A Whole Nother Story (18 page)

“After them!” bellowed Mr. 5, bulging blue and red veins making his bald head look like a road map. “I like warm milk and cookies at bedtime!”

With the car blocking the exit, Mr. 88 and Mr. 207 had to climb over it to get out of the warehouse. This gave Jough and the others a much-needed head start. Jough’s original plan had been to drive the car up next to the fence, climb on top of it, and jump easily to the other side. Without the car to stand on, getting everyone over the fence in time would be far more difficult.

Jough reached the fence first and immediately dropped to the ground on all fours, offering the small of his back as a step for the others.

“Go!” he shouted to Maggie as she ran up to the fence.

“Youngest first,” she said, waiting for her little brother to catch up. Gerard used his brother’s back as a launch pad, leaping halfway up the fence with some help from his sister. An excellent climber of all things (trees, fences, large mounds of dirt), Gerard had no trouble reaching the top of the fence and, in just seconds, had dropped down on the other side.

“Hurry, Dad!” cried Maggie to Mr. Cheeseman, who wondered how he was going to climb the fence without the use of his hands, which were not yet completely untied.

“You two go ahead,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “I’ll be okay.”

“We’re not leaving without you,” said Jough, rising to his feet.

“It looks like none of us are going anywhere,” said Mr. Cheeseman as Mr. 88 and Mr. 207 ran toward them and Mr. 5 climbed over the car and out of the ware house.

“Gerard,” said Mr. Cheeseman, turning to his younger son. “Go for help. It’s our only chance. Run as fast as you can, and don’t stop for anything.”

“But . . .”

“But nothing. Just go!”

Gerard spun around, put his spiky head down, and ran up the road. This certainly did not escape the notice of Mr. 5, who shouted, “He’s getting away, you idiots. Shoot him. I’m wearing Spider-Man underpants!”

Mr. 207 stopped running and fished his gun from his shoulder holster. In all his years of taking orders from Mr. 5, never before had he been told to shoot at a child. The prospect of doing so made him very nervous. Not because his conscience bothered him in any way, but because children were generally smaller than grown-ups and, thus, much harder to hit. Without further hesitation, he leveled his gun at Gerard and fired. The bullet hit the chain-link fence and shattered in two, both fragments landing in the dirt at Gerard’s desperately moving feet. As Mr. 207 took aim once more, Gerard disappeared behind the tall weeds.

“Don’t just stand there,” yelled Mr. 5. “Go after him! My real name is Milton Cornelius Flowers!”

Mr. 207 ran for the fence as Mr. 88 ran up and grabbed Jough and Maggie by the napes of their necks, squeezing hard enough to send a shooting pain right down their spines.

“Let them go,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “Let them go and I’ll give you the code. You have my word.”

“No, Dad, don’t do it,” shouted Jough as loudly as one can while the back of his neck is being crushed.

“Shut up,” said Mr. 5 as he grabbed Ethan’s well-tied hands and forced him to the ground with a knee in his back. “I intentionally speed through school zones!”

A hundred feet away, from the relative safety of the ragtop convertible, Pinky growled and barked and Elliot watched in horror and amazement as Gerard ran toward them while Mr. 207 reholstered his gun and began climbing the fence.

“Oh no,” said Elliot to himself. “This is not good. This is not good at all.”

For the record, Elliot was exactly right. The situation was very dire indeed. Suddenly, he heard a low rumbling behind him that grew louder and louder until finally he could ignore it no longer. He looked out the rear window of the convertible and what he saw both confused and frightened him. It was coming toward him so fast. Much too fast. Perhaps a hundred miles an hour or more.

As the big black bus raced closer and closer, he could see the man behind the wheel. The man seemed to be screaming, his white teeth standing out in stark contrast to his bushy, pumpkin-colored beard. As it turns out, the man not only appeared to be screaming, he actually was screaming.

As Captain Jibby gripped the steering wheel so tightly his fingers lost their natural coloring, he screamed at the top of his lungs, “Rammming speeeed!”

The convertible nearly blew over onto its side as the bus roared by, missing it by mere inches. Gerard stopped running and watched as the bus raced toward the chain-link fence, not slowing one bit.

“Go, Jibby!” shouted Gerard, who had never in his life been happier to see a school bus.

Jough, Maggie, and Mr. Cheeseman saw the bus too and undoubtedly shared in Gerard’s happiness.

It goes without saying that Mr. 5 was not the least bit happy to see the bus, nor was Mr. 88. But it is quite certain that the person least happy to see that particular school bus was Mr. 207, who had climbed roughly two-thirds the way up the chain-link fence when he saw the bus coming toward him at one hundred miles an hour, otherwise known as ramming speed.

Before he could react, the bus crashed into the fence with such force that the very posts that held it upright were torn out of the ground. Mr. 207 was thrown through the air like a rag doll, though it should be noted that he completely lacked any endearing doll-like qualities. He might very well have been killed had he not landed directly on top of the still-unconscious Mr. 29 as the bus blasted through the fence, sending pieces of it flying through the air like shrapnel.

Mr. 5 and Mr. 88 could only stand and stare as the bus lurched to a stop amid a cloud of dust. When it finally cleared they could see Captain Jibby and his band of sideshow misfits: Three-Eyed Jake, Dizzy, Aristotle, Sammy, and Juanita. By the way she gripped the large wooden rolling pin in her right hand, it was apparent that Juanita had no intention of using it to make cookies.

“Release the children,” Jibby bellowed as the others fanned out alongside him. “Or prepare to meet your maker.”

“Stand back,” said Mr. 5 as he pushed Ethan farther into the dirt. “Stand back or my associate will break the children’s little necks. I would love to learn to play the pan flute!”

Mr. 88 ignored the pan flute comment and squeezed harder on the children’s necks, almost causing Jough and Maggie to lose consciousness.

“I told you once before,” said Jibby, “that if you ever threatened me again, it would be the last time.”

Then, as calmly as one can, considering the circumstances, and without taking his eyes off Mr. 88, Jibby pulled out the knife blade on his Swiss Army hand. Then he pulled out the can opener, the hole puncher, the scissors, and the corkscrew. When the Swiss Army knife’s entire arsenal had been snapped into the ready position, Jibby grasped the handle with his left hand and began unscrewing it until the whole thing was no longer attached his wrist.

“I’m lactose intolerant!” said Mr. 5 right before smacking himself in the temple once more. “Now I’m warning you. Drop the knife!”

Jibby did drop the knife as Mr. 5 instructed but probably not in the exact way Mr. 5 had hoped that he would. Instead of lowering his arm and dropping the knife directly to the ground, Jibby chose instead to raise his arm high above his head and quickly “drop” the knife in a sharp, horizontal direction right toward Mr. 88. The knife’s many tools whistled through the air as it turned end over end until the scissors pierced Mr. 88’s shoulder.

Mr. 88 screamed in a pitch so high that only dogs could hear it. Pinky growled at the ear-piercing howl and Mr. 88 released his grip on the two small necks he’d been squeezing and stumbled backward. He reached up to pull the scissors from his shoulder but instead stabbed himself with the protruding corkscrew, causing him to let out another falsetto scream.

“Run!” yelled Mr. Cheeseman to his two children.

“Yes, over here!” said Jibby.

But neither Jough nor Maggie could persuade their feet to move in the direction of the black school bus. Without so much as a word or a glance between them, the two had each come to the exact same decision at the exact same time. They would run as their father had instructed, but they would not run away. Their fear quickly turning to anger, they lowered their heads and ran toward Mr. 5 and Mr. 88, growling like ravenous wolverines.

“Get ’em!” snarled Maggie in a voice so vociferous she almost scared herself.

“I collect commemorative plates!” yelled Mr. 5 before releasing Mr. Cheeseman and scrambling over the wreckage of the fence, away from the angry children. Mr. 88 followed but his pant leg caught on the wire fence and, for the second time that day, his bruised rib cage hit the ground, knocking the wind from his lungs.

Jough and Maggie ran to their father and began untying his hands.

“That was a very foolish thing to do,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “I told you to run.”

“You didn’t say in which direction,” said Jough, pulling the rope away from Mr. Cheeseman’s wrists.

“Look!” With his newly freed hand, Mr. Cheeseman pointed in the direction of Mr. 5, who was racing up the hill toward the convertible.

“Sammy,” said Jibby. “You know what to do.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

The man with the strength of two and a half men bent at the knees and picked up one of the steel fenceposts that had been yanked out of the ground. He took the exceedingly heavy pole at one end and proceeded to twirl around, faster and faster, much like a washing machine on the spin cycle. When he could spin no faster, Sammy let go of the pole, sending it sailing and twirling through the air like a helicopter blade.

Mr. 5 did not see the pole coming toward him, but he did hear it whooshing through the air just seconds before it clipped his legs out from under him, sending him sprawling to the dusty ground and badly fracturing his left leg.

Three-Eyed Jake and Aristotle ran over to Mr. 88 and pulled him to his feet before he could even think about making an escape.

“We got him, Captain,” said Jake.

“Good work, men.” Jibby walked toward the trembling Mr. 88. “I’ll take that,” he said as he pulled the Swiss Army knife from Mr. 88’s shoulder, causing the man to once again warble like a soprano. Jibby wiped the scissors clean on his blue buttoned sleeve.

“Okay,” he shouted. “Let’s get these scalawags tied up and put in the bus.”

Sammy, Dizzy, Aristotle, and Juanita went to work tying up Mr. 29, Mr. 88, and Mr. 207.

“Thank goodness,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “Thank goodness you showed up when you did. How did you find us?”

“Luckily I check my messages regularly,” said Jibby, screwing the Swiss Army knife back onto his right wrist.“Your boy called me. We just happened to be in the area.”

“Yes, I guess that was lucky,” said Ethan.

“Well, it wasn’t all luck,” said Three-Eyed Jake with a friendly punch to Aristotle’s shoulder. “We were in the area because Ari here remembered a vision he had had several years ago.”

“Crystal clear,” said Aristotle. Then he smiled and blew a large pink bubble.

“Well, I must admit,” said Mr. Cheeseman, “I’m quite amazed by your psychic abilities. Now if you can just tell us where we might find Gerard.”

Mr. Cheeseman needn’t have worried as Gerard was just up the road, watching while Mr. 5 wriggled about on the ground, gripping his fractured femur.

In a moment, Elliot and Pinky appeared at his side.

“You must be Jough’s little brother,” said Elliot.

“And you must be Elliot,” said Gerard.

“I sure am,” said Elliot. “And I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, did you see that guy with the steel pole? He must have thrown it a mile.”

“That’s Sammy,” said Gerard. “He has the strength of two and a half men.”

“You don’t say,” mused Elliot. “I wonder if he has an agent.”

Looking down the road, Gerard saw his father, his brother, and his sister running toward him. Ethan swooped down on his son and grabbed him in a hug so tight the boy’s spine made a slight cracking noise. Then Jough and Maggie took turns hugging their little brother.

“I was afraid you’d been shot,” said Maggie.

“I guess I’m faster than a bullet,” said Gerard.

“Me too,” said Steve.

This time Pinky did not growl at Steve but only because she was, at that very moment, busy displaying her complete and utter lack of fondness for Mr. 5 by tugging and tearing at his pant leg.

“Get him, Pinky,” said Gerard.

“Who is that guy?” asked Elliot.

“He’s the guy who killed our mother,” said Jough with both anger and sadness in his voice.

“Get him, Pinky,” said Elliot.

“Ahhhh! Get that animal off me,” screamed Mr. 5, clutching his injured leg. “I drink milk directly from the carton and put it back into the fridge!”

“Grrrrrr.”

“Okay, Pinky, that’s enough,” said Mr. Cheeseman.“We’ll need him in one piece when the police show up and arrest him for murder.”

For a moment, Ethan wasn’t quite sure he meant what he had just said. Part of him wanted to see Pinky tear to pieces the man who had taken the love of his life, the man who had caused him and his family so much pain. He even thought about doing it himself, but before he could act on his impulse, he noticed Jibby, Aristotle, and Three-Eyed Jake standing next to him.