The Mapmaker and the Ghost(12)

“And why is that, Lint?” The girl’s voice had become soft and dangerous.

“’Cause you’d probably cry.”

“Wow, my gosh. You’re totally right. I’m a girl so I just couldn’t handle the ninety-seven-year-old security guard that you can barely outsmart. If only your brain was as big as your biceps.”

Charlie took a moment before he responded again with, “Stupid girl.”

The girl casually brought her index finger to the side of her nose, tilted her head up, took a deep breath, and exhaled quickly to land a large booger squarely on the side of Charlie’s head.

“Ugh!” Charlie yelled as he went to wipe it off. “I’m gonna—”

“What? What are you going to do?” the girl asked.

“All right, that’s enough.” Jonas finally stepped in. “Honestly, Snotshot. Do you have to do that every time?”

“You need to get some more useful friends, Brains.”

“Look, Lint’s done a good job casing the place. The camera diagram is almost finished, and I’ll get No-Bone to finish the rest today. Was there anything else, Lint?”

“Yeah, I got us some food,” Charlie—for some reason apparently also called Lint—said slowly. He took out a few silver-wrapped rectangles from his pocket.

“Oh, ew. Not those protein bars again. The only one who likes those things is you, Lint,” the girl called Snotshot said.

“It’s peanut butter chocolate …,” Lint started.

“No, it’s not. It’s mildly peanut-butter-and-chocolate-flavored cardboard. Do you understand that the whole point of having the food schedule is so we all get something everyone wants to eat?” She turned to Jonas. “Do I seriously need to explain everything to him? Shouldn’t that be your job, Brains?”

“All right, all right,” Jonas—or did that girl just call him Brains?—said sharply before turning to Charlie again. “Thanks for the diagram, Lint. And, for the record, I don’t mind the energy bars.”

Lint smiled smugly at the girl, who rolled her eyes and turned to Brains. “This whole thing had better work. Spitbubble is getting impatient.”

“I know exactly how Spitbubble is feeling. Thanks,” Brains said coldly.

Spitbubble? Seriously? Goldenrod thought. Her own name was starting to sound more and more normal with each passing moment. Positively generic, even.

“Wait, did you hear that?” Lint asked.

Goldenrod had heard it too: the sound of footsteps snapping twigs. And they weren’t hers.

She saw him before they did, an unusually small boy dressed in camouflage clothing and carrying a purple-and-gold backpack. He had walked smack into the clearing where the four older kids stood.

“Who is that?” Snotshot asked.

“Isn’t that Mold-and-rot’s little brother?” Brains asked.

“Who’s Mold-and-rot?” Snotshot asked.

“Some girl in our class,” Lint answered.

Brains was already going up to Birch, who seemed just as surprised to see them as they were to see him. He was trying to slowly back away into the forest, as if that would somehow rewind time and make the older kids forget they had ever laid eyes on him.

“What are you doing here, kid?” Brains asked.

“Nothing,” Birch managed to reply.

“What did you hear?” Brains asked.

“Nothing. I was just … lost.”

“We’d better take him to Spitbubble,” the girl said. “He’d want to know about someone snooping around.”

“Spitbubble won’t want this kid,” Brains replied. “He has a family. A real one.”

“Still, he’ll want to decide what to do with him.”

Brains sighed. “All right. But let’s go quickly. The last thing we need is a search party of Morams finding us. Lint, grab him, and let’s go back to Headquarters.”

Lint stepped forward and swallowed Birch’s tiny wrist in his fist. “Come on,” he said roughly.

The three older kids started to lead Birch away. Snotshot walked last, allowing her to expertly open up Birch’s backpack without anyone else noticing. She started to remove Birch’s belongings one by one.

Goldenrod was paralyzed. A series of questions seemed to be replaying in her head at warp speed. Most of them went something like, where on earth had Birch come from? Or, how had their mother let him leave the house? As she watched the four kids go deeper into the forest, she finally felt herself becoming unglued from her spot. Those were questions she was just going to have to deal with later. Right now, she needed to figure out how to save her little brother.





9

DOWN, DOWN, DOWN


With no real plan, Goldenrod followed Birch and his captors from as far behind as she could without losing them. They were heading deep into the forest, to places Goldenrod probably wouldn’t have even reached for at least a week. The kids weren’t talking much. All Goldenrod could hear were the sounds of twigs breaking beneath their feet and of Charlie’s heavy breathing. Birch wasn’t making a sound, wasn’t even crying, and Goldenrod found herself both surprised and proud of him.

The trees were getting denser here, and the day seemed to be going in fast-forward as the closely knit leaves made everything grow darker and darker. Goldenrod tripped on an especially large tree root and fell into a big and crunchy shrub; she froze, certain that the group ahead must have heard her. But after a few moments, as their footsteps were still fading farther away, she decided it was safe to get back up and continue following them. It wasn’t easy. The minute she’d lost had also caused her to lose sight of them, and she had to rely on the sound of sneakers on snapping twigs. Straining her ears, she proceeded ahead, unsure of where she was and whether she was still on the right track.