The Key

Um . . . okay: Mack was a pretty smart guy. His golem? Not as smart. There: it’s been said.

So the golem attended Mack’s school and took Mack’s classes and wrote Mack’s papers. His latest effort, six pages on the history topic “Maybe Abraham Lincoln Had Mice Living in His Beard,” had consisted entirely of the sentence, “He could have, no one knows,” written in various fonts and in various type sizes. On page four, for example, the font was so large that the entire page just read, “HE COULD HA.”

It’s a good thing all that stuff about a “permanent record” is just something made up by teachers. Because the golem had caused Mack’s steady B+ average to drop somewhat.

The only class where the golem was actually outperforming Mack was gym. He was helped by his ability to physically absorb dodgeballs, draw them into his body, unhinge his jaw, and shoot them back out of his mouth at supersonic speed.

He had an A+ in gym.

And if there was a dodgeball team choosing sides, the golem was always picked first.

The only problem the golem had with gym was the showering part. Water had a tendency to wash him away. Imagine mud. Now imagine mud with a sort of coating of fleshlike paint. Now imagine streaming hot water. You can see the problem for yourself. A kid had once caught sight of the golem’s face after a shower, and that kid now lives with his father in another state.

Where he sees a therapist three times a week.

And wakes up screaming.

But! If there were more golem to begin with, the water wouldn’t be able to wash him all down the drain. It would wash some of him away, sure, and that could be pretty unsightly. But if he were a really big boy, the water would only damage a tiny bit of him.

That was math, and the golem liked math.

In addition to school, the golem also filled in for Mack at home. He performed all of Mack’s important family duties: finding the remote control, nodding solemnly during parental lectures, pretending to do homework, wearing the same socks every day for weeks, taking out the trash after being asked exactly seventeen times, and heatedly pointing out examples of parental hypocrisy. Such as, “You say don’t eat the leather sofa cushions but you eat bacon, which is the same as leather!”

There were days when Mack was ambivalent about saving the world, because if he did, he’d sooner or later end up back in Sedona with a lot of explaining to do.

And there were times when the golem had just the most fleeting thought11 (#litres_trial_promo) that if Mack succeeded and returned to reclaim his life, it would be the end of a very happy time for the golem.

He wasn’t sure what happened to golems after they completed a mission. Maybe he would be sent off to “be” someone else.

Then again, maybe he would just return to being unconscious mud and twigs.

Meanwhile, the golem was showing up for school, pacifying Mack’s parents, and kind of dating Camaro Angianelli, one of the bullies at Richard Gere Middle School (Go, Fighting Pupfish!).

Camaro found the golem very sensitive and insightful and an amazing dancer. And no one could take a punch like the golem.

She was punching him right now, in fact, as he changed classes. “You look like you’re putting on weight,” Camaro said. And she punched him in the stomach to illustrate. Her fist went all the way in, all the way up to the leather bracelet on her wrist, before bouncing back out.

“Yes. I am going to be a big boy,” the golem said.

Camaro looked up at him speculatively. “Are you any good at punching people out? Because when I make my play for supreme bully power and try to take over Stefan’s old job, I could use a big boy backing me up.”

“I will be big,” the golem confirmed, and grinned.

“You have a twig in your teeth,” Camaro pointed out.

“Yes. I do,” the golem said proudly.

“I like that about you, Mack: you rock your own special style. No one else has twigs in their teeth. It’s a built-in toothpick.”

The golem had to think about that for a moment before finally saying, “Yes.”

“So,” Camaro whispered conspiratorially. “Sometime within the next few days, it’s me and Tony Pooch at the usual place.” She cracked her knuckles, flexed the biceps displayed by her sleeveless T-shirt, gave her neck the old, familiar Stefan Marr warm-up twist, and spit a wad of gum at a passing geek.

“You’re going out with Tony Pooch?” The golem was bothered by this. He enjoyed spending time with Camaro—he found her random destructiveness charming. He almost felt jealous. Yes. Almost.

Camaro threw back her head and laughed. Then she gave him an affectionate punch in the arm—a punch that would have reduced anyone else to whimpering and a possible blood clot—and said, “No, no, Mack. I mean I’m going to kick his butt.”

“Ah.”

“I’m your girl,” Camaro said affectionately, and followed that statement up with a snarling warning that he had better never forget it. Not if he wanted to keep all four of his limbs.

He did want to keep all four of his limbs because it was crucial to passing as Mack. Coming home without an arm would definitely generate uncomfortable questions from Mom. And if he lost two or more limbs, even Dad might notice.

“You’re my girl,” the golem said contentedly. “And I’m your big boy.”

Mack was going to have a lot of explaining to do when he got home.

But at the moment the golem had given him an opportunity. . . .

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I am the Wizard of the iPhone!” Mack cried, sounding a little desperate. “Gaze upon this and be afraid, William Blisterthöng MacGuffin! Behold, as I kill a pig using only an angry bird!”

MacGuffin sat back hard when he saw that. Then he leaned forward to look closer, because the screen was pretty small. But Mack could see the fear in the old ginger’s eyes.

“I, too, am a wizard!” Jarrah cried, getting into the act. “I can make nanobots take over a human brain!”

“And I can look up words and translate them from German to English!” Dietmar announced.

This assault of smartphones baffled and amazed the thousand-year-old man. In MacGuffin’s world the very height of technology was the windmill, the crossbow, and something very new and exciting: the fork.

He had never seen a phone, let alone a phone that contained tiny people within it and could play music. From his point of view, Mack and his friends were indeed magicians. Wizards! Who else could cause rectangular lights to appear in their palms? Who else could plant tiny crops of wheat and corn inside that rectangle of light? Who else could reveal pictures of themselves playing volleyball at their cousin’s birthday party?

“Give us the Key, William Blisterthöng MacGuffin, or we will unleash the power of the iMagic to shrink you to the size of one of these captive pigs, and we will pelt you with the angriest of birds!”

Mack put that out there in his deepest, most impressive voice, and he wore his most serious and solemn expression.

And it would have worked. Maybe.

Except that something like a very large dragonfly suddenly zipped into the torchlight.

“It’s a trick,” Connie the fairy said. “Don’t believe them, Willy.”

MacGuffin leaped from his chair. He stood there and stared, stared hard like he was seeing the end of the world or maybe like he was seeing something impossible or maybe like he was seeing another Transformers sequel and just not believing it.

His mouth moved but no sounds came out.

And then a single great sob.