CHAPTER 24

Hello Goodbye

I took a mental inventory of all the things we had that might convince the guards we were powerful sorcerers.

We had two waterlogged, almost definitely not working, cell phones.

We had a trombone without a mouthpiece that might be forced to make a tweeting noise if somebody blew on it hard enough.

We had copies of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and If You Have an I-Ching—Scratch! sealed in Ziploc bags.

That was about it.

No, I realized, that wasn’t it. We had our looks. Ishmael was a towering white-haired white guy. That had to be a novelty in this time and place. We had Frankie’s olive skin, which had to be equally strange. And then there was Tom and me, wearing tattered and scorched dresses from the far future. To the three guards, we probably looked like demons from hell.

Our difference was our strength.

And we had my new attitude. Which was to beat the brown rice out of anybody who was the least bit intolerant.

I jumped at the guards. I waved my hands over my head and shouted “Hoo-hah!” I landed in front of them, and they jumped an equal distance back.

I bugged out my eyes and threw them a face, and started chanting lines from my favorite hip-hop artist, Kan Sa$s, because I knew the rhymes and rhythm would sound like magical incantations.

Nothing is perfect, and that is that;

I hate three-D movies when the soda is flat—

I laced my hands together, one up and one down, and did that thing where the two middle fingers wiggle back and forth, up and down, in opposite directions, like they’re joined at the knuckle. This always makes my four-year-old cousin giggle. The guards looked terrified.

Nothing is perfect, so what can you do?

I shaved my head to save on shamPOO!

I said “POO!” explosively and they fell back another foot. Nothing beats an explosive POO.

I hiked up my dress and did a Michael Jackson moonwalk. They were mesmerized. I parted my legs, grabbed my right knee with my right hand and my left knee with my left hand, then slammed my knees together, crossing my hands so it looked like I had interchangeable kneecaps. I repeated this a few times, until they could see I was no ordinary mortal.

Nothing is perfect, successes and fails,

Go together like boogers and fingernails!

“Your poetry does not scan,” said Ishmael.

“Get ready,” I said to him as I reached behind the middle guard’s ear and pretended to find a small rock, which I showed to the guards and all three of them went “Ooo!” My uncle Leon found nickels in my ears in the same way, so I knew it was powerful magic.

“Trombone, please,” I said without turning around, extending my hand behind me. Frankie passed me the Shagbolt.

I did left shoulder arms with it; I did right shoulder arms with it; I did present arms with it. I twirled it in front of me the way I had seen the Freedom Falls high school precision drill team twirl their fake rifles. I raised it and leveled it, as if I was about to play it, and sighted down its length at the forehead of the guard directly in front of me.

Nothing is perfect, that’s what I said;

You can’t save face when you’ve lost your head!

I shot the slide forward and hit the guard right between the eyes.

“NOW!” I shouted, knocking the spear out of the stunned guard’s hand with the Shagbolt.

Ishmael grabbed the spear of the guard closest to him and yanked it from his grip. He used it to parry the spear of the third guard while Tom and Jiang Ziya tackled the one he had just disarmed. I turned and tossed the Shagbolt to Frankie, then I plowed into the guard I had hit with the slide. He fumbled at his belt for a knife.

I knocked him to the ground, fell on him, and caught his knife hand before he could raise it. Squeezing his wrist with both hands, I beat his hand against the ground until the knife flew from his fingers.

Then I sat on his chest and pummeled him. I pretended he was Quentin Garlock and Lenny Killbreath and Archie Killbreath, and the man was crying by the time Ishmael pulled me off.

The man scrambled to his feet and followed his two friends, who were running back up the hill, disarmed and thoroughly beaten.

Jiang Ziya knelt down in front of me. I patted him on the head.

“How long before they bring back reinforcements?” asked Frankie.

Tom spoke quickly to Jiang, then said, “The city walls are about nine lis away. A li is about three hundred and fifty meters, so the city’s about two miles from here. I would guess we’ve got at least half an hour.”

“Then get busy and find that mouthpiece!” Frankie dropped to her knees and resumed the search.

“I don’t think it’s here,” I said.

“And I KNOW it is!” she snapped. “It HAS to be!”

She stopped raking through the pebbles and looked up at me.

“You don’t get it, do you?” she said. “It took me a while, but the more I thought about it, the more I think I understand.”

“What?” I was totally bewildered.

“The woman who stole my dad’s copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin out of my bedroom? Out of my locked-from-the-inside bedroom? You just assumed she came in through the window. My bedroom doesn’t have a window! When she held her finger to her lips to tell me to be quiet? She was wearing my charm bracelet!”

“Holy cow!” said Tom. “She stole your bracelet, too?”

Frankie glared at him.

“It’s her bracelet, every bit as much as it is mine!” she snapped.

“You mean”—I took a wild guess—“that woman was your grandmother?”

“No!” Frankie hit her forehead with the heel of her hand. “She wasn’t my grandmother! I haven’t told you two everything because it would have changed the way you behaved. It would have made you think that nothing could hurt you, and that could have gotten you both killed.”

“What haven’t you told us?” I asked, still lost.

“The woman who stole the book had the Shagbolt with her. She used it to get into the room. I’m positive that woman was me. She was my future self! Although I can’t believe I will ever wear that much eyeliner!”

“Your future self came back through time to steal a book? Why would she do that?”

“After everything we’ve been through, I can think of only one possible explanation. But, at the moment, it’s not important. What I’m trying to tell you is, I know I use the Shagbolt in the future! So the mouthpiece has to be here somewhere, because the Shagbolt doesn’t stay here! Understand?”

A loud thud and a groan came from the right. We looked over to see Mr. Ganto sliding to the base of the hill on his butt. Frankie jackknifed to her feet and raced over to him, the rest of us close behind.

“I am all right,” Ganto assured us sheepishly. “I slipped. Hill was steeper than I thought.”

“And you’re not as well as you think,” said Frankie. “We have to get you home.”

“There is an army coming this way,” said Ganto, holding up a dented bronze helmet and handing it to Tom. “Souvenir.”

Tom showed the helmet to Jiang and asked, “Shang?” and Jiang quickly nodded.

“They are mustering just beyond the hill,” Ganto continued. “I will guess thirty thousand men. There are horses and chariots. They are organizing for a march, facing east. The trail will bring them around that bend and through this valley. The vanguard is already moving. We are in its path.”

“Okay,” said Tom breathlessly, staring at the helmet like it was the greatest of treasures. “This is the beginning of the end for the Shangs. This has to be the start of the Battle of Muye. Idiot king Di Xin sends most of his army to fight some minor enemy in the east, leaving the city undefended. Then his real enemy, the Zhou army, shows up and attacks his city. Di Xin arms his slaves, ordering them to defend the city and, big surprise, the slaves turn on him. So do half of his own guards, he’s such a popular guy. The Shang dynasty falls. And we get to see it!”

“NO WE DO NOT!” said Frankie, rushing back to the riverbed and resuming her search. “If thirty thousand men tramp through here, it will bury the mouthpiece! Then it might take us years to find it! And we might spend those years as captives! I don’t really want to spend another minute here! Mr. Ganto needs medical care! Help me!”

“It wouldn’t be that bad,” said Tom. “I can speak the language, and we’ve already made a friend. If we just hide out for a while, we’ll survive the battle, and we could live out our lives in the early days of the new dynasty. The Zhous were pretty good.”

“I don’t care how good they were; we’re not staying here!” said Frankie, glaring at me meaningfully, like she thought maybe I had swallowed the mouthpiece and she was considering drastic measures to get it back.

I studied our surroundings. Other than the clump of rocks that had hidden Jiang Ziya, I could see nowhere to hide. I didn’t think we had enough time to make it over either hillside. Not if we were going to waste another minute sifting through pebbles.

“Ask the I-Ching where the mouthpiece is,” I said.

“What?” Tom looked stricken.

Frankie stood up like she had been struck by lightning.

“Yes! Do you still have the book?”

“Um, yeah, but I’m sure it’s soaked. The pages are probably all stuck together—”

“You had it in a Ziploc bag,” I reminded him. “Why don’t you look?”

Tom dug hesitantly in the pocket of his apron. In the far distance, I could hear someone shouting. It sounded like a sergeant drilling his men. I had a feeling the sound was the same no matter what century you were in.

“Dry as a bone!” declared Frankie, snatching the book from Tom’s hands and breaking the seal on the bag. “Flip your coin! We should all concentrate on the mouthpiece.”

“I—I lost the quarter,” stammered Tom, and I knew he was lying. He really and truly hoped we would all stay in ancient China.

“Here,” said Ishmael, producing a gold coin from his pocket and handing it to Tom. “Don’t mind the hole in it. A crazy man once nailed it to a post.”

“Flip it!” ordered Frankie.

Tom tossed the coin. I picked up a stick and drew the six lines his tosses produced.

HEXAGRAM 29

THE WATERY ABYSS.

STUFF GETS WASHED AWAY. THINGS GO DOWN THE DRAIN. YOU HAVE TO BE QUICK TO CATCH THEM. IF YOU USE WAFFLES INSTEAD OF BREAD TO MAKE A BLUEBERRY SANDWICH, FEWER BLUEBERRIES WILL FALL ON THE FLOOR.

“‘The Watery Abyss,’” I read aloud from the book, getting a sinking feeling in my stomach.

“It must mean the mouthpiece is at the bottom of the waterfall!” said Tom, barely able to conceal his delight.

“And I know it isn’t,” said Frankie. “What’s the Morse?”

“The Morse?” said Tom, as if he had no idea what she was talking about. “Oh, the Morse!” He scowled at the hexagram. He shook his head. “There doesn’t seem to be any.”

I could hear a series of repetitive thumps, like the sound of many marching feet.

“Tom!” I said, and tried to get him to look at me. He wouldn’t meet my gaze. “Tom,” I repeated, more gently.

“All right, all right,” he muttered miserably, kneeling, and ticking off the parts of the hexagram. “It’s two dots, a dash and a dot, followed by a dot, then another dot, ending with a dot, a dash, and two dots.”

“Four letters,” I said. “What does it spell?”

“Feel.”

“Feel?” I was hoping for something a little more specific, like tree or rock, telling us where to search for the mouthpiece. Even gut, if I had, in fact, somehow managed to swallow it. “What’s feel supposed to mean?”

“Maybe we’re supposed to feel something,” said Frankie, looking around. The marching noise was getting louder.

“I do feel something,” I assured her. “I feel panic, like we’re all about to get drafted into an army of losers!”

Tom turned away and began flipping the coin again. Frankie stepped up to me and, without asking permission, started to frisk me. She briskly patted my chest and raised my arms so she could pat my armpits. She lifted my apron and started squeezing the cloth.

“I already looked in my apron,” I said. “The pocket is empty.”

She slipped a hand in the pocket anyway.

“There’s a small hole in it!” she said excitedly, and started running her hands along the apron’s hem.

The sound of marching feet washed down the dried streambed like the start of a flood. Mr. Ganto stood and positioned himself between us and the approaching noise. I don’t know what he expected to do, facing thirty thousand soldiers.

“Ha!” exclaimed Frankie, and ripped the apron’s fabric. She triumphantly held up the mouthpiece. “It fell in your pocket and wound up in the lining! We just had to FEEL for it!”

She picked up the Shagbolt and fitted the mouthpiece into place, looking like she was jamming a cartridge into a rifle. As she raised it to her lips, I noticed Tom consulting the I-Ching book. At his feet he had drawn a new hexagram:

Seeing the look on his face, I said, “Tom, what is it?”

He glanced my way, his face somehow both happy and full of regret at the same time.

“It’s the seventh hexagram!”

Frankie blew the first note of our area code. Tom quickly came over to me and surprised me with a hug. He clutched me like he was never going to let me go. As soon as I got over my shock, I hugged him back.

“Best friends!” he said. “Forever!”

Then he pulled away and started walking up the hill.

“What—” I started to say as Frankie played the fourth and fifth notes. She was facing Ishmael and Mr. Ganto; she was paying no attention to us.

A column of armored men swung into view, way up the streambed, so distant they looked like toy soldiers. It might take them a minute or two to notice us. By then, I knew, we’d be gone.

Frankie played the sixth note.

Tom raised his arms and covered his ears with his hands. I heard him start humming loudly to himself. It sounded like a Beatles song.

Hello Goodbye.

“WAIT!” I shouted.

Frankie played the final note.