The Secret of Zoom (31 page)

Taft zoomed at him from one side, and Lenny turned to run. Then Christina took a turn, going after him from the other side. Between the two of them, Lenny was dashing away in ever-shortening zigzags.

Just as Christina thought they almost had him, Taft missed his cue. He was staring at something over the ridge and
forgot to dip down in time. Lenny pounded behind his ruined truck, across the parking lot, and was in sight of the road while Christina was still soaring in the other direction.

Dorset sped after him and began a barrel roll, followed by everyone else. But the orphans weren't exactly trained bombers. The falling canisters did a lot of damage, but the barrel rolls gave enough warning that people could run out of the way, and the damage was mostly to the ground.

Lenny scampered ahead of a falling canister and ducked behind a rock to avoid the flying debris. Christina reached back to her own canister of zoom and unscrewed the lid.

Go
, she thought at her plane,
near but not too near—just overhead, if you can
—and the plane did. Stealthily, she approached Lenny from behind the rock. Gently, slowly, she reached out and poured the whole canister of zoom on his head.

He yelped in surprise and then gagged as the zoom slid down his cheeks and into the corners of his mouth. It oozed along the sides of his face, and into his hairy ears, and coated his fleshy jowls.

“Come on!” cried Christina, waving at the planes. “Don't
drop
the zoom—
pour
it! Pour it on Lenny Loompski!”

“But I'm your Happy Orphan Daddy!” cried Lenny. Still the orphans came soaring with cries of joy, canisters in hand. The little planes circled around Lenny Loompski in tight formation, and though he blustered and spun, darting at the edges of the circle, he could not escape their glowing, violet, musical cage, or the sound of their voices, joining together in all nine verses of Taft's song.

Soon it was impossible for him to even attempt to run, for
the zoom began to harden. Once he shook himself, trying to break the crust free at his joints, but drops of flying zoom hit the ground all around him, exploding like long strings of firecrackers, and after that he just sat down in a miserable lump and let himself calcify.

Christina looped her plane up and over, making figure eights in the sky. She could hardly contain her joy. At long last, Lenny was vanquished! And she and Leo and the orphans had done it—and Taft, too, of course—

Where
was
Taft? Christina rose up, up, scanning the area. There he was, hovering just above the crooked rock teeth that lined the upper ridge, and looking out over the valley. She flew up next to him and shaded her eyes.

What looked to be half the town was driving up to the Starkian Ridge, with Leo Loompski flying ahead of the leading car. Barney was running alongside, and—was that a small woman with a fuzz of light red hair on the back of a police motorcycle?

Patrol cars with flashing lights screeched to a halt at the smoking pile of debris that had been the guardhouse. The police got out and ran after the guards, and behind them other cars parked any which way as more people emerged, milling in clots and talking loudly and pointing.

One of the people was her father. Christina smiled with relief—he didn't have handcuffs on anymore, the police must have realized they'd made a terrible mistake—and then she looked back at the shadowed opening to the mine. Her mother was walking out, leading Danny by the hand. He had a shirt on, one of Leo's, no doubt; it looked a little small.

Christina's plane began to sputter, changing from violet to blue. She had dumped all her spare zoom on Lenny Loompski's head, so she drifted downward and parked on top of the ridge next to Taft, who had been watching the procession from the town. This time, she remembered to set her brakes.

He grinned at her. “That was more fun than should be
allowed
.”

Christina looked back over her shoulder. The orphans were landing their planes one by one and descending upon the food that was strewn over the ground. Her father had just discovered her mother and was running to her, arms outstretched.

Christina let out a sigh of pure, undiluted happiness. She grinned right back at Taft. “They probably
won't
allow it anymore, now they know it's possible.”

T
HE
townspeople had turned out in force and, now that all had been explained, were taking the orphans back to town. It was generally felt that the children needed good hot baths and comfortable beds and a few home-cooked meals before they were brought before a judge, who would decide where they should live after that. And since the town of Dorf was small and almost everyone knew almost everyone else, this was an easy thing to manage without much fuss.

Barney, as it turned out, had run off down the road to town, determined to save the orphans and make his momma proud. But halfway down the mountain, he had met the townspeople already on their way, led by Mrs. Lisowsky.

“I may be old, but I'm not stupid,” she said to Christina, as the officers corralled the cowering guards into a police van. “I knew it was you the instant you sang—I have an ear for voices, you know.”

“But I was singing off-pitch,” said Christina.

Mrs. Lisowsky nodded. “Of course I knew you were doing
it on purpose. And when I heard the rage in Lenny's voice and the terror in the children's voices, I thought I knew why.”

“So you played dumb!”

Mrs. Lisowsky winked one bright eye. “No one can play dumb like a little old lady, my dear. A little dithering, a little fluttering, a lot of acting helpless and admiring . . . I actually quite enjoyed myself, fooling Lenny Loompski!”

Christina stood between her mother and father, watching as two familiar-looking workmen hoisted Lenny Loompski into the back of a battered brown pickup.

“Watch it, Gus!” bawled the stocky one in blue overalls. “Grab him behind his knee. That's the way—don't break noth-in'—”

“Breaking might improve it some, Jake,” muttered Gus through his drooping mustache, staggering under the weight. “This has got to be the ugliest lawn ornament I've ever seen.”

Danny, who had been watching with fascination, stepped forward to help steady the very stiff Lenny Loompski. He took on some of the weight, allowing Gus to get a new grip under Lenny's legs.

“Thanks, kid,” said Gus. “Here, grab that belt and help tie him down, will you?”

Leo Loompski was helping the men, too—actually, getting in their way more than helping—but Christina was glad to see that some of the mad light had faded from his eyes. He seemed happier, and saner somehow, as if the sunshine and air and freedom had already begun to have an effect.

“I wouldn't be surprised if he recovered completely,” said
Christina's mother in a low voice. “He never stopped working, you know.”

“
You
didn't lose your mind, though,” said Wilfer Adnoid. He gazed at his wife in the manner of one who views a miracle.

“Well, I had the thought of you and Christina to keep me going. And I kept track of birthdays and made guesses about when she lost her baby teeth and how soon she could have learned to ride a bike and what her favorite books might be . . .” She smiled a little sadly. “But I missed the real thing.”

“I drew pictures in the scrapbook you made,” said Christina. “About my first roller skates and how I fell down and scraped my knee . . . and the time I made snow ice cream and the day I ate a worm—”

“You
what
?”

“I wondered how it would taste,” said Christina, grinning at Taft, who was pretending to gag.

“A real spirit of scientific inquiry!” Her father smiled proudly.

“And I drew lots more. I'll show them all to you, and I'll tell you
everything
.”

There was a grating sound of rock on metal as the stiffened Lenny Loompski was pushed farther back into the truck. Straps were uncoiled and tethered to eye hooks.

“Careful, now,” called the chief of police. “Don't chip him. I want him intact in court tomorrow when I tell the judge how he falsified a warrant allowing officers to search Dr. Adnoid's house.”

“Ah dihya ahlieye anying!”

“What?” The police chief looked around. “Who made that noise?”

“Eeeee!”

The sounds emerged from the rear of the truck, from the statue that was Lenny Loompski. Christina looked more closely at the miserable man. He had had the foresight to keep his mouth open as the zoom dried around it, but since he couldn't move his hardened jaw, his words consisted mostly of vowels.

Leo seemed to catch his drift, though. The small man appeared to grow suddenly larger as he threw back his shoulders. “You did, too. You false—you falsified—”

“Owaa?” demanded the statue.

Leo struggled to find the words. He fumbled in his pockets and patted his vest, looking lost.

All at once Christina knew what he was trying to find. She dug out his wrench from her back pocket and passed it to him.

Leo gripped it tightly, looking more confident with a tool in his hands. “You need fixing, Lenny!” he cried, waving the wrench. “You falsified
yourself
!”

The gathered townspeople murmured, surrounding the truck. As Leo's voice cracked on the final word, Beth Adnoid moved to stand beside him.

She looked up at the hardened lump on the truck bed. “He's right, Lenny. We trusted you. But you betrayed us.”

“Ahh ihah eeaiy nahaaee—”

“Lenny, Lenny, Lenny.” Wilfer Adnoid stepped forward, his mouth set in a stern line. “Save your breath, Lenny. Nobody understands a word you're saying. And even if we did,
who'd want to listen to you?” He put an arm around his wife. “Besides, you aren't the head of Loompski Labs anymore—Leo is.”

“Uhh eheeuhee uhs ee!” Lenny cried, but the scientists and townspeople had already turned away in disgust.

Danny tightened the belt that held Lenny securely in the flatbed and crawled over next to the talking statue. He looked up at Lenny's face, covered in hardened zoom, and carefully loosened bits around his mouth and jaw.

Christina watched as Danny pulled off a last large flake of dried zoom and dusted off the big man's lips. “You can talk, Lenny,” he said slowly. “You can talk to me.”

Lenny's eyes were wide and staring, and his lips were purple. “Why did they
do
this? I'm respected! I'm loved! Everybody thinks I'm wonderful!”

Danny shook his big head. “We don't even
like
you, Lenny.” He paused, looking troubled. “And you said we were garbage.”

Lenny Loompski's eyes grew suspiciously moist. “I was just kidding. I
love
you orphans. I took care of you, I gave you a home, yet you treat me like
this
.” He closed his eyes and squeezed out two tears. They made two shining, slimy lines, like the tracks of snails, down his zoom-encrusted cheeks. “All I ever wanted was for you to love me. And admire me. And praise, I love praise. But noooo . . .”

Danny sat very still for a moment. Then he reached into his waistband and pulled out the small rubber cow. He rubbed his big thumb over its ears and its purple muzzle, almost white from wear. Carefully, tenderly, he placed it in the crook of Lenny's hardened fingers. “Bubby will help,” he said.

The zoom had not quite covered Lenny Loompski's whole hand. With a snort of contempt, Lenny flicked the cow from him with all the impatience it was possible to put into two fingertips.

Danny made a small, wordless sound. He hurried to pick up the little cow, and cradled it against his chest. Then he turned with slow dignity to face the man.

“I think you mean something different from me. When you say love.”

He scrambled off the truck bed as Jake got in the driver's seat and started the engine. Gus clapped an arm over Danny's shoulder. “You come to us if you need a job, son. We could use a good helper.”

Danny, beaming, waved an enthusiastic good-bye and wandered off after Beth Adnoid. Christina watched as the truck began to roll away and took a last look at the petrified lump that was Lenny Loompski.

He had done terrible things to get zoom, and he had finally learned to use it to make fuel, but he had never understood its greatest secret. And now he sat in the back of the truck like a large and disgruntled lawn gnome, completely coated with the very thing that would have helped him get what he wanted most of all—if only he had known how to use it.

Christina could have told him, but she doubted he would even listen. And that was just fine with her.

She went to look for Taft, but found children from the town instead, playing a game with the orphans that Christina recognized as Chase and Tap. A sturdy redheaded boy ran
over to Christina and stopped in front of her, breathless and laughing.

“My name's Tommy. Are you one of the orphans?”