Chapter One

  "Sticky Mickey. The Rhombus. Pie Master Supreme of the Manure Nebu."

  I paused to shovel a spoonful of Chocote Frosted Cocobutts (with marshmallow turds) into my mouth. The ch sounded like a fat guy in rubber boots walking through a s made of potato sad.

  My name is Henry Rider, but you might know me better as the Maiam Huhe Blue Haired Butcher, the Crusher, or, if you live in a small town somewhere in Iowa, the Bare-Butted Land Squid.

  I…don't like to talk about that one.

  "Donkeyface McScuttlebutt the Sixteenth," I went on. "Chi Skittles. He Who Must Not Be Shaved. Larry."

  Pig up my bowl, I drank everything that was left with a magnifitly irritating SLURRRRRP, and then smmed it triumphantly back down oable. Then, after letting out an award winning burp, I looked across the table to see what Ethan thought of the terrible niames I'd been suggesting.

  But he wasn't even listening to me.

  “I dunno,” he said, absentmindedly stirring his fkes with his spoon, “I’ve just never been into sports. What about you?”

  “I totally uand. Today’s sports are s,” answered the violet-eyed girl sitting beside him. Her dark hair fell to cover her right eye, but the way her left eye rolled was unmistakable. “One of my old masters always went to the gdiathts, and I would watch from inside my core. Now that was exg!”

  Ethan blinked. “Gdiators? As in, from a Rome?”

  “I told you, I’m older than I look,” Jade said with a smirk. “Would you believe me if I said I’ve ridden on the backs of dinosaurs?”

  “I don’t…” he paused. “Have you really?”

  “Ex-CUSE me,” I interrupted. “I am trying to do something important here!”

  Ethan turo give me a bnk look, as if he’d pletely fotten I was there. “Huh? You are?”

  Beh the table, I ched my spoon hard enough to bend it in half.

  Easy, easy, I thought to myself. This is good. This is what you wao happen.

  That was true, but watg Ethan make googoo eyes at Jade still curdled my girdles. Yes, I had pushed Ethan and Jade to grow closer. Yes, I had hoped that they could help each other out of their shells. Yes, I should have been happy that that was exactly what had happened.

  But that was before I'd fallen in love with Ethan myself.

  Why 't you look at me that way? I thought glumly as Etha back to his versation with Jade. Sure, Jade is beautiful, smart, funny, and a freaking genie, but what does she have that I don't?

  You know, besides all the stuff I just listed?

  I looked down at my empty bowl so that he wouldn't see my cheeks turn as blue as my hair.

  "So, Ethan," Jade spoke up a mier, "Have you thought about what your sed wish is going to be?"

  I perked up a little at that, and tuned bato their versation again. It had been two months since he'd bee Jade's master and used his first wish to keep me…well, Legion wearing my body…from murdering the cil of Shnoob.

  He nervously cleared his throat. "I, uh…no, I haven't. Am I on, like, a time limit or something?"

  Jade shook her head. "No, nothing like that. I've just never had a master go so long without making a wish."

  "Don't call me that!" Ethan snapped, and then ged. "Sorry. But you know I hate it when you call me your master. It sounds like I own you or something. So please, stop."

  "Is that a wish?" she asked with a smirk.

  "No, it's a threat." Ethan grinned back at her. "Because if you don't, I'll flush your neckce dowoilet."

  Jade ughed. "You wouldn't dare!"

  And just like that, I’d been fotten again.

  There's still ohing you do to get his attention, the voi my head whispered.

  Hmm…

  Trying to aatural, I leaned forward in my seat and focused all of my attention ohan. Then I…did something I’m really bad at expining. You know how you make your vision blurry just by flexing a certain muscle in your eyeballs? It's kind of like that, except that instead of turning everything fuzzy, I see inside whoever I'm looking at—specifically, into their sense of humor.

  Images started to appear around him. Most of them were fuzzy, like I was watg a tv that could only pick up half a signal, but every on a while they would solidify into something I could make out. There was Backfire, the superhero he sometimes drew ics about. I saw my friend Aesop being kicked by a horse. And, for a split sed, I thought I saw me in there, doing a…

  Actually, you know what? Let’s fet that one.

  What I didn’t get was anything I could use to make him ugh. Maybe I just didn’t know how to use my new power yet. Maybe the trauma of seeing his parents die had messed up his sense of humor too muaybe Ethan’s ughter hadn’t healed me as much as I’d thought, and I was overclog my poor brain like a cheap ptop with a billion i tabs open. Whatever it was, seeing bits and pieces of things he thought were funny wasn’t enough. I still had to figure out how to turn those things into a joke, like how a bcksmith takes a bunch of little rocks and hammers them into a sword. At least, I think that’s how it works. I haven’t really done much researto bcksmithing, if you believe it.

  Luckily, I was saved from actually having to think when the doorbell rang. My head immediately swiveled to look into the living room, my heart skipping a beat, and I saw an envelope get pushed through the mail slot—the mail slot that oed on the inside of our door. It fell to the floor, ahan and I shared a look.

  Yeah, now he remembers I’m here, I thought.

  “Henry,” my mom called from down the hall, “is someo the door?”

  I swallowed. “No, Mom, it’s just an assig.”

  I went and got the letter, opening it as I made my way to the kit. McGus, the cil’s old Maiam Hunter, had gotten clobbered two months ago (by me) and taken out of ission. He was alive, thank the whoopie cushion in the sky, but even his doctors didn’t know if he would ever be able to walk again, much less fight. He had named me Ag Hunter—and a few other less hings—in his absend I’d e home that night to find his mail slot on my door.

  “What’ve we got?” Ethan asked.

  I wadded up the letter and threw it, sg a hit ohan’s forehead. “Same as always: trouble. Let’s go.”

  “You haven’t lost the Cube, have you?”

  I frowned. “Of course I haven’t! I keep it in the safest p the whole house!”

  “And where’s that?” Ethan asked skeptically.

  “In my…” I paused, then scowled at him. “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore, would it?”

  "It's in your underwear drawer, isn't it?"

  My mouth snapped shut and I glowered at him before turning and rag upstairs to my room.

  "It's in your underwear drawer," I mimicked him as I opened my, um, high tech security safe that's disguised to look like a on underwear drawer. The fact that I also kept my underwear in there helped further the illusion.

  With the Escher Cube in my pocket, my Nasally Operated Sember on my face, and my trusty warhammer/ping pong paddle Sptsy hanging from my belt, I stepped bato the hallway just in time to see Ethan emerge from his own room, armed with his crystal spellhammer. Jade was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs.

  "Ready to maim some maiams?" I asked.

  He smirked. "Always."

  We went downstairs, and I held the Escher Cube in both hands, ready to—

  "Henry?" my mom called again.

  Footsteps. She was ing this way! I looked at Jade, but before I could say anything, she dematerialized into a beam ht green energy and whooshed into the gem that hung arouhan's neck. And not a moment too sooher.

  "Henry," Mom said again, appearing in the living room door. Her skin asty white as mine, but her vibrant purple hair was as different from my blue as anything could be. "When you're done, could you run to the pharmacy?"

  My eyes widened a little. "By pharmacy, do you mean…"

  "Yes, the pharmacy. just called to say he's ing home for a visit. He should be here sometime tonight."

  "?" Ethan echoed. "As in, your brother?"

  "Adopted brother, teically,” I said. "But teicalities are for nerds."

  "The brother whose room I've been sleeping in for half a year now?"

  "That's the one!"

  Unease flickered ohan's face. "The brother whose room is filled with skulls, bats, and scary movie posters?"

  "I'll swing past New You on the way back, Mom," I said. "We’ve gotta go now, though."

  "Henry, what's New You?" Ethan asked.

  "Fart at ya ter!"

  "Don't ignore me! What—"

  I twisted the Escher Cube, and we vanished in a fsh of light.