From outside, clear and distinct through the open window, an answer.
“Is that you, Orc?”
Orc bounded to the window. It had been opened and in any case the panes of glass were shattered.
Orc’s vision took a moment to stabilize enough for him to make out what he was seeing. And then he couldn’t believe it.
Down below, in the first faint glow of morning, stood Drake.
Behind him and all around the school were things that looked like gigantic cockroaches.
It all had to be a hallucination.
“Drake?” Orc said, blinking hard to test the reality of this apparition.
“I thought that sounded like you, Orc.” Drake smirked. “And you have Astrid up there with you? Excellent. Couldn’t be better.”
“Are you real?” Orc asked.
Drake laughed delightedly. “Oh, I’m real, Orc.”
“Go away.” It was all Orc could think of to say.
“Nah, I don’t think I will,” Drake said. He ran lightly to the door downstairs and disappeared from view.
Orc was completely baffled. Drake? Here?
In seconds Drake appeared at the door of the room. His cold eyes looked past Orc and focused on Little Pete.
“Well, well,” Drake said. “Nemesis.”
Chapter Forty
25 MINUTES
SAM FELT SOMETHING wet. It was everywhere, a cloud rising from below. It was like falling through a tornado of mud. Salt water and sand, liberated by weightlessness, flew upward.
“Spread your arms and legs!” Sam shouted.
Friction. The painful slap of water, the grinding of sand, like flying into a tornado.
Sam felt like his skin was being flayed. He shut his eyes, turned his head to keep his nose and mouth from filling with wet sand, and smacked hard into a surface as solid and unyielding as concrete.
The air exploded from his lungs. It was like being kicked by a mule.
His back arched too far, tendons stretched, his head snapped back, every inch of him stung and water closed over his head.
Instinctively he kicked his way to the surface. The sand washed away and he could force one eye open. He was no more than a dozen yards from shore, in water not even five feet deep.
Then all the water and sand that had floated up to meet them came pouring down.
He looked around frantically for Dekka and Toto. He splashed his way toward the beach through a blinding downpour that lasted a full minute.
Toto was just down the beach, lying on his back and moaning in pain. Sam knelt by him.
“Are you hurt?”
“My legs,” Toto said, and started to cry. “I want to go home.”