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Maple’s stuck to the front of the horse trailer, arms and legs splayed out in an X shape. She appears dazed but not hurt, like a scene straight out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
“Oh no!” blurts Paxton. “She smacked into the trailer!”
Kingsley is trying so very hard not to laugh. He’s not making a sound, but his shoulders are shaking… and he’s so big the truck is kinda bouncing a little.
Maple’s expression goes from dazed to annoyed, then determined. She peels herself off the trailer and falls forward, gets swept back by the wind and has another crash against the front face of the trailer. After collecting herself again, she basically stands horizontally against the trailer before launching herself forward in a blast of rainbow faerie dust and making it to the truck bed. There, she’s mostly free of the wind and power walks to the back of the cabin.
Paxton opens the sliding rear window, reaches out, and picks her up.
“I should not have hit that button,” chirps Maple
The girls and Maple talk a bit about how weird it is to be inside a car and feel like we’re not moving when we are doing like sixty down the highway.
That is, until Paxton screams.
Chapter Fifteen
Goblins
I start to whip my head around to peer at her when I spot the reason she’s freaking out: a shadow goblin climbing up onto the hood of the truck.
The little fiend looks menacing despite its size—right up until it, too, underestimates the power of technology and wind resistance. It loses its footing and comes flying at the windshield, passing through it like a ghost. It promptly goes right through Kingsley’s head into the back seat where it strikes Anthony in the face with a wet smack like someone just slapped my son with a twenty-pound raw fish.
The shadow goblin explodes on impact, turning into a cloud of black smoke.
“Oww,” deadpans Anthony.
Kingsley’s expression is as if he just pulled one of those ‘wrapped around the brain’ boogers out of his nose.
Another shadow goblin tries the same thing, only it’s more in the middle of the hood. It, too, loses its footing the instant it stands fully upright and rockets through the windshield. Anthony thrusts his hand out, preventing the creature from hitting Paxton—who is in the middle of the backseat. The goblin bursts into a smoke puff on his hand.
“Are you okay?” Tammy blinks at him. “That sounded painful.”
“Felt like a water balloon.” He shrugs. “No big deal.”
We start drifting into the next lane.
Kingsley is… out of his mind. He looks stunned.
Crap. Crap. Crap…
I lurch over to my left and grab the wheel, pulling us back on course.
“Mom!” shouts Paxton. “They’re attacking the trailer!”
“Little busy here.” I say. “Kingsley? Wake up!”
He continues staring into space as though his brain is in the process of a long reboot. Maple zips over and starts slapping him on the cheek, not that he notices.
A third shadow goblin tries climbing up onto the hood. He’s on my side—but I’m leaning so far to the left that when he loses his footing and comes flying through the windshield, I’m not in his line of fire. Tammy sees it coming and ducks. The little fiend goes right out the back of the truck before disappearing into the trailer. Light flashes inside.
Not sure what happened, but it’s probably not good for that creature.
More shadow goblins begin climbing up onto the hood. Maple zips over to stand on top of the steering wheel. Like a tiny Wild West gunslinger, she unloads a barrage of energy bolts from both hands, picking off a seemingly endless army of dark goblins one by one.
Meanwhile, Tammy shoves the sliding rear window open and squeezes out into the bed.
“Kingsley!” I shout. “Snap out of it!”
