Wake Up

Chapter 11

Bessie Busybody raised her hands up to protect her beehive hairdo as a mild breeze rustled the sheets drying on her clothesline. Behind her in the yard the kids swarmed around Milford and his standing barbecue. They all seemed to pause and breathe in together, letting out a collective sigh.

"My, I thought that heat wave would never break!" Milford said. "The weather has certainly come around." He flipped the burger patties on the grill before him and they sizzled with a satisfying hiss.

"The breeze feels so good," Stephanie said, closing her eyes while a smile played on her lips. The wind brushed her bright pink hair against her face. "We should fly some kites!"

"Not kites," Trixie said, "let's get our roller skates and play some street hockey!"

"Can we wait until we've had something to eat?" Ziggy asked, eyeing the smoking grill.

"I just want to stretch out on my lawn chair with Piggy," Stingy said, already hunkering down on the plastic seat with his piggy bank tucked in the crook of one arm.

"What do you think, Sportacus?" Stephanie asked. Sportacus smiled.

"You all have good ideas," Sportacus said. "Why not do them all?" The children laughed. Inside Bessie's house a faint chiming drifted out the open window from a ringing phone. The woman dropped what she was doing and made a beeline to answer the call.

The breeze picked up again and made the sheets snap on the line. Trixie watched the laundry strain against the clothespins that held them fast. "I bet if we took some of Bessie's sheets we could parasail on our skates. We'd go flying!"

"That doesn't sound very safe," Ziggy said.

"That's the point," Trixie said.

The afternoon sun dimmed under a thin blanket of clouds unraveling across the sky. Thicker and darker clouds mounted on the horizon but they weren't near enough yet to rain out the barbecue. It might put a damper on kites or skating, however.

"Sportacus, phone for you," Bessie called out her window. Sportacus quirked an eyebrow before loping across the yard to enter the house. He accepted the receiver from Bessie and raised it slowly to his ear.

"Hello?" He winced at the popping static that answered him.

"Sportacus!"

"Pixel?" Sportacus pressed the phone closer to his ear despite the noisy interference. "Is that you?"

"Sportacus, wake up!" Pixel's voice crackled and oscillated between inaudible whispering and deafening volume. A distant rumble of thunder outside seemed to make their connection weaker. "You've got to wake up, you're still in the—"

Click.

"Pixel? Hello? Pixel?" Sportacus shouted into the receiver, but the line had gone silent like a vacuum had sucked out all of the sound. He jumped when Bessie plucked the phone from his grip and slammed it down into its cradle.

"Oh, well, wrong number." Peering around Sportacus into the yard she said, "Dear me, it looks like a storm is coming. We'd better get everyone inside. And all my sheets were just getting dry."

In the short time it took Sportacus to step outside again the sky had already darkened considerably. The mounting clouds moved faster than expected and spattered the first cold wet drops on his upturned face. He blinked and shivered.

"Everyone inside," Milford directed the children. They grumbled and groaned as they filed into Bessie's house. The wind grew stronger and helped usher them in.

Another rumble of thunder rolled through town. The deep bass grumble seemed to draw in on itself, leaving the yard in a breathless silence. The world flashed a dazzling white—

CRACK.

A jagged vein of lightning split the sky. The thunder boomed and roared and released a harsh downpour of frigid pelting rain. Sportacus stood there as the water soaked him through and set him to shivering harder. He stared out across the yard trying to see through the lingering spots in his eyes from the lightning and the sheets of rain.

Someone else stood out there with him. It was a man, diminutive but broad in the shoulders. He twisted his mustache around one finger as he looked back at Sportacus. In the next flash of lightning Sportacus saw him wink. When the spots faded from his eyes again he was gone.