But she was already jumping out of the truck and storming up to the front door.
“Tess!”
“I am not having it! Do you hear me? I am not having it. Murderers and bank robbers and evil magic stuff and now, this … this …plantthinks it can take over my shop.”
She shoved her key in the lock and pushed open the door. It took some work, and I had to help push, because thick vines lay on the floor, blocking entry. I had doubts about the wisdom of facing down the jungle without backup—preferably armed with blowtorches—but Tess slipped past me and climbed over an enormous bunch of zucchinis, shouting.
“I warned you! This ismyshop, you overgrown pile of weeds! You’re in trouble now!” She made her way straight to the lawn section. I realized she was heading for the chainsaws just before one of the thick, serpent-like tendrils raised up off the floor, grabbed Tess around the waist, and starting whipping her back and forth through the air over the top of the shelving units.
“Jack! Help!”
It took only a split-second to realize that I had to run out to the truck. Even if I reached the chainsaws before the plant got to me, too, there’d be no point. In the heat of the moment, Tess may have forgotten that she always made sure all the gas-powered equipment was completely drained of gas and oil before she put it out on display.
All it would take was one careless customer and a functioning chainsaw, and she’d have a Halloween movie come to life right there in the shop.
By the time I got what I needed out of the truck and raced back into the store, Tess was tearing into the vine holding her with her fingernails.
“I will turn you intosalad,” she shouted. “Let. Me. Go! Jack!”
“I’m back,” I called out, and then I held up my axe. “Hey, plant. Meet Mr. Salad Maker.”
With that, the battle was on. I hacked and slashed my way through the room to Tess, who was tearing at the vine, ripping leaves and fruit off and throwing them at the main body of the plant where it hulked against the far wall like a green and leafy Grim Reaper.
Zucchinis flew like missiles, and merchandise smashed down off shelves all around me. Tess was still being shaken back and forth up near the ceiling, and I was wielding the axe and yelling some weird battle cry I’d probably heard on a Vikings TV show.
And the plant was fighting back.
It kept smacking me in the face with thick vines and zucchini-laden tendrils, hard enough to knock me off my feet again and again.
Finally, a good three minutes later, I’d done enough damage that the vines flinched back and away from me and my trusty axe. With a final lunge, I reached the thick vine wrapped around Tess’s waist, and I chopped it in half in one tiger-strength-powered stroke.
Tess plummeted down, about to crash into a shelf of books and toys, and I dropped the axe, leaped into the air, and caught her, avoiding the books, the toys, and the shelving unit when I landed.
The killer bush effectively waved the white flag at that point. Still holding Tess, whose face was bleeding from a bunch of scrapes and scratches, I turned to look at the plant that had tried its best to eat Dead End Pawn.
“You are so dead,” I told it. And then I carried Tess to the back room, so she could wash and treat her cuts, punched a number on my phone, and marched back out to the shop to begin systematically taking apart the killer zucchini plant.
Two hours later, Lucky, the Fox twins, and I looked around in satisfaction. The plant was no more. We’d chopped it up and bagged the pieces and then stashed the bags in the back of Lucky’s truck. He’d promised to take the whole mess to the dump and burn it. Tess and the guys and I had made a good start on cleaning up the damage to the shop, too.
Tess had gone outside to talk to the editor of theDead End Gazette, who’d heard about Cordelia, Ish, and Henrietta, and only accidentally was on the scene to take pictures and video of the mutant plant.
Me? I called Lauren’s Deli and put in an order for lunch for all of us. Lots and lots of lunch.
Battling killer zucchinis was hungry work.
33
Tess
After Lucky, Dallas, Austin, and theGazetteguy left, I sat on the front porch steps, exhausted. My cuts and scrapes stung, too, but I would have felt like a wimp complaining about that to Jack and the ex-special forces guys who’d been helping me clean out my shop.
“They didn’t want to wait for lunch?” I called out.
“No, they needed to get back to work. A busload of tourists is on the way to the swamp to ride the airboats. I told them I’d catch them another time. I owe them atleasta lunch for all this hard work.”
My phone rang, and I pulled it out of my pocket, glanced down at it, and scowled.
Ollie.
