Simon didn’t mean to lose track of time, but the pages flew by, and over an hour passed with no sign of the eagle. A chorus of laughter echoed through the trees. In the distance, he spotted some of the kids from school, and he quickly gathered his things and stood. If he walked fast enough, he could make it home before anyone caught up to him.
Halfway down the trail, the air seemed to change, and Simon looked up. Perched on a branch above him was the golden eagle. “Hello, Simon Thorn.”
“I’m kind of in a hurry right now,” he said, walking faster and glancing over his shoulder. He could make out Bryan’s head bobbing above the others.
The eagle ruffled its feathers. “I thought you wanted to know more about your mother.”
Simon stopped. The eighth-grade boys were getting closer. “Is she okay?”
“For now,” said the eagle. “The longer you stay here, the more danger you are in, Simon. It is only a matter of time before the mammals find you, and once they do, we will no longer be able to protect you.”
“Protect me from what? Chipmunks?” said Simon. One of the boys shouted his name, and he inched down the path.
“From the most bloodthirsty beasts in the animal kingdom,” said the eagle. “They are coming for you, Simon Thorn, and if they find you, they will kill you.”
“Kill me?” he blurted. “Why?”
“There is no time to explain. They are closing in as we speak. If you would come with me—”
Another snarl cut through the air, exactly the same as that morning. Startled, the eagle took flight. “Run, Simon, before it is too late!”
Simon cursed. “Wait—come back!”
But the eagle flew away, leaving him alone on the path. With the eagle’s warning rattling around his brain, Simon hurried away from the bushes and the creature that had snarled. It definitely hadn’t sounded like a chipmunk.
Before he could get very far, Bryan Barker appeared from behind a thicket on the other side of the path, flanked by three eighth graders. “You really are crazy, aren’t you, Psycho?”
“Leave me alone,” he said, skirting around them. Four pairs of footsteps followed.
“Do the animals talk back? Do they tell you how worthless you are, or are they too stupid to figure it out?” said Bryan, and Simon walked even faster. Short as he was, the gang of four boys caught up to him easily and surrounded him. Bryan pushed Simon backward, and another boy ripped his bag from him. “Answer me, Psycho.”
Simon kept his mouth shut. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. He glanced around, looking for anything he might be able to use against them. Sticks, pebbles, a bench in the distance—
“No girls here to save you this time,” said Bryan, shoving him again. One of the eighth graders caught him and pushed him forward. Back and forth he went, until he was so jarred that he could barely keep his balance.
Shoving. He could handle this. Just as long as it didn’t get any worse. But within seconds, Bryan made a fist.
“I don’t care how crazy you are, Psycho,” he said. “If you think you can humiliate me in front of everyone and get away with it—”
Another snarl echoed through the park, louder and more vicious than the first. It sounded like nothing Simon had ever heard before. All four boys started, and Bryan paused, distracted.
A massive dog stepped out from behind a tree, gnashing its teeth. It wasn’t like any pet Simon had ever seen. With its gray fur and sharp fangs, it looked almost like a wolf.
No, Simon realized. Not almost like a wolf. It was a wolf.
Without thinking, Simon made what was possibly the stupidest move in his life: he kneed Bryan in the stomach. Hard. And as Bryan doubled over, Simon pushed him to the ground, grabbed his backpack, and made a run for it.
The eighth graders shouted, but a howl cut them off. Simon tore down the path. His hair whipped around his face, and his backpack hung off the crook of his elbow and banged against his knees, but he didn’t stop, not even when he bolted out of Central Park. His lungs burned, and several pedestrians swore as he shoved past them, but he reached his building in record time.
He ran up the stairs, stopping only when he got to his apartment. As he struggled to catch his breath, he listened for any sign of someone following him, but the building was quiet. Exhausted, he dropped his backpack and groped around for the key. What was he going to tell Darryl? Nothing about the eagle or the wolf, that was for sure. Had the vice principal called about Bryan and—
“Simon?”
Suddenly the door opened. Instead of his uncle, however, a woman stood inside, wearing jeans and combat boots and brandishing Darryl’s baseball bat. Simon froze, dumbfounded.
“Mom?”
3
MISCHIEF OF MICE
Simon’s mother dropped the baseball bat and caught him in her arms. She was warm and smelled like fallen leaves, and her blond braid pressed against his cheek, but Simon was too dazed to notice much more than that. After everything that had happened today, part of him wondered if Bryan Barker had knocked him out and this was all a dream.
It wasn’t a dream though. She was real, and she was finally home. He hugged her fiercely. “Missed you.”
She ran her fingers through his shaggy hair. “I missed you, too. Look at you. Look how tall you are.”
“I’m not tall. You’re just short.” The last time he’d seen her, he hadn’t even come up to her shoulders. Now he was nearly eye level with her. His insides pinched as he realized how much time they’d lost. “Why are you here?”
“Would you rather I not be?” she asked as she ushered him inside.
“No, I just . . .” He trailed off. His mother glanced up and down the hallway before she closed the door, almost as if she was expecting someone. “You only ever come on holidays or my birthday.”
“I don’t need a special occasion to see you, Simon,” said his mother, but her smile looked more like a grimace. Something was wrong. Simon pulled off his jacket, and she hung it up for him before he could do it himself.
“What’s going on?” he said, and she hesitated.
“Your vice principal called. He said you were in a fight.”
Simon’s heart sank. The only thing he hated more than Darryl’s disappointment was his mother’s. “You came home because I got in a fight? How did he even find you?” Not even Simon could reach her when he needed her.
“I was already here when he called,” she said.
“But—you’ve been here all day and you didn’t come and get me?” She only ever stayed for a few hours at a time. “Where have you been, Mom?”
She frowned. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Work’s been so busy—”
“For a whole year? You didn’t take a single day off?”
“I—” his mother began, but the door burst open before she could say anything else.
Darryl, windswept and red-faced, stormed into the apartment and slammed the door shut. “What were you doing in the park?” he said, rounding on Simon. “I went to pick you up after school, but I saw you there instead. You know you’re not supposed to—”
“Darryl, he knows,” said his mother, sliding her arm around Simon’s shoulders. “Calm down.”
His uncle didn’t look the least bit surprised to see his mother there. “Why did you skip school, Simon?”
Simon faltered. “I—I got sent to the vice principal.”
“Why? What happened?”
“He got in a fight. Another student,” his mother added quickly at the look on Darryl’s face.
“I want to hear this from Simon,” said Darryl, but when Simon tried to explain, his mother cut him off.
“Kitchen, Darryl. Now.”
Darryl glowered at her, but at last he rumbled into the tiny kitchen. Simon shrugged his mother’s arm off. Her brow furrowed, and for a split second guilt stabbed through him. He should have been happy to see her, and part of him was—but another part of him, the part that had waited a year to see her again, was fuming. She was the
one who had left him, not the other way around.
“I need to talk to your uncle,” she said gently. “Alone.”
The burning knot in Simon’s chest returned, swallowing his reply. Instead he trudged off to his room, lugging his backpack behind him. It wasn’t fair. She didn’t show up for an entire year, and now that she was here, she would be gone by morning, just like every other time. As Simon headed down the hall, each footstep grew heavier than the last. How long would it be before she didn’t bother to visit at all?
Simon closed his bedroom door and dropped his bag. Sitting down on the edge of his bed, he stared up at the wall of postcards and tried to imagine what his life would have been like if his mother had left him with Darryl and never come back. Easier, maybe. He wouldn’t constantly feel like he was waiting for something that almost never happened. He loved his mother, but there were times she made him feel lonelier than Bryan Barker ever could.
“I see you survived.” Felix slipped out from underneath his desk.
“Barely,” said Simon. “I think Bryan Barker is going to murder me tomorrow.”
Felix scurried up Simon’s jeans and sweater to perch on his shoulder. “He’ll have to get through me first. I’m coming with you.”
He started to tell the mouse no—mostly because he had already come up with a dozen different excuses to skip school tomorrow—but someone knocked. Felix leaped behind the curtain to hide.
“Simon?” said his mother as she opened the door. “Who were you talking to?”
“No one. I was just—reading to myself.” Snatching a book off his nightstand, he held it up for her to see. “Is Darryl going to yell at me?”
“No, no, I talked him down.” She sat on the bed beside him. “How are you?”
Simon shrugged. “Fine.”
“You don’t sound fine. It hasn’t been easy lately, has it?”
He shook his head reluctantly. It felt like he was admitting some sort of horrible defect, and he stared at the wall of postcards.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He shook his head again. Usually Colin would have been there to commiserate, but that wasn’t going to happen anymore. He would just have to get used to dealing with things on his own.
His mother hesitated, and after a moment she fished a wrapped parcel out of her pocket and handed it to him. “This is for you.”
“What is it?” he said.
“Open it and see.”
Simon ripped through the wrapping paper, revealing a plain black box. When he lifted the lid, he found an ornate silver pocket watch inside. It was attached to a long, thin chain, and the back was engraved with a crest. Simon frowned as he examined it. In the center was an oddly shaped star, and surrounding it were five animals: a wolf, an eagle, a spider, a dolphin, and a snake.
“It was your father’s,” said his mother. “He would’ve wanted you to have it.”
“Really?” Simon’s father—Darryl’s younger brother—had died before Simon had been born. Darryl never talked about him, and the few times Simon had asked questions, he could tell how much it hurt Darryl to think about him. Eventually Simon had stopped.
“Really,” said his mother. “I was going to wait until your sixteenth birthday, but with all you’ve been going through, I thought it would mean more to you now.”
Simon opened the pocket watch. It was stuck at 8:25 and fourteen seconds.
“It’s very old,” she admitted. “It might never work again. But I want you to promise me you’ll take care of it, all right? Keep it on you always, especially when I can’t be there with you, and never forget how much I love you.”
Simon closed the watch and slid it into his pocket. The weight felt right somehow, and he hooked the chain around his belt loop. “I will, if you take me with you.”
His mother wilted. “Oh, sweetheart. You know I would if I could.”
“But you can,” he said, his voice cracking. “I won’t get in the way. You can do your job, and I’ll stay in the hotel and study—”
“Sweetheart . . .” She tried to hug him, but Simon slipped out of her embrace. “Simon. Please. Don’t make this any harder for me than it already is.”
“Harder for you?” The words stuck in his throat, and he had to force them out. “I’m the one who gets left behind. All you ever do is send me postcards and visit when you feel like it, which is practically never. I know you love your job more than you love me, but—”
“I love you more than anything in the world. If there was any way I could be here and spend every single day with you, I would. You must know that, sweetheart.”
Simon faltered. He did know it, but sometimes it felt like a lie his mother told him so he wouldn’t be angry. “If you love me more, then let me go with you.”
“Actually,” said Darryl as he nudged open the bedroom door, his body taking up the whole frame, “I don’t think that’s such a bad idea.”
Simon looked at him, stunned. “You mean it?” he said, and Darryl nodded.
“Might do you some good to get away from here for a while. Both of you.” Darryl gave his mother a look Simon didn’t understand.
“You’re really going to do this now?” she said.
“And you aren’t?”
She stood and gave Simon a quick kiss on the forehead. “I need to talk to your crazy uncle again.” When Simon started to object, she cut him off. “Please.”
His uncle gave him a slight nod, and Simon sank back onto his mattress, pretending to return to his book. But once they stepped out of the bedroom, Simon counted to ten and opened the door again. Darryl and his mother argued in low voices that filtered in from the kitchen, and Simon crept down the hallway, avoiding the squeaky floorboard.
“. . . can’t stay here,” said Darryl. “Orion already found him—”
“You can’t know that for sure,” said his mother. “It’s been years.”
“I wouldn’t have called you back if I wasn’t positive.”
Simon flattened himself against the wall. Who was Orion?
“We can’t just uproot him like this,” said his mother. “It’s dangerous out there.”
“It’s more dangerous here. We don’t have a choice anymore, Isabel. You wanted to wait, so we waited. Now it’s been too long. If Orion’s found us, then that means they’ve both found us.”
“You’re absolutely sure?”
His uncle swore. “I already told you—”
“Simon?”
The squeak near his ear startled him, and Simon jumped backward into the bookcase, upsetting a picture frame. Felix sat on the top shelf, rubbing his paws together nervously. Horrified, Simon gestured for him to leave before someone else heard him, but it was too late.
Darryl stepped out of the kitchen. “Simon, what are you—” He spotted Felix, and cold fear washed over Simon. The mouse scrambled behind several books, but he had nowhere else to go.
“What are you and Mom talking about?” said Simon quickly, stepping between his uncle and the bookcase. Darryl advanced anyway, brandishing a spoon like a sword. “Who’s Orion?”
“Get out of my way, Simon,” growled Darryl. One good swing, and he could smash the bookcase into splinters. Felix squeaked again, and Simon’s mother appeared in the doorway.
“Darryl, what’s—oh, for heaven’s sake.” She sidestepped both of them and, reaching behind the books, expertly snatched Felix by the tail.
“Mom, no!” Simon tried to grab Felix, but his mother dangled him just out of reach.
“Who sent you?” she said, and at first Simon thought she was talking to him. A heartbeat later, he realized she meant Felix.
He felt like Bryan Barker had knocked the air out of him all over again. “You—you can talk to mice?”
She ignored him. “Tell me who sent you, or you won’t have this tail much longer. Then it’ll be your whiskers. Then your ears. Then your paws, and then—”
“Stop it!” said Simon. “He’s my friend. Let him go.”
“Your friend?” his mother and Darryl said at the same time, but at least she dropped Felix into Simon’s waiting hands.
“You know you’re supposed to stay in my room,” he said, painfully aware of Darryl and his mother watching him.
“But there are rats outside,” said Felix, trembling. “Hundreds.”
Darryl swore again. “Simon, pack a bag. Looks like we’re going with your mother after all.”
4
RATTED OUT
Simon stood in the living room, looking back and forth between Darryl and his mother. He’d come to expect this from his uncle whenever animals were concerned, but the panic-stricken look on his mother’s face told him that for once, Darryl wasn’t being paranoid.
“I’m not leaving,” he said. “Not until someone explains what’s happening. Who’s Orion? Why are a bunch of rats making us leave? And why didn’t you ever tell me you could talk to animals, too?”
This last question was directed to his mother. Neither she nor Darryl looked surprised that he could do the same thing. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said. “I never meant to lie, but we don’t have much time. You need to pack.”
“Pack for what? Where are we going?”
“As far away from here as we can get.”
“But why—”
“Please, Simon,” she said. “For me.”
She held his stare for several seconds, her blue eyes silently pleading, and at last Simon caved. “Fine. But you have to tell me everything.”
“I promise.”
As soon as he closed his bedroom door, Simon emptied his backpack and climbed onto his desk, stripping his wall of postcards. Only after he’d tucked them all into a side pocket of his bag did he bother with clothes. They were really leaving. All of them, together, far away from the city and Bryan Barker. Simon briefly considered pinching himself, but if he was dreaming, he didn’t want to wake up.
Darryl opened the door two minutes later, as Simon struggled to close the zipper. His uncle grabbed the backpack and yanked it shut for him, nearly ripping the seam. “Let’s go,” he said.