Tamora Carter Read online

  She glared after them until they vanished among the trees. Grimacing, she adjusted her bag and stretched her shoulder. Once she was sure the goblins weren’t coming back, she turned and started home.

  First Andre and the other kids disappeared, and then goblins showed up? What the heck was going on?

  Chapter 2: Missing Friends

  Tamora spent the whole trip home looking over her shoulder. By the time she rolled up her driveway, her body felt like one giant, throbbing bruise.

  She sat on the concrete porch step and took off her skates. Movement in the yard made her jump, but it was just a squirrel. She searched the shadows, then looked up and down the street one last time before heading inside in her socks.

  From the smell, Dad was making kimchi scrambled eggs again. He worked long overnight shifts, so supper for Tamora and her older brother Mac was breakfast for Dad. He called it bupper, or sometimes “burper,” which always got a laugh from Mac.

  “Is that you, Tam?” Dad’s voice echoed from the kitchen.

  “Nope. I’m a goblin. I’m here to eat your pets.”

  “Could you start with the pigeon my daughter keeps in her room?”

  “Dad!”

  “If you’re not interested in pigeon, these eggs will be ready in about five minutes.”

  She moved into the living room, where Mac had spread a minefield of Legos over the carpet. She tiptoed to the couch and sat down to see what he was working on. He’d clipped upward-pointing swords and spears onto linked green baseplates, like a farmer’s field of plastic weaponry. A large, partially-constructed yellow woman was stepping from a blue baseplate onto the blades. Scattered red bricks beneath her feet looked like drops of blood.

  “What are you building?”

  He didn’t answer, of course. Nor did he look up from his work. But after several seconds, he pointed toward the television, which was playing Disney’s The Little Mermaid.

  Where most fourteen-year-old boys were into sports and girls and things like that, Mac was obsessed with fairy tales and folk stories. He liked to draw or build characters from whatever story he was fixated on. Tamora remembered him going on about the Hans Christian Anderson version of The Little Mermaid last week, and how the mermaid was cursed to endure pain like knives stabbing her feet with every step she took on land.

  Mac chewed absently on a Lego spear as he worked. Appa, the family’s sheepdog, was curled up beside him like a giant furry black-and-white beanbag chair. The dog was so deaf she hadn’t heard Tamora come home.

  Like all their pets, Appa was a rescue. Nobody had wanted to adopt a deaf dog with matted fur from the humane society. Nobody but Tamora, who’d homed in on the shaggy beast and refused to budge until Dad signed the adoption papers.

  Over on the recliner, an orange cat stretched, then started sneezing so hard he fell out of the chair. He regained his feet and licked snot from his nose, then padded over to the couch as if nothing had happened.

  Tamora had found the long-haired Himalayan roaming the streets a year ago. She’d named him Smoosh for his scrunched-in face. With his patchy fur and constantly running nose, Dad had described the pathetic cat as “exactly the kind of animal Tam would bring home.”

  Smoosh purred in anticipation as he flopped down on Tamora’s leg. She scratched behind his ears. Within seconds, the pink tip of his tongue was poking from his mouth, and he’d begun to drool.

  “Mac, in all the stories you’ve read, do goblins ever steal people? Or…” She swallowed. “Eat them?”

  He kept building, pressing bits of what looked like seaweed onto his mermaid, then reached for his iPad. His fingers raced over the screen, and the software’s artificial British-sounding voice said, “There’s the 1986 movie Labyrinth. The goblin king Jareth stole a baby from a girl named Sarah. Maurice Sendak wrote a picture book called Outside Over There. Goblins steal Ida’s little sister and replace her with a changeling, a baby made of ice. The book was based partly on the Lindbergh kidnapping on March 1, 1932, and was one of the inspirations for Labyrinth.”

  Mac rarely spoke aloud, finding it easier and less stressful to write or to type. He’d never explained why he chose the UK voice setting for his text-to-speech app, but he’d used it for as long as Tamora could remember. The software showed a split screen. He could type out his words or click common phrases on one side, and the other showed his words in large type for people to read.

  “There are lots of stories about goblins and other fairies taking babies and leaving changelings,” he continued, rocking in place as he typed. “People used the stories to explain children who were born different.”

  “Do goblins and fairies only take babies?”

  “Tam Lin is one of the most famous stories about a grown man being stolen. Not by goblins, but by fairies. It’s more than four hundred years old, and—”

  “What about older kids?” Tamora interrupted.

  Mac hesitated longer this time. Normally, Tamora didn’t mind waiting for him to organize his thoughts, but tonight it was all she could do to keep from snapping at him.

  She knew pushing Mac would only upset him, so she clenched her jaw and kept petting Smoosh, even as his drool-puddle spread.

  “Is this about Andre?” Mac finally asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” It couldn’t be coincidence, could it? Three people disappeared, and then two goblins showed up, stealing stuff and complaining about humans being cursed?

  Except the goblins had run away from her, a twelve-year-old girl. How could they have overpowered Andre, let alone the other two missing kids? Kevin Lord was a football player, and two years older than Tamora. He would’ve torn through the goblins like Appa through a flower bed.

  Mac kept building, but Tamora knew he was listening. He was always listening. Where most people could filter out distractions or focus on one voice, Mac heard it all, even if he couldn’t process it. It was the difference between eating dinner one bite at a time and having it all force-fed to you in a single mouthful.

  Mac would be starting ninth grade next month. He was large for his age, with black hair and a few spots of acne on his nose and forehead. He usually wore khakis and too-tight polo shirts with the buttons cut off to keep him from chewing them.

  “What do you think happened to Andre and the others?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer. Either he didn’t have any ideas, or else he found it too upsetting to talk about. Possibly both.

  “You didn’t say whether goblins ate people.”

  “It depends on the story, but not usually.”

  Someone needed to pass that information along to the goblins Tamora had met tonight.

  “Burper is served,” Dad called, earning a giggle from Mac.

  Tamora lifted Smoosh from her lap and grimaced at the drool spot he’d left behind. Mac kept working. He’d join them as soon as he reached a good stopping point.

  The stone-topped island in the middle of the kitchen served as the makeshift table for family meals. The instant Tamora sat down, Dad frowned and asked, “What happened to your lip?”

  “I took a spill at practice.”

  “Do you want ice?”

  She shook her head.

  “If I’d known, I would have made something less spicy.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Dad had been adopted from South Korea as a baby and raised in Tennessee, so his English was perfect save for a slight drawl. He hadn’t started teaching himself Korean or researching the country of his birth until college. He still went by his American name of Scot, but he and Mom had given both children Korean middle names. Soo-jin for Tamora, and Hyun-jin for her brother.

  He was right about the spiciness. The eggs diluted it a bit, and Tamora tried to keep from touching her lower lip with her food, but by the third bite, her cut was burning. She took a sip of milk and sucked her lip into her mouth, letting the milk extinguish the worst of the fire.

  Mac appeared in the doorway and sniffed warily
r />   “Don’t worry,” said Dad. “No onions, peppers, or meat, and I kept your eggs separate.”

  Mac was the pickiest eater Tamora knew. He couldn’t stand mixing most foods together, or even letting them touch one another, and he’d starve before letting certain foods touch his lips. He sat down beside Tamora, hunched over his plate, and started eating.

  Tamora set down her fork and, as casually as she could, asked, “Dad, has anyone come into the hospital lately talking about seeing…monsters?”

  “Nothing unusual. We had one lady last month rambling about toilet gremlins. We had to do a 72-hour psych referral so they could get her back on her meds. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason,” she said quickly. Tamora wasn’t about to risk being drugged or hospitalized. She could see the worry in his eyes, behind his rectangular, black-framed glasses. Since Andre disappeared, he’d been treating her like fragile china. “Hey, didn’t you say you once had a patient who’d been drinking silver?”

  “Colloidal silver, that’s right. She thought it would protect her from cancer. The only effect was that it turned her skin a weird blue-gray color.”

  “Did it do anything else?” Tamora asked. “Like mess up her teeth or change her blood?”

  “Nothing like that. She looked like an android, but otherwise she was perfectly healthy.” He rubbed the small tuft of beard beneath his lip. He called it a soul patch, but to Tamora, it looked like a short, fat, black caterpillar had hitched a ride on his chin. “Why the sudden interest in life at the hospital?”

  “Just something I saw on the internet,” she lied. “A list of crazy emergency room stories.”

  Maybe there was some other explanation for the so-called goblins, but deep down, she didn’t believe it. Those teeth, the blue blood…she knew in her gut they were real, just as she knew there had to be a connection to Andre’s disappearance. Whatever was going on, Tamora intended to find out.

  * * *

  Tamora’s bedroom was in the back corner of the first floor, meaning it was always too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. It smelled like birdseed and feathers. Her pigeon, Woodstock, cooed from inside his cage as she entered and turned on the light. She’d found the bird during a school trip to the Michigan Historical Library. His wing had been broken, and the poor thing had been hiding behind a garbage can, crying pitifully. She’d used part of her lunch to lure him out.

  Her teacher had refused to let her take an injured pigeon onto the bus. Tamora had refused to leave the bird there to die. In the end, Dad ended up driving to the library to pick them up. Tamora got detention, but she’d saved Woodstock’s life.

  The vet said he’d never fly again, but he seemed happy here in her room, where an endless supply of food and water magically appeared in his cage every day. He was particularly fond of dried peas.

  She cracked open the window to get some air moving through the room, then sat down at the small desk beneath her loft bed and took out her phone. She hesitated a long time, thumbs hovering over the screen, before pulling up the texts Andre had sent her the night he disappeared.

  Andre: “I’ve been thinking how to celebrate the start of seventh grade. How’d you feel about helping me dump a hundred goldfish in the fountain the night before school starts?”

  Andre: “I can’t decide between that and turning crickets loose in the vents.”

  Andre: “Hey, when you come by, remind me to show you the expansion pack I found for Dragon’s War IV. It’s got six new epic spells, and an awesome soundtrack. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head.”

  Andre: “See you tomorrow after your practice!”

  Dad had told her about Andre’s disappearance the next morning. She hadn’t believed him, thinking this had to be another of Andre’s stupid pranks. It wasn’t until Dad turned on the news and she saw the school photos of Andre, Kevin, and Elizabeth all labeled as “Missing” in big red block letters that it sank in. She’d turned it off when they switched to footage of police dogs searching the yard around Andre’s house.

  Andre’s humor was one of the things that had drawn them together, back in second grade. That was right after Mom had left. They’d just moved to Grand River from Dearborn.

  On the first day of school, she’d found herself in the cafeteria with a Tupperware container full of Dad’s Napa cabbage kimchi while everyone else was scarfing down sandwiches and Lunchables and chips. Her meal of fermented cabbage, radish, and onions stood out like a fart in church.

  “What is that?” asked a pale kid with a smear of grape jelly on his T-shirt. He plopped down in the seat across from her. “It looks like seaweed and puke.”

  Her cheeks felt hot. She ignored him and jammed her plastic fork into the kimchi.

  Several other kids joined the first. A brown-skinned boy with a round face and a gap-toothed grin leaned closer. “What’s it taste like?”

  Tamora pushed the Tupperware container across the table. “Try it and find out.”

  “Don’t do it, Andre!” said Grape Jelly. “My sister says Chinese food is made from cats.”

  “It’s Korean,” Tamora snapped. “And your sister’s an idiot.”

  “At least we don’t eat seaweed puke!”

  “That’s because you’re scared.” She folded her arms. “Go ahead and take a bite. I dare you.”

  Andre grinned. “I’ll do it.”

  Before she could warn him, he’d speared an enormous forkful of kimchi and shoved it into his mouth.

  He chewed twice, and his triumphant grin disappeared. He opened his mouth and gasped like a fish out of water. He leaned over the table, snatched Tamora’s thermos, and poured cherry Kool-Aid into his mouth.

  Tamora and the other kids howled with laughter.

  Andre finished drinking, slammed the thermos down, and stared at Tamora with newfound respect. He grabbed a napkin and blew his nose. “Wow! Mike, you gotta try this.”

  Grape jelly boy—Mike—shook his head. “No way.”

  “Wimp.” Tamora reclaimed her food and took a bite, doing her best to act like it was no big deal, but secretly loving their awestruck expressions.

  “We should bring some in for Ms. Herford,” said Andre. “Can you imagine? You can tell her people give food where you come from, and it would be an insult if she doesn’t eat the whole thing.”

  “I come from Dearborn,” said Tamora.

  “She doesn’t know that.”

  They’d been friends ever since. Tamora never managed to convince Dad to let her take a batch of kimchi to their teacher, but Andre found other ways of livening up the second grade, like his chocolate cupcakes that were actually frosted cakes of baked meatloaf.

  Tamora pulled a news printout off the bulletin board on the wall beside her desk. She’d memorized the entire article. Three photos were printed in color beneath the headline, State Police Join Search for Missing Children.

  Kevin Lord, Andre Stewart, and Elizabeth “Lizzy” O’Neil. Lizzy was the youngest, and would have started fourth grade next month. She was described as a shy girl, and a bit of a bookworm. Kevin was a football player and straight-A student.

  She skipped to the part about Andre, who’d last been seen at home wearing a gray Power Rangers T-shirt and black jeans. Because Andre was into video games, the police had spent a lot of time examining the family’s computers, in case he’d gotten mixed up with an online predator.

  They’d even questioned Tamora, asking if Andre had been happy at home, if he’d ever talked about running away, if she’d noticed anything unusual about him before he disappeared.

  What would the police say if she called to report a pair of goblins who’d assaulted her with scraps of garbage before running off to try to eat beagles? They’d probably lock her up.

  She’d have to find the goblins herself.

  She could head out tomorrow morning after Dad got home and went to bed. She’d start at the skating rink to see if the goblins had dropped anything that could help her track them down. Th
en she could check the woods behind Schoolcraft. Maybe she could figure out where they’d gone when they ran off.

  The bedroom door opened, and Dad poked his head in. “I’m leaving for work. Don’t stay up too late.”

  “I won’t.”

  He stepped inside, and his attention went to the article in Tamora’s hands. His lips and eyes tightened. He squeezed her shoulder. “They’ll find him, Tam.”

  She didn’t answer. How could the police find him if they didn’t know what they were dealing with?

  A low, wet growl made her jump. Smoosh stood in the doorway, his body arched like a croquet hoop. His tail lashed from side to side.

  Woodstock flapped his wings in alarm. He jumped into his water dish and splashed lukewarm water onto the carpet in his own peculiar version of self-defense.

  Smoosh ignored the bird. He crept across the room and jumped onto her windowsill to stare at something in the backyard.

  “Must be a squirrel or a rabbit.” Dad kissed her on the head. “Love you.”

  “Love you too.” As soon as he’d shut the door, she got up to see what Smoosh was so upset about. She’d seen him stalk animals through the window before, including a white-tailed deer who’d wandered up to the fence. This felt different.

  Patches of Smoosh’s fur stood up like he’d tried to lick an electrical socket. He was angry, so intent on whatever was out there, that he didn’t notice Tamora getting up. When she touched his back, he jumped and hissed.

  She jerked her hand away. “Chill, furball.”

  Out back, a hummingbird feeder hung on a pole near her window. A few small pine trees grew along the inside of the fence. Appa’s faded orange doghouse sat near an old swing set neither she nor Mac used anymore.

  Someone darted from the trees to hide behind the doghouse. A second figure followed.

  Smoosh growled.

  Tamora held her breath, her heart pounding. She couldn’t make out their faces in the darkness, but she recognized the long limbs and frantic movements.

  She didn’t have to go searching for the goblins. They’d found her.