The Secrets of Ordinary Farm

Chapter 32

“O kay, Jenkins,” Steve said as they staggered out into wider spaces of the Fault Line cavern, “I definitely have to give you one thing-some interesting stuff happens when I hang out with you.”

Tyler flicked the beam of his flashlight around until he located the ladder and the hatch door above it and the tightness in his chest eased a little. They were in the right time, anyway, or at least it looked that way. “Sorry, what?”

Steve just went on as though Tyler hadn’t said anything. “I mean, whoa, I wish I knew you when I was little. ‘Mom, can I have a play date with Tyler? We’re going to go through the mirror and we might meet some ghosts and then we’re going to play with the dragons… ’ ”

“Crap.” The feeling of having made a mistake-of having made a lot of mistakes-suddenly crashed down on top of him. “Crap, crap, crap.”

“What’s wrong?” Steve suddenly looked serious, darting his own flashlight all around the rocky chamber. “What is it?”

“I totally forgot-it’s locked.” Tyler smacked at his leg in frustration. “I’m such an idiot! There’s a padlock on the other side of this thing as big as your head. We can’t get out this way. Shoot!” He climbed up the ladder and shoved at the hatch to show Steve what he meant, but to his astonishment the trap door not only moved, it popped right open.

“Guess they don’t make those padlocks like they used to,” Steve said. “Can we just get out of here now?”

“But… but… ” Tyler pushed the hatch open and lifted his head. The silo was as empty and cobwebbed as it had been the last time. Wow, I can’t believe most of the summer’s gone by and this is the first time I’ve been here! he thought. He had been dreaming about the Fault Line most of the year, but it just showed how crazy this summer had been. To emphasize the point, rain was drumming hard on the silo roof, as if this were not August but February. “There’s another lock, too-on the outside of the silo door… ”

“Yeah, well, check it before you waste too much time telling me how it’s as big as a horse or something,” said Steve. “Y’know, just in case it’s open, too. Then let’s go get something to eat.”

Tyler wasn’t as surprised this time when he pushed on the door and found it unlocked. He peeked outside just as lightning whitened the sky, then let the door fall closed again as thunder followed only a second or two later.

“Let’s go, already!” said Steve. “Onward to snacks!”

Tyler glared at him. “You do know that we have more important things to do right now than feed you, right?”

“Says the man who doesn’t have to keep this magnificent physique of mine constantly fueled.” Steve patted his belly. “Your suggestion is considered and rejected.”

Tyler couldn’t help smiling. “I’ll try to steal you something if we go past the kitchen.”

“Where are we going now that we’re here, anyway?” Steve had settled in on the silo floor and was patting his pockets as if hoping he’d find a candy bar or something he’d missed. Tyler thought that was pretty unlikely since Steve had been doing the same thing every few minutes for the last several hours. “Because you never told me.”

The reason Tyler hadn’t told him was that he hadn’t really thought about it much. His only real goal had been getting back onto Ordinary Farm. He needed to… no, scratch that, he absolutely had to stop Colin Needle from pulling off some kind of game-changing trick with the Continuascope, making everybody think that he was the one with all the answers. And of course, if Lucinda was right about all this spores-and-fungus business, Tyler knew he should probably try to do something about that too.

Gideon. If Gideon was confused, then what was more likely to bring him back than to see his beloved Grace again?

“We’re going to the house,” he told Steve, opening the door of the silo as thunder again crashed overhead. What he didn’t say, but could have, was that they were going right into the witch’s castle without even a bucket of water to throw on her.

They had only taken a few steps when Steve suddenly let out a noise of surprise and disgust and scrambled back into the shelter of the silo’s front door. “Dude, I just stepped on something disgusting!” He trained his quivering flashlight beam at the muddy ground. “Ooh, it’s like a giant salamander. With two heads…!”

Tyler looked at the confused creature, pale and shiny in the rain as it waddled away from the harsh glare of the flashlight, limping slightly. The false head in the rear appeared to watch them reproachfully as the animal hurried on. “It’s one of those things from the reptile barn,” he said. “Can’t remember the name-amphibunnies, something like that. Me and Lucinda always just call them ‘Buttheads’ because they have another head on their butts…”

“Amphisbanae,” Steve said. “Wow. They’re real.”

Tyler turned to look at his friend. “What are you talking about? How do you know that?”

Steven Carrillo scowled. “Dude, I am only the best Dungeoneer in my school. I have run so many games that people just say, ‘We’re going to play some Steve today.’ Something flipped past his face, wiggling slightly, and he flinched back. ‘But I have no idea what that just was

…!”

“Flying snake.” Tyler watched it splash gently to the ground and wiggle away in the same direction as the two-headed lizard, apparently headed toward the far end of the farmhouse. As he watched, he noticed for the first time that quite a few crawling things were moving through the rain-spattered mud. “Whoa, why are all these snakes and things out? It’s like they all got out of the Reptile Barn… ” A sudden thought struck him. “We have to get going.” He grabbed Steve’s arm and shoved him off the steps of the silo and toward the distant house.

“What are you doing…?” Steve was hopping and skipping over the mud in what would have been a very comical manner, but Tyler was not feeling very humorous at the moment. “You’ll make me step on these things.”

“Doesn’t matter. Keep going.” He had just realized that if this parade of buttheads and flying snakes meant the Reptile Barn was open, they might be meeting up with the bigger reptiles any moment-not just basilisks and cockatrices, but dragons, too.

They hurried across the open space between silo and house. The summer storm seemed to home in on them as though it had eyes-Tyler could have sworn the rain was harder where they were than anywhere else. Lightning cracked and this time he could see it, a shimmering, shivering bolt that zigzagged down from the sky on the far side of the house; for a moment the weird profile of Ordinary Farm jumped out against the glare like a theater set. In that instant of black house and white sky he saw something sliding across the heavens, a shape like one of the flying snakes but a hundred times bigger. “Okay, just run!” he shouted, yanking Steve so hard they both nearly fell.

Twenty seconds later, slipping like skaters on bad ice, they reached the gravel driveway. They dug across it to the porch at the kitchen end of the house where Tyler pulled Steve into the ornamental bushes.

“Ssshh,” he said, shaking his friend until he stopped groaning. “Shut up! You’ll get us killed!” The lightning flashed again, but to Tyler’s great relief there was no longer anything dragon-shaped in the sky. He looked back over his shoulder at the house. The lights were on in the dining room and kitchen areas, but all the curtains were drawn: there was no way to tell who might be working in there, if anyone. “We’ll go around to another door. Come on!”

But even as they crept along beside the house, keeping the front garden hedge between themselves and the driveway, Tyler heard an unexpected sound, the rumble of car tires on the gravel. He stuck his head above the ragged hedge and saw a long, low black car, the kind you might see pull up in front of a Hollywood premiere, except Tyler was pretty certain no famous actors or actresses were going to be making an appearance here tonight.

Steve popped up beside him. “Who’s that?”

“I don’t know.” He hesitated for a moment, but he couldn’t imagine anything good coming out of that car. Animals loose, strange visitors-what was going on here? “Just forget about it. We have to get inside fast.” Before something eats us, he thought but didn’t say.

They crawled the rest of the way around the kitchen end of the house on hands and knees like commandos moving in on a well-defended enemy position. Thunder boomed like artillery.

“Hey, Jenkins,” gasped Steve. He paused to shake a newt off his hand-a newt whose skin, despite the heavy rain, flickered with tiny yellow flames. “Do you think the world’s going to end tonight? ‘Cause I have to say, it kind of feels like that to me… ’