Hunter Moran Saves the Universe

  Zack leans over my shoulder. “Only nine in this one. The end number is torn off.”

  I whisper the number: 393-555-144—and there it leaves off. “At the most we’ll have to call nine people.” I try not to shout over Steadman’s noise. “We’ll just keep adding numbers, zero to eight.”

  “Zero to nine,” Zack says.

  “No, that one’s ours: five-five-five-one-four-four-nine.”

  “Genius.” Zack gives me a high five. He looks down at the phone. “This thing is falling apart.”

  “Like everything else in this house,” I say. “I think William stepped on it.”

  “Conked the Caller ID right out,” Zack says. “Too bad.” He punches in the first number: 555-1440. No answer.

  Very suspicious, right from the start.

  I try the next: 1441. But things are getting complicated. Linny has just come into her bedroom. We hear her closing the door to muffle Steadman’s noise.

  We have to be ultraquiet. Linny gets furious when someone invades her space. And the crawl space is part of her bedroom. At least, that’s what she says.

  Someone answers the phone. I whisper “Hello,” in a deep Pop-type voice.

  “Is that you, Hunter?” someone asks.

  It’s Sarah Yulefski from my class. This is the worst possible thing. Last month Sarah told the whole fifth grade that I liked her. Liked her! She has braces over brown teeth and spits when she talks.

  “No,” I say. “This is Vinny’s Vegetables and Much More. Your order is ready.”

  “Hunter?” she says. “Are you working there?”

  I close the phone.

  “Who’s there?” Linny yells.

  Zack and I don’t move. We don’t even breathe.

  Linny doesn’t move, either; she’s afraid of kidnappers. After a minute, she rushes out of her room and slams the door behind her.

  Steadman stops hammering; he clatters into Linny’s room. “Just what we need,” Zack says.

  I crawl into Linny’s bedroom, wiping cobwebs off the top of my head. “Hi, Steadman,” I say.

  “What are you doing in there?”

  “Cleaning up the spiders. They could be poisonous.”

  “Great,” he says. “I’ll help.”

  “Cheech,” Zack moans from the crawl space.

  “I have a better idea,” I say. “You could have ocean warfare with your men.”

  His eyes light up. Then he shakes his head. “We don’t have any oceans around here.”

  “Follow me,” I say.

  I gather up a ton of his army men, his miniature tanks and ships, and take them into the bathroom. “We’ll just fill the sink a bit,” I tell him, “and you can slosh all these guys around.” I dump everything into the sink, stick in the plug, and turn on the faucet.

  “I’ll be back soon,” I say.

  I race to the crawl space.

  “Genius,” Zack says, and hands me the phone so I can dial the next number. A quavery voice answers. It’s Old Lady Campbell, Zack’s cello teacher.

  I press the End button quickly.

  Then it’s Zack’s turn; he hits pay dirt. “It’s Diglio,” he whispers as a voice growls into the phone loud enough for the citizens of Uzbekistan to hear: “Dr. Diglio here.”

  He sounds so sinister, it almost scares me. You’d never believe he and Mom went to school together, that they even lived next door to each other growing up.

  “Hello,” Zack says in a voice that sounds like Whistling Ghost, Saturday Night Special.

  “Olyushka!” Diglio says into the phone.

  “Is that what you call the bomb, the one in the note?”

  “Olyushka?” Diglio shouts. “What do you know about …”

  Then all is static.

  Zack and I stare at each other. And then Diglio’s voice comes through again.

  “Listen,” he says. “I know you feel bad about their dying. But never mind, we’ll be out of here soon. We’ll forget about them. What do they do, anyway? Just hang around waiting to be fed.”

  Zack and I look at each other. Could he possibly be talking about us? All we do all summer is hang around. But how does he know about what we eat?

  “Spying on us, that’s how,” Zack whispers.

  Probably right in our kitchen window with binoculars. Horrible.

  It makes me think of something. That’s what we’ll ask Nana to give us next Christmas, high-powered binoculars. If we’re still alive, that is.

  “Olyushka,” Diglio begins.

  “But why a bomb?” Zack cuts in. “Who are you working for? Is it Russia? North Korea? Antarctica?”

  “A Moran kid!” Diglio snarls like Old Lady Campbell’s dog, Fred. “You think I don’t recognize your voice?”

  “No.” Zack chooses a name from our class at random. “It’s Joseph Simiglia. I think I have the wrong number.”

  Diglio isn’t fooled. “I see the number. I bet it’s your cell phone.”

  We’ve made a fatal error. Of course he’d have Caller ID. Who’d dare step on his phone?

  “Listen, you two.” Diglio sounds as if he’s coming through the phone at us. “Watch out that I don’t see your father.” He slams down the phone.

  We sit there thinking; then we head for our bedroom.

  “Can’t even take a simple wrong number,” Zack says innocently. “Something is wrong with Dr. Diglio.”

  We give each other another high five. That’s exactly what we’ll say if Diglio runs into Pop and tries to get us off the case.

  But what is this all about? It’s getting scary, really scary, if you ask me. The original missing from S-T-U, a bomb called Olyushka, my name—Hunt—and all of Newfield in jeopardy.

  Chapter 4

  Mom is the greatest. She can hit a ball as far as a major-league player. Well, almost. And she makes the best spaghetti in the world. It’s her one great recipe. But she’s a nervous wreck. She worries about break-ins, bacteria, and dirty fingernails.

  “That’s why we have to protect her,” I tell Zack.

  “Don’t I know it, Hunter,” he says, as inch by inch, we slide up our bedroom window. Even though two television programs are competing with each other downstairs and William is practicing his train whistle as he paints, Mom can still hear what’s going on.

  I poke my head out the window to test the air. At last the sun has come out. In a moment I’m going to jump.

  From the window, the rope on Pop’s flagpole whips around; the flag is long gone. “Breezy,” I say, the wind tearing the words out of my mouth.

  Zack licks his finger and sticks it out. “You’re right.”

  We look down at the two-story drop into St. Ursula’s garden. Right below is the fountain of St. Egbert, with a fringe of cement hair. Dribbles of water spew out from his hands, but not nearly enough to clean off the bird gunk.

  “Don’t want to hit that guy,” Zack says.

  No. We want to cross over to the half-dead sycamore tree and then onto St. Ursula’s roof without taking a nose dive.

  The roof is a humdinger: slippery gray slate with a steeple that pokes up forever. If we miss, there are no two ways about it. We’ll slide down the slope, catapult into St. Eggie, and kill ourselves.

  Mom will be a basket case, and Pop will be steaming mad.

  I punch Zack’s arm to toughen him up. We need strength. Zack punches me back. “Good thing we practiced, Hunter.”

  We’ve been working on flying skills. Sister Ramona, who’s taught first grade at St. Ursula’s for fifty years, also a nervous wreck, says practice makes perfect.

  We glance at our beds, one on each side of the room. It’s the worst mess. We’ve been jumping from one bed to the other, one desk to the other, over Zack’s dusty cello case, then leaping up to grab the top of the open closet door.

  “Not quite the same thing as trying for St. Ursula’s roof,” Zack says, reading my mind.

  “It’s for the good of the country,” I remind him, not mentioning that my own life
is at stake.

  We’re ready to go. Outside we’ll have to balance ourselves on a sill that’s wide enough for a couple of toes. One thing we’ve learned is that you don’t jump well from a standing position. We’ll have to crouch down and spring into the air toward the tree like a pair of frogs.

  “Let’s get a move on before Mom gets up here,” Zack says. “Poor Mom. She has enough on her mind with the rest of the kids without worrying about us.”

  “Especially William, who’s painting the whole house,” I say. “And Steadman, who leaves a trail of potato chips behind him as if he’s Hansel heading toward the witch’s house.”

  Mom deserves a break, we both agree.

  We flip a coin to see who goes first. I win, or lose, depending on how you look at it. I scramble around until I’m outside the window. “Great view,” I say, holding on to the sides with a death grip. “You can see into Diglio’s yard and all the way to Tinwitty’s man-sized soup kettle and the Star Union train station.”

  “Let’s get this over with,” Zack says.

  “Right.” I get into a crouching position so my chin almost touches my knees.

  “Just pretend you’re flying from my bed to yours,” Zack says. “Nothing to it.”

  I squint at the steeple. I have to high-wire over to the tree, without the wire, then dive across to the steeple and straddle the roof point, in two smooth motions.

  Old Lady Campbell is standing down below now, while Fred slurps water from St. Eggie’s fountain, then scarfs down a half-eaten Pop-Tart from the path, wrapper and all. Old Lady Campbell herself is staring up at a plane going by from Sturgis Air Force Base. Her head is tilted so far back it looks as if she’ll fall over any minute.

  I have to concentrate. If I miss my jump, not only will I kill myself, but I’ll smash her to smithereens.

  And Fred, who begins to yap up at me.

  It’ll take Old Lady Campbell only a moment to see what’s set the dog into a frenzy. There’s not a minute to waste.

  “Olyushka,” I mutter. I sail out across St. Ursula’s garden, over St. Eggie, grab a branch as thick as my arm, and hang there to catch my breath.

  “Move!” Zack yells a little impatiently.

  I kick back at the trunk with one foot, then let go.

  And here comes the roof. Here comes the steeple.

  I reach out and out and—

  There it is, solid slate, just like we practiced.

  I land harder than I expected, the breath knocked out of me, but I manage to wrap my arms around the steeple, straddle the roof, and get out of the way a second before Zack careens into me.

  We crouch there, pleased with ourselves. Then we remember: the original missing from S-T-U, St. Ursula’s Church. What could it be? Zack raises his hand to point.

  It’s a good thing Old Lady Campbell has left the scene, pulling Fred all the way. She doesn’t see Steadman standing on the windowsill ready to jump.

  Chapter 5

  Steadman! Never mind his potato chip trails or his big mouth. He’s funny and looks great when he gets cleaned up. I can’t even stand to think of something happening to him.

  “Go back!” I whisper-yell.

  He teeters there, waving to Old Lady Campbell’s back. “Hey, Fred,” he calls to the dog.

  Next to me, Zack is losing it. “Steadman!” he screams.

  I know we’re both thinking the same thing, how Steadman looks just after he wakes up, how excited he was on his birthday this year. He even shared his last piece of cake with me, a little gooey, mostly eaten, but still …

  “Hang on, Steadman!” I yell.

  The hall window goes up. Linny and her friend Becca poke their heads out. Becca is here again? She’s the biggest know-it-all in the world.

  Zack and I inch our way around the steeple so they can’t see us.

  They do see Steadman; their screech is loud enough to break our eardrums. Zack and I peer around the steeple as Mom barrels out the back door, with Mary pinned to her jeans, a look of horror on her face.

  And Steadman?

  Steadman loses his balance but somehow manages to connect with the flagpole. He swings back and forth gently.

  “Just like an orangutan,” Zack says.

  William comes out next. Mom always says he’s the one with a head on his shoulders. He stands under the window, arms out. “Jump!” he yells to Steadman. “I’ll catch you.”

  William may have a head on his shoulders, but he doesn’t have too much in the brain department. He can’t even catch a pop fly.

  But Linny has brains. In two seconds she and Becca reach our bedroom. They lean out; Linny grabs one of Steadman’s wrists and Becca the other one. They lug him inside an inch at a time, then slam down the window and lock it.

  Something flits into my mind. Something about Steadman? Something important? Whatever it is, it flits right out again.

  Old Lady Campbell disappears around the corner and William goes inside to spatter more paint on the hall wall. The 6:20 train comes into the station, while Mom sinks down on the doormat, crying, with Mary hanging off her shoulder. I can see Mom’s lips moving. She’s counting. She does that to calm herself. I can almost hear her. “Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty …”

  Poor Mom. It’s all too much for her.

  “Maybe we should do something for her,” I whisper to Zack.

  “We’ll make our own beds,” he said. “From now on. All we have to do is throw the quilts across the whole thing.”

  “She’ll be thrilled,” I say. “And at least we haven’t been implicated in the Steadman situation.”

  Zack nods. “We’ll be able to check out Dr. Diglio’s house before he blows up Newfield.”

  I can’t even bear to think of that.

  We can see into Diglio’s yard on the other side of St. Ursula’s. The front may be a desert, but the back is a jungle. Hedges surround his fence, trees poke up here and there, and a tangle of butterfly bushes hides the windows. Probably a load of poison ivy, too.

  It’s a perfect spy backyard. You’d have to hack your way through to see what’s going on in there. And that’s what we might have to do. It’s a good thing Pop has a hacksaw thrown in with his rusty tools in the garage.

  “But where’s Diglio?” Zack asks.

  Like magic he appears out his back door, carrying a shovel. His head is hunched into his shoulders.

  It’s helpful that he doesn’t look up. He walks to a tree, then bends over and begins to dig.

  “Burying something,” Zack breathes, as if I don’t see exactly what he does. He snaps his fingers. “That thing we saw on TV? Bombs Over …”

  “Over Mars. Tuesday night, eight o’clock. That’s what they did, kept the bomb in an underground tunnel until they were ready to use it. Then …”

  “Olyushka,” Zach says; he nudges me.

  Pop is turning into our path from the train station, swinging his laptop in its orange case. Not only is Pop reliable, like Linny, he also has a head on his shoulders, like William, but once in a while it can be an irritable head. Zack and I will be confined to our bedroom forever if he catches us up here.

  Diglio stops digging. Still bent over like a pretzel, he rubs the small of his thick back with one hand. “Arthritis like Nana,” Zack says. “His government is really scraping the bottom of the barrel to hire him to blow up Newfield.”

  We don’t dare peer around the steeple to see what Pop’s up to. Pop not only looks like an eagle, his eyes are wicked sharp. We hear him, though. He’s talking to Mom, who’s telling him something.

  “I know,” Pop says in a calming voice. “They’re barbarians.”

  “Good thing we’re not involved in the Steadman caper,” Zack says, barely moving his lips.

  Mom is still talking. “And with Tinwitty Night coming up, I have to judge those soup entries to see which one is closest to Lester Tinwitty’s secret recipe. It’s all too much.”

  “You can say that again,” Zack says, forgetting to whisper.
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  Pop looks up and we almost bury ourselves in the roof tiles.

  But wait. Diglio’s back door is opening slowly. We lean forward. It’s Mrs. Diglio. She teeters across the yard on killer high heels. Mrs. Diglio is his accomplice?

  Any minute we’ll uncover a whole nest of spies.

  Mrs. Diglio carries a box in her hands. She holds it out as if she can’t bear to touch it.

  “What is it?” I ask. “What—”

  “A bomb. Just like TV. They’re burying it for now.”

  I nod slowly. Zack’s a thinker, all right.

  I wonder how powerful that bomb could be. I’m thinking of the St. Eggie statue with its tons of bird poop blasting out in a million soggy pieces. It’ll hit our garden for sure. Pop will be fuming. He spends every weekend mucking around out back, planting, weeding, cutting, and screeching when he steps in one of Steadman’s tunnels.

  Now Mrs. Diglio bends down and carefully deposits the bomb in the hole.

  “Olyushka,” Dr. Diglio says.

  I whisper, “We’ll have to dismantle it. Good thing you can learn anything on the Internet.”

  Diglio takes a spy look around. The sun glints off his thick glasses. He looks up and he must see us. His mouth opens like a fat round O.

  Zack and I sit entirely still, as if we’re just a couple of extra slates connected to the roof. Diglio stares up at us, blinking hard, as if he can’t believe what his eyes are telling him.

  “You’d think he never saw two kids on a church roof before,” Zack says. We move around to the other side of the steeple to get his mind off us.

  I hear Pop’s voice. He’s yelling, actually screeching.

  Something comes to me in a flash. I have a horrible memory of the bathroom sink. I see water. I see Steadman’s men floating around. I see that I haven’t turned off the water. There’s a lake in the bathroom. No, it’s an ocean.

  “Hunnnnn-terrrr!” Dad yells at the top of his lungs.

  What next?

  What’s next is another problem. Linny has locked the window. How are we going to get back into the house?

  Zack stares at the window, too.

  It certainly is a problem.

  Chapter 6

  Zack nudges me. “How about the steeple?”