“He couldn’t stand to get rid of him!”

“Why am I not surrrprrrised?”

Alex nearly grinned despite the situation. “Okay, let’s get

the people out of here. Then you distract him and I’ll see if I can locate a spell in one of these books to . . . put him back to sleep.” He gulped.

The two bounded over to a huddled group of Unwanteds, Alex waving and pointing to the open door, and Simber racing around the perimeter of the museum, shouting instructions and nudging Unwanteds in the proper direction. Within a few minutes, the majority of the people had made it out into the hallway safely. There were a few injured, and after Simber had flown up high enough to wrap his jaws around Crow and pull him from the mastodon’s tusk, he deftly picked up the injured ones who couldn’t make it out on their own. Just as the last Unwanted exited the museum, Alex lunged and slammed the door shut—not that the creature could get through it, at his size, of course. But Alex wasn’t taking any chances on a stray tusk or a beefy leg reaching through the opening.

Simber raced around the museum like a kitten at play, letting the giant beast nearly catch him but getting away just in time, while Alex scrambled for the books, searching for spells that would be powerful enough to soothe this beast and turn him back into a nonliving statue.

“It would’ve been nice if Mr. Today had kept this place a little more organized!” Alex shouted.

“Orrrganized wasn’t exactly his modus operrrandi, if you know what I mean,” Simber said as he circled close to Alex.

Alex wasn’t sure what that term meant, but he liked how it sounded and vowed to look it up just as soon as everything calmed down.

The mastodon took a swipe at Simber and missed, tripping and falling into the whale skeleton and sending hundreds of bones flying in all directions.

Alex ducked as a rib flew past his ear, and he yelled, “Aw, man, that’s a pity right there!”

“You’rrre telling me!”

“Maybe you could keep him away from the breakables, eh?”

“Maybe I could let him crrrush you into tiny bits,” Simber replied, charging to the darkest corners of the museum where Alex hadn’t even begun to explore. The mastodon followed.

“Well, there’s always that,” Alex muttered, flipping pages.

Ten more minutes of tireless chasing had gone by before Alex happened upon a thin book called Tater. He whipped through the pages outlining diet, likes and dislikes, and disposition issues, all the way to the end, where his eyes alighted on the one spell that might actually do him some good. It was a song spell called “Nighty-Night, Tater,” so he knew it was probably the right one. He studied it carefully, still not totally comfortable using spells without components to go with them—he never knew what to do with his hands.

Once he’d memorized it, he tossed the book over his shoulder and snuck between the enormous museum items to try to give himself a good angle. “Lead him back to this empty spot!” he shouted to Simber.

Simber did it, and when the mastodon was in the general area where Alex wanted him, Alex began to sing a little lullaby. It was undoubtedly the dumbest, most embarrassing song Alex had ever sung, but what choice did he have? He was glad almost no one was there to hear it. He took a deep breath and sang:

“Tater boy, Tater boy, Too much sadness, no repeats. I am sorry, more than sorry, But it’s time for you to sleep.”

When Alex finished, the giant mastodon statue froze in place, and everything was quiet again.

Simber harrumphed a few times, trying not to laugh.

“Knock it off,” Alex muttered, and then hoped Simber hadn’t heard him. “This place is trashed,” he said as he met up with the cat at the door. “We’ll have to come back here and clean it later.” He reached for the handle. “Door number one.” The door opened to the hallway, and approximately fifty pairs of eyes met their gaze.

“Oh,” Alex said, surprised. “Hello. I thought you’d have headed down by now.” He saw that the injured among them were feeling better now that the danger had passed, and everyone was sitting up. Henry snuck through a space between two adults. “We’re still trapped,” he announced. “Walled in over here, glass wall here.” He tapped it to prove the predicament. “How’d you find us, anyway? And where are we?” The crowd murmured its concerns.

Alex’s lips parted, but he didn’t quite know what to say. They couldn’t see out to where Sean stood on the other side of the wall. How was he going to get them all out of here if they couldn’t go through the opening to the balcony? He caught sight of Meghan just then, and he was relieved to see her acting completely fine. She had her arm around Crow, who looked more scared of Simber than he’d been of the mastodon. After all, he’d seen neither before today, and had been inside the mouth of only one of them.

“Well,” Alex said, scrambling to sound calm, “I can at least give you a little more room to stretch out. He pointed to the clear wall and muttered, “Glass.” The wall shimmered to the ground and disappeared. “Okay,” he said, turning back to the Unwanteds. “You can move to the end now, but please stay in the hallway. Don’t go into any of the side rooms, okay? I’ll get you some water from the kitchenette and move you out of here just as soon as I can figure out how to open up that wall.”

Alex had no idea how to do that, or if it was even possible. He didn’t know if there actually was a specific spell on this hallway at all—he’d always thought it just took a certain kind of magical ability to see it. Mr. Today had never made it visible or invisible to anyone as far as Alex knew. Eva Fathom had been able to get in on her own. And when Lani and Meg couldn’t get in for the magical weapons meeting, Mr. Today had moved the meeting to the lawn—he hadn’t tried to rig it so they could get in. But what about Simber? He didn’t do magic, but maybe Mr. Today had created him with the ability to see the secret hallway.