—Mildred’s phone rang.
She glanced at the display. “It’s that Zeke guy. Should I answer it?”
“Yes, please,” I said.
She pressed a button on the phone and held it to her ear. “Yes? Yes. Yes, he is. Yes. Yes, you may.” She held the phone out to me. “He wants to talk to you.”
I took the phone from her and held it to my nondisgusting ear. “Why did you do that, you crazy—”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” said Zeke. “That was my cat’s fault. Is your ear okay?”
“No, my ear’s not okay! It’s all over the place, you insane—”
“I wasn’t reneging on our deal, I promise. It was an accident.” “Well, be more careful, you psychotic—”
“We’re still meeting at the junkyard. I do apologize for that. I’ll be more careful. I just wanted to call and make sure you weren’t dead.”
“No, I’m not dead, no thanks to you, you rotten piece of—”
“I’m hanging up now.”
I wanted to fling the phone to the floor and stomp on it a few times while bellowing with frustration, but that would be unproductive. “No, no, wait a second. Tell her about the aura of destruction.”
“Aw, man, are you back on that again?”
“They think you’re faking. Explain exactly what it does.” I handed the phone to Glenn.
“Hello?” he said. “Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Our eyeballs? Uh-huh. No. Okay.” He hung up and slipped the phone into his pocket. “He made a pretty good case for the aura of destruction. Donna. Shoes. Now.”
“We really aren’t going to sacrifice them?” Donna asked. “We’ve already established that,” said Mildred. “Your problem is that you don’t listen. All of the other teenagers of the world listen to their parents, but not ours, oh no!”
Donna’s face contorted into a pout that was almost exactly like the one her brother had done earlier. But then her face quickly shifted from the not-so-threatening pout to a mucho threatening mask of rage, and she dove at me. The pizza cutter got me in the shoulder.
“Get her off me!” I shouted. “I don’t want to hit a girl! I don’t want to hit a girl!”
Kelley dragged Donna off me and then delivered the most brutal punch that had ever been thrown by an honors student. Donna’s head flew back, and though it remained attached, she dropped to the floor and didn’t get back up.
That’s right. My girlfriend knocked somebody unconscious.
I don’t approve of the use of violence, and you shouldn’t either.. .but my girlfriend knocked somebody unconscious.
Yes, it meant that in the future I’d lose more arguments than I already did, but still, I couldn’t help but be a proud boyfriend. The only thing Kelley did wrong was that instead of saying something clever (“That’s how you cut a pizza!”) (That doesn’t even make sense, does it?), she threw her arms around me and began to cry.
I was still proud. Then, of course, I remembered my ear and my toes and the pain, and my sense of pride was replaced by pain and panic and stuff.
“I understand why you did that,” said Mildred. “Harm my children again, and I’ll kill you, but I’m letting that one go. Now let’s get out to the minivan, so we can go to the junkyard, so you can outwit the cabdriver, so you can get the doll back.”
CHAPTER 22
Franklin was still unconscious in the living room. I don’t mean to be rude, but what a freaking wuss.
Mildred and Glenn decided to leave Donna and Franklin behind, a decision of which I totally approved, but Glenn and Kelley carried Adam (now with his shirt back on) out of the house and put him on the rear seat of their dark blue minivan. The back of the van was covered with bumper stickers advertising several different religions, and the dashboard was lined with bobble- heads of religious figures who can’t/couldn’t possibly have been happy with that kind of depiction.
Adam could move his arms a little, so the venom was wearing off, which was good, because despite his lack of helpfulness so far, we might need him later.
Kelley and I sat in the second row of seats while Glenn drove and Mildred sat in the front passenger seat. “We need a plan,” I said, holding what had once been a purple towel against my head. (It was still a towel, just not purple.)
Mildred turned around and looked at us. “Excuse me, young man, but we’re right here. We can hear you.”
“Not a plan against you. A plan against the driver.”
“Oh. That would make more sense.” She turned back around. A small suitcase rested on my lap. It did not have ten thousand dollars inside. Instead, it contained a few newspapers (approximate value: $2.75). If Zeke actually opened the suitcase, we were pretty much solidly screwed, but my hope was that there was a way to get him to do the trade without opening it. Not likely, I know. If we’d had more time, we could have come up with a plan better than “Hope Bad Guy Doesn’t Open Suitcase Containing Blackmail Money,” but we didn’t.
“Can you sit up yet?” I asked Adam.
Adam very slowly sat up, wincing with the effort. “Do you think spider venom has any long-term effects?”
“You mean like superpowers?”
“No, that would be a nerdy thing to ask. I meant like muscle damage.”
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“You’re just trying to make me feel better, aren’t you?”
I removed the bloody towel from my ear. “Do you think I want you to feel better?”
“Okay, point taken. So I think I have a plan to get the doll back,” he said. “It’s kind of crazy, but it might just work. What if we.?”
“No,” I said, thirty-six seconds later. “Are you sure?”
“No. We’re not using that plan.”
“But if we—”
“No. Kelley is our planner.”
“I would just like to point out, and I’m not trying to be disrespectful to her intelligence or anything, but it’s not like things have been all sunshiny since you asked Kelley for help.. .and yes, I see her eyes narrowing right now, and so I’d like to blame my comment on the venom. Kelley’s awesome. I’m done talking.” “He’s right, though,” said Kelley. “We need a better plan.”
I nodded. “But not that one.”
“Oh no, of course not. God, no. Not that one.”
“It would’ve worked,” said Adam.
“No, it wouldn’t have,” I said. “But we can do this. We’re smarter than a cabdriver. Maybe he’s more street-smart than we are, since he’s a cabdriver, but we’re more book-smart. We can come up with a plan!”
Glenn pulled the minivan in front of the junkyard. We still didn’t have a plan. Or at least a good one. We had several bad plans and several plans that would be good if we had the necessary equipment like a military tank.
Mildred dialed her phone and handed it to me. Zeke answered. “I see you. Get out of the soccer mom van. Alone. Tell them to drive away. I’m holding a hunting knife with an eight-inch blade up to the doll’s throat right now, so don’t try anything that makes me nervous. Understand?”
“I understand,” I told him, even though, quite honestly, a tiny little pin would’ve worked just as well as a hunting knife with an eight-inch blade.
“Good.”
I sighed and did my best to summon the necessary courage. “Wish me luck,” I said.
“Why the hell would I wish you luck?” asked Zeke.
“I wasn’t talking to you.” I hung up the phone and gave it back to Mildred. “After I get out, you’re supposed to drive away. He wasn’t specific, but I don’t think you have to drive all the way home or anything like that. Just park a couple of blocks away.”