"Will someone stop this madness?" Sewey asked the world around him.
The police shoved Mr. Rat into a car, which rushed off screaming down the road. Sewey did the same, rushing off screaming through the park for Mabel and the picnic tables.
Mabel laughed and laughed and laughed. Sewey barely managed to get his story out with all the noise she was making. Not a single one of them believed it.
"But he
did
try to sell me magic papers!" Sewey insisted, gasping for air.
"Yeah, right," Balder said. Sewey knew better than to try to convince them.
"Why do these things happen to me?" he moaned later to Rosie, Balder, and Bran, all of them sitting at a picnic table. Mabel was with Baldretta and chatting away with Mrs. Demark by another table. The elephant and the trumpeters were gone, but on the stage, Bran saw the mayor signing autographs for a line of people. His wife wore a beekeeper’s hat with a net over her head to keep spores from nipping at her eyes.
"Maybe you looked to him like the type of person who would buy magic things," Rosie said, trying to get Sewey to be quiet.
"What?" Sewey demanded. "Magic objects? ME? Preposterous!" He shook his fist at the sky. "I tell you, Rosie Tuttle, there are
six
things that I will
never
do. I will never, ever buy anything magical, and I will never, ever shake hands with a gnome. I will never join the army, or live anywhere near my brother, or help a mage out of jail. And I will never, ever,
ever
become a politician! Is that clear to you, Rosie Tuttle?"
Rosie nodded nervously. They were in a small clearing just below the famous Givvyng Hill, which went very far up above them with a slow slant. On top of the hill was the Givvyng Tree, the same on which were carved the famous words, "no gnomes, no mages." A short distance away, there was a sidewalk that ran alongside the major road; gathering along the sidewalk was a row of booths.
"Blast this crazy Duncelander weather," Sewey moaned. "It’s so hot."
"Oh, I give up," Rosie said, exasperated. She stood up and fixed her hat. "I’m going over there to look at the jewelry stand," she said, checking her purse. "I might be able to buy a new pin or something."
"Bah!" Sewey waved his hand, and she started off for the stands close to the road. The table went very quiet when she left.
Bran looked about, bored. A short way off to the west, there was a long brick wall that went for miles north and south, so far that he couldn’t see the end. It divided the city of Dunce from the wild and ferocious West Wood. There were tall trees that peeked over the top of the wall, and as Bran peered off into the west, he thought it was darker to that direction in a strange and foreboding way. Balder saw him looking at it.
"Sewey," Balder pointed to the wall. "What’s that?"
"What’s what?" Sewey said, looking around.
"That wall over there," Balder pointed. Sewey’s gaze followed his finger.
"That, Balder," Sewey explained, "is the West Wall. It divides our city from the ferocious West Wood, which is filled with terrible things. Terrible beasts: maybe bugbears, or
worse!"
"Bugbears?" Balder sneered. "You’re pulling my leg!"
"It’s true," Sewey insisted, waving his arms. "No one ever goes in there; not even mages will step foot in them for fear of the beasts. Wish they would though, and never come back! Those woods go all the way up the side of the globe, and no one’s ever plotted a map of them, and every airplane that accidentally ventures over never returns." He mopped his brow before going on. "It’s best not to even think of the Wall. There are plenty of other, safer things to think of, like banking. And finances. And the stock market…"
"But what’s in there?" Bran asked, staring at it.
Sewey wrinkled his brow. "I already said, no one ever goes in," he replied. "So no one knows."
"I bet there are monsters in there, and they’ll be getting out soon!" Balder burst with glee.
"Not through
that
wall, they won’t." Another voice came from behind them, and Bran turned.
"Hello, Adi," he said.
Sewey spun as she walked up to them, dressed in light green and holding a cup of lemonade. She smiled warmly and nodded toward the wall.
"It’s solid brick," she went on. "One door in and one door out, and that’s the Greene Gate."
She pointed over Balder’s shoulder. Far off, there was a dark green wooden door—thick, bolted, and set into the wall tightly. The hinges were black metal and held it strongly in place. "No one’s opened it for years," she added, putting on an air of mystery. "Thirty years ago, when explorers broke down part of the wall to go in, only one of the entire group made it home: Martilla Greene. She was so terrified when she got back, she was mute the rest of her life, spent all her money to build that gate, and never told anyone what was beyond the wall."
Sewey’s eyes went wide. He gulped.
"Are there…monsters?" he whispered.
Adi shrugged. "Like I said, no one knows," she said, and she took a sip of her lemonade.
Sewey stared at the wall for a long while, and then finally crossed his arms again. "Well, whatever it is," he said, "it’s probably some gnome’s fault for causing it!" He turned on Adi. "In fact, after what happened to me Friday, things have only gotten worse!" He began to rant at her about what had happened that morning on the way up.
Bran, having heard it all before, started to watch the people walking by the booths. He spotted one of their neighbors, and across the grass, Rosie at the jewelry stand, looking at something.
For a moment, his gaze was grabbed from her by a man who was wandering down the path. The man didn’t look strange at all but for some reason, he didn’t seem to be acting right. He kept looking from one person to the next, and finally he saw Rosie, and started to move closer to her.
What’s he doing?
Bran wondered, watching him closely. Rosie didn’t see him, and the man started to move in her direction through the crowd, though he only glanced at her every few steps. A big truck drove by on the road behind them, honking to the people at the fair in greeting, and Rosie laughed at something the booth owner had said.
"And then," Sewey went on beside Bran, "this man named Mr. Rat comes and…"
Sewey’s voice seemed to fade into the back of Bran’s head, like a distant echo. A strange feeling began to creep over him, something he had not felt before, almost electrifying. He didn’t know what it was, but it felt as if his senses were abruptly coming around and he could see and hear a hundred times better than before.
He couldn’t tear his eyes from the strange man moving next to Rosie, and he saw her laugh again and start to turn from the booth. And in that split second, something happened.
Suddenly, the man leapt at her, shoving her to the side and into the booth. Bran jumped to his feet, and Rosie screamed, people in the crowds falling over as the man pushed her.
"Rosie!" Bran shouted. The man grabbed for her purse, trying to get it from her. Her arm was caught in the strap, though, and she screamed when he pulled her with it.
Bran leapt off the table and started to run for her, his heart pounding. Sewey and Adi spun, but Bran was already gone, and the man dodged a booth owner and started running toward the road, Rosie struggling to get her arm out as he dragged her behind him.
"Someone help her!" a woman screamed. A police officer ran in her direction, only to trip over a cable holding the tents up. Bran’s feet pounded against the grass, and he saw the man give a final jerk on the purse, sending Rosie falling into the middle of the road. The man dashed off, leaving her behind.
"Help!" Rosie screamed, struggling to stand, just as Bran got to the end of the sidewalk.
"Rosie!" he shouted. She was trying to sit up, sobbing. He reached the road and was almost to her when all of a sudden, he saw something rushing in their direction out of the corner of his eye.
He turned his head, and in a moment, it seemed as if time stopped. He could hear the beating of his own heart in his ears. And he saw a freight truck, coming right at them down the road.
No!
his mind gasped. He heard the crowd behind him, shouting. He heard Rosie scream, trying to move. And he heard the horn of the truck, the driver unable to stop. It was rushing closer, faster, its horn ringing in his ear, and Bran’s eyes widened as it came.
And then,
it happened.
It was as if something broke free within him. There was a rush, then a quick cold jolt that washed over him as if he had been hit by a tidal wave on a freezing night. He saw the truck coming at them, he saw the grille on the front, closer and closer. He saw the driver, trying to stop, he saw the license plate—all of it at once. And in a sudden motion, he swung his hands out in front of him and Rosie, as if something else was controlling his reflexes, as if he could stop the truck right there. He saw something blue, like a wall in front of him, translucent at his hands, and though he didn’t know what was happening, a second later the truck was upon them.
It slammed into him full force and he gritted his teeth together, and all else around him melted away—the sounds, the colors, the people. He heard the smashing of metal, felt heat from the engine. His feet slid on the pavement, but something held him in place. His mind didn’t even allow him to consider what he was doing. He held his ground, pushing against the force of the truck—and in front of him, he saw the metal bending and breaking inward, smashing and crumbling.
He shouted, his voice echoing, sweat creeping into his eyes, down his arms, onto his hands. He didn’t think—he just pushed against the truck, fighting its force. And in a second that felt like hours, Bran felt the force against him stop, falling back…
There was a sound like a gunshot in Bran’s ears. He was thrown backward off his feet, and in an instant everything went black.
Chapter 9
The Box in the Bookstore
Bran heard someone breathing . It sounded like the birth of new life, as if something dead had awakened and was taking its first breath of air again. It was long and drawn out, and he felt as if it were drawing the air out of his own lungs to feed it. He tried to scream, but no sound would come. He felt someone near him, then above him, reaching out with withered, white hands. Bran couldn’t see a face before the figure disappeared like smoke. And as quickly as it had begun—
It stopped.
Bran gasped and found his hands clutching at the grass, his back to the ground and tents towering over each side of him. He was breathing hard and heard shouting nearby. When he sat up, he saw a big freight truck with its front smashed in, sitting far off in the middle of the road. Around it was a crowd of people, helping a woman up. He recognized her in a second: it was Rosie, alive and unhurt.
What happened?
he thought wildly, struggling to stand. A thousand questions ran through his head, but every one vanished when he felt a hand grab his shoulder and pull him up.
"Bran!"
When he turned, it was the last person he had expected to see. "Adi?" he said with alarm. He gasped as she clenched his shoulder with a strength he had never imagined her to have. Her eyes flashed with a strange anger.
"Quiet!" she snapped, jerking him into the back of the booths. All of the owners were gone from their stations, and there were boxes of merchandise behind the counters, small partitions dividing the different booths from each other. Through the openings, Bran could see the group of people by Rosie. Adi pulled him out of the sight of the crowd.
"What’s happening?" he asked anxiously. "What are you doing?"
"I’m getting you out of sight, Bran," Adi snapped back. "And you might want to be thinking of what you’re going to tell those Duncelanders."
"What do you mean? I don’t even know what happened!"
"You don’t?" Adi said dryly. "You should. Or maybe you don’t. That’s the way this city is—you don’t even know who you are before it happens."
He tried to look back. He didn’t know what Adi was talking about at all. She came to the door on the end and pushed through, opening to the clearing by the picnic tables. There was no one around, and Bran could hear the people by the truck in the distance.
"So you don’t even know what happened," Adi said, and she spun him around to face her.
He was at a loss for words. He didn’t know what to say or do, everything was happening so fast.
"
What
happened?" Bran finally demanded, and all of a sudden, her face softened; the anger wiped away from it in an instant.
"Bran…" she started, but she looked down, and he could see pain in her face.
"Listen, this is very unnatural," she said, but then she shook her head. "No, actually it’s not; it’s just unnatural for where we live. I mean, in Dunce."
Bran could see she knew something, and it looked as if she was having a very hard time telling him. She stammered for the right words, looking around as if she could pull them out of the air and say the right things.
"I should have known. It’s my fault," she said slowly. "Usually things like this are found before now, but since we live in Dunce, there was no way for anyone to find you…"
Her voice trailed off.
"Find me for what?" Bran asked, and she looked up at him again.
"Bran, you’re going to have to keep a secret for me," she said slowly, looking him directly in the eye. She gripped his shoulder a little tighter. "If I’m caught, I’ll be going to jail," she said. "And if you aren’t very careful, you’re going there too."
"Why?" he asked, dumbfounded.
She waited for a moment. "Because," she said slowly, "you just did
magic.
"
Bran’s eyes widened with shock. In an instant, his heart began to beat faster.
"No…" he said in a whisper, not believing it. The world seemed to swirl around him, almost as if everything had disappeared and it was just the two of them there, with Adi gripping his shoulder.