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  Chapter Sixteen

  Ethan flew up into the air, flipping head over heels, and crashed back down to earth with a wicked belly flop. I sighed, not because he’d failed to defend himself again — I’d just about given up on that — but because I was determio flip him just right so that he nded on his feet on the way back down.

  Hey, a girl’s got to have her hobbies.

  “Sloppy!” I yelled as he got back up. “What did I tell you?”

  Ethan rubbed his head. “Remind me. I think you gave me amnesia.”

  “Keep your hammer up like this.” I showed him with Sptsy. “That’s your best defensive posture.”

  “But you hit me on the head!” he pined. He was still using the wooden slightly-smaller-than-Sptsy hammer. “How does holding it in front of my chest protect my head?”

  “If I go for your head, then you defend your head. Duh.”

  “But you—”

  “Think fast!” I swung Sptsy, ahan actually mao block my first attack. I rewarded him with a quick smack to his hand, which made him drop his hammer, and then bonked him on the head.

  “Dead,” I said as he colpsed. “Dead, dead, dead as a doorknob.”

  “Nail.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “e again?”

  “It’s dead as a doornail, not knob.” he said, still lying on the ground.

  “You’re not a knob!”

  He blinked. “Uh, thank you?”

  “This,” McGus decred, “is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I ched my teeth and refused to look at him. He wanted me to give up and ask for help. If I were smart, I probably would have. But nobody calls Hea Chaplin Rider smart and lives to tell about it, so I vented my frustrations by smag Ethan up into the air again. I overdid it this time, as he flipped so far that he actually nded on his back.

  “Up,” I snapped. “Let’s go again.”

  “How am I supposed to learn anything like this?” he demanded, stubbornly remaining on the floor.

  I sighed, but sat down across from him. “The same way I learned. When McGus first made me his apprentice, he would kick my butt up and down this room for five hours a day until I finally learned how to kick back.”

  Ethan sat up and gave me a skeptical look. “And how long did that take?”

  “More than a year,” I admitted.

  He fell onto his back. “Wonderful.”

  Before I could say anything else, McGus stood up. “All right, girl, you’ve pyed Whack-a-Mole on him enough for one day. Get out of here before I decide to do the same to you.”

  “Fine by me!” Ethan said, already on his feet.

  While I watched him drag his hammer back to the ons wall, McGus came to stand beside me.

  “Be ho with me, Master,” I said.

  “You’re irresponsible, zy, and you don’t take anything seriously.” I shot him a look, and his eyebrows went up. “Oh, did you mean about something specific?”

  I ighe jab and asked, “Am I doing okay with him?”

  Oher side of the room, Ethan lifted the hammer to put it away, but overbanced and ended up smming it against the wall. He screamed and covered his head as ten more hammers fell free, thudding heavily to the floor all around him.

  “You’re doing about as well as anyone could,” McGus admitted. “The problem here isn’t you, for once.”

  “Hey!”

  He snorted. “To learn how to fight, you have to want to learn how to fight. That kid obviously doesn’t.”

  My shoulders slumped. “What do I do, then?”

  “Keep at it. You still teach him some basic self-defense. Just don’t expect him to actually win any fights.”

  “ I get some help over here?” Ethan asked, struggling to lift a massive stone hammer.

  “You made the mess, you it up!” McGus yelled back.

  He gave me a helpless look. “Henry?”

  “Hurry up,” I said, gng at my phone. “Aesop and Jade are waiting for us.”

  It took almost fifteen minutes, but eventually Ethan got all but one of the hammers put back where they belonged. I half expected McGus to hurl one of his smaller hammers at the wall, knog even more down for him to up, but it looked like the old Green was doh us for the day.

  Ethan made for the st hammer, lying on the floor by the edge of the sparring ring, and I frowned. It was the crystal spellhammer he’d taken an i in a week ago. He reached for it, and I took a step forward to stop him — but then McGus attacked me.

  “Defend yourself!” he yelled. I quickly raised Sptsy, and his twin hammers bounced off her handle.

  I retaliated with my own attack, but he danced out of the way. Even with his limp, he somehow mao move as gracefully as a ballerina. I raised Sptsy over my head for a powerful swing, but had to leap backwards when McGus darted in for a quicker attack.

  “I thought you didn’t want to spar!” I yelled, narrowly fending him off.

  “And you believed me?” he snarled and unleashed a flurry of attacks. I mao block the first three, but the me on the khen another on the shoulder, making my entire left arm go numb. “Would you take dy from a maiam if it told you it wasn’t poisoned?”

  He swung, and I held Sptsy out, catg both his hammers on her handle.

  “Well,” I grurying to push him back, “seeing as how maiams ’t talk, I think that’s a moot point.”

  Then, abruptly, he stopped pushing against me and I fell ft on my face.

  “Bah!” he spat. “It’s a miracle you’re not dead yet, girl.”

  I picked myself up. “Yeah, well I—”

  “Shut up a out already! Both of you!”

  Ethan hurried to my side, holding my backpack out to me. He looked pale. Not that I bmed him. I’d rather face a hundred maiams than McGus when he’s in one of his moods. Taking my bag, I led the way out of the house and through Mauldibamm. Half an hour and one quick IW ride ter, I cut a er — making sure to cover Ethan’s eyes — and appeared on the sidewalk outside a run-down old strip mall. This part of town was super sketchy, so I grabbed Ethan by the arm and pulled him behind me before someorench coated stranger could try to sell us drugs, or life insurance, or something.

  “e on,” I said. “Aesop’s pce is a couple blocks this way.”

  “Where are we?” he asked, looking around.

  “Englehop. It’s a few miles east of Burning Creek.”

  “Englehop? I think I’ve heard that…” He stopped dead in his tracks. “That’s where the st kidnapping happened, isn’t it?”

  I shrugged. “Was it? I try not to pay attention to that kind of stuff.”

  “Well, maybe you should!” He yanked his arm out of my hand and took a step back. “The sun’s going down! What if something happens to us?”

  “It won’t. And even if it did,” I patted the ping pong paddle on my belt, “I think I could ha.”

  To my surprise, that actually seemed to calm him down. I had to walk fast to keep up with him, even though I was the one who knew where we were going, but at least he wasn’t pining anymore.

  A couple mier, we came to an old two story brick building. A faded wood sign Rainbow’s End Pawn aal, with WE BUY GOLD! on an even bigger sign below.

  “What’s this?” Ethan asked.

  “Aesop’s house,” I said. “His dad runs the store, and they both live on the sed floor.”

  We went to the front door, where a pstic sign said the store was closed, but it opened for me anyway with a jihe smell of cigarette smoke wafted out to greet us. Dim lighting gave the pce a dirty feel that wasn’t helped by the fact that it actually was filthy.

  “He lives here?” Ethan asked, gng around. “This pce looks shady.”

  “That’s because it is.”

  Ethan spun with a yelp to find Aesop standing right beside him, grinning like an imp. I ughed and came to give my lepre pal a high five.

  “Any pce run by lepres is bound to be shady,” I told Ethan. “It’s in their blood.”

  “And our blood do be as green as a four leafed clover, me boyo!” he agreed. Switg back to his Ameri at, he asked, “What took you so long? Jade and I were about to start without you.”

  “Ethan made a mess at McGus’ house, and I had to wait for him to it up,” I said, elbowihan in the side. He scowled at me.

  Aesop raised an eyebrow. “And you couldn’t just leave him there?”

  “Aloh that wrinkly old asparagus?” I ughed. “McGus would have torn him apart before I could get to the door!”

  Rolling his eyes, Aesop turo lead us upstairs.

  Calling Aesop’s apartment cluttered would have been an uatement. Everywhere you looked, there was stuff. Stuff piled on top of stuff, seasoned with stuff, with ara order of stuff on the side. Old guitars, hunting rifles, worn out paperbacks, televisions — things that Aesop’s dad wao sell but didn’t have room for downstairs. Ethan bumped clumsily into a stack of dvds almost as tall as he was, and I ched my teeth as it wobbled bad forth for a sed. I’d learhe hard way that the O’Gales didn’t let friendship get in the way of the you break it you buy it rule.

  Jade sat on a shabby cou front of an old TV that was so huge a whole family of hobos could have lived i. She had her hood down, though her bangs still covered the right side of her face. A makeshift buffet of pizza, buffalo wings, and ese read across the coffee table in front of her.

  “What cursed and fotten relic have yed up for us tonight?” I asked, falling backwards onto the couch.

  “Gnomaggedon 5: The Revenge of t Fmingous,” Aesop said, holding up the a vhs tape. “A cult cssic of the highest pedigree!”

  “People sell all kinds of weird stuff to Aesop’s dad,” Jade expined, notig how utterly lost Ethan looked, “so we meet every couple weeks to dig through his pile of movies.”

  I snagged a slice of pizza while Aesop flopped down on my other side. Ethan took a tentative step toward the couch, like he was still afraid he wasn’t wele.

  “Here,” I said, “Jade, move over a little so Ethan fit.”

  She gnced up at him, and I could have sworn she blushed a little. Still, she slid as far as she could to the right, trying to make room for him. I scooted to the left, actally elbowing Aesop i.

  “Ow! This is a three person couch, Henry!” he pined. “There’s no more room.”

  “You don’t expect him to stand there the whole time, do you?” I demanded.

  “I- I’m fine,” Ethan said, holding up his hands. “It’s—”

  “See?” Aesop interrupted. “He says he’s fine.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “No, it’s not fine. You’re the host. Maybe you should offer him your spot.”

  His face reddened a little. “Excuse you, ss, but Saint Patrick didn’t drive the snakes out of Irend for me to give up my seat tonight. There’s a folding chair over there. Good enough?”

  Ethao get it without a word, and I gred at Aesop.

  “What is your deal today?” I hissed.

  Without looking at me, Aesop pushed py on the remote. “ we just watch the movie already?”

  I looked over at Ethan, who had found the metal — and very unfortable looking — chair, but his eye had been caught by all the crazy stuff that littered Aesop’s apartment.

  “Hey,” he said, pig a book up off the kit table. “How much does your dad want for this?”

  Aesop looked without getting up. “That? That’s, uh…five hundred dolrs.”

  I slugged him. “e on, dude!”

  “I’m serious!” he insisted, rubbing his arm. “Dad found that at a garage sale in the Evermist Dimension. Says it’s one of the rarest books he’s ever id eyes on. Five hundred dolrs.”

  Lookied, Etha back down. I didn’t know what the book was, but suddenly I felt terrible for the puy. Life had sucked for him over the past couple weeks, and if that book could do something to make him feel better…

  “How about a trade?” I suggested.

  Aesop shrugged. “If ye find something me da’d be willin’ to trade ye fer, go fer it.”

  The movie began. Dramatic music swelled as an old grandma was dragged screaming tarden to be eaten alive by cymation gnomes.

  “Henry,” Ethan said, setting his chair o the couch, “you don’t have to give away your stuff for me.”

  I shook my head. “It’s fine. I don’t have anything I could trade for that, but I know somebody who might.”

  “Shh!” Jade hissed.

  We quieted down to watch the movie, but my brain was already king out an idea. I smiled to myself.

  It was time to pay Uncle Junk a visit.