“Wait!” Beamer cried as he ran back across the street. He caught the slightest grainy glimpse of an old man’s face on the TV screen before it went blank. He pushed the button again and said, “We are the Star-Fighters . . . from Murphy Street — ” The speaker squealed loudly, causing all three kids to hold their ears in pain. Then the speaker was silent. Beamer banged the button hard and said, “Hello, is anyone there? Is that you, Mr. Parker?” This time there was no answer.
Beamer started pacing back and forth in front of the gate.
“Take it easy, Beamer,” said Scilla. “You’ll wear a hole in the sidewalk.”
“Something’s wrong,” he said. “We have to get in there.” He charged the wall and leaped onto the vines, trying to pull himself up. He kept sliding back down as one vine after another shredded beneath his weight. He finally gave up and sat on the sidewalk with his chin in his hands.
“You . . . Tarzan,” said Ghoulie, mimicking the deep, staccato way Tarzan spoke in the old movies. “No swing on vines in Middle America.”
Beamer’s attention, however, was focused down the street. “Come on!” he said suddenly and scrambled toward a tree that had grown up next to the street. “What do you think you’re going to do?” asked Ghoulie as he and Scilla chased after him. “That tree’s a good seven feet from the wall. Unless you’ve got wings or a rocket backpack, you’ll never be able to jump that far.”
Beamer wasn’t even sure the tree would hold him; it was tall, but its branches were very thin. In fact, the tree shook as he started climbing, shedding what little snow it held like a white cloud.
“Beamer — ” Scilla shouted, “you’ll break your stupid neck trying to get to that stupid wall from that stupid tree!”
Beamer kept on climbing. In fact, he kept on climbing even when he passed the height of the wall.
“Beamer!” both Ghoulie and Scilla kept yelling at him.
The tree was now teetering back and forth from his weight on a high branch. It was a little scary, but that is what Beamer wanted it to do. Finally, the tree swung over far enough for him to kick at the snow pack atop the wall. But it wasn’t far enough for him to leap onto the wall. So he sidled up the tree to a higher and even more feeble branch and tried again. Once more he swung out over the wall. He was feeling pretty good about himself. One more second and he’d just drop onto the wall. But then he heard a loud crack, and his stomach jumped into his throat. The branch had broken! He was falling!
Suddenly he stopped with a harsh jerk. With his heartbeat up around 100 beats per second, Beamer opened his eyes to see that he was dangling high over the sidewalk, like a gymnast holding on to a high bar. He looked over to see that the far end of the branch had fallen onto the wall, while the broken end had lodged into a V between two lower branches.
“Beamer!” both of his friends cried together. “Are you all right? Beamer?”
His arms felt like stretched-out bubble gum. He smiled weakly to his buddies below and said in a high-pitched whimper, “Well, I’ve found a way in.”
Beamer slowly pulled himself across the branch to the wall while Ghoulie and Scilla reluctantly followed his route. After much complaining and grumbling, they all huddled at the foot of the wall inside Mr. Parker’s yard.
The bad news was they still couldn’t see the house. The other bad news was the yard was more of a jungle than a yard.
“Are we still in Middle America?” Scilla asked.
“If not, we’re on a very unfriendly planet,” said Beamer with a gulp.
It had been so long since anyone had mowed the yard that there wasn’t anything left to mow. The trees planted long ago had become a forest. The weeds had grown into heavy brush and thin, spidery trees which wild vines wound around like boa constrictors. You couldn’t stroll through this forest; you had to climb through it.
“What if he’s got guard dogs or — ” Scilla whispered.
“Laser guns or SWAT teams?” Ghoulie finished for her.
“Who needs guard dogs when you have a jungle guarding the way?” said Beamer with a lump growing in his throat. The coating of snow made it look all the more eerie. Instead of magical, the winter here seemed bleak and threatening. We might oughta throw out a few heavy-duty prayers.” He was sure he saw one of the winding vines move. Do snakes come out in the winter?
“Well, might as well get eaten on the run as stay sittin’ here waiting to be surrounded,” Scilla finally said with a hard swallow. “It can’t be too far to the house. This block’s not that big.”
They made their way slowly through the brush, crawling and climbing around and through the tangle of vines, weeds, and twisted trees. Eyes wide, they listened for the sound of snarling dogs or for anything slithering or hissing. What made things worse was that they kept having to stop to untangle their clothes from snags and thorns. Just when Beamer was sure they were going in circles, they finally glimpsed the roof of a house.
“Okay, what are we supposed to do now?” asked Scilla through the corner of her mouth. “Knock on the door and say howdy?”
“Yeah, what’s the plan, Beamer?” Ghoulie asked as he hunched down beside him.
“It took all the plannin’ I had in me to get over the wall,” said Beamer. “It’s your turn now.”
“My turn? You’re the guy who’s been so hot to find Mr. Parker. So go find him.”
That’s when the storm troopers arrived, or storm buggers . . . or whatever. A whirring sound filled the trees all around them like a swarm of locusts. The next thing they knew, the spindly branches high in the trees seemed to be falling down on top of them. Then those spidery branches started spreading out in groups of eight, each group suspended beneath a central pod. Before the kids could run out of the way, they were each in a kind of birdcage created by a surrounding set of eight tall legs.
“They are spiders,” screamed Scilla on the verge of panic. “Giant, long-legged spiders!”