
"Well, do one of those magic tricks you're always talking about and get us out of here," said Fred.
I racked my brain for any good magic tricks for dogs.
"Sit!" I yelled. "Stay! Roll over! Play dead!"
Cerberus growled and stepped closer.
"Joe?" said Sam nervously. "I don't think this is working."
"This never fails," I said. I picked up a small rock and threw it into the gloomy mist. "Fetch!"
Not one of the three slobbering heads even turned to look.
One head locked its red eyes on Sam. One head stared at Fred. One head zeroed in on me. The thing was so close we
could see each thick black hair raised on its back and smell each blast of its roadkill breath.
The last thing I remember thinking was: "What a way to go, eaten by a nasty-smelling monster that isn't even real."
TWO
"I can just hear one of you smart guys out there saying, "How can you travel into Greek mythology? I thought The Book
could only travel through time."
Honestly, I have no idea how we ended up facing the three-headed dog of the underworld from Greek mythology.
Well, I have some idea, but it wasn't really my fault.
Okay, it was kind of my fault, but I was only trying to get things back to normal by putting The Book back in Uncle Joe's
hands.
See my life has been just too strange for words since my uncle Joe gave me this book for my birthday.
I'm sure you've got books for your birthday before. But this book is like no other book before or since. It's a small book. A
dark blue book with odd silver writing and symbols on it. It's a time-warping book.
And yes, I'll admit it. I have no idea how The Book works or how to control it. But I do know it's sent Fred, Sam, and me
back to the Stone Age, forward to the future, and even into other books.
One thing that always stays the same is the green time-traveling mist that comes out of The Book. The other thing is that
once we go somewhere, the only way we can get back is to find The Book in that new time or place.
Get it? Got it. Good.
Like I said, it wasn't my fault. But here's what I think happened:
Our whole grade was backstage in the school auditorium, five minutes before the first performance of our play The Myth of
Power. It was a play about gods and goddesses and mortals and monsters and all that Greek mythology stuff we were studying
in school. We had made some great sets of Mount Olympus (the mountain all the gods live on top of) and the underworld,
Hades.
The music teacher was the director, so most of the play was about how music is the answer for everything. But we helped
write a lot of the scenes, so all the gods and goddesses sounded like a bunch of wiseguys. We also got to make some excellent
thunderbolts to throw around, and wrote in a lot of fight scenes for the monsters.
Anyway—that's why we were all standing around at school dressed up in bed-sheet togas. Fred was a one-eyed Cyclops,
with an eye pinned on his Yankees hat. Sam was Orpheus, wandering around playing his lyre. I was Paris, the good-looking guy
who has to decide which goddess is the fairest and give her the golden apple.
While we waited, Sam was rereading his Book of Snappy Insults for the millionth time. We had been using all the good
ones for the past month, and even managed to get a few in the play. Fred was pacing, trying to remember all two of his lines.
And I think that's when it happened.
"Help me out, Joe," said Fred. "David says, 'Hey you guys—look!' Then do I say, 'We made those thunderbolts'? Or does
Charlie say his line first?"
"Cyclops Fred," said Sam, "if you had to live by your wits, you'd starve."
Fred picked up an aluminum-foil-covered thunderbolt and bopped Sam on the head with it.
I took my script out of my backpack. "Here it is. David says, 'Hey you guys—look!' Charlie says, 'Our thunderbolts.' Then
your line is, 'We made those thunderbolts.'" I stuffed the script back into my backpack.
"Something is preying on your mind, Fred," said Sam. "But don't worry. It will die of starvation."
Fred swung his thunderbolt again. Sam ducked. Fred missed. The thunderbolt hit my backpack. Something glowed weirdly
for a second inside my backpack. Then my pack started leaking green mist.
I saw the house lights go black. I heard the piano playing the beginning of the first musical number. Our Greek myth play
was starting. And Fred, Sam, and I were swirling off in a green mist time tornado farther and stranger than we'd ever gone
before.
THREE
Cerberus crouched, ready to spring.