Sofia flashed him a smile that wasn’t fake, and Paul broke out in goose bumps. He hoped she couldn’t tell. He started walking toward the porch to hide it.
When he reached the steps of the porch, he couldn’t help but hesitate. It seemed as if their feet would crash right through if they dared take one step on the old, rotten boards. But before he could take that first step, the front door tore open with a bang. The screen that had barely been hanging on fell off completely. It clanged against the porch, bent and torn.
An old, old woman stood in the doorway, a huge knife in one hand and a pistol in the other. Paul yelped and backed away. He ran into Sofia, and they both collapsed to the soggy ground.
Gretel moved forward, the boards creaking under her feet. She had gray hair springing in all directions, a face as wrinkled as a newborn pup, and a tattered dress that looked as if it hadn’t been washed in years. But her body seemed strong, solid. Especially the fingers gripped around those two weapons.
“How dare old Georgy Porgy send two rats here to nibble on my cheese,” she said, her voice low but somehow full of venom. “I told him what would happen if he did that. I sure did. Death, true and true.”
The old lady lifted her pistol and aimed it at Paul’s face.
Chapter 9
A Dusty Road
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” Paul shouted, holding his hands up as he got to his feet. Sofia did the same next to him. “You haven’t heard why we came yet!”
Gretel cocked the old silver pistol and took a step forward. She kept the barrel pointed directly at Paul. “Don’t need hearing your nonsense, boy. I’m here for a reason, and that reason is more important than two pipsqueak babies begging for their lives on my lawn.”
Paul’s immediate instinct was to tell her she was crazy for calling the mud and weeds on which they stood a lawn. Luckily, Sofia spoke up before he could, as calm and collected as a sheriff in an old Western movie.
“You want to shoot us, Gretel? Go right ahead. But you’ll need to answer our question before you do.”
Her words took the lady aback a little, as it did Paul. Was this really the time to ask if they could use her bathroom? Then again, Paul thought it was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard come out of George’s mouth anyway.
“A question, you say?” Gretel responded. “You say you have a question for me?”
“That’s right,” Sofia said. “Just one. May I please use your bathroom?”
The old woman swung her gun away from Paul and pointed it off somewhere in the distance. She pulled the trigger, and a boom rocked the air and smoke puffed up from the gun. Gretel spun the pistol on her finger like a cowboy and smiled, her teeth looking like they’d chewed one too many chicken bones throughout the years.
“Yes, you may, my darling,” she said. “Yes, you may. Do come in.”
Sofia glanced back at Paul, who shrugged. They both headed up the steps of the rickety old porch.
Mothball had always prided herself on being a nice, genuine person who could see the good in everyone. Yes, she loved to tease and rib, but deep down she had a heart of gold, soft and snuggly and warm. At least, that’s what she liked to think.
But Sally irritated the living jeepers out of her. How in the bloody tarnations had she ended up with him on this mission? The man was like a walking bullhorn, he was.
“So, Miss Purty Legs,” he said as they walked down a long country road in the Twelfth Reality. “Whatcha thinkin’ this old bag of cornfeed’s gonna help us with?”
“Don’t know as yet,” she replied. “Just hopin’ I can hear a bloody word that comes out of his mouth over your yappin’ tongue. No offense, of course.”
Sally bellowed his deep, booming laugh. “None taken, missy. None taken. You should be used to yappin’ after hanging out with that friend a’yorn. Rutger could talk the ear off an elephant.”
Mothball couldn’t help it—she laughed too. Sally always knew how to make her smile eventually. “The wee little fat man can talk, no doubt about it.”
“Anyhoo, why we startin’ with this farm boy again?”
Though she could swear she’d already explained this to him, Mothball did so again. “He’s not really a Realitant, but he’s a friend of ours. Lives out in the boonies so as he can keep tabs better without worryin’ over communications and such. Watches over the world, he does. Has every satellite and radio and cell service you can dream up in this quaint little Reality. We pay him right nicely, too. He’ll know what the goings-on are about.”
“Goings-on are about?” Sally repeated. “What the heckamajibber does that mean?”
“We need to find what’s the trouble here. We’re on a research mission, silly bones. Clean out them bloody ears, would ya? Master George explained it all right nicely. Gathering information, we are.”
“Well, I sho ’nuff knew that! I’m just tryin’ to figger out how you people speak in them fancy lands a’yorn.”