around. âSo, where are they all?â
âNo idea. But they were here.â The man flapped wildly at the floor and walls and ceiling. âThey were!â
Ike slipped his notebook back into his pocket. âDadâll have to print this. Thousands of lizards! Out of nowhere!â
It got worse. In the food court, the talk was all about two girls who ran through five minutes ago, one of them tall and dressed in glittering red. And what she called out, and what happened next.
Ike took a picture of the espresso machine with the brass eagle on top. He tried to get the store manager, Danny Chaves, to stand beside the machine, but Danny refused. Nobody wanted to be anywhere near it, he said.
âLooks safe enough to me.â Simon went up close to the machine and examined the eagle. It looked exactly the same as he remembered. There was no sign it had ever broken away from its perch.
âIt flew,â Danny insisted. âIt attacked a security guard.â
âHim?â Simon pointed at a big man in a burgundy jacket who was talking on a cell phone.
âNo, the other one. The one who ran out after the girls.â
âThatâs funny. I didnât think....â He walked over to the guard and waited until he lowered the cell phone. âExcuse me. Whereâs the other guard?â
âWhat other guard?â
âThatâs what I thought.â Simon headed for the doors.
âWhat dâyou think?â Ike was at his elbow. âDid everybody go crazy at once? Did Mara hypnotize them? What?â
âMaybe.â
âSomethingâs going on and you know about it, donât you? Whatâs the big secret?â
Simon stopped just short of the doors and faced him. âI ... I canât say.â Not until Mara let him out of that promise. He wished heâd kept his mouth shut, that time.
Ike had that freckles-standing-out-all-over look. âIâm not playing now. And I know youâre not. That girl, Mara â itâs about her, isnât it?â He held up his camera case. âYou saw.â
Simon nodded. Ike had taken three pictures of him, Ammy, and Mara standing side by side with cups of cider in their hands. He and Ammy and everything else were in perfect focus, but Mara beside them was just a blur.
âAnd now this.â Ike waved at the mall. âWhy canât you tell me?â
âBecause right now thereâs no time!â
âOkay. If thatâs the way you want it.â Ike turned his back and stalked away.
Simon started to call after him, then decided to save his breath. Straightening things out with Ike would have to wait. He pushed through the glass door into the street.
Stick together and keep an eye on Ammy, Celeste had said. And now Ammy was out with Mara, which was a worry all by itself, and some guy was chasing them who looked like a mall cop but wasnât.
He had to find them before something awful happened. But... He looked back and forth and through the laughing crowd. Which way?
C HAPTER T HIRTEEN
T O THE E DGE OF THE W ORLD
Amelia had never run before as she ran now, hand in hand with Mara. The street whizzed under her feet. Peopleâs faces were blurred ovals with black gaps in them. The shouts came a second later.
In two thudding heartbeats they were past the street party barriers and bounding straight up the centre of King Street. Car horns blared around them, pickups veered aside. Like magic, Amelia thought. Like everything had to obey the wave of Maraâs hand.
They hardly touched down, just skimmed the surface â so Ameliaâs boot soles told her. (The new boots that had weighed like lead when she bought them and now weighed like feathers.
Anti-gravity boots
, she thought dizzily.) When potholes gaped beneath her feet she leaped, and then, for moments that stretched out long and dreamlike, she was flying, sheâd swear it.
Without warning Mara swerved right and cut