Chapter Eighteen

Sam

The oak tree was broad at the bottom but had few footholds for climbing. That was one reason Sam had never climbed it. The tree technically belonged to Mrs. Lockheart, and he’d been in enough trouble for trampling her plants. That was the other reason.

Now Sam stretched one foot up to the oak’s cemented knot, grabbed a branch with his opposite hand, and pulled himself up the trunk. Then he grabbed a higher branch and kept going. Branches cracked on the way up. He thought he heard muffled voices.

He found the ship by knocking his head right into the hull.

“OW!” Sam could almost see it too, or at least the shape the ship pressed into the leaves. But The Declension had buried itself deep in the branches, pushing them into a thicket that made climbing any higher impossible.

“Mason? Tolver?” he whispered. Then louder. “Nana?” He hoped they could hear him. “Are you guys up there?”

“Sam?” Mason’s voice came muffled, from inside. “Is that you? We can’t get out!”

He tried to scramble higher. His fingers touched the canvas airbag. It had gotten tangled in the tree branches and wrapped tight over the hull too. His friends were trapped inside.

“I’ve been looking for you!” Sam had never felt so relieved. But the canvas was on so tight he couldn’t pull it off without sliding down the tree. How was he going to help them?

Then he remembered the word hog hidden in the hedge.

“Hang on!” Sam scrambled back down the tree. On the ground, he kicked at the dirt and bushes until his foot struck something hard, with a clang. “Ow!” He put his hand out and felt the cold, smooth surface of goblin brass.

Once he found the hatch of the word hog, Sam let himself inside. Then he hesitated.

He still had no idea how to pilot the thing. None. But all I have to do is go up, right? He thought. And avoid the tree.

He wrote “up” on a piece of paper and fed it to the machine. The propellers began to spin, and the word hog rose in the air. When Sam was above the oak tree, he fed it “hover” until the hog hovered evenly. Then he lowered a rope with a hook on the bottom to as near the deflated canvas airbag as he could get it.

It took him a couple tries to find and grab the invisible airbag, but he finally managed to hook it.

He fed the word hog another “up” and it rose a few more feet, then lurched slightly as the airbag resisted. While he pulled at the canvas, his friends pushed from the ship’s deck. Together they got it loose enough that they could squeeze out. Once they were on top of the hull, they climbed up the rope and into the word hog one by one. Tolver took over the controls.

A few minutes later, they were all safely on the ground. Nana and Tolver hugged Sam. Everyone looked relieved.

Everyone but Mason.

Mason stared at the Little Free Library.

“I know, it’s trashed,” Sam said. “I landed a word hog on it. Ms. Malloy is getting supplies to fix everything.”

“No, Sam. That isn’t what I’m looking at.” Mason pointed at the camera, which was aimed at the two humans and two goblins, its red light still on.

How much had the Lockhearts’ camera seen? Sam was willing to bet on everything. And there was nothing he could do to fix it.

“The prospectors are probably delighted by all of this,” Nana said morosely. “This was our territory, Tolver. But now we can never come back.” She lifted a broken oak branch the size of her arm from the ground.

“Hey!” Mason said. “This is our home. Not your territory.”

Nana smiled sadly. “You’re right.”

Then Mason turned to Sam, shaking off her despair. “Took you long enough, Sam!”

“I’m _______.” Sam fidgeted with the ribbon on his wrist. He wasn’t going to risk using his last word yet. Not when he might get it wrong or lose it to the prospectors. Besides, she was teasing. He could see it in her eyes.

Still, he didn’t have time to tease back. He was relieved at having found his friends, but now he needed their help. All of them. “I came as soon as I realized where you probably were. Can you come to our house tonight?”

Mason frowned. “Why me?”

“I need your math brain . . . and a lot of luck.” Sam said.

Mason narrowed her eyes. “You’re not going to try to ‘fix’ the library again, are you?”

Sam grinned. “No. We’re gonna build the best goblin trap ever.” As he said it, he hoped he looked more confident than he felt.

She brightened. “I am definitely up for that.”

All four of them worked together to push the word hog back behind the oak tree. Nana looked up for a long moment at the branches and The Declension hidden there. “We were pretty well trapped. And that’s what we’ll do to the prospectors,” she finally chuckled. “We need a lid on whatever it is we build, Sam.”

“I’ll add it to the brainstorming list.” This was going to be a big list.

Right as they’d gotten the word hog well hidden, Ms. Malloy pulled up in a taxi. The driver brought out a bag that read MT. CLOUD HARDWARE. He pulled several pieces of wood and two buckets of paint from the trunk, then put those down next to the crushed library. “Kids should be more careful,” he said, looking at the destruction. Then he got back in the cab and drove off.

Ms. Malloy stepped around the pile of supplies when she saw Mason, then hugged her fiercely. “No more pirate ships!”

“They aren’t—” Mason began. But her teacher had turned to the rest of the group.

Tolver and Nana took one look at the expression on Ms. Malloy’s face and went invisible. Sam could hear Gilfillan fleeing with them before she could scold them too.

“Ms. Malloy, if you give them a chance . . .” Mason said.

Ms. Malloy put both hands on her cane and leaned on it. “Mason, if they had stayed on their side and not stolen any words— Sam’s or mine—do you think I would be here, repairing this Little Free Library right now?” She was fuming.

“No,” both Mason and Sam said at the same time.

“And do you think that Sam and I would have to go back to school tomorrow to meet with Dr. Vane? And Sam’s parents?”

“NO,” Sam said.

“Probably not,” said Mason.

Ms. Malloy rolled her eyes. “And do you think if they hadn’t done what they’d done, that there would be any invisible giant brass mechanical pigs crushing Mrs. Lockheart’s garden?”

“Well, actually, that was my fault, Ms.—” Sam stopped when she held up her hand. Her neatly pinned bun was coming undone, and wisps of brown hair stuck to her cheek in the prestorm humidity.

“Enough. I’m going to work on this now. I’ll try to get it fixed as best I can.”

“I’ll help, Ms. Malloy,” Mason said. “I told my parents I was doing a Little Free Library errand anyway. I should get it done!”

“I need to get back to my family—” Sam wanted to make sure Bella hadn’t lost any words.

“Go, Sam. We’ll meet at your house,” Mason said.

Sweating, Sam sped across the street and around to the back of his house. The sky was growing darker. Behind the bushes, Sam heard rustling, then a real pookah oink. Tolver, Nana, and Gilfillan were following him. He peered through the leaves. Nana was angrily stripping the oak branch into a switch as she walked.

“She’ll understand you didn’t mean it,” Sam finally said. “Someday.”

“Maybe,” Nana answered. And Sam thought for a moment he heard real sorrow in her voice.

He went through the kitchen door and found his family sitting morosely at the table.

“Did you find Mason?” Anita asked.

“Yeah,” he said and sat down, exhausted.

“Don’t worry, Sam.” His dad put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “You’ll get that figured out, just like I’ll work things out with Coach Lockheart.”

“But . . . can Mason come over tonight?” Sam asked.

“It’s probably not the best idea.” His dad shook his head. “Today was a lot.”

“But . . . !”

“What’s up, Sam?” Anita asked.

“I just asked Mason to come over, and Ms. Malloy’s coming too.”

Suddenly beaming, his dad patted Sam on the shoulder. “I knew you could do it.”

“Really proud of you, Sam.” His stepmom kissed him on the forehead.

She wasn’t always that affectionate. She liked to give him his space. So Sam was confused for a minute.

“Thanks,” he said. He wanted to say _____—for lots of things, including keeping her at arm’s length for a long time. When she and his dad had gotten married, Sam was happy, but he’d still felt like he was supposed to be missing his own mom. Even though the only thing he had to remember his own mom by was a postcard. But he couldn’t make amends to his stepmom like he wanted to either, not with the prospectors everywhere.

And then he realized the reason they were so happy: they thought he’d finally said the word. He tugged at the ribbon on his wrist again.

They were going to be so mad when they found out he hadn’t said anything yet.

Sam could chew the ribbon if he had to, but losing the other word that afternoon at the game made him extra cautious. Who knew where the prospectors had gotten to by now? If he had to risk losing the word again, it was going to be at the perfect moment. When he really meant to say it. He had to distract them.

“Dad? What did Coach Lockheart mean about the sidewalks and the Lockhearts’ library? I thought you liked it?”

One of the flyers for the community meeting sat on the kitchen table. But the paper looked strange. There were words missing. Sam looked closer and saw the problem immediately.

Meet Mount Cloud’s New Look! Field and Neighborhood with James Culver

The words proposal and improvement were gone.

“Dad, I think I know what Mr. Lockheart’s upset about. The flyer is wrong—”

“Sam, my firm has worked on this flyer for a week. It’s fine.” His fingers tapped the paper, unseeing. His tone had shifted back to gruff, and Sam stopped talking.

But Anita looked at his dad. “Ouch. Sam was trying to tell you something important. He wanted you to listen.”

“Oh, Anita, Sam, I’m so ______.” His father tried to say the word, and his eyes grew big. “I’m so ______.”

He gaped like a fish. Sam recalled the word ribbons flying at the park and totally understood. But his dad didn’t. Not yet.

Mr. Culver sat down at the breakfast nook, his hand on his head.

“What is happening? The word—it’s gone.”

“I know how that feels, Dad,” Sam finally said. It felt risky to even say that.

His dad blinked. “Sam. You and Bella really weren’t kidding. The word is completely gone. What is happening?” His head sank. “How can I do my job if I can’t find the words to help people find compromise?”

He tapped his fingers on the table, then lifted the flyer. Squinted at it. “You know what upset Lockheart? This flyer’s missing enough words to make it sound like we’re not willing to discuss anything. That’s the problem. How did this happen?”

Bella slid in beside her dad at the table. Sam sat next to her. “It’s boglinths, Dad.”

Anita looked from the flyer to Sam, and back. “Goblins? Bella, honestly.”

But she and Mr. Culver both yelled in surprise when Nana and Tolver appeared next to Sam. Very green, and very real.

“Dad,” Sam said. “Part of what’s happening is my fault. And I’m going to make it right. This is Nana, and this is Tolver.” Below the table, Gilfillan grunted. “And that’s Gilfillan.”

“Another pig?” Anita stared at all of them. “This can’t be happening.”

“Dad, Mom, listen,” Bella whispered. “It’s important.”

Anita shook her head slowly back and forth as Sam told his story. His parents occasionally stared at the goblins sitting at the table. But they listened. Sam’s dad leaned forward as Sam finished with “and they said because I was careless with my words, it made really good hot air for their machines and . . . when you—”

“What do you mean, ‘careless’? I’m a professional word arranger. I’m never careless.” He was growing mad again. “Why did they take my words? And also the agency’s words. How did that part happen exactly, Sam?” Mr. Culver squinted at the goblins suspiciously, still unsure they were real.

“Well . . .”

“SAM.”

“Try not to get too mad?” Sam said, hopefully. “You know how the pig got loose in the house earlier?” Gilfillan grunted happily. “And how Mr. Lockheart’s Little Free Library keeps getting broken?”

His parents nodded. Bella leaned against him, and he put his arm around her. It felt good to have someone on his side when he said the next part. “Goblins have been raiding the neighborhood, stealing words for a long time. Then they stole Bella’s word and I went to get it back.”

“Goblins”—his dad frowned at the two goblins sitting at the breakfast nook—“have been raiding . . . Mount Cloud?”

Nana and Tolver nodded emphatically, their silver heads bobbing up and down.

“Years,” Tolver said.

“Decades, really.” Nana smiled cheerfully.

Gilfillan squealed.

“Tell me the pig’s not a goblin too?” Sam’s dad had his head in his hands.

“It’s a pookah, which is a sort of goblin,” Nana said proudly. “But the mechanical hogs aren’t—”

“Mechanical goblin pigs?” Sam’s dad took off his glasses to rub his nose. “And that’s why I can’t say _____? Did they go near the proposal?”

Sam nodded. “That about sums it up.”

“SAM. And you two.” Sam’s father glared at the goblins. Gilfillan squealed. “You THREE. If you are what you say you are—” He sounded so angry and confounded.

Sam’s heart sank. He plucked at the word ribbon. Should he risk it now? He felt awful.

“It’s really not his fault this time, Mr. Culver,” Mason said from the other side of the porch screen. Ms. Malloy stood behind her. “It’s the goblins’ fault. For real.”

Still shaking her head as if to clear it, Anita let them in, and everyone made room for them at the table.

“But it’s fixable!” Bella sang. “That’s the best news. Tham fixed my words. He chased the goblins down and grabbed my thorry back.”

Sam’s stepmom gathered his sister in her arms. Bella nodded very seriously. “Oh, my sweet girl. Sam, you are a really good big brother.”

A week ago, Sam would have felt relieved. Now that wasn’t good enough. “I think we managed to recover a lot of the agency’s words this morning too, Dad.”

Mason reached in her pockets, and Sam reached in his bag, and they piled word ribbons on the table. “They’re in there somewhere.”

Anita lifted a ribbon from the pile “So many. And what do they do?”

“You eat them!” Bella clapped her hands. “They’re sweet!”

“Well, yours was, dear child,” Nana said. “Not all careless words are.”

Don’t I know it, Sam thought.

His father stared at the pile of glittering words on his kitchen table. “They sound like they’re whispering . . .”

“Well, yes,” Nana said. “That’s how you tell if they’re still fresh. Words get stale, you know.”

“They sound—like familiar voices. But I’ll have to give these to the account reps to sort through tomorrow.” Sam’s dad gathered the ribbons into a bag. “What do we do about the rest? How do we stop the—what did you call them?”

“Prospectors,” Nana, Tolver, and Sam said all at once.

“They sound like pirates,” said his dad.

“They can’t be pirates. They wear suits sometimes,” Sam pointed out.

His stepmom guffawed, and Ms. Malloy started giggling.

“What’s so funny?” Nana asked. She’d edged as far as she could away from Ms. Malloy, who’d been glaring at her earlier, and now started squeezing even more into the wall.

“Occasionally, pirates wear suits in our world too,” Ms. Malloy said. “And occasionally, they steal words.”

Tolver ducked his head.

“So how do we get our ____—our words back too?” Sam’s dad asked, as though he was really taking Sam seriously.

He is, actually. Because it’s happening to him.

Sam wished he had a better answer for his dad. “I’m not sure we can get them all back,” Sam said. “Especially if they’ve already been turned to hot air.” He glanced at Ms. Malloy. She seemed worried about the same thing with her words.

Sam’s dad groaned. Then he put his head in his hands. “We’ve got the community meeting coming up, not to mention the rest of our lives . . . What am I going to do?”

“I know exactly how you feel,” Sam said. He patted his dad on the back.

“Oh Sam, I’m so ______,” he said.

“I know, Dad.” Sam smiled sadly. “And you know what? Our problems are nothing that a decent, well-thought-through goblin trap can’t cure.”

Even as he said this, Sam realized he couldn’t do it on his own. “But we’re going to need Anita’s tools, your presentation, Nana’s magic, Mason’s questions, Tolver’s planning, and Bella’s imagination to make sure we build the trap right.”