As soon as I opened the book to page 672, the book leaped out of my hands and flew into the air. Its hard cover glowed with a golden light, and the runes written upon the pages shimmered silver.

Suddenly, all the jars on Derek’s shelf–all of them empty, except for the one with Blueboy in it–started glowing as well. They glowed a brilliant gold, with twinkling silver letters to match the ones in the book floating over my head.

“See that character,” said Thermock, “in the book. Paragraph two, line three.”

“The one that looks like a tree?” I said. “With the three scritches branching out of the middle line?”

“Yes,” said Thermock, “touch that one, then touch the matching one on Blueboy’s jar.” I found the one printed on Blueboy’s jar and touched it. As soon as I did, Blueboy’s jar lost its glow. Now the only color inside was from his own ultramarine hue.

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“Now let me out, you big, ugly jerk,” said Blueboy.

Now you should know that Pachyderms are quite slow to anger. It would take a lot more than a tiny prisoner trapped in a jar calling me a “big, ugly jerk” to get under my thick skin. But there is another thing you should know about pachyderms: once we get angry, it can be a bit hard for us to calm down.

I shrugged off Blueboy’s abuse, unscrewed his disenchanted jar, and stepped back to let him come out.

“Now me,” said Thermock.

“Of course,” I said, “but where will you go?”

“Shut up, you big fat ugly jerk!” said Blueboy. All I could think of was how I pitied him. Of course he was miserable; he was trapped in a glass jar! I hoped he could be happy now.

“Cao Nyut, please hurry,” said Thermock, “there’s no knowing when–”

All of a sudden, there was a sound of heavy pounding on the other side of the double-locked basement door.

“Cao Nyut!” Derek shouted. “Open this door at once!”