Lor Mandela - Destruction from Twins (40 page)

Maggie and Bridgette stared at him, mouths
gaping and eyes wide.

“I think, Holden that you have a bit of
explaining to do.” Maggie insisted calmly, yet deliberately.

Holden glanced from Maggie to Bridgette—who
looked like she was in shock—and then back to Maggie. “Listen,” he
sighed, “I can explain later, and I promise I will. It’s just right
now, there’s not time. We have to figure out how to get to Lor
Mandela or your dad’s in real serious . . . .”

“What do you mean, get
back to Lor Mandela
?”
Maggie snapped
. “
You just said you’ve had one chance in thirteen years, and I
can’t exactly control when I have the pleasure of
visiting!”

“I know!” Holden barked back, “but we’ve got
to figure it out! We don’t have a choice!”

Maggie was about to retort, when Bridgette
touched her gently on the forearm.

“Holden,” she began quietly, “what do you
suggest we do?”

His reply was not what either of the girls
anticipated. “We need a Shadow Squanki.”

“A what?” Bridgette and Maggie quizzed in
unison.

“A Squanki,” he repeated. “They create
portals between worlds. I’ve been trying to catch one in particular
here for years, but she’s been kinda elusive.” The girls’ faces
must have shown their confusion, because he was quick to elaborate.
“Oh, Squanki are these little creatures that live on Lor Mandela.
They come here from time to time to get crickets. Maybe if all
three of us keep an eye out, we can track one down.”

“Crickets?” Maggie frowned. “You’re saying
that you want us to find a little creature that comes from another
planet because we have crickets here? Is that supposed to make any
sense?”

“No. It’s not,” he answered abruptly, “but
as I see it, we have only two ways to find your dad. One, we find a
Squanki and have it lead us to a portal, or two, you get
transported back and I make dang good and sure that I go with you.
So, for right now, we need to round up as many crickets as
possible, and you need to stay very close to me so that if you
start to go ‘whoosh, whoosh’ again, I can grab on and enjoy the
ride!”

“But where are we going to get crickets?”
Bridgette asked blankly. She felt like she was in some sort of
weird, illogical dream and that at any moment her mom was going to
come in and wake her for breakfast.

Holden smiled at her. “Well, usually I just
look under rocks, or around wood piles and stuff. C’mon, we’ll have
to find a bunch if we want to attract a Squanki.” He moved with
determination toward the back door.

“Or,” Maggie interjected, “we could just go
to the pet store.”

Holden stopped in his tracks and turned
around. “The pet store?” he chuckled. “Just how many people do you
know that have a pet cricket?”

Bridgette and Maggie gawked at each other in
utter surprise.

“Haven’t you ever heard of a lizard?” Maggie
scoffed. “Crickets are pet food, not pet . . . pets! They probably
have hundreds of them at Pet Land in the mall.”

“Hundreds?” Holden gasped. “You’re kidding
me.”

Maggie just shook her head.

Holden grimaced and threw his hands in the
air. “Let’s go then,” he groaned as he stepped out through the
storm door. Maggie and Bridgette shrugged their shoulders and
followed after him.

They jumped back into his car and he put it
in gear and ran his hand through his hair. “You mean to tell me all
this time, I could’ve just gone to the pet store? I coulda found at
least a dozen Squanki by now!” He pulled out onto the road with a
squeal, and took off toward the Glenhill Galleria.

The drive from the Baker house to the mall
usually took about fifteen minutes, but they got there in ten.
During the whirlwind car ride, Maggie pressed Holden for
information, but he refused. It was obvious that he was from Lor
Mandela, and that he’d been trying to get back, but why had he been
following her around for the last thirteen years? Why did she need
someone keeping her “butt” out of trouble? Who was he really? Every
question she asked, he answered with, “The less you know right now,
the safer we’ll both be,” or, “I can’t tell you. You just have to
trust me!”

The mall was unusually busy for a Tuesday,
but they managed to find a parking space in fairly close proximity
to Pet Land—The Midwest’s Greatest Pet Super Store. This was no
little mall pet shop. It was almost as large as the other three
anchor department stores in the Glenhill Galleria.

Once inside, Maggie flagged down a tall,
skinny, freckle-faced employee, identified as “Brody” by his
nametag.

“Excuse me? Brody? Hi.”

Brody became uneasy, presumably because an
attractive girl was speaking to him.

“I need to get some crickets.”

“Um . . . okay,” he squeaked, “uh . . . how
many do you need?”

Holden piped in. “Uh, how many do you
have?”

Brody smiled, thinking this was some kind of
joke.

“A bunch,” he answered. “We just got ‘em in
like twenty minutes ago.”

“We’ll take everything you’ve got, bro. How
much for all of ‘em?” Holden’s surfer accent was back.

Brody’s freckle-covered face flushed to a
bright magenta; he shifted back and forth on his feet, giggling.
“Uh . . . I’m gonna get my manager to help you,” he wheezed, and
sprinted away.

“Great,” Maggie groaned, “that’s not
suspicious at all!”

“Whatta ya mean?” Holden asked. “You said
people buy ‘em for their lizards.”

“Yeah! Maybe fifty or so! Not a billion at a
time!”

“Well . . . my lizard is a healthy eater,”
Holden quipped, causing Bridgette to giggle.

Maggie rolled her eyes at him.

Just then, a tall, middle-aged, bald man in
a bright blue dress shirt and black tie approached. His gold
nametag read, “Mr. Butler – Store Manager.”

“Hello,” he greeted enthusiastically. “I
understand you folks need some crickets. What kind of pet are you
feeding?”

“Dude,” Surfer Holden began, “I’ve got,
like, fourteen lizards—big ones, ya know—and they’re, like, totally
starving.”

“Really,” Mr. Butler replied—a hint of
disdain in his tone. “That’s quite a collection. What kinds of
lizards are they?”

“Hey, Bro. They’re, like, all different
ones, ya know, but they all totally need food. I ran out of
crickets last night, and if they don’t eat soon, they’re gonna get,
like, totally cranky!”

Bridgette smiled and Maggie sighed
disgustedly.

He continued, “Dude, I seriously need to
buy, like, all of your crickets, bro!”

The feigned smile that had been on Mr.
Butler’s face was now gone. He leaned over to Holden and whispered,
“Listen, mister. I don’t know what you’re up to, but if this is
some sort of sick teenage prank, I’ll have the cops down here
faster than you can blink!”

Just then, Maggie caught something out of
the corner of her eye.

“No way,” she breathed.

“No way, what?” Bridgette asked.

“Bridge, I think I know what a Shadow
Squanki is! Follow me!” She grabbed Bridgette’s arm and pulled her
down an aisle a few feet away from where they’d been standing. They
could still hear Holden insisting to Mr. Butler that he didn’t know
anything about the recent rash of cricket disappearances in the
store.

“What are we looking for?” Bridgette
questioned.

“A kid that looks like my hiding-seeker,”
she replied, peering around the end of the aisle. “I swear I just
saw her!”

Bridgette, who was still convinced she was
dreaming, nodded and played along. They were heading toward the
back of the store when it started.

Whoosh…whoosh….

“Holllldennnn!” Bridgette cried. She and
Maggie turned and sprinted back toward where they’d left him.
“Holden! Come quick!” she shrieked as they turned the corner and he
and Mr. Butler came back into view.

“What’s that?” Mr. Butler asked as the
whooshing grew louder.

“Oh, no!” Holden shouted, and almost knocked
Mr. Butler over as he dashed toward Maggie.

Suddenly, the store
illuminated in a flash of blue light. There was a loud
crack
, and right in
front of Mr. Butler and a store full of shoppers and Pet Land
employees, Maggie disappeared into thin air.

“Where’d she go?” Mr. Butler yelped. “Wh…
what are you three up to?”

Holden slowly turned to face him. He opened
his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He glanced around the
store, and then back at Mr. Butler.

All at once, he erupted into a deafening
primal scream. “Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!”

Everyone in the place stopped what they were
doing, and stared at this madman who was bellowing in the middle of
the pet store. His stunning outburst went on for a solid ten
seconds before Mr. Butler grabbed him by the arm and escorted
him—still screaming—toward the front of the store.

“You too, Blondie,” he yelled back at
Bridgette. “Both of you . . . out!”

Three uniformed mall security guards hurried
through the front doors. Two of them got on either side of Holden,
and took him from Mr. Butler’s grasp. The other walked over to
Bridgette and grabbed her by the arm.

“Do you mind?” she snapped, as she yanked
her arm away. “I’m perfectly capable of walking myself out!”

One of the guards clutching Holden—a very
muscular, rather dull looking character—grunted as they reached the
mall doors, “Uh, we see you in here again, the cops will ‘rest
you!” He gave Holden a shove out and glared back at Bridgette, who
quickly joined him outside.

Holden waited for the mall cops to walk
away, and then started shouting.

“What were you two doing? She was supposed
to stay close to me!”

Bridgette’s big brown eyes filled with
tears.

“You . . . you were arguing with that
manager guy and Maggie thought she saw her hiding-seeker . . . well
probably not her hiding-seeker . . . but another one, in Pet Land.
We were just trying to find her for you,” she whimpered as the
tears literally jumped from her eyes.

All at once Holden felt like a clod. “Hey,
whoa! It’s okay. It’s not your fault, Pretty Dude,” he soothed.
“Wait! She saw one?”

Bridgette nodded and sniffled, “Yeah, in the
store. Was that a . . . .”

Holden didn’t wait for her to finish.
“Bridge, we need to get back into that store!”

“Yeah, okay,” she replied sarcastically,
wiping the wetness from her cheeks, “And how’re we gonna do that?
Didn’t you hear Quasi? ‘The cops will ‘rest you!’” she
mimicked.

“We’re just gonna have to come up with
something,” he explained as he paced back and forth in front of the
big, glass, mall doors.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by
the wild screeching of car tires. A Channel 4 news van raced
through the parking lot and squealed to a stop just a few feet
away. Four news people toting microphones, cameras and lights piled
out of the van and rushed right past them into the mall.

“What’s this all about,” Bridgette wondered
aloud. “They’re not here because of us, are they?”

Holden shrugged his shoulders. “I kinda
doubt it, but hey! I think I know how we can find out.” He smiled
and pointed at the news van. The sliding side door was wide open,
and inside, a single technician watched the unfolding story on a
small monitor. “C’mon!”

They ran over to the van, and Holden
reverted instantly into his surfer routine.

“Dude, like what’s goin’ down?”

The technician was all too happy to fill
them in. “Pet Land was just robbed at gun point. But a customer
stopped the guy.”

Bridgette gasped. “We were just in
there!”

They watched the monitor as the field
reporter—a very dignified blonde woman—began her report. “I’m
standing outside of the Glenhill Galleria Pet Land, where an
attempted robbery has just been thwarted by a brave customer.
Officers are on the scene. Our sources have confirmed that moments
ago, a man armed with a high-powered rifle entered the store, and
demanded that the manager give him all of the money from the cash
registers and the store safe. Apparently, however, a shopper in the
store was able to catch the gunman off-guard, and disarm him.
Police have the robber in custody and should be escorting him out
momentarily. Michael, it looks as though someone is coming out of
the store now.”

“Hey! That’s Brody!” Bridgette exclaimed.
They watched as the reporter rushed over to him.

“Excuse me, young man. Can you tell us what
happened in there?”

“Aw, man,” Holden started. “He looks like
he’s gonna pass out!”

Brody wiped at his sweaty forehead with the
back of his hand. “I dunno. I’ve never seen anything like that
before. It was all wild and bouncy and it went totally psycho on
that guy when it saw the gun!” He gazed pleadingly at the reporter,
“What was that thing?”

“Thing?” The reporter asked. “Wasn’t it a
customer that stopped the robbery?”

“Uht-uh,” Brody sighed, “it was this fat
little bug-eyed . . . um . . . thing! It was psycho . . . totally
psycho!”

Bridgette and Holden glanced knowingly at
each other. They turned their attention back to the monitor, and
did so right at the most opportune time. “Bridgette! There it is!”
Holden yelped.

“What? Did you see her?”

“No! Look!” Holden pushed past the
technician and pointed at the screen. There, just below the Pet
Land display window, a mere sliver of steel blue light ran
perfectly down the edge of a wood molding strip. Neither Bridgette
nor the technician would have even seen it if Holden hadn’t pointed
it out. Suddenly, the area around the blue light rippled strangely,
and then—visible for only a split second—a wild, white-haired,
bulgy-eyed, bubble-bellied, little creature materialized out of the
shadows. The little figure promptly jumped toward the light—which
flashed vividly—and disappeared.