By the Grace of Todd Read online

When he squinted his clear blue eyes and opened his hair-covered lips to speak, I was convinced: this was no ordinary person. “I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.”

  My heart thumped hard as those words sank down into me. Ever since Todd had brought my people into the light, we had been wronged and insulted. Even Todd, who Lewis was so sure would take care of everything, had allowed us to suffer at the hands of his barbaric friends. I wanted to believe in him like Lewis did—but he was making it really hard.

  I turned to look around the room and quickly spotted what I sought. While the larger Spud was engrossed in the adventures of Duke, I scrambled over to the large wooden structure that held what Max had called a “computer.”

  All I needed was to get up to the screen.

  But before I began my long climb, I paused and looked back at the screen Big Spud was watching.

  Perhaps I could get some inspiration from this Duke character.

  CHAPTER 15

  “What is that infernal sound?” said Lewis. He was perched in his favorite spot on my shoulder, watching Dragon Sensei episodes with me as I lay on my bed, trying to unwind from Max and Lucy’s visit.

  I checked the screen. Someone was inviting me to Skype: SpudIsAwesome. “Spud wants to talk to me?” I exclaimed, nearly knocking Lewis from his perch as I jolted upright. Fortunately, I caught the little guy just in time. “Sorry about that,” I murmured.

  “No apology is needed, Great Todd,” Lewis said, shaking as he stood and spoke into my ear. “But I do not think we should invite the terrible one known as Spud into our home quarters.”

  “Shh . . . it’ll be fine,” I replied. But then I picked him up and put him on the bed next to me just in case.

  I clicked the mouse to answer, but when the picture came up, there was no one on the other end, only a desk and an empty keyboard. Spud was way too big to miss. What the heck? There was a tiny picture of me in one corner, so my webcam was clearly working. I put my face up close to the screen to see if I was missing something.

  “AAAUUUGGHHH!”

  A tiny she-Toddlian catapulted onto Spud’s keyboard, then bounced against the screen, her face mushed into it.

  “Persephone?” Lewis called, crawling on top of my leg. “Is that you?”

  I recognized the girl in front of me—the Toddlian with pigtails who’d glared at me after Camo had scared them. “Pay attention, pilgrim!” she drawled, jabbing her finger at the screen. “Yours truly and my amigo, Herman, have been sold to those sorry hombres, Dick and Spud. While we sit here swappin’ words, those scalawags are in Spud’s ma’s office, Googling (whatever in tarnation that is) the word butts.”

  I chuckled and gave Lewis a better view back on top of my shoulder. “Lewis, you didn’t tell me that some of your kinfolk came from the Wild West.” Persephone was straight out of the OK Corral, clothes and all. Somebody at Spud’s place must have been watching a lot of Westerns.

  She let loose on me. “Oh, you think that’s funny, do you, you mossy-horned dogie?” She stood on the G key with her hands on her hips. “I ken see I’m jest gonna have to say it flat out: Those rotten cusses are drivin’ us hard, makin’ us do all kinds of things that ain’t right.”

  “What things?” Lewis’s voice was tight with concern.

  “Ant-jousting with teeth pickin’ sticks, that’s what. And makin’ us drink Mountain Dew until we’re drunker ’n skunks and don’t know dog from sic ’em. And makin’ us mine inside their nasty noses for gold nuggets. And—”

  “Stop!” Lewis yelled. “Forbear, I beg you. I cannot stand to hear it. Great Todd, you must intercede for my friends. They are, after all, your people too.”

  I leaned back from the laptop. “Look, I’m really sorry, uh . . .”

  “Persephone,” Lewis reminded me.

  “Persephone,” I said. “But there’s only so much I can do. If you haven’t noticed, those ‘hombres’ are older and a whole lot bigger than me.”

  She sighed. “Well, there are some things a man jest cain’t run away from.”

  “I’m not a man. I’m a sixth grader.”

  “But yer our leader,” she argued. “What kind of leader leaves the herd when there’s a puma on the prowl?”

  Lewis slid down my sleeve and ran up to the screen. Of course, the camera couldn’t see him there. “Oh, Persephone! Do not say such things. Surely the Great Todd knows what is best for you and Herman.”

  She wasn’t impressed. “Oh yeah? Does he think it’s best for us to eat nuthin’ but expired fish grub that makes us upchuck till we nearly kick the bucket?”

  Lewis gasped.

  Persephone threw her hat onto the keyboard and scowled at me. “That cotton-headed greenhorn may think yer some kind of god, but it don’t figure to me. How do we know you ain’t a charlatan that jest stumbled upon a filthy stocking?” She shot arrows with her eyes. “Hmmm? Face it, Lewis, out here a man settles his own problems. You cain’t rely on that overgrown thumb sucker you serve to get off his lazy carcass. We’re on our own.”

  I was about to tell her I hadn’t sucked my thumb in five years, when Mom called me to supper. “That’s my mom, gotta go!” I said, glad for an excuse to get away from the crazed cowgirl.

  “That’s right. Hide your lily liver behind Mama’s apron. C’mon, Todd! All battles are fought by skeered men who’d rather be someplace else! Doncha know courage is being skeered to death but saddling up anyway?”

  I leaned back toward the screen. “Look, you act like I don’t want to help you. I do, but if I go against Max in this, your Great Todd will be annihilated! Please just try to hold on until after the science fair. The first day of presentations is tomorrow, so it won’t be long. Max won’t have any reason to keep your people after that. Okay?”

  She huffed, which I took for her answer.

  “Uh . . . night,” I said, hanging up. I trotted toward the kitchen, leaving Lewis on the keyboard. I needed some time to myself.

  After I wolfed down my tuna casserole and hid the peas in my napkin, I returned to my computer. Lewis looked at me silently, then climbed onto my hand and up my arm to nestle on my shoulder. “I know you will save your people, Great Todd,” he said quietly, almost sadly.

  Before I could get caught up in feeling guilty again, I clicked on the mouse to restart the latest download of Dragon Sensei: The Treachery of Emperor Oora. “You should pay attention to this. This is a great episode,” I told Lewis. “Oora gets what he deserves. He’s always whining about being the younger brother and not having any powers of his own, so he goes around stealing everyone else’s.”

  “Perhaps he needs a friend,” said Lewis. “No one should have to go through life alone.”

  I opened a Dr Pepper, and Lewis scrambled down my arm to investigate the can. “Oh! The Doctor is in!” He giggled at his own joke, and he sounded so funny, I laughed at him laughing.

  “Told you it was kind of addictive,” I said, dripping some into a Lego head so Lewis could have a drink.

  “Speaking of addictions,” he said as he drained the head, “I have observed that you grande humans waste mucho time watching other little humans on your screens. No wonder you have no muscles.”

  I ignored the comment about my wimpiness. “You’re using Spanish words again.”

  “Am I?” He erupted with a burp, which would have rattled the windows if he’d been regular-sized. His eyes went huge. “What was that?”

  “You burped. You should say ‘excuse me.’”

  “Why?”

  “It’s called manners.”

  “But I could not help it. Why do I need to be excused for something I cannot control?”

  How many times had I argued the same thing? “I dunno. I’m told it’s what polite people do.”

 
“Then Max and his friends are not polite people. They burp from their hindquarters and never apologize. In fact, they think it is delightful. And the odor is much more foul.”

  I chuckled. I had to admit, the little guy was funny. I wondered if all Toddlians were such characters.

  “Listen, I want to watch my show now. Saki, Oora’s niece, is about to find her father’s mustache in the Swamp of Souls and disguise herself as him to avenge his death.” I restarted the video again.

  Lewis cocked his head and pushed his glasses back up on his nose. “I do not mean to doubt your wisdom, Great Todd, but why do you watch it if you know what happens? Is this not a waste of time?”

  “That’s the whole point,” I said, wadding up some Kleenex for him to sit on. “I’m trying to chill here.”

  But the truth was, I was finding it kind of hard to concentrate. Usually I couldn’t pry my eyes off the screen during Dragon Sensei. But now I found my eyes wandering around my room and my mind going back to Persephone’s words . . . What kind of leader leaves the herd when there’s a puma on the prowl?

  Lewis stared at the screen, where Saki knelt, weeping over the place where her father had died. Poisonous black mushrooms with skeleton faces sprung up wherever her tears plopped.

  “Those are Boom Shrooms,” I explained. “She wears them on her robe and throws them at her enemies.”

  “The art in this show is very . . . unique,” Lewis observed. I think he was trying to say something positive. “Great Todd, please don’t take this the wrong way, but . . . I sense that Max is not a Dragon Sensei fan?”

  “Um . . .” I clicked the mouse to stop the video. Maybe watching this was a bad idea. The last thing I needed was for one of the Toddlians to slip and tell Max what a big Dragon Sensei lover I was. “No, he’s not.”

  Lewis looked confused. “But you and Master Duddy—you are both fans?”

  I frowned, surprised that he even knew who Duddy was. I must have mentioned him when I wasn’t thinking about it. “Well, I mean, I guess I’m kind of old for it but Duddy really—” That’s when it hit me. “OH NO!”

  Lewis jumped to his feet. “Great Todd?”

  “Hold tight,” I said, beating it to the front door. “Party prep with Duddy!” I yelled over my shoulder to Mom as I left.

  I tore up the three blocks to Duddy’s, ignoring Lewis’s pleas for me to “Slow down, for the love of all things tiny!”

  “Ohnonononononono,” I panted as I ran. I rang Duddy’s doorbell and knocked for good measure. No response, but I could hear voices in the backyard. I knocked on the door again.

  This time it opened a crack.

  Duddy stuck his nose out, like he was sniffing the air. He started to shut the door, but I wedged my foot in it. “Hey, Dud! I’m sorry I’m late. I really meant to come but I got busy with . . .”

  The door opened wider. “With what?” Duddy frowned at me and crossed his arms.

  I swallowed hard. “My mom needed—YOWCH!” Lewis yanked a bunch of hair out by the roots. “Stop that!” I hissed. Who did he think he was, my conscience?

  Duddy scowled. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Uh . . .” I remembered Max’s warning not to tell anyone about the Toddlians. “No one . . . myself.” Lewis yanked again, and I cringed. “Uh . . . look, Max was over working on our science project. I lost track of time. Sorry.”

  Duddy sighed and his shoulders slumped. He looked over his fence toward the voices in the backyard. I recognized them now.

  Ike and Wendell. I really hoped Ike had new underwear by this point.

  “Let me in already,” I said, grabbing the doorknob.

  “It’s okay, Todd.” Duddy stared at my feet. “I know who my real friends are now.”

  I was crafting my comeback when the door slammed in my face.

  I stood there for a few minutes, listening to Duddy as he ran back out to join Ike and Wendell.

  “So you are back for more, you overgrown lizard!” Ike HOO HOOed and HI-YAHed, then screeched, “Prepare to die by radioactive goo, and the prowess of Mongee-Poo!” There was a massive snort, like he was sucking up a huge loogie, followed by “Ha . . . ha . . . CHOO!”

  “Aauugh!” screamed Duddy. “You fool! I will now show you what happens to those who cross the mighty Saki! And I’m a Giant Salamander, not a lizard!” He made explosion noises, and green stink bomb smoke trailed around to the driveway where I stood.

  “Oooh!” Lewis said into my ear. “If you don’t mind me saying so, Great Todd, this sounds like fun.”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “It does.”

  Then I walked back to my house, the sounds of Duddy and his new friends echoing in my head.

  CHAPTER 16

  LEWIS

  I had angered the Great Todd. Even my copious compliments on his cowlick did not soothe his angry brow. He barely said a word to me after we got back from Master Duddy’s. Instead, he lay back down on his bed, flipped open the device known as a “computer,” and glumly watched that oddly colored visual feast he’d previously been so enthused about—Dragon Sensei. Then, just three minutes into the episode, he announced, “Forget this,” and told me that it was time to retire for the night, which surprised me—I would have thought that the Great Todd would have wanted to discover what happened to Oora and Saki on the show.

  Now, I lay on his pillow, observing my wise and gentle creator as he slept, his nose a lonely mountain spangled all over with brown dots, his mouth a gaping cavern that uttered such tremendous noises and vibrations, his twisted forest of hair, the caves that were his ears—all of the features that made the god Todd so mighty. The fact he let me repose next to him showed his generosity and kindness.

  I began to consider how I would approach the Great Todd about rescuing Persephone, Herman, and the rest of Toddlandia when I heard a resounding noise.

  What was it? A bird? A plane? No! It was SUPER-BABY! The door squeaked open and the Adorable One They Call Daisy crawled into the room with her blanket tucked into her sleeping clothes, like a cape.

  Why was she out of her cage at this hour? Ah, this must be what Todd’s mother meant at dinner when she told his father, “Daisy can climb out of her crib now. How are we supposed to keep her in it?”

  Caped Daisy looked at the Great One as if checking to make sure he slept, then crawled over to his building site in the corner. Hundreds of metal pieces converged to form something called a “skyscraper.” Was she going to scale it and beat her chest like the hairy black beast I’d seen on the screen at Max’s dwelling?

  No, she was not climbing the tower; she was talking to it. I rappelled down the Great One’s bedclothes and ran over to where Daisy conversed with the building.

  I could not believe what I was hearing. The Adorable One grunted and gurgled in fluent Toddlian! No wonder the humans could not understand what she said. Maybe I could consult her about how to regain her brother’s favor?

  “Exactly as I feared,” she muttered, trying in vain to connect two metal shapes. “That imbecilic brother of mine has lost so many pieces, I’ll never be able to build the DAISYNATOR THREE THOUSAND as I’d planned. There aren’t even enough pieces to construct the Binkie Boomerang. Succotash!” She put down the objects and plugged the pacification device into her mouth. “Nom nom nom nom.”

  After a few seconds, Daisy spat out her soother, letting it dangle from a ribbon attached to her collar. She pawed through a pile of pieces and murmured, “I’ll teach that overgrown bumbler to interfere with my nefarious plans!”

  On second thought, I realized, maybe she was not the best person to consult about pleasing the Great Todd.

  I watched from deep in the carpet as she crawled methodically back and forth, embedding the floor with pieces of metal, pointy sides up. “Hee hee hee hee,” she giggled. “That will give the Incompetent One a rude awakening! Hee hee hee hee hee!”r />
  She crawled with much care around the sharp pieces and exited the room. I remained frozen until I heard her “nom noms” disappear down the hall. Then I set to work picking up the pieces.

  Great Todd had an enemy under his own roof, and he did not know it! These human creatures were complicated. Even the smallest of their race hid treachery in their hearts. But Todd was lucky; Lewis would protect him!

  As devious as Daisy was, she had given me an idea of how to honor her noble brother. I used all my strength to click two magnetized units together the way she had done. Aha! It would take all night and cost me more precious sleep, but I had finally found a way to show the Great Todd my unchanging devotion!

  CHAPTER 17

  “Great Todd . . .” I heard a whisper in my ear.

  “Great Todd . . .”

  “Five more minutes . . .”

  “Great Todd!!!!!!!!!!”

  I threw back the covers and saw someone standing at the end of my bed. “Holy frijoles!” I yelled.

  “Ah, you are learning Spanish too, Great One!” said a familiar voice from my shoulder.

  I jumped. “How did you get there? How did he”—I pointed to the man at the end of my bed—“get there?”

  “You like it? It is my monument to you, Great Todd. I labored all night constructing it, but you are worthy!”

  I grabbed my glasses from the nightstand and scooted cautiously to the end of the bed to get a closer look. I realized now that Lewis was right—the person wasn’t a person. It was metal and, upon closer inspection, made out of my erector set. The weird shapes and slanty lines made it look like its features were sliding off its face. But now I could make out a cowlick and glasses . . .

  “It’s me?” I murmured in disbelief.

  Lewis scrambled to right himself on my shoulder. “Do you approve of my offering?” he asked. “Is there anything else I can do for you, your Greatness? Would you like me to build your image a friend?”