chapter twenty-four

I’m so happy to see Neon, I try to hug him! But my arms are tied at my sides, so he nuzzles his snout into my armpit. If that’s how Wretches hug, I wholeheartedly approve.

“I thought you were dead!” I exclaim.

Neon huffs, as if to say, How dare you doubt me?

“But how did you find me?” I ask.

Just then, Johnny Steve walks through the door! “I suspected this particular band of Rifters used Putt-Putt on the High Seas as a hideout.”

“But, Neon . . . Neon, you were . . . done for! The Boss Rifter even told me!” I glance at Johnny Steve. “How is he . . . ?”

Neon turns, striding to Johnny Steve and nuzzling against him. I gasp—Neon’s left side is absolutely covered in bandages.

“It took a lot of Choco Taco wrappers,” Johnny Steve explains. He lowers his hood, and I see he’s plastered in napkin gauze and even has a waffle cone over one wounded eye. I have to choke back a laugh—it looks like a second beak.

Johnny Steve scratches Neon’s neck while he fills me in. “After you were taken, I didn’t know what to do. But I knew you were trying to save Neon. So I figured . . .” He suddenly looks very shy. “Well, I figured if that’s what humans do for their friends, then I should do the same. Because—”

“Because you’re a human expert,” I say, grinning.

He smiles the widest smile I’ve ever seen.

“Oh, you and I should also do hugs now!” he says as he hurries over to cut me free. His walking sword is splashed with Wretch goo.

I shake my head in stunned awe.

A moment after he cuts me loose, I hear a squeaky voice say, “HELLO!”

Just then, Neon slams into me so hard I practically flip over. I throw my arms around his neck, squeezing so tight that it hurts my bruised wrists. “Neon, I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so, so sorry. I never should have taken you there. . . .”

Neon slips out of my arms, then he looks at the floor.

“Hey, buddy—hey,” I say softly, tilting my head so I can see him better. “Why did the Wretches attack you like that?”

Neon then pushes his head forward, so our nostrils are nearly touching. His eyes lock on to mine, and I feel his gaze creating bubbles in the back parts of my brain.

But I don’t look away.

“It’s okay,” I say. “Show me.”

Neon peers closer—so close that our faces touch. Looking through me. I hear a faraway BOOM, and then I’m not at the mini golf course anymore.

I’m not anywhere.

I don’t see a vision of the future and I don’t see a memory of the past. Instead, this time I see—

Neon.

He’s a baby, even younger than he is today. But he doesn’t look the same, and it’s not just because he’s smaller. He’s happier.

He has his wings!

He’s soaring through the sky, dipping and twirling and tumbling. He zooms around other baby Wretches and they play-wrestle in the sky. Everything looks different—the sky is pink and speckled, the ground seems to float, and water hangs in the air, unmoving.

I realize I’m seeing Neon in the other dimension. His dimension.

Then, suddenly—Neon’s dimension seems to explode! The sky is sliced open and beams of light erupt from everywhere! Huge glowing holes appear: portals! I’m seeing portals, just like I saw that day at school—the day the Monster Apocalypse began. . . . Monsters, creatures, objects—everything is being sucked into the hole! It’s like someone just flushed a cosmic toilet.

And Neon gets sucked in, too.

This is day number one of the Monster Apocalypse, and I’m seeing it up close—from Neon’s point of view. It is an insane, swirling void—ablaze with color!

I realize now just how horrifying it all must have been for the monsters.

Neon howls and shrieks as he is dragged through the air, into the portal! It is twisting, shrinking—and Neon screams toward it. And then—

Neon passes through, into our dimension. Just as the portal is closing. He makes it.

But his wings don’t. . . .

I hear him scream as his wings are clipped, and I feel—really feel—the pain he felt.

Neon crash-lands in this dimension.

He is hurting and he is scared. He hobbles across our changing world, alone. And then, at last, he finds a horde of Winged Wretches.

I feel the relief that he felt.

And then I feel the horror.

They reject him. The scaly beasts hiss and snarl and snap their teeth and pin him to the ground. Without his wings, this baby Wretch is no longer welcome with the rest of his pack. . . .

Everything shifts and changes and turns again.

I’m seeing my memories. My own life.

A flood of moments—the happy times, the good times, after I left the middle school for the tree house. Monster hangouts, sugar-fueled stakeouts, and Ping-Pong tournaments—

It is a giddy blur of happiness.

Happiness with friends.

And then, the visions and memories stop. . . .

I’m back at the mini golf course. And Neon is there.

And I get it.

We were both victims of this apocalypse. We were both lost and alone in a strange new world.

Earlier, when I saw a partial vision of Neon flying with the other Wretches, he wasn’t trying to tell me that he wanted to go back to them. He was telling me that he wanted to belong.

We both lost everything—but I had friends to help me through it, and he didn’t.

Neon is me, when I was in the school hallway, looking at my Certificate of Merit, crying over how useless it all was.

He’s waiting for friends to come tumbling through his locked doors.

“Neon,” I say. “Even without your wings, you’re still whole and wonderful and awesome. And you deserve to be happy. Neon, buddy, I am your—”

“FRIEND!” Johnny Steve says, totally jumping in and stealing my dramatic thunder. “I will be your BEST friend and we will travel THE WORLD together and learn all there is to know about this small, goofy land!”

“Ahem—” I say, giving Johnny Steve a little poke. “Neon, I am also your—”

“BUDDY!!!” Globlet squeals. “We’re definitely buddies and for sure BESTIES!”

I smile and sigh. “Okay, okay, we’re all your friends.”

Neon blinks quickly.

“We’ll always be there for you,” I tell him. “No matter what. Just like Jack, Dirk, and Quint have been there for me. And like I’ve been there for them.”

Neon’s happy, but I see a hint of hesitation. Something in his eyes that I can’t quite place . . .

He winces and curls his tail up beneath him. The makeshift bandages are peeling off his back, and I glance down to see the wounds where his wings had been are reopened. The Winged Wretches targeted them.

I pull my broken shield armor from my backpack. Tugging, twisting, I manage to pull off one large, curved piece of metal.

I set it over Neon’s back, draping it over his wounds.

“Nope. Not yet, Globlet.”

“Say what now?” Globlet asks.

“Still one thing to do,” I say. “I need Boss to tell me where Thrull is. We have a chance now, to get the information we need to stop Thrull and the Tower. And, while we’re at it, make sure these Rifters never bother any of us again. Are you guys with me?”

“Yupper!” says Globlet.

“I’m supportive like a human buddy!” says Johnny Steve.

And Neon just purrs.

“Good,” I say. “’Cause I have an idea . . .”

Then I crane my neck, toward the driving range, and call out, “FLUNK! CAN YOU COME HERE A SEC, PLEASE?”