It had been exactly forty-seven seconds since the last time Monty had been hit in the head with a kiwi.
He knew this because said kiwi had bounced off his head and hit the clock on the wall. Said clock had then fallen in a shattering of wood and gears, and as Monty scrambled to fix it he counted every passing second in his head.
Forty-eight, forty-nine...
There was a clatter on the far side of the diner, followed by a wail. "Clean-up over at table six," grunted Maximus as he passed, his arms piled high with dirty dishes.
"Yeah, yeah, just a sec," Monty muttered back. He didn't take his eyes from the clock. His fingers flew even faster over the gears - This small one fit on the peg, but it didn't turn the next disc in line.
Fifty-six, fifty-seven...
From the serving window about five meters away, Willow rang her bell and called, "I am having order for ze ninth table now!"
Through a tray in his mouth, Maximus pled for Monty to get it.
"Give me one second, Pops!"
Sixty-three, sixty-four... He was missing one gear. Monty searched beneath his knees and among the few leaves that had been yanked off the nearest potted tree.
Sixty-seven, sixty-eight...
"There's not enough salt on my fries," whined a girl at the table on his left.
"And my soup is cold."
"Mom, I spilled my juice!"
"This sandwich tastes yucky."
The brat with the red shirt hit Monty with another kiwi.
Willow's bell came a second time. "Monty? Maxi?"
Monty risked the slightest glance away from his work to see Maximus weaving carefully between tables where chairs had been pushed far out. His right arm was no longer in a cast, but it must have still been bothering him. He was leaning far to one side. His legs weren't spread far enough apart for good balance.
Eighty-four, eighty-five...
Maximus again, over his shoulder: "You get that mess around table six yet, Monty?"
"Workin' on it!"
"Here is ze food for table twelve now. Monty!"
Ninety-two, ninety three...
Someone stood up abruptly from their table, shoving their seat back right into Maximus. He stumbled and fell to the ground. Monty had missed the sight itself, but when he heard the crash and the stammered apology, he knew exactly what had happened.
Ninety-eight, ninety-nine...
Monty's fingers closed around the last gear. He snapped it on its peg and the gears immediately began to whirr. Monty spun the dial around to set the clock exactly one hundred and two seconds past its current time, replaced the cover, and hung the clock back on the wall.
"Monty!"
"I'm comin', I'm comin'!" Monty dodged a last kiwi and hurried to the back of the diner, brushing dust from his suit as he went. "Geez Twinkletoes, don't getcha tendons in a twist."
Willow scowled at him through the server window. She clutched a rubber spatula tight in her fist. "You certainly vere taking your sveet time vith zhat."
Monty snatched both trays from her and hurried off without bothering to answer. He had to take cautious steps around Maximus, who was gathering up his plastic trays and large pieces of broken glass alongside the patron who had so clumsily scattered them.
"Is table six clean yet?"
Monty gritted his teeth. "Not yet, Pops." Then to the girl sitting at table nine, "Here ya go: Order a' soup and sandwich with a basket of chips on the side an' a scoop a' warm baked beans wrapped in a tortilla, yo."
She grabbed his arm before he could walk away. "Hey, this is not what I ordered."
Her voice was vaguely familiar somehow. Monty took a second look at her. She had a thin figure and lightly brown skin with dark eyes to match. Light brown hair framed a freckled face. She was Hispanic, maybe, which Monty found odd seeing as they were all the way up here in Canada. Surely he would have remembered a girl like that.
Could she be someone from... from before the memory-wipin' deal?
He was brought out of his thoughts by the girl's impatient tone and snapping fingers in his face. "Hey, my eyes are up here, numbskull."
"Numbskull? Ayo, don't you-"
"Monty! Table six is waiting, ya cabbage head!"
Monty bit back his words and loaded his tray with the wrongly-delivered food. The girl nagged him about this the whole time, something about how she'd be sure to complain about his services, but he wasn't really listening. Monty left her with the second tray and delivered the first to an elderly lady sitting alone in the opposite corner of the diner.
"Here's your... food, Miss."
It was the sight of her - The wrinkles, the gray hair and all - that caught him off guard. Monty looked again at the tortilla and chips on the tray. Wasn't this table twelve?
She may have been old, but the elderly lady didn't seem to have lost her eyesight. She beamed at Monty and pinched his cheek between her sharp nails when he strayed too close.
"Why, aren't you just the cutest?"
For a split-second, Monty forgot where he was. His eyes went blurry with red and his response was automatic.
"Yeah, well, you'd better get used to it, if ya know what I mean."
The grin he got for that was full of bright white and very real teeth.
"Monty!"
Monty about flipped out of his suit at the sound of his name. He peeled the elderly woman's fingers from his face, stammered out a "Well, uh, thank you kindly" and "Enjoy your food", and hurried off to grab his bucket and mop from the corner near Trental's office. Maximus was over there too, carrying his broken dishes. He scowled when Monty scampered up. For someone with only one eye, he could certainly give a mean evil glare.
"And just what were you doing? Flirting with an old lady?"
"No," Monty said defensively. "She started it, I was just-"
"Darn kids these days, 'specially the hormone-loaded teenagers." Maximus jerked his head. "Table six - Get going, dagnabit!"
"Order for table seven!"
Monty snatched his cleaning supplies with a grumble and stalked away. He didn't get far before Maximus shouted after him, "Once you've finished, brush over that place where I dropped all the darn glass, would you?"
"Sure Pops. Why not?"
The family at table six didn't look happy to see him. The mother was bouncing a wailing child on her knee, shushing him as he clung to her thumbs with chubby fingers. The father was trying keep his daughter from stabbing her brother with a fork. There was a mess of syrup and lemonade beneath the table. Monty wrinkled his nose as he dipped his mop in the bucket. The water was a dusky brown-gray, and became even darker once a bit of the syrup had been mixed in.
A very little bit, really, since despite his best efforts Monty found most of the syrup still stuck to the ground.
"Too bad you didn't get on that right after it spilled," said the father, watching him with a narrow gaze.
"Too bad-"
The father raised one eyebrow.
Too bad you didn't have control over your child, Monty finished in his head. I won't ever have children. They're messy and rude and fragile and wet and needy and they give me the creeps.
Ropey strands of his mop stuck to the floor when he pulled it away, but Monty pretended not to notice. He'd done his job - The tiles were dark and covered with scratches anyway. No one would notice another stain in this dump. He stabbed the mop back in the bucket and headed for the middle of the diner. The patron who had broken Maximus's plates was standing nearby, warning everyone away from the shards of glass.
"You're using a mop?" he asked as Monty approached.
"Yeah... What, ya see a rake in my hand or somethin'?"
The man stepped back with a ducked head and a murmured apology, so Monty set to work brushing the glass splinters into a small heap. He'd only just started when Dallas appeared, a basket of rolls in one hand and a wet rag in the other. His hat was hanging crookedly on his head and there was a wet patch all down his shoulder.
"Order up for tables seven and eight," he said, and hurried to join Maximus in clearing off table fourteen.
Order this, clean up that ... Seems that's all I'm good for 'round here.
Monty's fingernails sunk into the handle of his mop as he swished it back and forth across the ground.
Look at me, bein' pushed around by some ol' geezer and a skinny little broad. Not to mention the Kentucky Jones wannabe and the snotty-nosed kid who thinks he's a lot bigger than he actually is.
Dishes clattered in the kitchen. Monty heard Willow shriek. The bell at the window clanged as Elliot beat against it with a wooden spoon and announced that tables seven and eight were still waiting for service.
It took every millimeter of self-control Monty had not to hurl a barrage of well-deserved swears his way. Not in front of the kiddies - Trental had already threatened to throw him out for his "sailor's mouth".
"Ay, to the deepest flamin' pit a' heck with ya, Ellie - I'll get ta it when I freakin' get ta it!"
Monty was feeling rather proud of his censorship, but it didn't stop one nearby mother from wincing and a second from shooting him an icy glare. Mike's hot girlfriend - Zia or whatever - looked at him with a face of pure disappointment. Teeth grinding, Monty lowered his gaze and found his fingers quivering around the mop.
Whoa, keep a handle on it, lugnut. Dal n' Willow'll kill ya if you get us all fired. Then we'll all hafta go an' live with Mike and his creepy ol' mum, that's what. Is that what you want?
Monty struggled to remind himself that Dallas spent three hours every evening doing nothing but scrubbing dishes, and Elliot and Willow almost never left the kitchen. They cooked and mixed and boiled and baked all day. And then Maximus was old; he had a bad back, an injured wrist, and only one eye. They all poured blood and sweat and tears into this job.
He swept the mop beneath a chair to gather the last of the glass shards. Maybe you got saddled with cleanin' duty, Mont, but we all work ourselves ta the bone for this place.
An orange rolled across the floor just in front of him. The baby over at table two dropped face-first into a bowl of spaghetti and started to sob.
Snotty... bratty... weepy... He shook his head, flexed his fingers. Every hair on his arms was trembling now, and his teeth were sunk so hard in his tongue that Monty swore he could taste blood.
You's nearly finished, Mont. It's gotta be almost five by now.
Monty looked up at his precious clock just in time to see a kiwi hit its fragile glass face. The intricately-carved wood had taken one fall too many now. When it crashed to the ground it shattered into half a dozen pieces.
That was it.
A yell burst out of his chest before he could control himself. Monty raised his mop, seriously considering its usefulness as a weapon, but the child's parents reacted faster. The father grabbed the kiwi-thrower from his chair - he'd been standing on it - while the mother glared in Monty's direction with all the ferocity of a mother salmon doing salmon things. Since he couldn't very well attack the bratty child now, Monty dropped the mop and threw his hands into the air.
"I'm done," he announced to Elliot and Willow in the kitchen. He slammed what was left of the clock on the counter and stood back with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. "The Mont. Quits."
Elliot cracked an egg over the frying pan, tossed away the shells, and didn't even look up. "Didn't change anything when I did it - Try again, copycat."
Monty shook his head. "Unlike you, Scaly Feet, I actually mean it. I'm gettin' outta here - Just see if I don't."
"I anticipate tomorrow to be a winter wonderland, then."
Willow passed a bowl of soup and a piece of garlic bread to Dallas through the serving window. "Monty-"
"No." He threw up one hand and turned his face away. "I don't wanna listen a' any of it. My mind's made up. I'm sick and tired of not gettin' any a' the respect I deserve."
Elliot pricked up his ears. "You want me to treat you the way you deserve?"
Monty whipped back around, finger pointed. "Don't you dare-"
A mushy kiwi smacked between his eyes. Monty howled in rage and lunged forward, tackling Elliot to the ground in a heap of arms and legs and kitchenware. Elliot yelped and beat at Monty with his tongs and wooden spoon and kept saying things like, "For the love of- Willow, do something!"
"Hmph. You vere having zhat coming to you, I zhink."
Monty planted himself on Elliot's chest and twisted his arms around, forcing Elliot to drop his weapons. He had his fingers around the smaller boy's throat a second later. His thumbs sunk into Elliot's flesh, but for some reason the world around him was turning black and red.
"Monty!" Suddenly Willow had defected to Elliot's side and was there trying to pry them apart with her spatula. "Ztop it! Be letting him go!"
Monty heard her only in the back of his head. He couldn't have let go of Elliot even if he wanted to. All the rage from that day - all the days - was shooting out like sparks all over his skin.
"Ztop it!"
Elliot's face was turning blue. He clawed at Monty's shirt, wriggled his shoulders beneath Monty's legs. Like some kind of sign, the egg in its frying pan burst into flame on the stove on his left.
Snotty... bratty... weepy...
The door banged open. Monty heard a shout. Suddenly rough arms had closed around his waist and ripped his fingers away from Elliot's throat.
"Lemme go! Lemme go! Can't ya see I nearly had him there?"
Dallas cried, "Are ya loony, mate?"
Willow had fallen ear-first against Elliot's chest. She looked up with a face of panic. Though Monty was still trying to kick and bite, he could almost feel Dallas pale.
"Holy crikes, Monty!"
He threw Monty to the side; Monty crashed and rolled among pans and sacks of flour. He came up on all fours, fingers curled, ready to charge if he had to.
He didn't have to. Even when Dallas finished giving CPR forty-so seconds later and Elliot had finally lurched awake, he was still too weak to do much more than insist Dallas never, ever press his lips against his again.
For a few seconds there was silence as Elliot tried to breathe in Willow's arms. And then Dallas, without turning around,
"Monty? What in tarnation did you do?"
The door flew open a second time to reveal Trental standing there, red in the face. He took one glance at the situation before he pointed at Monty and said, "You're fired."
The words rang in Monty's ears.
"...What?"
"You heard me." Trental pushed the door open a little wider and gestured to the front door. When Monty looked out there he found dozens of pairs of eyes staring back at him. None were wider than that Zia girl's.
"Out."
"...Out?"
"Out."
Monty almost didn't do it, but he shifted his gaze to the right to meet Dallas's. His mouth was hanging open. Willow was clutching Elliot so tightly it looked like he might pass out again.
Dallas was the first to move. He stood quickly, removed his hat, and held a hand out to Trental all in one instant. "Sir-"
Willow was next, dropping Elliot in the process and leaving him sprawled on the floor. "Mister'enta, please-"
Trental cast a scornful glance in Elliot's direction. Slowly, the small teen pushed himself up to his hands and knees. All the hair had fallen to the left side of his face, and the one eye that was showing looked absolutely murderous.
Monty's eyes flickered down to his fingers. They curled tight into the tile grout. His knuckles shook.
"Mr. Trental sir." Dallas fingered the brim of his hat. He swallowed hard. "If Monty goes... We all gotta go."
"Done." Trental snapped his fingers and pointed again. "Get out then. All of you."
So Willow took one of Elliot's arms and Dallas took the other, and they led him past two dozen tables and dozens more people. Monty trailed after them. The sparks that he'd felt shooting outward from his skin were now prickling in his blood stream. He glanced at Zia, but couldn't hold her gaze for more than a second or two and had to focus on the back of Willow's head.
Maximus joined them at the front door. He didn't say anything, and that was even worse. Monty wished the old geezer would slap him. He wished he'd be hit. He knew how to take being hit. But words, or the lack thereof... That was something else entirely.
They stood on the sidewalk still dressed in their waiters' clothes. It was almost dark. A passing car threw a spray of water over Monty's shoes.
"Well," Elliot said, "I thought that went rather well."
Monty rounded on him instantly. "Ayo, if it weren't for you-"
"Excusing me?" Willow fired back. "You were ze one who vent attacking poor Ellie-"
"Poor Ellie? Hey Twinkle-"
"Knock it off, ya wily joeys." Dallas planted one hand on Willow's chest and the other on Monty's. Behind him, Maximus held his fist in the air like he was ready to bash someone's head in with an imaginary walking stick. Elliot had his shoulders high around his ears, but his mouth twitching up at one corner.
Lunch hadn't been big, but since no one felt much like eating anymore they headed for Allenmere Park rather than the soup kitchen. Monty multitasked by kicking a stone and shredding his old suit at the same time. This left him bare-chested in the late-autumn air, but not even Maximus scolded him for it this time around. Anyway, his birth name hadn't been "Shirtless" for nothing.
Willow finally brought up the question on everyone's mind: "Vhat are ve going to be doing now zhat Monty has gotten us fi'red?"
"Yo, I din't-"
Dallas jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow. Hard.
"Find a new job, I presume." Elliot shrugged, unconcerned. Monty found it hard to believe that he'd been inches away from death just fifteen minutes ago. "Probably they're hiring up at the grocery store."
Willow sighed. "Still, I vill miss Mildred's."
Monty scowled at the walking trail and tore another strip from his old shirt. "We don't gotta bother lookin' for more work. They ain't gonna take us on wit'out any fancy papers."
"He's got a point," said Dallas sullenly. "Mildred's was a one-time opportune, mates."
Maximus straightened his hat. "Hmph. Kids these days, always givin' up when the first chance comes along. Why, back in my day-"
"Maxi is right," Willow cut in. "It vill not be hurting - I zhink ve vould be best checking Sun Ray's anyway. And ve can do ze picking up of ze grosissaries vhen going."
Elliot didn't bother stifling his snort. "'Grosissaries'? Did you seriously just say 'grosissaries'?"
"Da... Vhat is ze being so of it?"
Monty wrinkled his nose and said nothing.
They turned off the walking path and stopped a few dozen meters in, where the stones had been cleared away and the trees parted to make a small clearing. The air was cold, and Monty almost wished he hadn't torn up his shirt. Almost.
In the darkness they hovered around the clearing's edges, breathing for just a second in the place that was so familiar to them and yet still so foreign. This was where they had first woken with clothes and strange names and no other memories of their pasts. These days Willow and Elliot were going on the theory that Mike, obviously an assistant in some lab where a scientific experiment had gone terribly wrong, had loaded them all up into a wheelbarrow and dumped them in the middle of nowhere for the wolves to get at. Monty, who didn't believe in wolves, preferred the idea that they'd all fallen from the sky. He would have made one sexy angel.
Dallas rolled aside a boulder on the edge of the clearing to reveal a shallow hole in the ground. Monty yanked his red jacket from its tree branch as he watched the money pile up in Dallas's fedora.
"Think twen'y'll be enough?"
"Make it thirty," Maximus said, and so Dallas did.
"Monty?" That was Willow, her banter with Elliot long forgotten. "Vhere are you going to?"
He snapped a twig over his knee as he walked. "Down a' the stream, Twinkles. Where's it look like?"
"Don't go far, ya whippersnapper!"
"Yeah," Monty said, and rolled his eyes.
The season was definitely changing. More leaves were falling every day. Monty kicked them as he followed the slope down to the ditch. From there it was only a minute's walk until the thin trickles of water became a creek. Monty threw himself onto the nearest boulder and kicked off his shoes. His bare feet plopped into the water, and Monty didn't jerk them out even though the creek was icy.
"Stupid," was one of the things he muttered. "Not my fault. Kiwis. I hate kiwis. Stupid kids. Stupid Elliot. Stupid Trental. Wish I could just... get away from it all."
A red bird landed on a bush across the stream. A cardinal, Monty thought, though he didn't much care. The bird cocked its head at him and stared with one beady eye.
"Oh, who asked ya?" Monty snarled at it. He waved one arm. "Get goin', scrubface. Wormbreath. Shoo. Fly away, ya stupid bird. Don't act like ya ain't got wings! You ain't grounded like me!"
The cardinal ruffled its feathers and trilled like it was scolding him. Monty threw a rock that missed it by mere centimeters, and finally the bird took off. He watched it go.
"Stupid... stupid..."
Suddenly he was standing. He snatched the strips of his old shirt from where he'd dropped them and threw them one by one into the creek. A sleeve snagged on a tree root some way's down, but then the current caught it and it drifted away until it was gone. Monty grabbed his shoes, pulled on his jacket, and headed back to find the others. They glanced at him, and probably glanced at each other behind his back, but as they headed off for Sun Ray's in the fading light, they didn't say a word.
"A'right then." Dallas clapped his hands and looked around the store. "Sheila here an' I'll check out the career options. The rest a' you can go shoppin'. Meet back here in a couple a' shakes, eh?"
"Works for me," Monty muttered, stuffing his hands deep into his jacket pockets.
"Hmph. You whippersnappers stay outta trouble now."
Elliot only grunted and drifted off towards the bakery.
Monty's first stop, of course, was for Italian food. Showing great self-control he headed for spaghetti before pizza this time - Water was easy to come by, and sometimes when Willow batted her eyelashes and asked nicely (Or Elliot snuck them in the back door) the soup kitchen would let them cook their noodles on the stove. If not, they made a fine snack dry. He grabbed the first few boxes he saw, not bothering to check the price tags, and was about to head for thin-mint cookies when he saw the girl.
She was tall and slender, dark-skinned and black-haired, with wide hips and plenty of stuffing in both the front and the back. Monty's whistle must have come out louder than he'd meant it to, because she glanced over at him. A sly smile crossed her lips.
"Hey there, Sugar."
Sugar.
An ache filled Monty's chest, starting from smack in his center and pulsing outwards to his fingers and toes. He'd had such a bad evening already, full of stupid choices and hateful words.
Just once tonight, I need someone who'll call me sugar.
"You're awful sweet yaself, Dollface." Monty leaned forward with upturned eyebrows and a gap-toothed grin, taking care to keep the spaghetti boxes tucked behind his back. Tough guys didn't eat spaghetti. "Do you still give samples to people who aren't near as cute as you?"
Her eyelids fluttered. A finger landed on her lip. "Is that accent natural?"
"Is your hair?"
She raised her brows and took the slightest step forward. "Is that sexy bod?"
Monty ducked his head and shrugged his shoulders with a smile. "Guilty as charged, sweetheart. Care ta gimme a pinch just to be sure you ain't dreamin'? I think I might be."
That made her laugh. She smacked his arm with the back of her hand. "I'm sure you say that to every hot girl you run across."
"And I'm sure I'd like to run across this hot girl again."
If the girl was going to say something witty in reply, she never got the chance. A voice behind Monty called his name.
No, please... No...
Her eyes dimmed as Elliot sauntered up to them. He stopped right at the corner of Monty's eye, a lizard-scale blur of green. Monty didn't look at him, but he whispered Elliot's name at the very corner of his mouth, along with a choice word or two.
"What did I miss?" Elliot wanted to know. He rocked back and forth on his heels, smirking a thin-lipped smirk. "I heard someone say 'hot' and assumed they were shouting for me."
Monty risked a split-second glance at Elliot and then looked back at the girl. His teeth were set in a nervous frown, but he didn't even bother fixing them. He knew he was too late.
"Who's the kid?" asked the girl, jerking her head towards Elliot as she stepped away. Her eyes lingered on the spaghetti boxes to Monty's right. "Your understudy?"
Elliot nodded back at Monty. "My babysitter. A bit more of a nanny, honestly."
"No one I'd rather talk to more than you," Monty tried, but she wouldn't look at him, and Monty's gaze fell to the tiled floor. Elliot's reflection was smirking too.
Her words were flat when they came again. "Yeah. I figured you'd say that." With that she turned and walked briskly down the aisle, heels clicking, basket swinging on her arm.
"Whatever happened to 'Sugar'?" Monty asked himself in a soft voice.
"Aw, you'll get over it. She was about as hot as a catfish anyway."
Monty reacted fast. He swung around, fist flying, but one of Elliot's hands snapped up and caught him by the wrist. His blue eyes were boiling.
"Not so strong now when little Elliot can actually defend himself, are we?"
"You," snarled Monty. He wrenched his wrist free and was going in for a second punch. Elliot ducked and slid to the right, and Monty's fist plowed into a row of boxes on the shelf behind him.
"Come on," Elliot urged. He was bouncing on his toes. "Come on Monty - You're looking more like your old self already. Come and get me."
Monty wanted to. He really, really wanted to. But the memories of the attempted strangling, of Dallas and Willow's horrified faces, of that look in Maximus's one blue eye...
Instead, he kept his hand among the boxes and slowly, very slowly pressed his forehead against the cold metal shelf above it.
"... Why d'ya hate me, Ellie? Why'd ya do it?"
"Oh, same old story." Elliot's grin was cocky as ever. He pulled a gingerbread cookie from his hoodie pocket and bit off its head. "You know I can't resist a little chaos."
Monty felt cold by the time they returned to the park, and the outside temperature wasn't great either.
No jobs. No jobs. No jobs.
The others bundled themselves tight in their sleeping bags, but Monty sat on a boulder with a glass bottle clutched tightly in his fist.
And winter's gonna be hittin' us soon. We've got five mouths to feed, no shelter, and no income.
A thin cloud slid over the moon. Wind whistled in the trees. Monty's red jacket had never felt thinner. He took another drink from his bottle and shook his head.
We messed up pretty bad today.
A dark smudge of red crossed his vision. A cardinal lighted on the tree branch just above his head and paused to preen its wings.
"Look at ya," murmured Monty. "Free as a bird, ain't ya? Free to go anywhere ya want, nobody tellin' ya what ta do all the time or remindin' ya what a screw-up ya are."
He stared at the cardinal. It stopped preening, blinked down at him, and took off into the trees.
Free... as a... bird...
Monty glanced over his shoulder. Willow had Dallas's hat on, and she and Elliot were bundled up beside him. For a second Monty didn't see Maximus in his place. Had the old man gone for a walk? Died and caused his body to disintegrate?
But no, there he was. Monty saw him when he moved. He had the last sleeping bag, which he draped around Monty's shoulders.
"What, ya can't sleep, porridge head?"
"Nah, I... I've got..." He gestured upwards with his bottle. "Just starwatchin'."
"Starwatching?"
"Yessir, gonna count 'em all. Oone... twwooo... treeee..."
Maximus took a hold of Monty's hand so he could examine the bottle. He shook his head.
"C'mon, Mont. This shouldn't be difficult. Don't be an idiot. It's time for bed."
"Eiigghhht... seeevvummteem... twelff..."
"Monty, you're drunk."
He jerked away from Maximus's fingers and gave an excellent hiccup. "No, I'm jus' fine... Just the ground is movin' funny... I'm jus' a li'l essstra dizzy, tha's all. Si, signore? Buongiorno! Buona sera? Ah... Come stai? Bene, grazie. Hee hee hee..."
Maximus sighed softly and shook his head again. He patted Monty's wrist.
"Monty, I know today was... hard..."
Monty burst into giggles and fell on his back in the grass. Maximus gritted his teeth and rolled his one blue eye.
"Look, salami head. What I'm tryin' a' say here is just... I love ya, all right? Even if you are some stupid kid who got us all fired and has pretty much doomed us for the winter."
"Winna'? Yo, I'mma winna'! The Mont is the best winna'!"
Maximus's hands tightened on his knees. "You have your strengths, Monty, and I respect you for them. No matter how stupid you may act sometimes, you're still ... my grandson. And I love you for that."
"Love? I likes love an awful lot." Monty, still on his back, grinned stupidly up at the stars. "... Maxi? Am I your girlfriend?"
It was about this point that Maximus gave up. He sat for a few seconds more with his head low, then stood up with a sigh.
"Don't stay up too late now, ya little whippersnapper. Get to bed. We have a big day ahead of us. We're going to go see Mike."
"Mike? Don't wanna go see Mike... Ayo, who's Mike?"
"...'Night, Monty."
"G'night, Pops."
The moon, not much more than a crescent these days, moved slowly across the sky. Just to be on the safe side, Monty waited until it was around two o'clock before he stopped pretending he was drunk.
He sat up slowly and called Dallas's name in a soft voice. Then Willow's. Nothing, still nothing. Four bodies, snuggled up in sleeping bags, breathed gently in the cool air. They were asleep.
Monty finished the rest of his lemonade and stood. His bare feet crunched in dying grass as he crossed the clearing, but the others slept on. Softly still, Monty took his red jacket down from a tree branch and slipped it on.
"Time to go," he said to himself.
It was fortunate, however, that he checked his pockets before he set off, because he was missing something important.
"What the-? Ayo, who stole Monty's napkin?"
He was answered by a snore. Monty searched the clearing for it, but all he found was a fraying patch of cloth with a small round button on it.
"Augh... Right. Had it in my stupid ol' pengbird suitcoat. Thing's gotta be miles down the creek by now."
No matter - He had everything he needed right here.
Monty broke his lemonade bottle on his boulder. It shattered into at least a dozen pieces, which he almost picked up but then didn't. He pulled the sleeve of his jacket over his hand and chose the biggest piece he could find. It fit snugly in his fingers, like it was meant to be there.
Glass shard in hand, Monty crept towards the four sleeping figures. Elliot was first. Tufts of black hair stuck out from his sleeping bag, snug as a bug.
"Poor, stupid Ellie," murmured Monty as he crouched down. He took hold of the smaller boy's wrist. "You should know better than ta leave your soft skin out where the mosquitos can get at it."
He nicked Elliot's hand with the end of the shard of glass. A bead of blood welled up immediately on his thumb. Monty pressed his cloth against it, and when he was satisfied that he had collected enough blood - and he needed only a few drops - he moved on to Dallas. After that, Willow.
"Mm... Mike?" she asked in her sleep. Her eyelids flickered.
"Shh... It's just me, Willow. Go back to sleep."
Monty hesitated over Maximus, still clutching his triangle of glass. In the shadows, the old man's face looked more worn than usual. Tired. Sad.
Quickly, Monty stooped down to get the job done. Maximus stirred and grumbled something about kids these days, but he didn't wake. Monty brushed his blood against his fraying scrap of cloth.
"I love ya, Pops. And I'll come back to you all someday. I promise."
The smell of blood was strong now when Monty held the cloth near his face. Four little patches of blood. So small...worth nothing alone... But with all four of them in his possession, these pieces of the others... Well, not even Spatial-Displacement-Syndrome could stop him now.
There was one more thing to do, and Monty spent longer than he maybe should have trying to figure out how to make it work. But finally he did. Using teeth and sharp fingernails, and a bit of the glass shard, Monty ripped a small red square off his jacket. They'd know it was from him when they saw it in the morning.
Still not too late yet, urged the voice in his ear, but it was drowned out by the trilling of a cardinal.
Monty pressed the glass shard into the soft skin of his own hand. He gritted his teeth as the droplets pooled in his palm and fell like red rain, but he didn't stop until he was sure there was enough of his blood to go around. The others weren't stupid. Not a lot, at least - Simply dumber than he was, that was all. But they'd figure out eventually what it was that kept their minds and bodies from feeling sick when he was so far away.
Again with the cardinal's call. "Time to go," Monty sing-songed, tying the cloth around his necklace. It didn't really go with his bronzed shark's fang, but for once Monty didn't much care. He wasn't wearing it for its looks.
He bandaged his hand with the sleeve of his jacket and left the clearing. He left the park. This wasn't the first time he'd gone out by himself - he'd once made a midnight trip for pizza and ice cream - but this time... This time would be different.
Monty had never told the others about his discovery. It had come to him purely by accident after he'd socked Mike in the jaw. Mike had bitten his tongue and spat out a few drops of blood onto Monty's bare foot. Monty hadn't bothered to wash it after that - the thought hadn't crossed his mind - but a few minutes later when Willow strayed much too far across the parking lot, the others had all collapsed in fits of headaches and nausea ... but he'd felt nothing. Connecting the dots wasn't very hard after that. More than once they'd caught Mike saying cryptic phrases like "The five of you together equal me" or other self-absorbent things.
And speaking of Mike, Monty wasn't even halfway to Mike's place before his inner compass swung around to point the way. Instead of a prickling sensation at his back, there came a bubbling at his front. It stayed with him like a steady, comforting hand.
Monty darted down a hill in the dark and stopped in the cul-de-sac at the base. The house before him was small - two cramped stories and a one-car garage. He didn't recognize the building in the faint moonlight, but his skin was itching like mad. This had to be the place.
A light flicked on in an upper bedroom. Monty held his breath. It was Mike, of course. But the light went off after only a few seconds. Monty jogged up the driveway before Mike could change his mind and decide to look out his window. So distracted was he with his thoughts of Mike that Monty didn't even realize he'd punched in the garage code until the door rumbled open. Then he stood back and wondered how in the world he'd known what the code was.
Those thoughts flew out his the instant Monty saw the car. His mouth fell open.
Mike never drove down to the diner. He'd walked every day as long as they had known him. Monty couldn't imagine why. That was his dream car sitting in that garage.
Literally. Monty had seen it plowing through his Backflash nightmares half a dozen times. It was dark green and sleek (Though a second glance showed it was a sedan rather than the convertible he'd wanted it to be), and it shone like it was newly polished. Monty circled it and let out a low whistle. Aside from a few tell-tale streaks of grime near the wheels, it really was newly polished. Almost entirely flawless, except for a bashed-in front bumper painted with dents and scars. The keys sat on the hood like they'd been left out just for him.
"Won't last long though," Monty realized aloud, "without any gas."
Slowly, carefully, Monty pushed open the door to the house. It squeaked, but no alarm went off. Monty heard no footsteps flying towards him.
Finding money didn't take him very long. There were three jars of it lined up on the back kitchen counter between the sink and Mike's big aquarium tank with all its wriggly, wide-eyed little fish. A turtle paddled up to gape at him, and he just couldn't resist giving the glass a pat. It seemed right, somehow.
The coins shifted and rattled when Monty picked the first jar up. A few small bills had been stuffed inside. It wasn't much money, but it would last so long as he drove sparingly. A few weeks, at the very least.
"Anyway, I won't be goin' too far."
Something caught Monty's eye as he turned back around. There was a desk to the left of the door to the garage, blanketed with scraps of paper, tape, glue sticks, and what looked like...
Monty's breath quickened as he approached the desk. He set aside his jar and plucked the first photo from the stack. The people in the photo were blurry, but Monty recognized them instantly.
That boy on the left was him.
It didn't look like him. To be perfectly honest, the boy looked a lot like Mike. But he had dark slicked-back hair and tanned skin, and he was shirtless. A bronze shark tooth hung from a cord around his neck.
He was laughing, the boy. He sat on a stoop in front of a shoddy summer cabin with a seagull on one arm and a hot chick on the other. Tanned orange skin, purple hair. Monty's scalp stung.
"Who are ya?" he murmured, rubbing his thumb along the photo. "Don't tell me ya're really... me."
That girl. Monty realized that he had seen her before, now that he'd stirred up the memories. She'd been at the horse race weeks ago... and she'd kissed him in his dreams. Monty stared at the scene, trying to burn the image into his brain.
There was a reflection in the cabin's window. Looking closer, Monty realized that it was a boom mic, like the kind they used on TV.
Nah, couldn't be... But what if?
Monty turned a page of Mike's scrapbook. The Zia girl was there, setting a flower in her hair as she gazed into still water. Another picture showed Mike sitting on the beach, scowling. With his arms folded and his left eye squinted up, he looked like he was doing an impression of Maximus. In another photo, Monty saw Mike in Dallas's fedora, wearing the cockiest of grins.
Geez, the others'd love ta get their hands on this. I should...
Then Monty remembered the free cardinal. He curled his lower lip and turned another page.
A door swung upstairs. Footsteps shifted on a creaking floor. Monty started at the noise. Prickling sensations raced from his forehead to his fingertips - Mike was on the way.
Quick as he could, Monty snatched up both his jar of money and the strange scrapbook. Cradling both wasn't easy, but he slipped back into the garage, sprang into the car, and turned the key. The sedan strained.
"Come on, come on now, baby. Start up for ol' Monty, will ya sweetheart?"
This time it did. Monty checked over his shoulder and eased the sedan from the driveway and into the circle. Only when he was out did it really hit him that, well, he'd never driven before. Not in this lifetime. It seemed to come naturally, anyhow.
Monty shifted into drive and looked up to see the door to the garage wrenched open. Mike stood there in bright yellow pajamas, his jaw dangling. Unable to resist, Monty rolled down the window.
"Catch me if ya can, loser!"
Mike snapped into action. He hurtled across the garage and plunged down the driveway, but by then Monty had taken off up the hill. One hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on the scrapbook at his side. Slowing at the stop sign at the top, Monty risked another glance at the photo beneath his thumbnail.
She was on TV, whoever she was. Someone out there gotta know who she is. And I'm gonna find her.
His headlights the only glow in the darkness, Monty turned left and gunned the engine. The sedan flew forward, bouncing over bumps in the road. His necklace - tooth, cord, and bloody cloth - slapped against his face.
"Vado dritto! Yeah, baby! Now this is what I'm talkin' about! Vieni con me!"
A cardinal zipped past his window.