Chase Tinker & The House of Magic (15 page)

"He probably was," said Janie. "You're always
lost."

"But I've been here a week." Chase snorted.
"Lost. Yeah, right. Snooping around is more like it. I bet he knows
all about our magic. And I bet he'd love to get in the attic."

"He does have those cold, mean eyes," added
Persephone, shuddering.

Chase glanced at her. He was happy she wasn't
taking Janie's side, even though he was still kind of irritated
with her for laughing at him.

"Do you think these dark enemy guys are the
ones who kidnapped Dad?" asked Andy.

Chase looked into his brother's worried eyes.
"Maybe. It sure sounds like they might be, huh?"

"We need more information," grumbled Janie.
She slouched and traced the swirly patterns in the carpet with her
fingertip. "There has to be a way…" Her eyes brightened and she sat
up straighter. "I have an idea!"

"What is it?" asked Chase eagerly.

"We need to break into the attic and ask the
Relic."

"A
re you crazy?"
yelled Chase. "You saw what happened when I tried to break into
something in this place." He resisted the urge to rub his aching
butt again.

"I don't believe the attic painting will do
that," said Janie. "When we knock on the correct door, it'll let us
in. I'm surprised you'd let a little spanking stop you, Chase."

His face turned bright-red. "Yeah…well…I'm
surprised
you
want to break into anything. You remember what
curiosity does, don't you?"

She crossed her arms and glared at him. "I
figure if Grandfather's not telling us things, then I don't care
anymore."

Chase shrugged. "Okay. Whatever. But how do
we know the Relic can tell us anything it hasn't already?"

"We don't," she answered. "The only way to
find out is to get in there and ask it some questions."

"Do you remember what door to knock on?"
Chase asked, looking irritated. "I sure don't. And after you guys
walked away, I looked back and saw them moving all around. There
are so many, it'll be next to impossible to find the right
one."

"But we have to try," Janie insisted.
"Grandfather isn't sharing some important things we should know
too. He probably thinks we're too young."

"I'm kinda young," said Andy, yawning. He
stretched out on the floor and rested his head on his folded arms.
"And I don't want Grandfather to be mad at me."

"None of us want him to be mad at us," said
Chase, "but we don't like being kept in the dark, either. It'd be
nice to know what the heck is going on around here."

"I wish I would've had my invisibility cap,"
said Andy, with another big yawn. "I could've snuck in there and
heard everything."

"That would have been great, but it doesn't
do us any good to think about it now," said Janie, jumping to her
feet. "Anyway, we can't do anything else tonight and Andy's ready
to fall asleep right here in the hallway."

Before leaving, Chase
stood in front of the locked door again and glared at it. Drawing
back his foot, he gave it a swift kick. "Crummy enchanted door!" he
muttered as he limped down the hall after the other kids.

T
he next morning the
boys found Janie in the kitchen by herself yawning and buttering a
bran muffin. Andy, looking as if he needed at least another three
hours of sleep, crawled onto the stool next to her and helped
himself to half of her muffin.

"How's your mom?" asked Chase. "Do you think
we can talk to her today?" He took a banana from the fruit bowl and
peeled it. Looking out the window, he saw the sun shining from a
clear, blue sky; for the moment, not a rain cloud was in sight.

"I haven't checked," she muttered, picking at
her muffin. "Maybe I'll just wait until she asks to see me. The
whole thing is so frustrating!"

"I'm sure Grandfather will say something
today," said Chase. "He knows we're all waiting to hear about my
dad too." Finishing his banana, he leaned over and whispered, "So,
when should we do the break-in?"

Janie glanced over her shoulder. "Mrs.
Periwinkle told me Grandfather's meeting the mayor in town this
afternoon," she whispered back. "We'll do it after he leaves."

"You with us, Andy?" asked Chase. "Or are you
going to be a big baby?"

"I'm not a baby and of course I'm going with
you," he said huffily. "I was sleepy last night, that's all."

Time dragged by. Grandfather had everyone
working to take down the 4
^th
of July decorations, which
Chase classified as the most boring chore ever. Grandfather wanted
the kids to practice teleporting down to the beach too.

"How do we know if we're going to the right
place?" asked Chase, sitting on the edge of the claw-foot bathtub
in Great-Uncle Thomas's bathroom.

"You have to picture in your mind where you
wish to be," explained Grandfather. "Concentrate, hold the image,
say it out loud, and then in your mind when you become an expert
teleporter like myself, and off you go."

Chase stood straight, closed his eyes and
thought about the sandy beach with its patches of grass and rocks
and blue water lapping at the shore. "
Grandfather's beach
.
Whoa!"

He felt the tornado-like rush of wind, the
floor falling away and the icky, compressed-in-a-box,
stomach-in-his-throat sensations. But, instead of landing on solid
ground, he ended up splashing waist deep into the ocean.

"Crummy teleporting!" he muttered.

He was wading back to shore when first Janie,
Andy and then Persephone popped onto the beach.

"Hey, Chase, what're you doing in the water?"
called Janie.

"Fishing," he retorted.

"Look at us, we did it perfect," said Andy.
He, Janie and Persephone congratulated each other on their fine
teleporting abilities.

"Show-offs," Chase mumbled as he stomped
away.

After a few more times of plopping into the
ocean, and climbing out of trees, he finally landed where he wanted
along with the other kids. And each time they teleported, they had
to hike back to the house.

"Um, Grandfather," said Chase, after the
ninth time, "what if, like you, I accidentally teleport to some far
off place? How do I get back home since I don't have all your
magic?"

Grandfather leaned back in his chair and
rubbed his eyes. "Good question, Chase. In order to make a round
trip say '
Thomas's Room
' and you'll teleport back."

"I don't mean to be rude or anything, but why
didn't you tell me this before I spent the last hundred times
hiking back here?"

"I'm sorry, Chase, I completely forgot.
Please forgive an old man's memory." He turned back to his
paperwork and waved his pen toward the door. "Will you please tell
the other children for me?"

"Sure," said Chase as studied his grandfather
for a moment. It wasn't like the man to forget anything, but come
to think of it, he had been acting preoccupied. He looked as if he
had the weight of the magical world on his shoulders. Chase wished
he could ask Grandfather if he was thinking about what Clair had
told him last night. If he did that, though, Chase would have to
admit they'd been eavesdropping. Janie was still mad that he hadn't
yet said anything to them about her mom. It frustrated Chase too.
Grandfather knew how much the boys wanted to hear about their
dad.

He jogged from the house and down the hill
toward the beach. The other kids were walking up from there.

"Hey!" he hollered, running to meet them. "I
found out something that will make teleporting a whole lot more
fun. When we say '
Thomas's Room
', we'll zoom back to the
bathroom."

"Oh, my gosh! That's awesome," exclaimed
Janie. "Now we can go longer distances."

"Yeah!" said Andy. "But isn't it time for
some food? I'm starving!"

"It's also almost time to set our attic plan
in motion," said Chase. "Come on."

All through lunch, Chase tried not to fidget.
If Grandfather suspects
anything
, he thought.
Well, that will ruin everything
.

"Do you children have any plans for later?"
asked Grandfather as he took a bite of potato salad.

"Oh, nothing special," said Chase, with an
innocent look. "Practice our magic, weed the garden, catch a few
rays. The usual stuff."

The others nodded in agreement.

"We have to work on our suntans when it's not
raining," said Janie. "And what are you up to?"

"I have a meeting in town with the mayor,"
said Grandfather. "He wants to plan a fireworks display for New
Year's Eve. They've become exceptionally popular."

"That's because they're super good!" said
Andy.

"Maybe we can come back at winter break,"
said Chase, while wishing he could just stay at the house forever.
"I wouldn't mind seeing those fireworks again."

"I would enjoy that, if your mother agrees."
Grandfather glanced at his watch and stood. "I better be off. I'll
see you when I get back."

After he left, the kids leaped from their
chairs and dashed through the house to the spiral staircase. They
skidded to a stop and stared at the stairs.

"Can anyone turn it into an escalator?" asked
Andy, looking hopeful.

"Not me," said Janie.

"Me neither," said Chase.

"It looks like we're walking," said
Persephone as she started up the stairs.

"We're probably wasting our time," said
Chase, feeling dizzy from going round and round. "We don't know if
the Relic will tell us anything. Or if we can even get in."

"You've already said that!" wheezed Janie as
she plodded along. "But we have to try."

When the long, tiring climb was done, the
four stood in front of the enormous painting of doors and stared at
it in total bewilderment. Chase's eyes started to blur and cross as
he gazed unblinking at the hundreds and hundreds of tiny doors.

Mingled in with the regular doors of purple,
orange, brown, red, blue and green, were barn doors, castle doors,
outhouse doors with half-moons for windows, swinging saloon doors,
garage doors, a jail cell door, a bank vault door, car doors, doors
that said push and doors that said pull.

"A chicken coop door?" said Janie.
"Weird."

"And a mouse house door," said Persephone,
moving closer for a better look.

"Hey, a revolving door," said Andy. "Like in
the city." He stuck out his finger and touched it. It started to
spin. Whoosh! He was sucked through the door and into the
painting.

"Andy!" yelled Chase, grabbing at the
air.

"Oh no!" cried Janie. "That wasn't supposed
to happen."

They looked uncertainly at each other for a
few long moments. "Well we have to do something," said Persephone.
"We can't just stand here—"

Whoosh! Andy flew out, head first, flattening
the other three kids.

"What happened?" Andy asked as they clambered
to their feet.

"You went into the painting," said Chase.
"Don't you remember?"

"A little," he said, straightening his
glasses and shivering. "It was all, like, dark and cold, and then I
was back here."

Standing a little farther away, they gazed at
the huge picture again.

"Oooh, a Dutch door," said Persephone. "Those
are cool. Look, the top half is open and it's showing a snowy
mountain." She leaned toward the door as if she planned on sticking
her head through.

"Be careful!" said Chase, catching her arm
and pulling her back. "You might fly to the top of Mount
Rainier."

"This is gonna take forever," said Andy. "How
does Grandfather remember which one to knock on?"

"Don't worry. We'll find the right door,"
said Janie as she squinted at the painting. "There are quite a lot
of them, aren't there? Someone knock on one."

"No way. Not me!" Chase backed as far away as
possible without falling back down the stairs. "This was
your
idea."

Andy eyeballed the painting as he inched
closer to his brother. "Do you remember the secret knock?"

"Oh, yeah," said Janie. "I forgot about
that."

Persephone shrugged. "Don't look at me. I've
never been up here."

"It's two quick knocks," said Chase, "then
two slow ones."

Janie rubbed her sweaty palms on the front of
her denim shorts and took a deep breath. "Okay, here goes." She
tapped on a plain brown door. Pop! A small, dark-gray cloud
appeared right above her head and poured rain on her. Poof, it was
gone. Dripping and standing in a big puddle, Janie blinked in
surprise as she wiped her sopping arm across her equally sopping
face. "Um, that wasn't so bad," she said, glancing at Chase out of
the corner of her eye.

He stared back at her, not saying a word.
Leaning coolly against the wall, he wondered if he should tell her
"I told you so" at some point.

She gave him a wide, brave smile and turned
back to the painting. Straightening her shoulders, she pounded on
another door—this time, a red one. Another pop sounded and her nose
was six inches longer.

"Oh my!" she cried, touching her new, pointy
nose.

"There goes your adorable nose," said
Andy.

Ignoring him, she rapped on a green door.
Pop! Her earlobes stretched down past her knees. Without stopping,
she went on to another, and another. Pop! Pop! She was covered in
purple spots and had sprouted a bushy red tail.

"That's not good," murmured Persephone.

Now looking like someone who belonged in a
three-ring circus, Janie cowered in front of the painting. Her hand
twitched as she tapped on a bright-orange door.

Nothing happened, at first. Janie was
reaching out to knock on another brown door when the howling wind
started. It ripped through the alcove like a hurricane. Whirling
and swirling, it first tossed Janie, then Persephone, Andy and
Chase, all yelling and screaming, into the air like limp rag dolls.
It whisked them round and round down the stairs until it dropped
them in a giant heap at the bottom, and then spun away into
nothingness.