Clash of the Worlds

“Nice Fat Jagger impersonation,” Brendan said as he looked around the beach. “Let me try.”

Brendan stepped up to the water and began to sing,

“You can start me up, if you start me up I’ll never stop …”

“Just because you were a rock star when we travelled to ancient Rome doesn’t mean you’re a great singer back in the real world,” Eleanor said.

“You’re just jealous of my sterling pipes, Nell.”

Eleanor didn’t bother responding.

A young couple jogging along the beach slowed and watched the three kids warily. They kept a safe distance from the Walkers as they passed.

The water lapped gently at the kids’ feet as they continued to shout, but there was still no sign of their friend. Several other people taking an evening walk on the beach were now looking at them with a mixture of curiosity and confusion.

“Guys, let’s take it easy with the shouting. People are going to think we’re a few noodles short of a spaghetti dinner,” Brendan said, borrowing one of his dad’s favourite lame jokes.

The first few times Dr Walker useAd that line, Brendan had groaned. But after hearing it at every holiday and birthday party for so long, he had come to love it. Those had been simpler times back then, though. Back before the Walker family was in financial ruins, before they had gotten themselves tangled up in the dark magic and secrets surrounding Kristoff House. Back before the three kids had to spend their evenings on a beach trying to lure a fifty-storey colossus named Fat Jagger out of the San Francisco Bay.

“What are we going to do?” Cordelia asked. “Why won’t Fat Jagger surface again?”

“Maybe he can’t hear us?” Eleanor suggested, fighting tears. “Under all that water.”

“Maybe we never even saw him at all?” Brendan said. “Did we just imagine him?”

“You’re not helping,” Cordelia scolded. “We all know what we saw. Even if one of us imagined it, there’s no way we all did simultaneously. Three people don’t just randomly have the same hallucination!”

Brendan sighed. She had a point.

“Well,” he said, “we know Jagger can hold his breath for a really long time. So he probably won’t drown.”

“That’s right,” Cordelia said, turning towards Eleanor’s panicked face. “Remember? The first time we were sent into Kristoff’s books, Fat Jagger walked all the way across the huge sea to Tinz … just to save us.”

Eleanor nodded and took a few deep breaths, still struggling to fight back her tears. She didn’t quite know what it was about Fat Jagger that she connected with so much, but she had truly come to view him as one of her best friends, in spite of the fact that they’d never really had a conversation longer than one or two words.

“I mean, we could try to go fishing for him or something,” Brendan suggested, only half kidding. “We could use one of Mrs Deagle’s cats as bait …”

“That’s horrible!” Eleanor shouted.

“But she’s got like twenty-seven cats,” Brendan said. “She’ll never miss one!”

“Not funny, Bren,” Cordelia chided.

“Sorry, comedy is in my blood.” Brendan shrugged. “I can’t just switch it off.”

“I would hardly call it comedy,” Cordelia muttered.

Eleanor wasn’t really listening to her older siblings squabble. She was lost in her own thoughts. And then the solution suddenly hit her – she knew how they could lure Fat Jagger out of the bay.

“I’ve got it!” Eleanor said. “I just need to get to a Safeway.”

“Nell, we can eat later,” Brendan said, but then put a hand on his stomach. “On second thoughts … now that you said it, I could go for a couple of Lunchables.”

Neither Cordelia nor Eleanor had the chance to respond, because their mother’s voice called out from behind them.

“Kids, there you are!” she called. “Don’t sneak off like that, I’ve been looking everywhere for you three! Let’s get back home. Our plans have changed.”

“We can’t yet!” Eleanor said. “We’re, uh … not finished saying goodbye to the neighbourhood!”

Eleanor knew she needed to buy more time to execute her plan to lure out Fat Jagger and get him away from the city, to head north up the coast where he’d be less likely to get spotted. She had seen enough movies to know that a colossus running loose in San Francisco would not end well. She could already envisage Fat Jagger chained up and on display as a part of some sort of travelling freak show. Or even worse, swatting at fighter jets as they swooped in to destroy him.

“I’m sorry, sweetie, there’s no time!” Mrs Walker said, crushing Eleanor’s hopes. “Things have changed and we need to move into the apartment tonight. The moving truck is waiting for us. We’re leaving right now.”

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The Walker kids looked at each other with expressions that ranged from complete despair to outright panic. Their looks said:

Now what would they do?

How could Fat Jagger possibly stay hidden throughout the night?

Man, I could really use a Lunchable.

But they had no choice. Mrs Walker clearly wasn’t going to allow any debate on the matter, and she already looked harried enough as it was. So they slowly followed their mother up the hill towards their street, Sea Cliff Avenue. Or, more accurately, their former street.

As they trudged up the steeply sloping hill, Eleanor took one last look back at the bay. That’s when she saw a disturbance in the water out near the centre of the bridge. At this distance, it looked like a small ripple, perhaps just a swirling current, or a seal or dolphin. But she knew better. To her, the ripple had looked more like a pair of pronounced colossus lips poking out of the water to get another breath of air.

As they followed Mrs Walker back towards Kristoff House, the three kids lagged a few feet behind. Brendan and Cordelia were surprised to see Eleanor smiling.

“I just saw Fat Jagger poke his lips out of the water to breathe,” she whispered to them. “Which means I think he knows that he needs to stay hidden. If he can just stay out of sight until tomorrow morning, I have a plan to lure him out.”

“But what are we going to do even if we get Fat Jagger to shore?” Brendan asked dubiously. “Invite him over for a slumber party? Play Twister, make microwave popcorn and then spill our most embarrassing secrets?”

“We could bring him to school!” Eleanor said excitedly, totally missing her brother’s sarcasm.

Brendan imagined Jagger rolling up the school bully Scott Calurio between his thumb and forefinger like a booger and then smashing him to the side of the school building.

“That would be pretty cool,” Brendan admitted. “Plus, he would absolutely crush it in lacrosse.”

Cordelia glared at Eleanor and Brendan, but before any of them could say anything else, their mom interrupted the conversation.

“Kids, there’s something else I have to tell you,” Mrs Walker said, looking a bit nervous. “It’s certainly not going to be easy – but it’s for the best. It’s the reason we need to move tonight instead of tomorrow.”

The Walker kids stopped and waited anxiously for her to deliver the news.

“I know this will be hard for you, and it is for me too,” Mrs. Walker said slowly, her eyes looking red and tired. “But tomorrow morning, your dad is going away for a few days, or maybe even a few weeks. To a gambling addiction treatment facility.”

“Wait, Dad is a gambling addict?” Cordelia asked.