Wax (31 page)

“You're suggesting we put on a show for the monsters trying to take over our town.”

“If they win, they'll certainly deserve it.”

Louisa made an impatient noise and shoved in front of Connor. “Enough stalling, Poppy. Do you have a plan or not?”

“And where's Jesus?” Banks asked.

“Jesus is on a special assignment,” said Poppy.

“In fact,” Jill added, “we all owe Jesus a great deal of gratitude, as he is the one who has figured out how to make a dent in their numbers.”

“How?” Banks asked.

Poppy looked at Jill. Jill nodded. Poppy sighed.

“Gather round, kids,” said Poppy, “and let me tell you a little story about improvised incendiary devices.”

∗ ∗ ∗

After the bell rang and their flamethrower rap session ended and they all agreed to meet after school to finalize the details, Poppy went back to her locker to retrieve her American government textbook. But seeing the White House on the cover, she was reminded of the Bursaws, and then of the ostensible hopelessness of the situation, and then of the fact that she had not eaten a bite of food all day and was about to pass out.

She hurried across the hall and accosted Jill, who was still at her own locker. “Three things,” said Poppy. “I need to get out of here, I need to go pick up Dud, and I need to eat something fried.”

Jill crossed her arms. “Poppy Palladino, are you suggesting we ditch school
again?
”

“I'm as surprised as you are.”

∗ ∗ ∗

Dud scraped his crayon across the Friendly's place mat maze so hard, pieces of wax crumbled off and tumbled around the table.

“I don't know how I feel about this,” said Dud.

“You should feel good,” Jill said. “You're almost at the pot o' gold!”

He put down the crayon. “No, I mean about the flamethrowers.”

“Well, seeing as how we're now producing weapons of mass destruction to be used exclusively against your people, you probably should feel kind of bad.”

“Jill,” Poppy warned.

Dud asked Poppy, “You're not gonna use them on
me,
are you?”

She waved off his question and continued to stare at the menu, wanting to eat the photo of the waffle fries. “Of course not.”

“Aaaand what can I get you guys?” Greg surged to the side of their table, invisible tail wagging. Poppy stiffened but reminded herself to act normal. This midday Friendly's trip wasn't just for kicks; they were also on a mission to prove Greg's Hollowness and incorporate his demise into The Plan. And since they'd already tipped their hand to Principal Lincoln and possibly Smitty, it was important not to let Greg know that they were onto him.

It was also important to eat a lot of food. Poppy had to keep up her energy.

As for Greg's energy, Poppy had to hand it to this Chandler clone, whichever one of them it was. Very convincing. “Ever try the Fishamajig?” Greg asked. “It tastes as fun as its name!”

Poppy was not sure how something could taste fun, but in keeping with her life goal of eating every item on the Friendly's menu, she was willing to find out. “Sure,” she said. “I'll give it a whirl.”

“A jig!”

“Yes! That too.”

“And for the rest of you?”

Jill gave him a salute. “I'm all set.”

“And I'll have . . .” Dud scanned the menu. “The buffalo.”

“The buffalo wings?”

“Ha!” Dud cracked up. “Buffaloes don't have wings.”

Poppy whispered to Greg, “Just bring a pile of chicken.”

Greg said, “Right-io!” then danced off.

“Look, I'm not exactly
pro-
flamethrowing,” Poppy said, once again in disbelief at the words coming out of her mouth, “but I'm starting to think we don't have much choice. It's not like we can go around stabbing them or chopping their heads off or anything.”

“This is making me uncomfortable,” said Dud.

“Sorry.” Poppy took a long sip from her water. “Let's talk about your day. Did you play with the geese?”

“For a little while, but then Madame Grosholtz started talking in my head again, so I sat down on a bench and listened.”

“Oh, really?”

He nodded. “I like to hear her talk. It makes me feel nice.”

“That's kind of what memories are,” Poppy said. “A way to remember what someone was like so that you can feel nice about them instead of sad.”

“But I never met her.”

“Well, she's the only family you have. So it's okay that you miss her, even if you didn't know her.”

“What does she say to you, Dud?” Jill asked with an edge to her voice.

He shrugged. “Mostly stuff about making sculptures.”

“Anything else?”

Dud's smile disappeared under Jill's hard stare. “Um, no.”

An awkward silence descended.

And the quieter it got, the more Poppy remembered what Jill had said earlier about him.

And the more she remembered, the more she glared at Jill.

Jill, in turn, kept glaring at Dud.

Dud started color-coding the sugar packets.

The rest of their meal was appropriately thorny. Poppy was mad at Jill, Jill was mad at Poppy, and Dud wasn't mad at anyone but could tell that something was amiss.

“Did we save room for dessert?” Greg asked.

Jill and Dud both declined, clearly wanting to leave, but Poppy said, “Yes,” perhaps a little too vehemently. “I'll have a scoop of Forbidden Chocolate.”

“Ohh,” Greg groaned. “Oh, no.”

Poppy looked at him, surprised. “What?”

“I'm so sorry, but . . . it's forbidden!”

“It is?”

Dumbfounded, Poppy watched him prance off. “He knew the Forbidden Chocolate joke?”

“Guess the Chandlers learned to do their homework after Smitty failed your bagel oven test,” said Jill.

Poppy frowned. She still wanted to be sure. The Plan didn't have allowances for setting innocent people on fire.

She grabbed her phone and got up from the booth without a clear strategy in place​—​until she got to the kitchen and inspiration struck. “Hey, Greg,” she shouted from the door.

Every employee in the kitchen stopped to look at her, even the line cook, mid–burger flip. “Yes?” Greg said, from the plating station. “Did you need something else?”

Poppy felt a hand on her back. Jill and Dud had sprung up from the booth and were trying to restrain her.

“What are you doing?” Jill asked, pulling on her shirt.

Poppy ignored Jill, keeping her eyes on Greg as she rammed her elbow into the light switch. As there were no windows in the kitchen, the room went dark. Noises of confusion arose from the staff, but Poppy kept her focus squarely on Greg's mouth, expecting to see a lot of flickering going on in that throat of his.

And yet: nothing. No fire in his belly. No light in his mouth.

Greg isn't a Hollow?

But in the corner of her eye, two small, flickering point of lights remained.

One in Dud's mouth.

And one in Jill's.

22

POPPY TURNED THE LIGHTS BACK ON AND BLINKED A FEW TIMES,
pretending that the sudden brightness was bothering her​—​when in fact she was trying to recover her faculties, restore her breathing, and not
FREAK THE HELL OUT
.

Jill is a Hollow. The candle smelled like Forbidden Chocolate because JILL LOVES FORBIDDEN CHOCOLATE.

Poppy had to get out of there. She had to get Dud out of there.

And to do that, she had to act normal.

“I am so sorry about her,” Jill told the kitchen staff as Poppy picked up her phone from the floor, having dropped it in shock. “She's preparing for a role as a crazy cat lady and took it a little too much to heart.” Jill scrambled for some bills in her pocket. “Here, Greg, this should cover our check. We're leaving.”

She dragged Poppy through the restaurant and out the front door. Dud followed, bewildered. Poppy kept a neutral face, but every second was agony, her mind chanting,
Don't tip her off, don't tip her off,
occasionally switching it up with a scream to
RUN. AWAY.

“What is wrong with you?” Jill said once they were in the parking lot.

“I thought I could​—”

“What? See if you could get bounced by a secret Friendly's security squad? You're acting like the kind of person who should be wearing a tinfoil hat and eating her own hair.”

“I thought I was a crazy cat lady.”

“You are all of those things rolled into one and tied up with a ribbon of damaged brain cells.”

That's when Poppy spotted it: her chance for escape.

“
Shut up,
Jill!” she exploded. “God, I am
so
sick of you questioning everything I do! I'm trying to save our asses here!”

Jill glared at her. “I know, but I don't think that​—”

“No! Enough! This is not how friends act! Friends are supportive and sympathetic in times of crisis! Not snarky and dismissive and awful!” She turned around and stomped off toward Clementine. “Come on, Dud.”

Once they both got into Clementine, she started the car with a roar and pulled out of her spot, but Jill blocked her way. “Poppy, stop.”

Poppy rolled down her window. “I'm going to Paper Clipz to print out copies of The Plan for everyone.
I'm
still holding rehearsal, because
I
still want to save this town. Come or don't. I really don't care anymore.”

“I'll be there. I promise.”

Of course she would be, to listen in on the specifics of The Plan so she could relay them back to the Chandlers. “Well, you'll have to find your own ride. Have a wonderful afternoon, jerk.”

With that, Poppy screeched out of the parking lot. It wasn't until she'd driven far enough down Main Street and pulled into a parking spot that she started to shake violently, uncontrollably, with a frantic scream working its way through her body.

“Poppy?” Dud looked terrified. “What's wrong?”

“Jill. She's a Hollow. I don't know when they got her​—​maybe this morning, before school? But they got her. Which means she knows everything that's been going on today​—​oh my God.” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “I told her everything! And
she's
going to tell
them
everything!” She slammed her hands on the steering wheel. “I'm such a moron!”

Dud, not knowing what to do, rubbed her shoulder. “No, you're not.”

“I am! And​—​oh,
Jill.
” A sob bubbled up. “The real Jill.
My
Jill. She's trapped in that tank, drowning in poison, and there's nothing I can do about it! She's probably already dead!”

“Maybe not,” Dud said. “They said the younger ones . . .”

He trailed off as Poppy cried. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't see through the tears in her eyes. She grabbed the steering wheel with shaking hands and tried to think clearly.

We have to go to the tank. We have to try to get in.
But even as she tested out the idea, she knew it would be fruitless. The tank couldn't be breached​—​at least not until the whole Plan was carried out, start to finish.

Jill would either be dead, or not. They wouldn't know until tomorrow morning.

“We have to stick to The Plan,” she rasped. “It's the only way.”

Dud nodded, his eyes huge. “It'll be okay. It's okay, Poppy.”

“It's not! Now I have to adjust The Plan to deal with her, too, but I also can't tell her what The Plan
is!
How are we going to defeat these things if she's one of them? We can't keep up the charade forever​—​sooner or later she'll figure out that we're onto her, and then we'll be targets​—​or maybe we already are! They'll take us out next, and when we're gone, there'll be no one else to stop them and the town will be doomed! For real!”

Paraffin was a powder keg that was frighteningly close to detonating.

But there was nothing for it. She had to press on.

∗ ∗ ∗

After doing her best to collect herself, Poppy started the car to head to Paper Clipz​—​but turned it off again when she looked across the street at Smitty's.

Which was closed.

In the middle of the afternoon.

She reached into her bag for her phone​—​then swore as the cracked screen failed to respond to her touch. Reaching for the Giddy Committee contact sheet instead, she assessed the street for telephone options.

“Hello, Mr. Kosnitzky,” she said, breezing into his shop.

“Why aren't you in school?” he demanded.

“Good afternoon to you too, sir.” She smiled brightly. “As I've explained to you many times before, I often have free period at the end of the day, which means it is permissible for me to leave school grounds before the final bell.”

He scowled at her. “Hmph.”

“I was wondering if I could use your phone, just for a minute? It's an emergency.”

“Hmph.” But he pushed the antiquated telephone across the counter.

Jesus picked up on the first ring. “Yo?”

“Yo, Jesus. It's Poppy.”

“Oh, hey! 'Sup?”

She turned farther away from Mr. Kosnitzky and lowered her voice. “Smitty's is closed. In the middle of the day. Would you know anything about that?”

“Yeah, definitely. I melted him.”

“What?” Her heart was still clattering around in her chest like a fly trapped in a window. “What?”

“On my way home from school, I paid him a little visit.”

“And you did not simply take note of his Hollowness and leave the donut shop in an orderly fashion?”