The Last Last-Day-of-Summer Page 9

  “Now what?” Sheed said, catching his breath.

  Otto had considered this possibility, as well as all the things they’d learned from Witching Hour. He consulted his notes, keying in on one thing in particular.

  “The witch said only Mr. Flux, or maybe the person who created him, could fix this.”

  “Right,” said Sheed, wheezy.

  “So why did Mr. Flux come here?”

  Sheed pointed at Otto’s chest. “He wanted that camera. That’s what he chased us all over town for.”

  No. That wasn’t right. Otto checked all the notes he’d taken since the encounter and explained his reasoning. “He didn’t know we were here when he came to the library. He only went for the camera after he saw us. Remember? We were hiding. He came here to mess with Father Time.” He jotted more notes. “Over the yearbooks.”

  Entry #63

  DEDUCTION: There’s something in the yearbooks that he was worried about.

  ADDITIONAL DEDUCTION: If Mr. Flux is worried about it, it might help us.

  Sheed said, “You gonna tell me what’s cooking in that brain of yours?”

  “Good news or bad news first?”

  “Good news.”

  “We’re going to rest here awhile.” Otto tried to sound cheery.

  “What’s the bad news?”

  “It’s only bad if you don’t like reading senior quotes.”

  Sheed sighed, quick counting the dozens of yearbooks scattered on the floor. “I’ll take the even years, you take the odd.”

  * * *

  With no way to know how much time passed, Sheed measured his effort in the number of yearbooks he’d painstakingly searched page by page. So far, he’d done four. Otto was up to five. Sheed had had to stop and suck his thumb, though. Paper cut. “This is boring. And painful. What are we looking for?”

  “I already told you, we’ll know when we see it.” Otto wasn’t sure that was true. He hoped it was something obvious, something really helpful. Not more nonsense wisdom (YOLO!) from people like Sylvester the Wise. Whatever that something was, they hadn’t found it yet.

  Grandma always said, Whatever you need is always in the last place you look.

  It sounded deep, but it really meant that once you found it, why would you look in more places?

  He tossed a yearbook into the pile between them.

  They’d started with the most recent and worked backwards. Sheed’s four and Otto’s five meant they’d gone through the last nine years of Fry High students. In many cases, they saw students in all four years of their time at the school, from braces to bifocals, pimples to perms. Otto found that horribly inefficient.

  “Why don’t we look at the seniors and the freshmen only?” Otto suggested. “We won’t see the same people as much.”

  “Until the freshmen become seniors.”

  “I didn’t say the system was perfect.”

  Sheed sucked his teeth. Otto resisted the urge to throw a yearbook at him. This never-ending day was getting to them.

  Grabbing the next yearbook off the stack, droopy-eyed Sheed leafed through a few pages, his head bobbing like he might doze off, before rocking forward on his knees, thrusting the yearbook at Otto. “Look!”

  Otto leaned in, not particularly hopeful until he saw the picture within the grid of bow ties and strapless gowns that filled the senior section. It was a boy named Donald O’Doyle. Pale, with a sinister grin and familiar blue eyes. His senior quote read, “Hey, Butthead!”

  Otto’s hunch about the yearbooks had been right. He’d save his I-told-you-so for a later date.

  Because Donald O’Doyle was Mr. Flux.

  20

  O’Soiled

  Or rather, Donald O’Doyle, who’d graduated from Fry High ten years ago, looked just like Mr. Flux.

  Better known as Mr. O’Doyle these days (or Mr. O’Soiled by those brave enough to whisper the nickname whenever he walked by), he was the mean janitor at D. Franklin Middle School, who tripped kids in the cafeteria if he saw them spill ketchup or salt. When they fell face first—​always when teachers weren’t watching—​he’d say, “Now there’s a new stain on my floor.”

  Though Otto and Sheed knew him well—​and knew to avoid him—​they couldn’t have placed him as Mr. Flux’s double before. Back-in-the-day Donald O’Doyle looked like Mr. Flux, skinny and pale. Current Mr. O’Doyle was much larger, with less hair and red peeling skin from sunburns. Time had changed him a lot.

  He lived in a shabby, rundown house on the edge of Fry, with old tires, a rusty wheelbarrow, a condemned birdhouse, an airplane toilet, and other trash in the yard. Nobody knew how all that stuff got there, just that every so often it became more instead of less. It was as if he hated cleaning up after the kids at D. Franklin Middle so much, he refused to clean up after himself when he finished his workday. Otto and Sheed had heard people call his yard “the second town dump” and laugh. Maybe they’d laughed, too, even though that wasn’t very nice.

  The boys stood outside his gray, peeling picket fence. Sheed leaned his bike against a plank, and the rotting wood broke from his slight touch, falling into the cluttered yard.

  “Wow, not even frozen time can keep this place from getting junkier,” said Sheed.

  Otto fished the incriminating yearbook from his backpack, flipped to the page featuring a young Mr. O’Doyle looking exactly like Mr. Flux, and said, “It can’t be a coincidence. If they look so much alike, Mr. O’Doyle has to be the person Witching Hour told us about. The one who created Mr. Flux and can stop the time freeze.”

  “Maybe,” Sheed said. “Hopefully.”

  Otto stepped into the yard. Sheed followed. They weaved through so many more oddities than what could be spotted from the road. There was a dented punching bag with sand spilling from its ripped side. A speedboat motor. A paper shredder. And so on.

  At the front door, the boys leaned close to the wood, listening for . . . they didn’t know. The sound they heard was unexpected. Inside, someone was crying softly.

  Otto knocked on the door. “Hello?”

  The crying stopped, and that familiar, crackly mean voice shouted. “Who is it? Who’s there?”

  “Mr. O’Doyle, can we come in?”

  The angry man said, “No! Absolutely not! I don’t want you tracking dirt in my house.”

  Sheed shoved the door open. “Time’s frozen. What’s he gonna do?”

  He was right, of course. There was no threat to contend with, no weapon to dodge. Otto took a reluctant lead and crossed the threshold into Mr. O’Doyle’s home. He’d assumed it would be as junky as the yard. Quite the opposite. It was as neat as Grandma’s house. So neat, it felt like O’Doyle needed more stuff.

  Inside the foyer, there was only a slim iron coat rack and a short table where house keys sat. In the living room a couch, a fireplace, and a coffee table with the latest issues of Good Housekeeping on it.

  Mr. O’Doyle spoke through his soft sobbing. “Whoever you are, please, please don’t hurt me.”

  Wasn’t that something? He terrorized kids at their school for minor messes; now he was the minor mess.

  Trekking through his space, the boys craned their necks, taking in any details they could. There weren’t many. Not even family photos. You couldn’t take a step in Grandma’s house without running across pictures of family from all over, like Grandma’s brothers and sisters and her nieces and nephews—​who all lived in places way less strange than Logan these days. And, of course, photos of Otto’s and Sheed’s parents were plentiful, despite their ability to make Grandma and the boys sad from time to time. Even on the sad days, all those pictures gave a feeling that was missing in Mr. O’Doyle’s house. His home felt incomplete, and that was more sad than sad pictures, somehow.

  They entered the kitchen where mean Mr. O’Doyle sat in the only chair next to a small dining table. He was dressed neatly in pleated slacks, a clean lavender shirt, with his normally dingy hair combed and shiny with gel. They couldn’t see his fa
ce because his back was to them. And he couldn’t see them, even if they circled to his front, because the newspaper he held was opened wide, blocking his view.

  “Who’s there?” he demanded. “Who is violating my home?”

  Otto reached as if to remove the paper, but Sheed stopped him with a slight head shake. Best if he didn’t know who they were.

  Making his voice comically deep, enough that Otto clamped a hand over his own mouth so as not to laugh, Sheed spoke in a gruff tone similar to their favorite movie superhero, the masked vigilante ArmadilloMan. “What have you and Mr. Flux done to bring this terrible plight on Logan County?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Mr. Who? You’re scaring me.”

  Sheed believed Mr. O’Doyle was afraid. From all he’d seen, mean people scared the easiest when things weren’t in their control. But there had to be a connection between him and Mr. Flux for them to look so similar. Maybe if they distracted him from his fear, he’d be better able to help them find the connection.

  The place was spotless. Every thing that could shine—​faucet, refrigerator handle, stainless steel spatula—​shined. Everything that could smell like lemon cleaner emitted citrus notes. No wonder he got so mad when kids made messes at school. Mr. O’Doyle was a neat freak. Except for his yard. Sheed wondered if talking about that might make him less afraid and more like the Mr. O’Doyle they were used to. An angry motormouth.

  “Why’s the outside of your house so junky?” Sheed asked.

  Sheed? Otto mouthed.

  Sheed mouthed back, I wanna know.

  Mr. O’Doyle seemed flustered by the question. He spoke fast, irritated. “The yard? I can’t do anything with that. When I bought the house, I tried. Every time I cleaned, I’d come out the next day and more stuff would be there. I thought kids from the high school were throwing things over the fence. The airplane toilet seemed a little too heavy for teenagers though. Can you please tell me why I can’t move?”

  Sheed said, “Why don’t you ask your buddy, Mr. Flux?” He gave Otto a sly thumbs-up. He was using those tight interrogation skills, like on Grandma’s cop shows.

  “I don’t know who that is. Who are you, for that matter?”

  Otto got in on the act. Turning the yearbook to Mr. O’Doyle’s page, he made his interrogation voice the opposite of Sheed’s. Low and squeaky. “Do you know who this is?”

  He pushed the book between the newspaper and O’Doyle’s eyes.

  “Why do you have my yearbook? Are you book thieves?”

  “No,” said Sheed. “We’re here to fix time. But we need to know how you created Mr. Flux.”

  “I already told you I don’t know that name.”

  Otto said, “He looks just like you. You not knowing each other defies all deductions.”

  “The only thing I know is I was reading my morning paper when all of a sudden I couldn’t move. I’ve been staring at this same article on grass watering ordinances for I don’t know how long. Why is this happening?” Mr. O’Doyle started crying again, a strange and strained sound, a frightener frightened.

  The boys retreated into his living room to discuss strategy. Hushed and confused, Sheed said, “I think he’s telling the truth.”

  Otto said, “Me too. He really does seem like he’s been stuck all day. If he knew anything that would help us, he would’ve said so.”

  “I also think you’re right.”

  “Does it hurt when you say that?”

  Sheed punched him in the shoulder. “He doesn’t look like Mr. Flux for no reason. So what’s up?”

  “What if he doesn’t know he created Flux? Like O’Doyle missed the opportunity, and Mr. Flux just happened while his back was turned, or something.”

  “Maybe.” Sheed stretched the word out with doubt.

  “We’re back to having no clues, though.”

  “We can still go looking for A.M. and P.M. Or TimeSt—”

  Something crashed outside.

  They approached the window, bending O’Doyle’s blinds wide enough to peer out. For the second time on that frozen day, they didn’t need to look further for whatever clue, obstacle, or plain old terror came next.

  A drenched and angry-looking Mr. Flux was knocking aside any and every piece of yard junk between him and the front door, on his way inside.

  For a visit that seemed anything but friendly.

  21

  Giants and Mice

  “Maneuver #22,” the boys said at the same time.

  Sheed leapt into a narrow space behind the couch. Seeing no available closets, Otto shimmied behind the drapes. Both boys were barely settled before the door blew inward, cascading across the foyer floor in splinters as if obliterated by a stick of dynamite. Mr. Flux, dripping and snarling, called, “Donnie! Oh, Donnie Boy!”

  “Now, who is this?” Mr. O’Doyle called, extra shaky.

  “Your old friend Mr. Flux. I’ve had some unexpected distractions, but I’ve been looking forward to this visit for a long time.”

  So they do know each other, Otto thought.

  Mr. O’Doyle immediately contradicted Otto’s assumption. “I don’t know you, sir. I told that to the others, too.”

  Mr. Flux’s glee fizzled. There was a mighty tear—​Flux ripping the newspaper from O’Doyle’s clenched hands. “What others? Who?”

  “I couldn’t see them. One sounded like a giant, the other sounded like a mouse.”

  “Clock. Watchers.” Mr. Flux’s disgusted tone was similar to Sheed’s when the boy said, “Creamed. Spinach.”

  Though relieved that Mr. O’Doyle hadn’t seen them and couldn’t tell Mr. Flux exactly who’d been asking about him, a new fear arose for Sheed. This house wasn’t as spotless as it seemed. There was plenty of dust behind the couch. The itchy-nose, watery-eye kind. The kind that could only be countered with a sneeze. Any noise, at all, would alert Mr. Flux, and though he’d somehow managed to climb from the Eternal Creek, he probably wouldn’t be very nice to the boys responsible for dunking him in it. Sheed rubbed his nose vigorously, fighting the tickle.

  Behind the drapes, Otto had a different problem. He wanted to see Mr. Flux and Mr. O’Doyle side by side. To compare, and take notes, and understand if there were more deductions to be made. Because somehow, someway, they had the same face, changed by time and age, but the same still.

  That felt important.

  Slinking from behind the drapes, he tiptoed toward the doorway to the kitchen where Flux and O’Doyle spoke. He put the camera and yearbook aside, then lowered to his round belly and scooted closer to the conversation, with his notepad in hand.

  Sheed had shifted slightly, trying to escape the frolicking dust bunnies in his hiding space, and saw Otto going toward the bad guy! He waved his hands, frantic but silent, while screaming in his head, Stop! Are you crazy?

  Otto ignored him.

  Despite being sopping wet, Mr. Flux had managed to hang on to his stovepipe hat. His limbs seemed stretched, even more so than when they last saw him, the way a sweater sagged after Grandma pulled it from the washer but before she put it in the dryer.

  Mr. Flux said, “Donny, you sly dog. You’ve really made something of yourself, haven’t you?”

  “Well, I’m quite proud of my home. Except the yard. As I explained to the others, it’s like junk falls from the sky.”

  “Do you still pick on the weak and helpless, Donny? Are you proud of that, too?”

  “I—” Mr. O’Doyle stammered, “I’m unsure what you’re referring to.”

  In a booming voice that made Otto freeze and made Sheed want to snatch his cousin and run, Mr. Flux said, “Fourscore and seven years ago . . . Peter was still a loser, everybody knows! Does that sound familiar, Donny boy?”

  “I—​I don’t—” Mr. O’Doyle did not sound convincing.

  “How about Peter Peter Poo-Poo Eater? Or—​this is a good one—​Smells-like-feet-Pete? Aren’t those funny? Don’t you want to die laughing?”

  “No! I
didn’t. I mean, I don’t want to.”

  “You were a nasty little twerp, weren’t you, Donny Boy? A nasty twerp who grew into a mean man. I’ve seen you.”

  “Whatever you think you saw—”

  “I don’t think, Donny. I once saw you trip a little girl because she dropped crumbs from her peanut butter and jelly. Did you make up a name for her? Something hilarious like the classic Pete Big Brain, the Pee-Pee Stain? Please don’t tell me you stopped making up names for people. I would’ve thought you had a future in poetry. So clever.”

  Mr. O’Doyle’s soft crying became sobbing. “I’m sorry. Please don’t hurt me.”

  “Hurt you? Why would I do that? I’m here because of you. You and your clever names inspired my birth. You’re almost like my dad.”

  Otto wrote much of this down, underlining the word almost. A big deduction was forming. They needed to get out of there.

  Waving at Sheed, then motioning toward the door, Otto grabbed all he’d come with and crawled toward the exit, low and silent. Sheed, still rubbing his nose, followed. They made it to the foyer and through the destroyed entrance, tiptoeing around shards from the shattered door. About to have a clean getaway.

  Sheed sneezed.

  “What is that?” Mr. Flux said.

  The boys split, diving into the yard, each ducking behind some large, odd piece of junk. Otto was behind an industrial cement mixer. Sheed knelt by the deflated folds of an orange bouncy house.

  Though they couldn’t see him, Mr. Flux made his presence on O’Doyle’s porch known. “Is that you, Clock Watchers? There’s nothing you can do to stop me. Your powers are useless now that time’s no factor. And the numbers of your kind who stand against me dwindle. I have won. I would say take your time choosing your next steps, but I’ve already taken the time. Haven’t I?”

  Splinters crunched under his feet as he strolled back to resume torturing O’Doyle. He moved with confidence. No concern for anyone at all. Maybe he really couldn’t be stopped.