The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp (Alfred Kropp #1)(66)

Brussels • Rome • Moscow • Sydney

54

My foster parents, the Tuttles, arrived in London the next day to take me back to America. I had no idea they were coming. They just showed up in the doorway and Horace Tuttle shouted, “Alfred Kropp, you big-headed pain in the rump! What in heaven’s name are you doing in London, England?”

“If you ever run away like that again, we’ll have to let you go, Alfred,” Betty Tuttle told me tearfully.

“Might do that anyway,” Horace puffed. “You have a lot of explaining to do, young man!”

“Actually,” I told them, “I saved the world from total annihilation.”

“Of course you did!” Horace shouted. “And I’m Tarzan, Lord of the Apes!”

“Now, Horace,” Betty said. “You know what the social worker told us: Alfred is a troubled youth.”

“We all have troubles,” Horace grumbled.

“I’m sure Alfred has every intention of getting back into school and living up to his potential as a solid citizen and contributing member of his community,” Betty said. She patted my arm. “Don’t you, dear?”

“That’s right,” I said. “You bet.”

“Well, I didn’t fly all the way across the Atlantic to this God-forsaken foreign English country to chitchat,” Horace said. “Where’re your things, Alfred? We’re leaving.”

“I don’t have anything,” I said. “Except this.”

I showed them Bennacio’s black sword. Horace tried to grab the sword and I told him not to touch it; the blade was very sharp. I also didn’t want him touching it because the thought of Horace Tuttle touching the blade of the Last Knight of the Order of the Sacred Sword made my stomach heave.

“We’ll never get this through Customs,” he said.

“Then I’m not going,” I told them. “I won’t leave without it.”

And I didn’t either. I stuck the sword in Horace’s bag and, when the screeners went nuts over it, I showed the supervisor Abigail Smith’s card. A call was made and in five minutes we were cleared through Customs.

55

So that’s how I ended up back in Knoxville, Tennessee, after saving the world and everybody in it, including the Tuttles.

After a week, I was back in school, but my picture had been flashed around the globe after the Stonehenge incident and now I was something of a celebrity. I don’t know what calls were made or who said what to whom, but I was back in school like nothing had happened. There was a rumor that I was an international terrorist because that’s what they called me on television, but I guess some people just can’t grasp nuances.

Amy Pouchard pulled me aside after math class on my first day back. She was working a piece of gum really hard, which reminded me of Mike Arnold, and suddenly I didn’t like Amy Pouchard as much as I thought I did.

“You disappeared, blew up something, and now you’re back,” she said.

“I didn’t blow up anything,” I told her. “I did kill somebody, though.”

Her eyes got wide. “Get out!”

“But he kind of had it coming.”

“Was he a terrorist or something?”

“No, but you might call him an agent of darkness.”

“Whoa. That’s too cool!” She touched my forearm with her hand. Her hand was very cold, and I wondered if she had a circulation problem. “You shot him?”

“I beheaded him.”

Her mouth opened a little and I could see the knobby bright green of her gum between her tongue and her teeth.

“Kropp! You! Kropp!”

It was Barry Lancaster, pushing people out of the way in the crowded hall to get to me.

“Are you still his girlfriend?” I asked Amy Pouchard.

“Sort of. Not really. I mean, he’s never beheaded anybody or anything like that. Do you want my cell phone number?”

Barry had reached me by that point. He shoved me hard in the right shoulder and said, “What are you doing here, Kropp? Aren’t you supposed to be in jail or something?”

“Actually,” I said, “I’m supposed to be in social studies.”

“But instead you’re talking to my girlfriend. Pretty stupid, Kropp.”

“She’s not your girlfriend, Barry.”

“Like you would know.”

He shoved me again.

“Don’t shove me, Barry.”

“Yeah? Who’s gonna stop me, Kropp?”

He shoved me again.

“Barry,” Amy Pouchard said. “Cut it out.”

A crowd had gathered by that point. The bell rang but nobody paid attention.

“Maybe this is the point I should tell you that the last guy who shoved me around like this got his head chopped off,” I told Barry.

“You’re so full of it,” he snarled, and then he launched himself at me.

He really didn’t have a chance. I sidestepped to the right and landed a haymaker to the side of his blond head as he flew past. Barry went down and he stayed down, and I guess if I had been Barry, I might have kicked him in the ribs. But I wasn’t Barry Lancaster. I was Alfred Kropp, not exactly a knight bound by the code of chivalry, but I was the descendant of the greatest knight who had ever lived. Plus I guess dying gives you some perspective on what’s worth fighting about.