Worlds Collide (The Land of Stories #6)(26)
“Conner!” the Book Huggers collectively gasped.
Their parents quickly snapped their heads back toward their daughters and stared at them as if they were explosives whose fuses had now been lit.
“What did you say, girls?” Mindy’s mom asked.
“Cobbler,” Cindy’s dad suggested. “I think they said they want the cobbler. Isn’t that right?”
“No, Dad!” Cindy said. “Look behind you! It isn’t a hallucination this time! Conner Bailey is in a taxi outside Cheesy Street!”
The Book Huggers’ parents quickly turned to the window, but thanks to some unknown force in the universe that constantly made them the punch line of a big cosmic joke, Conner bent down a second before they would have seen him. The only person the Book Huggers’ parents saw inside the taxi was its Middle Eastern driver. The taxi had continued down the street before Conner resurfaced.
“NOOOO!” Mindy screamed. “He was right there—right there!”
“I saw him, too, I swear it!” Lindy protested. “Conner Bailey was just outside the window!”
“But why would he be here?” Cindy asked. “Of all the restaurants in New York City, why would he be outside ours?”
“There’s only one explanation!” Mindy announced. “We’ve been right the whole time! Something otherworldly is going on with the Bailey twins! It started in school, it spread to the hospital, and now it’s in New York City!”
Wendy made two fists and slammed them on the table, as if to say “THERE IS A VAST CONSPIRACY AGAINST US AND WE MUST GET TO THE BOTTOM OF IT!”
The Book Huggers burst into tears. Their parents exchanged exasperated looks and sighed—apparently New York City wasn’t the pleasant distraction they’d hoped it would be. Even though everyone in Cheesy Street was already looking at their table, Lindy’s mom raised a hand to get the waiter’s attention.
“Check, please!” she said.
After a turbulent flight and a rough landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport, Conner and his friends hopped into a taxi van for another bumpy ride into Manhattan. As if the driver were being paid per pothole, the taxi rattled and shook as it traveled down the highway toward Midtown.
Goldilocks had a difficult time holding on to Hero, so she put him in the BabyBj?rn Red had purchased. The newborn wasn’t bothered by the rocky ride at all. After nine months in Goldilocks’s womb, Hero was used to such commotion and found it quite comforting. The rougher things became, the easier it was for him to sleep.
Conner sat in the front passenger seat and changed the driver’s radio to the local news to hear if there had been any developments since the night before. According to the news, a massive gas leak was responsible for all the barricades and evacuations in the area surrounding the New York Public Library. However, to Conner’s surprise, nothing was mentioned about the lively lion statues they had seen on television.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “There was footage of the statues swiping at police officers! We can’t be the only ones who saw it.”
“They’re probably covering it up to prevent hysteria,” Bree said. “It’s just like the 1947 UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico. Newspapers reported that wreckage of a flying saucer had been discovered, and then the following day, the army ordered the press to retract the story and say it was just a weather balloon.”
Conner gulped at the thought of Alex being turned into another weather balloon. He was so worried about his sister, he barely noticed the Queens neighborhoods zipping past his window or the Manhattan skyline in the distance ahead. The taxi entered the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, which stretched underneath the East River, and reemerged in the middle of Manhattan. Conner and his friends stared at the city in awe as their taxi zigzagged between the crowded sidewalks and towering skyscrapers. The hustling metropolis was such a spectacular sight, it almost took Conner’s mind off Alex.
“The whole city feels like it’s buzzing,” Goldilocks noted. “They must sell a lot of caffeine here.”
“The buildings stand higher than beanstalks!” Jack said. “Conner, why didn’t you tell us New York City was so…tall?”
“Actually, I’m just as amazed as you are,” Conner said. “I’ve written about cities like this, but I’ve never been able to describe the feeling it gives you at first sight. Now I know it’s because it can’t be described in words.”
Red grunted—forever unimpressed with the Otherworld.
“Sure, it’s big—but why does everything need to be so boxy?” she asked. “Is it too much to ask for a tower, or a dome, or a sensible spiral? I feel like a mouse in a shoe-box closet.”
They drove through a wide intersection, and the glistening roof of the Chrysler Building came into view. Red squealed and pressed her hands and forehead against her window.
“Now that’s more like it!” she said.
The taxi paused briefly on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-Fourth Street, waiting for a procession of police vehicles to pass by. Conner could have sworn he recognized a few people in the window of a restaurant called Cheesy Street, but he figured it was just his mind playing tricks on him. As he moved to take a second look, he dropped his wallet on the floorboard. By the time he sat back up, the taxi was already moving again.