"Elliot?"
He turned as Cami grabbed his arm. "I thought you were in the Underground," she said.
"The Underworld," he said. "I came back to check on my family."
"Thank goodness. Reed needs help."
"Reed? Where is he?"
For the first time ever, Elliot didn't care that Cami took his hand while she led him forward through the crowd. She was good at dodging people, and in no time they had made it to the front door of the Quack Shack. Through the main window they saw Reed on the floor, unconscious.
Elliot pushed on the door, but it wouldn't open.
"It's stuck," Cami said. "It jammed when the last sinkhole collapsed."
"Reed!" Elliot pounded on the window to wake up his brother, but Reed didn't move.
"We need to get some help." Cami stepped forward in the crowd. "Excuse me, please--" But everyone passed her by, in their own hurry to leave Main Street.
While her head was turned, Elliot closed his eyes and pictured the door opening. He didn't think "un-jam" was a word, but he couldn't think of any other word to describe what he wanted the door to do. He whispered that to himself, then checked the door again. Something dark purple began oozing from the door near its handle. He leaned low and sniffed. It was sweet and fruity. On a guess, Elliot put a finger to the stuff and tasted it. Sure enough--grape jam! It was sort of gross, but the jam got into the lock and loosened the door enough for Elliot to inch it open.
"We're in," he called to Cami. "C'mon!"
She ran to help him with the door but then pulled her hand back. "Is that jam?"
"Don't ask," he said.
They rushed inside the Quack Shack and called again for help, but nobody answered. Reed was there alone, clearly because he was the only employee who thought the Quack Shack would be serving duck burgers while the entire city was collapsing.
Elliot dropped to his knees and shook his brother's arm. "Reed!"
Cami pressed her fingers to the side of Reed's neck to feel a pulse. "He's alive," she said. "But we've got to get him out of here."
"Help me lift him up." Elliot stood and tugged on Reed's arms, pulling him into a sitting position, and then saw two giant footprints in the floor beneath where Reed had lain. Not on the floor, but in it, smashed into the tiles.
"What could have done that?" Cami asked.
"Kovol," Elliot breathed. "Kovol was here. On the surface."
He quickly looked around them, then said to Cami, "I've got to try something that might feel weird to you. But you have to trust me, okay?"
She shrugged. "Okay. I trust you."
He put one hand on Reed's shoulder and took Cami's hand again. "It's better if you close your eyes," he said.
Elliot next closed his own eyes and pictured his bedroom as clearly as he possibly could. And poofed them all home.
It was harder than he had imagined. Instead of keeping one person's body parts together, now he had to do that for three people. And from the first second she had felt her gut being pulled away from the Quack Shack, Cami had started to do the girl-squeal thing. Even if poofing only lasts a single second, it can seem like hours if the girl next to you is squealing.
Then she stopped and they landed in Elliot's room. Somewhere during the trip, Reed had lost his Quack Shack apron, but Elliot hadn't worked very hard to keep track of that. All the important body parts seemed to have come back together and in their correct places.
"How did we get here?" Cami asked. "Did you do it?"
"I'm sort of new at magic, so I didn't do it very well." Elliot patted Reed's cheek. "Wake up. Please."
Slowly, Reed shook his head, then let out a long moan. His eyelids fluttered while he thought about waking up, and he raised a hand to his head.
"Ow," he mumbled.