SEVEN

“Are you okay, Carter?” Leila asked, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him into a hug.

Carter managed to speak through the squeeze. “Actually, I think I am. I’ve been worried ever since the beginning of the summer that Sly would come looking for me. It feels like a weird relief knowing it finally happened.”

“A relief?” Ridley asked. “Even if he came here to hurt you?”

“Hurt him?” said Theo. “Did you not hear what the man said? He wants to bring Carter home with him. He said he has changed.”

“You can’t take the word of a man like that!” Ridley felt her voice rising. “People lie, Theo. They lie. All. The. Time. Especially people who want something from you. You should know that more than the rest of us.” The face of Emily Meridian flashed in Ridley’s memory. Theo’s eyes crinkled to angry slits.

“Okay, okay,” said Leila, releasing her cousin from her grasp. She held her hands out as if to create a loop that would bring the group together again. “We’ve just been thrown a curveball. First the Kalagan stuff. And now the return of Carter’s uncle.” She led them outside, peeking her head into the alley to check for Sly first. “What do we do about it?”

“Continue on as planned,” said Ridley. “We meet tomorrow. We talk to the people who attacked us. Press them for information.”

“I’m confused,” said Izzy.

Olly held his hand to her forehead. “Confused is our middle name, sis.”

Izzy shook him off. “If we’ve decided to not worry about Carter’s uncle Sly coming to Mineral Wells, then I guess we shouldn’t worry that he’s standing at the end of the alleyway, across the street, pretending to not watch us.”

The group turned as one. Izzy was right. Sly was across the street from the alleyway, staring into the window of a candle shop. Clearly, he was using its reflection to spy on them.

Carter shuddered, all of his confidence falling away. “What now?” he asked.

“We escape,” said Leila.

The plan was this: Olly and Izzy, who were the fastest of them, would approach Uncle Sly and distract him with a jazzy tap dance routine, while the others split into pairs and scattered. They’d reconvene at Ridley’s house, which was the closest safe spot.

(Oh, dear reader, have you ever made a plan that went quickly awry? Where your best intentions were thwarted before you even had a chance to find out if they might have worked? Well, I’m sorry to say, this plan went just like that.)

Before the Golden twins made it even halfway across the street, Uncle Sly turned, raising his hands over his head. “Don’t come any closer!” he shouted. Olly and Izzy glanced back at the group. Ridley waved at them to retreat. But before they could, Uncle Sly brought his hands down. Ear-popping sounds exploded at the twins’ feet. He’d thrown several Bang Snaps, the kind Mr. Vernon had once kept in boxes at the magic shop. Olly and Izzy jumped out of the way. This gave Sly enough time to focus on the group and see what they were up to.

“Everyone, go!” Carter yelled. “Now!”

The Misfits divided. Olly and Izzy ran directly up the center of the street toward the town hall. Leila and Theo took off in the opposite direction. This left Carter and Ridley to stare down his uncle at the mouth of the theater’s alley.

“Climb on,” Ridley whispered to Carter as she flicked a switch near her headrest. At the back of the chair, just behind the wheels, two footrests fell down and locked into place.

Carter let out a grunt as he leapt onto the back of the chair. Ridley pushed another button near her lower back, and her wheels spun a moment before catching the ground and shooting the friends up the sidewalk.

“He’s coming,” Carter said into her ear. Ridley grabbed at her right wheel, spinning the chair so that it turned into the next alleyway. They flew down it, headed for the open end where they would burst out onto the street parallel to the one they’d entered on.

“He’s still on our heels,” Carter yelled.

“Isn’t there something you can do to slow him down?”

Carter yelped as he realized that he did, indeed, have something. “My cards!”

Ridley heard a soft zzzzzppp as Carter bent both decks and then let the playing cards whizz back down the alley. Behind them, Uncle Sly yipped. There came the sound of stumbling and bumbling and tripping and falling (which, in case you were wondering, is a pretty satisfying sound when it happens to someone this rotten). As Ridley’s chair skidded out onto the sidewalk, she grabbed her left wheel so hard that she spun entirely around. Carter’s cards had formed a slick surface on which the soles of Uncle Sly’s shiny shoes could not stay put.

“Carter! Wait!” he cried out.

The electric motor whined, and the chair trembled as Ridley released her right wheel and then continued onward. She felt Carter’s warmth and weight at her back. “We need a place to hide out,” Ridley said over her shoulder.

“There!” Carter pointed to a shop’s sign hanging over a doorway a dozen yards ahead.

TOYS.

“Perfect.”

Carter hopped off the back of the chair and opened the door. Ridley shoved inside. “We need to get away from the front window in case your uncle’s back on his feet.”

“Can I help you with something?” asked the saleswoman. The pink walls of the toy shop were lined with glossy white shelves, and the shelves were filled with erector sets, construction kits, boxes with science experiments, jigsaw puzzles, and fashion dolls.

“Just looking!” Ridley practically shouted, flipping the switch that turned off her chair’s electric motor.

“We have a private birthday party happening at the rear of the store,” said the woman, “so if you could steer clear of—”

“Got it!” Ridley said, aiming her chair exactly toward the spot the woman was warning her about. A crowd of children was gathered around a table loaded with purple frosted cupcakes.

“She told us not to head back there!” Carter whispered worriedly as he followed behind.

“Too bad. I’m saving our hides.” Ridley navigated around the children, their faces marked with the violet guts of their party treats.

A few grown-ups glared at her, but a little girl dressed in overalls and a tiara held out a cupcake, proclaiming, “It’s my birthday!” Noticing Top Hat nuzzled in Ridley’s lap, the girl squealed, “Can I hold the bunny?”

“Maybe later,” Ridley murmured, examining the room. The shelves surrounding the party were lined with stuffed animals. Lions. Giraffes. Hippos. Dogs. Cats. Raccoons. Frogs. Penguins. And a few octopuses. Ridley waved at Carter to come closer. “Quick,” she said, reaching into a panel at the side of her chair. “Take this. And follow my lead.”

After prepping the area, Ridley and Carter moved toward the farthest wall at the back of the shop and waited. The party went on. The two watched the front door. People outside passed by the shop. Each new face that appeared gave Ridley’s stomach a jolt.

“Is it safe to head out yet?” Carter asked.

“He’s waiting for us,” Ridley answered. “Give it a few more minutes.”

Less than thirty seconds later, Carter’s uncle appeared in the doorway. Sly glanced past the saleswoman as she greeted him, “Can I help—”

“You see two kids come in here?” he asked.

Ridley watched the saleswoman’s face as she startled at his gruffness. Don’t do it, she thought. Don’t—But then the woman looked toward the back of the store, right at Carter and Ridley. Sly’s eyes followed.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” Carter murmured.

Ridley shushed him as Uncle Sly pushed past the saleswoman. “Hey, kids!” Ridley called out. The young ones all turned to look at her. “You wanna see a magic trick?”

They jumped up and down. “YESSSSS!!!”

Sly shouted over them. “Carter, I’m sorry! I saw your friends sneaking up behind me and I panicked. I was waiting to talk to you again.” He squinted as he tried to decide which side of the cupcake table to come around so that he could finally reach them. When he moved to the left, Ridley raised her left hand and shouted, “Abra-ca-dabra!” The kids squealed as all of the stuffed animals on that side of the table flew off the shelves and bounced off Carter’s uncle. They swarmed to catch the animals, crowding Sly, who was suddenly trapped in a small sea of screaming children and plush toys.

“Let’s go,” she whispered to Carter, who dropped the clear fishing line that he’d been holding. If Sly had chosen the right side of the table, Carter was to have pulled on his line, making the animals on the right side fly off the shelves. As it was, now they slipped down the free right side and then rushed out the door.