The Adventure Begins Read online

  “Precisely,” said Blinky.

  • • •

  Miles above Heartstone Trollmarket, the late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the dry canal, stretching from the bridge to the nearby woods. A pair of burning red eyes peered from between the darkened trees, followed by a low, guttural snarl. Bular, Son of Gunmar emerged, his mammoth body snapping branches with each plodding step.

  He moved into the canal, sticking to the shadow path that protected him from the sun. With his sword Bular prodded at Kanjigar’s remains, searching for the Amulet, only to find it . . . missing. His eyes narrowed to glowing slits as he held his snout to the debris and sniffed, picking up a scent.

  “Human,” he uttered before releasing a fearsome war cry. Bular punched his stone fist against one of the bridge struts so hard, the motorists driving above thought they had just experienced a small earthquake.

  CHAPTER 5

  TICK-TOCK

  Jim changed out of his gym clothes, trying not to gag at the sharp body odor and spray-on deodorant that filled the locker room. Toby sat on the bench beside him, struggling to put on his socks. Unfortunately, the formfitting pants his nana had bought for him weren’t really letting Toby bend his knees.

  “So close,” Toby grunted. “You talked to her?”

  “Yep,” said Jim, looking around. He and Tobes were the last guys in the locker room—which was probably a good thing, because Toby accidentally slipped off the bench, fell backward, and banged his head into a locker with a resounding metal clang.

  “Like, actually spoke to her?” asked Toby, apparently unharmed by the head injury. “Not just, you know, in your head?”

  “I unleashed my español on her,” Jim said. He opened his book bag and found the Amulet still tucked inside.

  “You should totally do it,” said Toby, now upright, an idea forming in his mind.

  “What? The play?” Jim said. “I’m not an actor.”

  Toby struggled with the sock again and said, with effort, “Come on. You’re always saying how you want your life to be more exciting. Right?”

  “I don’t think Romeo and Juliet is exactly the answer, Tobes,” Jim said, considering the Amulet in his hand. “I don’t mean just, you know, exciting. I mean . . .”

  He studied his reflection on the Amulet’s polished surface, his face appearing warped by the tiny inscriptions in the metal. Jim hardly recognized the person staring back at him.

  “More,” Jim finished. “I just need to know that there’s something more to life than high school.”

  Out of the corner of his eye Jim glimpsed a sudden, dark movement. He quickly returned the Amulet to his bag and looked down to the end of the row of benches, but he saw nothing there.

  “Something more?” Toby asked. That sock was putting up so much of a fight, he was oblivious to a rattling sound that came from the other side of the lockers.

  But Jim heard it. He left Toby with his socks and tight pants and followed the rattling around the corner. Thick steam billowed from the shower room just beyond him.

  “Hello?” Jim said. “Anybody in there?”

  Sometimes the other guys in gym class forgot to turn off the showers, wasting gallons of water despite the recent drought. Normally, Jim would hear their voices echoing off the tiled walls as they joked and whipped towels at one another.

  But right now the shower room was silent except for the faint hiss of the water.

  “Hello?” Jim said again, getting closer to the shower room, his pulse quickening.

  If he had left the Amulet in his hand, Jim would have noticed how the glass pane on its front started glowing blue. Like a warning. But the Amulet remained in his bag, and Jim stepped into the shower room, his sneakers squeaking against the wet floor.

  Jim could feel his heart beating in his chest. His eyes were straining to see past all the steam when a shape skittered across the far end of the showers and ducked into a stall.

  Jim gasped as a loud holler came from behind him.

  “Got one! Woo-hoo!” Toby yelled triumphantly, admiring the sock now pulled onto his foot.

  Jim rolled his eyes, feeling silly for being so scared of a shower room. He turned on his heel and went back to Toby, shaking his head.

  After Jim and Toby left together, Blinky stepped out from the shower stall, the hair on the back of his head wet and messy. He had heard enough from this Jimbo to understand he had no idea of the danger in which he had been placed. Now it would just be a matter of isolating the boy so that Blinky could speak to him alone, Troll to human, and begin his training in earnest. . . .

  • • •

  “So, good news, dude,” Toby said as he and Jim walked their bicycles from the bike rack to the exit at the end of the day. “My orthodontist says I’m almost done with my braces. Only four more years!”

  Toby smiled proudly, revealing a mouth full of complicated and painful-looking metal. But Jim had his head turned, looking across the campus to the breezeway, where Steve Palchuk was up to his usual antics. With his perfect blond hair, bulging muscles, and popped shirt collar, Steve always rubbed Jim the wrong way. And the fact that he was currently stuffing their frail classmate, Eli Pepperjack, into a locker sure didn’t help.

  Toby followed Jim’s stare and said, “Okay, nothing to see here.”

  “We can’t just let him do that,” Jim replied, feeling his anger rise at the injustice.

  “Oh, yes, we can. If Steve’s terrorizing Eli, he’s not terrorizing us,” Toby said, still feeling the atomic wedgie Steve had given him last week. It hurt like blazes, yet Toby marveled at how his underwear waistband stretched all the way up and over his own head like that.

  But the part of his brain that made Jim feel like time was running out also chimed in during situations like these. Jim might be a nobody, but how could anybody let something like this happen to a fellow human being?

  Jim marched over to the breezeway far more confidently than he had marched up to Claire in the gymnasium. He arrived just in time to hear Steve pound on the locker door and taunt Eli.

  “Tell me again, dweeb face,” Steve said with a smirk. “Tell me about the creatures, and maybe I’ll let you out!”

  A few of Steve’s cronies had gathered around and laughed at Eli’s predicament. Jim felt his heart rate rise. That was happening a lot today.

  “Or you can let him out right now,” Jim blurted out. “I mean, you know, it would be nice.”

  Steve wheeled around, shot a dirty look at Jim, and said, “Nice would be you minding your own business.”

  But it was too late for that. Jim stood his ground. Behind him, Toby and some of the other students started to stare in their direction.

  “Oh, hi, Jim!” called Eli, his voice muffled from inside the locker.

  Steve slapped the locker again and said in a mock-casual voice, “So, where were we? Um . . . oh yeah, okay. You were telling me about the monsters you saw this morning, with fangs and—what was it again?”

  “Stone for skin!” Eli said, his voice cracking with nerves. “In the canal!”

  Stone? Canal? The words struck Jim, making his mind drift back to this morning and the Amulet. He could still feel the weight of it in his bag. Was this a coincidence or . . . ?

  “Stone for skin?” Steve chuckled. “Man, Eli, you’ve got some imagination!”

  Jim’s mind returned to the present. He parked his bike and looked Steve in the eye.

  “Look, Steve, seriously,” Jim said, his tone even. “Just let him out.”

  Steve moved so fast, Jim didn’t even have time to react. The bully stepped forward, grabbed Jim by his book bag strap, and pulled him close. With his free hand, Steve cocked a meaty fist.

  “Or you’ll do what?” Steve said.

  “Okay. Do it. Punch me,” said Jim, the words just tumbling out of his mouth. At least they weren’t in Spanish.

  Steve blinked at Jim, not following him. His mouth hung open in confusion before he asked, “You . . . you’re askin
g for a beating?”

  “Yeah. Just go crazy,” Jim answered. His arms remained at his sides, even as Steve’s fist loomed before him. “In twenty years you’re gonna be a nobody, and Eli will have a career in software and he’ll be a billionaire.”

  The color drained from Toby’s face. Clearly, Jim had gone crazy-town banana-pants.

  “I do like computers!” Eli volunteered helpfully.

  Steve finally swung his fist—not at Jim, but at the locker, his knuckles bashing into the metal door like a gong. That shut Eli up. Now Steve balled his fist again and aimed it at Jim. Jim shut his eyes, bracing for the worst, while Toby’s brain raced in a panic.

  “Let him out!” said Toby, looking expectantly at the other students around him. “Let him out!”

  Some of the other kids repeated after Toby. “Let him out!”

  They said it again and again, a chant forming.

  “Let him out! Let him out! Let him out!”

  One of Jim’s eyes cracked open. Had Steve hit him so hard he was hearing things again? But no, Steve gaped at the chanting students around him, unsure of what to do.

  “Palchuk!” yelled Coach Lawrence. He stood at the end of the breezeway, his whistle dangling around his thick neck. “What’s going on here?”

  Steve instantly released Jim, lowered his fist, and said unconvincingly, “Uh, nothing, sir.”

  “Why aren’t you at practice?” the coach demanded.

  “I was helping Eli here,” lied Steve, indicating the locker. “He was stuck!”

  “Hey, guys!” Eli said. He sounded positively cheerful inside the locker.

  Coach Lawrence jerked a thumb to the school’s sports field and barked, “On the double! Now!”

  As soon as the coach’s back was turned, Steve leaned in close and stared daggers at Jim.

  “Friday at noon,” Steve said in a low voice. “You and me.”

  Steve backed toward the field while wagging his finger back and forth at Jim like a metronome.

  “Tick-tock,” said Steve, his words dripping with menace. “Tick-tock.”

  And just like that, Jim felt like his time was running out all over again. His stomach clenched. He thought he could taste bile at the back of his throat.

  Jim stood rooted in place, not even flinching when Eli tumbled out of the locker beside him.

  “Thank you!” Eli said to Jim from the ground.

  “Don’t mention it,” Jim said as he walked away. Right now he had bigger problems to worry about than a kid stuffed in a locker.

  CHAPTER 6

  PLEASE LET IT BE RACCOONS

  Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

  The threat of Steve Palchuk’s revenge weighed on Jim the whole bike ride home. Not even the tangerine glow of the sunset or Toby’s constant chatter could rouse Jim from his worries.

  “That was awesome, man! Did you see how I did that chant?” Toby said, still thrilled with himself. “ ’Let him out! Let him out!’ I mean, you probably won’t live past Friday, but it was awesome.”

  Right. Awesome, thought Jim. The promise of an upcoming pounding from Steve, the fact that Claire still probably has no idea who I am, plus homework, making tomorrow’s meals . . . My life’s just one big puddle of awesomesauce.

  “Hey, boys,” called a warm voice.

  Jim slowed to a stop as his mom pulled up next to him in her car, freshly showered and dressed in a new set of hospital scrubs. She smiled at her son from behind the wheel, even though the bags under her eyes still made her look tired.

  “Hey, Mom,” said Jim, forcing a smile in return.

  “Looking sharp, Doctor Lake!” Toby said as he rolled past them, having trouble with his brakes. He stopped, eventually, and pedaled back to wave at Jim’s mom.

  “Thank you, Toby,” said Barbara. “So are you.”

  “Oh?” Toby said, pleasantly surprised. He flexed his arm like a bodybuilder and sucked in his belly. “Does it show?”

  Jim read the guilty look on his mom’s face and knew what that meant. She was working late again.

  “You’re going to be out all night?” he asked.

  Barbara sighed and said, “Doctor Gilberg is out with bursitis, and Doctor Lenz has a wedding out of town this weekend.”

  Ugh, a double shift, Jim thought. He felt so sorry for his mom. And the food at the hospital is terrible!

  “Okay,” said Jim. “Well, don’t forget to bring your—”

  “Dinner,” Barbara said, holding up the brown paper bag with her meat loaf sandwich. “Thank you.”

  “Right,” Jim said with a wink. “And try to find an oven to reheat it instead of nuking. It takes all the flavor away.”

  Jim shifted on his bike seat and felt an unexpected crinkle of paper in his front jeans pocket. Reaching inside, he fished out the sticky note with Mr. Strickler’s number written across it in perfect penmanship. Jim quickly hid the paper, not wanting to burden his mom with something else on top of her nocturnal work schedule.

  “Jim, there must be a million things you’d rather be doing than looking after me,” said Barbara, missing her son’s sleight of hand with the sticky note.

  “Can’t think of one,” said Jim.

  Barbara smiled once more at Jim before driving off and saying out the open window, “Love you, honey.”

  “Bye, Mom,” Jim replied. Now he was the one feeling a little guilty for not telling Barbara about Mr. Strickler’s concerns.

  “You mother your mother a lot,” said Toby.

  “Ha,” Jim deadpanned. “See ya tomorrow, Tobes.”

  The guys biked into their cul-de-sac and parted ways, Jim riding up to his home and Toby to his nana’s house right across the street.

  “Hey, and by the way,” Toby called from his driveway, “don’t use mayo on the sandwich. It’s the wrong note.”

  Duly noted, Jim thought as he parked his bike in the garage. He then rifled through his bag for the remote to close the garage door behind him. That’s when he noticed that the Amulet had been glowing bright blue. Jim looked over his shoulder, feeling as if he was being watched again, like back in the locker room.

  Creeped out, he pressed the button on the clicker, and the garage door descended slowly and loudly. Just before it came all the way down, Jim glanced outside again. He could have sworn he saw something rustling in the bushes before the door blocked them from his view.

  Probably raccoons, thought Jim. Probably.

  Feeling unsettled, Jim tried to calm himself with his usual nightly ritual. He tossed his bag onto the couch and his cell onto the coffee table, and he turned on the TV. After the day he’d had, homework could wait an hour or three.

  Jim retrieved the Amulet from his book bag once more and examined it carefully. It had stopped glowing, but Jim had the impression that it was still . . . active. He toggled some of its gears, but the Amulet remained inert for now.

  “I am Gun Robot,” said Jim’s cell in a mechanical voice. “Pick up your phone.”

  Jim picked up his vibrating cell and answered, remembering how Toby had insisted they use this ringtone after watching their favorite sleepover movie, Gun Robot 3.

  “Hey, Tobes,” Jim said into the phone, never taking his eyes off the Amulet.

  “Did it talk again?” Toby asked from the other end of the call. “Did it do anything interesting?”

  Jim considered mentioning the glow and the raccoons. Maybe the Amulet was some sort of high-tech raccoon detector? But he ultimately thought better of it and settled for a simple “Nope.”

  “Toby-pie!” shouted Toby’s nana from his end, causing Jim to move the cell a few inches away from his ear. “Dinner!”

  “In a minute, Nana!” Toby shouted back, then said to Jim, “I gotta go. Text me if it does anything cool.”

  Jim hung up and gave up on the now-lifeless Amulet. He went back to the TV, changing channels from the news, to a commercial, to an old Sally-Go-Back rerun. Glancing from the screen to the Amulet, Jim discovered that it pulsed with blue light
once again.

  “Um . . . hi,” Jim said right into the Amulet, like it was a microphone. “How are you doing? I’m Jim.”

  No answer from the glowing Amulet.

  “But then, you knew that because you spoke my name, which is . . . weird,” Jim continued. What was it about being nervous that always made him babble on like this?

  “Hello?” he tried again, turning the Amulet, looking for any kind of hinge or power switch. “Anybody in there?”

  Still no answer. Jim sighed.

  “And now I’m talking to an inanimate object,” he muttered, before squeezing the Amulet in his hand. “Come on! Talk again or you are going up on eBay!”

  Jim froze when he heard a loud clatter. Not from the Amulet . . . but from the basement.

  Startled, Jim set the Amulet down on the coffee table. The device’s face glowed brighter than ever, not that Jim noticed. He stood up at the sound of more clattering downstairs. Only now did Jim realize just how dark it seemed inside his own house. In his rush to relax in front of the TV, he had neglected to turn on any lamps.

  Jim opened the door to the basement. Another clatter sounded below.

  “Raccoons,” Jim said, remembering the rustling from the front bushes.

  He grabbed his mom’s broom and walked downstairs, more secure in the knowledge that he’d be facing off with fuzzy little critters, not . . . something else. Just as Jim reached the bottom of the steps, a dark shape backed away from the furnace, spilling a few lumps of coal.

  Whoa, thought Jim. BIG raccoon.

  Upstairs, the Amulet reacted, and its arcane gears clicked into a new configuration.

  Tick.

  In the basement Jim turned on an overhead light, illuminating his surroundings. He turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees, staring into all the black, but empty, corners. Jim came all the way around and yelped in fright.

  But it was just his reflection, caught in one of the old mirrors Barbara stored in the basement. Jim forced himself to calm down . . . until the lightbulb exploded behind him.

  Tick.

  He yelped again as the space plunged into darkness. Jim felt sweat bead around the nape of his neck, even though the basement air felt cold and thick. He stood still, unaware as six yellow eyes blinked open behind him.