The Mapmaker and the Ghost (22 page)

Snotshot opened her mouth to speak, when they heard a booming voice instead.

“Priceless? You don't say. I think that means it should stay right here, then.”

They whipped around to see Spitbubble walking swiftly toward them.

“Oh no,” groaned Birch.

And then, the most extraordinary thing happened. Snotshot turned to the Morams and said, “You run back with the rose. Help Lint. I'll take care of this.”

“But the map—” Goldenrod started.

“Can you memorize the path?” Snotshot asked.

“Yes—” Goldenrod said. “But we can't let him take it.”

Snotshot looked down at the frame at her feet. “Yeah,” she said. “I know. Look, I'll make sure the museum gets it back. You have my word.” She brought her head up and looked Goldenrod square in the eye.

Slowly, Goldenrod nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I trust you.”

“Go help Lint,” Snotshot said simply.

Goldenrod nodded again and then, jar in hand, she and Birch started to run as fast as they could out of the forest.

“Hey, where do they think they're going?” Spitbubble glared at the vanishing figures of Goldenrod and Birch.

Snotshot turned around to face him. “To help Lint. He's hurt, Spitbubble. But you already knew that.”

Spitbubble snorted. “Please. Why would they help him? How
could
they even help him? They're just two dumb brats. I think you got played.” He pointed to the frame. “Hand that over.”

“What?”

“You know what. That
priceless
map.”

Snotshot hesitated for only a moment. Then she said, “No.”

“What do you mean, no?” Spitbubble asked in his lowest, most menacing voice.

“The map is going back to the museum. I gave Goldenrod my word,” Snotshot said.

Spitbubble let out a short laugh. “Oh, really? How do you propose to get it out of here exactly? Are you going to take me on, one on one?”

Inwardly, Snotshot shuddered a little. She had never been in a fight with Spitbubble, and he was older and bigger than she was. The chances of her actually getting the map out of there were slim to say the least. Outwardly, however, she couldn't let him see that. Luckily, she
was
a pretty good actress.

“If that's what it takes,” she responded coolly.

“Seriously?” Spitbubble asked.

“Yeah, seriously,” she said.

“You really want to do this?”

“If I have to.” Snotshot was beginning to suspect that maybe Spitbubble was stalling because he hadn't been in as many fights as he let on either.

He sighed. “All right. It's not usually my policy to hit a girl, but if you're asking for it.” He looked greedily at the map, but he didn't make a move.

Suddenly, a streak of courage exploded within Snotshot. It might have had something to do with being called a girl. “I can't believe you!” she yelled. “I can't believe you
left us there. What good is a rigged-up cavern if all of us end up in jail? What were you going to do, just hang out there by yourself?”

Snotshot expected Spitbubble to give some excuse, any excuse. Instead, he was silent.

“Wait…,” Snotshot said, her mind reeling. “Is that true? Were you not going to let us stay there?”

“Of course I was,” Spitbubble said. “I've done everything for you guys. Everything.”

The problem was that Spitbubble wasn't nearly as good an actor as Snotshot was.

“From where I stand,” Snotshot said slowly, “it looks like we've been doing everything for you.” She turned around and started to walk away.

“Just where do you think you're going?” Spitbubble asked.

“Back to the museum. I'm returning the map, and I'm going to face whatever it is my friends are facing.”

“Your
friends
?” Spitbubble sneered.

Snotshot whipped back around. “Yes, my friends,” she said hotly. “And it's a lot more than you have.”

“What,” Spitbubble started, “are you talking about? They
are
mine. I own them. I own all of you.”

“You don't own me. Not anymore.” Snotshot found that she wasn't even acting as she lifted the map over her head and started to make her way back out of the forest.
The frame was heavy, and she couldn't move very fast with it.

But, somehow, she wasn't that surprised when she didn't hear the sound of footsteps behind her.

By the time Goldenrod and Birch had gotten back to the science museum, there was a cop car and ambulance there, and a small crowd had gathered to gape at the large kid on a stretcher and two other kids being questioned by a police officer. All three looked miserable, and Goldenrod couldn't help but notice that Brains was casting worried glances toward Lint in between answering the cop's questions.

Goldenrod and Birch had made their way to the front of the crowd and asked the paramedic wrapping up Lint's leg if they could talk to him for a second.

“He's our friend,” Goldenrod said, and the paramedic looked at her worried face and nodded.

“All right,” she said. “Just for a minute. Then we've got to get him to the hospital. His leg is broken in three places.”

Lint grabbed on to the paramedic's arm. “But I can run
the annual Cookman half marathon, right? It's not for another three weeks.”

The paramedic raised her eyebrows. “Honey, you're not going to be running anywhere for a long time. It's going to take you at least a few months just to walk.”

Lint groaned as the paramedic went to talk to her partner who was driving the ambulance. “My dad will
never
notice me now,” he said miserably, his face still pale and clammy-looking from pain.

Goldenrod tried to give a reassuring smile to her former Formidable Foe. “It's okay, Lint,” she said gently. “I can help.”

Lint furrowed his brow a tiny bit but didn't say anything.

Goldenrod looked around to make sure no one was watching her. Luckily, they all seemed much more interested in the interrogation taking place than in the patient visit happening on the side. She did catch Brains's eye, but him she wasn't worried about so much. She took the jar with the blue roses out from her backpack, quickly unscrewed it, and delicately touched a petal to the exposed skin on Lint's ankle. His skin glowed for a moment, and she could tell from the jolted look that appeared on his face that suddenly his pain was gone. He looked down. His leg was all bandaged up, but Goldenrod had a feeling that the paramedic was going to have a bit of a surprise when she unwrapped it.

She and Birch quickly and quietly slipped away before Lint, or anyone else, had a chance to say anything.

As Goldenrod kneaded a particularly stubborn piece of dough, she smiled to herself, thinking about the jar of blue roses that was now safely tucked away in one of her desk drawers.

She had plans to show the flowers to her father, the scientist, and her mother, the gardener, very soon, of course. After all, they wouldn't keep in that jar for much longer, and they absolutely needed to get properly discovered. But there was just one more thing she and Birch needed to do before they could get to that.

It was the weekend and, since their dad was home, Goldenrod and Birch had convinced him to spend it baking batches upon batches of cookies.

Baking with Mr. Moram was always fun, as he seemed to consider the art more of a chemistry experiment than a culinary one. He loved testing out all sorts of new flavor combinations, or rising agents, or simply a new way to sweeten a sweet. Whenever he baked, he would pour the entire contents of the pantry out onto the countertop to assess the ingredient situation. Then he would line up measuring cups, beakers, pots, pans, and utensils like an army battalion on the opposite countertop. After a brief “pep talk”—this is what
Goldenrod chose to call her father's process of walking round and round the kitchen muttering to himself—he would begin the attack: chopping, mixing, kneading, beating, slicing, dicing, toasting, roasting, and sometimes flambéing on his way to possible pastry nirvana.

Goldenrod and Birch loved every minute of it. But, on this day, although they were glad as always to be a part of their father's kooky chemical warfare, they realized part of the reason they were baking was a rather sad one.

Their mother had been inconsolable for a whole day now—ever since she had woken up to discover that the entire garden and lawn was a wasteland of wilted plants. The grass hadn't just dried up; it had basically disintegrated so that all that were left were small patches of cropped, dark brown stalks. The chrysanthemums, hydrangeas, dahlias, and tulips were just blackened silhouettes of themselves. Only a few lone goldenrod stalks had survived Brains's very effective attack, looking like a couple of sad flowers stuck on a badly balding head.

Cookies were just one item in a long list of ideas the rest of the Morams had cooked up in order to try and make Mrs. Moram feel better (various crayon drawings, “#1 Mom” mugs, and even a plastic dancing flower that moved when you whistled Pachelbel's Canon quite precisely had all preceded it).

But Mr. Moram looked hopeful as he peered at his kids
through his safety goggles. “This could be it, kiddos. This could be the cheering potion your mom needs.” He took a big bite out of a nutmeg-basil-jelly roll, and screwed up his face as he chewed slowly and thoughtfully. “Hmmm,” he finally said. “I'm not sure the basil is cooperating here. Perhaps it's time to call in the parsley!” And with that he had dashed off to round up the leafy green and attempt a new blend.

But even if Mom doesn't like that one
, Goldenrod thought,
there are so many others to choose from: strawberry-cranberry-lemon snaps; peanut-butter–popcorn clusters; choco-vanilla–oyster-cracker crumbles
. And with every batch, Goldenrod made sure to take the most appetizing, scrumptious-looking ones and set them aside in a large brown cardboard box that she and Birch had hidden in one of the lower cabinets.

By midafternoon, the Morams were out of supplies, and all they had managed was a very weak smile out of Mrs. Moram as she had bitten into an oatmeal-carrot-cinnamon concoction. Goldenrod and Birch still felt pretty awful, but it gave them more of a boost to put the second part of their baking plan into action.

Around 3:00 p.m., they told their mom they were going to go bike riding, promising to stay close. They took the big brown box full of cookies with them.

Goldenrod strapped it down straight to the handlebars of her bike, first wrapping the box in tissue paper and then using a large wad of duct tape. It was extremely important
that the box and cookies looked as pristine and delectable as possible.

Then they set off with Goldenrod leading the way. They rode slowly so as not to disturb the cookies. It took them almost half an hour to reach the block they wanted.

As soon as they turned the corner, Goldenrod stopped her bike.

“Okay, Birch. This is my stop. You sure you're cool with doing this?”