Emily whispered, “Fell off a bridge—”
“But now he’s fine,” Erno interrupted.
“Sure. Jutht tell yourthelf it wath all a dream,” Harvey said, and he turned to leave. “Don’t follow me, any of you,” he added. “Don’t try to get in touch. You and me? We’re done. I never want to thee you people again for the retht of my life, and that’th gonna be a long time. Elth the Puck a liar call.”
And he walked off down the street toward the train station without a second glance.
“See ya, Harvey!” said Erno. “Stay sweet.”
Emily handed the photo to Biggs, because she didn’t have any pockets. She sighed.
“So do you . . . ,” Erno began. “Do you want to visit him?”
“Mr. Wilson?” Emily thought. “Why don’t we let him come to us?” she said finally.
“Yeah.”
They walked up the path to the Brooklyn house.
“Should I knock?” said Emily. “Maybe I shouldn’t ring the bell—I don’t want to wake him.”
Erno went ahead and knocked while she thought about it.
A young woman with curly brown hair opened the door and flinched at the sight of them. But she recovered quickly—she probably just mistook Biggs for an actual giant.
“Yes? Hi. Are you . . . are you here for the bris?”
“What’s a bris?” asked Erno.
“Um, sure,” said Emily. “Yes. We’re here for the bris.”
The woman glanced at Biggs again. “Are you friends of my husband’s?”
“We’re friends of Merle’s,” Emily told her with a smile.
Ms. Lynn laughed. “Merle is eight days old. He doesn’t have any friends.” They stared at one another for a moment. Then the woman stepped aside. “Well, whatever. You’re welcome. Little Merle is in the first room on the right.”
They walked into the dim hall and turned into a room filled with friends and family. Biggs ducked and tried to keep out of everyone’s way. But the kids stepped up to a tiny red baby resting atop a white pouf in a bassinet. He wore thin little mittens over his hands. He also wore a look of deep concentration on his face, this baby, as if he were really considering something. Déjà vu, maybe.
“Hi, Merle,” said Emily.
“Merlin,” said Erno.
The baby waggled his mittens.
Everyone else in the room had gone quiet, like they could tell something momentous was happening. Or maybe they just recognized the kids and their nanny from television. The Utzes had tried to keep their faces out of the news, but they found that was like trying to uncrack an egg. So they were attempting to make a modest little omelet out of things.
“So,” said Emily. “Here’s what’s been going on. King Arthur and Elizabeth have been really good advocates for the Fay, and so far people have been adjusting pretty well. Nobody’s trying to conquer anybody. There’s been, you know, skirmishes and things. But humanity seems mostly excited, you know? Like they’d been waiting for something like this to happen.”
“You can thank Hollywood for that,” said Erno.
“Yeah, and books. Seems like every other book has some kind of magic-is-real theme, right? It’s like we’ve been preparing.”
“Scott’s been really popular,” said Erno with a smirk. “Like, he’s doing talk shows and stuff.”
“He pretends to hate the attention,” Emily droned. “But you can see him starting to enjoy it a little.”
“I saw him on the cover of a magazine called Teen Fever the other day. He still looks pretty beat up, but I guess girls like scars.”
“Plus the mark.”
“Oh right. Titania feels so bad now about how she treated Scott that she marked him with this little glowing moon and star on his forehead. She didn’t even ask or anything, she just did it.”
“The mark tells all Fay that no one’s to mess with Scott unless they want to mess with Titania too. So I guess her heart was in the right place.”
“I guess.”
They shared a quiet moment. The baby gurgled.
A moment later a man joined them. He almost looked like a younger, more slender Merle, with a trim black beard. Merle’s father.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Kids? We, uh, don’t really understand why you’re here. But we’re glad! And honored. Um.” He looked at something over their heads. “Thing is, we wondered if you might know anything about . . . that.” Then he nodded.
Erno and Emily followed his gaze, and jumped. They’d totally missed the white barn owl on the mantle.
“It flew in a few days ago when I went out for diapers,” said Mr. Lynn. “It won’t leave.”
In the Philadelphia airport, some months later, Scott and John and Mick stood in Terminal C and waited. Polly (still winged, still only inches tall) stood atop Scott’s shoulder. She examined his face.
“You look tired,” she said. “I thought you said you were sleeping better.”
Scott tapped the glowing mark on his head. “I have been, ever since I started wearing a headband to bed. But last night I was too . . . you know, excited.”
Polly grinned. “Yeah, me too.”
John bounced on his toes. “I still think we ought to hide you at first,” he told Polly. “Your mum has no idea what’s gone on in the past year. I can’t imagine what this is going to be like for her.”
“She’s a tough one,” said Mick. “She can take it.”
It was nice of the authorities to shut down this terminal for the day. They’d have some privacy when she returned. Scott and Polly’s mom, back from the future. Safe.
It was quiet. They didn’t really know exactly when she’d be back, but it would be soon.
“I thought Fi was supposed to join us today,” John said vaguely.
“No, remember?” said Polly. “Emily told Morenwyn that Emily and Erno and Biggs weren’t coming ’cause they thought it should just be for family, so then Morenwyn told Fi, and Fi and Morenwyn decided they should just meet Mom later.”
Mick frowned up at her. “So what I am doin’ here, then?”
Polly blew a raspberry. “Gimme a break. You’re family.”
Scott tried to tune them all out and focus on the spot where his mother had disappeared. Where she’d reappear again, more or less. Dad was right—he had so much to tell her. To pass the time, he counted down from ten, as if that made any sense, as if she’d just be there when he finished. And even as he admitted how silly that was, he knew it was nonetheless true.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
“And so,” said Declan Sage, “that’s the story of how the good people of the Village of Reek were saved.”
The only other person on the subway platform was a tall elf with green hair. The old man had been talking for a long time—maybe the trains stopped running at eleven or something? The elf checked his watch.
“The Chosen One reunited two worlds,” Declan Sage continued, “and delivered us from the Great Dragon, and broke Nimue’s wicked spell.”
The elf gave the old man a dollar, because it seemed like the thing to do.
“What’s your name, son?”
“Mossblossom,” said the elf. He winced. “I’m . . . thinking of changing it. So, now . . . who was the Chosen One, exactly? Was it Scott, or John or Merlin? Or Emily, for that matter?”
Declan Sage was chuckling and shaking his head.
“My son,” he said, “the answer to that mystery is a story that will have to wait for another time.”
He smiled absently. Mossblossom frowned.
“You have no idea, do you.”
“No.”
BACK AD
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ADAM REX is the author of many books, including Cold Cereal and Unlucky Charms, the first two books in the Cold Cereal Saga; the New York Times bestselling picture book Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich; the middle-grade novel The True Meaning of Smekday; and the teen novel Fat Vampire. He currently lives
in Arizona with his wife. You can visit him online at http://www.adamrex.com.
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BOOKS BY ADAM REX
FAT VAMPIRE: A Never Coming of Age Story
The Cold Cereal Saga
COLD CEREAL
UNLUCKY CHARMS
CREDITS
Cover art © 2014 by Adam Rex
Cover design by Joel Tippie and Adam Rex
COPYRIGHT
Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
CHAMPIONS OF BREAKFAST
Copyright © 2014 by Adam Rex
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ISBN 978-0-06-206008-2
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EPub Edition © JANUARY 2014 ISBN: 9780062060105
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FIRST EDITION
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