“Exactly,” Frank said. “I’ll buy you as much time as I can. Get Ella, and get in the car. I’ll try to meet you in the garage, but don’t wait for me. ”
Percy frowned. “Frank—”
“Give us your answer, Frank Zhang!” the ogre yelled up. “Come down, and we will spare the others—your friends, your poor old granny. We only want you!”
“They’re lying,” Percy muttered.
“Yeah, I got that,” Frank agreed. “Go!”
His friends ran for the ladder.
Frank tried to control the beating of his heart. He grinned and yelled, “Hey, down there! Who’s hungry?” The ogres cheered as Frank paced along the widow’s walk and waved like a rock star.
Frank tried to summon his family power. He imagined himself as a fire-breathing dragon. He strained and clenched his fist and thought about dragons so hard, beads of sweat popped up on his forehead. He wanted to sweep down on the enemy and destroy them. That would be extremely cool. But nothing happened. He had no clue how to change himself. He had never even seen a real dragon. For a panicky moment, he wondered if Grandmother had played some sort of cruel joke on him. Maybe he’d misunderstood the gift. Maybe Frank was the only member of the family who hadn’t inherited it. That would be just his luck.
The ogres started to become restless. The cheering turned to catcalls. A few Laistrygonians hefted their cannonballs.
“Hold on!” Frank yelled. “You don’t want to char me, do you? I won’t taste very good that way. ”
“Come down!” they yelled. “Hungry!”
Time for Plan B. Frank just wished he had one.
“Do you promise to spare my friends?” Frank asked. “Do you swear on the River Styx?”
The ogres laughed. One threw a cannonball that arced over Frank’s head and blew up the chimney. By some miracle, Frank wasn’t hit with shrapnel.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he muttered. Then he shouted down:
“Okay, fine! You win! I’ll be right down. Wait there!” The ogres cheered, but their leader in the lion’s-skin cape scowled suspiciously. Frank wouldn’t have much time. He descended the ladder into the attic. Ella was gone. He hoped that was a good sign. Maybe they’d gotten her to the Cadillac. He grabbed an extra quiver of arrows labeled assorted varieties in his mother’s neat printing. Then he ran to the machine gun.
He swiveled the barrel, took aim at the lead ogre, and pressed the trigger. Eight high-powered spuds blasted the giant in the chest, propelling him backward with such force that he crashed into a stack of bronze cannonballs, which promptly exploded, leaving a smoking crater in the yard.
Apparently starch was bad for ogres.
While the rest of the monsters ran around in confusion, Frank pulled his bow and rained arrows on them. Some of the missiles detonated on impact. Others splintered like buckshot and left the giants with some painful new tattoos. One hit an ogre and instantly turned him into a potted rosebush.
Unfortunately, the ogres recovered quickly. They began throwing cannonballs—dozens at a time. The whole house groaned under the im
pact. Frank ran for the stairs. The attic disintegrated behind him. Smoke and fire poured down the second-floor hallway.
“Grandmother!” he cried, but the heat was so intense, he couldn’t reach her room. He raced to the ground floor, clinging to the banister as the house shook and huge chunks of the ceiling collapsed.
The base of the staircase was a smoking crater. He leaped over it and stumbled through the kitchen. Choking from the ash and soot, he burst into the garage. The Cadillac’s headlights were on. The engine was running and the garage door was opening.
“Get in!” Percy yelled.
Frank dove in the back next to Hazel. Ella was curled up in the front, her head tucked under her wings, muttering,
“Yikes. Yikes. Yikes. ”
Percy gunned the engine. They shot out of the garage before it was fully open, leaving a Cadillac-shaped hole of splintered wood.
The ogres ran to intercept, but Percy shouted at the top of his lungs, and the irrigation system exploded. A hundred geysers shot into the air along with clods of dirt, pieces of pipe, and very heavy sprinkler heads.
The Cadillac was going about forty when they hit the first ogre, who disintegrated on impact. By the time the other monsters overcame their confusion, the Cadillac was half a mile down the road. Flaming cannonballs burst behind them.
Frank glanced back and saw his family mansion on fire, the walls collapsing inward and smoke billowing into the sky. He saw a large black speck—maybe a buzzard—circling up from the fire. It might’ve been Frank’s imagination, but he thought it had flown out of the second-story window.
“Grandmother?” he murmured.
It seemed impossible, but she had promised she would die in her own way, not at the hands of the ogres. Frank hoped she had been right.
They drove through the woods and headed north.
“About three miles!” Frank said. “You can’t miss it!”
Behind them, more explosions ripped through the forest. Smoke boiled into the sky.
“How fast can Laistrygonians run?” Hazel asked.
“Let’s not find out,” Percy said.
The gates of the airfield appeared before them—only a few hundred yards away. A private jet idled on the runway. Its stairs were down.
The Cadillac hit a pothole and went airborne. Frank’s head slammed into the ceiling. When the wheels touched the ground, Percy floored the brakes, and they swerved to a stop just inside the gates.
Frank climbed out and drew his bow. “Get to the plane! They’re coming!”
The Laistrygonians were closing in with alarming speed. The first line of ogres burst out of the woods and barreled toward the airfield—five hundred yards away, four hundred yards. . .
Percy and Hazel managed to get Ella out of the Cadillac, but as soon as the harpy saw the airplane, she began to shriek.
“N-n-no!” she yelped. “Fly with wings! N-n-no airplanes. ”
“It’s okay,” Hazel promised. “We’ll protect you!”