“Well, they both sound stupid,” she concluded, then followed Paul.
The mall was a collection of all sorts of shops and eateries, surround by a broad expanse of inlaid bricks. The three of them stopped to see which restaurant looked most appetizing—assuming, of course, they accepted Reality Prime money. Tick’s hopes were rising, because this place had some of the same fast-food chains as back home—their logos were just slightly different.
“Ooh, look—” Tick started to say, but a man stopped him by pulling on his elbow. Tick looked behind him to see a short, fidgety man with the worst comb-over Tick had ever seen.
“Excuse me,” the man said, his face breaking into a smile that would have looked more natural on a rattlesnake. “Is your name, er, Atticus Higginbottom?”
Tick didn’t know what he’d expected the man to say, but his mouth dropped open and his heart started thumping.
“Um,” he said, looking over at his friends to see if they’d heard. By the stunned looks on their faces, he figured they had. He turned back to the man. “Yeah, I’m Tick, I mean, Atticus.”
“That’s great, real great,” the man said, more relieved than happy. “Someone named, um, Mothball asked me to find you and offer you rooms in my hotel, The Stroke of Midnight Inn. My name is Phillip, and I’m happy to accommodate you.”
Then he bowed. He actually bowed.
Tick felt immediately suspicious, and it only took a second for him to see his friends felt the same.
“Mothball sent you?” Sofia asked.
“Why didn’t she come herself?” Paul added.
Phillip pulled his head back, looking like a startled—albeit pudgy—chicken. “I don’t know—why would I make something like that up?”
“What does she look like?” Tick asked.
The man didn’t hesitate. “She’s very tall—the tallest person I’ve ever laid eyes on. Black hair, thin, not very . . . well, what I mean to say is . . . well, she’s a bit homely, to be honest.”
“A-plus on that quiz,” Paul muttered, and Tick felt himself relax a little.
“She said you’d be staying here for a week or so,” Phillip continued. “She paid me in advance and asked me to provide you three meals a day, plus whatever else you might need.”
The prospect of a nice hotel room, a hot shower, and all the food he could eat sounded to Tick like the single best idea in the history of best ideas.
“Good enough for me,” Paul said. “Where do we go?”
“Wait a minute,” Sofia said, holding out her hand. “There has to be something else. There’s no message, no reason, nothing? I don’t like this.”
“Actually,” Phillip said, “she did leave you an envelope. It’s sealed, so of course I don’t know its contents. Oddly enough, she asked me to give it to you at exactly six o’clock.” He looked at his watch. “Um, tomorrow morning.”
Tick looked at his own watch—it was just past six-thirty. “Sounds pretty legit to me. I actually feel a ton better—like maybe Master George is behind all of this after all.”
“Yeah,” Paul agreed. “Let’s go eat.”
Sofia didn’t answer at first, her eyes distant as she thought it over. “Where’s the hotel?” she finally asked.
“Right this way,” Phillip said, stepping aside and sweeping his arm wide. “If you’ll follow me, it’s on the edge of town. In fact, I’ve reserved rooms for you with a great view.”
As Phillip led the group north along the road, Paul asked, “A view of what?”
“The forest, of course,” Phillip said without missing a step. “If you look out your window after dark, you might see the glowing monkeys.”
Tick waited for the man to laugh, but the only one who did was Paul. Tick almost asked if he’d been serious, but with everyone else silent, he felt stupid for even thinking it. Of course the guy was kidding. Wasn’t he?
Chapter
23
~
The Time Riddle
The hotel was like something out of Hollywood. Big pillars, stamped gold everywhere, doormen in green velvet coats running around, treating their guests like royalty. A huge sign hung above the entrance with The Stroke of Midnight Inn written in fancy script. Inside, everything sparkled and shone, and not a person in sight had a grimace or the slightest hint of a frown. Plush red carpet blanketed the floors and grand staircase, over which an enormous chandelier hung with hundreds of crystalline lights.
I’ve died and gone to heaven, Tick thought.
He knew Paul must feel the same, but Sofia would surely find something to complain about, having come from such a rich family.
Phillip led them to the fourth floor—walking up the stairs, the poor man sucked in huge gasps of breath with every step—and down a long hallway to their rooms. When Paul asked him why they hadn’t used the elevator, Phillip responded with a baffled look, as if he’d never heard of such a thing.
Phillip opened up a room with an old-fashioned key. Tick was surprised since he’d only ever seen the magnetic-stripe key card at hotels. The room was filled with normal hotel things: a king-sized bed, a small refrigerator, a couch, a desk, and a bathroom. The only difference was that the items were ten times nicer than the stuff in hotels Tick had been in when his family traveled.
“There are three rooms in all,” Phillip announced, passing out keys accordingly. “There’s a menu on the desk for you to order food from the restaurant. Please be reasonable, but make sure you feed yourself nicely. Is there anything—”
“Where’s the TV?” Paul asked.
Phillip gave him that same bewildered look, his brow crunched up into dozens of wrinkles. “A TV? What’s that?”
“Television. You know—movies, shows, commercials, television?”
“Sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Tick looked at the light on the wall, which Phillip had turned on when they’d entered the room. They obviously had electricity here, but seemed to be missing a lot of other things common to Reality Prime.
As if reading his mind, Sofia asked, “Where are all the cars?”
Phillip put his hands in his pockets, his confused look morphing into suspicion. “Cars have been banned for at least twenty years.”
“Banned?” Tick asked. “Why?”
“And how do you get around?” Paul asked before Phillip could respond.
The hotel man shook his head, looking at his three guests in turn. “When that . . . when Mothball made me this deal, I didn’t realize she’d be sending such odd people. Where are you kids from?”
“Florida,” Paul answered. “Well, originally from California—”
Sofia cut him off. “It doesn’t matter. But we’re curious about the cars. Where we come from, they still use them.”
“The darn things were polluting us to death,” Phillip said, still appearing uneasy as he rocked back and forth on his feet. “So they banned them, made towns where everything was in walking distance. If you want to visit another town, you take the Underground Railroad—named after the lady who escaped the slave drivers a long time ago—the one who became president, Harrietta Tubben.”
Tick and Sofia exchanged baffled looks.
“So you’ve got trains, underground?” Paul asked.
“Fastest ones in the world,” Phillip answered, eyeing the door. “If there’s nothing else . . .”
“Thanks for letting us stay here,” Tick said, liking the idea of seeing Phillip leave and finally ordering some food. “Don’t forget to bring us that message from Mothball.”
“I won’t, I won’t,” the man assured them, already backing out the door into the hallway. “Order a nice dinner and get some rest.”
Tick closed the door before the last word made it all the way out of Phillip’s mouth.
“Well,” Sofia said, “this place is just like home compared to the last Reality—desert, glass tunnel, raging beast.”
“All I care about right now is food,” Paul said. He’d already picked
up the phone to call room service.
~
Later that night, his stomach stuffed with roasted duck and asparagus (they didn’t have pizza or hamburgers in this place), fully showered and clean, Tick lay in his bed and stared at the ceiling. Every ounce of his body begged for sleep, his mind deadened with exhaustion. And yet, he remained awake.
Man, I have a weird life.
He’d lost track of how long they’d been gone—it seemed like a month, but he knew it was only a few days, maybe a week at most. He knew his mom and dad were back home, worry eating at them like ferrets trapped in their gut, trying to stay chipper for Lisa and Kayla. Tick wished he could send them a message, talk to them somehow. Just to let them know he was okay.
A hard knock at his door made him jump. Crumpling up the sheets in his bed, he wiggled into a sitting position, his back pressed against the wall. He stared at the small space under the door, where two small shadows marked someone’s feet.
“Who is it?” he called out, embarrassed at how shaky his voice sounded to his own ears.
“It’s me, sleepyhead,” Paul replied, the words muffled through the wood.
Tick sighed with relief as he threw the covers aside. He hurried over and opened the door. Sofia was behind Paul, her eyes puffy with sleep. Each of them wore fancy-looking flannel pajamas provided by the hotel, and Sofia’s looked about three sizes too big.
“What’s going on?” Tick asked.
“Dude, have you looked out the window?” Paul stepped into the room, pushing past Tick.
“Um, no.” Tick stepped aside to let Sofia in, then closed the door. He flicked on the light, but Paul quickly waved his hand at him.
“No, dude, turn it off!”
Tick did as he was told, grumbling a little. All he wanted right now was to be left alone and sleep for days. He felt so tired and his body hurt like he had the flu. The only light in the room was a mysterious panel on the wall that shone a dull yellow. Something about it gave Tick the creeps.
Paul leaned next to the window, carefully pulling aside the curtains to peek through the corner, as if spying on someone in the parking lot. Tick faltered as he joined Paul—this place didn’t have a parking lot.
“What are you looking at?” Tick asked.
Sofia knelt at the other end of the window, lifting that corner of the curtains to peer out. The two of them looked ridiculous.
“Santy Claus,” Paul whispered. “What do you think we’re looking at?”
“I don’t know—that’s why I asked.”
Sofia turned toward Tick, the disgusted look on her face barely discernible in the faint light. “The glowing monkeys.”
“Oh, yeah!” Tick couldn’t believe he’d not even looked—a sign that his brain had gone to sleep even though his body had refused. He squatted on the floor between his friends and slowly lifted the bottom of the curtain to take a peek.
Outside, the dark forest stood like a fortress wall, massive trees silhouetted by the pale moonlight seeping through the thick clouds above. The city behind the hotel had a surprising lack of nighttime lights, making Tick feel like they were in a cabin deep in the wilderness. And there in the woods, radiant and eerie and constantly in motion, dozens of creepy glowing shapes moved about the trees.
“Those don’t look like monkeys,” Tick whispered. When he’d heard the word glowing, he’d imagined his old skeleton Halloween decoration back home, which appeared as a whitish-yellowish blur in the darkness. But this light was much different. This light was bright and stark and reddish, and the creatures looked a lot bigger than monkeys. “They look more like . . . radioactive bears.”
“Yeah,” Paul whispered back. “Demon bears.”
“Why are you guys whispering?” Sofia said, so loud that both Tick and Paul quickly shushed her. “What? You think those things will come and eat us? I’m pretty sure the hotel would’ve gone out of business if their customers were routinely eaten by monkeys whenever they spoke louder than a whisper.”
“I don’t know,” Paul said, still in a low voice. “Just seems like you should whisper when spying on monstrous, glowing creatures. So be quiet.”
“Pansy,” Sofia muttered, returning to the window.
Paul reached over and elbowed Tick. “Did you teach her that word?”
“No.”
“She’s getting way too American—makes me uncomfortable.”
Sofia tsked. “I love it when you guys talk about me as if I can’t hear you.”
“What do you think those things are?” Tick asked, trying to steer the conversation in a different direction before Paul ended up getting punched again.
“I bet it has something to do with the ban on cars,” Sofia said. “Something really weird happened here. Maybe it affected the animals. Maybe they are radioactive.”
“Remind me not to go on a walk out there tomorrow after breakfast,” Paul said.
Tick let the curtain fall into place and leaned back against the bed. “That’s enough monkey-watching for me. Phillip’s bringing us that message from Mothball in just a few hours. We need some sleep.”
“How can you sleep with psycho-radioactive-gorilla-bears playing outside your window?” Paul asked, his nose seemingly glued to the glass.
“I think I’ll manage. Get out.”
Surprisingly, Sofia grumbled more than Paul did as Tick kicked them out of his room.
~
The next morning, Phillip didn’t pound the door nearly as hard as Paul had done just a few hours earlier. At first, the light tapping came in the form of a woodpecker in Tick’s dream, one where he sat in the backyard laughing while his dad jumped about trying to put out flames on the barbecue. It happened every time the man made hamburgers, which is why Tick always made sure he had a front-row seat.
A woodpecker had never been there, however, and even in his dream, Tick knew something was wrong. When it kept knocking and pecking and tapping, he somehow pulled himself out of sleep. With groggy eyes and cottonmouth, he got out of bed and stumbled to the door, sad that the dream had been interrupted.
Phillip wore the exact same clothes as he had yesterday, still rocking back and forth on his feet. He handed over a yellow envelope—one that looked very familiar to Tick, who snatched it without meaning to.
“Sorry,” he said. “Just eager to read it.”
“Are you finding your stay pleasant?” Phillip asked, no emotion or sincerity in his voice whatsoever.
“Yes, we really appreciate it,” Tick said, unable to take his eyes off the envelope, which bore no marking or writing. When he finally looked up, Phillip had already begun walking down the hall toward the stairs.
Thoughts of the odd man quickly evaporated as Tick hurried to knock on Paul’s door. It took three tries, but Paul finally answered, rubbing his eyes.
“Come on,” Tick urged, heading next door to Sofia’s room.
He’d just held up his hand to knock when the door flew open, Sofia waiting there—fully dressed in her newly provided clothes and looking surprisingly pretty. “Did you get the note?”
Tick held up the envelope.
“Then get in here and let’s open it,” she said, stepping aside and almost comically jerking her head toward the inside.
Tick entered and sat in the desk chair, with Paul looking over his right shoulder, Sofia his left. With slightly trembling hands, Tick opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of white cardstock paper. With the others following along, he read the typed words out loud:
This place is nice, but not quite heaven.
You must start on the hour of seven
Add six hours then take away three,
Then add ten more and do it with glee.
Let one week of time go by,
Sit and rest and eat and sigh.
Then twenty-two hours less three plus two,
At that time decide what to do.
It does not matter; I do not care.
Just make sure your feet find air.
; “It’s easy,” Sofia said.
“Yeah, too easy,” Paul agreed. “Which means we’re in deep trouble.”
Tick shook his head. “It’ll be easy to figure out the time, but there’s nothing that tells us what to do at that time.”
“Yowza,” Paul said, then whistled. “You’re dead on. What are we supposed to do at five in the afternoon one week from tomorrow?”
Tick jerked his head around to look up at Paul. “You already figured it out?”
“I told you it was easy.” He slapped Tick on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, little dude, not everyone can be as brilliant as the Paulmeister.”
Sofia snorted. “I figured it out, too, Einstein.”
Tick quickly ran through the riddle in his head. Sure enough—5:00 pm, one week from tomorrow.
“A whole week?” he said. “What are we supposed to do until then?”
“I’ll tell you what we do,” Paul said, flopping onto the small couch and sticking his feet up on the armrest. “What my grandpa calls a little R and R.”
Sofia walked over and slapped Paul’s feet to the floor, almost knocking his whole body off the couch.
“If you ever did that in my house, my butler would chop off one of your toes.” She sat next to him, ignoring his stuck-out tongue. “It does sound good to relax for awhile, but we’d better start thinking hard about what’s hidden in that message.”
“Yeah,” Tick said. “What happens if five o’clock rolls around and we don’t do what we’re supposed to?”
His only answer was a very long silence.
Chapter
24
~
An Insane Mission
Sato adjusted the straps on his backpack, pulling them tight so they wouldn’t rub blisters on his skin. It was heavy, Mothball and Rutger having gone overboard as usual to make sure he had everything he needed.
“What did you put in here?” he asked. They stood by the window overlooking the Grand Canyon, the early streams of sunrise reflecting off the sheer stone walls with a reddish glow. “Some bricks in case I need to build a house?”