The Key (The Magnificent 12 3)

The golem had projected his voice. He said, “UP!” very loudly. And he projected his voice onto a silk plant that sat forlornly on the edge of Ms. Telford’s desk.

And then he projected his voice onto the flag, and onto the shelf of ancient books so that it seemed exactly as if some old copies of Animorphs books were yelling, “UP! UP! UP!”

And then the backpacks beside each desk began yelling it, one after the next, while kids jumped up shouting, “How did you do that?”

It had been extremely upsetting.

Ms. Telford had learned that if she wasn’t absolutely, 100 percent sure of the answer she’d get, it was best not to ask Mack any questions.

So she stopped herself.

But Matthew Morgan—nerd bully—was sitting behind the golem and decided to poke the golem in the back and say, “You’re getting fat, MacAvoy.”

“No, I’m getting big,” the golem responded.

And sure enough, he was getting big.

“I’m a big boy,” the golem said proudly. And he stood up. Which unfortunately caused his desk to get up with him because he was now wedged tightly into it, so tightly that it was hard to see how he was ever going to get out of it.

Matthew stood up slowly, his face a mask of dawning horror. He stood up to his full height, and there was no denying that the golem was taller. Taller by a good foot. And broader by another foot.

“Is this big?” the golem asked.

At his biggest and scariest, Stefan Marr had never been this big. The golem looked like a pale, pleasant-faced Incredible Hulk. Only maybe not so much Incredible as Unusual. Or Odd. The Odd Hulk.

Because while he had grown taller and broader, and he absolutely filled out his shoes, jeans, and shirt, he had not ripped any seams but rather had expanded in all the parts that were beyond his confining clothing.

His ankles were huge.

His forearms looked like Popeye’s—postspinach.

His neck was the size of a tree trunk.

And his head was a watermelon. Figuratively speaking.

In Ms. Telford’s class every jaw hung open. Every eye bulged. But Matthew wasn’t just amazed, he was threatened.

“Been working out, huh?” he demanded. And he sort of turned his head back and forth in a tough-guy way that made his neck crack. And then he laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles the way he’d seen Stefan do. And then he hunched his shoulders and tried to swell his pecs and biceps and whatever the other muscles are called.

Then, as he gazed at the golem’s massive, Thanksgiving-turkey-sized forearms, something seemed to die behind the bully’s eyes.

He sat down.

Ms. Telford had a strange, faraway look in her eyes. The golem thought it might be a look of admiration. Actually it was Ms. Telford imagining the margarita with extra salt that would be waiting for her when she left school at the end of the day.

Ms. Telford often pictured that margarita.

“Mr. MacAvoy, you need to go see the principal,” she said regretfully.

“Do you want me to tell him something?” the golem asked helpfully.

“No. I think he’ll figure it out all on his own.”

The golem turned toward the door. He felt as if he had perhaps done something wrong and didn’t quite understand what it was.

So he was feeling a little self-conscious as he headed down the lonely hallway, banging the e

dge of his desk against the lockers as he walked.