Grim screams, “Got him!” and drags the Undertaker out and helps him to his feet.
Then the ground is shaking again. Dust blows down from the ceiling and timbers start popping out of the walls, snapping like toothpicks.
Of course I want to let go of that beam and run, but it’s like I’m pinned to the ground by the weight of everything. Stuff is coming loose all around me but I can’t move. All I can do is keep holding up the timber and the roof above it and the mountain above that. Which nobody can do, not even a big huge doofus like me.
The last thing I remember is how much it sounds like the ocean. Like waves crashing, and seagulls screaming, and gravel caught in the undertow. The dust is real bad, but I can make out a couple of shadowy figures running toward the light, and I’m glad Worm is okay, and Grim and Dip got out in time. This is really dumb, but it doesn’t even bother me about the Undertaker getting out alive.
I’m thinking this is the end for Maxwell Kane, too bad he never got a chance to be Max the Mighty, and that’s when the beam finally slips and the whole world crashes down on me and it really is the end, the end,
the end.
They say Grim and Dip and Sheriff Goodman dug through all that dirt until their hands were bleeding, and finally got me out in one piece, more or less, and that I kept saying something really stupid like, “I hear the ocean, I hear the ocean.” I don’t remember because I was so out of it.
When I woke up in the hospital, this nurse told me I’d broken my shoulder and my leg, and could she please autograph my cast, which I thought was pretty weird, her being a nurse and all.
Then Grim and Gram came in, and Grim said he guessed I wouldn’t be dancing in the ballet, on account of my leg. That’s his idea of a joke, ha ha.
Worm, she was real upset with her mom for going along with all the Undertaker’s lies, even though she was so scared of him she couldn’t help it. But then she felt a lot better about everything when her mom finally got up the courage and testified in court about what really happened, and the Undertaker got convicted.
It turns out he’d done the same kind of creepy stuff to another kid and her mother years before, and so he’s going to be in prison a long, long time, which is just fine by me.
The best thing is that Gram made a big fuss and insisted that Worm and her mom come live with us, at least for a while, until they get on their own two feet again. Gram said she and Grim had always wanted to have a big family, and this was the chance of a lifetime.
At first Worm’s mom said she couldn’t possibly, but Gram wouldn’t take no for an answer, and now Worm’s mom says that moving in with us was the best thing for all concerned, and even though Grim is an opinionated old coot, she wouldn’t trade him for the world.
So the way it all worked out, now I’ve got a little sister for the time being, and who knows, maybe forever. Which is pretty cool, if I do say so myself.
Sometimes when I get bored and there’s nothing to do in the down under and we’re out of books to read, I ask Worm if she wants to do it all over again. Just stick out our thumbs and see where the road takes us.
You know, have another cool adventure.
When I say that, Worm looks at me and goes, “Are you cracked?” Then she’ll kid me and say why don’t I grow up and get a brain like normal people?
That’s when I tell her I’ll never be normal, not in a million years, and I like it that way just fine, thank you.
And that’s the truth. The unvanquished truth.
Rodman Philbrick is the award-winning author of two previous novels for young readers. His first novel, Freak the Mighty (Blue Sky Press, 1993), was received with great acclaim, appearing on numerous state award lists, and has been made into THE MIGHTY, a Miramax feature film. His second novel for young adults, The Fire Pony (Blue Sky Press, 1996), received the 1996 Capital Choice Award and a pointed review in Kirkus. Philbrick and his wife, also a writer, divide their time between Maine and the Florida Keys.
Also by Rodman Philbrick
Freak the Mighty
The Fire Pony
REM World
The Last Book in the Universe
The Young Man and the Sea
The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg
The Dear America Series: The Journal of Douglas Allen Deeds: The Donner Party Expedition
MASS-MARKET BOOKS
CO-AUTHORED WITH LYNN HARNETT:
The House on Cherry Street
The Haunting
The Horror
The Werewolf Chronicles
Night Creature
Children of the Wolf
The Wereing
Visitors
Strange Invaders
Things
Brain Stealers
Abduction
Copyright © 1998 by Rodman Philbrick
All rights reserved.
The Blue Sky Press is a registered trademark of Scholastic Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Philbrick, W. R. (W. Rodman)
Max the Mighty / Rodman Philbrick.
p. cm.
Sequel to: Freak the Mighty.
Summary: Fourteen-year-old Max helps a younger girl escape her abusive stepfather by running away with her to the distant town of Chivalry, Montana, searching for her real father.
ISBN 0-590-18892-5
[1. Runaways — Fiction. 2. Friendship — Fiction.]
I. Title. PZ7. P52122Max 1998 [Fic] — DC21
97-11762 CIP AC
First printing, April 1998
Jacket painting © 1998
by David Shannon
e-ISBN 978-0-545-62822-8
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.