The Mapmaker and the Ghost(13)

Suddenly, Goldenrod couldn’t hear footsteps anymore, and she started to worry that she had lost them. She listened intently but … nothing. She looked around where she stood, but all she could see were trees. Beautiful, enormous, silent trees that could tell her nothing about the whereabouts of her brother.

Goldenrod realized she had gone about this all wrong and way too hastily. She needed to retrace her steps. But first, she needed to figure out where she was. She opened her backpack and took out her compass. She watched the little golden arrow inside it spin and point north for her. At least now, if nothing else, she knew that she was facing northeast.

“It appears as if you’ve lost something,” a polite voice said.

Goldenrod looked up sharply. There, leaning on his cane, was the transparent man.



Birch’s wrist hurt. He was rubbing it as he stood in an odd stone entrance in the middle of the forest. As far as he could tell, he was inside a giant boulder, and a crude stone staircase lay a few feet in front of him. The stone walls of the staircase held flashlights that were taped on with massive amounts of duct tape. They were making long, oddly shaped shadows on the walls.

His captors were whispering behind him. Birch recognized the big kid and his friend who had tried to mess with him and gotten Goldenrod in trouble on the last day of school. He didn’t remember their real names, but he had found out pretty quickly that they were called Lint and Brains here. The blond girl, Snotshot, he’d never seen before in his life.

Birch could tell they didn’t know what to do with him. Whoever Spitbubble was, he wasn’t here, and this was causing a problem. The girl kept insisting that they keep Birch, but Brains was arguing against it. Birch found himself silently rooting for Brains.

He was surprisingly calm, which surprised himself most of all. He guessed it had something to do with being in shock. Although he didn’t think the older kids would necessarily hurt him, he was worried about his mother. He should be getting back pretty soon if he didn’t want her to know he was gone. He would be in major trouble if she found out he had left at all, but what would she do if she discovered he had left … and hadn’t come back?

I could run, he thought, as he saw a perfect Birch-sized gap between the entrance and where the older kids stood. But how far would he get? That girl looked fast. Still, it was better than hanging around here and doing nothing. But just as he was about to summon up the courage to make a break for it, his window of opportunity got eclipsed by two other boys who joined his original three captors.

The first new kid looked dirtier than the others, but underneath the dirt, Birch could tell he had curly hair and was dressed in nice clothes. Expensive clothes with a certain monkey logo that his mother had said they couldn’t afford to get for him last year. The other new kid was older and probably taller, though it was hard for Birch to tell because he was folded over like an accordion.

“What’s going on here?” the bendy kid asked. “Who is that shrimp?” He pointed toward Birch.

“Mold-and-rot’s brother,” Lint said.

“Whoa, really?” the kid with the blue-monkey-logo shirt said.

“What do you think, Toe Jam?” Snotshot asked as she turned around to look at the kid in the blue T-shirt. “Brains and Lint here want to let him go back home. But I say we oughta keep him until Spitbubble knows the situation. No-Bone, you agree with me, right?”

The bendy kid nodded, his spine doing an awful yet fascinating jig along with his head.

“All I’m saying,” Brains started, “is that if we leave him here, he’s going to have parents looking for him. And I’m sure no one wants that. Least of all Spitbubble.”

“So what are we going to do? Just have him pinkie swear that he won’t tell anybody and send him away?” Snotshot snapped.

“He doesn’t know anything!” Brains replied.

“Toe Jam. You’re breaking our tie,” Snotshot said. “Should he stay or do we send him straight back to Mommy where he can immediately tell the entire town everything he’s seen and heard here today?” She folded her arms defiantly.

Toe Jam looked up eagerly at her. “I think Snotshot’s right,” he said, his voice a little squeaky.

“Well, of course he would agree. The idiot’s in love with you,” Brains said angrily.

Toe Jam turned beet red. “I am not!”

But Snotshot looked pretty smug. “It’s a vote fair and square. Three to two.”

“Fine,” Brains said. “Then you guys figure out where you’re gonna be keeping him. I’m staying out of this.”

“Oh, really? And you’d like me to tell Spitbubble what, exactly, when he finds out you’re not helping?” Snotshot said.

“I’m not scared of you,” Brains said.

“And Spitbubble?”

“I’m not scared of him either,” Brains said, but much less convincingly.

Snotshot made a very loud snorting noise, louder and more impressive than Birch had ever heard anyone make in his whole life.

Despite what he had said about not getting involved, Brains was now coming toward him. He grabbed Birch by the wrist. “Come on. Lint, follow me.”

Lint walked behind, as Brains led Birch past the entranceway and down, down, down.





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