The van jumped the curb at the curve in the road, bumped over Mrs. Dugan’s front yard, and crashed into her oak tree. The three Spook Patrol guys pulled up and stood hands on hips, looking at the van.
“Honest to gosh, it was an accident,” Glo said.
I pushed Glo back into the house and closed and locked the door. “The driver obviously forgot to put his parking brake on,” I said. “That’s our story, and we’re sticking with it.”
Diesel was frying grilled cheese when we got back to the kitchen. “And?” he asked.
“The Spook Patrol van took off down the street all by its lonesome,” I told him.
“Nice,” Diesel said.
He flipped a sandwich onto a plate, handed it to Glo, and put a second sandwich into the fry pan.
“You can cook,” I said to him.
“No,” Diesel said. “I can’t cook. I can make a sandwich if no one else is going to make it for me.”
“I bet I could find a cooking spell,” Glo said.
Diesel and I answered in unison. “No!”
Diesel gave the second grilled cheese to Carl, and I took over the fry pan.
“It really ticks me off that Wulf is going to get Mark’s charm,” I said to Diesel. “We should have been more aggressive with Mark. We let him slip through our fingers.”
“Roughing up Normals is frowned upon by the BUM,” Diesel said. “Especially if the Normals haven’t done anything wrong.”
“What about Wulf? Wulf kidnaps people and does who-the-heck-knows-what to them.”
“Wulf doesn’t work for the BUM. He has his own set of rules.”
“He killed a man. Why aren’t you ordered to capture him or something? Why are you only authorized to stop him from getting the Stones?”
“Wulf has friends in very high places. Beyond that, I can only assume there are circumstances that justify my orders.”
“You don’t look like a guy who would be good at taking orders,” I said, plating his sandwich.
Diesel fixed his brown eyes on me. “It’s a struggle.”
“Maybe I need to go to wizard school,” Glo said. “Someplace where I could take a course in spell recitation. Do you suppose there’s a wizard school? Maybe an online course?”
“Wizards aren’t real,” I said to Glo. “There are no wizards. And wizard school would be a big scam.”
“Criminy,” Glo said. “Just let m
e know how you feel.” She looked at Diesel. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know any wizards personally.”
“But do you think there could be wizards?”
Diesel finished his sandwich and put his dish in the dishwasher. “Could be covers a lot of ground.”
“Well, I think there could be wizards,” Glo told him. “I bet Ripple was a wizard. And I bet the book is magical.”
Diesel got a bottle of water from the refrigerator. “Have you ever let Lizzy hold it?”
“No!” Glo scooped the book off the counter and handed it to me. “Do you feel anything?”