Chapter 1 - Over the Edge

Road in Poor Condition. Do Not Use When Wet.

Nero swiveled his head as the car passed the sign. “Uncle Peter should put up a sign.” He made his fingers into a rectangle. “World’s Largest Fruits and Vegetables: This Way.”

Mom took one hand off the steering wheel and slapped a mosquito on her arm. She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I told you. The plants are top-secret. If word got out, the farm would be swamped by reporters and scientists wanting tours.”

“Not if they had to find it first,” muttered Dad. He flicked open the map Aunt Lotta had sent.

Nero clicked open his seatbelt and leaned forward so he could see the map over Dad’s shoulder. The orange splotch was the pumpkin house. Around it were two gray lines, a long squiggle, and an arrow.

No wonder they were lost.

“Are you sure this is the right road?” he asked.

Dad turned the map sideways. “We took the third grid road after the dead tree and turned north where the old church used to be. It has to be right.”

Mom slammed on the brake. Nero slammed into the back of Dad’s seat.

“Sorry,” she said. “Hole in the road.”

The road sign wasn’t kidding. Nero sat back and clicked in his seatbelt while the car crawled forward.

“Can’t you text them for better directions?” asked his younger sister, Clementine, in the seat beside him.

Mom drove around the hole in the road while Dad poked at his phone. A bead of sweat rolled off his bald spot. “No service,” he said. He dropped the phone into his shirt pocket.

Nero sighed and watched the fields roll by. So much for “we’ll be there in no time.” It was sweltering inside the car. If there weren’t so many brainless grasshoppers bouncing off his window, he would have it open like Clementine’s.

His best friend Leon had laughed himself silly when Nero said his family was going to spend the summer helping his relatives pick vegetables. Leon’s family was going zip-lining in the mountains. But helping out on the farm would be okay. His cousins were awesome, or at least Twig was. Fern…well, she could hang out with Clementine.

If they ever found the farm. Nothing out there matched the chicken scratch on Aunt Lotta’s map. All Nero could see was flat fields, flat rows of trees, flat horizon, and a flattened grasshopper stuck between the window and the car door. Better do something about that before its head broke off and landed on him.

He pulled his Wonder-Gizmo out of his pocket and started unfolding the tools. It was an awesome gadget. Every time he opened it he found something new. “Mirror, compass, whistle; tweezers, toothpick, chopstick,” he muttered. The chopstick would work, but he might need to eat with it sometime.

Clementine pulled her hand inside the car. “Look! I caught a dragonfly.”

Nero didn’t look. “Toenail clipper, nose hair clipper, sheep shearer, bug zapper.”

“Bug zapper! That’s mean.”

Nero gave an evil laugh. “When one of Uncle Peter’s giant mosquitoes comes to suck your blood, you’ll beg me for it.”

“Uncle Peter doesn’t have giant mosquitoes, only giant vegetables.” Clementine made a cage with both hands. Her blonde hair hung like curtains as she bent forward. “Don’t worry about him,” she whispered to her dragonfly. “I’ll protect you.”

Nero unfolded a detachable arrow. Perfect. He opened the window a crack. Trying not to look at the grasshopper’s alien face, he nudged it away. It dangled by one leg for a moment, then slid down the outside of the window, leaving a yellow smear on the glass. Nero shuddered.

Road in poor condition. Do not use when dry.

So when could you use it—in a blizzard? Nero shook his head and folded the arrow and the other pieces back into his Wonder-Gizmo. Time for an Adventure, it said on the handle. Hmm. An adventure…ignoring ridiculous road signs. An adventure…getting lost in the barren prairie where all the trees in the next field were dead.

“Where did you get that gadget anyway?” Clementine asked.

“I won it at wilderness camp.”

Clementine snickered. “You?”

“Yes, me.” Nero put it in his pocket and turned his head toward his own window so she wouldn’t ask any more questions.

They passed the dead trees, crossed a dirt road and came to another, very dusty, sign. Road in poor condition. Do not use—. A round, splintery hole cut off the rest of the words. It looked like something had taken a bite out of it. Weird. What ate wooden signs?

Nero jerked upright. “What’s that whining sound?”

“Giant mosquito. Get the bug zapper!” cried Clementine.

“Swerve!” cried Dad.

A silver semi barreled down the middle of the road straight toward them.

Mom jerked the steering wheel. Nero’s seatbelt yanked on his shoulder. The car skidded across the gravel and lurched over the edge. The semi roared past in a cloud of dust.

Whoa. That was close.

"Idiot driver!" snarled Mom. She took a deep breath, then revved the engine. “Are we stuck on something? The car won’t move.”

“I’ll check.” Nero opened his door and stepped into a patch of scraggly clover that tickled his bare legs. The car wasn’t banged up, but its front wheels dangled above the ground. He knelt down and looked underneath.

Clementine’s sandaled feet thumped into the clover on the other side of the car. “Fly away, dragonfly!” she cried.

“What do you see?” asked Dad. His sandals, with socks inside, appeared next to Nero’s.

“We’re hung up on a stump,” Nero announced, standing up and ducking a dizzy-looking dragonfly.

Mom got out and pushed her sunglasses up on her nose. “How will we get the car off?”

Dad shrugged. They both bent over to look. Dad’s new cap with the laughing goose picture fell off into the clover. Clementine pounced on a grasshopper.

It was way too hot to stand in the sun. Lucky there were trees in this field. Live ones. Nero climbed up the side of the ditch to get into the shade while his parents figured out what to do.

The tree in front of him was very odd. Its bark was smooth and pale green, and wide leaves grew right out of its branches like fish fins. Each branch ended in a single dark green leaf as big as a tarp. Shivers trickled down Nero’s spine. The leaves were lined with white bones, and some had gaping holes like the one in the road sign. Above him, in the center of the tree, sat a huge green, bulging, alien…brain.

Something burped.

Nero leapt back into the ditch. As he stumbled against the hot car hood, he suddenly knew what he’d found.