The Call (The Magnificent 12 1)

“Dude—you saved my life.”

“Just now you mean?”

“Whoa!” Stefan said. “That makes two times. You totally saved my life, like…twice.” He’d had to search for the word twice, and he seemed pretty pleased to be able to come up with it.

Mack shrugged. “I couldn’t let you bleed to death, or even choke. You’re just a bully. It’s not like you’re evil.”

“Huh,” Stefan said.

“Kick his butt already!” Matthew shouted. He’d tolerated this cryptic conversation for as long as he could. He had waited patiently for this moment, after all, for the king of all bullies to destroy the boy who had caused him to be painted yellow.

Bits of yellow could still be seen in the creases of Matthew’s neck and in his ears.

Stefan processed this for a moment. Then he said words that sent a shock through the entire student body of Richard Gere Middle School. “Yo,” he said. “Listen up,” he added. “MacAvoy is under my wing.”

“No way!” Matthew snarled.

So Stefan took two steps. His face was very close to Matthew’s face, and a person who didn’t know better might think they were going to kiss.

That was not happening.

Instead, Stefan repeated it slowly, word by word. “Under. My. Wing.”

Which settled it.

Five

A REALLY, REALLY LONG TIME AGO…

So twelve-year-old Grimluk hit the road as a fleer. He wasn’t quite sure why he was supposed to flee from the Pale Queen, but he knew that’s what people did. And in those days long, long ago, smart people didn’t ask too many questions when they heard trouble was on the way.

Grimluk rounded up Gelidberry, their nameless baby son, and the cows, and hit the road.

They carried with them all their most prized possessions:

One thin mattress made of straw and pigeon feathers that was home to approximately eighty thousand bedbugs—although Grimluk could never have conceived of such a vast number

A lump of clay shaped like a fat woman with a giant mouth that was the family’s goddess, Gordia

One small hatchet with sharpening stone

A cook pot with an actual metal handle (the family’s most valuable object and one of the reasons many others in the village were jealous of Grimluk and thought he and his family were kind of snooty)

One jar of bold ale, a beverage made of fermented milk and cow sweat flavored with crushed nettles

The tinderbox, which contained a piece of rock, a sliver of steel that had once chipped off the baron’s sword, and a tiny bundle of dry grass

Gelidberry’s sewing kit, consisting of a thorn with a hole in one end, a nice spool of cowtail-hair thread, and a six-inch-square piece of wool

The family spoon

Other than this they had the clothes on their backs, their foot wrappings, their caps, the baby’s blanket, and various lice, fleas, ticks, crusted filth, and face grease.

“I can’t believe we’ve acquired all this stuff,” Grimluk complained. “I was hoping to travel light.”

“You’re a family man,” Gelidberry pointed out. “You’re not just some carefree nine-year-old. You have responsibilities, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” Grimluk grumbled. “Believe me, I know.”