The Battle for the Castle by Elizabeth Winthrop

louder than he had ever screamed at anybody. “GIVE IT TO ME!”
    Jason backed off. “Okay, okay. Don’t get so mad. This guy was coming straight for us. He could have hurt us.”
    â€œNow,” William said in a low, threatening growl that surprised even him. He sounded like a chained dog.
    Jason reached over and dropped the token and its box into William’s palm.
    â€œWe’ve got to find him,” William said. Slowly and carefully he lowered his body to the ground. “You’d better watch where you put your feet. Being buried alive in the sand would be a horrible way to die.”
    â€œGee,” Jason said, “I didn’t think—”
    â€œNo,” William said. “I guess you didn’t.” He was so angry with Jason that he couldn’t look at him. He remembered the time he put a key chain down by his towel on the beach. One minute it was there, the next it was gone. He never found it again.
    He used his eyes like minesweepers, back and forth, back and forth, across each minute grain, looking for a purple arm, the gray hair, anything that moved.
    â€œDeegan,” he called over and over again.
    Jason had lain down on his stomach on the rock. He hung over the edge, calling out the man’s name in a soft, scared voice.
    With every passing minute, William panicked a little more. His fingers were itching to start digging, but he knew how easily the sand shifted, how dangerous it would be for the miniature man if William chose the wrong spot. Even though they had only just met, Deegan seemed incredibly important to him all of a sudden.
    â€œDo you see anything?” Jason asked.
    William shook his head. But then he did. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a hint of color. The small purple man had found a weed, one of those scrawny ones that grow directly out of the sand, and he was clinging to it. But whenever Deegan tried to put his feet down, the sand would give way and the leaf would dip and he’d bob up and down like a little kid on a trampoline.
    â€œI see him,” William whispered. “But we mustn’t scare him. He’s grabbed a weed under the shelter of the rock. We can’t bring him back to normal size while he’s under there. He has to come out first.”
    William inched closer and very carefully laid his open right palm in the sand.
    â€œDeegan,” he said quietly.
    The man looked wildly around, still swinging on his leaf.
    â€œHe looks like Tarzan,” said Jason, who was hanging upside down over the edge of the rock.
    â€œYou have to jump onto the palm of my hand,” William explained. “Do you see it?”
    The man nodded.
    â€œNow I’m going to move it closer. Don’t be scared. I’ll be very careful. I promise.”
    â€œWhat have you done to me?” Deegan called.
    â€œJason will explain that in a minute,” William said. He slid his palm along the sand until it rested right next to the stem of Deegan’s weed. “There now,” William said. “Jump.”
    Deegan eyed him warily. “I don’t blame you if you don’t want to trust us,” William said. “But you don’t have much choice right now.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a beetle making its dainty way across the sand toward the little man. Deegan spied it at the same moment and tried to scramble frantically up the swaying leaf.
    â€œJason,” William said in a quiet voice. “Do you see the beetle headed our way? Get rid of it, will you?”
    Jason dropped his hand like a wall between the beetle and the purple man so the insect changed direction abruptly and scuttled away into a dark crevice in the rock.
    With that, Deegan finally let go of his leaf and dropped onto William’s palm.
    â€œBetter sit down,” William said. “My hand isn’t very steady.” Deegan folded his legs and sat in a cross-leggedposition, looking like a stern little