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CHAPTER SIX

Mr. Peabody ran, holding tightly to Sherman.

He was too concerned about Sherman to slow down, and he took great pains to ignore the boy's protestations. No matter how loud they were.

Round the corner, out the hallway, to the left of the stairs-Mr. Peabody knew where he was going, even if Sherman didn't.

It took all Mr. Peabody had to keep quiet. Not that Sherman was doing the same thing; on the contrary, the boy was making as much noise as possible. As if that would do him any good in this state! But Peabody didn't have the time to tell him that. He only had time to keep going. After the stairs, he needed to go left again and then right. He had to hurry through the door, in case his calculations were off by a few milliseconds.

Sherman pulled again. The boy had no idea what was going on. But that didn't stop Mr. Peabody. He held tightly to the boy with one hand, and the other hand held tightly to Sherman's things. He couldn't afford to let go and lose anything from either hand, not in the state they were in. So he merely tightened his hold on both hands, especially the one holding Sherman, and hurried to get where he was going.

He only had a limited window of opportunity. If only Sherman understood that!

Mr. Peabody had reached his destination, but the time was running out.

This was not the time for a lecture. He was going to do whatever he needed to do, to take care of his son.

That's what Fathers are for.

"Now," said Mrs. Peterson, pulling the car into the driveway, "As soon as you both go inside, I want you to get your pajamas on and get into bed. No talking. Got that?"

Sherman and Penny nodded, and as soon as the car had come to a complete stop, they exited the vehicle.

"And never do that again!" Mrs. Peterson said, "Got that?"

They nodded again, and proceeded inside. Soon enough Mrs. Peterson was satisfied that they were in bed, but as soon as Mr. Peterson came home and his wife went to speak with him, Penny snuck out of her room and crept into Sherman's.

"Alright," she said, dropping Peabody's book from the library next to the WABAC manual on the dresser, "Let's find out what that code says."

"I've been thinking about that, Penny," said Sherman, "And I think it's two words. See? The code says, 4-26-25-26-24 9-22-7-6-9-13. But there's no hyphen between the 24 and the 9!"

"So it isn't a date then," said Penny.

"Of course not!" said Sherman, "It's clearly a code."

"You know, Sherman," said Penny, "When we first looked at the other side of that paper, I could have sworn this side didn't have any writing on it."

"That's strange," said Sherman, "You must have imagined it."

"I guess," said Penny, "But Sherman, some weird stuff has been happening. Who emailed Mr. Williams that we were coming to the bank, and who ordered pizza for us? I think-yes, I think it was your dad both times, Sherman."

"That's impossible," said Sherman, "Mr. Peabody is stuck in another time, Penny. You saw your parent's faces when we told them about the pizza. They think a stranger ordered it for us."

"Wake up and smell the roses, Sherman! It was your dad. The pizza man said so."

"But why wouldn't he tell us where he is, huh Penny?" Sherman asked, raising his voice, "Why would he send us pizza instead of a clue?"

"Maybe the pizza was the clue!" Penny yelled, "Did you ever think of that, smartiepants?"

"Don't call me that!" Sherman retorted.

At that moment, the bedroom door opened. Both children immediately stopped arguing, and found themselves facing both the Peterson parents. They both tried to look as small as possible, but it was too late. They had been spotted.

"It seems that you two don't understand the words 'stay in bed,'" Mrs. Peterson said.

"It's just as well," Mr. Peterson sighed, "The two of you need to change out of your pj's. We're heading back to court."

"What?" Penny asked, "Why? It's the middle of the night!"

"The court is concerned with your safety, Sherman," Mr. Peterson said, "We'll see what happens when we get there."

Behind these words, however, Sherman could tell that Mr. Peterson knew what was happening.

"Hurry up now!" Said Mrs. Peterson, "We're meeting in the car."

Within minutes, the house was abandoned and everyone was in the car. Sherman had brought along the WABAC manual and an extra notebook and pencil.

"Let's try to figure out this code, Penny," he said, choosing to forget their argument.

"What kind of code?" Mr. Peterson asked from the driver's seat.

"Um, a really hard one," said Penny, "It's all numbers."

"Let your mom see," said Mr. Peterson, "She's an old hand at codes."

Sherman passed up the code to Mrs. Peterson, who looked at it intently.

"Well," she said, "It seems to me that each number stands for a different letter of the alphabet."

"We kinda knew that," said Penny, "Since we know that it stands for two words."

Mrs. Peterson handed the page back to Sherman. "Then go ahead and try figuring it out from there," she said, "Codes are the most fun if you can crack them yourself."

Sherman and Penny looked at the code once more. 4-26-25-26-24 9-22-7-6-9-13.

"Well, there are 26 letters of the alphabet," Sherman said, "So all the 26's are Z's."

"Then," said Penny, "If every 26 is a Z, the 25 is a Y."

"So," said Sherman, "That means that a letter 1 is the same as an A."

"Let's decode it right now!" Penny said.

She quickly scribbled on Sherman's notebook, writing out the entire alphabet from A to Z. Underneath it, Sherman wrote out the letters 1 to 26. Finally, the two of them translated the code.

"This doesn't make sense," said Penny, frowning.

"We must have done something wrong." said Sherman.

What they had translated was complete and utter nonsense. It read: DZYZX IVGFIM.

"Mom, we did something wrong!" said Penny.

"Perhaps it is a different code, then." said Mrs. Peterson.

"So, the alphabet is wrong?" Penny asked, looking over the paper again with Sherman.

"We're here," said Mr. Peterson, putting the car in park.

"I guess we'll have to finish this later," said Sherman, closing the notebook.

"We'd better take this with us, just in case," Penny said, taking the notebook from Sherman as she got out of the car.

"Good idea," said Sherman, "And I'll take the manual too. I don't want anyone else to find it."

"What manual?" Mr. Peterson asked.

"One his dad gave to him," Penny explained.

"Oh. Well then, Sherman, that's perfectly fine." Mr. Peterson said, "Now let's hurry up and get inside, before we're late."

A short time later, they were all seated in the courtroom. Sherman was dismayed to see that Mr. Whiner, the annoying billionaire, was also seated in the courtroom.

"Mr. Peterson," said the Judge, "I understand that Sherman ran away today."

"No, your honor," said Mr. Peterson, "I assure you he had no intention of running away. He went with my daughter on a walk."

"Without telling you where he was going," said the Judge, "Is this true, Sherman?"

"Yes sir," said Sherman, who was half occupied with the code inside the notebook he was holding, "I didn't mean to go so far, your honor sir."

"Be that as it may," said the Judge, "Mr. Peterson asked for a bodyguard for the boy. Care to explain, Mr. Peterson?"

"A stranger sent them food," said Mr. Peterson, "I was concerned that someone was following them."

"Hm," said the Judge, "I don't need to tell you all that this has alarmed the court not a little."

Sherman opened the notebook in front of him, the motion hidden from the view of the Judge by the back of the seat in front of him. Penny jabbed him with her elbow, telling him to pay attention; but he ignored her.

"It has also come to the attention of the court," said the Judge, "That Sherman has talked to Mr. Williams, the banker."

"That is correct," said Mr. Peterson, "Mr. Williams has informed us of that encounter."

"You mean you weren't with him?" The Judge asked, curiously.

Sherman's eyes strayed to the writing in the notebook. The words DZYZX IVGFIM started to look to him like a second code, instead of nonsense.

"No your honor," said Mr. Peterson, "But we knew that he was going to the bank. Our daughter sent us a text message on her way there."

Penny sat up straight, and took away Sherman's pencil.

No I didn't, she wrote into his notebook.

Sherman's eyes grew wide.

"But no one told you he was going to the apartment afterwards," the Judge said.

"That is correct, your honor," said Mr. Peterson.

Sherman looked at the code in his notebook. What if this was the inverted alphabet code, the same one that Mr. Peabody had used earlier? He began to write out the alphabet inside the notebook from A to Z, and underneath that, he wrote out the alphabet again from Z to A.

He chose to ignore what was happening in the courtroom, despite Penny constantly poking him with her elbow.

With his heart beating fast, he began to decode the two words. As soon as the first word was decoded, he knew that he was on the right track.

Because the first word was WABAC.

Filled with confidence, he translated the second word and elbowed Penny to get her attention. She looked over the words with him, and gasped.

"What does it mean?" she whispered.

The words were: WABAC RETURN.

"And that is why," the Judge said, his voice cutting through Sherman's thoughts, "The court hereby awards custody of Sherman to Mr. Edwin Whiner, effective immediately."

"What?" cried several people at once, the loudest of them being Sherman himself.

"NO!" he cried.

"As the court has just explained," the Judge said, "The misuse of your money from the bank proves that you cannot handle your own finances. And it is clear that the Petersons cannot properly care-"

"But I can take care of the money!" Sherman said, not hearing the part about the Petersons, "I did so at the bank!"

"Yes, and now the country has to deal with inflation," said the Judge, "But you wouldn't know about that, Sherman. You see, too much money released at once actually lowers the value and raises the cost of-"

"I know what inflation is!" Sherman interrupted, "Mr. Peabody taught me!"

"Well," said the Judge, "The court has decided that Mr. Edwin Whiner is the best suited to care for you, financially and otherwise. The Peterson's can send over your things as soon as possible. Mr. Whiner? Ah, there you are. Take good care of the boy. Dismissed."

"NO!" Sherman shouted, "I'm not going with him!"

"He's not!" Penny said, grabbing onto Sherman as if her life depended on it.

"Nonsense," said Mr. Whiner, "We're leaving now, Sherman. Get off him, little girl, before I call security."

Someone moved to grab Penny, but at that moment the lights went out.

"Hey!" Penny shouted.

"Someone turn the lights back on!"

"Who turned them off? Is someone standing with their back to the light switch again?"

"Quickly, somebody, open the windows! I can't see a thing!"

"It's night, you fool! And there's no moon out there."

"Doesn't anyone have a flashlight app on their cell phone?"

"I think I do. But where's my cellphone?"

While all of this commotion was going on, Sherman felt Penny let go of him.

"Don't let go!" he said, but it was as if she couldn't hear him. Perhaps it was too noisy in there.

Someone with a cold hand grabbed Sherman firmly by the wrist and pulled him up, and then began leading him quickly away.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Sherman said, his eyes not used to the dark, "Who's pulling me? Let go!"

Whoever was pulling him only tightened the grip, and yanked the struggling Sherman out of the courtroom.

"Help!" Sherman called out, placing all his weight against moving forward, "Let go!"

But the grip continued to lead him past obstacles and around turns with astonishing rapidity. As he went who knows where, Sherman continued to try yanking his way out of the grip. Suddenly he found himself tumbling to a halt, and all of a sudden it was as if all the sound had come back into the world. He became aware that somewhere in the distance people were shouting.

"He's gone!" someone called, "Find him, find him!"

"Sherman!" He heard Mrs. Peterson call, "Sherman! Come back here!"

Sherman stood up and fumbled around, trying to find out where he was or, at least, where his mysterious puller had gone. He suddenly seemed to be all alone.

"Hello?" He whispered, "Where are you?"

His fingers brushed up against a light switch, and when it turned on he found himself alone in a janitor's closet.

That wasn't right. The person who had pulled him into the closet had gone in first.

"Sherman!" A voice called out, and Sherman quickly turned off the light to avoid being seen, "Sherman! Where are you?"

At that point Sherman realized he didn't want to be found. He didn't want to go with Edwin Whiner. He wanted to stay with the Petersons and find Mr. Peabody. Mr. Peabody would know what to do, and then everything would be alright again.

Someone jiggled the knob of his door, but apparently it was locked. The person then continued down the hallway. "Sherman!"

Something rolled into Sherman's foot. With a start he jumped back; but then he realized it wasn't alive.

He tentatively reached down where the object was, and realized to his delight that it was a flashlight.

So he clicked it on, and once more looked around him. There was no room for another person to hide in here, so that was alright. He really was alone. The flashlight must have fallen off a shelf or something. He shined the light towards the door, and saw that it locked from the inside. That was great! He could unlock it later.

Then the flashlight caught something on the floor that he knew shouldn't be there. It was the WABAC manual, and his notebook! He thought he had lost them back in the scuffle in the courtroom.

Someone else ran by the door calling his name.

"Well," said Sherman to himself, "I might as well read while I wait until I can sneak out."

He opened the manual, and began to read it. After ten minutes of reading, he gasped.

"The WABAC Return," he read. Without reading the rest of the sentence, he looked up from the manual and opened his notebook. At the bottom of the page was the decoded message, which read the same thing: WABAC RETURN.