The Tanglewood Terror (21 page)

“This is dumb,” said Allan. “You need a big Caterpillar machine that can rip up the ground.”

“Even if we had one, just getting it out here would do
too much damage.” I set the shovel aside and knelt, scraping soil away with my hand until I saw the problem. There were tough, stringy cords running just below the surface, spreading out in every direction, forming a network that made it nearly impossible to get into the ground. It would take me hours to dig down, working all by myself, even if I knew exactly where the core was. I was tired enough without having to muscle my way through a steel spiderweb.

The quiet was interrupted by what sounded like an angry moose headed right for us, groaning and crashing through the bushes. A moment later Mandy appeared on Howard’s quad, slamming on the brakes when she saw us and popping a rear wheelie about a foot off the ground.

“I want to try that!” Allan shouted.

“I drove it once,” Brian told him.

They reached her before I did, begging for a ride.

“You owe me!” Allan said. “I helped rescue you.”

“It’s true. He did,” said Brian. “But I helped more, so I should drive while he rides.”

“Not now,” she said. “I need to talk to Eric.”

“Why, what’s up?”

“Howard knows the manuscript is gone,” she said. “She called it ‘the big one.’ ”

“What does that mean?”

“It was, like, his masterpiece, I think.”

“Is she mad?”

“It’s hard to know with her. I don’t think she’s happy about it. Did you read it?”

“Yeah. It’s got everything we need to know except what
we need to know.” I told her in five sentences about the psycho kid Benjamin Keats throwing the spores around so the fungus could overtake the town.

“It doesn’t even say how the old Meetinghouse survived, but it doesn’t matter,” I told her. “We’re just using science and force.” I told her about the fungal core, and that I intended to rip it out of the ground and smash it to pieces.

“Sounds too easy,” said Mandy.

“Actually, it’s wicked hard, and we don’t even know exactly where to dig.”

“Allan was right. We need a Caterpillar to come and rip up the ground.” Brian imitated one by making his hand into a claw and making low grumbling noises as he scooped imaginary soil and cast it aside. Allan nodded. They were probably thinking if we did get one, they’d both get to operate it.

Mandy watched him for a moment, then turned to me.

“Maybe this is a dumb idea,” she said, “but don’t you have access to a pig?”

That’s how I added “pig thief” to my rapidly growing list of criminal accomplishments.

We went on foot, leaving the quad where it was in case the motor scared Cassie.

“You guys wait here,” I said when we got to the back fence. I hurried past the compost heap toward the sty. The sky was just getting dark, and the mushrooms were beginning to brighten.

Michelle’s jeep wasn’t in the driveway. I would have asked for permission if she was home, but was glad I had an excuse not to. I opened the gate and grabbed Babe. Cassie grunted a couple of times in surprise but trotted after me, through the field and into the woods. Pigs are faster than you might think, even a big one like Cassie. I wasn’t sure how she’d do in the woods, but she didn’t have much trouble with the rocky but mushroom-padded path. She didn’t even get distracted—she kept her eyes on Babe and followed like a loyal cocker spaniel. Mandy and Brian and Allan trailed after her, shouting encouragement.

“Go, pig, go!” said Allan, clapping his hands. It seemed to do the trick, at least for the first quarter mile.

What Cassie lacked was stamina. We got about one-third of the way there and she started to grumble. About halfway she flopped down and whimpered.

“She’s out of shape,” I said.

“Aren’t we all?” said Mandy.

We weren’t far from my house, so I ran in and got the last two chocolate chip cookies from yesterday’s lunch, running past Dad in the kitchen.

“What’s going on?”

“Cookie emergency,” I shouted. I was already halfway down the hall on my way back out the door.

Cassie sniffed at the cookies and got up, followed me for two or three steps, then stopped again. I broke off part of a cookie and let her snatch it out of my hand, then led her a bit farther before giving her another piece.

Fortunately, they were big cookies. We got to the clearing before she finished the first one, and I rewarded her with the second one.

“You should have saved it for the way back,” said Mandy.

“Good point, but too late.”

“Now what?” asked Allan.

“I don’t know,” Mandy admitted. “I thought she would find it on her own. Pigs are famous for finding truffles, and truffles are practically the same thing as mushrooms.”

“There are mushrooms everywhere, and she doesn’t seem to care.”

“I know,” said Mandy. “It was just an idea. I read this article once that said truffles produce enzymes that girl pigs naturally respond to. The fungus actually wants the truffles to get eaten to reproduce, because the pig drops the spores somewhere else and another fungus grows in the droppings.”

“Gross,” said Allan.

“It’s interesting is all,” she said. I kind of agreed with her.

“Maybe if we led her around, she would do something near to the core,” I suggested.

“Good idea!” Mandy said.

The problem is pigs aren’t dogs. You can’t lead them anywhere. I called Cassie, but she just grunted and flopped to her side, looking at me with squinty eyes.

“Find the mushroom core, girl,” said Brian. Maybe because she liked Brian or because she was overcome by fungal enzymes or because the sugar from the cookies kicked in or because of all three, Cassie suddenly jumped up and galloped around the clearing. After a couple of laps she
snorted and started circling inward on a spiral. We had to jump out of the way to avoid getting upended as she passed by. She skidded to a halt and rolled around in the dirt, then got up and scratched at the soil.

“No way,” said Allan. “It worked.”

“We don’t know that yet, but I guess we’ll start digging here.” I scratched a big
X
with a branch. “But let’s take Cassie home first.” It was nearly dark now, except for the eerie blue-green glow the mushrooms cast over everything.

“Let’s go, girl,” I said, holding up Babe so Cassie would follow me.

She must have had a few too many of those enzymes, because she snorted and scuffed at the ground with her back hoof like a bull getting ready to charge, then bolted toward me like a bullet.

I braced myself and dug in with my heels. I caught her shoulder with my shoulder, rolled, and tried to make the tackle, but she squirted away, getting me good in the shin with one of her hooves before she sprinted off into the woods.

I took off after her, but she was too quick, disappearing into some bushes in the distance.

“We’ll get the quad!” Mandy shouted after me. I waved to let her know I’d heard her but didn’t take my eyes off the forest in front of me. I couldn’t see any movement anymore, and couldn’t even hear rustling. I followed broken twigs and flattened ferns amid the glare of mushrooms. Cassie couldn’t have gone far. She was already tuckered out from her walk out here.

The darkness fell fast, and soon I was lost in the bright sea of mushrooms. I trekked on, zigging and zagging between the trees, listening for Cassie’s snorts and breaths. I was way off the path and didn’t care. I couldn’t go home without Cassie anyway.

I’d expected to hear the roar of the quad, but they must have lost track of me as quickly as I lost track of Cassie.

An hour later I started to wonder if I’d made a big mistake trying to find a lost pig in the dark woods, and two hours later I knew I had. All around me there was nothing but dark forest speckled with blue-green fungus. Nothing looked familiar. I’d heard that you’re supposed to stay put when you’re lost in the woods. That way if they send out a search party, you won’t keep missing each other. It made perfect sense but was hard to live by. I couldn’t just pull up a bed of mushrooms and wait until morning. I blundered on through the woods, even though I was so tired I could barely keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I found an ancient narrow trail and decided to stick to it. It had to go somewhere, and anywhere was better than lost. Then the trail petered out in the trees. All right, some trails did that. I’d turn around and walk the other way. There was no such thing as a trail that petered out at both ends.

But wait—there was a square of something gray against the blue-green light. I blinked, seeing rust-colored dots swim in front of my tired eyes. Yes, there was something there. Something rectangular. I stepped closer and nearly cracked my head on the wall of a cabin.

I reached out to touch cool stone walls. It must be old.
Nobody made stone buildings anymore. I followed the stones around the building in search of a door.

It was a strange little building with no windows. Maybe somebody had lived there year-round and built it that way to keep it warmer in the winter. I finally found the door on my second time around. There was no handle. I reached into the crack between the door and the jamb to pull the door open. It was wedged tight, and I practically ripped my fingernails off prying it open. When I did, a wave of stale air wafted out, smelling like grave dirt and rotten eggs.

Inside was absolute blackness, and this time I didn’t even have a phone or a pumpkin light. I went back outside and yanked some mushroom caps off their stems. It took more than a little tug to do it; those things were tough.

They made a poor lantern, and when I cast it around inside, I saw strange shadows of sinister objects, angles and blades and saw teeth. Hunting and trapping gear, I guessed. There might have been a lantern and oil among the ancient gear, but I wasn’t going to grope around wildly. I didn’t want to grab the wrong end of a knife or put my hand in a rusty trap. I felt like a step in any direction would lead to my doom.

I turned around and couldn’t find the door. I waved the glob of blue-green light in front of myself, feeling my way along the wall, and banged my head on a board, which clattered to the ground. I’d upended a shelf. I took a step and booted something, heard it ricochet off the wall, and felt it come back to whap me in the shin. It was surprisingly painful. I swore and hopped around for a minute, then
stooped over and felt carefully on the earthen floor to check what it was. I found an oddly shaped lump of hard wood.

I heard the roar of a motor through the stone walls and what might have been a voice calling my name. I crammed the mystery thing into my pocket and forgot about the jagged and sharp things that were everywhere, feeling around madly in the dark until I found the door and kicked it open.

“I’m here!” I bellowed. “I’m here!”

The roar was fading, but I ran after it.

“Here! I’m here!” I shouted, waving my arms.

The roar stopped, then started up again, getting louder. I jumped up and down until I saw the headlight. I’d never been happier to see anything.

The quad sputtered to a stop, and Mandy and Brian came on foot across a patch of woods the quad couldn’t take, each of them waving a flashlight. Allan must have gone home.

“What is this place?” Mandy waved her flashlight beam at the stone building.

“Nothing, just an abandoned cabin. Did you find Cassie?”

“She went straight home,” she said. “We went to get the quad and she was already there.”

“She must have circled around,” I said. I was so relieved, I laughed. “That pig can take care of herself!”

“Pigs have excellent homing instincts,” Mandy agreed.

“You know a lot about pigs.”

“Well, maybe I looked them up after I got to know one,” she admitted.

“That’s cool.”

“Michelle was home when we got there,” said Brian. “She knows.”

“Oh, great.” I was never going to get my job back, but at least Cassie was safe and at home. Which was more than I could say for us.

I thought it would be way past midnight when Brian and I finally straggled in, but I saw by the clock on the cable box that it was barely ten.

“There you guys are,” said Dad. He was on the couch, tuning his guitar. The house reeked of the fungicide stuff he was spreading everywhere, but I was starting to like that smell. It smelled like victory. “Did you go have dinner with some of the other kids? You should have told us.”

“Uh, no, we were still doing stuff in the woods,” I said.

“Don’t forget you have school tomorrow,” said Dad.

“Seriously?” For some reason I’d assumed we wouldn’t have to go back until the mushroom nightmare was over.

“The tests said they were safe to be around unless you have allergies.”

“Great.” It didn’t seem fair to let some kids out of school and not everyone.

“Don’t complain. If you miss too many days, they’ll have to make the school year longer.” He stopped, flipped the guitar over, and brushed at the back. “I’m lucky the fungus didn’t get at my baby here. Got a big gig lined up.”

“What? Really?”

“Is it in Boston?” Brian asked.

“No, it’s right here. They’re putting together a thing.” He strummed his guitar and seemed to like the way it sounded. “They’re calling it the Foxfire Festival. People have been coming up to see the mushrooms, so why not make some money? I made some calls and said Arkham Hat Shop could headline. So we’re on for Friday.”