Scurvy Goonda (24 page)

“I am a Swamster. And I’m ashamed to admit that I ratted you out.”

“You can make up for it by getting us
out
of here! The guards are coming back. We have to
stop
this wedding and
stop
the attack.”

“I know,” said Swamster. “Where are the keys?”

“There’s an office built into the wall a few cells down,” said Ted.

Swamster hustled down the hallway and found a key ring hanging on a hook, abandoned by a guard who must have run to join the Scurvy fight. Swamster ran back to the
THIS ONE FIRST
cell, flicking through the keys to find the right one.

He had his head down when he heard Ted shout, “Look out!”

BANG!
Scozzbottle hit him over the head with a rock. Swamster crumpled to the floor, keys clanging next to him.

Scozzbottle bent over and picked them up.

“Traitor!” he said.

Scozzbottle stood outside the cells, staring in. ACORN was totally at his mercy.

“Lookie lookie. Haven’t seen you in a while,” said Scozzbottle. “Not since you offed my friend Wockgrass, I believe. You know, it’s almost daybreak upstairs. Almost time to load you into a truck and send you on your merry factory way.”

It was silent on the cell block.

“The sad thing,” continued Scozzbottle, “is that this whole
ACORN
business didn’t end up doing much at all, did it? You got together in a tree cave, you were discovered, and here you are in jail, a temporary stopover on your way to being ripped apart. It seems like a lot of wasted effort, doesn’t it?”

Scozzbottle grinned wickedly. And then something peculiar happened. The cell block echoed with the same coughing that had been bouncing off the stone walls all night long. But this time, the coughing turned into violent hacks peppered with booming, wet eruptions.

Scozzbottle opened his mouth to continue mocking the prisoners, but each time he did, he was interrupted by more retching.

“So you see—”

HACK!

“The transport trucks are—”

HACK!

“ACORN has been defeated—”

HACK!

Scozzbottle snapped around in the direction of the noise.

“Would you shut up?!”
roared Scozzbottle.
“I am trying to destroy morale!”

That was when Scozzbottle saw it.

When
everybody
saw it.

A pale … sickly …
birthmarked …
arm.

The markings on the forearm were the same as Ted’s, and the hand had the same shape. Ted looked down at his own limb to make sure it was still there. It was.

The arm hovered in the air three feet from Scozzbottle and then rapidly fabricated a giant flannel-shirt-wearing fur trapper, probably Canadian. The trapper held a huge cage in one hand and a Taser in the other. He calmly reached forward and zapped Scozzbottle, knocking him unconscious.

The trapper stuffed Scozzbottle in the cage, nodded to Ted, and said, “Gonna make me a nice coat out of this one. Eh.”

The trapper walked up the stairs hauling his catch, while the arm floated down to the ground and picked up the key that Scozzbottle had dropped. Calmly, the hand unlocked the door, and Ted pushed it open.

“Thank you?” said Ted.

The arm held the key out to Joelle-Michelle, who accepted it.

“It wants you to unlock the other cells,” said Carolina.

The arm patted Joelle-Michelle on the shoulder and pointed to Carolina.

“It wants me to help you,” said Carolina.

As the arm began to float back the way it had come, Ted
knew
that he was supposed to follow it. He could barely breathe as he walked down the corridor. He made brief eye contact with Dwack.

“Be careful, dear boy,” said Dwack.

Each cell Ted passed was smaller than the last, and the corridor was far longer than he had realized. The arm glided steadily along. Finally, Ted and the arm came to a forgotten part of the cell block, where the candles barely burned and the air smelled like mold. Ted was thinking he was going to have to turn around and fetch a torch to help him see, when the arm stopped in front of a dank, lichen-covered cell barely big enough to hold one inmate.

The arm floated through the bars of the cell.

Ted crouched down to see inside.

“Hello?” said Ted, nervously.

The arm reattached itself to the elbow of a man leaning against the wall. Dressed in dirty rags, his hair wild, a scraggly beard covering his face, the poor man seemed in danger of crumbling to dust at any moment. A tin cup of water sat in a corner next to a single slice of bread.

The man coughed violently:
HACK! HACK!

“We’ll have you out of here in a second,” said Ted. “A girl is coming with the key.”

The man nodded feebly.

“Who are you?” said Ted.

The man’s rheumy eyes flicked from Ted’s face to his arm and back to his face. He wiped spittle from his lip and smiled weakly.

“I’m your dad,” he said.

By the time Joelle-Michelle and Carolina had finished unlocking all the cells, Ted had barely recovered enough from the shock of learning about his father to tell all ACORN fighters to stay where they were. Guards would be returning to their posts soon. The time wasn’t right for an attack—he and Joelle-Michelle had to figure out a plan. Meanwhile, Brother Dezo dragged Swamster out of the corridor while Ted helped his father walk back to his own cell.

Declan Merritt couldn’t stop hugging his son. Though Ted’s childhood memories of his father were hazy—he had left when Ted was seven, after all—there was no doubt that this was his dad. They had the same eyes and the same color hair. They were about the same height, and their arms were identical.

After seven years, Ted wasn’t sure what to feel about his father hugging him. He barely knew him.

“Ted,” said Declan. “My Ted. I never thought I’d see you again.”

“I thought you never wanted to see me or Mom or Adeline again,” said Ted.

Declan released Ted and looked at him.

“I swear to you—I didn’t walk out on my family, if that’s what you think,” said Declan. “Look where you found me.”

“But if you could have
imagined
yourself released at any time, why didn’t you come home?”

Declan shook his head. “This is the first time in seven years I’ve had enough strength to do that,” said Declan. “I heard what was happening, and I thought it might be you. If I’d managed to find Middlemost, maybe you had too.”

“You should have
tried
to get back to Mom, Addie, and me,” said Ted.

“You have no idea how many times I tried,” said Declan. “It killed me that you might think I left you and your mother. I was chained to a wall for five years. My arm was placed in a steel box. The only thing that kept me alive was thinking I might get to see you and your beautiful mother again. Before I left, I wrote a message on the back of one of your glow-in-the-dark stars.”

“It said ‘here,’” said Ted.

“That’s right. It said ‘here.’ If I didn’t come back, I thought you might find it when you were old enough to help, and figure out where I was.”

It was a lot to absorb.

“But why did you come here?” said Ted.

“To stop my insane cousin, Lloyd Munch, from running amok,” said Declan.

“You failed,” Joelle-Michelle pointed out.

“I did,” said Declan. “If I had succeeded, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now.”

“Well,” said Ted, “now you’ll get another chance to fight.”

“I’m too weak.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Ted. “We can still use you, Dad.”

At that word, Declan’s eyes dampened. He nodded.

“But first you need to tell me how to use
this,”
said Ted, holding up his arm.

“All I know is that it seems to work best when you need it most,” said Declan.

“Explain that to my arm,” said Ted.

“Can’t,” laughed Declan. “Mine won’t listen either.”

Ted smiled. He remembered his father’s laugh.

“Brother Dezo,” said Ted. “How is the Swamster doing?”

“Swamstah mo bettah, bruddah.”

Ted stood over Swamster.

“Swamster,” he said. “Can you tell us where the weapons that were seized from ACORN are stored?”

“I’m afraid they’ve been distributed to President Skeleton’s troops,” said Swamster.

“All of them?” said Joelle-Michelle.

“A few might have been taken to the lab for examination,” said Swamster. “There’s a laboratory on the border of the palace grounds.”

“Could you take me there?” said Ted.

“I think so,” said Swamster.

“Good,” said Ted. “All right, Carolina, you’re coming with me.”

“Why her?” said Joelle-Michelle.

“Since she’s human, she won’t explode if she gets VIDGA solution on her,” said Ted.

“Explode?” said Carolina. “Wait—”

“But I am the
leader
of ACORN!” said Joelle-Michelle.

“That’s why you need to be
here,”
Ted explained. “What would happen to them, to us, if you didn’t come back?”

Joelle-Michelle paused. She suspected that Ted simply
wanted to be alone with that Carolina, but she wouldn’t throw a tantrum now. She reminded herself that she was a Frenchwoman. She would save it up and find a way to get back at him creatively.

“Oui,”
said Joelle-Michelle. “You go with Swamster, I will stay here.”

“It won’t take long,” said Ted, sliding open the cell door. “Come on, Carolina.”

Joelle-Michelle removed one of her ballet slippers and handed it to Ted.

“Use it if you get in trouble,
mon ami,”
she said.

At that moment, Ted had never wished for anything as much as he wished to know what
mon ami
meant.

Ted, Carolina, and Swamster barely managed to slide out of the stairwell before the guards returned to their posts in the cell block. Hiding behind a chocolate fountain topped by statues of Persephone and Scurvy dancing in each other’s arms, Ted could see a half dozen guards streaming down the stairs, some of whom looked like they had been bruised and broken in the scuffle with Scurvy.

Swamster motioned for Ted and Carolina to follow him. Ducking behind ice sculptures, they made their way off the palace grounds. Down the road, Ted could see lines of transport trucks moving toward the estate—trucks that would be hauling everyone from ACORN off to the processing factories. They needed to find the laboratory quickly.

“See that set of buildings on the edge of the forest?” Swamster whispered. “That’s the main lab.”

They ducked behind trees and shrubs until they reached the laboratory, where a sleepy-looking guard stood in front of the main door. Pressing their bodies against the outside wall so they wouldn’t be seen, they had a clear view of the transport trucks.

“Should we try to distract the guard?” whispered Ted to Swamster.

“I don’t think there’s time.”

Ted removed Joelle-Michelle’s ballet slipper from his
pocket, sprinted around the corner of the building, and chucked it hard at the guard. The slipper whacked into the guard’s surprised face, and he exploded in a purple gush that splashed against the laboratory door.

“I didn’t know I could throw,” said Ted, picking up the slipper.

“Can you get us in?” Ted asked Swamster.

“Uh, yes,” said Swamster, turning the doorknob. “It’s not locked.”

Entering the lab, they stayed low to the ground with Swamster in the lead. The rooms were medicinally clean, and random scientists were milling about, all of whom were paying rapt attention to a cauldron in the center of the room. Next to the cauldron was a bundle of ACORN weapons. Ted could see Brother Dezo’s ukulele. The head scientist, wearing a WATCHOUT! suit, was scraping solution samples off the weapons and looking at them under a microscope.

“Add another celebrity magazine!” the head scientist commanded.

A pair of scientists dropped a tabloid magazine into the mix. The scientists, who apparently hadn’t figured out that the solution was rendered from specific melted video games, were duplicating the formula using other monotonous media.

“Now,” said the head scientist. “Let’s test it out.”

A frightened bison was led out of a crate. Ted recognized the bison as the gravestone-eater from the ACORN hideout.

Oh no
, thought Ted, watching as a scientist sucked liquid from the cauldron using a baster, walked over to the bison, and put a few drops on its head.

Drip. Drip
.

POP!

The bison exploded in a purple mist. The scientists threw their hands in the air triumphantly.

“Success!” said the head scientist. “Let the army know that we’ve cracked the formula!”

Ted motioned for Carolina to circle around to the other side of a counter, and for Swamster to stay put. When Carolina looked back at him, he made a
push
motion. She nodded.

As the head scientist reached for the phone, Ted counted down with his fingers:
Three. Two. One
.

“GO!” he shouted.

On cue, Ted and Carolina rushed in from opposite sides of the room. Ted crashed into the head scientist, sending him tumbling into the cauldron. Ted grabbed the baster and sprayed an assistant with the remaining drops, turning him to vapor. Only a WATCHOUT!-suited worker was left, and together Ted and Carolina knocked him to the ground and tore off his hood.

It was Bugslush.

“D-don’t h-hurt me!”

Hiding behind the lab counter, Swamster recognized Bugslush’s voice and stood up.

“Bugslush!”
said Swamster.

“Oh n-no,” said Bugslush.

“This possum-thing works for the crazy skeleton-maniac,” said Carolina. “I saw him before I was sent to jail.”

“He took my
job
working for President Skeleton,” said Swamster. “Career thief!”

“Oh d-dear …,” said Bugslush.

“What are you doing here?” said Ted.

“I have a m-master’s degree in c-chemistry…,” said Bugslush. “President Skeleton asked me to h-help replicate the f-formula. …”

“Throw him in the pot,” said Swamster.

“Wait,” said Ted. “We’re not going to be able to make it back to the cell blocks carrying the weapons and the solution. But if the army brought ACORN to
us.”