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The kid came running.
“A few years back,” Johnnie explained, “Stubs here was sellin’ illegal fireworks out of his garage. They caught on fire, and Stubs won himself a one-way trip to Everlost. Anyways, it turns out part of his fireworks stash came over with him.”
And then Johnnie added, “Which is more than I can say for most of his fingers.”
“Yeah,” said Raggedy Andy, laughing. “That’s how come Stubs can only count to three.”
Allie and the “Alter” Boys left at dawn, the members of the gang all carrying baseball bats, chains, and various other makeshift weapons that had somehow crossed over. They would have been terrifying in the living world, but with the threat of pain and death not applicable in Everlost, it was all pretty much for show; fashion accessories for bad boys who didn’t get where they were going.
All the while as they marched south toward the city, Purple-puss kept giving Allie dirty looks. Not too long into their journey, he broke his silence. “I don’t like this, Johnnie-O,” he said, the bulge in his neck ping-ponging up and down. “She’s not one of us, we shouldn’t oughta be trusting her.”
Johnnie-O smirked. “Heimlich here don’t trust nobody.”
“For all we know,” Heimlich said, “she could be leading us straight to the Sky Witch.”
“Shut up,” said Johnny-O, “there ain’t no such thing.”
“Sky Witch?” asked Allie.
Johnnie-O waved it off. “Just a stupid story they tell to scare little kids about some witch who lives in the skies over Manhattan.”
“She devours kids’ souls,” said another kid.
“Yeah,” said Raggedy Andy, baring his teeth and hooking his hands like claws.
“She grabs you and takes a deep breath sucking your soul right up her nose.
That’s why they also call her the ‘Queen of Snot.’”
Johnnie-O gave them a Three Stooges—like slap that got all three of them. “What, were you born stupid or did you just die that way?” He turned to Allie. “Some kids will believe anything.”
Allie,wisely, said nothing.
“We should make her skim,” said Raggedy Andy. “That way we’ll know whether she’s worthy.”
Johnnie-O explained that all prospective members of the Altar Boys had to take a coin and skim it on the Hudson River. If it skimmed at least twice like a stone, then you were worthy of joining the Altar Boys. You had to use a coin you crossed with, and you only got one chance because once your coin sank, it was gone for good.
Allie was confused. “But…how can you skim an Everlost coin on living-world water? It wouldn’t work — it would just fall straight through.”
“Well,” said Johnnie-O with a wink, “I’m the one who decides whether or not I saw it skim.”
The next morning, they came to the George Washington Bridge, which crossed the Hudson into the northern tip of Manhattan. There they halted. Allie looked back to see them all milling around near the on-ramp.
“We don’t do bridges,” Johnnie-O said and Allie smirked.
“Oh, are you scared?”
Johnnie-O narrowed his eyes into a glare. “If you ever tried to cross a bridge you’d know how easy it is to sink right through it, and fall into the river. But I guess you ain’t bright enough to figure that out.”
Allie was about to fire right back at him, about how she had already crossed this bridge, and maybe his name should be Johnnie-Zero, instead of Johnnie-O, because he had zero guts—but then Raggedy Andy said, “We lost more than twenty kids once trying to cross the Tappan Zee Bridge. It was awful.”
on the other hand, was miserable.
Chapter 14
