Free Fenzy by Robert Liparulo Page B

Rockford Files . Slam on your brakes and crank the wheel. You can turn the car around without slowing down.”
    Keal threw him a quick glance. “I’m not Jim Rockford.”
    At the first bend in the road, he stopped.
    The three of them stared through the windshield at the dust cloud the car had made. Slowly it settled, revealing Phemus trotting toward them. He was still a good distance away.
    “What was that back there?” Xander said. “Stopping to put up the door. Come on.”
    “I didn’t want him in the house,” Keal said. “When we go back, he could be hiding somewhere.”
    “Till Time sucks him back,” David said.
    Keal looked at him in the mirror and smiled. “Forgot about that,” he said. He turned the wheel, put the car in drive, and drove around the bend. When David looked, Phemus was still coming.

CHAPTER

twenty-one

    F RIDAY , 2:02 P. M .
    They drove through town and out the other side. Keal followed the winding road past the turnoff to Taksidian’s Pinedale house, then turned around. Cruising slowly back into town, he stopped at a gas station, where they all used the bathroom, and Keal bought a bagful of first aid supplies.
    Back in the car, he looked at his watch. “Think Phemus is back in his own time now?”
    Xander looked back at David, who shook his head no. “We’ve been able to stay in the worlds thirty, forty minutes,” Xander said.
    “Longer,” David said, “when we went from world to world without returning to the house first.”
    Keal snapped his head toward him. “You did that?”
    David had forgotten Keal didn’t know. It seemed like such a long time ago when they went to the Civil War world, then went through the wrong portal to the Alps. After that, they had ended up in a torture chamber. When they finally got home, Keal had been knocked out and Phemus and Taksidian had been in the house. And then they had followed Phemus to Atlantis.
    It had all started shortly after using the locker portal to get home from school during first period. So . . . David calcu-lated . . . seven-forty a.m. until now. Less than five hours! He felt five years older than he did when he woke up that morning.
    Xander began telling Keal about it. How David had found the Civil War doctor and somehow changed history. Keal confirmed what the boys already knew: that the war ended in 1865 and cost about 600,000 lives.
    “But David remembers it differently,” Xander said. “He said it ended in 1875 and over two million people died in it.”
    When Keal scowled at him, David said, “That’s what I said right after the change. I don’t remember that anymore.”
    “Like Jesse,” Keal said. “He said he could remember the old history, before he changed it, for only a little while, then it was gone.”
    “Right,” Xander said.
    Keal scratched his head. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get my mind around that, actually changing history.” He looked around at the world outside the car and sighed.
    David thought he was about to say something profound and wise, but what he said was, “You guys feel like ice cream? I could really use some ice cream right about now.”
    Xander grinned. “You sound more and more like Dad all the time.”
    “Hey,” Keal said, “great minds think alike.”
    They pulled into the drive-in diner, where the Kings had stopped for treats after the first day of school. They ordered, and while waiting for the waitress to bring their food to the car, the brothers told Keal more about the worlds they’d visited.
    “Atlantis!” Keal said when they reached that part. The wait-ress rapped on the window, and he jumped. He handed David a root beer float and Xander a chocolate cone. He licked his own cone as he listened to the rest of the boys’ story.
    Between sentences, they slurped and mmmm ’ed with plea-sure. David didn’t think anything had ever tasted so good as that float. Something about world-hopping and defying death made it the perfect reward.
    When they’d finished, Keal