Cragbridge Hall, Volume 2: The Avatar Battle (32 page)

While Rafa attacked, Derick rounded toward the enemy. He got there in time to crash into the other soldier’s legs and let out a strange squeal. Rafa whirled over and kicked the man to the ground. He was out cold.

Yells echoed in another trailer.

“We need to find my mom, but there are more men coming,” Rafa said. He looked down at the men on the ground. “And these ones might not stay down long. We are outnumbered and outgunned.”

They couldn’t hide, and they couldn’t waste any time. At any moment one of these soldiers could alert Mackleprank they were coming. They were desperate. They needed something now. “Bayonets,” Derick said, remembering his desperate charge on the enemy in the Civil War.

“What?” Rafa asked.

“Remind me to tell you the story sometime,” Derick said, back in the lab at Cragbridge Hall. “But we charge them. I really wish I had time to change avatars, but we need to go now—take them by surprise.” He barked and started running through the jungle floor toward the nearest trailer. Rafa came right behind him.

Half a dozen men filed out of a trailer in time for Derick to jump and ram one right in the torso, sending him sprawling into another. They were definitely surprised. Rafa was on another two.

One man kicked Derick, sending him rolling several feet. That was sure to hurt. Nothing like kicking a mound of metal. Derick rolled over and rushed back to meet the soldiers. He scurried and dove the best he could, trying to knock them to the ground, trip them, or at least bite their toes. But—aagh! He felt a bullet enter into his back thigh. Then another in a shoulder, and another. His pathetic squeals were louder and uncontrolled now. A large rodent versus armed men didn’t have much of a chance. He tried to find cover, but he was too far away from the trees. Each bullet stung, feeling like a hot iron ramming into his flesh.

Derick bit another soldier on the shin, bringing a shout from his victim. Then he felt a huge pain between his shoulders and he was suddenly back in the avatar lab. The capybara must be completely out of order. The rodent had been exterminated.

Derick had failed—again.

• • •

Could this get any more hopeless? Abby’s heart raced, fear pounding it faster and faster. She couldn’t think of anything they could do.

“And now, Abby,” Mackleprank said. “It is time to pay you some attention.”

“I don’t think she wants any,” Carol said.

Mackleprank only sneered. He removed the spheres and put them in his pocket. Then he had a guard help him twist the keys again to show a massive blimp gliding through the sky. A sky that was now the other half of the basement of Cragbridge Hall. If someone slipped at the edge of the divide in time, they could fall to their doom.

Mackleprank brought the perspective of the Bridge to a space just outside the baggage area, where the two imposters inside the
Hindenburg
waited.

“I thought they were going to try to change history,” Abby said.

“No,” Mackleprank said. “That isn’t their job today.” He stepped into the past and invited the intruders into the basement. Now there was Mackleprank and four soldiers. His army was increasing.

“You see,” Mackleprank explained, “Muns wanted to change this event and other tragedies in history, but your grandfather would not allow it. Muns would like him to learn a lesson.” The avatar of the zoology teacher shifted the perspective of the Bridge ahead slightly, into the baggage storeroom. He then crossed the basement, lifted Grandpa over his shoulder, and approached the divide in time.

“No!” Abby cried out. He was going to put Grandpa on the blimp that burst into flames and fell over thirty stories.

“You had your chance, Abby. Your grandfather didn’t change this history, now he gets to experience it. Fitting, isn’t it?” He crossed time and set Grandpa on top of a steamer trunk.

Fitting. The word echoed in Abby’s mind as she stared at the terrible scene.

“Muns has enough keys and no longer needs your grandfather.” Then Mackleprank, with his strong robot arms, picked up Abby’s father with one arm and Abby’s mother with the other.

Abby screamed.

“And your parents failed to produce the result Muns wanted when they were last back in time.”

Mackleprank took several steps toward the past then turned. “You can probably guess the drill, Abby. You are now in the same situation your grandpa was at the beginning of the semester. Again, it is very fitting. And you can either change the past or watch them die.”

He continued, “I will allow you to use the keys only to stop the entire dirigible from sinking,” Mackleprank said. “You can warn the crew. You can urge them to not circle around before docking, allowing the passengers to get off. There may even be some ways of stopping the explosion itself. But you must change it. If at any moment you try to simply remove your grandpa and parents, we will turn the keys from this side and leave you stranded in the past on a blimp that will go up in flames.”

Abby couldn’t breathe. She had to fix this.

32

Relay

Dumb giant squirrel thing. Dumb guards who invaded and took over this avatar station. Dumb Muns. Derick pounded the ground of the avatar lab.

Wait. A smile crept over Derick’s face as a realization flashed in his mind—this could be like the avatar relay. He could keep going back in other avatars. He searched through the names and couldn’t do anything more than pick another one at random.

He opened his eyes and looked down. Please be something more ferocious than a rodent.

Spots. Oh, he loved spots.

Derick stood up on all fours and raced out of the avatar storage trailer. He found Rafa fighting with several men, gunshots ricocheting off him in every direction. He fell back several steps and almost fell over.

Derick growled in his jaguar and raced the distance between the trailer and the soldiers. He felt so fast, so light. He might not run very smoothly, but he could sprint forward. Men began firing. He felt several more stings, one in his chest, another in his shoulder. He leapt in the air and came down hard on one of the men. He used his hard metal snout to slam into his enemy’s forehead—a jaguar avatar headbutt. The man cried out in pain.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rafa knock another man to the ground. Then he whirled to attack another.

Derick bit a soldier’s leg, and careened into another.

More bullets.

Derick bit his lip, trying not to scream. He would never get used to this.

He got up and pounced toward another soldier, but could feel his avatar waning. It was almost out of commission.

Derick pressed the button on the back of his neck and selected another avatar. He soon raced out of the trailer as some sort of boar. He bounded forward, snorting and biting.

“Hey Rafa,” Derick said.

“This avatar is almost done, Derick,” Rafa responded, panting.

“Bring out another and after you attack, bring out another,” Derick said. “We can keep switching, like the relay race. They won’t know which avatars we are and which ones we aren’t.”

“You’re a genius,” Rafa said. Derick saw him punch a soldier and then fall limp.

Derick managed to plow into one of his enemies with the boar, and then he switched again. He attacked in a tiger, then moved back to the boar, and once again back to the tiger. Rafa came out as a large bird, swooping down at the men, then an orangutan, and then found there was a little more power in the human.

“How many of them are there?” A soldier cried out.

When the boar was out of commission, Derick selected another avatar. He tried to look down but couldn’t. He had a large snout on the front of his face. Yes! Derick shuffled as best and as fast as he could through the opening of the trailer and toward the men, his crocodile jaws opened wide.

• • •

Abby couldn’t look away. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing them. Almost seeing her parents go down on the
Titanic
had etched that thought and feeling on her heart. And her grandpa—she loved him too. He had so much trust in her. “Stop this,” Abby cried out.

“You are terrible, terrible, terrible,” Carol spat out at Mackleprank. “You bring in guns and threaten middle school girls? Can you go any lower? I mean, do you push down elementary kids at recess? Steal second graders’ chocolate milk on Fridays? Trip babies when they’re trying to learn to walk? It’s not like you can brag about this to all your other villain friends.” She acted out a pretend conversation with other criminals. “Oh, you fight off guards and steal rare assets from highly defended bank vaults? Not me, I point guns at seventh-grade girls.”

“Quiet!” Mackleprank screamed, and ran to Carol. He pulled back his hand, like he would slap her. Carol closed her eyes and turned, bracing herself for the blow. But Mackleprank never swatted. “Quiet,” he reiterated, calmer now. “You have no idea why I have to do this.”

Abby
did
have an idea, but she didn’t have time to think about that.

Mackleprank had started to walk away and then stopped. The way he stopped and twitched his fingers, Abby thought perhaps he had received a message on his rings. That boggled Abby’s mind that a robot could use rings. But it made sense; in the avatars you could see what the robot saw. “Gentlemen,” Mackleprank said to the guards with him, “we have a quick change of plans. You,” he selected one of the men, “guard these girls.” He pointed at Abby and Carol. The guard turned, guns aimed in their direction. “Keep them under wraps unless they are willing to change the past. And you,” Mackleprank spoke to the other three soldiers. “You are coming with me to the avatar lab. We have a bit of a pest control problem.”

And then they were gone.

To the avatar lab? What was so pressing that he would leave this situation that was obviously so planned, so thought out, to go to the lab? Abby allowed one side of her mouth to curl up in a half smile. Maybe Rafa and Derick were fighting back. Suddenly there was a shard of hope. Abby didn’t know exactly what her brother and Rafa were up to, but if they were doing anything with the avatars and Mackleprank came into the lab, they would be sitting ducks. They would be so involved in whatever their avatars were doing, they wouldn’t know someone else had found them until they were already caught.

But what could she do? Abby glanced around the room. She saw Carol, several feet away wrapped up in another belt. She saw the
Hindenburg
gliding through the air, now over a big city with a crowd underneath cheering and gawking. Then Abby saw a straw on the ground. Mackleprank hadn’t picked it up. She scanned some more and noticed a few darts, one only a few feet away. She glanced away, knowing that the guard may be watching her. She had to distract him if she was going to stand a chance. She looked over at Carol. “Maybe we should just go back in time and change it all, Carol.”

“What?” Carol said. “Is your thinker okay? You know we can’t mess with time. Your grandpa says it could destroy everything. ”

“You might want to listen to your friend,” the guard said to Carol.

“She might not have the courage to do it,” Abby said, trying to sound upset. “She doesn’t have the courage to do anything daring. I heard last time there was trouble down here, she totally freaked out. She broke down.” The guard looked at Carol, and Abby had a moment to wink. She hoped Carol would catch on and try to distract the guard.

“What?” Carol said. “You think I just crack under pressure?” Abby thought she could see a dramatic increase in Carol. She got it. “Well, it was a lot of pressure,” Carol blurted, her voice rising. “Like super pressure. Pressure like the heaviest thing in the world on top of me, plus three hundred elephants, two hundred walruses, and several of those super fat cats whose owners don’t stop feeding them—that kind of pressure. And they all ate extra donuts for breakfast.”

“I don’t think that even made sense,” Abby yelled back.

“I don’t either,” Carol shouted. “I’m under that much pressure right now, no thanks to you.”

“It doesn’t mean you have to freak out,” Abby taunted. “We have a lot on the line.”

“Freak out? Freak out?” Carol said. “That’s not freaking out.
This
is freaking out!” She started rolling on the floor and screaming—most of it was gibberish. She did throw in a movie line about never going to be taken alive, then she started choking, then she seemed to be acting out some sort of death scene. It was really weird, but definitely distracting. The guard kept his distance, but pointed his gun at Carol.

“Stop it,” he said. “Or I’ll throw you on the blimp.”

“Yeah, stop it,” Abby yelled. She tried to shuffle her body up to her feet, so she could approach Carol.

“Don’t move,” the guard said, now pointing his gun at Abby.

Abby screamed and fell back to the ground, rolling slightly when she landed. Her arm throbbed, and she had knocked her shoulder and thigh pretty hard, but she had stopped moving about where she had needed to. She grasped with her fingers for a dart. She had to be careful; she didn’t want to find the sharp end of it and send herself into a coma. Finally, she touched it, and wiggled it into her hand.