The Key (The Magnificent 12 3)

With even more awkwardness, she managed to extricate both her arm and the phone.

The golem pulled back then. It closed its huge mouth but still crouched over the prone Camaro.

Camaro glared at the phone. “‘Be the Destroyer’? Hey, no one pushes my boyfriend around except me.” She hit the Reply button and typed in, “Drop dead!”

Now, here’s the thing: there’s never going to be any way to be sure about the exact timing. All we know is that at approximately the same time as Risky was falling, only to be incinerated midair by the dragon, Camaro hit Send.

Approximately the same time.

No one is saying for sure that the reason Risky wasn’t able to nimbly escape the dragon is that Camaro had sent her a fatal text on an enchanted phone.

But it would absolutely serve Risky right.

Camaro sat up, wiped away some monster saliva, and took a long, hard look at the creature before her. He was no longer the Destroyer. He also wasn’t Mack.

He was a muddy-looking creature with only the barest of features. He looked like something a child would fashion out of dirt and twigs.

“So. What are you exactly?” Camaro asked.

“I am … I am a golem. I am whatever I have been told to be. First I was told to ‘be Mack.’ Then I was told to ‘be the Destroyer.’”

He shrugged, obviously a little embarrassed. (Understandable, really, since the entire student body of Richard Gere Middle School40 was fleeing out of the other side of the somewhat damaged building.)

“You’re covering for Mack, huh?” she asked.

“That’s what I was made to do.”

Camaro thought about that. And she sighed. “Well, like I said, I like Mack. So keep covering for him. But, dude: be yourself.”

“I … I don’t know what myself is like.”

She nodded as though this was wise. And it kind of was. “All right then, be Mack. But when you’re done being Mack, hang out with me; I’ll get you straightened out.”

Of course she ended up having to write that down. Because it doesn’t matter if it’s a tiny paper scroll or a text message: if you want to get a golem to do something, you have to put it in writing.

On a small scrap of paper Camaro wrote, “Be Mack. Also my friend.”

Just then the golem’s other phone—the nonmagical one—rang. Camaro answered it. The golem was busy returning to his Mack-like appearance.

“T’sup, MacAvoy?” Camaro said.

She enjoyed the long silence on the other end.

“Um …,” he said at last.

“Don’t worry. I got this,” Camaro said, and hung up the phone.

* * *

Last Chapter Before the Next Book

* * *

Headlines from the next day’s websites and newspapers:

New York Times: