Shal was already standing up. “Thanks for the help. Some friend you are,” she said sarcastically.
She hurried off toward the school, and I was left in the corner alone.
—
“What’s wrong?” my mom asked me during dinner that night.
She’d bought new plates today and had insisted on making a nice roast to celebrate. It looked delicious, but I wasn’t very hungry. I was just picking at a small slice on my plate.
“Nothing,” I muttered.
Tom was chewing on a boiled carrot. “She’s sad.”
“Yes, I realize that,” my mom said. “But why?”
“The room all right?” Stache asked worriedly, looking up from his dinner. “Did you find more spiders?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
Stache nodded and returned to his roast. His wispy brown hair was matted against his forehead with sweat, and even his moustache looked sweaty. He was working fast though. The cupboards were installed, and he’d even slapped a coat of paint on the kitchen walls. There were still boxes piled along the counters, but it was starting to look like a normal kitchen.
“I’m sad too,” Tom said, poking around for another carrot.
My mom turned to him. “Why?”
“There’s a pile of garbage below my window. It’s a real eyesore.”
My mom sighed, and I cracked just the slightest bit of a smile. Tom was obviously trying to save me from anymore questions from my mother. When she thought something was wrong, she would keep asking until she got an answer.
Stache must have been only half-listening.
“Garbage?” he said. “I’ll check it out after dinner.”
“You do that, dear,” my mom said. “Now, Laura, are you sure you won’t—”
“Can I be excused?”
Stache looked at me in surprise. My plate wasn’t finished, which was a rarity.
“Yeah,” my mom said, sounding worried. “Sure.”
I wrapped up my plate, put it in the fridge, and headed upstairs. As I went up the stairs, I could hear Tom say to my dad, “Love the paint in here. It smells like it was perfectly applied.”
“Thanks, Tom,” my dad replied proudly.
I shook my head and closed the bedroom door behind me.
I spent the rest of the evening in my room, thinking about Shal. She didn’t talk to me the rest of the day. She didn’t even look at me. After school she just hurried off with Mia—who at least snuck me a little wave—and didn’t look back once.
I thought not having friends sucked. Losing them after a day was worse.
I’d spent most of my life giving bullies the silent treatment. You just took their insults and tried not to get angry and then cried about it in the safety of your room. Sounds kind of strange, I know. But the few times I let my temper get the best of me with Portia, it hadn’t really worked out. If I yelled at her, the rest of the school looked at me like I was a maniac. The one time I really lost it and hit her, she acted like I was a murderer, and I got detention for two weeks and a very awkward meeting with the principal and my parents.
But Shal was right. I didn’t stick up for her. And deep down I knew it was because a small part of me was happy I wasn’t the one being targeted. It was selfish, and it wasn’t what a friend was supposed to do. And when you spend your whole day fighting off fat comments, it really hurts when you get home and have to call yourself a coward.
And so I lay in my bed thinking about Shal and Mia and Allison until Tom and my parents went to bed. It was after ten when the rattling started. I slowly climbed off the bed, the issues at school instantly forgotten. I had bigger things to worry about.
Tucking the guide under my arm, I walked into the closet, my eyes on the rattling wooden panel. I crouched down, found the catch, and gently swung the panel open.
Stepping into the elevator, I carefully put the book at my feet, grabbed the lever firmly with two hands, and, against my better judgment, pulled it.
At once the floor swept away beneath me, and I plummeted through the earth like the night before, trying not to scream. Closing my eyes, I tried to count how long the descent was, and I was around forty-five seconds when white light suddenly flared across my closed eyes, and I opened them to see the lush greenery of Derwin racing toward me. The elevator slowed, and I stepped out to find Porton sitting in his rocking chair, smiling at me through that scraggly white beard.
“Welcome back.”
Chapter Ten
I hurried through the town, aware that the villagers were staring at me even more curiously than last time. They had probably assumed I was never coming back.
The streets were bustling again, and I took a closer look at the village as I walked through it, noticing ash-covered forges, small butcher shops, and even a packed tavern. The entire realm of Derwin might have been dropped a few hundred years ago on the surface and been totally normal, aside from those strange weapons sheathed to belts and thighs and the dangling yellow fangs that seemed to be a fashion statement here. I did also see a boy walking a blue lizard, which was odd.
“Is that your pet?” I asked him.
He glanced at me, grinning. “Yep. Called him Eldon.”
“Like the mean guy at the castle?”
The boy nodded. “Best Sword in the Under Earth. Eldon Rein. My father always said he could kill ten goblins without breaking a sweat, and that’s with his hands.”
I knelt down to pet the lizard, and it nuzzled my fingers. “What does your father do?”
The boy’s smile slipped away. “He was a soldier. He died last year from a goblin.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. I’m gonna be a warrior though. I’ll make ’em pay. Say…you’re the one they’re all talking about. From the surface. You’re training to be a Monster Crusher?”
“So they tell me.”
He nodded thoughtfully, eyeing me
