Chapter One

It was a horribly dull Saturday.

Chester threw a sock at the wall. He looked at the clock

hand twitch again like a zombie insect that wouldn't die. It was

almost two minutes since the last time he looked!

Chester tried to think of something to do. He looked out

the window at a tiny cloud.

1
 Maybe, a huge airplane would appear. It would drop

boxes from high in the sky. Boxes of supplies, because the

invasion was coming! Everyone would rush outside to look!

But there wasn’t an airplane today. There wasn’t even a

purple balloon.

Nothing could be worse than a dull Saturday. Well...

almost nothing.

Nothing except cleaning the hall bathroom.

Cleaning the hall bathroom was a job that used all kinds

of strange, nasty chemicals. Chester had to scrub with these

chemicals until they had almost managed to leach through the

sweaty, itchy gloves he had to wear, gloves that went up to his

elbows.

But without gloves, the awful chemicals would eat

holes through his hands, leaving him as a circus weirdo

forever!

2
 Then everyone would stare at him through cage bars.

The boy without hands!

If Chester dared to come out of his room, he would be

spotted and sent into the hall bathroom right now.

"Chester!" his mum yelled from another room. Chester

got up very slowly and started out his bedroom door to certain

doom.

"Could you please take this bill to your Uncle

William?" mother said, clutching a basket of laundry and

handing out an envelope.

It was a trick, Chester knew. His mother would ask him

for something small usually...

And then another chore, and then another, and then

before he knew it, it was too late and he was trying to shove his

fingers into those hot itchy gloves...

Uncle William lived directly down the street. He was

kind of weird and Chester didn't like his house very much. He

3
lived with some other weird folks who were almost as old as

him.

But still, Uncle William's stuffy house didn't hardly

compare with the ultimate terror that awaited on his return!

Chester rang the doorbell. He looked around. The house

was like many others in the neighborhood, but older. The paint

had spots of dirt and the boards were cracking.

It looked like every single house had been repainted

except Uncle William's.

No one was coming! He rang the doorbell again.

There wasn’t anything to do except look at the shrubby

little plants beside Uncle William’s house, and try to peek into

the windows, which had tiny curtains on them.

But Chester knew there wasn’t much to see inside. He

had been here before.

Chester wondered over and over what was taking so

long! Usually someone came to the door after a few seconds.

4
 The tiny curtains kept him from seeing anything inside.

Maybe he could sneak behind the bushes and look through the

cracks.

Finally Uncle William slowly opened the door and just

grinned at him with his old, smiling teeth. He kind of stared

and smiled and smacked his lips for a moment.

"Chester it is! What have you got me for?" he said

brightly, as if he had just won a million bucks from the

sweepstakes.

Chester handed him the envelope. The old man tousled

Chester's hair and said would he like some candies?

Chester already knew what the candies were. They

were odd little pastel balls filled with weak chocolate. Chester

didn't really like them.

Then he thought of the window cleaner bottle waiting at

home.

5
 The candy dish was on the tiny table where it usually

was, and Chester slowly reached for one of the lumpy balls. He

hoped they would taste better this time.

Some of the other folks who lived there were

wandering past. There was a short, spectacled guy with frizzy

hair and some lady with a frilly pajama set.

"Jeffrey? Have you met Chester yet?" William said

loudly. Of course he had, many times before!

"How nice to see you again," said the lady in pajamas.

She had a fancy English way of speaking, like the announcer

for that cat food commercial, and sat down on the fusty couch

by the table.

Chester tried to concentrate on choosing which candy to

eat next. Sometimes light blue ones tasted better than pink, he

thought.

6
 "Ho ho! Chester my boy!" said the frizzy guy, who

must be Jeffrey, Chester thought.

"We've just been discussing some things," he said,

giving a wink to William through his glasses.

"Oh, don’t bother the dear," said the lady. "Let him

enjoy the candies."

Chester wondered what they were going on about. They

were always weird.

"Yes let's not bother him, Auntie," Jeffrey went on with

glee. "After all, they are top secret things. Strange things.

Things we've been working on for quite some time, we have."

"Oh, hush, Jeffrey." said the nice lady. "You and your

nonsense."

Chester watched them. Things were getting weirder

than usual.

"See? Now you've got him all curiousity!" the lady said.

"Curious-ified!" said Uncle Bill happily.

7
 "Curious-it-ified you mean!" went Jeffrey. "Hee hee!"

And he looked ready to dance a little jig with his slippers.

Chester really didn't know what to do except keep munching

on the candy.

"Now that's enough," the lady said with suddenness.

"It's time for Chester to get home of course."

Jeffrey seemed a bit disappointed and stopped smiling.

Chester didn't really want to leave. At least not yet.

"I don't want to go yet," he said.

"Why? Why not?" Jeffrey said, leaning over. His eyes

gleamed at Chester through the spectacles.

"Have you got mumbers in your closet?" Jeffrey

whispered with mischief.

"Or has a dust mop been after you?" Uncle William

said. He winked at Jeffrey.

"I never!" went the lady.

"Or your teddy ran off?" Jeffrey squealed.

8
 "I say, you two are...!" went the lady.

"Or what? Come on, out with it!" Jeffrey finished at

last.

Chester looked up at them. Somehow it seemed they

really wanted to know, they weren't just kidding him. But his

thoughts of the hall bathroom seemed stupid and childish now.

"Don't leave us curious-ified," said Uncle William.

"Curious-it-ified! Ho ho!" Jeffrey said.

"Really, let him speak," the lady said with gravity.

"I just..." Chester began.

"It's the ultimate terror. The hall bathroom." said

Chester at last. He felt better somehow, saying it.

No one laughed at him. No one looked as if he had said

something odd.

"Oh... Ah... I see..." said Jeffrey somberly. "The

ultimate terrors."

9
 There was no sign of mocking on his jolly face.

"The ultimate terrors," William repeated slowly after

Jeffrey. Everyone was quiet for a moment.

The lady kept thinking for a long time. Chester

wondered what she was thinking about.

"I think it's time. We should tell him," she said with

absolute decision. William and Jeffrey looked at her and then

back at Chester.

As if on some invisible signal, Jeffrey went and

checked that the windows were locked and curtained, and then

William went and ruffled inside a drawer, pulling out some

various papers. The lady continued sitting on the old couch,

mulling over some thoughts.

William brought the papers and spread them out all

over the small table. There were large papers, and little notepad

papers, and some that were covered with strange scribbles. He

10
kept pointing at things with a stubby pencil as he talked.

"Well, I started out my calculations with fripperology,

but then I realized I needed something more analytical like

stufferisms."

William shuffled through the stack and tried to find

some more papers, which he put on top.

"Finally I arrived at the schematic B here, (he pointed at

what looked like a ridiculous mousetrap) and then with some

difficulty I used the frippological calculations I had done

before..."

Here he pointed at a bunch of arrows, which pointed at

other arrows and then back at the first arrows.

"Conjunctified with some values from the table of

mumbers..."

William kept on talking, waving the pencil around.

"...arrived at the schematic F here (and he pointed at

something like a bionic toaster blueprint) which all leads me

11
back to my first clue, as I had suspected at first!"

And then he took something out of his front right shirt

pocket, very, very carefully, as if it were made of finest tissue

paper.

He unwrapped it slowly and laid it out on top of

everything, smoothing out the wrinkles gently with his old, soft

fingers. Chester recognized it, it was a Berzerker Joe gum

wrapper.

It always had a funny little comic on it that was almost

unreadable and sometimes not that funny. But Chester always

liked the Berzerker Joe comics anyways.

"Read the comic," William said commandingly.

It was a comic Chester had seen before actually. He

often got some gum, and had a lot of wrappers himself. In the

first panel Berzerker Joe was at the beach in his swim trunks.

Then it ended with a joke about the "salty sea", he

remembered.

12
 But the paper was wrinkled, and there were a few dots

of ink, and it almost looked like it just said "saltines".

"Read right here," William said, carefully pointing the

pencil stub.

"Hey, it says saltines!" Chester exclaimed.

"Exactly."

13
14
Chapter Two

Chester kept looking at the gum wrapper. He blinked,

but the light flowing through the curtains was dim, and the

word was still there.

William continued. "When I saw the clue, I realized

that it was the saltines that were going to do it. I had to check

three times just to be sure.

15
 And almost everyone likes saltine crackers, at least

once in a while. Especially for a good bowl of soup. It was a

terrible revelation!"

Chester looked around at their faces. They were serious,

even sad, and he didn't think they were playing a big joke on

him.

William went to the little kitchen of the house, and

everyone followed without a word. Chester watched him get a

rusty stepping stool from the corner, unfold it, and step up to

the cupboard. William pulled down some boxes.

They were cracker boxes. One of them had a smiling

sea captain on the front. It wasn't opened.

"See, Chester?" William said in a hushed voice, "These

boxes are in every house in America! Thankfully we found the

16
clue in time. But some people will not be so lucky. Unless, we

can stop it!"

Chester looked at the sea captain, who smiled back at

him while biting on his pipe. Everyone walked back to the

living room. Quickly, William shoveled all the papers back

into the drawer and closed it tightly.

Jeffrey looked at the clock and then nodded to the lady.

"Auntie, I am beginning to wonder what time it is right now on

the clock inside the Gutenwalds' hallway?"

She riffled through another drawer in the desk and

came up with a small hand telescope, and then leaning into the

window she gazed persistently for a while.

"I do believe it's 9:35."

17
 Chester looked at the clock in the room. It was actually

almost 1:00.

"9:35!" Jeffrey said, startled. "Already? We don't have

much time, do we?"

Auntie closed up the telescope. "No, we don't."

Chester wasn't sure what to do. He thought he might try

to get home.

William looked over. "Chester, come along with us a

few more minutes, will you?"

Together they walked down the street, Auntie and

Jeffrey still in their pajama robes. They arrived at a house on

18
the corner, which Chester had never bothered to look at before.

He saw it often though, even though it was on a

different street. But it was very normal looking and didn't have

anything exciting about it at all. William got a key out of his

pocket and unlocked the door, after wrestling with the door

handle for a moment.

The inside of the house was just as boring as the

outside, with fussy little knick-knacks and some dowdy

furniture.

"You must be thirsty, Chester, why don't you get

something from the fridge?" Auntie said, as she went towards

another room.

Jeffrey and William headed to another door, and left

him there. Without anyone there in the room, everything

seemed normal again. A pretty porcelain cat stared at him from

a shelf, and the couches were nice and comfy looking.

19
 Chester was a little thirsty, and he could see a beat up

fridge in the kitchen, looking nice and cold.

He opened the door, and there were lots of things in

there, old take-out boxes and milk cartons. Hopefully there

would be some soda. He reached to push something aside.

Chester looked at one of the jars on the middle shelf,

and there was something floating inside. He wasn't sure if it

was a squid or some kind of seaweed, because it was very

black and the water looked muddled under the small fridge

light.

Quickly he shut the fridge, and decided to get a glass of

water from the sink. He didn't want to see if there was anything

else on the shelf!

After some water he felt better, and there was a knock

on the front door. Chester started walking to answer it, but how

did he know who was there?

20
 Maybe Auntie and William wouldn't want to speak to

them, or else someone was looking for them, or...

They knocked again. Chester thought of hiding behind

the ugly couch.

Fortunately Jeffrey came bumping down the stairs and

ran to the door, quickly opening it. A traveling salesman stood

outside. He had dark sunglasses on his thin, long face. He

tipped his hat.

"Are you interested in learning about quality dental

care?" the salesman said in a monotone, never changing his

expression.

"I have some samples in my briefcase, if you'd like a

free demonstration of the modern advances in preventing tooth

decay."

"Agent B!" Jeffrey squealed happily. Chester didn't

know what to say.

21
 Agent B the salesman came in quickly and Jeffrey shut

the door behind him tightly. Chester noticed that the salesman

was wearing bunny slippers for some reason, and had a long,

worn out looking face.

"How is the pipe business in Duston?" Jeffrey asked

him in a very casual way. "Our plumbing is having some

problems. Maybe you could look at it too."

Agent B sat on a fusty couch and opened the briefcase

on top of the coffee table. Chester looked, and there were rows

and rows of pink bubblegum toothpaste, as well as a few other

flavors of toothpaste tubes.

Jeffrey seemed surprised for some reason. "Do we need

the Bubblegum flavor? Here in Paxton? That's not possible!"

"I have reason to believe so," Agent B said, and it was

like someone had dropped a ton of silence into the room.

22
 Jeffrey was at a loss for words as he stared at the bright

rows of toothpaste.

Chester tried so much to figure out what they were

going on about! But he couldn't think of a single thing. It was

just some toothpaste.

"I should tell Auntie and William," Jeffrey said finally,

and went to find them.

Agent B looked up at Chester and gave a weak smile.

"Have you brushed your teeth today?" he asked, and gave

Chester one of the samples of bubblegum toothpaste and a

short toothbrush.

Then Agent B closed up the suitcase and started

towards the stairway, and Chester followed him. He noticed the

Agent's feet made no noise in the fluffy bunny slippers.

23
 At the top there was a bathroom on one side, and Agent

B went in and opened his suitcase by the sink. It was a very

boring bathroom with ugly paisley wallpaper and a big mirror.

But then Chester saw a large rack of toothpaste tubes on

one wall by the mirror, of all kinds and shapes, and the Agent

started taking out flavors from the suitcase and adding them to

the wall.

He stopped and opened up the cabinet under the sink.

There were pipes under the sink as usual, but dozens of

them, twisting around and with little boxes on them in some

places. Some of the pipes were dripping. There was a strange

odor in the air that Chester didn't even recognize.

"You should go find Jeffrey," Agent B said in his dry

voice, still looking at the pipes. Chester went out and down the

stairs, and looked through some rooms, but he didn't know

24
where anyone might be. He saw Auntie looking in the fridge

though, and she brought out the jar with the squid thing in it.

"She's looking much better now," Auntie said to

Chester, holding the jar up to the light. "Almost ready to go

into the aquarium again! Aren't you, Cecilia?"

Chester hoped she wasn't going to open up the jar!

But Auntie went and opened an empty cupboard, and

put the jar inside and shut it again. There was a gurgling sound

somewhere in the wall, like water flowing.

William came in from the backyard.

"Cecilia is back in the aquarium," Auntie said wistfully.

"I wish you wouldn't name them," William said. "What

if one of them died?"

25
 "I don't see any aquarium," Chester said suddenly.

"Oh of course not," Auntie explained. "It's under the

house, in the dark. They have to have dark most of the time,

you know."

"Well... what about all that toothpaste? And those pipes

under the sink? And Agent B? What's going on?" Chester

rambled. He just wanted something to make sense!

William looked around, thinking of what to say. Auntie

pushed her hair around. Then Uncle William started saying

some things.

"See, Chester, this isn't a house. It's a research facility

for some special animals that live deep in the ocean," he said,

smiling in his usual grandfatherly way. Somehow that made

26
Chester always feel better.

"The toothpaste tubes aren't really filled with

toothpaste. They're chemical elements and chemicals and

things. Except for the Bubblegum flavor, we use that for

brushing."

"We can get the right chemicals and mix them in the

sink, and down they go through the pipes and into the

aquarium, to keep it nice and mucky like the creatures need."

"Oh," Chester said.

"See, there have been some strange chemicals in the

ocean lately, and some strange things have been living there.

So we have to find out about them, eh Chester?"

It did make sense, in a way.

27
 "Only we have to keep it a secret now, making it just

like it's an ordinary house, because of... well... and we needed

to also when... and the... of course..." William said, suddenly

not knowing what else to say.

Chester nodded to show he understood. At least he

thought he understood!

Auntie spoke up, leaning on the counter. "We'll have to

explain better sometime, dearie. Would you like some soda?"

Jeffrey came in from the front door again, and saw

everyone.

"A party without me? Hee hee!" he laughed.

28
 "Some of the plumbing is worn out," Jeffrey said,

changing his tone. "Chester, you can help Agent B with

supplies and acquisition; you'll be back in time to get home for

dinner. William, you go sort the toothpaste rack, it's all out of

order. Auntie will come with me and clean the water filter."

On cue everyone began busily going about. Agent B

had come downstairs already but no one heard him because of

his soft bunny slippers. Chester wondered if that was why he

wore them.

29
30
Chapter Three

Agent B and Chester drove to Hardware Depot in a

rusty truck with the windows down and cool air blowing past.

They walked around the huge warehouse. He would pick up all

the different shapes of pipes, look at them, and pick up some

other ones, some plastic and some metallic.

There was an old song wailing in the background.

Agent B was still holding little copper tubes and turning them

over and then looking at them again. Chester was starting to get

antsy from waiting for Agent B to find all the right pipes.

31
 Then Agent B walked around and looked at other

things, electrical wires and hinges. It was kind of nice and cool

in the warehouse actually, and for a moment Chester felt like

just two regular people shopping for pipes or whatever. He

came here with his dad sometimes, and there were even

houseplants for sale in one place.

Finally Agent B was satisfied and they paid for the

pipes and pushed a squeaky shopping cart back to the truck,

and Agent B put everything in the back. Then he leaned on the

truck and rested for a moment.

The parking lot was kind of hot in the summer sun but

there was a nice breeze. Agent B would kind of look around,

and then chew on a toothpick he had from somewhere, and

then he would kind of look around some more, as if he was

bored.

There were some scraggly bushes against a concrete

wall, where old trash had blown, and some little trees every

32
now and then.

Agent B walked around over to a bush that was

growing by the wall. He examined the leaves quickly, looking

at each branch and shaking some of them. Then he picked a

single leaf that was deep inside the bush and put it in a plastic

baggie.

"Here. Don't let this blow away," he said, handing the

bag to Chester, and then they got in the truck and Agent B

drove out to the street again, slowly, checking all his mirrors,

and they went back to the house on the corner.

It was getting kind of late by then actually, and the

wind had picked up a lot. Back in the house, some tree

branches were knocking against a window, and Chester

suddenly longed to be back in his own room.

Auntie had a small telescope again and was looking

33
between some of the curtains.

"Do you have a bead on the Gutenwald's clock?"

Jeffrey said impatiently.

"No, no," Auntie said irritably, trying to look. She

moved the telescope around a little.

"Then we'll just have to go back to William's place," he

replied. "And Chester! You should get back home!"

"No one can go anywhere yet," Agent B said flatly.

Jeffrey stared at him.

"They're coming already," Agent B stated.

34
 "It can't be!" Jeffrey said. "How did they find out? Did

you get a telemetry on the spectroscopics? Did you equalize the

infer-ometry? Mitigate the supposition readings?"

"Look!" Agent B said, handing Jeffrey a printout with

millions of tiny numbers on it. Jeffrey looked up, his face

blank, and then glanced at Chester with concern.

A whiff of rain was falling on the window's glass.

"I'm sorry Chester, but they're almost here already,"

Jeffrey told him. "The invisible brain suckers."

"I can't go home then!" Chester said. "It's too

dangerous!"

Jeffrey seemed very upset. "We're researchers, Chester,

not kidnappers! You need to get home now. I'll call your

parents."

35
 Jeffrey went into the other room, and talked on the

phone for a long time, sometimes saying, "uh huh" or "alright"

or "of course".

He came back in and sat on the couch, looking even

more upset.

"They agree you can come to a vacation in Arizona. For

a month."

"What? My parents would never do that!" Chester said.

"I know," Jeffrey said, looking at nothing. "This means

we have to leave now!"

Agent B spoke up. "Fortunately brain suckers move

slowly, so they won't reach this house for a while. But I don't

even know where all of them are."

36
 Chester almost felt like crying. "But if my parents..." he

sputtered. It couldn't be true!

Jeffrey spoke, very comfortingly. "Don't worry! Many

people live very long and successful lives without their brains.

But we know people who can reverse the process, Chester, and

we will be working to get your parents back. We will be

working!" Jeffrey said, his voice rising with strong

determination against the wind.

"What are we doing?!" William demanded, coming in

quickly with Agent B's suitcase in one hand. "Start the car."

Then everyone went out to the backyard, as William

handed a tube of Doctor Bubble's Bubblegum Toothpaste to

each person, including Auntie. Everyone started brushing their

teeth with one finger, like a toothbrush. Chester followed

quickly.

37
 "Invisible brain suckers hate the taste of bubblegum,"

Auntie told him, leaning closely with her bubblegum breath.

"Make sure to keep replacing it during the trip!"

They all went through a fence and into a rotting shed

where a large, green car sat that probably hadn't been driven in

decades. They all piled in and Agent B took the wheel, kicking

the engine into gear with no nonsense allowed.

The engine roared alive a few times, and then the car

suddenly barreled straight out of the shed doors, through the

fence and onto the street, turning down an alley.

Chester looked back, and some of the houses had turned

all their lights on. It was almost after sunset, and he felt

relieved for some reason.

Sometimes he would doze off, but then Auntie would

prod him and remind him to put on some fresh toothpaste.

"Do we have enough tubes to make it to Auntie's

house?" he heard William ask between dozing off.

38
Chapter Four

It was morning. Chester woke up. He could feel his bed

moving, but he wasn't in bed. The car was still flooring it on an

interstate highway, and Chester sat up in the backseat, feeling

very groggy and worn. But at least his teeth were nice and

fresh, instead of tasting weird like some mornings.

"Where are we?" Chester asked without thinking. But

he had remembered already.

39
 "Don't worry, we're almost there," Auntie said

sympathetically. "We're going to my special house in Arizona,

to meet up with a contact. Everything's going to be fine."

Agent B was still at the wheel, and the car wasn't going

as fast as it had been the night before. The endless scenery of

dirt and shrubby plants went past, always changing but always

the same.

Jeffrey handed back some little cereal boxes and spoons

from the glove box, and Chester tried to crunch some of it

down with no milk. But he was very, very hungry and didn't

really care.

Some little towns went past, and they stopped to get

some water and things sometimes, but then went on. Uncle

William would also buy a few different boxes of crackers and

throw them in the trunk, "for analysis later on", he explained.

40
 Then the scenery changed to a small town. And then a

larger town.

And then they were driving down a nice street and

around a hill, and onto a round circle street with houses all

along it and empty space in the middle.

The car stopped in front of a nice, pretty house with

pink paint and white trim.

Someone across the way had a motor home parked on

the street, and there were some shady trees and nice

decorations everywhere. Chester could tell it might be very hot

later that day.

Soon they had gotten out and gone in the front of the

nice little pink house, and things were so calm and peaceful

that Chester felt a lot better all of a sudden.

"Is the contact on his way?" Auntie said as everyone

found a place to sit or got a muffin from the fridge or looked

out the window at the trees. The house felt just like home and

41
had a lot of pink and white lace and some pretty little statues

and brown furniture that looked very cozy. Nothing seemed to

really match, but Chester didn't care.

It was a long day that day, and Chester kept trying to

beat Jeffrey at checkers, who always won and said "Hee hee!"

every time he jumped some of Chester's pieces. The contact

was supposed to arrive the next day though, so everyone used

the time to rest up and get ready.

William kept complaining about how he left his papers

with the stufferisms and fripperology calculations back at his

house, and how long it would take to do it all over again and

check it and double-check it.

But then Auntie would remind him that he did

remember to bring the Berzerker Joe gum wrapper in his

pocket, where he always kept it.

42
 There was some chicken noodle soup for dinner, and it

was very hot and spicy and made Chester feel tired, and

everyone else too. They gave him a room downstairs to stay in,

and everyone went off to their places to sleep before it was

even that dark yet.

Chester looked out the window, for a long time, trying

to go to sleep. He saw part of the wall of the neighbor's house,

lit by the moon, and some tops of trees, and every now and

then a dog barked and a cloud scudded through the sky very

slowly. He thought over a lot of things, and a lot of memories,

but he couldn't really figure out what was going on, even in his

own regular life back at his own house. It seemed like he had

never tried to figure anything out because he didn't really need

to before.

And then he would look out the window again, and

everything was so dark and quiet, and the moon was lighting

up the fence, and a dog barked again, and he still couldn't get to

sleep.

43
 Finally Chester got up and wandered back into the

living room. The light was turned back on and Jeffrey was

sitting at a table in his pajamas, having some tea or something.

Auntie was there also, reading the newspaper, Chester thought.

Jeffrey spotted him.

"Ho ho, what's the matter, Chester my boy? Can't

sleep?"

"No, not really. I'm just trying to figure some things

out."

Jeffrey took a long slurp of tea and looked at him.

"So are a lot of people, Chester. Even we are."

Chester sat down at the table. "Really?"

44
 Jeffrey smiled. Auntie was still reading. "Why yes, in

fact, most of us have just started to understand things," he

explained.

"In fact, for a long time, we... that is, Auntie and I and

William, and well, a whole lot of people... we only sort of felt

that something important might be happening around us,

something we weren't really sure what it was.”

Jeffrey tried to think of something more to say.

"In fact... every now and then someone would say,

'Hey, do you wonder what's going on?' or 'I wonder if

something is going on'!"

"Mostly everyone would shrug and say nothing. And

that was all."

45
 "But then, we would find someone else who said, 'Well,

yes, I think something might be happening, I'm not sure what it

is.' And then we started working together, against something,

we didn't know what, and we didn't know exactly what to do

about it!"

"Then we came up with a name for it. Whatever it is,

we weren't really sure, because we didn't know exactly what

was happening, or why, or even how."

"We called it The What."

Auntie had stopped reading to watch. She and Jeffrey

didn't say anything for a moment, but they looked rather sad.

Chester felt upset too, but he didn't know why. Something

seemed very wrong but he didn't even know why.

46
 "I think... I think I know what you mean." Chester said

quietly. Auntie put her newspaper on the table.

"You see, Chester," Auntie said, "Imagine a country

invades another country, and they win, and march in and

change all the rules and and blow up all the buildings.

Everyone is running and screaming and trying to stop it. That

would be a terrible thing, wouldn't it?"

Chester had heard about this, and seen some bits of old

war movies on TV. It did seem rather horrible!

Auntie continued. "But now imagine... there is no army.

There is no invasion, there are no millions of soldiers marching

through the streets with huge cannons firing and blowing

everything up. But things keep getting worse anyways!”

“Only this time, nobody notices. Because like we said,

47
there is no army."

"But things are changing... and changing... and

changing, and soon nobody remembers how happy the world

was, and all the things they loved so much, so much that they

would have fought against a huge army before. But now, they

don't even care."

It was such an awful idea, Chester could tell. Strange

and awful, like a dream that you’re glad to wake up from. He

didn't really want to imagine it. It didn't seem possible.

"But some of us are fighting, and some of us are willing

to give their lives. So don't worry about it."

Chester looked at them again.

"Nobody knows everything, Chester. So you'll just have

48
to do what we do: live one day at a time, without giving in to

fear. In a way, we know fear is one of the things we are

fighting against."

Chester nodded, and then after eating a few pieces of

some nice bread, he went back to his room. He was able to get

to sleep now.

49
50
Chapter Five

In the morning, William woke up Chester early.

"I'm going to go meet up with our contact," William

said, shaking him awake. "You might want to come along."

After a short drive, they made it to the supermarket, and

the sun was still sort of rising.

51
 The supermarket was a little too cold for that early in

the morning, Chester thought, and he stumbled along trying to

blink his eyes to wake up as they pushed a cart through the

mostly empty aisles. Some music was playing with a guy

singing about love sickness. There was an old woman with a

shawl looking through the frozen goods, and a mom with her

kid.

"Who are we looking for?" Chester asked, once he was

awake enough to start thinking about things.

"I don't know," William said, and kept pushing the cart

along. "But they will have three brands of crackers in the top of

their cart: Fritz Friskers, Krunchee Krisps, and Captain

Cracker's Brand Soup Crackers."

There was an eccentric lady looking at bird food. She

had some cracker boxes in her cart, scattered all about.

52
 "No, those are the wrong kind," William muttered

before Chester said anything to her.

Then a few aisles later William stopped the cart by the

frozen pizzas. "Look, you stay here," he said. "I'll go quickly

around and try to find them. Don't move, please," he said.

Chester stayed by the cart. He got kind of tired of

looking at all the different kinds of frozen pizzas, but all the

walking had woken him up. Somehow it felt good in the

morning. He thought he might get out a frozen pizza and look

at the back, just to read something new, after a while, until he

had almost memorized which pizzas had new flavors already.

Some radio station was playing clangy guitar chords on the

tinny supermarket speakers.

A scruffy looking guy was pushing a cart through the

frozen section, and he stopped across the way and shoved

53
through the frozen broccoli, muttering something.

He had a white undershirt under a gaudy jacket with the

collars turned up, and some kind of metal necklace. Chester felt

like a strange, small kid in front of him. His hair was very

disheveled but it looked interesting that way. Chester almost

wished his own hair was untidy now. Chester looked at the

stranger's cart carefully. In the top rack were cracker boxes, all

different types.

The scruffy guy looked at Chester.

"Are you looking for some saltines?" he said almost

humorously. Chester didn't know what to say. For a moment

the guy looked very serious, and Chester thought he almost

might get angry.

But then he suddenly looked through the broccoli,

again, saying random things like, "what?" and "oh man" and

"where-is-it dont-you-have-it-anymore?".

William moseyed around the corner, looking weary,

54
and then hurried along when he saw the guy's cart.

"I see you're a fan of Captain Cracker," William said

officiously to the untidy dude. "And Friskers and Krisps aren't

that bad either."

The guy stopped looking in the broccoli, and suddenly

looked kind of serious again. But then he was friendly all of a

sudden.

"My name is Nat. It's good to meet you at last. Are you

Jeffrey or William?"

"Please call me Bill," William said. "This is Chester, a

nephew."

"Of course, William," the guy said, popping some

bubblegum in his mouth. "Want some?" he asked Chester

cordially.

55
 Chester shook his head, and the guy, a contact named

Nat, shrugged. Chester had had enough bubblegum for a few

days!

On the way back to Auntie's house, Nat took his own

car, an old rust-covered Mustang, and followed them back.

Auntie had some waffles and sausage baking, and

Jeffrey was trying to make some kind of orange juice with a

plastic squisher thing. Nat didn't say anything but got a plate

and started eating a big waffle and a lot of the sausages.

Everyone else followed.

"Ho ho! I guess the gang's all here!" Jeffrey said,

dancing a little in his slippered feet.

"I won't have a lot of time to stay around," Nat said,

56
chewing loudly, and pushing some waffle pieces through the

syrup. "Maybe a day or two."

For the rest of the morning, they talked around the table

with Nat about a lot of things that Chester didn't know anything

about. Later the conversation came to the calculation papers

William had left at his own house back in Paxton.

William had been trying to redo everything from

memory, but as he showed Nat on a few papers strewn across

the table, he hadn't gotten that far.

"Wait a sec," Nat said. He went out and came back in a

moment and set a pile of papers on the table. It was all the

calculations. He was chewing some more gum. William stared

at the papers with amazement.

Nat spoke up. "Well, one thing I can say is thank God

for the Ketchers. I don't know what all is going on with those

crazy people, but somehow they managed to get a hold of

57
these! Gave them to me on my way here. I forgot to tell you."

William was at a loss for words. He looked over each

paper carefully, pointing at each part with a stubby pencil taken

from his shirt pocket.

Later in the afternoon, all the papers were spread out

over the larger table in the den, next to a window to give some

good light. William and Jeffrey were looking over everything

with Nat.

"I see you've got the Meeny and the Miny, but where's

the Moe?" Nat argued, pointing with another pencil. Jeffrey

was busy with a blueprint.

"Over here," William said, tracing an arrow on the

other side of the paper.

58
 Nat leaned to a page with lots of boxes, which had other

boxes in them that sometimes crossed with other boxes, which

had even smaller boxes inside.

"But the Fee, Fie and Fum are in the right place, so the

Foe should be in between. And that would explain why Moe is

over there instead of with Meeny and Miny," Nat argued

hastily.

William shook his head and pointed with the stubby

pencil to the boxes.

"Yes, but Fee and Fie conjuctified with Foe gives Fum

of course, so inversely the Fee, Fie, and Fum together means

that Foe is there implicitly."

59
 "You should still write the Foe in," Nat said, drawing a

little box. "Not everyone is a genius at this math like you."

"I'll spread news of these findings," Nat said a bit later

as William gathered up the papers back into a sort of stack.

"This will change a lot of things."

60
Chapter Six

Later Jeffrey and Nat left to get supplies. Chester

wanted to come along with them, in Nat's Mustang, and they

let him.

Soon they had left the city and ended up on an empty

desert road. Suddenly Nat swerved off the road and onto a little

dirt path, never slowing down.

61
 After a few minutes he stopped next to a large beat-up

shack, that was crusted with dust and sand over its wood. Nat

said it was a "safe house", whatever that was.

When they went inside Chester was surprised to see

curtains and wallpaper inside, a little outdated but still in pretty

good shape.

"What have you got in here?" Jeffrey said, businesslike.

He and Nat went over to a dingy wooden dresser by one wall.

"Show me the goods," Jeffrey spouted.

"I'll show you the goods, my man, just you watch," Nat

said, sliding one of the drawers open. A mist came out, and

there were rows and rows of boxes in the drawer, all nice and

cold like a fridge, and a soft blue light shining out of the

drawer.

"What is it?" Chester asked.

62
 Nat answered, never looking away from the drawer.

"Jellyfish Brand Dessert Gelatin, made with only the purest

and finest of gelatin compounds and flavor crystals. This

particular brand is useful in the titration of amino acids. A

researcher stumbled across this while stuck in Taiwan without

lab equipment."

"So what will it be, man?" Nat shot at Jeffrey.

"Raspberry? Blueberry? Banana Lime?"

"I think the flavanoids of Raspberry will work best with

the specimen."

"Raspberry it is. Fifty boxes? A hundred?" Nat

rambled.

63
 "Better safe than sorry. I'll need to double-check the

results." Jeffrey said.

Nat was carefully putting jello boxes into a styrofoam

cooler by the dozens. "Well I know there's a Mrs. Green lives

in Shadyville who does a crazy mean DNA spectrum, or just

about any chemistry you want. But that's a little more than out

of our way."

After locking up the safehouse with three different

locks, they got back in Nat's car and swept back up the dirt

path onto the main highway.

Nat liked the radio on sometimes, Chester noticed, and

there was some guy wailing over what sounded like smashed

trashcans and chainsaws.

"The machine is getting thirsty, I'll need to fill up," Nat

64
said, and pulled into a little quaint gas station at a tiny town

along the way.

"People get to sleep early in small towns," Nat said,

looking around. Chester looked at all the houses, and it was

true. There didn't seem to be anything to see. A harsh wind

kicked up then, blowing things all around with a dusty smell in

it.

Chester and Nat went into the gas station's mini-mart to

pay for the fuel. Nat looked at all the cracker boxes on a

display rack, checking them carefully, but then went to the

front.

"How much," Nat said to the clerk inside the very old

gas station mini-mart. Jeffrey was waiting outside. There was a

speaker up on the wall, but Chester knew it must be broken

because it was just playing mostly static, although it sounded

65
like music was trying to get out sometimes.

"One fifty," the clerk said, not looking up. "Looks like

real rainy weather," he said now, looking at them and smiling

very happily. Nat started digging in one pocket for more

change.

The clerk kept smiling more and more and more. He

laughed a little, in a rowdy way. "Great song!" he said.

"Hey, there's something there," the clerk said, pointing

to the back door. Nat stopped digging in his pocket and looked

up.

The clerk then pointed again. "Want to see it?" he

laughed again.

66
 Nat looked frozen for a moment, then whispered to

Chester, "Go to the car."

Chester hesitated for a moment. Maybe the clerk had

found something. What was it? Maybe it was important! What

could it...

Nat got a hold of Chester and started for the door. "Get

to the car! NOW!"

The wind had grown fierce outside and thrashed wildly

at Chester's eyes. He ran back to the car, and Nat went around

to the steering wheel. Jeffrey had seen them and was already in

his seat. Chester got in and slammed the door, suddenly

breaking into a sweat. The engine screamed alive and Chester

noticed that all the lights in the town were on now. They roared

out of the gas station, never slowing.

67
 Chester looked back. There was rain falling over the

town, but not over them, and some terrible-looking clouds were

scooting in overhead. They were swirling with fear and fury.

Chester looked ahead at the empty road ahead of them.

"I wonder what he was..." Chester started to say.

"Forget it," Nat murmured.

"But, I wonder," he said again.

"I SAID FORGET IT!" Nat screamed at the top of his

voice. The car kept going down the highway. Chester didn't

know what to do.

68
 Then Nat started talking again, in an almost trembling

way.

"I'll tell you what was back there, Chester! I'll tell you

what you didn't get to see," Nat said, his voice shaking with

tears and anger. "It was the fate worse than death. Never even

know anything happened. Think you’re still alive. But you’re

not."

Chester huddled in the backseat.

The engine screamed fury under them.

"Something's goin' on," Nat kept on saying, one hand

playing on the steering wheel to keep the car on the road.

"Something's going on man, don't know what it is." Nat fished

in the glove compartment with one hand and tossed something

to Chester. It was a locket.

69
 Chester opened the gold clasp, and there was a little

picture of someone. She was a kid like Chester, and smiled

nicely for the photographer. Chester thought she was kind of

friendly, and thought she would make a good friend. For some

reason seeing the smile made him happy.

"That's my niece Diane. Did pretty well in school. Best

kid you ever want to meet."Chester looked at the picture. "Did

she die?" he said.

"No, not really. Had a lot of friends. Had a lot of fun

together, I used to drive them places."

"Then something started happening. Something going

on. I didn’t know what it was, so I ignored it. But something

was changing... I could feel it everywhere. Don’t know what it

was."

70
 Nat watched the road ahead.

"One day she comes over, asked me to hear some new

band. It sounded like static. Weird static. I told her to stop

listening! Made her mad, real mad. Never acted that way, some

kids do but not her. Not Diane."

"I don't know who lives in her house now. Whoever it

is, doesn't even look like Diane. All her friends look just like

her. Whoever it is that they are now. Or whatever. No one

cares."

Chester looked out the window at the scenery spilling

past. He was glad to be inside the car.

Nat kept on.

71
 "I think somewhere inside, Diane is still there

somewhere, maybe asleep. I hope so."

Chester looked at the picture. The girl was still smiling.

He closed the locket.

There was silence for a while. Jeffrey suddenly looked

up.

"We're going the wrong way. Auntie's house is that

way."

"I know!" Nat said roughly. "We can't get through yet. I

don't know when we’ll get back, until that rain stops. We’ll go

around somewhere."

72
 Then there was silence. After a while, Chester fell

asleep, a long, hard sleep.

Chester didn't wake up again until early the next

morning, after sunrise. He looked out the window, and scenery

was still rushing past but now it was flat as far as he could

possibly look, and greener.

Jeffrey had a map spread out everywhere in the front

seat. Everything was quiet. After a while Jeffrey noticed he

was awake.

"Ho ho, Chester, I thought you would never get up,"

Jeffrey said. The memories of the last night were dim and

faded, and Chester was glad. It was like the passing road had

scrubbed them away beneath the car.

73
 Now there was another little town ahead, but everything

looked nice and cheery there, with quaint shops that had a few

people going in and out and a pancake place. They stopped at a

signal light, but it was broken, and kept flashing red at random

times, like a fuse was going berserk.

"We'll just have to drive on through," Jeffrey said.

"Wait!" Nat said. He would do something like counting

on his fingers every time the light flashed.

"Norse Code," Nat said. "Someone's trying to tell us

something. It’s like Morse Code, but in the viking alphabet," he

explained. Then he stopped the finger counting.

He grabbed some paper from the glovebox and wrote

down some funky symbols and studied them. The engine was

still running a bit, and cold morning air came in through the car

74
windows.

Chester wondered what the light could be saying. It just

looked like a broken circuit. But Jeffrey was helping Nat with

the paper, and it was taking a long time.

Nat pulled the car slowly over to a curb. He kept talking

without looking back.

"Chester, I need to ask you a favor. You see that

window over there in that house? Go see what time the clock

shows right through there. It should be an alarm clock with red

numbers."

Chester got out and strolled along the street, trying to

look normal. Then he looked in the window and saw it was

7:30.

"It says 7:30," he told them. Nat thought for a moment.

75
 "Well boys, it looks like we're going to Shadyville after

all!" Nat announced.

"I hope you like trees, Chester. Hee hee!" Jeffrey said,

turning to look at Chester with glee. But then he thought for a

second.

"Looks like we won't be home in time for dinner after

all. And Auntie was going to make pot roast, too."

Nat drove the car ahead down the street, and out of the

little town. Chester looked ahead at the horizon, as Nat floored

it down the interstate and some music crashed on the radio.

They never looked back.

76
Chapter Seven

At night they stopped at a motel along the way. They

hadn't packed much to unload because they hadn't been

expecting to go anywhere, and certainly not all the way out to

Shadyville. So after talking to the bored clerk at the front desk

they got the keys to a room, and Nat rattled the door open.

77
 It was a modest room, with cheap furnishings and an

old, newly cleaned carpet. After Jeffrey got some lamps on it

looked a little better, Chester felt.

"I guess I should try and call Auntie's house," Nat said.

"Unless they already know."

Nat got the phone and sat on the side of the bed. Jeffrey

went and looked at the curtains and things, which had funky

patterns on them, sometimes with frayed threads in some

places.

"Hello? Hello?" Nat said. "No, this is Johnson.

Matthew Johnson. What? What?" Nat was saying, leaning over

the phone trying to hear.

"Well thanks for your help. Bye."

78
 Nat hung up the phone. "I couldn't get through to them.

They probably left the house already. I wouldn't get concerned

about it," Nat remarked.

"So," he said less officially, "Who needs some pizza?"

A little later Nat and Chester were at a table, with some

delivered pizza and the playing cards from the motel drawer.

"I'll raise you another five million," Nat said, smacking

on some pizza loudly. Chester looked at his cards, three twos

and some face cards. Jeffrey was setting things up to do

something with all the jello, and he said Chester could watch

when it was all ready.

It was kind of fun to play cards with Nat. Nat would

79
also ask Chester about some things, and Nat always seemed to

have some stories he would answer back with to teach him

something, chewing on more pizza as he talked, in a gritty,

gruff way.

Then Nat would throw some more potato chips into the

middle and give Chester some tips on how to out-bluff him

better.

"Now," Nat said, taking another huge bite, "You

shouldn't have bet so much there. It makes you look desperate."

Jeffrey had some pots and pans on a little camping

stove, all filled with bubbling jello mix.

"I think it's ready," Jeffrey said, wearing cooking mitts

from the drawer and holding an aluminum pan.

80
 Chester came to look. Jeffrey took a large brush and

swabbed layers of jello into the aluminum pan. He got out a

plastic baggie that had a leaf. It was that leaf that Agent B had

taken from a bush in front of Hardware Depot.

There were a lot of cups and glasses and mugs hooked

together with motel coffee straws, and some filters made of

napkins and coffee boxes and notebook papers, with toothpicks

holding everything up, and rubber bands linking different

pieces together across the table.

Even though it was made of so many ordinary things,

the experiment looked so skillful and complex.

Jeffrey brushed part of the leaf into one coffee mug,

and started boiling water and pouring it from one cup to the

next one.

Finally, he dripped the last cup onto the jello very

carefully. Jeffrey hooked up a battery from the TV remote to

either end of the pan, using little twisties that had metal wires

inside.

81
 Chester stared at the raspberry jello. The twisties

smoked with heat a little, but nothing else was happening.

Jeffrey pointed.

Black lines started spreading out across the jello.

Jeffrey copied them down onto a napkin.

"What is that?" Chester said with wonderment.

"It's a DNA code from the leaf," Jeffrey explained.

Nat suddenly looked up from the table, where he was

riffling through the cards professionally. "Did it work?

Really?!"

Jeffrey was wiping off some sweat. "Who would like

some jello? Hee hee!"

82
 Nat got up and looked into the pan. He shook his head

with amazement.

"Ingenious..." Nat muttered with a laugh, going back to

the little card table.

"I wasn't even sure myself it would work at all!" Jeffrey

admitted. "I don't know half as much as good old William. Or

especially Mrs. Green! No one is sure how much she really

understands."

83
84
Chapter Eight

They left again at 4:00 in the morning. Nat insisted,

explaining that he needed to reach his next contact point on

time.

The car went smoothly down the highway, and Chester

looked out the window once more, wondering a lot about what

was going on with Auntie, and good old Uncle William, and

even his parents.

85
 He was beginning to feel a bit homesick, even just to be

back at William's stuffy house again, eating pink candies and

pretending that he liked them. He almost missed the hall

bathroom even! But he was getting curious to see what

Shadyville was like. It seemed like such an important place. It

had to be.

After a long, long drive they made it to a tiny town with

a variety of nice houses.

There were lots and lots of trees, and lawns, and bushes

and the other things that are found in tiny towns. Some houses

had little lawn ornaments and statues. Some had stuff hanging

on the front door. Some of them were slightly larger than

others, but not very much.

It was a very nice place to be in summer, Chester

thought, but there probably wasn't that much to do unless you

really loved climbing trees.

"Say hello to Shadyville," Nat said back to Chester as

he swerved the Mustang down a tidy street. There were some

86
leaves on the sidewalks, but not very many.

"So this is the place?" Jeffrey wondered aloud. "To

think I would ever see such things with my own eyes!"

Chester looked everywhere, expecting to see something

marvelous. But as much as he looked into every bush and

around each fence, he couldn't tell what Jeffrey was talking

about. There wasn't anything to see.

Nat gave a laugh. "Yes, now you can understand why it

all works so well," he said to Jeffrey with a sly wink. "And no

one even thinks twice, right?"

Chester looked in all of the windows they went past,

and there were lots of couches, some furniture, some paintings,

boring lamps, but it all looked pretty much the same as

87
anywhere else Chester had been. They turned down some

streets and stopped the car in front of a house, finally.

Chester got out and walked around in a circle to keep

his legs from being extremely sore. He was a little dizzy also.

There was a white mailbox with the word Green printed

on it in plain, straight letters. They went up the walkway and

Chester stumbled along after them. Nat knocked loudly on the

door.

The door careened half-open, and a woman stood

behind it harshly. She wasn't that old at all, but she had dark,

foggy glasses and steel black hair, and was wearing a drab

dress with ugly grey dots. But then her mouth softened a tiny

bit as she recognized Nat.

"I wasn't expecting visitors," she said. Her voice had a

lilting accent, and skipped up and down the words briskly.

"But I don't have a choice now, do I?" the woman said.

A funny girl came quickly down the hallway and gave them a

88
surprised look. She looked a lot like the woman except for her

very friendly expression and small size. It looked like she was

the same age as Chester, but he thought it was possible she

wasn't that smart.

"This is Jeffrey, and William's nephew," Nat explained

hurriedly.

"Hello," the nice girl said. "We haven't had visitors for

a while."

The woman smiled. "Yes, that is very true. I'm Anne

Green, and this is my daughter Sully," she said to Chester.

"How much does he know?" Mrs. Anne Green asked,

still staring right at Chester through her foggy glasses, as if she

could know the answers just by looking at him.

89
 "Lots," Nat answered. "We had to take him along.

There wasn't much choice."

"Danger to Society Protocol?" the woman purred. "I

didn't know it was accepted that far to the west."

"No," Jeffrey said seriously, "IVB's. Class N."

Her expression never changed as she stared at Chester.

"William must have been onto something important,"

she continued. "We should go to the laboratory."

They started walking, and then turned down a hallway

and through a door with white dust on it in some places.

90
 There was what looked like a side garage that had been

turned into a scientific area, with some tables and benches and

lots and lots of flasks. Despite the small area's size, everything

looked pristine and extremely important.

There were sheets of white tacked up over the garage

walls and everything was kept very clean.

"I have some DNA spectroscopy I need you to double-

check," Jeffrey said, finally.

"I can't spare the time," Mrs. Green remarked. "The

delivery is almost here! I have to finish some things before the

Society Meeting tonight."

Just then there was a knock on the door. Mrs. Green

and Sully, her nice kid, went to answer it. Soon the woman

came back with a tiny little flowerpot. It was empty except for

a lot of dead dirt.

91
 "I really must work now," she said crisply, quickly

moving things around on one of the tables. Sully went and put

on some goggles and a scientific apron and helped her mother

with the things, going from one place to the other and back

again.

"I need to get to my next contact point anyhow," Nat

rambled. "Let's go."

Chester followed Jeffrey and Nat out to the hallway and

the front door, not even sure where to go next.

"You'll have to stay somewhere for a while," Jeffrey

told Chester, as Nat waved to them and got in his Mustang. "In

the meantime I'll have to go see some people. Now that I'm in

Shadyville, I must make the most of it!"

92
 Nat's car roared to life a few times, and soon enough he

was gone. Chester watched as the Mustang went down the

street and disappeared around the corner.

Jeffrey walked with him to another street, on the

opposite side of the block. Chester could see how shady it was

everywhere, so of course the town was called Shadyville!

The trees weren't all that tall, but they had long

branches and made everything nice and cool under the hot sun,

that was getting warmer every second.

Jeffrey went and knocked on another door, and a

housewife opened it, wearing some normal clothes and looking

like she was busy with a lot of chores. Chester thought she

could have been Cleopatra in an old movie if she had wanted

to.

93
 "Hey, Mrs. Green wants to know if Chester here can

stay a few minutes," Jeffrey explained. "He's visiting from

another city. I'll have to explain later!”

The housewife looked like she didn't really understand.

”Things have been getting hectic lately and we didn't

even plan on coming here."

"Oh, okay!" she said nicely but quickly, in a foreign

way, like she really was from a historical movie. "I'll go tell

Danny. Don't worry about it."

“Chester's a good kid. He won't be any trouble,” Jeffrey

said.

Chester looked around inside the new house. Jeffrey

was already gone. It was not that different from his own house,

but the smell was so different and he didn't know where any of

94
the doors went to.

The Cleopatra mom called to someone and a slightly

older boy came down a staircase. He was holding a comic book

and it looked like he was trying to keep reading.

"Look after him for while, would you? His name is

Chester. He's visiting. It's kind of important."

The other kid nodded seriously and then looked up at

Chester from the comic. Chester wasn't sure what to say.

"Hey. I'm Danny," the older kid said, in a more friendly

way. "You like comic books? I'll show you my whole

collection. Come on!"

95
96
Chapter Nine

Chester went up the stairs. Everything in the house was

clean and dusted and the walls were a white-ish color. The

other kid's room was kind of like Chester's only larger.

Chester kept looking through all of Danny's endless

comic books, which were organized in many ways, and he even

recognized some of them. It seemed like there was always

more to see. There were even some copies of "Spudman" from

many years ago. There were boxes and boxes of them!

97
 He wondered how Danny had gotten so many! It was

fun to talk about his favorite issues, and Danny was a lot nicer

than Chester had thought he would be.

"So you know Mrs. Green?" Danny asked, sitting on

the side of his bed and tossing a ball around.

"Not really," was all Chester could say. “I've never

been here.”

After that they went in the backyard and looked at some

tools in the shed, or tried to hit some balls around and whack

oranges with a bat. It was kind of fun to just relax for a while

after all the things that had been happening all the time.

Chester began to feel like things would be okay after all.

But the weather was hot and Chester still wondered

where Jeffrey was at. Hopefully it wasn't anything dangerous!

98
 It was getting kind of later and he hadn't come back yet

even once. If he never even came back, then what would

happen?

Danny's mom came out the back door and yelled to

him. She was dressed more in a business way than before.

"I'm going to a town hall meeting, so you go stay at old

Misses McGreery's house, okay? And take Chester, will you?

It's just better that way."

"Sure, right," Danny said, nodding. He looked over at

Chester.

"The Shadyville Gardening Society meets there tonight.

I think it's tonight. It's not so bad. You'll like it!" he said

encouragingly.

99
 It didn't take long to walk to Mrs. McGreery's, or

whatever the name was.

Chester could tell which house it was probably going to

be before they even got there, though. The house was painted a

faded, dark olive color and had a lot of very ornate and rare

flower bushes in front, and an orange tree that was full of

oranges, and a cracked fountain that was growing over with

vines and ivy.

It looked like Mrs. McGreery would be at least eighty

years old, from the way the house was, Chester already knew.

There were also some bushes trimmed into round shapes, and a

garden statue shaped like a chess piece, and another statue of a

dog, and everything was very prim and orderly.

There was also a note stuck onto the front door:

"Shadyville Gardening Society - 6:30 sharp!". Most likely

there was cabbage and strange beans for dinner. Chester didn't

know anything about gardening, anyways. Hopefully Jeffrey

100
would know where to find him before long!

The door opened and Misses McGreery was there,

looking pleasant and agreeable and old, and short. She let them

in. The house smelled like weird beans and cabbage, just like

Chester had thought it would. He hoped they would at least

have crackers for the meeting and maybe some other snacks.

Other people also knocked on the door and came in.

There was a crazy old man with patches of bushy, wild hair

and a tacky suit.

After him some lady came in, wearing loud shawls over

her flamboyant dress covered with too many bright colors.

Then there was a librarian-looking woman who was

kind of shy and sad or something.

Finally, at precisely 6:30 PM (Chester was looking at

the clock so he knew), there was a stern rap on the front door,

and everyone went quiet for a moment. Misses McGreery

opened the door again.

101
 "Welcome, welcome, Mrs. Green. And Sully! It is

always so good to see you," the old gardener said sweetly.

Misses McGreery raised a wrinkled hand, and everyone

looked at her.

"I would now like to begin this meeting of the

Shadyville Gardening Society!"

Everyone said "hooray!" or "alright!" or “yay!”. Except

Mrs. Green.

And then Mrs. McGreery started a discussion about

gardening and doing things with potted plants and how much

soil to put in a jar to keep the plants growing and what kind of

jar to use.

They were interesting stories at first, but Chester didn't

102
know what they were talking about. Everyone talked and talked

and talked about how to keep their plants healthy and make

them grow lots of leaves.

Chester knew if he didn't get back to Danny's house

soon, most likely Jeffrey wouldn't know where to find him.

Misses McGreery also went on and on for such a long

time about keeping away different kinds of bugs with baking

soda, and lots of other little tips. That friendly girl, named

Sully or something, was sitting across the way next to her

mother, listening politely to every word.

Chester looked around at the coffee table and the dining

room table to see if there was a cracker plate. Maybe it would

have cheese. But there was nothing. Not even lumpy

chocolates. Not even some cabbages!

Now the shy librarian was telling a story about her

tulips, and how they almost wilted. She laughed about it, and

the others did too, and then she told everyone even more about

the tulips!

103
 Someone was showing a big daisy they had planted in

an old soda bottle.

"...and Professor Cabbage," Mrs. McGreery said

suddenly, "how is your work going?"

The crazy old man with wild hair stood up, looking

very pleased to be noticed. He was wearing an extremely ugly

suit that had patches in some places. There was a greasy pen

sticking out of one pocket.

"I just need more time!" he declared, as if he was giving

a very important and historical speech. There was a sigh of

dismay.

Professor Cabbage gave an endless, meandering talk

about something called Plantometry, and used a lot of really

bizarre math words. Chester could see the other people looked

104
confused also.

Professor Cabbage kept pacing back and forth across

the small living room again and again, flailing his hands

everywhere to show equations.

"You can't just force Plantometry to work! The plants

don't like it!" he pleaded with the sky above.

He kept on ranting and shaking his finger at them and

stomping around and pulling his hair dramatically to make his

point.

Someone said, "If the equations are not ready yet, then

we'll have to put off the delivery for a while! We can't do that!"

She was very upset. She was the one dressed in too

many colors, with a bright shawl and pink shoes and tacky

earrings. Everyone agreed with her, and said some more things

all at once.

105
 "Patience always obtains what nothing else can," Mrs.

Green's firm voice suddenly said, and everyone calmed down

to listen. She had been reading from a small, dark book that she

held in one hand. Mrs. Green closed it again and put it in a

hidden pocket. Chester was glad he couldn't see her eyes

through the foggy glasses.

Someone whispered to Chester, "That was from the

Simple Book!" It was the very colorful lady, who was sitting

next to him.

"She has it all memorized, but still keeps it handy!"

And then she kind of giggled and put one finger on her mouth

secretly.

Mrs. Green continued. "The delivery has arrived, and I

have almost finished my research on the chemicals."

106
 But then everyone was talking about tulips and jars

again. The proper trimming of trees, how to put fertilizer on a

flower bed, or even how much to water a gardenia.

Chester wondered and wondered why they would care

so much about taking care of their plants. After all, there was

some kind of important delivery, and chemicals and equations

that were being finished!

Now the colorful lady next to him was talking so loudly

with the librarian about gardens in ancient Greece. Sully was

even laughing with Professor Cabbage.

Chester looked around at all the people. It was strange

to see them all together here, as if someone had chosen random

strangers to fill up the room, like people standing together in a

subway station or something.

"It is now time to end the meeting," Mrs. McGreery

107
said suddenly, and everyone quieted down, even the colorful

lady next to Chester.

Then for no reason, Mrs. McGreery started singing in

her old voice. It was a slow, dreary hymn, in a foreign

language, kind of sad.

Then a few others joined in, in a quiet way. And then

the rest of the people. At last even Professor Cabbage was

singing it, and Mrs. Green, and the colorful lady, and Sully.

It wasn't so bad, Chester thought after a while. It had

seemed like such a boring old tune, but then as everyone sang

it the notes became more alive and everyone's voices came

together as one shining song, and each voice made the song

different and better.

Then slowly it ended and all the voices dropped away,

but all the notes still hung in the air.

Chester looked around, and no one said anything, and it

was very quiet, but somehow no one needed to say something.

108
 He felt like he was home, in a strange way, a home he

had forgotten about a long time ago, a home he had never been

to before. Even though they were all so different, it was like

they weren't strangers anymore, they were all together for once.

Someone else knocked on the door, and Mrs. McGreery

let them in. It was Jeffrey.

"Sorry I'm late," he said, then looked over at Chester

and smiled. "What have I missed? Hee hee!"

"Lots," said Mrs. McGreery. "But we haven't recited

The Eternal Flame yet. Come, sit down please!"

Then Jeffrey sat on a cushy footstool. Everyone started

a nice poem, in a sing-songy way. Chester thought it was kind

of pretty.

109
 "We are candles, many kinds,

within our hearts and in our minds,

so may we shine just like the sun,

and with our burning we are one!

Eternal Flame, you gave us life,

with your own firey sacrifice,

and as you glow inside our hearts

each one becomes just who they are!

Eternal Flame, what can replace your only light,

Eternal Flame, your fire so wonderful and bright!"

110
Chapter Ten

After the Shadyville Gardening Society meeting was

over, Chester and Jeffrey stayed at Mrs. Green's house. In the

morning he woke up and went downstairs. But he couldn't even

find anyone. After stumbling around he found himself in the

laboratory again.

111
 It looked like Mrs. Green had been working for a long

time. Sully was watching a bowl that bubbled and boiled,

wearing the goggles and an apron. Sully looked up happily

when Chester came in.

"You should find some waffles left in the kitchen,"

Mrs. Green said in her melodic accent, and then went back to

her work.

After Chester had some waffles, Jeffrey finally woke up

and had some too. They went out and down the sidewalk again,

in the nice morning air. It wasn't too hot yet, and all the plants

were fresh and green.

Jeffrey said something about seeing Professor Cabbage.

"I've always been a fan of his work, Chester. Now I can

actually see it up close!"

112
 Soon enough they made it to a drab tan house at the end

of a street, after going along for a while, hardly ever seeing

anyone. The professor opened the door after a whole minute of

them waiting outside. A smell of dust and wood cleaner came

out from inside, and he was wearing the same ugly suit as

before.

They sat in a room inside Professor Cabbage's house

that had been turned into a kind of classroom, with very worn

blackboards and chairs. There was a lot of chalk dust or

something everywhere. It had been another kind of room

before, Chester could tell, from bits of plugs and wires in the

walls.

There were some weird looking symbols drawn on one

of the blackboards, and precise sketches of plants with different

parts labeled.

113
 "Fascinating," Jeffrey mumbled as he looked at a very

detailed chalk drawing of a tulip. There were pictures of plants

everywhere, in frames and hanging posters.

The professor stalked back and forth in front of them.

All of a sudden he started talking for no reason at all, always

gesturing a lot and putting one hand on his forehead. At first

Chester couldn't really tell what he was trying to say. Jeffrey

motioned to him to sit down at a desk, and they both listened

carefully.

"The Science of Plantometry is much more art than

science!" Professor Cabbage said with intense excitement,

waving one arm all around at them.

He took a few steps, stopped, and turned around,

flinging his hands up again with excitement.

"I realized, that plants could actually feel their

114
environment... and then, they could pass this information to the

other plants!"

He folded his hands tightly and turned around.

"First, people would try to destroy plants' natural

instincts. I, (much nicer!) politely ask plants to pass the word

along, in their own plantish ways."

Professor Cabbage glared at them fiercely.

"I remember that day! I asked a Gardenia to send a very

simple warning across the credenza to my esteemed prize fern

(very rare!) but the point is, I still had to fine-tune the

equipment to within one millionth of a joule."

115
 He was drawing and then erasing and drawing some

more in a huge hurry.

"Begonias are especially temperamental about details!

Pine trees are impatient! Daisies are slow!"

He laid out a bizarre, otherwordly equation. Jeffrey paid

very close attention. Professor Cabbage turned and looked at

them, and after a while Jeffrey nodded.

"Thirdly! Progressively advanced Herb-ionic

Computers!"

"Fourth! Pick up the signal from a citrus tree! Most

likely for Shadyville are oranges and lemons."

116
 Here he pointed at a humongous poster posted across

almost a whole wall.

It had diagrams of all the plants in the town and where

they were next to the other plants. Everything was very tiny

and detailed. It was an amazing sight, even down to the little

potted plants hanging on Mrs. Green's porch.

Jeffrey laughed. "Wonder why that gardening club is so

obsessed with their plants, Chester? Now you know! Ho ho!"

Professor Cabbage scribbled something on the poster,

muttering, "Mrs. Johnson put in a new ficus, I'll have to mark

that!"

"In fact, I'm almost done with the equations Mrs. Green

needs. Insight came suddenly! I'm sending them today if

possible."

117
 Then Professor Cabbage took his pen and traced

different routes along the plants, muttering and getting very

frustrated. Jeffrey waved at Chester and they said goodbye and

found a way back outside again.

"Professor Cabbage is also called Cabbage Head

because of his hair!" Jeffrey said.

"He's terribly busy and so are most people in the

gardening society now that the delivery finally arrived! It all

has to happen soon or everything will be wasted."

"Perhaps Madame Johnson will put up with us. She's

more easygoing," Jeffrey wondered out loud.

Chester wondered which house would be Madame

Johnson's. She was the lady who had worn so many colors at

118
the society meeting. It seemed as if everyone's house always

matched what the people were like, so far.

"Which one is Madame Johnson's house?" Chester

finally had to ask. They kept walking and walking.

"I don't know, or I forgot!" Jeffrey said wearily. "In

fact, well, I think we're on the wrong side of town, Chester."

Chester felt very upset. His feet hurt as he looked

around at all the quiet houses, and he didn't know any of them

of course or who lived inside or even how to get back to Mrs.

Green's place.

"It's a good thing I brought my UMC Pass!" Jeffrey said

brightly, taking out his wallet and pulling up what looked like a

credit card.

119
 Chester looked very puzzled.

"Don't you know what this is, Chester?" Jeffrey said

brightly. Chester didn't say anything, and Jeffrey looked like he

couldn't believe it.

"A Universal Milk and Cookie Pass! Accepted all over

the world. Hee hee! I'll show you how it works."

And Jeffrey looked up and down the street at the

houses, eagerly, looking for something.

"Ah, there it is," he said, and went so quickly down the

street. Chester tried to keep up.

120
 "See all those lawn geese, Chester?" Jeffrey puffed

between steps. "They're set in an equilateral triangle. It must be

a UMC house! I hope they have some chocolate chip."

Chester didn't feel so sure about the whole thing. The

house looked kind of lonely or something. But Jeffrey rapped

on the door hungrily. After a while someone fiddled the door

open. It was an older gentleman about Jeffrey's age, and he was

kind of tired. It looked like he was about to say, "What do you

want?"

Jeffrey suddenly held up the UMC pass and grinned

widely.

"You were expecting Alice Adams maybe? He he ho

ho!" Jeffrey laughed heartily.

121
 The man looked at the card happily, and then he

suddenly cheered up and started laughing along, welcoming

them in.

"I haven't had any visitors for a long while. Please,

come in, come in, my friends. It's good to see someone again."

"So what kind of cookies do you like?" the gentleman

said kindly. He opened a cupboard with gentle, thin hands and

there were boxes and boxes of cookies, stacked up on every

shelf, of all different flavors.

Jeffrey selected some Commando Chips, and Chester

decided to try a nice mint cookie shaped like a seashell.

"Some houses only stock one flavor you know," Jeffrey

commented to Chester between his bites. They had some milk

also in teacups. Chester thought the mint tasted better in milk.

122
 The house was very nice inside. There was a bookshelf

with some old-fashioned looking books on it, and outside a

fountain in the backyard. There was also an empty fireplace.

The house had a very peaceful feeling to it, as if it was

old and thinking over its long life. Even the air smelled

peaceful and old. Someone knocked on the door, and the

gentleman went to answer it.

"Hey grampa," said someone that Chester thought he

could recognize. "Mom wanted to send you some cookies. She

says you're still too thin."

The old man laughed ironically, and Chester saw that it

was Danny, the older kid he had stayed with yesterday.

"Yes, I'll put them with my other cookies," the

gentleman said. He winked at Jeffrey and Chester with

mischief.

123
 "Hi Chester," Danny said. "I didn't know you knew my

grandfather."

"Sit down for a while, Danny," the grandfather said

nicely.

After Danny found a chair also, Jeffrey and the

grandfather talked about how things were going with the

Gardening Society, and even with the research back at

William's house in Paxton. Chester glanced at Danny, and

Danny seemed to know what they were talking about

somewhat.

Jeffrey continued.

124
 "The saltines aren't the only threat. Not hardly. But this

will slow the spread of the Nobody if we intervene."

He went on, his voice suddenly eager. "It will be a great

victory by far! Ho ho!"

Chester had to ask something. "What is the Nobody?"

he piped up. It was something they hadn't even mentioned

before.

Jeffrey looked at him with a grim look in his eyes.

"If you don't know anything about the Nobody, Chester,

there is nothing wrong with that. It would be better to ask,

'What is the Eternal Flame?' than to ask 'What is the Nobody?'.

Just like its name, the Nobody is not really as important as

people think he is."

125
 Danny spoke up all of a sudden. "Someone said

something to me about the Nobody once. But I didn't know

what she was talking about."

"Oh?" his grandfather said, very surprised. "And who

was that?"

Danny looked around. "She said her name was Alice

Adams."

There was a dead silence. They could hear a clock

ticking in the other room.

"Tell us about it," Jeffrey said, his eyes focusing more

seriously than before, his eyebrows narrow with somber

curiousity. "Tell us everything."

126
Chapter Eleven

Danny's Story, Mostly As He Told It To Them

You see, she said that most people never even bothered

to notice when she suddenly showed up one morning through

their back door! They didn't care at all. Mostly, they didn't ask

questions.

127
 They just assumed she was a lost traveler from another

country, and let her stay for one day. If they didn’t let her stay,

she would of course have to go out through the front door, to

arrive in someone else’s house later on, but how much later,

she couldn't know.

I still remember when she showed up at our house. It

was Saturday, but I was up too early, because of course I didn’t

have to be.

And then there was a sound of someone weeping, and I

looked up from my bowl of Trix, and then Alice Adams came

in through the back door, looking like she always does in the

morning, very weary and sad.

I sat there in my rabbit pajamas and was kind of

alarmed, of course, like people always are when she shows up.

My parents came stumbling in, rubbing their eyes, and said,

“What?!”

Of course, my parents were rather kind and let her stay

for the day, thinking of course that she was a traveler from a

128
foreign country who was somehow completely lost. But I knew

more.

Just like Sherlock Holmes, I couldn’t help but notice

how freshly scrubbed her fingernails were, and how the gold

necklace wasn't tarnished, and how her black hair was neat and

clean. Also her green dress was very tidy and fresh.

It was very strange, I knew, as if she had stepped into

our back door straight from a rich parlor or something. I was

only about twelve or eleven then, and she was older, more like

my obnoxious cousins. But she noticed that I knew something,

and looked at me hopefully.

Of course she decided to have a bowl of Trix also, and

so there we all sat mostly silent, and she seemed to cheer up a

lot after a few bites, but my parents didn’t really ask her

anything. Soon they had to go mow the lawn and do other stuff

like usual.

“You didn’t come in from our backyard,” I said. You

might think I was afraid she would get mad and say of course

129
she was lost, but I knew it was true. Our backyard was a dusty

place.

“No. I came from a very nice house in Edmonton,

England,” she said, chewing on a spoonful of Trix. Her voice

wasn’t very English only, it had lots of countries or something.

She went on, tipping the bowl up to scoop up some

more cereal.

“It was owned by the nicest folks. I was very sorry to

leave.”

She choked up for a moment, but then smiled wanly

and got ahold of herself. It was kind of horrible to see, like she

was a spoon that fell behind the stove of life, forgotten forever.

I guess you know what I mean.

“So... where are you going next?” I asked, feeling a

little sheepish, and foolish, and kind of mean. But I was getting

curious.

“I don’t know,” she said, looking at me

130
absentmindedly, and then she went back to the bowl of Trix. “I

hope the next people are as nice as you all. I always hate it

when they yell at me, and then I have to leave so soon. Again.

Anyways, what year is it?”

She said the last question as like it didn't even matter,

like she didn’t need to care anymore what year it was. I didn't

want to think about that.

“It’s 1992. August of 1992.”

“That’s good. So only a day has passed, I think. I

wasn’t really here for 1989, you know.”

“So... are you immortal or something?” I asked. It

seemed like a logical thing.

She laughed rather loudly, as if it was so funny it was

painful.

131
 “Not hardly. Why, for me, my sixteenth birthday was

just a year ago, back in 1983. Just one year. I’m still older.

Actually, I think today is my next birthday. Wish me a happy

birthday.”

I thought of getting a candle and putting it into a cookie

from the cupboard, but that would be crass.

“So... time has disappeared for you? I mean you must

be able to stop someday, right?”

“Yes, when I’m dead.”

She said it as if she had thought it a million times until

she was okay with it.

132
 “It’s funny,” she said to me. “I used to think time never

moved. I mean, days went by, but really time didn’t go

anywhere, it just went around and around. At least I thought it

did. Now I want it to stop. Just one day, one endless day, where

nothing ever ends.”

Then she sighed. I felt kind of bad, as if I should know

what to do. But I didn’t.

“You know,” she said, whispering for some reason,

“Sometimes I dream of something.” She kind of looked around

as if seeing if anyone was listening.

“Not a dream like sleeping. But sometimes I do dream

at night. I dream that someone will give me a gold key, and the

moment I take it, the day will return. I won’t have to leave

again and again.”

133
 Then she looked around the room, like she knew that

she would never see it again.

“Not many people know, and I don’t tell. Just children.

Not as many as used to. I remember this one little girl, who

drew such a nice picture for me with crayons.”

Then she pulled this wrinkled paper out of her pocket,

and carefully unfolded it. It showed a simple picture of her

made with crayons. It had her green dress, and a sad mouth,

and a lopsided clock on the side. “geT well soOn”, the crayons

read at the bottom of the picture. It was the most pitiful thing I

had ever seen.

I looked down at my shoes.

“I’ll be sorry to see you leave,” I mumbled.

134
 “Thanks,” she said, like she really meant it. I realized

she didn’t hear those words very often.

“Things are changing,” she said now, seriously.

“Nobody notices, but I do. Things are being forgotten. Even

the children are forgetting sooner and sooner.”

I looked up, not knowing what she was really talking

about.

“Don’t forget where you came from. If you do, you

won’t know where you need to go,” she said, kind of sternly

like my mother. “Don’t forget where you came from.”

“Nobody notices but me, because I have nothing else to

notice. Don’t forget!” she told me desperately. “Will you

135
promise me that?” she said quietly.

I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I almost

did. I said yes of course, because I really actually didn’t want

to forget it, whatever it was she was talking about.

“Never forget what you didn’t learn,” she went on

frantically, and I almost understood again. “And don’t learn

what will make you forget! The machine is growing wiser, but

it can never learn what you never learned.”

Then she sat in the chair with her head down, like she

was trying to think of something else to say, to warn me or

something. But for the rest of the day, we just talked about

dumb things.

Finally, right before she left for the night, she turned

136
and looked back at me with a look I never forgot.

“Don’t forget your name, or you’ll become like the

Nobody! You’re not the same as him!”

Then at midnight, she went out our front door and

closed it softly.

I felt a terrible feeling that something important had

happened, but there was nothing I could do but go back to

sleep.

137
138
Chapter Twelve

After Danny finished his story, everyone was thinking

about it. Chester was finished with the mints and Jeffrey was

slowly munching on his last Commando Chip.

After a while Jeffrey and Chester had to leave with

Danny and follow him to get back to the right neighborhood.

They passed by Misses McGreery's house, where the gardening

society met, and Professor Cabbage Head was standing on the

lawn, arguing with the lady who was always colorfully dressed.

139
 "I'm not sending my equations through your gardenias

this time," he said emphatically. "They always get the

exponents mixed up!"

Danny went back to his own house, and Jeffrey and

Chester headed around the corner back to where Mrs. Green

lived. They knocked, but no one answered, and after a while

Jeffrey opened the door and went inside.

They went down the hall to where the garage lab was

and knocked again. After a minute, Sully opened the door,

wearing her goggles and scientific apron, and smiling as usual.

Mrs. Green was pouring into the flasks set up on the tables,

different kinds of liquids. She didn't look up, but addressed

them sternly.

"I'm sorry, I could not interrupt to answer the door.

Chester, I have a task for you, as long as you're here."

140
 Then she didn't say anything else, but finished carefully

pouring into the last flasks, sometimes just a few drops. Then

she rested for a moment, and started talking to Chester.

"Go down to Rose Avenue and find the house with a

lemon tree by a balcony," Mrs. Green said quickly, taking a

watch from a box on the shelf.

Chester went to get it, careful not to knock into a table.

"Sit under the lemon tree. Wait for the watch hands to

stop moving. Come back and tell me what time it is."

Chester examined the watch on every part, but it looked

like any watch.

141
 "Follow him Jeffrey, but don't get near the house.

Mister Y speculated they are teaching the machine to recognize

patterned coincidence. Red's home would be mapped, if any

place."

Chester started putting the watch on. Soon they were

wandering the streets once more, and then Jeffrey suddenly left

him and started off to a different street. It was taking a while to

get to Rose Avenue, and Chester felt very alone for the first

time in a while.

He made it to a corner and looked down at all the

houses lined up in a row. A lot of them had balconies. They

seemed more expensive than the other houses.

Chester fought an urgent need to rush ahead to the

correct house, one far in the middle, that had a tidy lemon tree

growing right next to its balcony. He didn't think anything

142
could go wrong because the street was so empty and everything

was so nice, and he didn't know what could possibly go wrong

anyhow, but for some reason he felt like the watch was burning

on his arm and a hundred eyes were staring right at it.

There were some red curtains hanging in the doorway

behind the balcony, and Chester could see delicate pink

wallpaper in the room, and a pretty picture of horses on the

wall.

On the edge of the balcony, there was a little flowerpot

with a price tag on one side, like it had just been bought. There

was a tiny, tiny flower bud sprouting up from the dirt. Chester

noticed it was the same flowerpot that had been delivered to

Mrs. Green's house.

Then he sat down under the lemon tree's shade, which

was very cool and grassy. He kind of yawned and looked

down. The watch was ticking and ticking just like always.

Now, the hands glided around the watch face. They spun

slowly, around and around, a few times, then went back and

143
forth a little and settled at 7:45, never moving again.

Chester watched for just a few seconds more - whatever

it was needed for must be terribly important, and he wanted to

get it right! But he wanted so much to get back to the house as

soon as possible.

Then, so casually, he wandered back down the street.

After a while he heard footsteps behind him.

Chester was glad to see it was Jeffrey, going along as if

taking an afternoon jog.

"Could you tell me what time it is, kid?" Jeffrey asked,

winking at him. "Hee hee!"

Soon they were back at Mrs. Green's, who was waiting

in the lab. Chester was worn out.

"It was 7:45," Chester told her, lifting his watch to

show. But the time had gone back to normal already. Mrs.

Green smiled widely at the news.

144
 "Thank you Chester," Mrs. Green lilted in her accent.

"And you also Jeffrey! Please, have something from the

kitchen. Sully and I must keep working."

Sully waved at them cheerfully and picked up some

notebooks as they left.

145
146
Chapter Thirteen

Jeffrey and Chester found peanut butter in the kitchen

and crackers in the back of the cupboard, and made the best

snack they could with them. There was some kind of leftover

meatloaf in the fridge, but it didn't look that delicious. After

that they waited for Anne Green and Sully to finish their lab

work.

147
 Chester tried watching some shows on Mrs. Green's

small TV but there were only some cheesy reruns. There were

plants growing in the window of the kitchen and Chester even

made a game to guess what they were.

After a long time, Sully came out from the lab and ran

upstairs in a hurry. Mrs. Green came to the kitchen and sat

down, a bit tired but not weary at all.

"I forgot to tell you," she said brightly, putting a white

tea kettle on the stove. "Sully's cousin will visit today. She's

very excited!"

She smiled and was busy with the kettle, putting in

some little bags of tea and stirring. Sully came down the stairs

quickly again and appeared in the kitchen door, wearing a

pretty dress and a blue bow in her hair. She seemed happy as

always, but couldn't hide her enthusiasm.

Mrs. Green poured tea for herself and Sully, who drank

a little too eagerly and burned her tongue. Then there was a

knock on the door, and Sully ran off to get it.

148
 There were excited voices, Sully and another girl,

chattering and laughing and talking about a lot of things all at

the same time. Finally, curiousity bit Chester a lot and he went

to see.

There was a brown-haired girl there, like Sully but

skinnier, and a suitcase lying by the door. She had some shorts

and a pink shirt.

Mrs. Green finally said something about the suitcase,

and the two girls dragged it upstairs together, still talking about

anything they could think of and laughing all the time. They

ran back down and Chester followed after them into the

kitchen.

"Oh Chester, this is Sally," Sully said excitedly.

"Hey," Sally waved shyly. Chester noticed she had

headphones and was kind of listening to something while she

was talking. Jeffrey had gone somewhere else.

149
 "Do you want to hear something?" Sally said happily,

taking off the headphones for a moment. "It's really neat!"

Mrs. Green sipped some tea and looked out the

window.

"What sort of music is it?" Mrs. Green lilted. "I have

some bagpipe records, if you'd like to hear it!"

Sally giggled a little. "No, not that! Listen!"

She gave the player to Mrs. Green. She listened with

one ear.

"Where did you get this?" Mrs. Green asked politely,

sipping some more tea.

150
 Sally spoke up with excitement. "It was a free demo

from the store. They had lots. There's this band Brain Sucker

and they..."

Mrs. Green stood up quietly, and tilted her head a little,

carfefully trying to listen. Chester started to say something, but

Mrs. Green raised one finger for silence.

"Strange... there's something strange," Mrs. Green said

suddenly. "There it is again. Awful."

"But, I just got it, and..." Sally said, confused and sad.

Mrs. Green spoke again, gently. "I know. But I insist

you do not listen here."

151
 "But it's my favorite!" Sally said, a little angrier. "And I

always listen to it!"

Chester felt like turning into wallpaper for some reason.

Sally clenched her fists a little and her eyes seemed to get

smaller.

"You're a mean woman!" Sally growled. "You're

always harsh! Sully shouldn't have to..."

Mrs. Green took the player and suddenly threw it on the

floor and smashed it under her foot with great force.

"No!" Sally screamed, suddenly looking much bolder

and stronger than Chester would have believed before. "NO!

YOU CAN'T YOU STUPID WOMAN!"

152
 Mrs. Green's eyes were hidden behind her glasses.

"Chester Sully LEAVE!" she ordered.

Chester snapped out of his fear and rushed out the door,

as Sully followed, starting to be tearful. There were more

sounds of Sally yelling madly, and Jeffrey came down from

upstairs now, alarmed.

"The lab!" he said quickly, taking Chester and Sully by

the hands.

They went down the hallway and into the side garage

and locked the door tightly. There were more sounds from the

house, muffled and unclear. Chester might have thought he

heard angry sounds, or crying, or something else completely.

153
 Then everything was terribly quiet. Still Jeffrey waited.

No one moved an inch.

The door opened, slowly, and Mrs. Green was there,

weary but still strong. She waved for them to come back out.

They went back to the living room.

Pictures were down from the walls, and a lamp was

lying on the floor, but Sally was sleeping on the couch, with

tear streaks across her face, looking very sad but peaceful.

Sully went over to her and then looked up at her mother.

"She'll be okay when she wakes up," Mrs. Green said,

lovingly. "Thankfully she had no idea what was going on, so I

could undo it!"

Chester helped them put the pictures and the lamp back,

and Sally was still asleep, although she sniffled and made sad

noises sometimes.

154
 Then Sally started moving a little and woke up.

"Oh hi Sully, am I at your house already?" Sally said

cheerily. "I had a horrible dream! It was really awful!"

"I know!" Sully said in her friendly way. "Do you want

some crackers?"

"Yes, I'm very hungry," Sally yawned, sitting up and

looking around.

155
156
Chapter Fourteen

Everything was normal again at Mrs. Green's house.

Chester liked going with Jeffrey to talk to the Shadyville

Gardening Society members to learn about what was

happening in the other towns.

"Chester, I need you to see what time it is under the

lemon tree," Mrs. Green suddenly asked again on Friday, as he

watched a boring Western on her small TV.

157
 He went out and down the street again. Chester was

beginning to remember the streets even, and Mrs. Green's tidy

house was beginning to feel like a home in some odd way. It

was a nice feeling. He wondered if he would have to stay for a

while longer, and thought that would be good. Maybe Sully

could teach him how to climb some trees even!

The sidewalk was getting kind of warm already, and he

didn't have to pretend it was a relief to sit awhile in the cool

grass under the lemon tree.

The watch was ticking as usual, but Chester knew he

had to wait. The hands slowed down, moved backwards, and

stopped. It was 1:27. He got up and stretched, trying to look

like everything was fine, and then walked back unhurriedly to

the sidewalk.

Looking back at the balcony above the lemon tree,

Chester thought he saw a small figure duck behind the curtains,

wearing a pretty pink dress.

158
 He didn’t really see who it was, but it made him laugh

at how she was shy.

"1:27," Chester told Mrs. Green. She looked pleased.

Soon it was getting darker out and there were a few tiny

clouds Chester could see through the windows. There was

another Western on another channel, this one a little more

interesting.

"I know it's late, but could you check the time,

Chester?" Mrs. Green asked. "It's really quite important. This

will be the last time I ask."

"4:44, Mrs. Green," Chester told her back in the lab,

later. Mrs. Green put the flask down immediately and rushed to

the garage door.

159
 "I wasn't expecting this," she said. "We need to go,

now!"

Jeffrey was watching the end of the Western in the

living room, resting his slippers on a round puffy thing.

"It's 4:44," Anne Green said.

Without a word, Jeffrey followed them out the door,

leaving the movie talking to itself. Everyone moved along with

a faster walk, and Chester tried to walk as fast as he could and

not trip.

"We should let everyone know," Jeffrey remarked.

160
 "No, we need to get there," Mrs. Green said curtly. "We

can't be late!"

Chester was running to keep up as they turned down

Rose Avenue, and then they stopped.

A single car drove past and parked by the curb. The

headlights turned off and a door swung open. Agent B stepped

out of the driver's seat, still wearing the fuzzy pink bunny

slippers. Chester was so glad at the familiar sight.

Agent B was coming over to them. "What time is it?"

he asked in his grave monotone.

"4:44," Jeffrey barked, watching the balcony of the

house ahead. Some others got out of the car, a little stiffly as if

they had been driving for a long, long time. Chester could see a

161
nice old guy with a walrus mustache and tufts of white on his

balding head.

There was also a different kid with a funny, patched up

jacket that was almost made entirely of patches. Also, there

was some girl with yellow pigtails and blue overalls that

Chester didn’t know. They were all kind of strange.

"Everyone stay by the car - you too Chester," Agent B

said very seriously. Chester went and stood there, watching

everything. He felt nervous for some reason, but it was hard to

think of why.

The old guy with a mustache smiled as if to say hello,

but the kid with the weird, patchy jacket didn't say anything.

The old guy looked kind of like his plaid shirt, rumpled and old

but still comforting in some way.

The kid with yellow pigtails was looking at Chester.

162
 "I don't remember you," she said.

The old walrus guy spoke up in a comfy way. "Be nice

Jilly, I'm sure he's not a spy or something."

The kid with the really patched up jacket was curious

too. He had a squeaky voice.

"Yeah! He probably doesn't know anything yet! Even if

he is a spy!"

The pigtail girl was talking to herself loudly.

"I bet there's a trap. There's always a trap."

Jeffrey, Anne Green, and Agent B went quickly to the

lemon tree, and talked up at the balcony.

Someone small in a pink dress leaned way over the

edge and dropped a small object. Jeffrey caught it carefully.

Then they talked more. It was really getting darker and darker.

The kid inside the really patchy jacket spoke up again.

Chester noticed he had a messy pale haircut and a high-pitched

163
squeal for a voice, like you would expect from a cartoon

character, as if he was a beaver or something.

"Hey! Where'd Jilly go?" he asked in his funny voice.

The old walrus guy looked around. "I don't know," he

wheezed in a whiny way, his big mustache moving with the

words. His voice was just like an old fireplace with only one

log left on the fire.

But Chester was watching the house again. The little

pink girl up on the balcony disappeared for a moment, and then

came back quickly, saying something with fear in her little

voice. Anne Green kept pointing to the lemon tree.

The girl in the pink dress stumbled onto the edge of the

balcony and climbed onto one of the lemon tree's branches. She

was kind of smallish so it held her up, and then she swung onto

164
another branch and dropped onto the grass, landing with a

thump.

Someone else opened the front door of the house and

ran out in a huge hurry. It was the strange girl with yellow

pigtails and overalls, and she went and pointed something out

to Agent B. Chester could finally tell what was going on, there

were flames beginning to show in the windows of the house,

somewhere inside.

Everyone rushed to get away from the house, and Mrs.

Green was holding one hand of the girl in pink. The other one

with yellow pigtails ran off and then looked back, folding her

arms in a cocky sort of way and tossing her hair to one side.

Agent B was very angry for some reason as he walked

back to the car.

165
 “You shouldn’t have done that, Jilly!” he said flatly.

“We didn’t ask you to.”

“But I got two of the wires cut, but then...” the pigtail

girl protested madly.

“Someday it might be different,” Agent B warned.

“You need to listen.”

“I was just helping!” she pouted angrily, stamping one

foot on the ground. “It was so simple! The bomb didn’t even

have...”

“Listen to me Jilly,” Agent B said, his voice cold.

“Mister Y allowed you to come here. He trusts you. You need

to honor that.”

166
 Jilly looked down. Her arms were still crossed. Finally

she nodded a little.

There was a tremendous noise. Chester looked as the

house exploded into itself. All the walls crumbled apart and

soon there was nothing left to see but a pile of burning pieces.

“One wire left,” Chester heard Jilly murmur to herself,

frustrated. Chester felt a bit nervous and wondered whether any

other houses were going to collapse, but the neighborhood was

still as quiet as always. It was kind of weird.

The girl in the pink dress was afraid.

“Listen, Red. Were your step-parents inside?” Agent B

asked her quickly. She shook her head to say no, holding on to

Mrs. Green with both arms.

167
 “They were visiting someone,” the pink girl said, in a

small, very pretty voice. She was calm again, and it made

Chester happy to see her, just like when she had hid behind the

curtains. It was almost like things were more rosy when she

was with them, even though she was only shy.

Jeffrey was next to speak.

"We'd better get out of the area now," Jeffrey

announced grimly. "The last thing we need is to be seen here."

Everyone started back around the corner, and a lot of

the neighboring houses had turned their lights on. Agent B

drove the car past, and they tried to go as quickly as they could

back to Mrs. Green's house.

168
 Sally and Sully were watching some cartoons when

everyone came in. Sally looked rather surprised at all the

people, and Sully went to find her mother.

"Everyone was gone," Sully said with concern.

"Yes, but it was very urgent," Mrs. Green answered.

"Thank you so much for staying calm!"

Jeffrey giggled. "Too many guests! So, who gets the

hall closet tonight? Hee hee!" he said, being more jolly again.

"Actually, we must get back to Duston as soon as the

formula is done," Agent B droned.

"Make yourselves at home," Mrs. Green told everyone

169
busily before going towards the garage hallway.

"Sully, come please, and I need your help Chester.

We're simply out of time!"

Chester felt very sorry to leave everyone behind. Soon

he, Sully, and her mother were closed up in the lab, which had

only a dim light in one corner. Mrs. Green was holding the

little flowerpot that had been delivered a few days before. It

had a single white flower growing in it with long and delicate

petals.

She put it down on the table and put some black gloves

on. Sully quickly put on her goggles and apron, and gave some

to Chester to wear as well.

He put the goggles on, but they itched and almost made

his eyes feel stuffy.

"Bring that one," Mrs. Green asked Sully, pointing to a

flask. "Chester, get the one over there."

170
 Chester carried the container as carefully as he knew

how. The glass felt too cold and there was only a small bit of

liquid inside, that swirled around. He was glad to put it down.

Mrs. Green took a single petal from the flower and

slowly crushed it in a dish with a pudgy stick. She hummed a

jolly irish song, but it sounded far away and tuneless. Still she

kept on pounding, until it was perfect.

Mrs. Green took a few drops from the flask Chester had

carried and dropped them on the little dish, and a grey whisp of

smoke burned the air.

After waiting patiently, Mrs. Green then poured

something black from the dish into Sully's flask, which was

filled with a clear, watery substance that looked cleaner than

any water.

The black water mixed into it. Then the black turned

white, and whiter, and began to glow in the dark room. Sully

went and got a red lamp from the shelf. Mrs. Green looked and

nodded, and kept watching the glow grow brighter.

171
 Over the course of the minutes, which kept on going

and going even when Chester was sure it was all finished, the

formula went through so many stages. Often Mrs. Green would

stop everything and probe the formula with measuring devices

again and again, not continuing until she was sure everything

was perfect.

At one point, they stood back as electric coils sent volts

of power through the mixture. Sometimes everything would be

pitch black except for a single red light, shining on the side of

Mrs. Green's face as she took a drop of emerald liquid from

somewhere and a few computer circuits blinked in the

darkness. At other times, there was nothing to see but a purple

powder being added to the formula little by little, or he and

Sully had to cover their eyes against a blinding luminescence.

Finally Mrs. Green leaned over the table, wearily, and

then stood up straight and motioned for Sully to turn the main

lights on.

172
 "That is all," Mrs. Green lilted, smiling one on side of

her mouth. "Thank you so much, Chester. You were of great

help. It is good that you came here."

The lab was almost blinding with light as Sully flipped

the switch, but as Chester made it out into the hallway, the

living room felt so much brighter, and he had to cover his eyes

with one hand. Everyone was sitting there or in the kitchen,

and talking and laughing about things.

Agent B came up to him.

"It's best if you come to Duston with us," Agent B said.

"I talked to Jeffrey."

"When do we leave?" Chester said. He felt sad at the

thought of going away from Mrs. Green's house. But he might

173
be able to get home, at least.

"Right now."

Chester looked at the floor.

"Things are changing in Shadyville. It's the best thing,

we all thought. You can meet the other Ketchers when we get

back to Duston. You'll see."

Chester nodded a little. He noticed that Jilly and the kid

in the really patched-up jacket were gathering around, as well

as the old guy wearing a mustache.

Agent B looked around at them.

174
 "Everyone ready to go?"

They nodded.

"Then let's get to the car."

They all walked to the door and went out, and down

along the sidewalk. It was dark and the street lamps were on.

Suddenly all the lights were out, everywhere. Chester

stopped and looked around desperately, but he couldn't even

see any houses. Or even any stars. Or anything. Then he heard

the funny voice of the kid with the patched-up jacket.

"Oh, are we there already?"

175
 The guy with the mustache replied in his rumpled way.

"We must be."

Then Agent B said something in the dark.

"There are some stairs over there. We must be next to

the park..."

Chester turned around carefully, and there was a light

shining faintly down a staircase. He realized he was in a

building, probably underground for some reason. The light was

from the moon.

After holding on to each other, they all went towards

the stairs and made it up onto a sidewalk, across the street from

176
a park. Chester didn't recognize anything. The buildings were

all made of dirty bricks and metal, and the park was nothing

but scraggly grass.

"What part of Shadyville is this?" Chester asked,

blinking his eyes against the moon.

Agent B turned around to answer Chester.

"This is Duston of course."

Chester looked at the windows of the large buildings.

They were unfriendly and dark. Agent B's answer didn't make

any sense, but Chester couldn't think of anything else to ask.

He just wanted to be inside somewhere already, but not in one

of those buildings!

177
 He couldn't see any trees except some withered things

trying to grow in dry dirt. He just kept walking with everyone,

looking around and trying to find the car or Mrs. Green's house

or Rose Avenue. But there was nothing to find but more huge

buildings.

"How did you do this?" Chester asked.

"We don't do anything. There are other mysterious

things besides The What, Chester. Things that as good as The

What is terrifying."

"You mean you just go anywhere you want?" Chester

said, his head spinning. He was trying hard to believe he wasn't

still asleep, back on Mrs. Green's couch, just like Sally had

been.

178
 But it was more and more like a nightmare than a

dream, as they continued around a corner and saw even larger

buildings that went up into the dark sky.

"It just happens," Agent B replied.

"Then why doesn't it always happen? You could do

anything! You could..." Chester said excitedly, understanding

at last.

Agent B stopped and looked around at the windows. He

looked at Chester, a bit sad almost.

"Chester, calm down." Agent B explained, "The things

we have been learning about... they are strange and huge.

Simple tricks are not enough to solve anything."

179
 Chester didn't really know what to say. He didn't think

that suddenly arriving in Duston was a simple trick. The more

he thought about what Agent B said, the less he wanted to

think about it. He wanted to ask some more questions, but

didn't know what those questions should even be!

So they kept walking, and he saw some posters hanging

everywhere. They had a question mark in the middle between

some writing. "Wanted: Mister Y" the largest words said, the

only ones Chester could read in the blurry light.

"Is Mister Y a dangerous person or something?"

Chester had to ask, to pass the time. Jilly, the girl with yellow

pigtails, spoke up. She thought it was a dumb question.

"Stupid posters. Don't look at them."

180
 Agent B led them around to a small alley between two

buildings. There was another wanted poster in the alley, and he

pushed on it. Part of the wall shoved back, and he kept pushing

until there was an open doorway. Chester noticed it was

starting to rain a little, and he was glad to finally go inside,

wherever that was.

181
182
Chapter Fifteen

After going along a dim, empty hallway, Chester felt a

lot of warmth ahead. Everyone went through an ordinary

wooden door.

There was a large living room or something, and there

were lamps everywhere and beat-up couches and some old

pictures on the wall. Everything smelled cozy and warm, even

though there were no windows at all.

183
 There was a hallway going off at one side, just like in

any regular house, and Chester thought he saw a kitchen on one

side. On one wall, there was only a large black door and

electrical things - buttons, and small screens.

Someone short opened a door suddenly. She had an old-

fashioned kind of dress on, with lots of blue bows, and there

were blue ribbons in her hair. She skipped over to them happily

and said something in a bright, loud, cheery voice.

"I knew you'd make it back! We saved a lot of dinner!

Who's that?"

She pointed at Chester and smiled like he was her best

friend. Chester thought it was a nice smile.

Agent B answered.

184
 "It's Chester, he'll be staying with us. Chester, this is

Bonny Blythe."

"Pleased to meet you!" Bonny piped all of a sudden,

like she really meant it, putting out a little hand. Chester shook

her smallish hand. He couldn't help smiling a little himself.

Then Bonny turned around in a flash and skipped like a

little goat to the kitchen, humming to herself.

"It's good to see everyone again," someone said, a voice

Chester couldn't recognize.

Agent B looked at the wall of electronics and replied.

"Everything went well. We brought Chester along, from

Shadyville."

185
 "Good. Hello, Chester. This is Mister Y."

Chester noticed that the voice was coming from the

wall of electronics. It sounded like a worn-out speaker, and he

couldn't tell what kind of person was talking really. He wasn't

sure whether to answer or what to do. In fact, he felt kind of

strange as he looked at the wall.

"It's okay, I'm just in the other room. Make yourself at

home."

Then the speaker went quiet. Bonny Blythe helped the

patched-jacket kid bring out lots of food from the kitchen. It

was ordinary stuff, potatoes and pasta. Everyone was going to

an old table and sitting down, and Chester found a chair at one

end. There wasn't even a tablecloth.

186
 The dishes were all different kinds, some blue cups and

mugs and silvery forks and plates with little flowers on them.

Chester felt like he was only at a tea party with someone's little

sister!

A door slammed open and shut loudly and Jilly came

down the hall. She turned and whistled to something, Chester

knew it was probably a pet.

"Come on Fido," Jilly said impatiently.

Chester looked, and there was a very strange blue-green

animal following her. It was more of a blob than anything,

almost like a big pillow. But the blob had two wide eyes and a

stupid kind of mouth, and Chester could almost look into it,

like it was made from toothpaste gel!

187
 It wiggled and hopped along after Jilly as she went,

trying its best to keep up as she walked quickly.

Soon everyone was munching on the potatoes.

Sometimes Jilly would toss food to the blob, which caught it

with its mouth and kind of absorbed it. It didn't seem to have

any stomach inside or anything, the food just dissolved.

There were other kids there, like a plump boy and a shy

girl wearing a heart locket. The other kids talked but those two

never said anything, Chester noticed.

"I wish I had some more soda," the funny kid in the

patched jacket said with his high voice. He was busy eating too

much potato.

"I don't," Jilly chided him. "It's bad for my teeth."

188
 "Well, at least you have water!" Bonny said

enthusiastically. "Now you won't die."

"I think," the guy with the mustache wheezed, his voice

warm and mischievous, "I think Max needs Scrappy Soda to

live. It's his elixir."

"I don't need any elixir," Jilly said proudly, tossing

some more food to her pet blob.

"I don't either," Bonny said nicely. "Water tastes good."

"Annoying is your elixir," Jilly said. "I think Fido is

hungry and I need to feed him." She got up and the blob

hopped along after her in a friendly way.

189
 "Fido is going to get fat," Mr. Weilacher said under his

mustache.

190
Chapter Sixteen

Soon all the dishes had been washed, and Chester even

helped put them away. He had to stay in Max's room for the

night, on a sleeping bag. He found out that everyone called him

Miracle Max because he always seemed really lucky when bad

things were happening.

191
 But Max kept talking with his strange high-pitched

voice in his sleep, saying things like, "I'd like more soda!" and

"what a friendly couch..." so it was hard to sleep.

It was also lonely, because no one else was awake.

Even if they were awake, Chester didn't really know anyone

except Agent B. He began to really miss Uncle William and

especially Auntie, with her strong, soft words that had told him

about important things.

Things that were hard to understand at times, like the

stuff in Max's room under the dim glow of a nightlight.

Sometimes Chester just wished everything was simple, that he

could know exactly what everything really was!

Finally Chester just had to get up. Maybe he could visit

the little garden that other kid talked about. Everything was so

dark and muddied in the room, and Miracle Max's sleep-talk

didn't make any sense, and the night-light would flicker, and

Chester just wanted to see something clearly for a while.

192
 "How are you," Agent B said in the living room, where

he sat in a chair reading pieces of paper. He turned one over.

"Sometimes the others can't sleep that well either."

"Really?" Chester said, coming in and sitting at a couch

across from Agent B, who still had on a grey suit and bunny

slippers.

"Yes," Agent B said in a droning voice, kind of like a

boring vacuum cleaner. Then he kept looking at a paper.

Chester wanted to ask something more, but he didn't know at

all what to say, or to ask.

"Is there... I mean," Chester rambled, feeling kind of

tired. "How can you stop The What? No one even knows what

it is."

193
 Agent B looked up, with his dark sunglasses and long,

serious face. He looked back at the papers and shuffled through

them, peering at lots and lots of tiny numbers.

"It is very difficult," Agent B agreed flatly, still flipping

through the papers. "Some things are hard to measure at all!

There's millions of things that could happen."

Then the agent sighed and turned a page over.

"Then what am I going to do?" Chester asked wearily.

"Even if I went home right now, my parents are still missing

their brains! What if they stay like that? What if..."

Agent B pulled out one paper and ran his finger along a

line of very small numbers. He then took a pencil out of his suit

pocket and circled them.

194
 "Many people have fears, Chester - fears of bombs, or

earthquakes, or worse. But they don't know the very worst!

Things worse than anything you can see with your eyes."

Chester felt a bit worried. He didn't want to think about

this. Agent B must have noticed, and kept on, this time gentler.

"I didn't mean to upset you, making things sound bigger

than they are. Look at that shadow, Chester, in the corner."

Chester saw it, far from the light of the lamps.

"The shadow cannot destroy that corner, it only hides it

from us. The world is dark, but underneath there is hope we

never expect. There is a great and good light, Chester, that all

terrors can never darken. All they do is lie, try to trick us."

195
 Chester looked at all the lamps, some of them larger

than others, or with odd shapes and old colors. They threw

warm light across the room, and Chester felt better as he

watched where the light spread across the carpet.

"Now you should really get some more sleep," said

Agent B and went back to his papers. Chester still felt tired

even if he wanted to hear more, but at least he felt a lot better

about things.

196
Chapter Seventeen

In the morning there were boxes of cereal for breakfast.

There weren't any windows in the living room or kitchen or

anywhere else, and it was strange, as if it was still night after

all. Everyone was up and at the table except for Jilly Picket,

and things were a bit quiet.

197
 They kept a lot of different cereals in the cabinet,

mostly because everyone didn't all agree on which one they

liked. Chester wished he could hear some news of what was

happening back in Shadyville, or even with Nat, wherever he

was now. He thought of bringing it up while munching on the

Krunchy Flakes.

Agent B had turned on a small radio though, and there

were news reports buzzing in through the little speaker. Mostly

it was traffic and things like that.

"...reports that Mister Y has not been caught after all,

authorities are still..."

Agent B went and fiddled the knob, trying to make it

clear.

"...Uni-Corp has offered to help track down this...

another person of... rumors of..."

198
 Agent B's fiddling paid off, and the voice came in loud

and clear. It switched to someone being interviewed. They

sounded official and like they knew what they were talking

about.

"...that Uni-Corp developed is more than able. Our

network of algorithms tracks trivial things no one sees, then

puts clues together in amazing ways. Currently the city pays

more than two-hundred thousand for paperwork, but now..."

Then the fuzz returned. Everyone was still eating the

cereal, and Miracle Max was playing rock-paper-scissors with

Harold, another one of the kids who was kind of plump and

quiet. They were seeing who would get a plastic toy from one

of the boxes. It was a ring with a circle on it.

199
 "Why doesn't Mister Y come out and eat some

breakfast with us?" Chester asked. "We're safe here."

Mr. Weilacher brushed some crumbs off his mustache.

"He's a strange man," Mr. Weilacher rambled, in his

warm rumpled voice. "Sometimes he just needs to be alone.

Things are hard for him right now."

Agent B turned off the radio. He was already done with

his toast and jam, and got up from the table.

"Harold, please remember to get the balloons for today.

We'll need purple ones, and a rubber duck."

Harold nodded, and went back to his game against

Miracle Max.

200
 Eventually Max won, and Harold shook his hand and

quietly gave him the plastic ring.

The day was long and unfamiliar to Chester, and he just

wanted to be back at Mrs. Green's house watching a western on

her old TV.

Sometimes, though, he went to the little garden down

the hall and helped Harold Thimble water all his plants, and

watched the other kids bicker and play.

Now Agent B was getting ready for something. He had

the supplies that Harold bought for him, and he laid them out

on the table and put paper tags on each one. They were

novelties and toys mostly. There was a package of balloons, a

yellow duck, a little notepad, and some other things.

Agent B got out the papers he looked at the night

before. He looked at the tiny numbers he had circled and

picked up some of the toys and moved them around.

201
 "Would you like to help me?" Agent B asked Chester.

"You look like you need sunlight."

Chester nodded. Agent B picked up each item carefully

and put it in a plastic bag, and wrote a number on the bag. He

went down the hallway that led back out to the streets, and

Chester tagged along behind.

They went out from the secret panel and the sun was

too hot all of a sudden. Chester wobbled around while covering

his eyes, but Agent B just waited, wearing his dark sunglasses.

"Here," went Agent B, handing Chester a bright

balloon. "Could you help me blow this up?"

202
 It was a bright purple color. Chester was able to get it

large enough after a few puffs. Agent B tied a short piece of

string on the end, and let it go. It sailed up beyond the

buildings. Chester watched and watched it, but it just

disappeared into the sky.

Then they went down the street to the small park that

was nearby. Agent B got out the rubber ducky and put it in the

branches of a wimpy tree. Then they went all the way down the

street and Agent B knocked on the front door of a dusty

structure.

A woman with a curling iron in one hand came to the

door after a long time, looking kind of confused. Her brown

hair was puffy and she didn't have any makeup.

"What is it?" she asked hastily, looking at Agent B and

then Chester. Agent B addressed her seriously in his grey

murmur.

203
 "The rose may bloom, the night will die. I do not mean

to say goodbye."

She looked at him for a moment with her mouth open, a

little surprised, and then closed the door suddenly.

"Who was that?" Chester asked.

"I have no idea," Agent B said. They kept going. Agent

B got out a little notepad. He ripped out some blank pages, and

then threw it all in a trash basket along the sidewalk.

"We must keep on," Agent B said, as Chester glanced

behind them to see if anything would happen to the notepad.

204
 Soon they made it back to the secret living room place.

Agent B stood in front of the electronic wall and the speaker

scratched alive with a voice.

"How was it?" they said.

"Good," Agent B replied. "Where did you get the

poem?"

There was some silence.

"Just made it up. I don't know how."

"That's fine," Agent B said. "No one can track that.

Chester was a help of course."

205
 "Yes. He'd make a good Ketcher someday. Hello

Chester."

Chester wondered if Mister Y could see him. He

wanted to know who was behind the speaker, it was hard to

hear the voice well.

206
Chapter Eighteen

Everyone had some chicken soup and biscuits for

dinner. Chester noticed that Bonny Blythe was wearing a

different dress now. She had lots of red ribbons instead of blue,

and was reading a new kid's book in between bites of soup.

"Hey, whatcha reading?" Miracle Max asked her.

207
 "Snow White!" Bonny said happily. "I'm Snow White!"

"You were Pollyanna yesterday," Jilly sniffed.

"It's today now," Bonny explained.

"People aren't different every day," Jilly chided her.

"They're themselves."

"Snow White is herself," Bonny explained again. She

kept reading the book and giggled sometimes. Then the other

kids and everyone were talking a lot.

Soon everyone was asleep again. Chester was more

tired than the day before, but he woke up sometimes. Finally he

felt a little thirsty and thought he could get some water or juice

208
on his own.

He stood up carefully, and Max was still sleeping on his

face, his messy hair sticking out. Out in the hallway, there was

still some light, and Chester could see one lamp on. One of the

other kids was there, maybe reading.

Chester didn't want to scare them, so he just stood

there, and decided to walk forward quietly. It was Jilly Picket.

Then she heard the noise and stuffed something under a couch

pillow. Chester kept walking.

"Hi Chester," Jilly said, yawning. He smiled a little.

"See you," she said, and went back to her room. Chester

waited for a moment. Then he went over to the couch pillows.

What was Jilly reading? It was late at night. He almost didn't

want to look. But Agent B would need to know, if it was

important! Chester looked under the pillow.

209
 It was a book about Cinderella, like the one Bonny had

been reading. There was a bright picture of Cinderella on the

cover, with a gold dress and things from the story. Chester

looked through the pages, but there was only the story.

Finally he put the book back, under the same pillow,

and got a glass of water. Agent B and Mr. Weilacher heard him

though and came down the hall.

"Can't sleep again, hm?" Agent B said dryly.

"Kind of," Chester agreed. Agent B sat on a couch and

folded his hands. Mr. Weilacher took off a pajama cap and put

it on the table.

"Well, we should all try to get back to sleep," Agent B

said.

210
 "Maybe we could have some crackers and milk!" Mr.

Weilacher muttered hopefully. "If we were at my house, we

could have some pie." He smiled a little.

Then something happened. It was so fast, Chester didn't

feel anything. But now, for some reason they were all walking

down a hallway, and Mr. Weilacher was still in his pajamas,

and Chester was walking along also, even though he didn't

remember going anywhere or leaving the couch.

There was some peeling wallpaper in some places, and

the floor had an old carpet. Everything smelled like dirty water.

Agent B and Mr. Weilacher just kept walking like nothing had

ever happened, and Chester had to catch up after a moment.

There was a sound somewhere, someone crying sadly.

Agent B went to a door and listened for a moment.

Chester could only see the back of his suit. Then Agent B

slowly opened the door and motioned a little for them to

follow.

211
 Chester went to the doorway and then stopped

completely. There were the messy, awful ruins of a normal

room. Papers, things, and furniture were scattered everywhere.

The walls had dark stains and smelled terrible. A lady sat in the

middle of the floor, holding a bag and crying.

"You can't kick me out!" she said angrily. "I don't have

any money!"

"We don't want your money," Agent B said.

"What do you want?" she screamed at them, then

clutched the bag she had. Chester still stood in the doorway,

looking at all the room.

"Ben is still alive," Agent B said at last.

212
 "WHAT!" she shrieked. "You don't... go away!"

Mr. Weilacher spoke up gently - "You went to the

ocean. He promised to get you a silver ring, the one you saw in

the shop by the docks. You laughed and said you should swim

back and get it now. That was seven years ago."

"NO! WHO ARE YOU!? NO, YOU CAN'T...!" she

yelled, and then held her face in her hands. Chester didn't know

what to do at all. He wanted to help somehow, but was afraid

to do anything.

Agent B walked over to a window and shoved it open,

letting in the fresh night air. He looked out at the city.

"He lives in Marietta County. 1276 East K Street."

213
 "Who are you? Who are you?" the lady said, her face

twisted against the sadness.

"Just know this - the Eternal Flame brought us here

somehow. Don't ask how or why! We don't even know." Agent

B said. He took off his sunglasses and folded them. Chester

saw the Agent's eyes, grey and calm. Agent B searched his

pockets for something. He found some folded bills, and handed

them to the woman.

"Enough for a taxi," Agent B droned.

"Oh, thank you, thank you," the woman kept saying.

"Thank you..."

Her voice faded away until it was gone. Chester was

looking out of a window at the moon, and he realized that he

wasn't even in the messy room anymore. He was in someone's

214
cozy kitchen.

He turned around suddenly, and Agent B was standing

by a fridge. Mr. Weilacher came in from somewhere. He

smiled with his mustache and said something.

"What do you know, we end at my kitchen!" Mr.

Weilacher said. "He has a sense of humor about these things,

doesn't he?"

"Yes," Agent B agreed. Chester looked around at the

kitchen. It had some little statues of cows and grapes, and the

fridge had a lot of magnets on it. Everything was so quiet and

peaceful, after being in the messy room.

"I guess we should at least turn the light on," Mr.

Weilacher said.

There was some hot chocolate and crackers then.

215
 Chester noticed that Mr. Weilacher was still in his

striped pajamas. Mr. Weilacher said he would just stay at

home and come back in a few days again. Agent B sipped his

cocoa and nodded.

"Remember that one time we also ended up at my

kitchen?" Mr. Weilacher said, remembering. "I was just about

to apologize for waking that guy's dog. I think Miracle Max

was with us, and he ended up on the other side of my house. I

thought he was gone."

"Max was always the different one," Agent B agreed.

Chester liked to hear the Ketchers' memories. He

almost felt like he could remember some of the things himself,

as they talked. But then Agent B thought it was time to go, so

they left Mr. Weilacher's house and went down the cold streets

back to the alley and then to the secret room.

216
 It was a short walk, but now Chester was very tired and

fell asleep as soon as he could.

But there was a pounding sound, like someone

knocking on a door. Chester sat up. Someone was speaking

loudly. He went out to the living room, and Agent B was there

already. A voice came through, from outside the secret panel.

"Mister Y? We know you're in here!"

Agent B didn't move.

"This is Police Seargant Crain. We need your help! Not

everyone agrees with what Uni-Corp is doing."

Agent B looked at Chester. Max had come in from his

room, and Jilly Picket also.

217
 "It could be a trap," the agent said. But then he went

down the long hallway to the outside. After a while, he came

back with someone dressed in an official uniform. The

policeman had several badges and a short black mustache, and

for some reason Chester felt safer with him right there, like

nothing could go bad while he was in the room.

"Please," the seargent urged in a sharp voice, "we think

they took someone. I thought you would know what to do,

Mister Y."

"Speak to that wall," Agent B told him. "Mister Y is in

there."

"Then it's true!..." Seargent Crain said.

218
 The speaker buzzed with Mister Y's voice - "Yes. Most

of it."

"We don't have time to chat," the seargant said. "You

need to come with us!"

"Send Jilly, Bonny, and Max." Mister Y said. "They

can get you in."

"That's me," Jilly explained to Seargent Crain, folding

her arms. He looked at her.

"We need you, not a child."

Agent B explained in an official way. "When Jilly

Picket was two, she got ahold of a plastic fork and took apart

her crib. If there's anything dangerous and hard to crack, keep

her away or it will get broken."

219
 The policeman shook his head. "Don't be ridiculous.

She's too young for this."

"I'm not!" Jilly protested. She tried to kick his leg but

Agent B put one hand on her shoulder, holding her back.

Jilly tilted her head to one side, flipping her ponytails.

"Sorry," she said.

Bonny Blythe came in. "Are we under arrest?" she said.

"Are they going to freeze us? Then we can be Snow White!"

she said, trying to sound happy.

"I'm sorry, but we'll go alone. Goodbye," the seargent

said, and saluted to everyone before marching down the

hallway. Halfway down he patted his pockets, and came back.

220
 "Did I leave my badge?" he said. Jilly held something

up, and he went and took it.

"How..." he said, peering at her. Jilly shrugged and got

some gum out of her pocket. Chester thought it was probably

watermelon flavor.

221
222
Chapter Nineteen

After some more hasty discussion, Seargent Crain

agreed to let them go along, "just in case". There were cars

parked nearby, and everyone piled in. It was barely morning.

Chester sat in the back with Agent B and Jilly, while Bonny

rode with Miracle Max in another policeman's car.

223
 "I don't see why Bonny came along," Jilly said between

chewing her gum. Chester could smell the watermelon flavor.

Agent B spoke up. "Often, in a battle between good and

evil it's one small thing that makes the difference. Sometimes

the smallest of everything."

He looked out the window at the streets and cars going

past. Some of the buildings were grey, and others were dark

red, but always seemed dusty and crumbled. Seargent Crain

would talk into a microphone sometimes, and then it would

talk back, or he ignored it.

Still, it made Chester feel anxious about where they

were going. The car was very clean but the seats weren't soft

and smelled of too much leather. It was almost a long ride, but

then it was over.

Everyone got out in a small parking lot beside the

224
largest building Chester had seen yet. There were other cars

and some police officers.

"Guards want to dispute the court order, we'll have to

get in underground," someone else said to Crain. Everyone

went to a small shed on the side surrounded by scraggly weeds.

Crain opened it, and threw some switches on a fuse box.

"This was put in long before they owned the building,"

he said. Then everyone got into the shed, and he closed the

door. There was a rumbling sound, and Chester was starting to

feel dizzy! He realized it was an elevator.

It slammed to a stop suddenly. Chester held onto the

wall. Crain opened the door again, and rusty lights flickered

on, slowly lighting a long, long hall.

Crain stepped out and everyone followed. Their shoes

225
tapped loudly on the floor, but no one noticed.

There was a tall stairwell ahead, and they climbed up

many steps, their feet clanging loudly on the steel. At the top,

Crain took out a small device and plugged it into the wall. He

looked at something for a long time, and then rushed quickly to

a door, forcing it open.

"We'll have a few moments to get down the hall," he

said, waving them forward impatiently. Chester went through,

and felt glad that the seargent was with them.

They stepped out into a long, long hall that was entirely

white and empty. Even the corners seemed to be bright. There

was a strange, clean smell everywhere and Chester found

himself walking carefully. Crain went ahead quickly though,

leaning ahead diligently, one hand on his police belt.

Around the corner there were many flat, boring,

226
identical doors, too many to count. Each one had a keypad on

it, always the same keypad, with some letters, and other things

Chester didn't even understand. Crain went to one of them.

Agent B came forward.

"Alright, Jilly," he said.

Jilly ran up to the door and typed some things quickly.

Then she typed impatiently again, and tapped some places on

the door, listening to the sound. She got out some paper clips

from her pocket and stuck them between some of the keys.

There was a long beep that kept going, but she didn't

care. She brought a little box from her pocket, and quickly

hooked up the paper clips to some wires.

227
 Then she typed more and more, frustrated. Then she hit

the keys again, and waited. She kicked the door and folded her

arms, angry.

"It's okay, you tried," Agent B said.

"It worked," Jilly said. "I just can't figure out the

password. It's just clues or something."

"Maybe someone could. What is it?" Agent B said.

"They can't do anything!" Jilly complained. Agent B

was peering at Jilly's device though.

"Sometimes sky, sometimes sea, sometimes eyes, never

trees," he droned.

228
 Chester looked around at everyone. There was silence,

and they were all thinking, even one of the police guards.

“We only have a minute left before we have to get out,”

Seargent Crain said. “We can’t wait.”

Chester thought about the clue. Sometimes sky,

sometimes… what was it?

"I know!" Bonny said happily. "Blue!"

"What?" Jilly said.

"Sometimes skies are blue, sometimes oceans are

blue..." Bonny explained. Jilly's fingers rushed across the keys.

The door clicked open a little.

229
 "We got it," Agent B said.

"Thank goodness," Crain barked. "Ed, get them out fast.

We can take this from here. Uni-Corp can't argue down our

court order this time!"

The other policeman nodded and waved for them to

follow. They all rushed back through the spotless hallway,

down the stairs, and into the underground. Bonny complained

for them to slow down sometimes, and Agent B helped her

along.

230
Chapter Twenty

Chester felt very glad to get back to the secret living

room place. He fell on one of the couches and was asleep soon.

When he finally woke up, breakfast was already over.

Harold and Max were playing checkers on the table, and Jilly

was fiddling with the radio, trying to find music or something.

231
 Her pet blob was wandering around under the table

trying to find crumbs.

"Hey you're awake!" Miracle Max said. "We left a

cinnamon roll."

Chester tried to rub his eyes open. He still felt weary

after the long night and was glad that everything was so

ordinary in the room. Harold took one of Max's checkers. Then

Max jumped three of Harold's checkers.

Bonny Blythe was looking at her Snow White book

again. She had the blue ribbons on this time. Chester realized

he had been in pajamas the whole night, the ones he borrowed

from Max.

"I think Uncle Yeah Yeah is coming!" Max said all of a

232
sudden.

"You always say that," Jilly told him.

Chester found the cinnamon roll finally, and thought of

challenging Harold at checkers, who already lost to Max twice.

Then someone was coming down the hallway, from the outside

streets. Harold looked up.

"Uncle Yeah Yeah!" Max squealed. "You made it!"

Chester looked around. It was a short guy, kind of bent

over or something. He had an old jacket. It looked like one of

his eyes was larger than the other, but he grinned at them in a

fun way and was carrying a paper bag in his clutching hands.

"Yeah yeah yeah!" He said in a funny voice, excited.

He was going over to the table and dumping the stuff on it. "I

233
got the stuff! Yeah!" he said, his voice gurgling with joy.

Bonny Blythe found another colorful book. Jilly took

some pencils, and Max even got a few Scrappy sodas. Harold

picked up some small packets of something.

"Guess what I got! The Puffballs 3! Yeah Yeah Yeah!"

Uncle Yeah Yeah said, holding up a movie case.

"Yay!" Max said, and he gave Harold a high-five.

Chester thought he should change back into his normal

clothes finally, but he wanted to hurry up. He ran down the

hallway, and stepped into Max's room where he had always

stayed at night.

234
 Chester looked around suddenly. He was somewhere

completely different, instead of Max's room.

He looked back around again, and tried to remember

how he had got there. But he didn't even know where he was.

It was a short room, with an old slanted ceiling made of

wood beams, not taller than him. There was a yellow birdcage

in one corner, and some boxes that hadn't been moved in a long

time. There was something familiar about everything. He

hadn't been here before though, but even the smell was like

home. He looked out of a small window, but there was an

unfamiliar street down below. Still, he thought he knew it!

He stood there for a while. There were some usual

noises like in a neighborhood, dogs barking and birds and

things. The sunlight was coming in through the little window

and soon his eyes could see everything again. Then he saw a

hatch cut in the floor.

Carefully, trying not to make noise, he put his fingers

on the dusty wood and lifted it open. There was a kind of

235
ladder or staircase there, and he thought of going down it.

But why was he even here in the first place? Maybe he

was supposed to sit for a while and wait.

But he listened as hard as possible and couldn't hear

anything, except maybe a clock somewhere. The wood smelled

stuffy and dusty but the air was fresh enough to breathe still.

He went and sat down by the little window, watching

everything. There was a round kind of street area, and some

neat houses around it. A flag flew in front of one house in a

soft wind. Chester got up again, and realized he was still in the

pajamas. Now they probably had dust in them.

He walked back over to the ladder. Then there was

someone walking around below, and he looked around for

somewhere to hide! But he thought maybe it would be better if

he didn't.

Chester started down the ladder, and it stopped at a thin

236
little door. He tried the knob first, and it turned easily. Finally

he held his breath and opened the door. He was in a house, and

a normal staircase went down to another floor below.

It was Auntie's house.

Chester went to the stairs and hurried down, wondering

if there was even anyone home. Everything was just like he

remembered it, there were little statues of cats, and white lace

and pink things. Auntie was sitting on the couch, dressed in her

night robe. She saw him now, and smiled with surprise.

"My goodness, I thought I heard something up there! I

thought it was my old bird, come back!"

But then Chester didn't know what to say.

"How ever did you get up there?" she asked, and

Chester felt at home again.

237
 "I don't know," he muttered. "I was going to Max's

room, and then I was in your attic!"

"Of course," Auntie surmised. "The Ketchers are a

strange bunch of folks. Never can tell what will happen when

you're with them! These sort things happen around them

sometimes. Who knows why, Dearie. Not even them!"

Then she got up.

"William will be back soon," she said. "He's been

getting ready all week for things."

Auntie didn't say anything else. But Chester didn't

mind. It was kind of empty in the house though, but there was a

lot to think about. He went to the kitchen, and remembered all

the things that had been said there, and when Nat was still

around, eating Jeffrey's waffles.

238
 Mostly Chester didn't try to do much, he just

remembered everything and thought things over.

"Much will be happening soon," Auntie said suddenly,

a while later. "We may even be able to help your parents."

Chester came over. "What if you can't? What if it's too

hard? What if I've lost them?" He didn't want to think of that,

really.

Auntie nodded. "I know you need your parents. Just as I

need Jeffrey and Uncle William. I don't know what I would do

if the brain suckers got them."

She kept on talking, and Chester wasn't sure if she was

still really talking to him. Or just to herself.

"There are so many things people need, and dream of,

aren't there Chester? The need to not be alone. The need to do

great things and to be good. So often, no one can find any of

these, no matter how they try! They don't seem possible."

239
240
Chapter Twenty One

William finally got back, later on that night. He seemed

very distracted for some reason, and didn't say much.

"The time has come," he said to Chester at last. "They

will be here by tonight."

241
 "Who?" Chester had to ask.

William patted his shirt pocket. Then he took out the

gum wrapper carefully and unfolded it.

"The saltines!" he said. "The first shipment will be

made at 2 AM, to a Quick Mart convenience store nearby. The

plans must be carried out tonight, or much will be lost."

"How much money do we have on hand?" William

asked Auntie. He got some bills out from his own pocket and

started counting them. It didn't look like much to Chester.

Auntie came back with a small jar that had a lot of coins in it.

"One hundred seventeen dollars and eighty-three

cents," William muttered, looking at the stash. "That won't be

enough! Auntie, we need the vacuum cleaner. It's time to make

242
a withdrawal from a bank that has never failed us - the sofa!"

Auntie went and got an old looking vacuum. She

plugged it in, with a funky looking plug at the end of an ugly

cord. Then the lights in the house turned off, and Chester tried

to reach and find a wall.

"A power outage!" William said in the darkness. "They

must have known it would stop us. Chester, stay there for a

moment."

After a few long minutes, there was the beam of a

flashlight coming down the stairs. William was carrying it, and

he handed another flashlight to Chester. Auntie had found her

own also.

"We need more spare change," William said seriously.

243
"Look under the couches, between the pillows, under the beds!

Leave no corner unsearched!"

Chester pushed the flashlight button and crawled over

to the couch. It was hard to see clearly in the flashlight's dim

light, but he lifted all the couch cushions and looked closely

between everything. There were some quarters and a knitting

needle. It was hard to see if he had looked at everything,

because the flashlight only shone on one spot at a time.

He could hear William muttering and searching places,

laughing with joy when he found some more money.

But urgency pushed Chester on, and he looked behind

the curtains and under the cabinet. But there wasn't much to

find, except some pennies or maybe a dime now and then.

"Keep searching!" William said desperately from the

other room. "We have until 2 AM to find the money."

244
 Chester was getting tired of looking. But he kept on

through the kitchen, and on to the spare room.

"Be sure to double-check," William said, hurrying past

with his flashlight again. "We can't leave a nickel behind! We

must get all the saltines!"

Once, Chester heard a sound of surprise. Auntie found a

five-dollar bill that had fallen behind a credenza. But the search

went on. They all stopped and got a small snack and a drink of

water, and then kept up with the searching and searching.

Chester was amazed at how many pennies he still found, even

after so much looking.

"It's almost 1 o'clock," William finally said, his voice

weary. "This should be enough."

245
 They got into William's green car and it stuttered to life.

They went around the round street and down the hill, and past

some more houses.

The night air was cold and fresh in Chester's face,

helping to keep him awake. He wasn't used to being out this

late at night, and everything seemed so quiet and mysterious in

a way.

"It's the Quick Mart!" William said in a hushed voice.

"We made it in time!"

They got out and went in. It looked like no one was

inside, except a single bored cashier guy who was reading a

book. William got the small shopping baskets and handed them

to Auntie and Chester.

246
 "Get every cracker in the place," William commanded.

"Don't miss a single one. Sometimes they have cracker displays

in odd places. Look everywhere!"

William went down the aisle to the cracker section, and

Chester followed. Then William started grabbing handfuls of

boxes and stuffing them in the basket by the dozen.

Chester went and started working on a different brand,

one with tiny packets of oyster crackers.

Then they got new baskets and grabbed some more

packages, going up and down the baked goods aisle.

"There's a huge Friskers display by the beef jerkey,"

Auntie said. "I need backup!"

247
 They brought the baskets and piled them on the counter.

The clerk gave them a weird look and started scanning the

boxes, one by one, in a kind of tired way. It took a long, long

time but finally the last box was done.

"That'll be one hundred forty dollars and eighty three

cents," the clerk said in a bored voice.

William winked at Chester and dumped all the money

and spare change onto the counter. The clerk looked surprised

again and started counting it.

"Your change comes to three dollars and two cents.

Have a good day," the clerk said, and went back to reading in a

hurry.

William and Auntie tossed all the crackers into the back

of the car, and got in. They started the car and drove back up

248
the street.

"Do you think he suspects something?" Auntie asked.

"It doesn't matter at this point," William argued.

"There's no law against buying saltines!

"This is a great victory!" his voice soared. "It's too bad

Jeffrey wasn't here to see it!"

249
250
Chapter Twenty Two

The next morning, Chester got up and came to Auntie's

kitchen.

"Hello dearie," she said, drinking from a mug. "You can

finally get home soon."

251
 Chester felt glad at first. He missed his own room, after

so long. But he thought of something.

"But aren't my parents..."

Auntie looked a bit uncomfortable.

"Oh, they're very fine, mostly," she said. "We're still

trying to reverse it though. But other things have to happen

before we find their brains!"

Chester didn't know what to think about this. But soon

enough Auntie and William had loaded up the car for the trip to

Paxton. Chester looked at Auntie's house and then got in, and

they headed off down the street. Along the way they would

stop at a Quick Mart sometimes and buy a few more saltines.

252
 "Better safe than sorry," William said.

They arrived in front of Chester's house. He felt very

glad to be home again, but wondered what would happen. They

knocked on the door, and Chester's mom opened it. She was

happy to see them.

"Chester! Did you enjoy your vacation?" she asked. "I

hope it was fun."

Auntie spoke up. "It was lots of fun. Goodbye Chester!"

Then Chester went in and his mother closed the door.

His father came in and smiled at him.

"How's my young man doing?" he said. "Alright?"

253
 Chester nodded. They were in a good mood, and

Chester didn't think things were that bad. But soon he

wondered otherwise. He tried staying up late to watch movies,

just to see what would happen. His mom just brought him a

snack at midnight.

"Kids need food for their minds," she said, smiling

proudly at him. "They know more than we think they do. Isn't

that right?"

His father gave him a talk the next day.

"I want you to know, Chester, that we're here for you,"

he said with a fatherly grin. "You should do whatever your

heart knows is best. We'll support you, champ!"

254
 It was nice in a way, that they didn't get mad at him or

tell him when to do anything. But Chester felt a little sad

sometimes and didn't know what to do anymore. Life was

strange and quiet now. He even got out the rubber gloves and

started cleaning the hall bathroom, making a lot of noise.

"Oh, don't bother with that," his mom said, winking at

him. "You need to spread your wings! Use your mind!"

One day there was a knock at the door. Chester went

and answered it quickly, before his parents could get there.

There wasn't anyone there. But he saw a small envelope on the

porch and picked it up. Then he went and locked his room to

read it.

255
 Chester Dearie -

William and I are working very hard. The work

of many people, over many years, now rests in our hands. But

we cannot finish it alone. Meet us at our house on the corner in

three days, and we will have more instructions. It is urgent that

you be there!

There is much to explain. Uni-Corp's main

computer has always been hidden, to protect it. But we know

where. They wove it into the governor's favorite jacket with

micro-fibers. No one knows this. He will be giving a speech in

the park. We will need your help.

Auntie and William

256
 The three days passed slowly. Chester even looked

through the sofa for spare change, to pass the time, and tried to

clean his room a little. But finally the morning was there. He

got breakfast quickly, and went out the door.

"Have fun!" his mother said happily.

He went down the street and to the corner, and knocked

on the door. Nobody answered. Then he knocked again. He

waited for a while, but there wasn't even any noise inside.

Finally Chester tried opening the door, and it swung inside.

Everything looked the same as before. He looked in a

few rooms, and then saw a paper stuck to the fridge.

257
 Chester Dearest -

William and I cannot be here. We're sorry. But

things are happening so fast and we are needed elsewhere.

Please take these instructions and hurry to Brand Park. If we do

not get there to meet you in time, you must go on alone! Years

of planning are at stake.

1. Mrs. Green's formula will be given to you by

someone. Just say the password - "Eraser".

2. Add it to one can of Scrappy Soda to activate!

3. The governor is giving a speech in Brand Park at

noon. He will wear his favorite jacket. The soda must be

spilled on his jacket to disable the computer. It will not hurt

him.

Auntie and Will.

258
 Chester looked at the stylish clock on the wall. It was

almost eleven already! He grabbed the paper and stuffed it into

his pocket, heading for the door. Brand Park was only a few

blocks away, and soon he was there.

He saw a Scrappy Soda machine, over by a building at

the side of the park. Chester went over, and was glad he still

had some spare change in his pocket from looking under his

sofa!

The can of Scrappy Soda rolled down the machine and

clunked at the bottom. It was still cold. Chester looked around

at the park, and there was a place with chairs and a large screen

set up. People were milling around. He looked around again,

and then saw the man.

It was a tall, tall man in a dark coat and hat. He stared

right at Chester, hardly blinking. He was stepping more on one

leg than the other. He looked almost sad, but his expression

never changed at all as he kept looking at Chester, coming

slowly towards him.

259
 Now Chester could hear the clunking of one foot as he

walked, and there was an odor in the air, something strange and

old, he didn't know what. The man reached him, towering over

him, and Chester could feel a cold smell coming from the

wrapped layers of his coat.

There was also a soft, steady sound. Later on, he

realized what it was. It was a ticking, like a grandfather clock's

pendulum.

"Um, Eraser," Chester whispered. He wasn't sure what

else to do. The tall man's mouth almost smiled a little, but then

his face was just bored and sad again. He reached in a pocket

deep in the jacket, and brought out a small vial. It had a dull

grey inside that looked alive.

"Thanks," Chester wanted to say. But the tall guy was

already walking away, one step at a time. Chester watched until

he was gone.

260
 Then a woman stepped out from behind a corner.

"Thank goodness I've found you!" she said, stepping

over to Chester in a great hurry. She had a shawl and looked

kind of like a librarian, only taller and wiser, with eyes that

peered at him over some glasses. "We've been looking

everywhere for you!"

Chester couldn't even say anything. He held onto the

soda can. She almost reminded him of Auntie, in a strange

way.

"I know what you think, poor child," she said, looking

at him pitifully. "I've seen it so many times."

Chester took a step backwards, without meaning to.

261
 "No, I'm sorry. I'm Mathilda Clements. I find children

who have been stolen by dangerous anti-government rebels."

"But I wasn't stolen," Chester said. "My parents were,

they were..."

"They were what?" she asked, curious.

"The brain suckers, well..." Chester said, fumbling.

The woman gazed at him sadly. "Brain suckers. That's

new. Such terrible people."

Chester started to cry almost, but tried to be brave.

"But they... the clue..."

262
 "What clue?" Mathilda asked.

"It was a gum wrapper! It said,"

"Gum wrappers? Brains?" she said with sorrow. "Can't

you see it's nonsense?"

Then the woman leaned down. She reached a gentle

hand forward, pointing at Chester.

"You know I'm right Chester. Look around. There's

nothing wrong with the world except for horrible people who

make up wonderful lies. I even know about your soda."

Chester felt very horrible indeed. He held his can of

263
soda to himself with two hands, but it was shaking.

"Please, let me take that can of soda and let's get you

out of here, while I still can!"

She reached her hand for the soda. Chester tried so hard

to think, but only felt like throwing up.

"But... but..."

"But what?" the woman said kindly, shaking her head a

little. "There's no answer! You know that!"

"But, why do you need my soda?" Chester blurted out.

Mathilda looked at him for a moment.

264
 "It's probably poisoned," she said firmly. "Please, we

need to dispose of it."

"I wasn't going to drink it," Chester said.

"It might be a bomb, anything!" The woman pleaded.

"Please!" She shook her hand for him to hand it over. Finally

she seemed to give up.

"Look Chester, I know their game is fun. People like to

play fun games, to feel better."

"It's not just a game," Chester whispered.

"What's that?" Mathilda said, tilting her head to one

side.

265
 Chester spoke up louder. "I said it's, oh there you are

Jeffrey!"

The woman looked behind her. "What?!"

Chester took off, towards the stairs down to the grassy

area where people were standing near their chairs. The speech

was about to begin.

"Wait!" The woman yelped, and started running after

him. Chester got off the stairs and waded through the bushes

and shrubs on the side. The woman tried to go around, but he

cut across and dashed towards the crowd.

Soon he was inside, between tall adults, and he politely

moved himself towards the front. Chester's heart was pounding

but he tried to look calm.

266
 "Wait, Chester, where are you?" he heard Mathilda say.

Chester only had a few more rows to get to the front. The

governor was going across the row, shaking hands with people,

Chester could see his purple and black plaid suit walking

along.

"Please, I must get to my mother," Chester kept saying

to the adults near him, and then he pressed ahead as they let

him past. He stood in the front row now, and the governor

came down the line, shaking hands furiously and smiling a

great, wide smile of welcome.

Chester broke open the tab on the soda can and poured

the formula in. Mathilda was stepping quickly around the edge

of the crowd, and would be at him in moments. The governor

was still two people down the line, but soon he would be there,

right in front.

267
 "Governor!" Mathilda yelled out loud. "There's a..."

Chester stepped ahead one large step, and then let

himself trip on a chair. The soda can flew out of his hands.

Chester caught himself on the grass, and heard a lot of

surprised voices and concerned comments.

"Let me help you up son," a nice man said. Chester

looked up. The governor was busy brushing a lot of brown

water off of his coat, still looking surprised.

He looked at Chester, almost sort of angry and confused

for a moment, but then suddenly he smiled and laughed

happily, and everyone kind of laughed too.

"Well, at least it's only soda," the governor said good-

naturedly. Then he looked around at everyone, smiling.

268
 "My, I do feel good somehow. Almost like a good rain.

Ha ha! Sometimes surprise can be a good thing, if you just let

it."

Then everyone laughed with him, and he went back up

to the podium to start the speech. Chester looked around, but

Mathilda Clements was nowhere.

"I'd like to thank my staff," the governor said proudly.

"And then let's just begin this speech."

And then there were some charts and things shown up

on the platform behind him.

"And the first plan of action will be to... will be to..."

the governor said, looking at his notes.

"My goodness, this can't be right!" he said, looking at

the pictures behind him.

269
 "I would never allow this. I'm sorry folks, I must have

the wrong notes or something. I'll just have to ad-lib today."

And he gave a speech about some things that Chester

didn't know about, and how it would benefit the state, and a lot

of other talk. At the end, everyone stood up and applauded for

a while, and then Chester felt a tug on the back of his shirt.

"Come on, Chester," he heard Jilly Picket say. "We got

here finally."

270
Chapter Twenty Three

Jilly Picket led Chester to the side of the park, where

Auntie and William and Jeffrey were waiting, along with some

others.

"Did it work?" Jeffrey asked seriously. Chester nodded.

271
 "This is a great day! Ho ho!"

They had William's car there, and Chester told them all

about what happened on the way home.

"We should be able to help your parents now," Jeffrey

said. "Hope you haven't eaten all the cookies or they will be

mad, once their brains are back! Hee Hee!"

"No," Chester said, "but they do seem to order a lot of

things from late-night TV ads."

"That usually happens," William commented.

Later on that day, Chester visited the house on the

corner to talk some more.

"You know, Chester, you were a brave lad!" Auntie

said. "You carried the work of years and hundreds of people in

that can of Scrappy Soda."

272
 "But the governor also said he felt better afterwards,

and he changed his mind about things," Chester said.

"The computer's radiation probably bothered him. In

fact, most of the work we did, was to make sure the formula

wouldn't hurt the governor at all."

"But what if it would only hurt him a little?" Chester

wondered aloud. "That was a lot of work you went through, for

so long."

Jeffrey shook his head. "If it might harm the governor,

we could not risk it," he said, his voice resolute. "It is better to

die than live forever through one evil act!"

Finally talk turned to the strange man by the soda

machine.

273
 "Ah, I didn't know he was the one," William said with

amazement. "It was a desperate move, coming all the way to

Paxton. Of course he recognized you at once."

"Who was it?" Chester had to ask. "I never saw him

before."

"Mister Y, of course," William explained. "He never

has to sleep, you know, so he could get there faster than

anyone. He was part of an experiment once, an experiment to

live forever..."

"Never sleep..." Chester said. "No wonder he gets so

much done."

"Yes, Chester," Jeffrey said. "But I remember one thing

he told me. You can get more done if you never sleep. But if

you never sleep, you can never dream again!"

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