The Seven Wonders +1 (Part 4)

After that, Edward N. Chief introduced the henchmen. “These are my two managing editors,” he said. “On the one hand…”

“Red Readywinters, at your service,” said the guy on the right with a grin. He jabbed a thumb into his chest.

“And on the other…”

“396-AAPTMY,” the girl on the left said. She was speaking in some sort of code. I could tell that much… and no more than that much. This girl was more cryptic than a tomb. Could I get a decoder ring in here, or something? Maybe she was telling me to drink more chocolate milk.

As it turned out, the editor-in-chief had no problem understanding her. “‘Ash Alwaysummer,” he translated. “Pleased to meet you.’ That’s what she said.”

I choked down a laugh at that last bit.

Wrinkles creased onto Edward N. Chief’s brow as he frowned. He pinched the hinge of his glasses and pulled them down a little, moving the lenses out of the way to look at me with his bare eyeballs. “That wasn’t a joke.”

“S-sorry.”

“I think you may have overheard us outside,” he continued, “but we were the ones who planted the tape in your friend Greg’s room.”

So they were the start of all this. I was starting to piece this puzzle together. Greg rushed back to school after he inexplicably found and watched the tape back home. These three were the culprits.

Greg himself was barely paying attention to the exchange. He was off to the side, mumbling something that I could just make out from the corner of my ears. Ears were a little too round to have corners, but that wasn't the point.

“Editor-in-chief… managing editors… Edward… Red… Ash… Hey, wait! Seriously!? Like, seriously seriously!?”

Suddenly, Greg pulled me and Evan into a huddle.

“What the heck, dude?” Evan said, without looking up from his phone, obviously. “What’s with you?”

“Yeah, what gives?” I asked. “And get your arm off my neck.”

“Sorry,” Greg said. “It’s just… I didn’t think the legends were true.”

“What legends?” I asked. “Dude, what are you talking about?”

“Them. I’m talking about them.”

I cranked my neck around, back to the weird trio. They were just standing there, patiently, waiting for us to be done, it looked like. They didn’t seem all that legendary to me. Weird? Yeah, Annoyingly self important? Sure. But not legendary.

“Come on,” I said to Greg. I plunged my head regrettably back into the humid fog of our huddle. “Legendary? I don’t buy it. They don’t even have their own battle music.”

“Just think of it like gen one,” he deflected. “They’re legendary alright. 100%. Haven’t you guys ever heard of The Indelible Legend?”

Didn’t ring a bell. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“I think I have, yeah,” Evan said. Great. As usual, I was the only one not in the know.

“Well…” Greg said. I could see sweat starting to pool into tiny drops on his face. Either this Indelible Legend thing was some kind of big, scary deal, or the swelter of this huddle was starting to get to him.

“...that’s him.”

“Who’s what now?”

“Him,” Greg repeated. “That guy in the middle. The one with the glasses. Edward N. Chief. I knew I had heard that name before. He’s The Indelible Legend. And to think… he personally handed me a tape full of mysteries to uncover!”

Leave it Greg to celebrate being a victim of breaking and entering.

“669-AYQFY?” The girl’s — Ash’s — voice called us back down to earth.

“Translation: ‘Are you quite finished yet?’”

We broke huddle. Looking straight into Edward N. Chief’s glasses-clad eyes, Greg asked whether he really was The Indelible Legend.

“That’s me,” said Edward N. Chief, confirming it. He was The Indelible Legend in the flesh, it seemed. “And on the one hand, that’s what this is all about: me. But on the other hand, it’s actually about we.” He waved a hand to indicate his lackeys. “Oh. And it’s also about them.”

A snap popped from between The Indelible Legend’s fingers, and for the second time that day, I heard what was coming before I saw it. Someone was marching up the stairs at the end of the hall. No, not just someone — an entire horde, it sounded like. Whoever it was, their steps were synced, perfectly aligned in a one-two footfall rhythm.

Then, the door slammed open once again, and in filed about a dozen more people, all at once, cramping us in. They moved like synchronized swimmers, pooling together to form a single, unified whole of movement, like they were one body divided in… one… two… carry the seven… divide by (xy)2… sine… cosine… try not to go off on a tangent… 12. I counted 12 of them in all, boys and girls. It seemed like The Indelible Legend’s snap had been their twelve-hut.

Err, ten-hut.

I’d never heard heels snap together in such perfect unison, never seen salutes so uniform in timing and execution. The twelve newcomers fell into perfect rows behind the other three and stood at attention with a “Chief, yes Chief!”

“At ease.”

The squad relaxed.

The Indelible Legend said, “I speak for all of us when I say ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, pun detectives.”

My lips puckered like I was sucking a million lemons at once. I was already getting a bad taste in my mouth from all of this. I didn’t like where it was heading.

“Perhaps Ash cares to do the honors?” The Indelible Legend asked his left-hand woman.

“Ah.. ah… ah-hm… COUGH… Ah-hem… 990-LMIYTTIAGCONP.”

“Translation.” The Indelible Legend pushed his glasses up. “‘Let me introduce you to the Great and Illustrious Committee of Newspaper People.’”

The end of The Seven Wonders +1 (Part 4)!
To be continued in Part 5!