If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late (23 page)

Cass nudged Max-Ernest and he bent down to unzip his backpack, only to find —

“Um, Mr. Cabbage Face?”

The backpack was already open.

The homunculus was gone.

T
hey tried the museum’s kitchen first. And saw at once that the homunculus had been there — but left in disgust.

The kitchen looked like it hadn’t seen a meal in years; it was being used to store office supplies. The closest thing to food was a package of microwave popcorn that the homunculus had opened — then scattered without popping, as if to say “thanks, but no thanks!”

Next, they tried the reunion party upstairs.

Cass crawled under people’s legs, hoping to find a trail of corn kernels if not bones, but no such luck.

Max-Ernest thought he saw the homunculus slip into the
Gateway to the Invisible,
only to see one of the midgets step out a second later.

“Not too hard for him to disappear in this crowd,” commented Yo-Yoji, looking out at the sea of carnies — half of whom looked as weird as the homunculus.

“Well, you’d know better than we would,” Cass snorted.

“Not really. I only met those guys once before. I know about as much as you do.”

Cass looked skeptical.

“Seriously, I didn’t even know anything about the homunculus before you told me.”

“Yeah, because you already
had
a job,” Cass said stonily. “Us.”

“The only reason I didn’t tell you guys was that they said not to —!”

“Whatever. It’s not important.”

“What’s important is that we just lost a two-foot-tall, five-hundred-year-old man-eater, and we have no idea where he is!” said Max-Ernest, who had been having trouble following the logic — let alone the underlying feeling — behind the conversation.

Giving up, they headed back downstairs.

“Could the Midnight Sun have gotten to him?” asked Lily as they reconvened in the workshop. “If Dr. L or Ms. Mauvais had been here, wouldn’t we have seen them? Perhaps an operative of theirs . . . ?”

“I think he was just hungry,” muttered Cass.

The kids felt miserable. They were all thinking the same thing: that the homunculus had left because they’d lied about the food at the museum.

Cass kept kicking herself for telling him that he would get crown roast. Why hadn’t she thought about what would happen when they got there? Had she expected Pietro to conjure a roast out of thin air?

Pietro never said an unkind word. But that made it worse.

Had he expressed any anger, our young heroes might have defended themselves. After all, they’d brought the homunculus all the way into the museum. Into the workshop, even. How were they supposed to know he’d escape from right under their noses?

But instead of berating them, Pietro tried to hide how worried he was. He even showed Max-Ernest a quick card trick before they went home.
^*

They were being treated like children and they knew it. There was no discussion of the Oath of Terces. No talk of future missions.

Mr. Wallace never said, “I told you so,” but you didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what he was thinking.

“What about the Sound Prism — shouldn’t they leave it with us? I think it would be safer,” he said.

“But it’s hers — she’s the heir,” Lily reminded him.

They debated as if Cass herself were not present until finally Pietro decided it was best that she keep the Sound Prism. “We don’t know much about this object. Perhaps the Sound Prism, it would not like to be in someone else’s hands.”

But before they left he made the kids promise not to look for the homunculus.

“It’s too risky,” he said. “That much we now know.”

For nights afterward, Cass slept with the Sound Prism under her pillow — right next to her resurrected sock-monster. She was afraid even to keep the Sound Prism buried outside.

Needless to say, she didn’t sleep very well.

The Sound Prism whispered to her in her dreams, seeming to give voices to people and animals and inanimate objects indiscriminately. All taunting her for failing the Terces Society. For failing Pietro. Every barking dog was laughing at her. Every honking car was jeering at her.

And you call yourself a survivalist!
they said.
You can’t even keep a homunculus in a backpack.

Cass was convinced that the Sound Prism wanted her to call the homunculus again. Or at least that the Sound Prism would make her go crazy if she
didn’t
call him. But she resisted. If she couldn’t save the world, at least she could prove to Pietro that she could keep her word.

One night, she woke up from an especially restless sleep. A rustling sound was coming from under her pillow.

At first, she didn’t think much of it; she was getting used to odd, unidentified noises. But when she put the Sound Prism to her ear she became certain that the noise it was picking up was coming from the backyard.

An animal perhaps? A cat? No, something larger . . . the homunculus? Was it Mr. Cabbage Face himself looking for her?

She tiptoed downstairs and out into the back-yard in her pajama bottoms and favorite Tree People sleeping T.

Although she held the Sound Prism in front of her, she didn’t hear any more rustling, or much of anything at all. For a second, she thought she heard some kind of drumming, then she realized it was her own heartbeat being broadcast back to her by the Sound Prism.

Slowly, Cass made a circuit around the yard, peering into the darkness.

“Mr. Cabbage Face?”

She waited for a few minutes, hugging her arms against the cold. But there was no response.

And yet, she was certain someone or something had been out there.

Naturally, she thought of Ms. Mauvais and Dr. L — but wouldn’t they already have crept inside to look for the Sound Prism or to kidnap her or to do whatever horrible thing they were going to do?

Perhaps the homunculus had come, but then changed his mind, or thought he had the wrong house?

There was one way to know for sure: if she called him on the Sound Prism, he would have to come.

True, Cass had promised not to look for him, but this was clearly a different situation. And she would try only a small, short toss — a small, short call. Audible only if he were close by.

Cass looked back at her house to make sure no lights had gone on, and that her mother was still sleeping. Then she stood in the middle of the yard and tossed the Sound Prism into the air —

The ball rose a little higher than she’d intended but not so high that the tune would carry all the way around the world. It had been a long time since she’d heard it, and the eerie song was strangely comforting.

Almost immediately, she heard the rustling sound. All of her senses on alert, she scanned her surroundings for a sign of the homunculus. Surely, he would show himself now? Or was he still too angry with her?

She saw a glimmer of light in the bushes behind the Barbie Graveyard —

“Mr. Cabbage Face?” she whispered again.

By the time she reached the spot, whatever or whoever it was was gone.

As a cold, unhappy Cass walked back upstairs to her room, a smug, smiling Amber walked quickly down the street away from Cass’s house.

She held her sparkling pink cell phone aloft like a trophy. And with good reason. On her phone was the freshly recorded song of the Sound Prism.

Ms. Mauvais would be very happy.

M
ax-Ernest released the two straws from his mouth and put down his two juice boxes. It had been less than two weeks since the disaster at the museum, but he appeared to be in high spirits.

“How about this one . . . ?” He looked at his lunch companions to make sure he had their attention. “Knock, knock . . .”

“Who’s there?” asked Yo-Yoji gamely.

“I am.”

“Um, ‘I am’ who?”

“No, that was the answer.”

“Just ‘I am’?”

Max-Ernest nodded. “I read that a joke is when you expect one thing, then something else happens. Well, in a knock-knock joke you always think there’s going to be a joke after you say ‘who’s there?’ And I thought, what if there wasn’t a joke — would that be like a joke on a joke?”

“I don’t know,” said Yo-Yoji, laughing. “That’s either the stupidest joke I’ve ever heard or the deepest.”

“I was thinking I could try it in my Comagedy Act in the talent show — that’s what I’m calling my magic-comedy routine. How ’bout that?”

Yo-Yoji grinned. “You’re gonna kill, man!”

“Kill?”
Max-Ernest looked alarmed.

“It means you’re gonna rock the talent show. It’s a good thing.”

Cass rolled her eyes. She knew she should be happy about the growing friendship (or was it only a temporary peace?) between Max-Ernest and Yo-Yoji; instead, she found it irksome.

She’d never come right out and said what she was afraid of: that Yo-Yoji had never really liked them — her — and had only befriended them because it was his job. But as far as she was concerned, Yo-Yoji was still on probation — and would be for a while.

As Yo-Yoji and Max-Ernest continued to discuss plans for the talent show, Amber and Veronica walked toward their table, glancing quickly at Yo-Yoji, giggling, then looking away.

Cass’s mouth dropped: something truly disturbing was dangling from Amber’s wrist.

“Is that your sock-monster?” asked Max-Ernest, aghast.

“No, it’s a copy — I think,” said Cass, furious and more than a bit freaked out.

“But how —?”

Cass couldn’t help it — she had to know. “Hey, Amber,” she asked, trembling slightly, “where did you get that?”

“Oh, do you like it?” asked Amber, sugary as ever, stopping at their table. “I’m not supposed to say where it’s from, but it does say Twin Hearts on it, and that’s the Skelton Sisters — oops!” She put her hand to her mouth. “I almost gave the secret away . . . ! Anyway, I was just telling Veronica, I have six tickets to their concert tomorrow night — which is totally sold out, by the way. They’re going to let me onstage — can you believe it? Do you guys want to go? Not that I can take everybody. I already have a waiting list of thirty people — but I could put you guys on it. I’m going to decide who gets to go later tonight, based on a bunch of things. I can’t say what ’cause I don’t want anyone to cheat.” She seemed to be addressing all of them but she was looking at Yo-Yoji.

“Actually, I kind of think they suck,” he replied. “So . . . no thanks.”

“Well, excuse me for being nice,” said Amber, stung.

“I told you he was a jerk,” said Veronica.

“Let’s go,” said Amber. Cass watched them walk away, each tossing her hair like a girl in a shampoo commercial. Why had she ever had a hard time saying no to Amber, Cass wondered.

And more importantly:

“Hey, you guys — why do you think the Skelton Sisters are letting her onstage? Don’t you think that’s weird? And they gave her all those tickets. . . .”

“Probably her daddy bribed them,” said Yo-Yoji. “Is she rich?”

“I dunno. I don’t think that’s it,” said Cass. In the distance, she could see Amber and Veronica disappearing into the girls’ bathroom. “I’ll be right back.”

She stood up, pulling her sweatshirt hood over her head. Checking to see nobody was watching, she took the Sound Prism out of her backpack and hid it under her hood behind her big right ear.

The window in the girls’ bathroom was small and located high up in the wall; normally, you wouldn’t be able to hear a conversation taking place inside the bathroom if you were outside. But with the Sound Prism, Cass could hear Amber and Veronica talking as clearly as if she were standing next to them. . . .

“No way, dude!” said Yo-Yoji to Cass after she returned. “Forget it! I would rather eat puke!”

“I agree — this is worst idea you’ve ever had in your life,” said Max-Ernest, putting down his two matching hummus sandwiches. “Are you sure you’re not having a psychotic episode?”

What, you ask, could prompt such extreme reactions?

Simple: Cass’s proposal that they all go to the Skelton Sisters concert the following night.

“We have to,” she insisted, pulling off her sweatshirt hood and restowing the Sound Prism in her backpack. “Amber’s like part of the Midnight Sun now. Well, maybe she’s not really
in it
in it yet, but she was on the boat — and Ms. Mauvais gave her a job! She wouldn’t tell Veronica what it was, but she said that was why she got the tickets and everything. And I have a feeling something bad’s going to happen. I know nobody ever believes my predictions, but trust me on this!”