Yeah? You mean the wings? Or was it the infiltrating-your-brain part? Oh, God, I had a bad feeling about this. I studied Angel, but as usual she looked wide-eyed and innocent. Not that that had ever meant anything.
“Yes, we certainly do,” I said. “Thank you for finding her. And bringing her back.”
Angel’s teacher fell all over herself, shaking the president’s hand and thanking him and apologizing all at the same time.
“My pleasure.” The president—the authentic president of the United States—leaned down and smiled at Angel. “You take care now,” he said. “Don’t go getting lost anymore.”
“I won’t,” Angel said. “Thanks for finding me.”
He patted her blond curls, making them bounce, then waved at the crowd before turning and heading out of the visitors’ center. The black-suited men hurried after him like ants on speed.
Every eye in the room was on us. I kneeled down to Angel’s level and spoke through a clenched smile. “I can’t believe this happened,” I said. “Are you okay?”
Angel nodded. “I was worried, ’cause I looked up and my whole class was gone. So I went down a hall, and then another hall, and then the president met me. But nothing weird happened. None of those guys turned into Erasers or anything.”
“Okaaay,” I said, my heart still beating fast. “Just stick close from now on. I don’t want to lose you again.”
“Okay, Max,” Angel said solemnly, taking my hand.
I also didn’t want her playing mind-puppet with the leader of the free world, but I was going to save that conversation till later.
61
“Zoom in.” Jeb leaned closer to the black-and-white monitor.
Ari wordlessly rewound the tape and zoomed in. Again he watched as the crowd in the visitors’ center rippled outward like a school of fish. Again the smiling countenance of the president appeared in the top left corner of the screen. Ari zoomed the focus in on the president and the blond kid by his side.
Jeb examined the screen intently, touching the glass as if he could touch the images themselves. Ari watched Jeb’s eyes focus on Angel, on Max, on the president. His gut tightened. What would it take to make Jeb look at him like that? He’d never cared about Ari when he was just a regular boy. Then Ari had been turned into a mutant freak, just like the bird kids. And still his own father had no time for him, no interest in him. What would it take? Not even dying had helped, which, face it, would have been most people’s trump card.
It was time. Past time. Time to take the freaks down. When they were completely gone, just footnotes in a science text, then Jeb would have to realize how important Ari was.
He watched as Max’s eyes widened on the screen. With those jackets on, you could hardly tell these kids were mutant freaks. Ari knew he himself was pretty identifiable. His retrofitted wings were too large to fold neatly up against his spine. His skin was rough from morphing in and out. And his features—Ari couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was something odd about his features, maybe from having a seven-year-old face stretched to fit a man-sized Eraser.
Max smiled at the president nervously. Even on a tiny black-and-white screen, she was striking. Tall, lean, sandy-streaked hair. He knew that under her jacket her arms were whipcord tough, strong. He could still feel the bruise from her last kick on his ribs. He scowled.
And there was his father, watching the screen as if looking at a Thanksgiving dinner. As if they were his kids, instead of Ari. As if he was proud of them and wanted them back.
But he wasn’t going to get them back. Not ever. Ari was going to make sure of that. Plans had been made. Wheels set in motion. Jeb would be angry at first. But he would come around.
Ari covered his mouth to hide his smile.
62
“Max?”
I looked up to see Nudge standing in the doorway of my room, shifting from foot to foot with excitement.
“Yeah?”
“I think I know the secret of the code.”
“Do tell,” I said, once we’d all gathered in her room.
“I think it’s from a book,” she said. “I mean, okay, it could be some computerized code, in which case we’ll never break it. But I think they want us to break it—want you to break it, as part of your testing.”
“Yeah, I guess I’m failing this particular test.”
“Not yet,” Nudge said. “There’re still a couple of things we haven’t tried. Like if the numbers all relate back to a book.”
“Which book?” asked Iggy.
“A big book, with lots of words. A book that wouldn’t be hard for you to find,” said Nudge. “Something all over the place, that a lot of people have.”
“The Da Vinci Code?” the Gasman suggested.
Iggy made a pained expression. “No. Like the Bible, nimrod. It’s everywhere. In hotels, people’s houses, schools. It’s something Max could find easily. Right, Nudge?”
“Yeah,” Nudge said.
“I don’t understand,” said Angel.
“Like, there’s strings of numbers, right?” said Nudge. “It would be like what Fang saw with the maps. But now one number is a book, another one is a chapter, another is a verse, and another would be one word from that verse. Then you take all the words and see what they add up to.”
“Huh,” I said, thinking. “Do we have a Bible here?”
Nudge reached down and pulled out a thick volume. “Anne had one downstairs. I’m borrowing it. Trying to strengthen my relationship with the Lord.”
Four hours later my brain was fried. Anne had made the younger kids go to bed. Iggy, Fang, and I were still trying to make the freaking numbers work with the Bible. But no matter how we played it, nothing was panning out.
“Maybe it’s the wrong version of the Bible,” Fang said tiredly. “There are different versions.”
“This is the King James,” said Iggy, rubbing his forehead. “The most common one in America.”
“And what do we have?” I rolled my shoulders and rotated my head from side to side.
Fang looked at his notes. “Thou. Upon. Fasting. Round. Always. Saul. Dwell. Fruit. Affliction. Didst. Delight. Dwell again.”
I frowned, shaking my head in frustration. “Nothing. No pattern, no meaning. The Bible was a great idea, but maybe we’re doing it wrong.”
“So I guess we just kiss the world good-bye,” Fang said after a pause.
I gave him a look. “So funny. You’re quite the wit.”
He gave the barest hint of a smug smile. “The ladies like it.”
Iggy burst out laughing, but I just stared at Fang, appalled. How could he joke about something like that? Sometimes I felt as if I didn’t even know him anymore.
I stood up, letting my pages fall to the ground. “I’m beat. See you in the morning.” I stood up and left without another look at either of them.
“I don’t suppose you took a look at my blog yet?” Fang called out. I didn’t bother to answer . . . that I had. And it was good. The boy had some poetry in him.
63
“Cool,” said the Gasman. “Glad I ran into you.” They were surrounded by an interweaving stream of voices, as kids all around them changed classes. It was before lunch, and Iggy had been on his way to the library when Gazzy had touched his arm.
Iggy nodded. “We’ll have to remember we have the same recess on . . . what day is this?” The voices around them thinned and started to fade away as he and Gazzy turned a corner.
“Friday. C’mon, let’s check this out.”
Iggy heard Gazzy open a door. From the sound of the echo, he knew they were facing a big space that went down. “What is this, the basement?”
“Yeah. I’ve been wanting to explore a bit.”
“Cool.”
Gazzy touched the back of Iggy’s hand, and Iggy concentrated on what was echoing barely perceptibly around him. At the bottom of the stairs, air currents and the slightest sounds told him they were in a large, relatively empty space.
“What’s it like?” he said, lowering his voice.
“Big,” said Gazzy. “Basementy. There’re some doors. Let’s see what’s behind ’em.”
Iggy heard the Gasman turn a doorknob and felt the breeze as the door swung toward them.
“Um, school supplies,” the Gasman said, moving a few feet away. He paused, and Iggy heard another door open.
“Sports equipment.”
“Anything good?”
“It’s all too big to carry—couldn’t hide it. Unless we had our backpacks with us.”
“Note to self,” said Iggy.
“Right.”
Iggy’s hand shot out and touched Gazzy’s shoulder. He held one finger to his lips and listened hard. Yes: footsteps.
“Someone coming down,” he said in the barest whisper.
Gazzy took Iggy’s sleeve and they walked quickly and silently a few yards down the hall. Another door opened, and the Gasman pulled Iggy inside and shut it behind them with a slight snick.
“Where are we?” Iggy breathed.
“Looks like a file room,” whispered Gazzy. “Let’s get behind some cabinets, just in case.”
Iggy followed Gazzy to the back of the room, sensing tall things on either side of them. He felt Gazzy hunch down on the floor and crouched down too, just as they heard voices, getting louder.
“But what do you want me to do, Mr. Pruitt?” a woman asked, sounding flustered.
“I want you to make sure those files are lost,” said the headmaster in his horrible, sneering voice. “We can’t destroy them, but we can’t have them found either. Is that totally beyond your comprehension?”
“No, no, but—,” said the woman.
“But nothing!” the headmaster snapped. “Surely you can handle this one simple task, Ms. Cox. Put the files where you can find them but no one else can. Or is that too much for you?”
Iggy shook his head. The headmaster was such a total jerk. He hated him. Someone should teach him a lesson.
“No,” said the woman, sounding defeated. “I can do it.”
“Very well then.”
Iggy heard the headmaster turn and stalk off, and Ms. Cox sighed right outside the file room. Then the door opened. Iggy heard the slight crackling buzz of the overhead fluorescent light coming on. He felt Gazzy tense beside him.
A metal drawer opened. Papers rustled. The drawer closed. Come on, leave, Iggy thought. But instead the footsteps came closer, in their direction. No, turn around, leave, Iggy mentally urged her. If only he could do mind control like Angel. Next to him, Gazzy was holding his breath, not making a sound. If she found them, it would be very bad.
The light snapped off. Footsteps left the room, and the door closed again. The Gasman breathed out at last.
“Close call,” he whispered, and Iggy nodded, his mouth dry. “Let’s split.”
They were almost back to the stairs when the door at the top of the stairs opened. They froze, with Iggy straining to hear what was happening. The next moment, they heard voices coming from the other end of the hall. They were trapped, with people coming from both sides.
“Crap!” Gazzy whispered.
“Do you have the thing?” Iggy asked tensely.
“Yeah. But Max said—”
“We’re going to get caught!” Iggy interrupted him. “Get the thing!”
64
“Okay, now you’re creeping me out,” I told Nudge. We were in the school library, and it was like she was able to extract information from the computer by osmosis, practically. We didn’t even need Mr. Lazzara the librarian’s help. First, we went on Fang’s blog and saw that he was adding stuff on a daily basis—his point of view on what had happened to us so far. Now he was adding drawings as well. Next, I had Nudge search for more ter Borcht mentions and also for any notices about missing infants during any of the years we were born. We couldn’t narrow down the months, but the years we were pretty sure about.
“Okay, fourteen years ago,” Nudge said, concentrating on the screen. “We might have the most luck with that, because there’s three of you.” She scrolled down. “Unless, you know, one of you was born in the fall of one year and the others were born in the spring of the next year. But in general I think we—”
“Is this school related?” The chilly, hate-filled voice, quivering with suppressed rage, could belong only to . . . the headhunter.
“We’re looking up newspaper articles,” Nudge said innocently. “For civics class.”
That’s my girl. Able to lie on a moment’s notice.
“Really?” Mr. Pruitt sneered, his lip curling. “And exactly what part of the curriculum—”
Boom.
The whole library shuddered slightly. Mr. Pruitt and I looked at each other in surprise, then his fuzzy eyebrows came together. The next instant, the school’s fire alarms started clanging, making us all jump.
For a moment we just stood there, too stunned to react. Then a loud hiss came from overhead. My head snapped up just in time for me to see the ceiling’s sprinkler system cranking on, showering us with icy water.
“What?” shouted Mr. Pruitt. “What is the meaning of this?”
My guess was it meant that Iggy and the Gasman had just shot to the top of my “so in trouble” list, but I didn’t say anything.
Everyone scrambled for the doors, yelling and pushing.
Mr. Lazzara cupped his hands around his mouth. “Orderly, please! Fire drill forms! Children!”
Mr. Pruitt charged toward the doors, practically mowing kids down in his effort to get out from under the sprinklers.
Nudge grinned at me, water dripping off her curly hair. “I didn’t know school would be this much fun,” she said.
65
“This is grounds for expulsion!” Mr. Pruitt screamed, veins popping out on his forehead.
I watched him with interest, calculating the chances of his keeling over from a heart attack within the next five minutes. Right now it looked like 60, 65 percent for.
The six of us were standing soggily in his office, half an hour after the last fire truck had left. Pruitt had insisted on seeing all of us together. We were chilled and bedraggled, and just wanted to get our butts home.
But nooo.
First we had to listen to the headhunter chew us out. Granted, being chewed out by someone as horrible as the headhunter was a walk in the park compared to, say, having Erasers try to kill you. But still, an afternoon-ruiner, for sure.
“The stink bomb was reason enough!” Mr. Pruitt shouted. “But I stupidly gave you a second chance! You’re nothing but a bunch of street rats! Vermin!”
I was impressed. Vermin was a new one on me, and I’d been called everything from arrogant to zealous.
Mr. Pruitt paused to suck in a breath, and I jumped in.
“My brothers didn’t do the stink bomb! You never proved it. Now you’re accusing us again with no evidence! How—how un-American!”
I thought the headhunter was going to pop a vessel. Instead he reached out and grabbed the Gasman’s hands, holding them in the air.
My heart sank as I saw the smudges of black powder, ground into his skin when the bomb went off.
“Besides that!” I blustered.
The headhunter seemed to swell with new rage, but just at that moment, the assistant showed Anne into the office.
She didn’t work for the FBI for nothing—somehow she managed to calm the headhunter down and shooed us out of the office and into her Suburban.
For half a mile there was silence in the car, but then she started in.
“This was your big opportunity, kids,” she began. “I’d had higher hopes. . . .”
There was a bunch more, but I tuned it out, gazing through my window at the fading autumn color. Every once in a while words floated into my consciousness: grounded, big trouble, disappointed, upset, no TV. And so on.
None of us said anything. It had been years since we’d had to answer to any grown-up. We weren’t about to start
now.
66
What Anne didn’t get was that only weeks ago we’d been sleeping in subway tunnels and scrounging for food. So being “grounded” and not able to watch TV was, like, meaningless.
“We still have this whole house,” Nudge pointed out in a whisper. “It’s full of books and games and food.”
“No dessert, though,” Total said mournfully. “And I didn’t do anything!”
“Yeah, no dessert,” said the Gasman indignantly.
I glared at him. “And whose fault is that, wise guy? You and Iggy screwed up again. For God’s sake, quit bringing explosives to school!”
“We did hear the headhunter telling Ms. Cox to bury some files,” the Gasman reminded me. “If we could find them, it might give us something to use against him.”
I sighed. “How about we just stay under the radar until we leave? Don’t retaliate, don’t do anything else. Just quietly get through the rest of our time here.”
“How long will we be here? Did you decide when you want to leave?” Angel asked.
“Yeah,” I said drily. “Two weeks ago.”
“Can we just stay through Thanksgiving?” Nudge asked. “We’ve never had a Thanksgiving meal. Please?”
I nodded reluctantly. “If no one else messes up, that should be okay.”
I went upstairs and headed to my room. As I passed Anne’s open door, I heard the TV. The words missing children caught my attention, and I paused, listening.
“Yes, the recent disappearance of several area children has brought back difficult memories for other parents who have lost children, whether recently or years ago. We’re talking now with Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths, whose only son was taken from a local hospital right after his birth.”
I froze. Griffiths was Iggy’s last name—we thought. I remembered that much from the legible papers we found at the Institute in New York—before they disappeared. But the Institute file had also said that Iggy’s father was dead. So these people couldn’t be his parents—could they? Riveted, I edged my way forward a few inches so I could watch the TV through the partially open door. I heard Anne in her bathroom, brushing her teeth.