Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware by M.T. Anderson Page B

right at her.
    Whoops
, thought Katie, stopping in her tracks.
I really should have thought this through earlier.
    Eight boys stared back at her. And they were really good at staring.

23
    â€œIt’s that
girl
, ” said one of the boys. “The one from Pelt.”
    Team Mom stuck her head out the door. “Katie Mulligan,” she said. “From Horror Hollow. We’ve been introduced.”
    â€œOh,” said Katie weakly. “Hi.”
    In front of the van, the procession of investment bankers continued, bearing ornate piggy banks that sloshed with spare change at every step.
    One of the boys gestured to Katie. “You wanted to catch us,” he said through his toothy mouth. “Here we are.”
    â€œGet in,” another invited.
    â€œYeah,” said Team Mom. “Get in, Katie M. We’re all waiting.”
    â€œThere’s room in the back,” a boy said.
    â€œCould I… could I just get your auto-graphs?”
    â€œThis isn’t about autographs,” said Team Mom. “This is about guts. Guts and glory.”
    â€œUmmmm,” said Katie. “Could I just get a double order of glory?”
    The procession in front of the van had passed. The music was already fading.
    â€œWe’ll meet again, Katie,” said Team Mom. “Believe me. And I’ll fork out for a double order of guts. Yours.”
    The van rolled forward through the intersection.
    Soon it was gone.

24
    Katie and Lily trudged back along the street of silk merchants. On the crumbling brick walls, pasted up next to ancient carved window frames, were posters of the Awful and Adorable Autarch of Dagsboro. He had huge, piratical mustaches that pointed up at each end. He wore big, square plastic glasses that would have looked dumb even back in the eighties, when they were from, and an ugly necktie. The poster was covered with slogans in Doverian. To deface one of the posters—by removing the ridiculous mustaches, for example, rubbing out the goatee, erasing the stupid glasses, or whiting out the missing tooth—was punishable by death. Katie and Lily strolled right by his idiotic gaze.
    Katie said, “You were telling me not to let them see me, weren’t you?”
    Lily shrugged.
    â€œOkay, I get it,” said Katie. “Next time, I’ll listen. I’m sorry. It’s just that Jasper stopped me in the middle of the chase to yell about crosswalks or buckle up for safety or something. So you yelled and I wasn’t into the halt.”
    When they found Jasper, he was walking toward them with a young man in a T-shirt and rubber shoes.
    â€œNo luck, chums?” asked Jasper.
    Katie told him what had happened. Jasper listened attentively.
    â€œNo matter, Katie. More important: I have located a guide. This is Bntno.”
    Bntno put his hands over his eyes in a traditional Delawarian sign of respect. He said, “I shall lead the dandy children to the mountains.”
    â€œI have to follow the same route I went last time,” Jasper explained to him. “We must seek four mountains. One with a lake on it, one witha glacier on it, one with a pine forest on it, and one with a pillar of stone on it. The monastery is on one of those four peaks.”
    â€œI know this mountains. I love this glacier. I have spoked with this pillar for days. These places, they are to me as familiar as my own back.”
    â€œSuper,” said Jasper.
    â€œYou don’t know your own back at all,” said Katie. “No one sees their own back.”
    â€œMaybe I have seen it in the mirror. Just as we see all things in a mirror.”
    â€œMaybe,” said Katie.
    â€œMaybe when I go to the shop and try on shirts.”
    â€œOkay,” said Katie.
    â€œIt is very dangerous journey,” said Bntno.
    â€œWe are determined as steel,” said Jasper.
    â€œVery good,” said Bntno. “Then tomorrow I come to your hotel at six. We leaves