Secrets

Chapter 25

Against Uhl Odds

"C'mon Steve!" whined Eli Pepperjack as the bully held him in a headlock. "It's a Saturday! Can't we just live and let live?"

"Yes, it is, and no, I can't, Peppjoke," said Steve Palachuk, squeezing a little harder.

He couldn't belive his luck. Normally, Steve hated doing chores for his mom. She had sent him to the pharmacy on Main Street to pick up some protein powder for her stupid new boyfriend. But once Steve saw Eli walking down the sidewalk, he knew he hit the Pepperjackpot.

Steve cocked a meaty fist, ready to punch Eli, when Senor Uhl ran past them on top of a trash can like lumberjack rolling logs. Their Spanish teacher turned his can off of Main street and disappeared from view.

"That's actually not the weirdest thing I've seen in Arcadia," said Eli.

Several feet below, Arrrgh galloped full bore down Arcaidia's sewers, with NotEnrique, Jinx, and Chompsky clingingto his furry back. The Gnome caught a fleeting glimpse of the trash can through an open manhole cover, and NotEnrique said, "Up there! Turn right!" The black cat familiar can handle fighting monsters and assissting his mistress, June, and all of his friends. But one thing that he can't handle is motion sickness. "I think I'm gonna puke. . ." he covered his mouth with his cheeks filled with vomit his face was starting to turn green like the back of Arrrgh's fur. NotEnrique turned back towards the feline and said, "Don't even think about it! Pussycat!"

Arrrgh rounded the corner and charged down another grimy tunnel, pouring on the speed. Holding his hat in place with one hand, Chompsky chittered, "Neep? Neep, neep?"

"I don't know where those five fleshbags went!" answered NotEnrique.

"On your left!" said Jim, beeping a horn.

He rode his Vespa past them, with Toby and Claire clustered behind him on the scooter's seat. Talia and Marshall were right behind them. Talia was in her beast form and armor making high speeds, and Marshall was hovering in the air with amber aura disks below his feet like a skateboard. "Good thing Angor Rot didn't trash my ride after I, y'know, accidently destroyed his soul!"

Seeing a public works construction zone dead ahead, Jim floored it and drove the Vespa up a playwood ramp. The scooter launched through a web of yellow caution tape and orange safety cones, landing on a surface street. Uhl rolled on his can a block away, and Jim accelerated. Noticing the broad daylight reflecting off his amor and the staring pedestrians o the sidewalks, he said, "I'm thinking we need a detour before the whole town learns about our extracurricular Trollhunting activities!"

"On it," said Claire.

A new portal opened up in front of Uhl, sending him and the trash can down to the sewer, heading straight toward Arrrgh Uhl skidded to a halt and started rolling the can backward, only to find Jim, Toby, Claire, Talia and Marshall coming out of the portal behind him.

"We've got him now?!" said Toby.

Uhl morphed back into Draal curled his spiked body around the trash can, and spun up and over Team Trollhunters along the rounded tunnel ceiling. Jim squeezed the brakes, narrowly avoiding Arrrgh. The polymorf came to a stop behind them, and an extremely dizzy Blinky clambered out of the dented trash can.

"Great Gronka Mor- BLARGH!" he managed to say before puking.

"I guess the sewer's as good a place as nay to blow chunks," said Toby.

Jim said, "Okay, Senor Polymorfo. This is the part where you hand back our friend and tellus what you have to do with The Book of Ga-Huel."

"Sorry, Trollhunter," replied the Polymorf, its accent returning as it switched back to Uhl. "But I think you skipped a chapter."

Uhl reached into Blinky's belt pouch and pulled out a squat crystal fastened to a handle.

"The Horngazel!" said Claire.

The Polymorf drew the crystal in a glowing arc along the sewer wall, then punched it. A Horngazel passage opened, and Uhl tugged the dazed Blinky into the swirl of stones and light. Jim summoned his Glaives and hurled the spinning blades into the passage right before it closed, becoming solid wall again.

"I can use Blinky as an emotional anchor to get a lock on them!" said Claire.

Team Trollhunters dove into another of Claire's portals and instantaneously emerged three blocks away on Delancy Street, where another Horngazel flashed behind Stuart Electronics. Out came Uhl, the unconcious Blinky, and the boomerang Glaives. Jim caught his throwing blades and sped after them. Draal's horns sprouted from Uhl's head and bucked the Vespa's tires, making it swerve. Jim regained control of the vehicle and said, "Tobes, take the wheel!"

The Trollhunter jumped off the scooter and followed Blinky and the Polymorf with Marshall down a new Horngazel passageway. A heartbeat later, Jim came out of the other end- which happend to be on the top sid of Arcadia's tallest office building. Uhl waved bye-bye with one of Blinky's limp hands from the roof, Jim plummeted eight stories to their doom. He shut his eyes as the ground raced toward him, only to find something wrapped around his waiste stopping him from his fall. Jim opened his eyes and saw Marshall floating above him with his magcal hover disc's.

"Close one!" said Toby as he pulled up on the Vespa with Claire and Talia next to them.

Claire shadow-jumped their group to the roof, where they caught the tips of Uhl's horns sinkind into a new Horngazel passage. Claire didn't miss a beat. Another portal lowered them one level down to the deserted penthouse floor.

"Good thing nobody's puttting in overtime this weekend," said Toby.

They heard the crackle of a Horngazel around the corner. Team Trollhunters raced over and saw Uhl slipping away with the out-cold Blinky. But Jim's armored hands grabbed two of Blinky's includind Talia's beastly hands, and they and the Polymorf played tug-of-war with the six-eyed Troll. With one final heave, Jim and Tally pulled Blinky clear, and the Horngazel passage shut.

"Ha! Got him!" Toby, before Uhl dragged, Jim, Tally, and Blinky into yet another passage.

"Tally!" Marshall cried out for her.

"Hang on!" said Claire, whipping up another shadow.

She took Team Trollhunters to the seventh floor, where Jim and Tally tossed Blinky to Arrrgh before they and the polymorf disappeared again.

Jim and Tally broke free from the sixth floor. Everyone cheered, until the Uhl/Draal hybrid rammed Arrrgh into another Horngazel passaged, along with Blinky, NotEnrique, Jinx, and Chompsky.

While JIm and Claire reclaimed them on the fifth floor, the Polymorf hijacked the Vespa- with Toby still on it.

"Ugh! Seriously?!" Marshall complained of the crazy chase.

Fourth floor: They got the Vespa, but not Toby. Also, Jinx and Chompsky ran to the men's room.

Third floor: Toby escaped. Blinky woke up. The Polymorf kidnapped everyone else.

Second floor: Blinky rescued his teammates, only to fall into the Polymorf's clutches again.

First floor: Jim, Tally, Marshall, Claire, Toby, NotEnrique, and Arrrgh landed in the lobby level, out of breath and punchy. They readied their weapons in anticipation of the final Horngazel passage way. . . but it never came.

"Blinky?" muttered Arrrgh, his big eyes searching the lobby in vain.

A door slammed behind them, causing the frayed team to turn and yell, "Get him!"

But it was just a startled Chompksy and groggy Jinx at the stairwell door, a toilet paper streamer trailing from Chompky's heel of his little boot. Jim lowered his Sword of Daylight and said, "They can't have gotten far. Claire can you one in on Blinky - use him as an emotional anchor again?"

Claire hadn't even bothered closing her shadow portal for those last few floors. She stared at it, concentrating on Blinky, then looked back at everyone with wide eyes.

"I. . . Ican't feel him," she said. "It's like he's vanished off the face of the Earth. Or. . ."

"Don't say it," Jim interrupted. "Don't even think it. We'll save Blinky. . .somehow."

A Gun Robot ringtone abruptly blared, making everyone jump again. The Trollhunter twisted off his Amulet in annoyance, vanishing the suit of armor so he could reach the cell in his pocket. JIm saw Babara's picture on the screen next to a video chat icon.

Jim answered it, angling the camera away from his Troll friends, and said, "Mom, you have no idea how glad I am to see your face, but I can't talk now. We're, um, in the middle of a weekend project with, uh, Senor Uhl."

"But, Jim, that isn't possible," Barbara replied. "I'm looking at Senor Uhl right now."

Talia's ear's perked up when she heard what Barbara had said over the phone. She reverted back into her human form retracting her claws, ears, tail, fur, and her armor disappeared into thin air. She came up right next to Jim to see what she was talking about and saw her mean Spanish teacher in an ugly sight.

He was in the hospital room laying on the bed sleeping all bandaged up with his skin swollen and purplish. Jim's mom's head poked back ito view, and she added, "The school liberian brought him into the ER last night. What's her name?"

"Ellie," Toby cooed dreamily before Clair flicked his ear.

"Oh," said Jim, his mind racing. "I, uh, meant Miss Janeth. Silly me, get those two teachers confused all the time!"

"Only because they're the most craziest teachers in Arcadia," Talia muttered underbreath feeling a slight dissapointment that one of her most hated teachers wasn't the bad guy.

Jim elbowed of her bad attitude and said, "Is Senor Uhl okay?"

"He will be," said Barbara. "Senor Uhl sufferd from extreme allergic reactions to metal. He even has to coat his keys in clear nail polish so they don't make contact with his skin."

Toby gave a nervous chuckle, speed dialed a number on his phone, and said, "Hello, I'd like to send a floral arrangement to Arcadia Oaks Memorial Hospital. The message on the card should read: Querido Senor Uhl, por favor, nome mates. . .?"

"Did you know Senor Uhl has a long-distance girlfriend?" Barbara asked. "They met in Barcelona when he was finshing his degree in Spanish. Her name's Susannah."

"Aw, Senor Uhl named his truck after her," Claire said. She smiled.

Marshall groaned face palming himself shaking his head in annoyance.

"You sure it isn't the other way around?" Toby muttered while on hold with the florist. "I bet Uhl only started dating Susannah because she reminded him o fhis truck!"

"Anyway, the good news is Susannah's flying out here to check on him," said Barbara. "She was supposed to arrive a few days ago, but there was some hold-up with her reservation."

All at once, everything about his Spanish teacher's recent spate of bizarre behavior clicked int place in Jim's mind. He figured Senor Uhl and his long-distance girlfriend probably had bee video chatting - just like Jim and his mom were now - on the classroom computer. And all those heated exchanges that Jim, Toby, Claire, Marshall and - well Talia was mostly asleep during that time- overheard about timetables and returns were just about Susannah's delayed flight. . . not evil Changeling plans.

Jim became vaguely aware that his mom was saying goodbye to him. He forced a smile at her face on the screen and said, "Sure, Mom. Love you, too. Bye."

He ended the video chat. The remaining members of Team Trollhunters stared at one another in the lobby, aware of the one empty space between them.

"Must find Blinky," said Arrrgh.

"But Claire can't track him," reminded NotEnrique. "And if the teacher brace-face almost offed ain't the Polymorf, then who is?"

"Let's just check The Book of Ga-Huel," suggested Toby, before Marshall slapped him behind the head.

"Tobes! Blinky still has the book in one of his pouches. Remember?," Marshall reminded him.

"Oh. . .right," Toby lowered his head feeling dumb.

"It is," said Claire with a dawning realization. "But it wasn't always."

She held her phone up to Jim and Tally showing them the black and white photo of the Hindenburg library. Jim raised his eyebrows in sudden realization and said, "We need to get to the void."

"Right," Talia agreed.