In Todd We Trust by Louise Galveston

Author:Louise Galveston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group, USA
Published: 2015-02-27T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

PERSEPHONE

Where’s Herman?” young Marty asked me, sidling up as I brushed Tenderfoot the cricket in her matchstick stall.

“Durned if I know,” I said, shaking my head. Herman’d been MIA since the Exodus disaster. Lewis’d seen him holed up in his new office, really just a study room off the library, reading printouts from that dadgummed Intra-Net Todd was always going slack-jawed in front of. “Probably molderin’ away somewhere, workin’ on his ‘Big Plan.’”

“Do we know what his New Big Plan is?” Chester wondered. “Since the boat sank?”

“Nope. All’s we know is thet he has one. Mebbe he’s planning on settin’ up a ranch somewheres.” Hopefully in Lucy’s room. Now that is a gal I sure could get used to. She has some get-up-’n’-go.

Suddenly Marty looked up and then pointed into the air. “Er . . . what’s that?”

There was a roar of wings like a locomotive steamin’ full blast, the exact same noise we’d heard before.

“L-look!” Chester stammered, pointing into the air. Two ginormous black beasts with bulgy red eyes flew lightnin’ fast from the direction of the Red Thing Lucy’d called an “apple.” My mouth went dry.

“RUN!” I screamed to Marty, but he didn’t move on account of havin’ fainted dead away. “Aw, for the love of Pete.” I ain’t afeared of much, but when I saw those red glittery eyes up close, I threw Marty over my shoulder and lit a shuck for the nearest hut like nobody’s business.

As I ran, one of them buzzin’ bullies landed in Lake Parkay, rubbin’ its nasty, hairy legs together like it was prayin’ before eatin’ its meal: us.

Herman appeared out of nowhere, and he and Lewis yanked us into the Library of Higher Learning and helped me lay the conked-out lad on a toe-hair rug. They were hunkered down inside with Chester, peekin’ out the door at the destruction.

“We heard them, too!” Lewis said, shaking so bad I thought he’d scramble his brains. “What are they, Herman?”

“I looked them up in my Guide to Household Insects. Musca domestica—common houseflies. Foul creatures, depositing disease and feces wherever they land.” Herman shuddered. “Will the plagues of the Re—the apple never cease?”

“What’s ‘feces’?” Chester asked.

“No time to jaw,” I said. “Unless you found out how to kill the vermin, Herman.”

“What we need is a weapon called a ‘fly swatter,’” Herman said, giving the room a once-over. “No time to construct one now.”

I skedaddled over the desk, where he’d put together a tiny version of a bigger, more elaborate boat than The Exodus. “What’s this? You hidin’ the big boat somewheres? With a long plank, we could skewer those vermin right through the liver . . .”

“Please, Persephone!” Herman yelped. “Do not disassemble my new boat! I’ve been laboring over it for days, and to have it splattered with . . .” He shuddered again.

“Fly guts?” I finished.”’Cause iffin we don’t get out there and stop those brutes, it’ll be our guts splatterin’.”

Lewis looked like he was about to make like Marty and keel over.

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