylor said, marching toward the phone, “if you don’t want to give me answers, no problem. I’ll see for myself why you need to be so ‘reachable.’ ”
There was nothing left for Miles to do but beg. “Dad, please. Don’t.”
There was a soft knock on the front door. Mr. Taylor looked back toward the hallway with narrowed eyes. “Now what?” He scowled. Miles had inadvertently goaded his dad into an argument, and now Mr. Taylor was ready to take on all comers.
The knock repeated itself more firmly, and Mr. Taylor stomped from the room with the cell phone clenched in his fist. “Stay put,” he instructed Miles. “We’re not done discussing this.”
Miles waited a moment, then followed his dad. He couldn’t help it. No one ever came calling unannounced. Whoever it was, they were very soon going to regret it. Mr. Taylor didn’t take kindly to having his scoldings interrupted.
Maybe it was divine intervention, Miles hoped. Maybe some benevolent force had sent an unsuspecting salesman to bear the brunt of Mr. Taylor’s anger, so he’d forget all about the phone. Hey, a kid can dream.
Miles came around the corner just as his dad threw open the door. “Who’s there?” he bellowed. He sounded like a giant who’d been awoken by a hen-stealing thief.
Mrs. Collins stood in the doorway, her eyes wide like Dixie plates. “Is this a bad time?”
“I . . . uh . . .” Mr. Taylor stammered.
Mrs. Collins leaned her head over to smile past Mr. Taylor. “Hi, Miles,” she said.
Mr. Taylor cleared his throat. “No. This isn’t a bad time at all. Miles and I were just having a little talk. What can I, um, do for you?”
“Well, it’s kind of embarrassing, but . . . Mr. Collins is gone. Like, permanently. You might’ve noticed it’s been a lot quieter around here lately?”
“Good!” Mr. Taylor blurted. Then his face grew redder, and he looked down at his shoes. “I mean, it’s good that it’s been quieter. Not good that your husband left. That’s probably bad.”
“Oh, heavens no,” Mrs. Collins said with a wave of her hand. “It’s for the best, really. Should’ve happened a long time ago. Only thing is . . .”
“Yes?” Mr. Taylor nudged.
“Well, it’s kind of silly, but he took the ceiling fan with him. See, he claims he bought it with one of his paychecks last year, so it’s his by right. He didn’t work at all last year, but that’s beside the point. Anyway, he packed it up with the rest of his things, and now I just have a bunch of wires hanging out of a hole in my ceiling.
“I bought a new fan this afternoon, and I’ve seen your work truck, so . . . I was wondering if you’d help me hang it. And by help me, I mean you do all the work, and I’ll pour the sweet tea. I just filled some new ice cube trays this morning.” She flashed a smile as warm as fresh-baked cookies. “I mean, if it isn’t too much trouble.”
Who says no to fresh-baked cookies? No one, that’s who.
“No trouble at all.” Mr. Taylor started gathering his tools, his confidence building as he placed them in the pockets of his tool belt. He always seemed more at ease with screwdrivers and wire strippers in his hands.
“Live wires hanging out of your ceiling? That’s no small matter,” he said importantly. He set the cell phone on the kitchen counter absentmindedly, then scooped up his tool belt and gave Mrs. Collins a smile. “You came to the right place. I’m as good at hanging ceiling fans as you are at making sweet tea.”
Was that charm? Miles could swear he detected a hint of charm.
“Perfect!” Mrs. Collins beamed. “Thanks for letting me borrow your dad, Miles.”
“Sure thing, Mrs. . . . uh . . . Miss . . .” What was Miles supposed to call her now, anyway?
“Dawn,” she said with a wink. “I’m just Dawn now. I don’t want anyone ever calling me ‘Mrs. Collins’ again.”
“Okay. Bye, Dawn.” It felt weird calling a grown-up by her first name, but Dawn wasn’t like most grown-ups. She was friendly.
“I’ll be back in a bit, son,” Mr. Taylor said, “and we’ll finish . . . whatever it was we were doing.” Then he pulled the door closed behind him.
Miles heard Dawn on the landing. “You remember my sweet tea, do you?”
“Yes, ma’am!” Mr. Taylor answered.
The door to Dawn’s apartment closed, and they were out of Miles’s earshot. If he put on the cape and thought extra-hard about how he wanted to help his dad not blow his chance with the really nice lady who lived next door, would the cape let him use Gilded’s superhearing to eavesdrop through the wall? Was that the sort of thing the cape would approve of? He should ask Henry.
Henry!
Miles grabbed up the phone and checked the texts.
18-wheeler jackknifed on I-285.
3 lanes blocked. Dangerous.
Clean it up?
Miles tapped out a hasty answer. On it.
Piece of cake. Miles would have the semi moved off the highway and be back before his dad was finished with the fan.
CHAPTER
17
LORD COMMANDER CALAMITY HAD CONQUERED so many worlds in his illustrious conquering career, even he couldn’t remember them all. There were a handful, though, that he listed as his favorites. Cauldronia III, for example, with its boiling volcanoes and its noxious atmosphere, was definitely among them. A truly Unnd-inviting planet, to step on its surface without a protective suit would cause one’s skin to melt away in mere seconds. Oh, how he’d enjoyed sending out the servants who displeased him to retrieve a Cauldronian souvenir, wearing nothing but their thorn pajamas.
Then there was the planet Bottomfrost in the Eyce system. Temperatures so low, when he spat mucus globs, they froze midair and struck the ice-hardened ground with a clatter. At first, the Bottomfrostites were overjoyed when they saw the Lord Commander’s battle cruiser descending from the sky. That all changed when it started dropping concussion bombs, and the Bottomfrostites realized the ship hadn’t traveled all that way just to whisk them off to a world with a milder climate.
An Unnd-friendly thought occurred to the Lord Commander: He should swap the residents of Cauldronia III and Bottomfrost, to give them each a taste of the other extreme. That would be deliciously Unnd-fair. He made a mental note to do just that when he took his next spring holiday. Nothing relaxed him more than the misery of others.
Cauldronia III and Bottomfrost were worlds the Lord Commander understood, and he admired them for their Unnd-hospitable environments. But as he sat hunched forward on his spiked chair and gazed through the window of his battle cruiser’s command bridge, he was confronted with an alien world the likes of which he’d never encountered.
The world consisted primarily of bright blue water that looked so pure, he could taste its coolness in his throat. Anchored amid the enormous seas were vast continents covered in lush greenery surely capable of producing the freshest air ever inhaled by an Unnd’s outer nostrils. Suspended in the atmosphere over it all were clumps of a fluffy, white substance that appeared so downy, the Lord Commander could almost feel it tickling his cheek.
“Snarlpustule!” the Lord Commander barked.
Snarlpustule snapped to attention. “Sir!”
“What is that?” The Lord Commander pointed a talon-capped finger at the window.
“Earth, Lord Commander. We have nearly arrived at our target.”
“I know the name of the planet, you dungwit! I want to know what that is. That . . . quality. How would you describe it? It’s causing me to have an
odd sensation in this general area right here.” The Lord Commander clutched his chest at the place where it covered his heart. (Yes, even a being as heartless as the Lord Commander has a heart. The organ is a biological necessity, after all.)
Snarlpustule raised a confused eyebrow. “Have you been eating your mother’s minced hoof pie again, Lord Commander? You know how it gives you acid reflux. Your doctor says—”
The Lord Commander leveled a deadly stare at Snarlpustule. It was an unspoken warning that resonated loud and clear: Don’t ever—ever—try to get between the Lord Commander and his mother’s minced hoof pie.
Snarlpustule withered.
The Lord Commander turned his gaze on the rest of the command bridge, searching for someone who could give him the answer he sought. “Can’t any of you tell me what I’m looking at?”
A meek voice spoke up. “P-perhaps I can be of assistance, L-Lord Commander.”
The servant from the Lord Commander’s horrible great hall stepped hesitantly from behind a large, armored Unnd warrior. Unsure if he should show respect by making eye contact or bowing, his head bobbed up and down like a shore dragon with an overlarge fish caught in its gullet.
“Very well.” The Lord Commander waved the servant forward. He hoped the explanation was satisfactory. He didn’t want to behead his best servant. Not when he’d left his favorite beheading implement in his mother’s dishwasher back home.
“The quality you’re r-reacting to is what’s referred to in some c-cultures as ‘beauty.’ ”
“Beauty?” The Lord Commander mused. “I don’t understand this word. Translate it into Unnd at once!”
“I’m afraid I c-can’t, Lord Commander. No such word exists in the v-vile Unnd language.”
“Then describe it!”
“Well, b-beauty is . . . nice. It’s, er, pleasant. No, it’s better than p-pleasant. It’s . . . it’s . . .” The servant reached for a better answer, looking as though he wished he’d never spoken up. Then his expression brightened. “It’s the opposite of Unnd-attractive!” he declared cheerily.
The Lord Commander was stunned. “And the odd sensation in my chest?”