Pounding down the hall, Pete held out his hands and, without slowing, shoved the main door to the school open so hard it banged against the stop and shuddered on its hinges. Weasel stayed on his heels. They ran down the steps, across the lawn and straight toward the edge of town where tidy walkways ended and the Ornofree swamp began.
Sweat trickled down Pete’s neck, but he didn’t take time to swipe it away or to look to see if Weasel was still at his side. He didn’t have to. Weasel was panting like a winded horse.
“Are you on the way?” Fanon asked.
“Yes.” Pete sent the message, glad he didn’t have to use air to say that out loud. He didn’t have any extra. “Where are you?”
“The Cedar Grove.”
Weasel veered toward the path leading to the grove before Pete did.
“How long have you been eavesdropping on what I’m thinking?” Pete asked him mind-to-mind.
“Since right after we... crash-landed in front of... my house. You know on our return trip from... 1837,” Weasel gasped out loud and swiped his shaggy bangs off his forehead.
“Holy beans! That long?” Pete took a moment to catch his breath. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“You didn’t ‘telepathy’ anything very important,... so why bother?”
Weasel was always going to be Weasel, kind of grumpy and a super-serious over-achiever. Aunt Lizzie said he couldn’t help it. Kind of grumpy and over-achieving were in his genes. She’d known his mom and dad since they were kids, and she shook her head whenever she talked about them. “Science came first, last, and always before Weasel. And he has that perfect older brother to compete with.” Then she’d say, “Be patient with him. He’s just lonely and not used to people who hug.”
Pete wanted to tell Weasel that at least he had his mom and dad. Even if they were always at their lab., they weren’t, like, gone forever. Pete shoved the sudden pain down. He didn’t have time to think about that now.
As the boys neared the grove, Cenozo’s familiar, throaty voice wound through the moss-draped trees. In a few more strides, Pete and Weasel halted in the center of the ancient cedars, breathing hard and holding onto their sides. Today the grove was packed with Cenozo’s tribe of alligators. They gathered around one of the giant cedar stumps staring up at their leader. Cenozo stood reared onto his hind legs and sturdy tail, so he towered over them.
Pete still remembered his first run-in with that giant talking alligator. It was the same night Harriet Hadley’s vanished mansion reappeared, the same night he and Weasel got trapped inside that place, the same night he found out Aunt Lizzie was a witch. That was the kind of night you couldn’t erase from your memory.
And now the scene was the same as that first time when the tribe met to declare war on the developer and stop the bulldozers from destroying more of their swamp. Pete spotted Fanon at the front of the assembled alligators. He perched on his hind legs and tail, imitating his uncle. Aunt Lizzie and Harriet Hadley were seated on one of the great tree stumps. Several of the other Hadleyville witches clustered next to them.
Something big was up, all right. Almost all of the Hadleyville Whisper Circle was here. The Wartgob sisters, smelling like freshly made dairy yogurt, held hands. Paula Teener, the baker, still had on her apron and flour on her cheek. Fiona Nightingale, who owned the florist shop and some evil-looking plants, clutched a pair of scissors. Then there was the meter maid, Margo Stiltencranz. She held her ticket book in one hand and her pen in the other. Some lucky driver didn’t get his ticket today. Every one of these witches had stopped in the middle of something they’d been doing to come to the Cedar Grove. This was beginning to look even worse than Pete had imagined.
“What’s... wrong?” he asked, hands on his knees, still huffing.
“Dr. Wraith sent word this morning,” Cenozo said. “Someone—someone who’s quite important to history—has gone missing in time. He wanted everyone here because something has to be done and quickly.”
Pete straightened and looked around the gathering until he connected with Harriet and Aunt Lizzie. “But everyone was supposed to be back where they belonged,” he said.
Harriet stood, her lips drawn up tight. It was the way she looked after one of his major screw- ups, but he hadn’t done anything wrong since he’d come back from his trip into the past.
“You didn’t exactly cause this catastrophe, Pete,” Harriet said. “But let us just say this situation is similar to a pebble in a still pond. If you hadn’t tossed the pebble in the first place, this person would not have disappeared.”
Pete thought for a minute. He wished she’d tell him things in plain English.
Aunt Lizzie gave him an encouraging smile and folded her hands in front of her. She always did this when she was trying to be calm during a catastrophe. “You know what Harriet’s talking about, Pete. Put on your thinking cap.”
He knew. He just didn’t want to say so. “OkayOkay.” His words stacked up against each other whenever his nerves got twitchy. “Right. I got it.” So even after figuring out the spell he’d screwed up, fixing the time lock and opening all the portals for the time Travelers, he hadn’t set everything to rights with the universe. But what had he missed? He looked at the tribe of alligators and all the witches. “What do I have to do?”
Fanon came to stand in front of him. “You have to go back in time again.”
“Why me?” Pete asked.
Fanon swung his head to the side. “Dr. Wraith said.”
The alligator tribe broke into a troubled chorus of throaty growls and hisses and snaps. Aunt Lizzie wrung her hands and her eyes glistened with tears. How did he always wind up making his aunt miserable?
Fiona Nightingale put her arm around Aunt Lizzie and offered her a hankie. “There, there. No need to work yourself up like this, Miss Lizzie.”
“We could all use a very hefty helping of fortitude about now,” Harriet said, her eyes fixed on Pete. She swept her hand across her forehead and stared up into the mid-morning sky. That was her way of telling him all was beyond her control and she was tired of dealing with his screw-ups and what she wouldn’t give for him to be just be an ordinary, competent wizard.
With a loud rumbling growl from deep in his belly, Cenozo brought silence to the grove. “We will wait here until Dr. Wraith either arrives or sends us further instructions. Until then, I’ll explain all that I know.” He continued, filling them in on Wraith’s message.
Pete only caught the first part of what Cenozo said. He didn’t really have to hear it all. He knew a lot of what Wraith told Cenozo was about Pete Riley screwing up. Holy beans. I don’t cause all of the bad stuff—not on purpose.
What he wouldn’t give to go back to being ordinary Pete Riley, the kid who lived in Charleston with his mom and dad. With a dreamy gaze, he remembered how he and Casey Shultz—his best bud back in the good old days—used to hit Survival Flick Saturday at the Multi-Plex Cinema. Since it looked like he could travel around in time, that’s when he wanted to be again. So far that hadn’t happened. So far he’d gone into a past time he’d never even heard of. That’s just not fair, he thought.
He felt a tug on his arm. “Best pay attention.” It was Margo Stiltencranz.
Pete stood taller and focused on what was happening now, instead of dreaming about what used to be.
“... and Wraith did not sound as if... “ Cenozo was saying.
While the gathering was tuned into Cenozo, Weasel backed up with slow, steady steps and as quietly as the swamp grass allowed.
“Hold on, Weeze.” Pete grabbed Weasel by his sweatshirt.
“I didn’t throw any pebbles. I’m not going on any more time trips. Nope. Do not even think it.” He pulled his sweatshirt free and started off.
“Unfortunately, Weasel, you must.” Cenozo’s voice rumbled like thunder, and all heads turned to look at Weasel who had only made it as far as the edge of the grove. “Dr. Wraith’s instructions were quite specific. You and Pete are to make the journey together because this mission has some complications. I’m sure he will be here to fill you in on the details as soon as he can break free from whenever he is at the moment.”
It was Weasel’s turn to point a finger at his own chest. “Why me?”
Aunt Lizzie, her eyes still moist, clung to Harriet. Harriet’s lips were pressed into a single line.
Paula Teener dug out two buns from her apron and insisted they each take one. “Comfort food,” she said. Then she winked, “And I put in something special to perk you up.”
So many witches, Pete sighed. And they’re all in one little town. He shook his head. He’d never get used to that.
Weasel dragged his feet on his way back to the nearest cedar stump. There he plunked down, his arms dangling at his sides and his eyes blank.
Pete joined him. “Sorry.”
“Don’t talk to me right now.”
“But I—”
“Seriously. No talking.” Weasel scooted to the side, putting a few inches between them. “Even the kind in your head.”
Weasel was getting grumpier and grumpier. Pete had tried to apologize this time, and look where that got him? He wasn’t the one who was making Weasel do this. Wraith was. But the wizard was taking it in the shorts. Nothing in his life was fair. Not at... And then it hit him. How come Weasel could hear his thoughts, but so far he couldn’t hear Weasel’s?
He started to ask Weasel that question, when the alligators nosed the air like a pack of dogs on the scent. Something was coming.
***
Read Book #3 in The Adventures of Pete and Weasel
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