Before she could finish, Rutger rushed into the auditorium, yelling George’s name, waddling like a fat duck trying to catch its ducklings before they crossed a busy road.

“Goodness gracious me,” George said, trying to calm the short man. “What is it, Rutger?”

Rutger spoke in short bursts, sucking in gasps of air between words. “Tick . . . and the others . . . their nanolocators . . . everything seems normal . . . at the cemetery . . . but it won’t work . . .”

George reached down and grasped Rutger by the shoulders. “Take a deep breath, man, then explain yourself.”

Rutger did as he was told, closing his eyes briefly before opening them again. But when he spoke, it came out just like before. “I don’t understand . . . all their readings . . . normal . . . no malfunctions, no blips . . . but the Wand won’t wink them in. They’re standing there . . . waiting! It won’t work!”

George tapped his lips, looking down at Sato then at the mingling Realitants gathered in the assembly hall. His eyes seemed afire with concern. “Oh, dear.”

“What’s going on?” Sato asked.

“Unfortunately, I think I know exactly what’s going on.” George started walking toward the stage, his steps brisk.

Sato looked down at Rutger. “Do you?”

Rutger shook his head, his face so lined and creased that Sato worried he’d drop dead of a heart attack. He was about to say something when George’s voice boomed across the room, echoing off the walls. Sato turned to see George standing at a microphone on the stage.

“My fellow Realitants,” he announced. “This meeting must start immediately. Please, find anyone lingering in the halls, bring them here, and take your seats.”

“What’s wrong?” someone yelled from the audience.

George paused before answering. “We’ve had a violation of Rule Number 462.”

Tick fidgeted, rocking back and forth on his feet, wiping his sweaty hands on his pants. Sofia stood to his left, Paul to his right. The sun made its way toward the top of the sky, beating down on the cemetery with a ruthless heat. Tick hoped Master George would wink them away to a nice, cool place; he couldn’t wait to tell him about the bizarre incident in the woods with Mr. Chu. They’d seen no sign of him since, and several calls to the school had only hit the answering machine.

“Come on, already,” Paul muttered, looking up at the cloudless blue sky as if he expected Master George to float down in a balloon and pick them up. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted to the air, “Yo! We’re ready! Wink us, man!”

“Maybe he will once you quit acting like an idiot,” Sofia said.

“At least I’m acting,” Paul replied.

Sofia pulled back to punch him for his troubles when the screeching sound of a car slamming on its brakes in front of the cemetery entrance made them look in that direction. Tick’s heart skipped a beat when he realized it was his mom. She was already out the door and past the stone archway, running at full speed.

“Mom!” Tick yelled. “What are you doing?”

“Atticus, don’t leave yet!” she said, looking ridiculous as her arms pumped back and forth. Tick realized that he’d never, not once, seen his mother run before.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, lowering his voice now that she’d almost reached them, only twenty feet away.

“I have to tell you something—I have to tell you before you go.” She slowed, then stopped, sucking in air. “It’s very important.”

Tick was so relieved she wasn’t going to prevent him from leaving, he failed to realize how odd it was that she’d raced here to tell him . . . what?

“You okay?” he asked. “What is it?”

Having regained her breath, she began talking. “I should’ve told you this years ago—at the least, I should’ve told you four months ago. I—”

But Tick didn’t hear the rest of her sentence. Instead, in that instant, he and his friends were winked away to a very strange place.

Chapter

10

A Very Strange Place

Tick got his wish in one regard—the place was cold. Beyond that, he couldn’t find one positive thing about it.

They stood on a cracked stone road, small pools of stagnant water filling the gaps. The smoggy air reeked of things burnt—oil, rubber, tar. Metal structures lined the long street on both sides, towering over them, black and dirty. Tick first thought they were buildings of some kind, but that notion quickly evaporated. They were more like sculptures, the dark and twisted vision of some maniac artist.

“Man,” Paul whispered, “it’s like Gotham City.”

In some spots, wide, arching pieces rose fifty feet in the air, ending in a jagged, ripped edge as if some enormous monster had ripped the top off with its teeth. In other places, huge, towering cylinders—some taller than New York City skyscrapers—ascended to the sky until they disappeared into the menacing, storm-heavy clouds. Squat, deformed lumps sat in the nooks and crannies, like weathered statues of ancient Greek gods. Hideous carvings of animals, worse than the ugliest gargoyle Tick had ever seen balancing on the outer walls of a cathedral, lay strewn about like stray dogs, frozen in place by a rainstorm of molten metal. Random triangles and pentagons hung oddly from various structures, seeming to defy the laws of physics.

All of it, everything in sight, was made out of a dark gray metal that dully reflected the scant light filtering through the clouds above. And there was no variation—the bizarre structures and sculptures lay everywhere, in every direction, as far as Tick could see.

One word seemed to describe the place better than anything else: dreary.

“Where are we?” Sofia asked, slowly turning in a circle, just as Tick and Paul were.

Good question, Tick thought. He didn’t know if he was looking forward to any locals showing up to answer it.

“What kind of people would live here?” he asked, trying to shake the worry of his mom and her undelivered message.

“People who like to gouge their eyes out, obviously,” Paul said. “This has to be the ugliest place I’ve ever seen.”

“They ever heard of flowers?” Sofia said. “Maybe a splash of color here and there?”

“Do you think we’re in one of the Thirteen Realities?” Tick asked. “One we haven’t heard of yet?”