Zip (10 page)

“Thanks, Daisy!” Lyssa shoved her money back into her pocket. A cowgirl had bought her lunch

While Lyssa tried to eat, the cowgirls climbed up onto their chairs and did a line dance on the table. Their dancing made Lyssa’s bowl hop up and down on the table—splattering Lyssa with bright green soup. Her shirt was probably ruined, but so what? Who else could say that the soup stain on their shirt was courtesy of a real-life dancing cowgirl?

Everyone was so busy dancing, singing, and clapping that no one noticed when the television hanging over the counter switched from normal programming to an emergency broadcast. As the announcer started to talk, Lyssa noticed a woman near the counter look up from her coffee.

“Oh, no. Don’t tell me it’s more hoot-and-holler over that singer…what’s her name? Alina?”

“Nah, just some kid,” the man standing next to her said

The inside of Lyssa’s mouth turned to chalk when the bright red word EMERGENCY flashed across a photo on the screen. The pea soup suddenly felt hard in the pit of her stomach, like it had transformed into rocks and dirt after sliding down her throat

It was
her
. The photograph was one Michael had taken. She was sitting on the front steps of their new house just a few days after they’d moved to Washington. She was tan and freckly, her blond hair bleached out from the Texas sun. Two bright red words flashed across the bottom of the screen:
MISSING GIRL
.

Suddenly the dancing and singing and clapping sounded very far away. Lyssa pulled the cowboy hat farther down over her face, hoping no one had recognized her. Panic rushed over her like the waves on Michael’s computers, only this time the water really was going to crash over her head. She was a
runaway
. The entire country was searching for her. Lyssa would never make it to Austin.

She had to think. She had to get out of here

Mumbling something about cleaning the soup off her T-shirt, Lyssa grabbed her backpack and Daisy’s lasso and stumbled into the hallway. She raced to the bathroom at the back of the diner, hoping she could climb out a window and circle back to the bus, but when she fumbled with the doorknob, she realized it was locked. Turning around, she leaned against the door to figure out a plan. The television blared from the dining room:

Eleven-year-old Lyssa Lee, believed to have been kidnapped and taken aboard one of the sailboats that disappeared from the Kirkland Marina early this morning. Lyssa
was wearing a striped tank top and jean shorts and will likely be carrying a yellow-and-blue scooter…

Kidnapped? The police thought she’d been kidnapped? But what about the note she left for Michael—hadn’t he seen it?

With a sinking heart, Lyssa realized that there were multiple computers in the house. Maybe he’d never even looked at the one she’d written her note on. And now it was too late to go back and explain. She was already in Oregon and she’d spent most of her money on a bus ticket. Plus, she’d lost her cell phone—she couldn’t even call Michael and tell him that he didn’t need to worry about her

The sounds from the dining room swelled. Just below the singing and clapping Lyssa thought she heard someone whisper her name and one word:
police
. The cops wouldn’t care that Lyssa hadn’t meant to worry anyone. They wouldn’t care about Lyssa’s home. They’d just take her back to Michael and she’d miss the protest entirely.

Feeling desperate, Lyssa pulled on her backpack and looked around for a back exit. She needed to make it back to the bus—then she could just curl up in her seat and wait until they all started moving again

Halfway down the hallway were two swinging doors. Steam curled out from beneath them, and Lyssa smelled
gravy and bacon. The
kitchen
. Kitchens had exits, right? Chefs needed to throw out big stacks of trash. Praying her guess was correct, Lyssa pushed the doors open and ducked inside.

Billowing clouds of steam filled the room, so thick that Lyssa couldn’t see through them. She coughed, waving a hand so the steam cleared just a little—enough for Lyssa to see that it was coming from a pot that seemed the size of a bathtub, balanced on top of the massive stove

In front of the pot was a very round man who looked like a sumo wrestler. His thick neck was bright red, and a chef’s hat was balanced on top of his huge, bald head. The floor creaked beneath his weight as he shuffled around the kitchen. He dunked a large wooden spoon into the pot, stirring spices and chopped vegetables into the water

“That is it,” he said with a rumbling laugh. “Let us stir the masterpiece,
il capovoro
!”

Lyssa crept farther into the kitchen, crouching behind a butcher block table covered in vegetables and pasta. She was on the other side of the kitchen from the chef, but the room was so small that he was still only a few feet away. From her angle on the floor, she could see little more than his striped pants and the dangling strings of his apron

Her heart sank. She didn’t see any doors that looked like they led to the parking lot. She scanned the various
cupboards, the space between the fridge and the counter—all places she could hide, and think, and wait for the emergency announcement about her disappearance to be over

The fat chef kept glancing down at the counter. Lyssa leaned around the table, just slightly, so that she could see what he was looking at

A tiny black-and-white television was balanced on the counter next to the sink, its screen flashing a picture of Lyssa’s face. Across the top of the screen was the word REWARD

“So much pasta we could buy with that money,” the chef muttered into the pot, stirring the water with his giant wooden spoon. Something splashed angrily inside the pot and Lyssa felt all of the hair on her arms stand on end

It was time to move. Lyssa started crawling back toward the kitchen doors, praying her sneakers didn’t squeak. She couldn’t imagine what the chef might do if he found her

The chef pulled something out of the pot and slapped it down onto the table. Lyssa watched him grab a heavy butcher knife out of the knife block and slam it down. She didn’t see what he’d cut, but a split second later, a fish head tumbled off the table and onto the floor right in front of her

Lyssa let out a high-pitched scream and leapt to her feet. She took one step forward and slipped on a wet noodle.
Her feet flew out from beneath her and she landed, hard, on the ground. Pain shot through her body, reaching its tentacles up her back and down around her legs

The chef whirled around. His pudgy face was bright red from the steam and one of his eyes was hidden behind a faded black eye patch. For the briefest second, Lyssa wondered what had happened to that eye

“Sciocchezze!”
he said, his good eye widening at the sight of Lyssa. He started laughing. “You! You are the missing one. And
we
have found you!”

Lyssa pushed herself to her feet and raced for the door. With a grunt, the chef hurled his huge wooden spoon across the room. Before Lyssa could rip the kitchen doors open, the spoon lodged itself between the two handles—holding them fast. Lyssa skidded to a stop. How did he
do
that? It was like the spoon had a mind of its own—like it didn’t want her to escape either.

Lyssa remembered, suddenly, what her mother had told her about the winds of change and what they would bring:
everyday objects can become great and powerful weapons
.

The chef leapt toward her, his huge belly shaking beneath his grease-stained apron.

“So much money,” he said, leering, “so much bread, dough, cabbage.”

Lyssa backed up until she felt the wall behind her. She
couldn’t help but glance at the giant, bubbling pot on the stove and wonder what was inside. Could the pot become a weapon? Could the stew?

Desperately, Lyssa looked around the steam-filled kitchen for anything she could use to protect herself. There was a bottle of dish soap sitting on the counter next to her, along with some chopped vegetables, onions, and measuring cups. A half-dozen feet away from her, the chef grabbed a spatula so large it could be a rowboat paddle

“That is it,” he crooned to Lyssa. “Stay right where you are,
mi amore
. This is my favorite spatula—Signore Flappy We are not going to hurt you.” His single eye gleamed maliciously.

Lyssa grabbed the dish soap from the counter and squirted half the bottle onto the floor. The chef took one more step forward—and his foot slid right out from under him. His good eye went wide as he flew onto the ground, landing hard on his butt

His fall sent a tremor through the tiny kitchen. Utensils tumbled from the countertops and produce rolled onto the floor. Lyssa managed to steady herself by grabbing on to one of the countertops and holding tight. The chef would be standing again soon. She needed to think fast

She still had Daisy’s lasso. She quickly looped one end and tied it in a knot and twirled it above her head, just
like she’d seen Daisy do. The chef started to pull himself to his feet and Lyssa aimed right for him. “Yee-haw!” she shouted, and whirled the lasso across the room…

…and watched it miss the chef and loop around the sink faucet

The chef started laughing as he climbed to his feet. Lyssa tried desperately to yank her lasso back, but it just ripped the faucet spigot off the sink entirely. The spigot clattered to the ground and water shot like a geyser out of the broken pipe

Lyssa stumbled back a few steps, shocked. She’d never seen so much water in her life. It cascaded onto the soapy kitchen tile. Within seconds there were a few inches of water sloshing around her sneakers

“Hold still,
bambina
,” the chef said. He tried to take another step forward, but the water flooding the kitchen floor caused him to lose his balance again. Waving his arms wildly, trying to steady himself, the chef stumbled backward, colliding with the pot on the stove. Lyssa watched the giant pot of boiling water rock back and forth, then topple over.

“My soup!” the chef shouted. The pot fell to the floor, splashing loudly against the wet tile. Boiling water rolled out, becoming a frothy wave filled with pasta, seasonings, and
live
fish
.

As the fish flopped through the boiling-hot waves,
Lyssa pulled herself on top of the counter. She couldn’t believe what was happening. The water was nearly as high as the countertops and rising. She glanced over at the rest of the kitchen. The door was still held shut by the wooden spoon, which was now bulging and splintering like it might crack

The chef finally managed to right himself and started forcing his way through the water—right toward Lyssa. With his bright-red face and one bulging eye, he looked like some kind of fairy-tale monster

How had things gotten so out of control? She had no time to worry about it. She glanced around the counter, quickly spotting a cutting board even larger than she was. Without another thought, she grabbed it and leapt into the waves of pasta, water, and fish

Even as Lyssa soared toward the water, she realized what she was doing was crazy. No. More than crazy. Impossible. Still, she kept the cutting board under her stomach, like a body board, clenched her eyes shut, and thought of her mother. She grunted as she hit the water and the cutting board jabbed into her stomach

Then something
amazing
happened. The water began churning and moving, pushing Lyssa forward toward the kitchen door. She laughed out loud as bubbles popped around her and a few fish swam past, their glassy eyes
staring up at her face. As she clutched the cutting board closer, she imagined her mother standing there in the kitchen, twirling around and around, until the water formed a wave that pushed her toward the door.

She’d been right—her mother
was
guiding her, wherever she was.

Lyssa let out a whoop as the waves forced the kitchen doors open—snapping the wooden spoon that barred them—and carried her out into the hallway. There the water subsided. Soaking wet, she scrambled to her feet.

Still a little giddy, she ducked into the dining room, where the cowgirls were still dancing and clapping on the tables, and dashed through to the front door. Once outside, she gulped in the crisp air

She was just in time to see the bus door snap shut and hear the tires squeal as it pulled away from the curb and drove away

“W
ait!” Lyssa screamed, waving her hands in the air. She knew there was no point in trying to chase after it, but she sprinted for the Dumpster and retrieved Zip. The bus was picking up speed. She wasn’t going to catch it on Zip, no matter how well she rode the scooter. For a moment, she flashed to her dream, to the feeling of her fingers slipping from the water-slicked bumper of the Talent Show van.

She looked anxiously around the parking lot, at the horses munching grass and rubbing their backs against the spindly trees outside the diner. The white horse Lyssa saw earlier came over and nudged her shoulder, whinnying in her ear

Lyssa almost laughed out loud. Of course. She had a whole parking lot filled with transportation right in front of her. She’d ridden horses at the fair, hadn’t she? At least, she’d sat on a horse while someone led it around a ring, and that was
practically
the same thing. She was probably an expert at horseback riding and she didn’t even know it.

The diner door flew open and Lyssa whirled around. The giant chef was standing in the doorway. His apron and eye patch were soaking wet and covered in bits of pasta, tomato, and carrot, and he was holding half of his broken wooden spoon. A wriggling fish sat on top of his bald head

“You!” he roared, striding toward her

With one hand, Lyssa grabbed a handful of the horse’s mane and heaved herself up. The horse had looked so small when she was on the ground, but now she realized how big the animal really was. Despite her long legs, she could barely swing over onto the horse’s back. The chef was charging furiously toward her, waving his broken spoon over his head like a sword

“Run!” she shouted once she was mounted, wrapping her arms around the horse’s neck. But the horse didn’t run—it shifted its weight and pawed the ground lazily