Rutger started down the sidewalk, looking over his shoulder as best he could. “Many tomorrows, I expect, many tomorrows. Good-bye, Master Atticus!”
“Bye.” Tick waved, feeling a pang of sadness as he watched Rutger set off down the road.
~
Edgar watched from the upstairs window in the hallway, his emotions torn between fascination at the miniature fat man that seemed to have struck up a friendship with his son, and his sadness that Tick was involved in something very strange and had failed to tell his own father about it. He and Tick had always had a special bond, sharing anything and everything. Had things changed so much? Had his boy grown up, leaving his poor father behind to wallow in ignorance?
It all made sense now. Tick had been acting so bizarre lately and the reasons behind it could very well change the way Edgar viewed the world in which he lived. As he’d watched the two speak together on the steps of the porch, he’d readied himself to run outside at the first sign of danger. But the man seemed to be a friend, and Edgar decided to wait a while before he confronted Tick about it.
He told himself he didn’t know why he wanted to wait, but his heart knew the truth. Deep inside, he hoped his son would decide to tell him on his own what was going on. Edgar could hold out just a little bit longer—maybe a day or two—watching his son’s every move.
Down below, Tick waved as his short friend disappeared down the dark road.
Quickly, Edgar turned and went back to his room.
Chapter
17
~
Smoky Bathroom
The next day was Friday, the last day of school for two weeks, and Tick thought it would never end. Having enjoyed a grand total of four hours of sleep the night before, he nodded off in class constantly, waking with an unpleasant string of drool on his chin more than once. Mr. Chu was the only teacher who gave him a hard time about it, but Tick survived.
Finally, the last bell of the day rang.
Tick was at his locker, the excitement of the coming vacation days perking him up a bit, when disaster struck in the form of a tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Billy “The Goat” Cooper sneering at him with arms folded, his goons gathered behind his massive body.
Just wait it out, Tick, just wait it out.
“Well, looky here,” Billy said, his voice the sound of marbles being crushed in a vice. “Looks like Ticky Stinkbottom and his pet Barf Scarf are excited to go home and wait for Santy Claus. Whatcha getting this year, Atticus? A new teddy bear?”
“Yes,” Tick said, stone faced, knowing it would throw the Goat off track.
Billy faltered, surely having expected Tick to adamantly say no or try to walk away. “Well, then . . . I hope . . . it smells bad.”
Tick really wanted to say something sarcastic—It’s a teddy bear, not a Billy the Goat doll—but his common sense won out. “It probably will, with my luck,” he said instead.
“Yeah, it will. Just like your feet.” Billy snorted out a laugh, and his cronies joined in.
Tick couldn’t believe how idiotic this guy was, but held his face still and said nothing.
“Here’s an early Christmas present for you, Ticky Stinkbottom,” Billy said, and his cronies’ forced laughter ended abruptly. “Stay in your locker for three minutes, instead of the usual ten. Then, go into the bathroom and stick your head in a toilet. Do that and we won’t bother you until we get back from Christmas break. Deal?”
Tick felt his stomach drop because he knew Billy would send a spy to make sure he did what he’d been ordered to do. “With my hair wet, I might catch a cold on the way home.”
Billy reached out and slammed Tick up against the locker, sending a metallic clang echoing down the hallway. “Then I guess it’s a good thing we don’t have school for two weeks, now isn’t it?” He let go and stood back. “Come on, guys, let’s go.”
As they walked off, Tick lowered his head and stepped into his locker, closing the door behind him.
~
A few minutes later, he stood alone in the boys’ bathroom, staring at his distorted image in a moldy, warped mirror. He pulled down his scarf with two fingers and examined his birthmark, which looked just as ugly as ever. He felt himself sliding into that state of depression he’d visited so often before he had resolved to quit letting the bullies rule his life.
But then he thought of Mothball and Rutger, the letters and clues, and the way they all made him feel important. He snapped out of the gloom and doom, and smiled at himself in the mirror.
Forget those morons. I’m not sticking my head in the toilet, spy or no spy.
A moving smudge suddenly appeared on the reflection of his face, like black moss growing across the mirror. Startled, Tick reached out and touched it with his finger, but only felt the cool hardness of the glass. In a matter of seconds, the entire mirror was dark, blacking out everything. Tick took a step back, a shot of panic shooting through him.
The blackness grew, enveloping the wall and the sink, moving outward in all directions. It took on substance, puffing out like black cotton, devouring the entire bathroom wall. Tick spun to see that all the walls and the ceiling were covered now, dark smoke everywhere. The room looked like the result of a five-alarm fire, but Tick couldn’t see flames and felt no urge to cough.
Then, with a great whooshing sound, every bit of the strange smoky substance rushed to the exit of the bathroom in streaks of wispy darkness, coalescing there into a big ball of black smoke. Tick’s heart stuttered to a stop as he realized what hovered between him and the exit.
A Tingle Wraith.
Tick moved to run, but stopped instantly. He had nowhere to go. The Wraith completely blocked the one and only exit out of the bathroom, its dark smoke already forming into the same ancient, bearded face he’d seen in the alley a few weeks ago. Mothball’s words about the creature came back to him, sending a sickening lurch through his body.
If any man, woman, or child hears the Death Siren for thirty seconds straight, their brain turns right to mush. Nasty death, that.
Tick turned to look for another way out. A tiny window let some daylight in, but other than that, there were only stalls and urinals. He ran to the thin slat of a window and grabbed the metal crank bar to open the window. He twisted the bar clockwise and a horrible screech of metal on metal boomed through the room as the glass slowly tilted outward.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew the Wraith would start its deathly cry soon. He looked over his shoulder and saw the mouth forming into a wide, black abyss.
Tick quickened his pace, cranking the window as hard as he could. It jammed when it reached the halfway point. He pushed and pulled but the lever wouldn’t budge. He beat against the glass with both fists, but ended up with bruised knuckles, leaving the dirty glass unbroken. Desperate, he tried to squeeze through the window anyway, pushing one arm through. It didn’t take long to see it was hopeless. The crack was too thin.
He ran to the stalls, jumping up on one of the toilets to see if he could lift a ceiling tile and climb up. But it was too far above his head.
And then he heard it, the worst sound to ever beat his eardrums, a cacophony of nightmarish wails. The sound of dying men on a battlefield. The sound of a mom screaming for a lost child. The sound of criminals at the gallows, waiting to drop into their nooses. All mixed together into one horribly terrifying hum.
The Death Siren.
Thirty seconds.
As the Wraith’s cry increased in volume with every passing second, Tick squirmed his way onto the top of the stall siding, balancing as it creaked and groaned below him. He held on with one hand and reached up with the other, stretching to see if he could touch the tiles. His fingertip brushed it, but that was all.
Frantic, he jumped back down to the floor and ran out of the stall, spinning in a wide circle, looking for ideas, for a way out.
The Death Siren rose in pitch and volume, growing more horrible by the second. Tick covered his ears with both hands, h
oping to quell the noise, but the stifled groan he heard was worse. Spookier. Creepier. He knew it was almost over, that he only had a few more breaths until his brain turned to mush from the loud, haunting cry.
He looked directly at the Tingle Wraith. As he stared at its wispy black face, long and old and sad, its mouth bellowing out the terrible sound, Tick realized he had only one choice.
He dropped his hands from his ears, closed his eyes, and ran straight toward the smoky ghost.
Tick held both arms out in front of him, stiffening them like a battering ram, and charged. He crossed the floor in two seconds, his clenched fists the first thing to make contact. Not knowing what to expect, and his mind half insane knowing the thirty seconds were almost up, Tick threw himself forward with every bit of strength in his legs and feet.
A cold, biting tingle enveloped his hands and arms and then his whole body as he ran straight through the black smoke of the Wraith. The Death Siren took on a different pitch—lower, gloomy. Tick felt like he’d dived into a pool of arctic water, everything muffled and frigid and dark.
But then he was through the Wraith’s body, slamming into the wall on the other side. His mind sliding into shock, Tick flung open the bathroom door and threw his body out into the hallway, banging the door shut behind him.
Silence filled the school, but he could still hear a muted ringing in his ears, like the tolling of death bells.
Chapter
18
~
Edgar the Wise
Tick crouched on the floor of the hallway, panting for several minutes, exhausted and unable to move another inch. He kept looking at the crack under the bathroom door, sure the Tingle Wraith would follow him, but nothing came out. Mothball had told him the Wraiths couldn’t move very much once they were positioned and formed. Their weapon was the Death Siren.
He finally stood, his nerves and heart settling back to normalcy, filled with relief. Tick felt sure the creature had gone away. Shaking his head as he remembered the horrible feeling of running through the Wraith, he set off for home, knowing what he had to do.
It was time to have a little chat with Dad.
~
The next few hours seemed to take days. Tick did his best to act normal: showering to wash away the icky feel of the Tingle Wraith, joking around with Mom and Lisa, playing with Kayla, reading. When his dad finally came home from work, Tick wanted to take him up to his room right that minute and spill the whole story. He couldn’t do this alone anymore. He needed support, and Sofia was just too far away.
But Tick had to wait even longer because after dinner, Dad challenged Tick to a game of Scrabble, which he usually loved, but tonight seemed to drag on longer than ever before. To liven things up, he put down the word “kyoopy,” at which his dad had a fit, demanding a challenge. Tick held in a snicker as he lost the challenge and had to remove the word, losing his turn. He still won by forty-three points.
Finally, as they were cleaning up the game, Tick managed to casually ask his dad to come up to his room for a minute.
“What’s going on, son?” his dad asked, sitting on Tick’s bed, one leg folded up under the other. “You’ve been acting a little strange lately.”
Tick paused, running through the decision one last time in his head. This was it, no turning back. He couldn’t tell his dad about everything tonight and then say he was kidding tomorrow.
All or nothing, now or never.
He chose all and now.
“Dad, there’s a good reason I’ve been acting so crazy.” Tick leaned down and pulled his Journal of Curious Letters from underneath the bed where he’d stowed it away that morning. “Remember that letter I got a few weeks ago? The one from Alaska?”
“Yeah. Let me guess—it wasn’t from a nice Pen Pal buddy?”
“No, it was from a stranger, saying he was going to send me a bunch of clues in hopes I could figure out something important that could end up saving a bunch of people.” He paused, expecting his dad to say something, but he only got a blank look, ready to hear more. “I thought it was a joke at first, but then weird things started happening—like the Gnat Rat—and I started receiving the clues and I’ve met some very interesting people and I believe it’s true, Dad. I know it’s true.”
Tick expected a laugh, a chastisement, a lecture on not playing make-believe when you’re thirteen years old. But his heart lifted at his dad’s next words.
“Tell me everything, from the beginning.”
And Tick did.
~
It took thirty minutes, and Tick showed his dad every page and note of his journal, hiding nothing, repeating every word he could remember of his conversations with Mothball and Rutger. He told it all, and when he finished, he felt like three loads of concrete had been lifted from his chest.
His dad held the journal in his hands, staring at the front cover for a long minute. Tick waited anxiously, hoping with all his heart that his dad would believe him and offer help.
“Tick, you’re my son, and I love you more than anything in this world. This family is the only thing in the universe I give a crying hoot about and I’d do anything for any one of you guys. But I need some time to digest this, okay?”
Tick nodded.
“I’m going to take your journal. I’m going to study it tonight. And I’m going to think long and hard about everything you’ve told me. Tomorrow night, we’ll meet again right here in this very spot. And if anything weird or dangerous happens, you find me, you call me, whatever you have to do. Deal?”
“Deal. Just let me copy down the fourth clue so I can work on it while you have my book.”
When he was finished, the two hugged, his dad left the room, and Tick fell asleep with no problem at all.
~
The next night, Tick sat at his desk in the soft golden glow of his lamp, studying the fourth clue he’d scribbled on a piece of paper, waiting for his dad to come. Something about this riddle made him think it wasn’t as hard as it first seemed, and he read it again, thinking carefully about each word.
The place is for you to determine and can be in your hometown. I only ask that the name of the place begin with a letter coming after A and before Z but nowhere in between. You are allowed to have people there with you, as many as you like, as long as they are dead by the time you say the magic words. But, by the Wand, make sure that you are not dead, of course. That would truly throw a wrinkle into our plans.
Tick closed his eyes and thought.
It really came down to two hints: the letter the place begins with and the thing about dead people. The word that kept popping into his mind when he thought about the latter was cemetery. It matched the clue perfectly—a lot of people would be there and they’d all be dead. The way M.G. worded it made it sound like Tick would have to kill people or something, but he obviously didn’t mean that, it was just a clever twist of language. The place where he was supposed to go on May sixth had to be a cemetery.
And yet, what about the letter it begins with? After A and before Z, but nowhere in between . . .
“Son?”
Tick snapped back to reality and turned to see his dad standing in the doorway. “Hi, Dad.” He stood from his desk chair and went over to sit on the bed, in the same position as last night. A surge of anxiety swelled in his chest, hope and fear battling over his emotions as he awaited the verdict.
His dad joined him, a somber look on his face, his eyes staring at the Journal of Curious Letters gripped in both of his hands. “Tick, I’ve read through this a million times and thought about it all day.” He finally looked at his son.
“And you think I’m psycho.” Tick was amazed that at the same time he could both want and not want his dad to tell him what he thought of everything.
“No, not at all. I believe it. All of it.”
Tick couldn’t suppress the huge grin that shot across his face. “Really?”
His dad nodded. “There’s something I didn’t tell you last night. I, uh, saw you
talking to the little man you called Rutger. I saw for myself he was real. And the whole thing about those gnats. I can’t get that out of my mind. Then there’s the letter from Alaska. I know you don’t know anyone up there.” He shook his head. “It’s a lot of evidence, son. A lot.”
“So you—”
His dad held up a hand, cutting off Tick. “But that’s not why I’m convinced.”
“It’s not?”
“No.” His dad leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “Tick, I’ve known you for thirteen years, and I can’t think of a time when you’ve ever lied to me. You’re too smart to lie, too good of a person. I trust you, and as I looked into your eyes as you told me this crazy story, I knew it was true. Now, I wanted some time to think about it and such, but I knew.”
Tick wanted to say something cheesy and profound, but all that came out was, “Cool.”
His dad laughed. “Yeah, cool. I can feel it deep down that this is important and that you were chosen to help because you’re a special kid. There’s always been something almost magical about you, Tick, and I think I knew that someday your life would take a turn for the unique. We’ve never really talked about it, but I’ve always felt like you had a guardian angel or some kind of special gift. These letters and clues and all this weird stuff has to be related somehow.”
Tick didn’t really know what his dad was talking about, and didn’t care—he was too excited about finally having someone nearby who knew what was going on. “So you’ll help me figure it out?”
“Now, maybe I can help a little here and there with the riddles but”—he pointed a finger at Tick—“you better believe I’m going to be the toughest bodyguard anyone’s ever had. All this dangerous stuff scares me too, you know?” He reached out and gave his patented bear hug, then leaned back. “So where do we go from here?”
Tick shrugged. “I guess we just keep getting the clues and hope we can figure everything out by May sixth.”