The Dangerous Days of Daniel X

  Finally I had to ask Mom if she knew how she’d gotten into the house without my help.

  She shook her head. “Maybe your subconscious called me. Perhaps you’re worried, Daniel, as you should be. I pray that you’re ready for Number 6, son.”

  I looked into her eyes. “Mom, who do you pray to?”

  “I just pray, Daniel. That’s all.”

  Chapter 37

  PHOEBE HAD CALLED me on my cell and asked to meet at the coffee place on South Brand Boulevard a couple of ticks past three. I waved her over to the club chairs I’d snagged next to the fireplace. Be still, my heart.

  “First off, I want to apologize,” Phoebe said, putting down her bag. “I totally lost it with you this morning. It isn’t fair for me to dump my family troubles on you. Forget I said anything, okay? I . . .”

  I took Phoebe’s hand and squeezed gently as I stared into her blue eyes. My mouth was going dry again. Was that because I wanted to kiss her more than anything I’d ever wanted before?

  “Look,” I said. “I wouldn’t stop helping if you told me to. We’re going to find your sister. Somehow.”

  She squeezed back, a sign of thanks. Then she produced a manila folder from her bag and dropped it on the table.

  “That’s the police file on my sister’s case. My folks don’t know I have it.”

  I read through Allison’s missing persons file in a couple of seconds. There had been no witnesses. No sign of suspicious vehicles. No nothing.

  Allison had gone out to play at around one in the afternoon. When her mother checked on her, she was simply and inexplicably gone. And she had not been heard from again.

  My instincts told me that it had something to do with Seth. Did I mention there’s an active slave market for human children? Every single day kids are lifted off this planet. That’s the truth. They’re used for labor, and by some alien species—hurl alert—as pets.

  I wanted to tell Phoebe what I knew, but I couldn’t get the words out. Besides, I had no urge to sound completely demented and deranged.

  On the last page of the police file was a list of names and addresses. Someone had typed “Potential Pattern” and “Awaiting GP” across its top. For the next twenty minutes or so, we Googled the names on Phoebe’s laptop through the coffee shop’s Wi-Fi.

  There was a pattern at least. The kids had been taken mostly from Simi Valley, Beverly Hills, and Culver City. The abductions made an almost perfect connect-the-dots circle with Malibu at its direct center.

  Malibu, I thought. Where Seth was supposed to live. Was that where Phoebe’s sister was now?

  Malibu? I thought, finishing my coffee.

  The outer reaches of the Andromeda galaxy?

  Either-or.

  Chapter 38

  I GAVE PHOEBE a kind of brotherly hug before she stood to leave. I wanted to try to comfort her and, what the heck, just, you know, hug her. I couldn’t believe how good she smelled. Her hair, everything. Like a garden I’d visited once in the French countryside. Yep, that good.

  “We’re going to find Allison,” I whispered before she broke away. “I promise, Phoebe.”

  As I watched her leave, I tried to convince myself that I actually would find her sister, rescue her from whatever, and bring her back safely to the Cook family.

  I can do that, I thought to myself. Or I don’t deserve to have The List, do I.

  Outside the coffee shop, it was California perfect. Room temperature, no wind, a tangerine sunset in the cloudless sky. As I walked home, I hoped Phoebe’s sister was still around to see it.

  I was lost in deep thought when I reached out to open the wrought iron gate in front of my house.

  Hey, wait a second! Hold up! This house doesn’t have a wrought iron gate!

  I double-checked the address. There was no mistake. I couldn’t believe it.

  My house wasn’t there anymore!

  I stood and stared at rows of headstones, stone angels, weather-beaten tilted crosses. Worse, I could smell the rotting dead all around me.

  It was Seth! He’d turned my house into a cemetery.

  Not a cutesy, grammar-school, Halloween-decorated-gym kind of cemetery either. We’re talking a heart-bursting, run-for-your-life, Night of the Living Dead–style boneyard.

  The worst of it was a Greek temple–sized granite mausoleum with DANIEL carved above Doric columns. Just in case I didn’t get the message. Seth was off-the-chart powerful.

  I looked up and down the street to see if any of my neighbors were walking around. The place seemed deserted. How long had the house been a graveyard? I needed to change it back, but how? I’d transformed things before, but I’d never reversed somebody else’s transformation. Could I actually do that? I had no idea.

  Only one way to find out. I cleared my head and closed my eyes. Then I pictured the rental property the way it used to look, in extremely vivid and precise detail. I concentrated on the image from the past.

  Seconds later, I popped open my eyes.

  I winced and groaned out loud. The cemetery was gone, but the building I’d created was a replica of the one I’d lived in when I was in Portland. Worse, the two cops from the Runaway Juvenile Unit were standing outside. They called out, “Daniel! C’mere, Daniel! We want to talk to you, buddy. Where’s your crazy mom and dad?”

  I clamped my eyes shut, concentrated, and tried again. Very slowly, I opened my eyes.

  Yes! It had worked. The house was back to normal, at least it looked that way. Just a little reorganization of atoms and molecules, that’s all.

  I immediately turned around and left the way I’d come. My home base was officially compromised.

  Much worse, I was officially compromised.

  Chapter 39

  BASICALLY, I WENT INTO HIDING for the rest of the day. Hiding and worrying.

  When it was dark, I cut through a lot of backyards until I got to Phoebe’s house.

  I wanted to talk to her about her sister and a few other monumentally troubling things, but mostly I just felt comfortable around Phoebe. She was my first human friend.

  I stopped myself as I was about to ring her front doorbell. Hold up! It was past eleven at night. How was this going to work? Oh, hi, Mr. or Mrs. Cook. I’m Daniel, your daughter’s alien friend. Could I talk to her a sec?

  I was trying to figure out something clever when I saw a light blink on in an upstairs bedroom toward the rear of the house. Then I caught a quick glimpse of Phoebe. So I jogged along the hedge-lined driveway.

  I was down on my knees, searching for something to toss up at the window, when I heard a growl at the back of my neck. Not good! Not a sound I like to hear.

  I turned and was suddenly face to jowl with somebody’s angry Rottweiler.

  Emma, I thought, and concentrated fiercely. Emma! Help! Right this instant!

  And there she was in all her glory. “Hey, Daniel,” Emma said, flipping a French braid over her shoulder. “What’s up?”

  “Hello?” I whispered, pointing at the monstrous dog. “Dog! Teeth! Froth on chin!”

  Emma immediately wrapped the massive thing in a playful headlock, making it coo like a newborn as she scratched under its sharklike jaw.

  “This cutie?” she asked, wiping away the drool with her finger, then flicking it at me.

  “You rule, Emma,” I said as I backed away from her and the Rot. “I owe you one.”

  “I owe you. Thanks for thinking me here. I just love doggies.”

  Chapter 40

  FOR THE NEXT half minute or so, I searched for something to get me up to the brightly lit second-story window without alerting Phoebe’s parents. The best I could find was a backyard trampoline. A quick test bounce showed that it wasn’t quite the catapult I was looking for.

  I scampered up onto the roof of the toolshed. From there I jumped onto the trampoline and actually made it to the half-porch on the second floor. Phoebe was at her laptop behind an open window. When she saw me, she nearly fell out of her swivel chair.

>   “Daniel? Is that you? What are you doing here?”

  “Sorry. I wasn’t sure if it was cool to ring the doorbell this late. I got into a major blowout with my parents. I didn’t know where else to go,” I sputtered. “I should just leave, right?”

  “No, it’s okay, I guess,” Phoebe said, still looking puzzled, and who could blame her? “Just be really, really quiet. And hey—it’s nice to see you. I was thinking about you before.”

  “Anything new on Allison?” I asked once I was safely inside her room.

  “Nothing,” Phoebe said, and shook her head sadly. “But I’m glad you’re here. I was thinking that maybe we could skip school and go to Malibu tomorrow. To look for Allison.”

  Chapter 41

  GO TO THE BEACH with Phoebe instead of school? I thought. I could certainly handle that.

  A few minutes later Phoebe took down a chess set from her shelf, and for the next hour, we gorged ourselves on microwave popcorn and played. Phoebe was really good. I’ve played IBM’s Deep Blue program, so I’m a pretty fair judge of talent.

  “I thought you said you only played a little,” I said as she took my second knight. “I think I’m being hustled. You think I wouldn’t notice that totally obscure Konstantino-polsky opening? Who taught you that? Kasparov?”

  “Hey, I told you I was a closet geek,” she said, smiling. Which was weird, because when I looked up about two seconds later, a tear was running down Phoebe’s cheek.

  “Hey, don’t do that. Aren’t you supposed to cry if you’re losing?”

  “It’s not that,” Phoebe said, wiping her eyes. “I’m actually happy. Can’t you tell?”

  “And that’s why you’re crying?”

  “It’s just . . . I was so bummed out that first day of school, and then I turned around and there you were. Now you’re trying to help me find Allison. It’s like fate or something, you know, Daniel? You’re like my guardian angel. I don’t mean to be corny, but —”

  “Phoebe?” a man’s voice called from the hall. “Are you still awake? C’mon, sweetheart. Lights out. You have school in the morning.”

  I was at the window, about to dive for the bushes, when Phoebe grabbed me. And held me against her body, which was kind of nice, I must say.

  “It’s okay, Daniel. He’s gone. Let me fix a place for you to sleep.”

  I stood there watching Phoebe arrange pillows and sheets. She isn’t thinking that I . . . I mean, she doesn’t think that she and I would . . . WHAT?

  A pillow hit me square in the face.

  “You sleep in the closet here, Daniel. In case my mom or dad opens the door, okay? See you in the morning.”

  “Oh yeah. The closet. Perfect,” I said.

  “Night, Daniel,” said Phoebe.

  “Night, Phoebe,” I said.

  From the closet.

  Not so terrible, actually.

  Safe anyway.

  Chapter 42

  MY DREAMS that night were as vivid as ever, six hours of full 1080p resolution. Which would have been really great if every dream hadn’t been a soul-sucking, bloodcurdling nightmare that no one in their right mind would watch after dark.

  In the worst one, The Prayer was chasing me through my house with a couple of bloody scythes. As I ran into the kitchen, the floor gave way under my feet, and I fell face-first through a moldering coffin onto the chest of a decomposed corpse in a wedding dress. I stared into empty eye sockets as peeling, blackened lips pursed themselves together, ready to give me a kiss. The corpse was Phoebe!

  Shoe boxes in the closet went flying as I woke up, flailing. I wiped my sweat-drenched face with a sleeve before I poked my head out the closet door.

  Phoebe wasn’t in her bed. That was funny. Funny odd. The room was dark. The alarm clock on the desk said it was 6:51. Had she gotten up already?

  I listened for the sound of a shower.

  Nothing.

  The alarm clock clicked to 6:52 as I glanced over at the open window above her unmade bed. A bad feeling started in the pit of my stomach. This was weird. Where was she?

  I pulled on my sneakers and decided to search the house for Phoebe, forgetting that her parents might see me. At alien hyperspeed, I blurred through the upper three bedrooms.

  Phoebe wasn’t in the shower.

  Phoebe wasn’t anywhere in the bedrooms.

  Not in the attic either.

  Phoebe was gone.

  Chapter 43

  I STOPPED OUTSIDE the kitchen doorway when I heard her parents talking in there.

  “What do you mean she’s not in the house?” Phoebe’s mom was saying.

  “I noticed her school bag’s gone,” her dad said. “Maybe she went in early to study. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

  I heard a phone lift.

  “Who are you calling?” asked Phoebe’s father.

  “The police,” said her mom.

  “Honey, there’s no need to panic. We should think this through.”

  “She’s the only daughter we have left,” her mom said, sounding as freaked as I was feeling. “You think it through while I do something.”

  No, I thought, closing my eyes. This is not good. People just didn’t disappear in the middle of the night. At least not willingly. If Phoebe wanted to head to Malibu without me, she would have said something. I was right there in the closet, wasn’t I?

  I fast-forwarded myself down the hallway, through the family room, and out the front door.

  I had to find Phoebe.

  Before Ergent Seth did.

  Chapter 44

  MY PANIC STATE had pretty much quadrupled by the time I burst through Glendale High’s front doors a few minutes later. I raced up and down the halls, ripping open doors and sticking my head into empty classrooms like a lunatic escaped from an alien asylum.

  There goes her dad’s theory, I thought, sprinting through the deserted cafeteria. Phoebe isn’t here at school. Not even in the corner of the library where she’d first told me about her sister’s being missing.

  Phoebe’s words from the night before burned in my ears as I passed her locker.

  You’re like my guardian angel.

  Yeah, I thought, sick with worry. Or maybe I’m the one who led Seth to you.

  “There you are,” Mr. Marshman said as he practically clotheslined me in front of his office. “We’ve been trying to call your house. There was a mix-up, and we forgot to give you your placement exam. I’m glad you’re here early. You can take the test now. This is perfect.”

  Was this guy kidding me? Like I needed a test now? Like I didn’t have enough on my mind already?

  I let out a deep breath as I glanced over his shoulder at the nearest exit. Should I just bolt? Phoebe obviously wasn’t here. Maybe she’d headed to Malibu on her own. Or maybe Seth had taken her to keep her sister company?

  “Mr. Marshman, with all due respect, I really can’t do this now,” I said.

  “I think you can, Mr. Hopper.” He handed me a booklet and pencil. “I know you can, Mr. Hopper.”

  “All right, fine.” I practically ripped the test out of his hands. I leaned it against the nearest wall, speed-read my way through it, marking off answer after answer with machine-gun rapidity.

  Maybe thirty seconds later, forty tops, I broke the pencil in half on the last of the one hundred multiple-choice fill-ins. I shoved the test into Marshman’s face.

  “Don’t bother to grade it. I aced it,” I said, taking a step for the exit. “Now, I have to go! Every once in a while something is actually more important than school! Hard to believe, I know!”

  Marshman suddenly made a grunting sound and shifted like a linebacker to his left, blocking my path.

  “I knew you were trouble the first time I laid eyes on you,” he said, red-faced. “My instincts are never wrong, Hopper.”

  That’s it. Enough of this nonsense, I thought.

  Up and down the school hallway, I levitated all the student lockers. Then I levitated Mr. M
arshman until his bullet head touched the ceiling and he yelped with surprise and disbelief.

  “How—how did you do that?”

  “You don’t want to know,” I said, gazing into his astounded eyes. “Now you stay right there—for thirty minutes. Let’s call it a time-out!”

  Then I left school—in a blur.

  Chapter 45

  I BURST OUT the back exit into the parking lot.

  First I scanned all the cars.

  Then the athletic fields. Beyond the wrecked equipment shed, a team was starting early soccer practice.

  Maybe Phoebe had joined the soccer team, I thought. No, that didn’t make sense. You’re losing it, Daniel. This isn’t like you.

  I picked up my pace when I saw that one of the girls near the far goal had long black hair. Phoebe? The soccer coach blew her whistle as I ran past.

  I was about midfield when the dark-haired girl finally turned around. My heart sank. Unless Phoebe had suddenly turned Asian American, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” the coach yelled, charging toward me.

  I wish I knew.

  Then I heard a girl scream, and I recognized the voice immediately.

  “Phoebe!” I yelled, my eyes burning as I half-ran, half-clawed my way up a steep slope beyond the athletic fields. “I’m coming . . . Hold on!”

  I finally broke the top of the rise a second later. Thank the heavens, Phoebe was there. She was in a clearing, down on her knees, crying. I wasn’t too late! I’d found her. I ran up and wrapped her in my arms, feeling the familiar warmth of her body.

  “Oh Daniel, something really horrible,” she whispered, trembling, “something unspeakable, is about to happen. I just know it. I’m sure of it.”

  Chapter 46

  “IT’S OKAY, PHOEBE,” I said as I rocked her gently back and forth. “I’m here now. Everything is okay. It’s my fault. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”