CHAPTER 15
It happened so quickly, and Zac was helpless to do anything.
They were all gone, poor innocent people, trapped within the door because of something terrible that Kweku Obi had done for this monster.
Mr. Happy vanished from sight, and just when Zac was looking around for him he suddenly began to appear in front of him. One minute he was transparent for a moment, then just a hazy thing, and then he began to fill out like water being poured into a container, and then he was a complete Mr. Happy.
“I want your body,” he croaked, his voice now that of a very old man.
Zac held tightly onto Bobo and Araba who were trying desperately to flee the monster.
“You can’t have my body, monster,” Zac screamed at him.
“Then you will lose your friends,” the voice said in a million different voices, some saying the words fast, some slow, some haltingly. Some were in bass, some in treble, and some in baby voices.
It was the most terrible sound Zac had ever heard.
Mr. Happy’s hands shot out and grabbed Araba and Bobo by the shoulders, each in one hand.
“No!” Bobo screamed. “Please, Zac, don’t let him take me!”
“Help me, Zac!” Araba screamed. “Please help me!”
Zac held their arms, but Mr. Happy was too strong, and he wrenched Araba and Bobo from his grasp. His hands shot backwards, carrying the screaming Bobo and Araba toward the still open door with the fire blazing inside.
Zac’s fear made him throw out his hands suddenly.
“No!” he screamed. “Let them be!”
A powerful sort of energy shot through Zac and smashed into Mr. Happy.
He screamed in that terrible million voices as his arms exploded into smithereens.
Araba and Bobo fell to the ground just in front of the raging door. They scrambled to their feet, still screaming, and ran to the very shocked Zac, who was staring at the fragments of Mr. Happy’s arms.
Mr. Happy looked at Zac with terrible hatred in his fiery eyes.
As Zac watched, transfixed with horror, the many parts of Mr. Happy’s arms, which had changed to something like glass when they fell, suddenly began to rise into the air, millions of shimmering glass-like things, and then they moved with blinding speed towards Mr. Happy, coming together like the pieces of a jigsaw.
Bobo stopped beside Zac and his fear changed to amazement as he watched the arms of Mr. Happy fitting together.
“Woooow!” Bobo said, his face awash with admiration. “That’s an amazer!”
Zac held Araba and Bobo close to him, and finally Mr. Happy’s arms were now complete.
He watched Zac, and once again his eyes began to change shapes and colours rapidly.
“You have seven days, Leaper!” Mr. Happy said calmly.
“Seven days for what, you monster?” Zac asked, and his heart was filled with fury.
“Seven days to let me occupy your body, or your friends will die!” he said.
“You’re not having my body!” Zac shouted and then shut his eyes. “I wish my friends to be free! I want this monster to vanish!”
He opened his eyes and saw Mr. Happy smiling.
Zac’s heart sank. The Chain of the Leaps did not glow, and its magic did not happen.
His face fell with absolute dismay.
“Oh, the joys of seeing you with that face thrills me so!” Mr. Happy said. “I’ll be back in seven days, here and at the same time. If you do not let me occupy your body, you won’t see any of these people again!”
With that, he disappeared from Zac’s face and took form just in front of the golden gates. Zac could hear people screaming from within the door, and he clamped his hands to his ears.
“Seven days, Leaper!” the voice of Mr. Happy boomed. “And since you did not allow me to take your sweet friends, I’ll leave them with special gifts.”
Suddenly, Mr. Happy’s terrible hands unwounded and travelled at terrible speeds toward Araba and Bobo.
Fearing that Mr. Happy would try and take them again, Zac held them tightly.
Mr. Happy’s two hands stopped just in front of their faces. Suddenly a finger protruded from each hand. The finger pointed at Bobo was tipped with a sparkling white light, and the one pointing at Araba was tipped yellow.
Suddenly Mr. Happy touched the forehead of Bobo and Araba with his fingers.
“You boy, grow!” Mr. Happy boomed in his million voices. “You girl, ungrow!”
Mr. Happy’s arms shot back fast, and he then quickly entered his door.
“We’ll meet in seven days, Leaper!” Mr. Happy said just as the golden door swung shut behind him.
However, before the door closed, Zac thought he saw the shocked face of Kweku Obi in the glowing flames of the fire. The golden door flipped over, and Zac could not see it again.
Suddenly Bobo began to glow white as if a bulb had been turned on inside him. He was completely white, even his hair. His eyes were wide, and his lips were open in a soundless scream.
Just then Araba also glowed a very sickly yellow too. Her open mouth was even glowing that terrifying yellow.
“Stop!” Zac cried with fear and anguish. “Stop it! Stop it, please!”
His friends were both suspended in the air, about five feet from the ground, glowing like giant white and yellow bulbs, jerking like puppets in a storm, and Zac was helpless to do anything. He tried to use the power of the chain but nothing happened.
Thankfully it did not last long, and as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped, and slowly his friends landed on the ground again and looked at him with curious eyes.
Zac wiped tears from his cheeks and looked closely at them.
“Are you okay?” he asked fearfully.
“I’m fine, Zac,” Araba said and hugged him. “Just feeling tired.”
“I’m hungry,” Bobo said and yawned. “Hey, Zac, what’re we going to do? That Mr. Happiness said he would be back in seven days!”
“I know,” Zac said miserably. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. Come, let’s go inside. It’s still dark. In the morning we’ll decide what to do.”
As the three of them began to walk toward the dormitory, Araba reached out suddenly and grasped Zac’s hand. Her grip was very tight indeed, and Zac looked at her.
“I’m afraid, Zac,” she said softly, her voice trembling.
“I’m afraid too, Araba,” Zac replied. “But it’s going to be okay.”
“Okay?” Bobo said, coming to a halt. “Did you see that thing? Did you see its anaconda arms? Did you see how it carried everybody else away? Zacky, if that thing said seven days, it means seven days! Let’s enjoy all the food here. Let’s eat and dance and sleep because in seven days, that thing will end up in your body, and we will end up inside the prison door!”
Araba broke into tears immediately.
She cried in a heartbroken way, wailing in a really bad way. Zac hugged her tightly, and she buried her face in his chest and her body shook with the depths of her tears.
“It’s okay, Aby, please it’s okay,” Zac tried to calm her. “Everything’s going to be alright.”
Zac looked at Bobo severely across Araba’s shoulder.
Bobo spread his arms wide and glared right back at Zac.
“What, Zacky?” he asked in a serious voice. “You choose to lie to her, and I choose to radically bombo-truth her. We’re dead in seven days!”
“You shut up already!” Zac screamed at him.
And that was when Bobo started bawling.
He cried loudly, even more vocal than Araba, and Zac stared at him, both shocked and utterly perplexed.
