Jake & The Giant (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 2) (10 page)

“Have you
found something?” he asked, hurrying toward her to shine his lantern on the grass.

Miss
Langesund bent down with a stricken look and stared at an object on the ground. “Oh, no…”

“What is it?” Jake
rushed over as she picked it up, in a daze.

By th
e light of Archie’s lantern, he saw Miss Langesund’s hand begin shaking as she lifted what she had found up to the light.

She never did answer his question, nor did she have to.

The answer was self-evident.

Jake and Archie exchanged a dark glance.

“Father’s tobacco pipe,” she forced out. “He always keeps it in his pocket.”

As they stood t
here in dread, scanning the black, shadowed woods that loomed just a few yards away, there was no sign of Professor Langesund.

“Miss Astrid,” Jake said calmly. “You should p
robably put that down in the same spot where you found it.”

“Why?” she choked out.

“It’s evidence,” he answered in a grim tone, and Archie steadied her as she let out a shocked sob. “We need to call the police.”

PART II

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Misunderstood

B
ow tie, crazy hair, spectacles: check, check, check. The three geniuses Snorri had caught so far fit all the crow’s specifications.

The first was a mathematician who had been playing his violin between equations, as if the music helped him jar his ideas loose. Snorri had heard the haunting tune and had been drawn to it, tiptoeing up to the edge of the woods.

Seeing a man sitting alone who fit the right description, he had snatched him from right off the park bench by the fjord where he had been relaxing.

The second du
pe had been just as easy prey. Lost in their thoughts, these geniuses weren’t very good at sensing danger, Snorri thought with a scoff. He had found the second one studying plants in the forest.

The rumpled fellow had seemed particularly interested in the little black dots that grew on the underside of fern leaves. He had been so absorbed in his work that Snorri,
as large as he was, had crept up on him completely unnoticed.

The third had been a bit more of a challenge. He had stepped out behind a small wooden building on the edge of the campus to take a few puffs on his
tobacco pipe.

Snorri had smelled the piquant
smoke wafting through the woods and followed his nose toward it; in moments, he had peered out of the leafy shadows at the smoking professor, whose back was turned.

The stalking
giant had noted all the details. Neat beard, tweed vest, shirtsleeves rolled up.

No bowtie, but his spectacles and
the ink-stains on his fingers gave him away. He was some sort of scientist all right, and after Snorri grabbed him, he soon learned that the third professor was a digger of old, dead bones.

What mad ideas these humans took into their heads! Even the dullest-witted giant knew it was terrible bad luck to go digging up dead men’s graves.

Well, the bad luck that the grave-digging scientist must’ve long had coming caught up with him in the form of Snorri. He had grabbed Professor Langesund just as the absent-minded archeology professor remembered that he was missing the Welcome Dinner.

Professor Langesund
barely knew what hit him as Snorri snatched him off his feet, covered his mouth to shut him up, and dashed back into the woods again, carrying his prize under his arm.

Snorri had run all the way back to his mountaintop cave, where he had tos
sed Professor Langesund into another cage made of branches tied together with vines. He had strung the cage up high over the cavern floor so his captives couldn’t escape.

Since then, well, Snorri was not sure
what
he had expected from these fellows. They didn’t have scientists back in Giant Land, but from his dealings with them so far, he was rather glad of that.

Geniuses, Snorri had decided, could be nasty little creatures. Honestly, they were beyond rude!
Not even Gorm, with all his boasting and his insults, had ever referred to Snorri as an “it,” for example.

He clenched his jaw as
he heard them talking and kept his back turned to them, sitting before his campfire and doing his best to ignore them. They hadn’t stopped discussing him since he’d put them in their cages.

“
Splendid mutant! Magnificent specimen!”

“Incredible!
It must be over twenty feet tall! How is this possible?”

“I don’t know, Albert. It’s obviously a hominid of some kind, but at this point, impossible to say. We’ll need years to study this creature before we’ll understand it properly. By Jove, this is going to rewrite everything we know of evolution!”

“If we could show this creature to the world, we’ll be more famous than Mr. Darwin!”

“Yes, but
how do we get it back to the university? The beast is dangerous!”

Snorri was very close to losing his otherwise nonexistent temper.

“Have you tried communicating with it, Gunther? Does it speak?”

“I’ve heard some grunting sounds that seem to have some meaning, but
it’s hard to be sure if it understands. It barely responds.”

“Yes, well, its language is no doubt primitive.”

“But look, it’s mastered the use of fire! It wears clothes and it even has a few rudimentary tools.”

“You think it has a name?”

Snorri rolled his eyes.

These geniuses were so daft and so consumed with the hope of studying him that they barely spared a thought for the danger they were in.

Not that Snorri cared.

Such rude boors deserved to have their brains turned into powder and made into a potion for someone more deserving.

Thank goodness, the crow showed up at last, a flap of motion silhouetted before the moon. Finally, someone with common sense!

“Well!” his glossy, black-feathered friend greeted him, fluttering down onto the log across from the fire. “I see you’re making excellent progress, Snorri! Or should I say King Snorri? You’d better get used to hearing it. Soon!” the bird promised.

The reminder of their bargain cheered Snorri up considerably after his captives’ abuse. In truth, though he was too shy to say so, it was not the crown itself he cared about, but winning Princess Kaia. Whoever married her would be the next king, and oh, how he loved her! Always had. A hopeless case.

Hopeless—until now.

The fire popped and the bird bobbed its head to escape a small shower of tiny sparks that arced up from the flames. “So, how many brains have you collected, my friend?”

Snorri nodded over his shoulder with a brusque grunt.

“Three! Very good.”

“Nasty little vermin,” Snorri grumbled. “How many more will
you need to make the smart potion for me?”

The bird considered for a moment. “Five more should do quite nicely.”

“Five…?” Snorri echoed uncertainly.

“Your whole hand.” The bird pointed with his wing.

“Oh! Five. Right. I knew that,” Snorri muttered. “In that case, I should only need another day or so to catch the rest.”

“Excellent! I’ll be back to check on you tomorrow, then. As soon as you have the full number of geniuses, I will make the smart potion. And then you’ll be as intelligent as all of these brains combined,” the bird reminded him with a jaunty wink.

Not that he needed reminding. Indeed, it was all he had been thinking of. Why, when he was an
intellectual
giant, then Gorm wouldn’t have any reason to make fun of him anymore.

More importantly, Kaia was sure to find the new-and-improved Snorri the most suave, s
ophisty-cated, fascinating fellow she had ever met. She would almost positively fall in love with him.

She
just had to.

“Remember,” the crow interrupted his little daydream. “Bow tie, crazy hair, spectacles.”

“Right, right, right.”

“And don’t let anybody see you, except the ones you catch.”

“I know. Or they’ll dissect me.”

“Yes,” the crow said sympathetically. “I’m glad you understand the risks. Well, until tomorrow
, then! Good luck, Snorri, you giant of destiny!” The bird flew off again, circling higher into the sky.

As
it disappeared into a cloud bank, Snorri suddenly realized that the three smarty-pantses in the cages had fallen absolutely silent. Not a single rude word came from the direction of the cave.

Snorri glanced slowly, cautiously
, over his shoulder and saw them gripping the bars of their cage and staring at him in shock.

“You understand us?” the mathematician blurted out, staring at him.

“Th-th-that bird,” the bone-digger stammered. “It, it talked?!”

Snorri gave them a sarcastic “primitive” growl in answer.
Why enlighten them with facts?

They obviously thought he was dumb as a rock and more of a thing than a person.

Besides, he had no desire to make conversation with people whose brains he was going to drink in a powdery potion, if he understood the bird’s plans correctly.

He turned away and broke another huge branch over his knee, ignoring the bewildered questions of the scientists. Then he to
ok out his knife and cut a length of twine. Firmly tying two branches together, he got to work on building another cage for the five remaining geniuses that he had yet to catch.

It kept his mind off feel
ing homesick and a peculiar twinge of guilt already taking shape in his big, dumb heart. For as he worked, sitting beside his fire, a dark question passed like a shadow over the landscape of his mind…

For the smart brew to be made, these annoying little scientists were going to have to die.
That crow doesn’t expect
me
to kill them, does he?

He paused, mulling it over. A very disturbing question.

Falling into Midgarth was bad enough—against Odin’s rules—though he had done it by accident. Drinking people’s brains in powdered form or otherwise was considerably worse, and sure to be frowned upon—even though Odin, who
made
the rules, was rather bloodthirsty himself, being the god of war and all.

Moreover, though Snorri
might be the village idiot of Jugenheim, he was not at all sure he was even
capable
of carrying out eight cold-blooded murders.

That sort of thing was
Gorm’s expertise.

Snorri
shuddered despite the warmth from his fire. But his mind was made up. He didn’t mind catching them, but when it came time to kill those annoying little geniuses, the crow was just going to have do it himself. Peck them to death or something.

For his part, he
was not that kind of giant.

And come to think of it, m
aybe that was why he had never quite fit in back home.

CHAPTER FOU
RTEEN

Once A Thief

W
hen the boys returned to the dormitory later that night, Dani and Isabelle knew at once by their grim expressions that something bad had happened.

For their part, the girls had nothing to report
yet—no sign of Henry or Helena.

“Did you find Professor
Langesund?” Dani asked as they all gathered in the missing governess’s room.

“No,” Jake said, “we only found his pipe.”

Then Archie explained how they had stayed with Miss Langesund until the authorities had arrived. “But she sent us away as soon as the police wagon rolled up. She didn’t want us getting dragged into this mess.”

“Criminy,” Dani breathed. “What do you think happened to the professor?”

Jake shook his head, at a loss. “I have no idea. But something obviously did.”

Teddy let out a low whine and laid his head down on his paws.

“Meanwhile, we four are on our own.” He glanced around at them. “We’re going to have to be extra careful and look out for each other. There’s something very weird going on around here.”

“
Well, let’s hope for the best,” Isabelle said in a comforting tone. “It’ll sort itself out. I’m sure everything will be fine. Maybe Professor Langesund simply wandered off for a moonlight stroll in the forest. Maybe he dropped his pipe and didn’t even realize it.

“As
for Henry and Helena,” she continued, “you needn’t worry about them. Even as animals, they’re clever enough to stay out of sight until they’re able to come back to us. We just have to wait for them. With any luck, they’ll be back by tomorrow morning.”

The others exchanged a dubious look, though they appreciated her attempt to make them feel better.

Then Jake suggested they all take turns waiting up throughout the night, in case Henry and Helena showed up needing help.

Of course, if the twins returned, still stuck in their animal forms, Jake wasn’t sure how th
ey were going to sneak two wild animals into the college dorm, unseen. They would just have to cross that bridge when they came to it. He’d think of something.

Archie volunteered for the first watch, from eleven P.M. to two o’clock in the morning, but
Dani told him to go to bed—she would do it. Since it was already quite late, they would only need three shifts.

The others agreed that Archie should be the one to get a full night’s sleep, since he had to participate in a science panel discus
sion in the morning with a Chinese physicist and a Scottish engineer.

He would need a good night’s sleep to be sharp enough to answer the audience’s questions.

“You’ve got your genius reputation to keep up, after all,” Dani told him. “Just go to bed. Teddy will sit up with me.”

Jake said he’d take the hardest shift, from two till five A.M., and then Isabelle would watch from five in the morning until full daylight.

Dani and Jake said goodnight to his cousins.

Archie went into the boys’ room, while Isabelle withdrew into the room for
the girls across the hallway.

“I’ll sit up with Teddy in
Miss Helena’s room,” Dani said, nodding toward the next door beside the girls’ room.

Henry’s chamber was next door to the boys’ quarters. Jake nodded and stepped into the governess’s room with her.

“Aren’t you going to bed?” Dani asked.

“Just want to make sure you’re all settled,” he mumbled.

She eyed him with a frown. “You’re more worried about all this than you’re letting on.”

“Well, we
are
up against a Norse god, you carrot-head,” he whispered with a scowl. “I can’t help feeling that Loki is behind all this somehow. Not just with Henry and Helena, but Professor Langesund, too. But why?” He shrugged, having no answers and no clear idea of what was really going on.

All he had was a simple plan to get a hold of those Lie Detector Goggles. He had a feelin
g they were going to need them.

Dani stud
ied him suspiciously. “I know that look. You’re planning something, aren’t you?”

“There’s a device
in the Exhibit Hall that’ll help us identify Loki no matter what shape he takes. I’m going to go steal it,” he whispered.

Her green eyes flew open wide.
“Jake, you said there are policemen all over the campus now looking for the professor!”

“
Aye, they’re distracted with their search,” he countered in a reasonable tone. “With him gone, nobody’s going to be paying attention to the inventions right now. I can get in and out of the Exhibit Hall before anyone even notices me.”

“But you swore off stealing, remember?
”

“This is different. Our s
afety’s on the line! What choice do we have?”

“Ugh.” Dani dropped her face into her hands for a moment. “If you get caught, I don’t know you.”

“I’m not goin’ to get caught. I haven’t lost my touch.”

She lifted her h
ead and stared at him in disapproval.

“I’ll put the g
oggles back when we’re done using them, all right?”

“All right
,” she grumbled, scooping up her dog. She carried Teddy with her to the armchair beside the window, then sat down to keep watch. “Jake,” Dani said as he headed for the door.

He glanced over his shoulder in question.

“Be careful,” she offered. “And good luck.”

He sent her a cocky smile. “Who needs luck when you’re as talented as me?”

She rolled her eyes, but Jake flashed a grin.

Leaving her and Teddy to their sentry duty, he stepped out into the corridor and pulled the door shut quietly behind him. He glanced both ways, making sure none of the other conference-goers were wandering the halls.
Fortunately, he found himself alone.

The dormitory full of student bedrooms was quiet; all the doors down the long hallway remained closed.

Right,
he thought, with a small nod of determination. Then he moved off stealthily to carry out his mission. He just hoped his thieving skills weren’t getting rusty.

It had been a while.