CHAPTER TEN

PIE ’N BURGER, PIED AND PIPE

Filomena takes them to the Pie ’n Burger, one of the oldest restaurants in the adjacent and much larger town of Pasadena. (Yes, there is a Pasadena, a North Pasadena, and a South Pasadena, but she thinks one of them might be fictional.) At the diner she chases down three delicious cheeseburgers, as well as generous helpings of pie. Jack declared the meal as good as a giant’s feast.

Afterward, Filomena used her saved-up allowance money to hire a cab to take them to the Hollywood Hills, where the sign is located.

“Most people think of Los Angeles as Hollywood, and Hollywood as a place where movies and television shows are made. I don’t think you guys have those in Never After, do you? It’s like, make-believe things that people watch to pass the time,” she tells them when they’re comfortably seated in the back seat of a taxi.

“Like puppet shows!” says Alistair.

“Yeah, sort of,” says Filomena. “But anyway, Hollywood isn’t just where they make movies or, um, puppet shows. It’s a neighborhood, just like North Pasadena, where I live.”

Jack looks out the window thoughtfully. “Like a different village.”

“Exactly!” says Filomena, pleased.

It takes about an hour to get to their destination, and when they arrive, it’s a long hike on foot to the top of the hill near the Hollywood sign. The three of them peer up at the sign.

“Yup, that’s it. That’s where we landed,” says Alistair.

“I knew you’d know the way to the portal,” says Jack with a smile.

Filomena smiles back, even though she doesn’t feel like she’s accomplished anything great, but it’s nice to be appreciated for once.

Jack leads the way, walking quickly through the brush while Alistair huffs behind him.

Filomena checks the time and is relieved that it’s not as late as she thought. She can get back to school for pickup at the usual hour, and her parents won’t suspect anything. She turns off her phone during school hours—students aren’t allowed to use their phones at school—which is convenient. If her mom were watching the tracker on her phone, she would surely have freaked out to see that Filomena is miles away from school, where she should be, and Filomena doesn’t like worrying her parents.

One time she wasn’t outside for the usual 3 P.M. pickup, and her parents almost had a meltdown. They’d forgotten she had band practice. What if she gets back late today? She can picture them now, running around the house, then the neighborhood. All the calls they’d make to all the parents they know who have children at her school.

At least her list of friends isn’t long, so they won’t have an abundance of phone calls to make. In that way, her antisocial behavior and apparent inability to form genuine friendships is finally coming in handy. You’re welcome, Mum and Dad!

Filomena’s thoughts are disrupted as she trips over a rock. Jack catches her arm just as she’s about to fall, and their eyes meet for a moment. Shyly, they both look away.

When they arrive in front of the sign, Alistair sits on the curve of one of the Os and wipes his forehead.

“So where’s the tree?” asks Filomena.

Jack waves toward a particularly large and shady oak, but neither of them seems to be in any hurry to head toward it.

“So I guess this is goodbye, then,” says Filomena tentatively.

“Uh, not quite,” says Jack.

“We lost the key to the tree,” explains Alistair.

“The Pied Pipe! That unlocks the portal! Of course!” says Filomena joyfully. Until Alistair’s words set in and joy turns to aggravation. “What do you mean, you lost it?”

“It fell from my pocket when we got here,” says Jack, looking around at the dirt and grass. “We just have to find it, and then we’ll be on our way.”

“Okay, well, good luck, then!” says Filomena.

Alistair looks stricken. “You’re leaving us?!”

“Um, yeah. Do you have any idea how grounded I’m going to be if I don’t get back to school in time for my mom or dad to pick me up?”

She doesn’t even know if she has enough money to pay for another cab ride home. She might have to take the bus. Come to think of it, they probably should have taken the bus to get here.

As curious as she is about Never After, she’s also a bit afraid of the whole thing. While she’s accepted that Jack and Alistair are real, part of her is still unconvinced that everything about Never After is real. Besides, her parents would want her safely back home, not traipsing around some fantasyland.

But as she backs away, she notices Jack pulling what looks like a small glass marble out of his pocket. It begins to transform in his hands, stretching and changing and shifting shape, making all sorts of funny noises until it settles into its true shape and he sets it over his left eye.

It looks like an ordinary brass telescope, the kind of thing her dad would buy on a hobby website. Except Jack is pointing it not to the sky but at the ground. When he swings it in her direction, she can see a large open eye staring at her from the glass. It’s not gray, like Jack’s eyes. It’s golden.

“That’s a Seeing Eye!” she breathes. She’s only ever read about it and can’t hide her delight—here it is, in real life! She stops walking backward and instead walks closer to Jack to get a better look at it. Maybe if she hovers, he’ll offer her a peek.

“Ahem,” she says, clearing her throat three times.

Except of course boys never notice the obvious. Jack keeps using the magical telescope to sweep over the landscape, oblivious.

Finally, Filomena speaks up. “Hey, can I see that?” She’s trying to sound cool and nonchalant, definitely not like the hyperventilating superfan she is in her heart.

“Oh, sure,” he says. “Just be careful with it, please. It’s our only hope of finding the Pied Pipe. There’s too much brush here. It’s way too dense. But this thing should be able to find it if it’s close. After all, its glass is made of—”

“Stardust,” Filomena says, finishing his sentence. “I know, and I know how precious it is. I read all the books, remember?”

She lifts it to her eye and peers through the glass. It looks heavy and chunky, but in reality it’s delicate, made of pearls and stardust, so wispy and weightless you could place it on a butterfly’s wing with ease.

“It has to be around here,” says Jack, who doesn’t seem all that worried, just like in the books when he’s presented with terrifying obstacles.

“The Pied Pipe will only show itself if it wants to be found,” Filomena whispers as she swings the Seeing Eye over the immediate terrain.

Like Jack, Filomena is not discouraged, but when she spots something small and flute-shaped glimmering with light on the ground not too far from the tree, she’s so astonished that she almost drops the thing. “I saw it! The Pied Pipe! It’s over there!” she says, handing the Seeing Eye back to Jack.

He puts it up to his own eye and nods. “Good work. Let’s go!”

He starts moving forward with steady and determined steps, pausing to gaze through the Seeing Eye every few feet, Alistair and Filomena close behind.

“I don’t see it,” Alistair says.

“That’s because the Pied Pipe has a mind of its own, Alistair,” Filomena tells him. “It can hide, or it can show itself if it wants to be found.”

“Exactly,” says Jack. “Stubborn thing, probably doesn’t want to go home just yet.”

Sure enough, the pipe keeps hiding in and out of vision as they walk closer to the tree, but Jack’s got a lock on its location and jumps on it before it can hide again.

“Aha!” he says, holding up the pipe as the Seeing Eye transforms back into a small marble and he puts it in his pocket. “Will you do the honors?” he asks Alistair.

Alistair beams and puts the flute to his lips.

But before he can play a note, a loud boom of thunder crashes in a proximity too close for comfort, and a lightning bolt zaps Jack Stalker where he stands. Alistair and Filomena duck down, covering their heads. The haunting, menacing cackling begins, escalating into mad screeching and ear-piercing howls.

“She’s back!” cries Alistair.

“It’s just her malice!” wheezes Jack, writhing on the ground, his vines blackened and smoking. “We’re near the portal and she can sense us!”

“Jack!” Filomena cries, running to his side.

“We gotta get out of here!” says Alistair as more thunderbolts crash all around them.

“Open the portal!” Filomena yells. “Hurry!”

But Alistair is frozen, gaping at the flames. He’s too frightened to think, and the flute trembles in his grasp.

Filomena grabs the Pied Pipe from his hands and lifts it to her lips. Without thinking, she plays the first tune that comes to mind: the theme from the movies based on the Never After books, of course. Sure enough, it unlocks the Heart Tree.

Before she can think about whether it’s a good idea, she’s helping Alistair bring Jack through the portal, and all three of them are hurtling into the darkness.