Kid vs. Squid (11 page)

“I'm not interested in the newspaper,” she said. “Not since they dropped
Mary Worth
from the funnies.”

“We're not selling the paper,” I said. “We want to talk to the boys.”

“My boys? Are you friends of theirs?”

“Yes,” Trudy said immediately.

The woman smiled pleasantly enough. “I'm sorry, they're not home.”

The flat-out lie angered me, but I couldn't bring myself to take it out on this spindly old grandmotherly lady.

“Ma'am, we saw them walk up. Those are their bikes right there.”

She didn't have much reaction to being caught out. She merely shrugged. “You're welcome to come
in if you'd like to wait for them. I'm sure they'll be home soon.”

It smelled like a trap, but since I was expecting it, I decided it was worth the risk. And actually, it smelled more like lemon-scented furniture polish than a trap. In contrast to the outside, the cottage's living room was clean and tidy. Large-print issues of
Reader's Digest
and a Bible rested on an oval-shaped coffee table in front of the sofa. A vase of silk flowers sat atop a boxy old television.

There was no sign of the jellies. Maybe they were hiding in the closet. Maybe they had a secret compartment to curl up in and be slimy together.

“Would you like some cookies?” the woman asked us.

I almost said no, but then I figured any time she spent in the tiny kitchen was time Trudy and I could spend snooping. “That'd be great, thanks.”

She went off, and while Trudy peered at the shelf under the coffee table, I examined some framed photos on the wall. Most of them were of a pair of boys, twins, climbing a tree, playing with a red wagon, opening presents by a Christmas tree, riding bikes.

“That's my Tommy and Dicky,” the woman said, returning to the living room with a plate of seashells. Not cookies shaped like seashells, but actual shells. She took one herself and bit into it. The shell wouldn't
crack, so she put it back down on the plate and selected another. “Hmm, just a little stale. What was I saying? Oh, yes, my grandsons. They used to like being in pictures, before that hideous witch turned them into jellyfish. They're so camera-shy now.”

“Does everyone in town know Tommy and Dicky are jellyfish?” Trudy asked.

“Why, I wouldn't know, but we've got nothing to be ashamed of in this house. Tommy and Dicky are good boys. They just fell in with a bad crowd.”

“That happens to many youths in my peer group,” I said numbly. “It's our violent video games.”

“No toys or games till homework is done,” the woman said. “That's the rule in this house. Or it used to be, when the boys still went to school. They had to drop out, I'm afraid. The witch has them so busy they couldn't keep up with their courses. Also, because they're jellyfish.” She picked up the plate of shells and held it out for Trudy. Trudy took two.

“Thank you. What sorts of things does the witch have them do, if you don't mind my asking?”

I was happy Trudy could get her question out. Me, I was struck dumb by the woman's openness.

“They won't try to take Skalla's head back from you, if that's what you're thinking. Unfair to ask that of them again, I think. They're just boys, my Tommy
and Dicky. No, that job went to the witch's bigger helpers. You won't be able to fight them off with sticks and stones. I'm happy for that, because your rock-throwing hurt my boys. I had to give them chewable aspirin and shrimp ice cream just to calm them down.”

“Are they still working for the witch?” Trudy asked.

“Oh, I'm afraid so. Once you're hers, you stay hers. Soon everyone in this town will belong to her. This town and beyond. The time is in her favor. The planets and tides and things are all in the right place. I don't pretend to understand it all, but she has the Flotsam where she needs them. Anytime now, she'll cut them open and empty them of the magic she put in them when she cast her curse. And then the soup will be on.”

That's why Skalla kept the Flotsam coming back to Los Huesos. Not just to torment and humiliate them, but to keep them handy for when she was ready to work a bigger act of magic. And now that the time was near, she'd had her lobster men kidnap them. She would drain them of magic, like Shoal had bled to share her resistance to the curse with us. Only, I had a feeling what was coming next would involve much more blood and much worse magic.

“Thank you for admitting this to us, ma'am,” Trudy
said. She sounded polite, but I could tell she was as alarmed as I was. “We'd still really like to talk to Tommy and Dicky. Could you ask them to come out?”

“But I told you, they're not here. As you came in, they left out the back. Why do you think I've been so willing to have this chat with you? I just wanted to give my boys time to get away from you awful children.”

Trudy and I made a quick search of the cottage, just to make sure the woman wasn't lying now, but the jellies really did appear to be gone.

“You shouldn't have done that,” Trudy told her. “If you know what the witch is up to, you should be helping us stop her.”

The woman's eyes grew moist. “I can't,” she whispered. “That's what I've been trying to tell you. So many of us have tried to fight her. But she's too strong. Even as just a head, she's too strong. Bless your hearts, but you'll lose.” She sank onto the sofa and wept quietly. “We always lose.”

Only then did I notice the gills sucking air into her wrinkled neck.

The boardwalk was empty the next morning, with just a scattering of tourists complaining that the shops and stands and rides were closed. Nobody manned the tattoo parlor. The popcorn stand remained shuttered.

Trudy and I searched the entire length of the boardwalk and caught no sign of the Flotsam. I wondered if we'd ever see them again. Or Shoal. When we passed the midway, Trudy gripped my arm to keep me from wandering off to the ring-toss stand, and I did the same for her when we passed the saltwater taffy shop. And when we stopped to gaze out over the water, we both felt it calling us. The ocean wanted us to wade in. The waves hungered, and I could feel myself losing the will to resist.

We kept searching.

At the north end of the boardwalk, electronic beeps and blips leaked through the weathered wooden doors of a large, canary yellow building with arches over the entrance.

“That's weird,” Trudy said, stopping in front. “All the rest of the businesses are closed.”

I gave the doors an experimental tug. Locked. “So's this one. They probably just leave the machines on at night.”

Trudy didn't seem convinced.

We stepped away, but a muffled voice beckoned us from inside: “Secrets … fortunes … reveal all …”

Trudy frowned. “Tell me that's not suspicious.”

“It's just a video game, I'm sure. They talk. Don't you play games?”

“Well, there's an autopsy computer simulation I downloaded from the FBI …”

“…secrets… reveal all …,” said the voice.

Trudy retrieved a screwdriver from her backpack. “We have to check this out.”

“You realize, of course, we're probably walking into a snare,” I said as she began monkeying with the door handle.

“At this point, all of Los Huesos is a snare. But we can't afford not to investigate every lead.”

Unfortunately, I agreed with her.

“There!” Trudy said as the door handle and lock broke apart into fifteen separate pieces. She pushed the door open. “Just keep your sword ready.”

Dim light filtered in through skylight windows high above our heads as we treaded quietly between long rows of battered video games. Some were old enough to qualify as museum pieces. Flashing messages under glass begged us to insert quarters. I felt like I was being besieged by robot panhandlers.

More games lined the back wall: pinball machines with ringing bells, Skee-Ball, a baseball game that let you knock Ping-Pong balls into scarred outfielders.

We encountered no people. No customers, no arcade workers. Except for some roosting pigeons, we appeared to be the only living creatures here.

“Zoltan knows secrets!” an enthusiastic voice rang out. “Let Zoltan tell your fortune!”

Shoved into the corner was a cluster of glass and wood-framed cases. Inside one of them, a waist-up mannequin outfitted in a dusty black tuxedo and red turban glared at us. His hands hovered over a cloudy crystal ball.

“Zoltan will tell all you wish to know! Just ask Zoltan!”

“It's just a fortune-telling machine,” I said.

“Yes, and it's talking to us in an apparently abandoned arcade,” Trudy pointed out.

Zoltan smiled with a wide mouth. His lips were too red. Dust coated his glass eyes.

“Give Zoltan a quarter! Zoltan will reveal all!”

“They could stand to turn his volume down,” I said. “Okay, Zoltan, what have I got in my pocket?”

“Zoltan tells all! Ask a question of Zoltan!”

“Zoltan doesn't even know I asked him a question.”

“You didn't give him a quarter,” Trudy observed.

“Fair enough.” I dug out a quarter and shoved it into his coin slot. Whirrs and buzzing and creaking and
boings
came from inside the wood case. Zoltan turned his head a little to the right, then left, as though stretching a stiff neck.

“Ask a question of Zoltan! Zoltan will tell you everything!”

“Where are the Flotsam?”

Zoltan's hidden speaker buzzed. Then, “Ask Zoltan a question,” he said. “Zoltan will tell you all he can!”

“Zoltan's an idiot,” I said to Trudy. “Come on, let's go.”

We got a few steps away when the fortune-telling machine blared at us: “Zoltan can't tell you what you need to know if you don't ask Zoltan the right question!”

We turned. He looked back at us with his frozen, ever-smiling face.

Trudy approached Zoltan and stood close. She got out her pen and notebook.

“Zoltan, are you alive?”

The mannequin looked back at her, smiling with his red lips, silent. Trudy continued to stare Zoltan down. She was pretty formidable, but I figured she'd blink first since Zoltan didn't have moving eyelids.

I jumped when Zoltan blurted out, “Zoltan tells fortunes!”

Trudy took a deep breath. “Zoltan, how can we find Shoal and the other Flotsam and nullify Skalla's curse and also avert the big disaster Fin said is coming in three weeks?”

“Ask a question Zoltan can answer! It costs but a quarter!”

“Maybe I haven't asked the right question yet. Let's try him again.” Trudy looked at me expectantly.

“What, you carry cameras and firecrackers and doughnuts but you don't have a quarter?”

“Thatcher …”

“Okay, okay, here.”

I inserted my second-to-last quarter, and Zoltan's body shuddered like an unbalanced washing machine.

Trudy cleared her throat. “Let's try this: Zoltan, what
do
you know?”

And Zoltan said, “Sorrow.”

The other half-dozen fortune-telling machines lit up, fizzing with static and squeaking and grinding. They all started speaking at once, their voices colliding in the morning chill. It was impossible to make out everything they were saying, but here and there I was able to pick out a few words and phrases:

“… was a mother …”

“… was a reporter …”

“… was the police chief …”

“… was the librarian …”

Thunder boomed over the sea, a great cracking blast of sound that rolled out from the water and blanketed the town, and the voices fell away. It was as though they'd been shouted down by the sky.

“We are Los Huesos,” Zoltan said, his mechanical voice softer now. “We are the ones who asked questions. We are the ghosts in the machines.”

“Who … who were you?” I asked.

“I was always Zoltan. Bob Zoltan, of Zoltan Hardware and Garden. I had a wife. I had children.” His voice grew more staticky, his words spoken more slowly. “They are gone.”

His life went out.

“We're getting somewhere now,” Trudy said. “Give him another quarter.”

I dug into my pocket to retrieve a coin and sank it in his slot. “Last one.”

Zoltan's light flickered back to life and he boomed, “Zoltan will show you your fortune!”

The clouds in his crystal ball boiled slowly like a lava lamp, sharpening into an image of a dirty sea. Wreckage and debris floated in the laundry-water waves: wood and plastic, oil slicks and parts of houses, drifting like rafts past islands of accumulated junk. Roller-coaster cars bobbed like discarded coffee cups in a gutter, and I made out the sign of Pantastic's, where I'd had breakfast with Trudy and Shoal just a short time before. There were books too. And bodies. Animals and people, floating lifeless.

“Is this what Skalla's going to do?” Trudy asked in a shocked whisper.