him.
Tyler stood out in front of the Carrillos’ house and stared across the valley, but of course he couldn’t see anything of Ordinary Farm from here except the hills that surrounded it. Lucinda, who for the first time in two days had felt well enough to get off the couch, stood beside him wrapped in a blanket even though the day was a hot one.
“I’m telling you, there’s something in that greenhouse, Tyler. It was like smoke, or like… I don’t know. But it got into me and made me sick!”
“You just know that witch is growing poison apples or something in there,” Tyler said. “You’re lucky you’re alive.”
“It wasn’t just poison, though,” his sister said, shivering and pulling the blanket closer. “It was… like something got inside me. Into my head. I can’t explain. I can still feel it a little… ”
“Better be careful or Grandma Paz is going to get out her broom again.” Tyler squinted. “Anyway, you’re better now, so forget it about it.” He picked up a dirt clod and flung it as far as he could. “The real problem is Colin Needle.”
“Oh, Tyler, he’s not that bad… ”
He turned on her. “He is, Lucinda. He is. And he’s got the Continuascope, I just know it.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” She was pale and distracted, still nowhere near her old self. “It’s been missing a long time and Uncle Gideon really needs it to look for Grace. Who cares who gets the credit…?”
“That’s not the point!” At least Tyler was pretty certain it wasn’t. “I don’t care about the credit, but don’t you understand-Colin has the Continuascope! He can use the Fault Line! And if his mother gets hold of it, she can use the Fault Line. They could go back into the past and make it so we were never born!” Something at the corner of his eye was distracting him, an odd shape flitting toward them across the pale blue sky.
“Colin wouldn’t do that,” Lucinda said.
“He’ll do anything his mother tells him to do,” Tyler said stubbornly. “It was probably her who sent him after it in the first place… ” He narrowed his eyes against the sun. “What is that?”
For half a moment he almost convinced himself it was Alamu streaking toward them down the sky like an avenging demon, but although it drew rapidly nearer the shape did not grow much larger and his heart began to slow to normal. Then he recognized it.
“Zaza!” He laughed and clapped his hands together as the little creature glided down toward them. “Look, Luce, it’s Zaza!”
“That’s nice. But I have to go lie down again.” She turned and made her way unsteadily back into the house. Tyler hardly noticed her go because the little winged monkey had landed on him and was climbing around on the top of his head, tugging at his hair and chattering softly, seeming as pleased to see him as he was to see her.
“Good girl! Heya! Good girl!” He laughed at the little tickling fingers. “Hi, Zaza! Whatcha doing? You came all the way over here, did you?” In other times he would have been terrified that the Carrillos would see-Silvia and Paz were only a dozen yards away in the kitchen, making dinner-but if they hadn’t said anything about the manticore and Alamu he didn’t think they were going to make much of a deal about Zaza. “What brings you here, Z?”
It was strange that the little monkey should come so far to see him when she had hardly spent any time with him at all this summer. The year before they had been almost inseparable, but this time she had stayed away except when Tyler was out on the edges of the farm. Why would she come to him out by the Reptile Barn or all the way over here at Cresta Sol but never come to the window of his room as she used to almost every night?
He sat down and let her climb all over him, petting her and playing with her, enjoying the softness of her velvety wings and her funny, inquisitive noises. She looked him in the face and pulled on his nose with her little fingered hands until he began to believe she wanted him to follow her, maybe even back to the farm.
“I can’t,” he said. “I got kicked out. But I sure wish you could talk like Lucinda’s dragons. I bet you’d tell me what’s going on back there.”
At last, puzzled and a bit distressed, Zaza flung herself into the air, circled Tyler’s head once, twice, chattering loudly, and then sped away back toward Ordinary Farm.
“Okay,” Tyler said to the Carrillo kids. “What’s going on with your folks? It’s been three days. Why haven’t they said anything about what happened?”
“About what happened where?” asked Steve without looking up from his GameBoss screen.
Tyler rolled his eyes. “Come on, man! Your father was driving the car-we had a manticore chasing us and a dragon on the hood. We almost died! Why haven’t they said anything about that?”
“I know,” said Carmen. “It’s scary. It’s like it never happened.”
“No.” Little Alma shook her head, her expression solemn. “It happened. You can see it on their faces. They’re just not talking to us about it.”
“But why?” Carmen flopped down on her bed, bouncing Lucinda who was resting there in a sleeping bag.
“Stop,” Lucinda groaned. “My head hurts.”
“Sorry. But your brother’s right-why haven’t they said anything? It’s creeping me out!”
Steve Carrillo stood up. “Dude, there’s a simple solution. Let’s go ask ‘em.”
They could hear Hector and Sylvia Carrillo arguing in quiet but strained voices as they approached the kitchen. “… To deal with it,” Hector was saying. “It’s pretty clear we have to do something
… ”
“Do something?” This was Mrs. Carrillo. “What are we supposed to do? You might as well try to do something about… about a volcano!”
Carmen knocked on the closed door. “Mom? Dad? What’s going on?”
A moment later it swung open. “We’ll talk to you kids later,” Mrs. Carrillo said, peering out. “Your father and I are having a discussion.”
“About the stuff we want to talk about. So why don’t you have the discussion with us?”
Mrs. Carrillo stared at the children for a moment. “All right,” she said at last. “Meet us in the living room.”
“Well,” Mr. Carrillo said when they were all settled, “as you may have guessed, this business with the Tinker farm, with those… dragons, or whatever those things were… didn’t come as a complete surprise to your mother and I.”
“Huh?” Steve looked stricken. “You mean you knew? About the farm and… and the kind of animals they have there?”
“But how?” Carmen asked.
“Because… well, because your great-grandfather knew Octavio and helped to build that farm,” said Hector. “And… there are some other things you haven’t… ”
Suddenly the front door rattled and banged open. Grandma Paz pushed through with two hefty bags of groceries, which she deposited on the floor, then turned around and closed the door firmly. “He’s coming again,” she told them. “That man. He was right behind me the whole way in from town.”
Hector Carrillo turned to Tyler and Lucinda. “You two stay out of sight or he might ask questions,” he warned, then turned to his own offspring. “Go with them.”
“Who are they talking about?” Tyler whispered as he and the others pushed down the hallway into Steve’s room.
“Who do you think?” Steve told him. “That crazy Stillman guy-the billionaire. He comes by every few days.”
Tyler heard the doorbell ring and the door open. He was curious-he had never seen Stillman in real life-and opened Steve’s door just a crack, but he couldn’t see anything of the living room. He could hear voices, though, and heard an unfamiliar one say, “I find it hard to believe you won’t take twice the market price for this place, Mr. Carrillo.”
“And I find it hard to believe you won’t take no for an answer,” said Hector.
They spoke for a minute or so more, but their voices became quieter and Tyler could make out only a few words, then the front door was firmly closed.
“Why does he keep trying to buy our house, Papa?” Alma asked when they were all back in the living room. “We told him we won’t sell it.”
“Because he’s the kind of man who thinks he can always get what he wants just by throwing money at it,”
