Peter Lerangis - The Curse of the King

Dad removed his porkpie hat and ran his fingers through his steadily graying hair. “One thing you need to know, guys. Your disappearances have been in the news. Luckily for us, the reports have stayed local. Three separate communities, three separate disappearances, three different times. Well, four, including Marco. Now three of you are showing up at once. Up to now, no one has connected the disappearances. That’s our task—containing the stories. Keeping them strictly local news.”

“No publicity,” Aly agreed, “no photos on the web, play it down on social media.”

Dad nodded. “Ask—insist—that your friends not blab about it. For privacy’s sake.”

“I will keep the news away from hardened-street-tough circles,” Cass said.

“Contain, concentrate, commit—that’s the only way we are going to solve this genetic problem,” Dad said.

No one said a word. We were all trying our hardest to avoid the great big fat imaginary elephant in the room—and on its side was an imaginary sign that said HAPPY FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY crossed out in black with a skull underneath.

“This may be the last time we see each other,” Aly said in a tiny, weak, unAlylike voice.

“I will die before I let that happen to any of you,” Dad replied. His face was grim, his eyes steady and fierce. “And I won’t rest until my company finds a cure.”

“What if they don’t?” I asked.

Dad gave me a steady have-I-ever-let-you-down? look. “You know the McKinley family motto. It ain’t over …”

“Until the fat lady sings.” I couldn’t help smiling. There were about a dozen McKinley family mottoes, and this was one of Dad’s favorites.

“La-la-la,” Aly sang, smiling.

Dad laughed. “Sorry, Aly, you don’t fit the bill.”

Cass, who hadn’t spoken in a long time, finally piped up softly. “Mr. McKinley?” he said. “About number seven on your list …?”

Dad smiled warmly. “That’s the only one we don’t have to worry about. Because it’s the only item that’s one hundred percent true.”

“IT MEANS Asoprano,” I said, scrolling through a Wikipedia page on my trusty desktop. We’d been home for ten busy days, buying a bunk bed and a desk and a bike and clothes for Cass, catching up with teachers and friends, telling the alibi over and over a thousand times, buying hair dye to cover up the white lambda shape on the backs of our heads, blah-blah-blah. Today was going to be our first full day in school, and I was nervous. So of course it was a perfect time to procrastinate—like looking up Dad’s odd saying about the singing fat lady.

“I hated that show,” Cass called out from the top bunk.

“What show?” I asked.

“ The Sopranos ,” Cass said. “My last foster family binge-watched all seventeen years of it. Well, it felt like seventeen.”

“No, I’m talking about ‘the fat lady,’ ” I said. “It means a soprano—like, an opera singer. It’s a way of saying the opera’s not over until the soprano sings her big showstopping tune.”

“Oh,” Cass said. “What if she’s not fat? The show keeps going?”

“It’s a stereotype!” I said.

Cass grunted and sat up, dangling his legs over the side of the bed. “I hate stereotypes, too.”

Since returning, Cass had been a thirteen-year-old curly-haired version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Half the time he was his bouncy self, thanking Dad a zillion times for agreeing to adopt him. The other half he was fixated on our … timetable. Our predicament. Dilemma.

The fact that we were going to die.

There. I said it.

I’ll admit, I hated actually putting that idea into words. I tried not to think of it as a fact. Or even think of it at all. Hey, the fat lady hadn’t sung, right? Dad was trying to keep the show going.

I had to stay positive for Cass and me.

“It’s weird,” Cass murmured.

“What’s weird?” I said.

“G7W,” Cass replied.

“Of course it’s weird,” I said. “It sits in DNA for generations and then, bam —it shows up in people like you and me.”

“No, I mean it forces us all into stereotypes,” Cass said. “That always bothered me. You know, like when P. Beg called us Soldier, Sailor, Tinker, Tailor. It’s like another way of saying Jock, GPS-Guy, Geek, and … whatever Tailor is supposed to be.”

“The one who puts it all together,” I said. “That’s what Bhegad said.”

“He slices … he dices … he figures out ways to find Loculi in ancient settings! But wait, there’s more! Now the new improved Jack is also the Destroyer!” Cass let out a weary laugh. “How does that make any sense? It doesn’t. At first this whole thing seemed so cool—we were going to be superhumans, woo-hoo! But the last few weeks have been like this bad dream. Don’t you wish we could be normal—just kids like everybody else?”

“Cheer up, Cass,” I said, scooping stuff up from my desk. “Normal is the enemy of interesting.”

I dumped my pen, phone, change, and gum into my pockets. The last thing I picked up was the Loculus shard.

It was my good luck charm, I guess. For ten days I’d been carrying it with me all the time. Maybe because it reminded me of my mom. I really did believe that she had dropped it at my feet on purpose, no matter what Cass or Aly thought.

Besides, it really was awesome to look at. It felt smooth and cool to the touch—not like metal exactly, or plastic, but dense and supertough. I held it up to the sun for a quick glance:

“You’ve been wearing that thing out,” Cass said. “It looks like it shrunk.”

“ Shrank ,” I corrected him.

“Thunk you.” Cass hopped down from the bunk. “Anyway, you’re much more Tailor than Destroyer. That description fits Marco.”

“Now who’s stereotyping?” I said.

Cass giggled. “Somewhere in this world, the Massa are training Marco Ramsay to be the new king of Atlantis, while you, me, and Aly are going off to seventh grade. I think we get the better deal.”

As he disappeared down the hall and into the bathroom, I heard the front doorbell ring—which seemed kind of weird for 6:39 A.M. Dropping the shard into my pocket, I glanced out the window. I saw a white minivan parked at the curb. The van’s sides were emblazoned with the call letters of a local TV station WREE-TV.

Uh-oh. So much for keeping things under the radar.

“Sorry, no interviews.” Dad’s muffled voice echoed upward.

“We think the nation will want to hear this brave story,” a woman’s voice piped up. “It’s got heart, grit, pathos—”

“I appreciate that,” Dad said firmly. “Look, I know your station owner, Morty Reese. He’ll understand as a father, we’d like our privacy.”

The woman’s voice got softer. “If it’s compensation you’re concerned about, we are prepared—”

“Compensation?” Dad shot back with a disbelieving laugh. “Wait. Morty asked you to bribe me?”

“Mr. Reese has your best interests at heart,” the woman said. “This story could lead to awareness of traumatic brain injury. Hospitals will realize they need to increase security—”

“I’m sure Mr. Reese can donate directly to the hospitals if he’s so concerned,” Dad replied. “My private life is not for sale, sorry. Between you and me, he should learn how legitimate news organizations operate.”

“Mr. Reese is an excellent newsman—” the woman protested.

“And I’m an excellent trapeze artist,” Dad shot back. “Thanks but no thanks.”

I heard the door shut firmly.