Taker and the Keeper (eBook)

2

THE SCIENCE OF WORMHOLES

Demon … ?

Gregory was about to protest that he wasn’t any kind of demon. But he didn’t get a chance to say a word. The sandy-haired boy hiked one knee high in front of him, kicked out, and booted Gregory in the stomach. Gregory tumbled backwards into the tunnel, and his monocle fell from his eye. He lay where he’d landed, gasping for breath, his eyes fastened on the pale light of the entrance. But no one came charging after him.

Demon … ? Gregory wondered again.

He tried to sort out the turmoil in his mind. What, exactly, had he seen out there?

Two boys …

… something odd about their clothes, old fashioned and homemade looking …

… and very dirty, especially their shoes …

… and the boy who’d stepped on him was pretty smelly …

… and something odd about their swords, too, Gregory thought. He couldn’t quite figure out what. Well, waving swords around was odd enough, wasn’t it?

To say nothing about being called a demon. A red-eyed demon at that.

Red-eyed? The monocle!

Frantically, Gregory felt around the tunnel floor until his hands found the small red circle. It wasn’t broken. His sense of relief was so strong that it alarmed him.

Then Gregory realized that he was shaking. The books in his backpack were digging into his back, and his right foot ached fiercely. Tucking the monocle into a pocket, he struggled to a sitting position. Just like before, he couldn’t see anything beyond the pale light of the entrance. And he couldn’t hear a thing. But he knew that those other boys must be right outside. The one who’d kicked him must be just a few feet away. Why hadn’t he come into the tunnel?

Maybe that kid can’t even see the tunnel, thought Gregory. He wasn’t wearing a monocle.

And if the kid couldn’t see the tunnel, that meant he couldn’t see Gregory, either—at least not now. He stood up very carefully, balancing on his good foot. To his relief, the one that got stomped on didn’t seem to be broken. He could put a little weight on it. For a long moment he thought about going back outside to find out just where he was and what was going on.

Definitely not a good idea, Gregory told himself. That kid out there is bigger than me, and he’s not at all friendly.

Leaning against the cave wall, limping, Gregory headed back into the tunnel—toward the familiar, faraway ravine. The silent darkness went on for a very long time. He didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Was he moving that much more slowly than before? Or was he lost? He felt his stomach clutch in fear.

“Don’t panic,” he whispered. “Don’t panic.”

Two more steps, and the faint light of the entrance appeared ahead. Gregory let out a deep breath of relief. Before long, he was outside, standing in the ravine, where everything looked perfectly normal. He turned around.

The tunnel was gone.

Gregory dug around in his pocket for the monocle and put it on. The tunnel was there again—and so was that tingling. He felt an urge to slam the red lens onto the ground and stomp on it, to grind it into bits. Without the monocle, there wouldn’t be any tunnel, and everything would be back to normal.

Except that he knew it wasn’t that simple. He’d never come here again without at least thinking about that tunnel—knowing it would appear if he only had the monocle. His little hideaway would never be back to normal. His anger faded into sadness.

“It’s ruined,” Gregory whispered aloud. He tucked the monocle back into his pocket and started home.

His foot hurt too much for him to leap across the creek again. He had to step carefully from stone to stone. His foot throbbed as he climbed the narrow path that went up the bank of the ravine. It hurt even more as he crawled out from under the bush that hid the path from above, and it kept right on hurting as he limped across the bridge and continued on his way.

I’ll never go back there again, he thought with both determination and sadness.

And as for the monocle …

… well, he would throw it away of course.

A dozen times as he limped the half-mile home, he thought about tossing it over a fence, down a storm drain, or into a dumpster. But he didn’t. When Gregory reached his family’s small, one-story house with peeling white paint, the red monocle was still in his pocket.

Since he knew that nobody would be home, Gregory let himself in with his key. His older brother, Alex, had an after-school job at a car wash. His father and his stepmother were both working at a restaurant. Sometimes Gregory himself made a little money around the neighborhood—running errands or doing yard work. But today he had some time alone. He could bury himself in homework, try to forget about what had happened in the ravine.

The bedroom that he shared with his brother held bunk beds and only a few other pieces of furniture. Gregory had an old, wooden, slant-topped desk that was his alone—off limits even to Alex. He put his backpack on the desk and reached inside for his books, but then he stopped. He just couldn’t think about homework right now.

He lifted the desktop and pulled out a small cardboard box. Across the box were scrawled two words: “NO GOOD.” But the red monocle had come out of that box, and it was definitely good for something. It was good for wrecking his peace of mind.

He’d found the box at school yesterday. Mr. Albright, the new science teacher, had asked Gregory to help clean out the classroom closet. The old science teacher, Ms. McDougal, had left quite a lot of stuff behind.

Ms. McDougal had been the strangest teacher in the school, probably the strangest in the whole town of Bainesboro. She’d always insisted that her students investigate everything—even if those things weren’t in the textbook. Like the day someone spilled a lot of alcohol and it accidentally caught on fire. The sprinkler system put the fire out fast, but water still poured from the sprinklers. Squealing, wet students scrambled for the door.

“Young scientists!” Ms. McDougal had called in a commanding voice. “Wait! Never miss an opportunity.”

She passed out jars so students could measure the “rainfall” caused by the sprinklers. After that, they got to go dry off.

That was Ms. McDougal’s way of teaching science. But the day before yesterday, she’d quit her job, saying that she wanted to finish some research of her own. Her sudden departure had seemed very odd, though some students were happy that she’d left. As for Gregory—well, he’d never known what to think of her.

Anyway, Ms. McDougal had abandoned a lot of stuff in the classroom closet. Mr. Albright was determined to throw most of it away. But, without really knowing why he wanted it, Gregory had gotten permission to keep that box.

Now Gregory dug around again among the things still inside. There were glass and plastic circles in a variety of colors. Some had metal frames and handles, like magnifying glasses. One pair of gold-framed eyeglasses had amber lenses; another bent eyeglass frame held two purple lenses. They’d all been wrapped in paper, with wadded balls of more paper stuffed around them.

He’d kept the red monocle out because it gave him that tingling feeling—not nearly as strong as it was in the ravine, but strong enough to notice. None of the other lenses had made him feel anything at all. Would they also reveal something weird if he looked through them in the ravine?

And why had the box been labeled “NO GOOD”? No good for what?

On the outside of the box was a little white sticker with Ms. McDougal’s name, address, and phone number. With the box tucked under his arm, Gregory hobbled down the hall to the kitchen. He punched Ms. McDougal’s number into the telephone. The phone rang three times, then he heard a familiar voice …

“Hello. You’ve reached the number of Mildred McDougal.”

I’ve got her machine, Gregory realized with disappointment.

“If you’re a former student,” the voice continued, “please leave a message. If you’re the Nobel Prize committee—well, you’ve certainly taken your good sweet time contacting me, haven’t you?”

Then came a beep, and Gregory spoke.

“Hi, Ms. McDougal, this is Gregory Guest. I’m calling because—”

He was interrupted by a click. That was followed by Ms. McDougal’s non-recorded voice.

“Gregory!” she cried, sounding excited. “Sorry I didn’t answer right away. I was screening my calls.”

“Listen, there’s something I’ve got to tell you,” said Gregory. “I found a box of yours in the science room closet.”

“Did you, now?” Ms. McDougal seemed to be struggling to keep her voice under control.

“It had some pieces of glass in it.”

“Did it, now?”

“And one of them—a red monocle—does something really weird. You see, it—”

“Hold it, Gregory,” Ms. McDougal interrupted. “This is tricky territory. I’m not at liberty to discuss this with you. Not at this time.”

“But Ms....