Cold Cereal (The Cold Cereal Saga) (39 page)
Read Cold Cereal (The Cold Cereal Saga) Online
Authors: Adam Rex
Whoop
.
“Merlin thinks I might be one of the last men knighted before Goodco replaced Her Majesty with two goblins in a queen suit,” John added, and Scott could see his father already starting to buy into the movie make-believe of it all. Already casting himself as the leading man.
Thing is, Scott had believed it, too, for a moment. In the dairy. He tried to remember the way that felt.
“I forgive you,” he said quickly. He’d had no idea he was going to say it until he said it.
John started, and lowered the sword to his side. “Oh … good. Um. For what exactly?”
“For, you know, running out on us. On me and Mom and Polly.” Polly herself appeared in the doorway, and Scott thought,
Good. It’s probably better she hear this
.
“Wait,” said John. “Run out on you? Scott, I
never
ran out on you. That isn’t what your mother told you, is it?”
Of course it was. Wasn’t it? It had been so long ago.
“He didn’t run out on us,” said Polly. Of
course
Polly would know the truth. She and their mother probably talked about it every other day. While eating ice cream and watching movies with lots of kissing. Scott wished he hadn’t brought it up, not like this.
“I went off to Toronto for eight days, to film a movie,” said John. “
Treacherous Intentions
, did you ever see it? No, of course not; it’s rated R. But I came home to find that your mother had moved out and taken you both with her. We’d been having problems….”
“Mom says it was a lot of little things,” said Polly. “Do you wanna hear them? Thing Number One: she—”
“Ah, you know something?” John interjected as he watched Scott’s face. “We don’t need to talk about this
now. There’s time. I bet Scott only came up here in the first place to use the computer. That’s right, isn’t it?”
And just like that, John was Reggie Dwight, hero of stage and screen. “Yeah.” Scott sighed happily. “I have to email Mom.” John smiled at him. He smiled back. And was he actually getting teary now? No, of course not, that would be stupid, Scott thought, blinking his eyes. He coughed and sat down at the computer.
There was still the question of why his dad had never visited. Or why, with all John’s money, Scott didn’t own at least one speedboat. Nobody was off the hook or anything.
“Okay, remember,” said John. “Don’t tell your mum anything about all this.”
“I know.”
“She’s still down there working for Goodco; they
need
her, so maybe she’ll be safe if they think she doesn’t know anything—”
“I
know
. I mean—I know. Thanks.”
He had a couple emails from her, one from New Zealand and one from Antarctica. The last read:
Dear Scott,
Hope I hear from you soon. Are you mad I left? You know I wouldn’t ever leave you if I didn’t have to. You’re probably just very busy. Well, so am I! You would not believe
Antarctica. It’s like another planet. I’ve seen lots of seals and skua. Remember we looked up skua? No penguins yet.
There’s this phenomenon down here called the Fata Morgana—it’s an optical illusion, like a mirage. It makes the horizon look smeared and distorted in a weird way, but otherwise it’s nothing special. Except there’s this strange spot where the Fata Morgana isn’t behaving like it should. That’s all I can tell you right now, but it’s very exciting. I haven’t even begun to understand these readings we’ve been taking.
Write back soon. Be good to your father. Be even better to your sister—she loves you.
It’ll be January before you know it.
Love,
Mom
It made Scott feel sad and good in equal measures. He was pretty sure John had been reading over his shoulder, and trying to seem like he wasn’t. Scott turned his head slightly, and John set himself in motion.
Whoop
.
They were going to have to flee Goodborough. Go into hiding while they made their plans. There had been some talk about a boat. Never before had Scott had so much to say and so little he could write.
Dear Mom,
I can’t wait to see pictures! Why don’t you start a blog where you can post a picture every day? Make sure you’re in it. Every day. Or else Polly will worry.
Sorry I haven’t written before now. You’re right, I’ve been busy. I won’t bore you with the details, which are boring. But I made some new friends. And visited a tree house. And saw a play. And learned about history. And about how commercials are made. They do a lot of it with stunt doubles, it turns out.
I’ll write more soon. I promise.
Love,
Scott
Whoop
.
ADAM REX
is the author of many books, including the
New York Times
bestselling picture book
FRANKENSTEIN MAKES A SANDWICH
, the middlegrade novel
THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY
, and the teen novel
FAT VAMPIRE
. He currently lives in Arizona with his wife. You can visit him online at www.adamrex.com.
Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors and artists.
For middle grade
THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY
For teens
FAT VAMPIRE
Cover art © 2012 by Adam Rex
Cover design by Joel Tippie
Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
COLD CEREAL
Copyright © 2012 by Adam Rex
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rex, Adam.
Cold cereal / Adam Rex.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: A boy who may be part changeling, twins involved in a bizarre secret experiment, and a clurichaun in a red tracksuit try to save the world from an evil cereal company whose ultimate goal is world domination.
ISBN 978-0-06-206002-0 (trade bdg.)
EPub Edition © JANUARY 2012 ISBN 9780062060044
[1. Cereals, Prepared—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 4. Twins—Fiction. 5. Brothers and sisters—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B26615Co 2012
2011019538
[Fic]—dc23
CIP
AC
11 12 13 14 15 CG/BV 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
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1
A wealthy family with millions in orthodontic hardware. They owned most of Goodborough, and indeed the town was named for the legendary family patriarch Zachariah Terribull Goode, who had made a name for himself fashioning complicated headgear for the punishment of indecent women. Dentists coveted these devices as well, and soon the Goode Ortho-dontical Emporium was born.
2
Older readers may also remember Clover the Angry Leprechaun, who was discontinued from boxes of Burlap Crisp in 1962.
1
In recent years the Sickle has become more symbolic than the Freemen Founders could ever have imagined: natural cereal grains have been almost entirely replaced in Goodco products by vat-grown imitation grain meals such as Gorn, Weet, Noats, and Gorn-Free, the Gornless Gorn substitute.
2
The most common include the “Eye of the Dragon” (pink, usually surrounded by blue flame), a red octagon (which marks the beginning and end of a journey), a cow with a beehive for a hat (representing Nature’s bounty), an apron (service to a higher purpose), and a large, radiant
G
(for Goodco).
3
The Initiate will not be permitted to bring snacks before his third month of membership. The snacks must include a nondairy option for those who have trouble with milk.
