They didn’t seem all that worried, though they had found some more snacks somewhere – popcorn and hooberstackers. I stood at the doorway. For some reason, the idea of talking to my groupies in front of Grandpa Smedry made me feel even more sick.
‘Not looking too well, my boy,’ Grandpa Smedry said, rising. ‘Maybe we should get you something for that.’
‘I . . . I think that would be nice,’ I said.
‘We’ll be back in a snap!’ Grandpa Smedry said to the others, hopping off his chair. I followed him down the hallway until he stopped at a darkened stone intersection, turning to me. ‘I’ve got the perfect solution, lad! Just the thing to make you feel better in a jiffy.’
‘Great,’ I said. ‘What is it?’
He smacked me across the face.
I blinked in surprise. It hadn’t really hurt, but it had been unexpected. ‘What was that?’ I asked.
‘I smacked you,’ said Grandpa Smedry. Then, in a slightly lower tone, he added, ‘It’s an old family remedy.’
‘For what?’
‘Being a nigglenut,’ said Grandpa Smedry. He sighed, sitting down on the hallway carpeting. ‘Sit down, lad.’
Still a little stunned, I did so.
‘I just got done speaking with Folsom and his lovely friend Himalaya,’ Grandpa Smedry said, pleasantly smiling, as if he hadn’t just smacked me in the face. ‘It seems that they think you are reckless!’
‘That’s a problem?’
‘Velcroed Verns, of course not! I was quite proud to hear that. Recklessness and boldness, great Smedry traits. Thing is, they said some other things about you – things they’d only admit after I pushed them on it.’
‘What things?’
‘That you’re self-centered. That you think you’re better than regular people, and that all you talk about is yourself. Now, this didn’t sound like the Alcatraz I knew. Not at all. So I came back here to investigate – and what did I find? A pile of Attica’s sycophants lounging about my castle, just like the old days.’
‘My father’s sycophants?’ I asked, glancing at the room a little down the hallway. ‘But they’re fans of mine! Not my father’s.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Yeah, they’ve read my books. They talk about them all the time.’
‘Alcatraz, lad,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘Have you read those books?’
‘Well, no.’
‘Then how the blazes do you know what’s in them?’
‘Well, I . . .’ This was frustrating. Didn’t I deserve to finally have someone looking up to me, respecting me? Praising me?
‘This is my fault,’ Grandpa Smedry said with a sigh. ‘Should have prepared you better for the kinds of people you’d find here. But, well, I thought you’d use the Truthfinder’s Lens.’
The Truthfinder’s Lens. I’d almost forgotten about it – it could tell me when people were lying. I pulled it free from my pocket, then glanced at Grandpa Smedry. He nodded back down the hallway, so hesitantly I stood up and took off my Oculator’s Lenses, walking down the hallway to the room.
I looked in, holding the Truthfinder’s Lens in front of my eye.
‘Alcatraz!’ Rodrayo said. ‘We’ve missed you!’ As he spoke, he seemed to spit mouthfuls of black beetles from his mouth. They squirmed and writhed, and I jumped backward, removing the Lens. The beetles vanished when I did so. I hesitantly replaced the Lens.
‘Alcatraz?’ Rodrayo asked. ‘What’s wrong? Come in, we want to hear more about your adventures.’
More beetles. I could only assume that meant he was lying.
‘Hey,’ said Jasson, ‘yeah. Those stories are fun!’