“It’s going to have to be the bushes,” Maybeck said. “Someplace any of us can get to. We’re just going to have to trust that no one finds it.”
“Hurry!” Charlene hissed.
Finn showed everyone where he was tucking the fob: nestled in beside the bricks that lined a raised garden of shrubs and flowers.
Maybeck produced a pen from his pocket and passed it to Finn. If any one of the kids held the fob as they crossed back over, the fob would travel with them. If Finn pushed the button with a pen, the pen would come along, but the fob would remain behind.
“Ready?” Finn asked.
Charlene abandoned her post and the Kingdom Keepers huddled together around Finn, alongside the raised garden bed.
He stabbed the button with the pen.
26
FOR THE NEXT DAY and a half the texts flew back and forth between the Kingdom Keepers. Finn used lunchtime to keep Amanda apprised of developments: no one had seen or heard from Wanda; Philby had buried himself in research, finding out everything he could about disappearing inks, and believing they should try to return to Wonders to try out his theories; Charlene was consumed with trying out for a dancing part in a school pageant.
“What about Maybeck?” Amanda asked Finn as they sat together in the lunchroom.
“He texted Philby to tell him to bring him the paper box this afternoon, after school. Said he figured something out.”
“That sounds promising,” Amanda said.
“What about Jess?” Finn asked.
“She’s fine,” Amanda answered dismissively, without a moment’s thought.
“I’m just asking,” he said.
“Who said you weren’t?”
“As in: has she had any more…uh-oh.”
Lousy Luowski was headed in their direction with a tray bearing only a dish of jiggling lime green Jell-O. Finn thought he had a pretty good idea what Luowski had in mind for the Jell-O.
“Hello, Greg,” Amanda said in a disarmingly warm voice.
Her tone stopped Luowski in his tracks. The dish of Jell-O bumped against the lip of his tray and stopped.
“We’ve got some unfinished business,” Luowski said. Mike Horton nodded at his side, like a translator.
“Greg,” Amanda said softly, drawing him in. “Have you heard about the wind here at school?”
“That’s a trick question,” Mike Horton whispered too loudly into Luowski’s ear. “Wind is invisible, in the first place.”
“That’s a trick question,” Luowski said.
“Think hard, Mike,” she said. “Science class about a month ago when Denny Fenner shoved Lois Long into the corner.”
“And all the beakers went flying off….” Horton stopped himself.
“And broke all over the floor,” Amanda said.
Horton nodded, his skin going pale.
“What’s going on?” Luowski asked, taking another determined step toward Finn.
“It wasn’t pretty,” Horton answered.
Luowski now had the dish of Jell-O in hand, but an arm’s length from the top of Finn’s head.
“What I’ve heard,” Amanda said, fixed on Luowski unflinchingly, “is that the wind is actually like some kind of ghost that inhabits the school and helps defend the innocent.”
At that moment, Luowski’s hair lifted off his oily face, blowing straight back. His shirtsleeves fluttered and rippled. Horton’s hair was caught by the wind as well, but not nearly in the same way. Luowski had to lean forward steeply just in order to remain standing.
“What…the…heck…is…happening?” The terror in his eyes conveyed Luowski’s predicament. If he stood up straight he was going to be blown over backward, but the gale-force wind seemed confined to him, with only a tiny fraction spilling past behind him.
The green Jell-O cubes were no longer square, but stretched into trapezoids. Several of them skidded across the dish. One escaped, splatting onto Luowski’s shirt.
“Stop it!” Luowski said to Finn, who just shrugged. “Stop it, you witch!” he said to Amanda.
“Me?” she gasped, backing her chair up as if afraid of it. “I don’t think ghosts hear so good, Greg. I’ve heard you have to scream to get their attention. You have to scream an apology.”
Whatever force held Luowski suddenly doubled.
He was leaning impossibly far forward, like a ski jumper, the soles of his running shoes fixed to the cafeteria’s tile floor.
Some of the other students turned. Only a few seconds had passed since the wind had begun to blow.
Amanda had never stopped staring at Luowski, whose red face was now gripped in such terror that he looked like a big baby.
“I don’t think they can hear you,” Amanda said.