Twenty-One

Chess

“Kids, really! Save yourselves! I . . . can’t!” Mom wailed. “And . . . the lever! You have to keep the lever away from . . . Oh, Chess, please! Save Emma and Finn!”

It felt like an eternity since the last time Chess had taken a breath. Along with the sounds of crashing glass, he could hear footsteps out on the front porch. Too many footsteps to just be Mayor Mayhew. It had to be more people from the other world.

How much time did they have before those people came climbing in through the broken windows?

Was it just his imagination, or were there sounds at the back of the house, too? Were people from the other world already coming in through the back door?

“There’s nowhere to go!” he screamed back at Mom. But Mom was just lying on the floor now. Finn was crouched over her yelling, “Don’t breathe! Don’t take in any more of this bad air—what if it kills you?”

“Won’t . . . kill . . . me,” Mom murmured. “I’m . . . no threat . . . like this. But you kids . . . more power . . . more danger . . . the coins . . . . the lever . . .”

She was weeping now. Weeping more hopelessly than Chess had ever seen before.

Chess still hadn’t taken another breath, but Mom’s murmured “more danger” hit his brain like a jolt of electricity.

He tore his gaze away from Mom and Finn and frantically glanced around.

The air in the house seemed murky now, as if the stench was so intense it’d become visible. Or maybe Chess was just seeing the effects of the stench: All the other grown-ups and Natalie had collapsed to the floor like Mom, all in the foyer near the door and the doughnut boxes. They’d given up. Oddly, little Kafi seemed the least affected—she was crawling toward Kona, still back on the stairs.

Oh no—babies near stairs—that’s dangerous, too, Chess thought. They can fall. . . .

He took a step toward Kafi, then saw that Rocky had done the same thing. Rocky pulled away from his siblings, who were clumped and wailing over Mrs. Gustano and the doughnut boxes.

Behind him, the front door rattled in its frame. Mom sobbed harder.

“Save . . . Finn . . . Please . . . Chess . . . and Emma . . . and the lever . . .”

With one arm, Chess scooped up his little brother and held him sideways. Then he looked around for Emma.

She was crouched by one of the couches in the living room near the stairs. She was trying to shove the lever bag under the couch—trying to hide it.

But the stench—or the lack of air—had made her sluggish and clumsy, and the end of the lever bag kept snagging on one of the couch legs.

“Diagonal,” Chess tried to shout at her. “Sideways. Slide it in at an angle. . . .”

Normally Emma would have known that. She must have breathed in more of the stench than Chess had.

Emma also should know it was totally stupid to try to hide the lever under the couch. The gap between the bottom of the couch and the floor was huge—the lever would still be in plain sight.

Chess switched to struggling to yell, “Get up! Take it . . . someplace else!”

But where?

Still clutching Finn—and with one quick glance to make sure Rocky was still headed for Kafi—Chess stepped from the foyer into the living room with Emma. He reached past her to grab the lever bag.

Chess wasn’t Emma (Emma on a good day, that is—Normal-Emma); he couldn’t figure out angles and actions and opposite reactions in a split second in his head. So he didn’t see that pulling up on the lever bag while Emma was pushing forward would make it bounce against the couch.

He also hadn’t spared a thought for calculating how the lever was aimed.

But even from inside the bat bag, the lever was still powerful.

Chess saw a flash of light, and for an instant it seemed like the lever was going to latch onto the couch just as he’d seen it latch onto walls and into closets. In that instant, it felt like the lever might open a secret tunnel to the other world straight through the couch.

But then Emma got a better grip on the lever bag and pulled it back just before the lever totally engaged.

“Sheesh, what’s in that bag?” Rocky asked behind them. He’d scooped up Kafi and held her safely in his arms. “You hiding the Incredible Hulk in there?”

Chess saw that the end of the lever bag was shredded now. The part of the lever that he’d hit against walls before was sticking out, completely revealed.

Completely ready.

The front door rattled again, and burst open. Chess caught a quick glimpse of multiple men in gas masks streaming into the foyer. Somebody screamed. Maybe everybody screamed.

Chess was so terrified he gulped in air. But some of it must have been fresh and untainted, coming from outdoors. Because suddenly he knew exactly what to do.

“Hide!” he screamed. “Follow me!”

He yanked the lever out of the bag, out from Emma’s grasp. And then he swung the lever as hard as he could—directly at the floor.