Bringing Down the Mouse (28 page)

Out of the corner of his eye, Charlie saw Miranda hopping up the steps that led to the stage. She was clapping her hands and smiling and saying something to the gray-haired man about being Charlie's guardian, his chaperone for the trip, and as he handed her the
lifetime tickets, part of the prize for beating the wheel, she informed him she was going to hold on to them as well as the money until Charlie's parents could pick him up at the airport when they got back to Boston.

But before she reached the top step, Charlie was already moving as well. With a single motion, he swept his black backpack off the stage by his feet, ripped the zipper open, rushed over to the table where the money was piled up—and started shoving the stacks of bills inside. He didn't look up as he went, praying that the wheel and the gray-haired man were obscuring Miranda's view, ignoring the crowd that was now pointing and laughing at what probably seemed to them, his overdramatic antics.
Five thousand. Ten thousand. Twenty thousand. Fifty thousand
.

Only then, every last hundred-dollar bill safely in the backpack, did he look up. Miranda had just gotten free from the man with the gray hair and was moving toward him. Her gaze moved from him to the bag, and then her smile froze on her face.

Charlie yanked the zipper shut and hoisted the bag over his right shoulder. It was way heavier than he had imagined, but he didn't care. He gave Miranda one last look and then dove forward off the stage, taking the steps at full speed.

Miranda shouted something, frantic, high-pitched words that sounded like “Barry,” or “Gary,” followed by “get him!” But then Charlie was diving into the stunned crowd of people, his shoes churning against the ground, his body moving fast as a bullet, faster than he'd ever gone—

And then suddenly, he slammed headfirst right into Jeremy.

They went down in a jumble of arms and legs, both of them screaming as they went. The backpack flipped off Charlie's shoulder as he crashed into the ground, and then Jeremy was on top of him, trying to untangle himself.

“Hey, man, get off me!” Charlie shouted.

“Ow, you're on my ankle!”

“Just move!”

And then, less than a second later, Charlie was back on his feet. He reached down, grabbed the backpack out from beneath Jeremy, who was still down on one knee, and then Charlie was moving forward again. The crowd parted as he barreled through, and then he was speeding down Solar Avenue, feet churning as fast as they could go.

A few more yards, and then he dared to looked back—and that's when he saw the two impossible shapes moving after him.

One looked like a giant mouse. The other, a mutated frog in oversize moon boots.

Both were wearing pants. And both were coming after him, murderous looks in their giant cartoon eyes.

BACK PRESSED AGAINST THE
locked steel door, heart pounding in his chest, face frozen in a rictus of pure fear, the sickly sweet tones of singing robot children echoing down the narrow corridor, the words themselves twisted and torqued by the steam pipes and rusting gears jutting from the cinder-block walls. Charlie held the backpack out at arm's length in front of him, his gaze pinned to the enormous headless mouse, and the even more terrifying frog, as they towered over him.

Loopy, or Barry, or Gary, or Scarface, as Charlie now thought of him, leaned forward so that Charlie could see the yellow of his teeth.

“Thought you could get away? That was real stupid,
kid. Miranda promised me ten percent of that stash. And Loopy's got to get paid. Understand?”

Scarface laughed at his own words, then reached out with a giant white glove and tried to grab the backpack by its strap. The huge hands swatted against the material, but the sausage-shaped fingers couldn't close. The man cursed, and Charlie heard a loud guffaw echo out of the Frog costume.

“You gotta take off the hands, man. Loopy's only got four fingers. Can't grab much with four freaking fingers.”

Scarface glared at his buddy in the Frog costume, then went to work on the enormous gloves. It took him a full minute to get them unattached, then he flung them both to the cement floor.

“Let's try this again,” he hissed.

He reached out and grabbed the backpack, this time getting the strap on his first try.

“Nice and heavy,” he said. “I like that.”

He showed the pack to the Frog, then grinned back at Charlie.

“Nobody beats the Mouse, kid. You should know that.”

Then he attacked the zipper, ripping it open with a single yank. Still grinning, he flipped the backpack over, aiming its contents toward the ground—

And then his gasp echoed off the cinder-block walls. Instead of thick stacks of hundred-dollar bills:

Diapers
. Dozens of diapers, raining down from the backpack, piling up on the cement floor . . .

Scarface stared at the growing pile, then back at Charlie. His hand opened, and the backpack fell to ground, landing right on top of all the diapers.

“How?” he stared. Then he shook his head. “I don't know what just happened here, but you better freaking start talking. Where's the money?”

Charlie swallowed. He hadn't exactly planned to get cornered like this; he'd hoped to just drop the backpack with the diapers somewhere in the amusement park, where security would eventually find it. The diapers had been Jeremy's idea, both to make the bag look as if it were still full of cash, and also add a nice personal flourish to the job. His plan had worked, everything but the endgame. He reached his hands behind his back, pressing at the cold steel door again. Still locked. He looked around, beginning to panic as the two men lurched menacingly closer.

And then a familiar, if shocked, voice echoed through the corridor.

“Charlie Numbers? Dude, what the heck is going on?”

The Frog and Scarface turned as one. Charlie looked between them, and saw Dylan standing in the corridor about ten feet behind the two men, flanked by his two bozos, Liam and Dusty.

The corridor went near silent; the only sound, besides the music from the ride, was Dylan's labored breathing. The hefty thug must have run pretty fast to catch up to Charlie and his pursuers. Charlie could see from the expression on Dylan's face, the scene in front of him wasn't at all what he'd expected. Obviously, Scarface and the Frog felt the same way. One kid in a desolate corridor they could handle, but a fifth of a school trip? This was more than either of them had signed up for.

Scarface looked back over his shoulder at Charlie and then spat toward the floor, missing the diapers by a few inches.

“Not worth it,” he grunted. “You can keep your stinking diapers.”

And then he turned and started back down the corridor. The Frog followed one big shoe-length behind. A moment later, they had squeezed past Dylan and his groupies, and a minute after that, Charlie was alone with his least favorite classmates. But for once, Charlie was more than glad to be facing his usual tormentor.

“I think you just saved my life.” He gasped.

Dylan opened his mouth to respond, and then closed it again. His pasty cheeks suddenly filled with color.
My god,
Charlie thought,
he's blushing.
Dylan had been a bully for such a long time, he had forgotten what it felt like to help someone out. He looked completely overwhelmed and confused, but it was obvious he liked the feeling.

“First time for everything,” he said. “I guess.”

He glanced at Liam and Dusty, then over his shoulder, at the now empty corridor. Then he turned back to Charlie.

“You know what, Numbers? Today, you get a pass.”

Then Dylan's wide, pasty face broke out in a grin.

“I mean, after all, it is Incredo Land, right? The Cheeriest Spot in the Universe?”

At the moment, Charlie couldn't disagree.

IT TOOK ABOUT TEN
minutes for the crowd to dissipate, which wasn't surprising considering the bizarre scene Charlie had caused. Picturing the whole scene was such a bizarre thought—a skinny kid in red sneakers scooping money into a backpack, then diving off a stage, Loopy the Space Mouse and the Frog in hot pursuit. When Charlie had rammed right into him, taking them both down to the ground, it had looked so real that even Jeremy had a hard time believing they had planned the whole thing at three in the morning. But like Charlie had predicted, it had worked perfectly. In the ensuing chaos, nobody had noticed that Charlie had lifted the wrong backpack off the ground. Nobody had noticed anything except that crazy kid running down
Solar Avenue, a cartoon nightmare right behind him.

Still laughing, Jeremy gripped Charlie's heavy black backpack and strolled up the steps leading to the stage. The gray-haired man was gone, as was Miranda and just about everybody else. Jeremy had no idea where that conniving fake teacher had vanished to, but he truly hoped he never saw her again. Just watching her as her face had gone cold, seeing Charlie with the money, it was enough to give you nightmares. Reaching the top of the stage, Jeremy glanced at the huge colorful wheel, still frozen in place the way Charlie had left it—the hawk up top, beak open in a wonderful grin. Jeremy felt exactly as that hawk looked as he crossed to the big Plexiglas charity box. Then he unslung the backpack from his shoulders and undid the zipper.

As he pulled the first stack of hundred-dollar bills out of the backpack, he noticed a Midwestern-looking couple about five yards away down Solar Avenue, watching him. The man was portly, in jeans and a red sweater, and there was a look of awe on his face as he saw the green in Jeremy's hand. The woman was short, a little bit stocky, with thick glasses and a tight ponytail. She was saying something to her husband, and he shrugged back at her.
Well,
Jeremy thought to himself,
I'm on a stage. May as well have an audience.

With a flourish, he jammed the stack of hundred-dollar bills into the charity box. And then he dug back into the backpack for another stack.

It took about five minutes to shove all fifty thousand dollars into the slot. When he was done, he stuck his head into the backpack to make sure he'd gotten everything. Every bill, gone. He grinned, imagining what Miranda was going to think. Jeremy had cleaned out the entire baby shelf at the convenience store in the hotel lobby. It seemed like a fair exchange. Fifty thousand dollars for the Red Cross, and a backpack full of diapers for Miranda. If Jeremy had been looking for a definition of the word “karma,” he couldn't have done much better than that.

He looked up from the bag, and noticed that the Midwestern couple had moved a couple of yards closer. The husband was still wide-eyed, and gave him a once-over, head to toe. Then the man shook his head.

“Wow,” he called out. “That was pretty generous. And a whole lot of money for a kid.”

Jeremy grinned back at him.

“I'm, like, an Internet millionaire. We seem to get younger every year, don't we?”

With that, he gave the Plexiglas box a gentle pat,
then slung the now-empty backpack over his shoulder and shot the Midwestern couple a wink. Then he started back down the steps, ready for another wonderful day of adventure, in the Cheeriest Spot in the Universe.