Free McMummy by Betsy Byars

twisting with embarrassment to get away. Pine Cone rubbed around the back of his legs.
    But then, as soon as Mr. Hunter drove away, and he and his mother began to clean the yard of Crumb Castle, the thought of the greenhouse returned … and the dread.
    If there had been this much damage to their trees, he thought, the greenhouse could not have escaped unharmed.
    “I’ll have to go check the greenhouse, Mom. It’s probably ruined.”
    “You don’t have to go right now. There’s nothing you can do, Mozie.”
    “There might be.”
    “I haven’t let myself think about that greenhouse.”
    “I thought of it all night.”
    “Well, it’s just plants. Plants can be replaced. Human beings can’t.”
    “But—”
    “You and I are alive and well—and, Mozie—” She took him by the shoulders and turned him to her. She looked into his face. “That’s not true of everybody in this county. That trailer court behind the laundry is wiped off the face of the earth. I hear there are whole airplanes up in the trees at the airport. Mrs. Miller told me—”
    Her list of dooms was interrupted by a triumphant yell from the street, and they turned to see Batty arriving on his bicycle. For once he looked more cheerful than Mozie.
    “I’m free!” he cried, coming to a stop on the slick grass.
    “Good.” Mrs. Mozer turned to Mozie. “Now Batty can go with you to the greenhouse. That way it won’t seem so bad if it’s damaged.”
    “I want to go, Mrs. Mozer,” Batty said. “I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
    But now, as they neared the greenhouse, Batty was speaking less positively. “If the greenhouse has been destroyed—I mean, I hope it hasn’t—”
    “It has,” Mozie interrupted with flat certainty.
    “Well, if it has been destroyed, then …”
    “Then what?” Mozie prompted.
    “Then let’s cut the pod open and see what was inside,” Batty finished in a rush.
    Mozie gave his friend a look—not the look, but a look of displeasure—but Batty didn’t notice. “I cannot spend the rest of my life wondering what was inside that pod!” Batty said.
    “Well, I want to know too …”
    “Then let’s do it. If it’s dead—it’ll be like an autopsy on TV. We’ll be doing mankind a favor.”
    As they stepped into the clearing, they both fell silent. The greenhouse lay before them in total ruin.
    The wind seemed to have hit the greenhouse broadside, sweeping broken glass and plants into the forest, and the hail had done the rest. Vegetables were smashed into pulp, mashed so badly that there was no telling what they had once been.
    The pipe that connected the sprinkler system had burst, and a fountain of water shot, geyserlike, into the air. Gradually it washed the debris deeper into the forest.
    Shards of glass were everywhere and the drops of water trapped beneath gave the impression the boys were approaching a lake of ice.
    Glass crunched beneath their feet as they walked forward, and Mozie felt as if he were walking into a nightmare.
    They paused at the edge of the geyser’s reach. Batty gave a low whistle. “Yesterday this was a regular greenhouse,” he said, “with plants that could save the world.”
    “I know,” Mozie answered, remembering the last time he had seen it.
    “They’re calling it a killer storm and they’re right. I’m going this way.”
    Batty headed for the rear of the greenhouse, skirting the worst of the damage. Mozie followed.
    “That’s the plant,” Mozie said, looking at what had once been a corner of the greenhouse.
    Batty stopped beside him.
    The roots of the huge plant had been pulled from the soft earth, and the plant itself—or what was left of it—lay on its side, toppled. Mozie thought of the picture in Richie’s coloring book where that vine lay dying on the ground.
    Stripped of its leaves, the stem seemed fragile. It had been severed in places and a dark brown pulp showed through the pale green of the outside.
    Batty circled the plant. “But where’s