This Book Is Not Good for You

  With a normal adoption, you could march over to the adoption agency and demand to know the names of your birth parents. (“Sure, when you turn eighteen,” her mother repeatedly reminded her. “Until then, the records are sealed.”) Because Cass had been dropped on a doorstep, there was no agency to consult.

  To Cass the answer was simple: hire a detective. But her mother refused. Even when Cass said she’d give up her allowance for a year.

  So, not for the first time, Cass decided to play detective herself.

  “Please help me,” said Cass. “You have no idea what it’s like not to know who your parents are. Your parents fight over you every second of your life.”

  “I said OK, didn’t I?”

  Max-Ernest made a big show of examining a shoebox on the shelf in front of him. “You think a baby could fit in this—?”

  “No.”

  “What if it was a midget baby—”

  “You know what—why don’t you just leave?”

  Before Max-Ernest could respond:

  Thunk!

  It was the sound of something very heavy dropping on the ground. Followed by a loud insistent pounding on the front door.

  *I COULDN’T DECIDE WHETHER THE EVENTS THAT TRANSPIRED IN CASS’S GRANDFATHERS’ STORE SHOULD BE PRESENTED AS ONE CHAPTER OR TWO. SO I MADE IT ONE CHAPTER IN TWO PARTS. THAT’S WHAT’S KNOWN AS SPLITTING THE DIFFERENCE.

  Thunk!

  Again. And more pounding.

  “Who is that?” Max-Ernest whispered, pale. “I thought the store was closed.”

  Cass shrugged, trying her best to look unconcerned. But she abandoned the box she’d been inspecting and stood up all the same. “Probably somebody unloading their old junk on my grandfathers, like usual.”

  Thunk!

  Louder this time. They both flinched.

  “Yeah, but what if it isn’t?” said Max-Ernest, staring at the front door. “There’s no time to get a message to the Terces Society.”

  Cass’s ears tingled in alarm at the mention of their secret organization. “Shh! You never know who’s listening.”

  “That’s my point,” Max-Ernest whispered. “The Midnight Sun could be right outside the door, for all we know. How ’bout that?”

  Cass looked at him, her ears now turning cold.

  Max-Ernest was right. The terrible truth was: they had done such a good job of driving away their enemies they no longer knew where their enemies were.

  It had been months since they’d last seen the Midnight Sun’s malevolent leaders, Ms. Mauvais and Dr. L, flying away from a mountaintop graveyard in a black helicopter, and despite the Terces Society’s best efforts, they’d been unable to determine where that helicopter had gone.

  Those insidious, invidious, and perfectly perfidious alchemists could be anywhere.

  “Maybe they’ve been waiting all this time for your grandfathers to leave,” Max-Ernest continued. “And now they’re going to seize their chance to take revenge on us.”

  Cass didn’t say anything; she didn’t have to.

  They waited another minute or so—it felt much longer—but there were no more thunks. Just the usual ticks and tocks and whirs and beeps of the many old clocks and assorted gizmos that cluttered the store.

  Then they started tiptoeing toward the front door.

  Bang! Crash!

  They froze. This time the sounds came from inside.

  Had somebody broken in?

  Grabbing each other’s hands, they started turning around in slow circles (although whether they were looking for the sources of the sounds or for someplace to hide I’m not certain).

  Finally, Max-Ernest pointed to the floor—

  At his feet were the broken pieces of a ceramic rooster he’d knocked over. That was what had made all the noise. Well, those last noises. The bang and the crash. The thunking and pounding remained to be explained.

  They waited another minute. Nothing.

  Cass cracked the front door open—

  And they breathed matching sighs of relief.

  Cass’s first guess had been correct: there were three cardboard boxes waiting for them on the landing.

  They wouldn’t have to battle the Midnight Sun, after all. Not right now anyway.

  “Let’s see,” Cass said, expertly shaking the boxes one by one. “Shoes—hope they don’t stink too bad… shirts—all stained probably… magazines…”

  After struggling to find places in which to squeeze the new merchandise, Cass resumed searching for the cardboard box that had been her very first home.

  Max-Ernest, meanwhile, sat back down on his encyclopedia pile and started flipping through the box of magazines. There were many kinds, some recent, some going back years. Sadly for Max-Ernest, there were no puzzle books or magic manuals or science magazines (the three things he was looking for in order of preference).

  He was about to close up the box when he noticed a magazine that had been buried near the bottom.

  “Hey, look at this—it’s from last week.”

  “We? Since when do you care about We?” Cass laughed. “That’s like all celebrity gossip and stuff. Have you even heard of the names in it?”

  “I’ve heard of the Skelton Sisters—”

  He walked over to Cass and thrust the magazine under her nose.

  The cover of We showed two skinny blond girls—the twin teen superstars known as the Skelton Sisters—who just happened to be two of the youngest members of the Midnight Sun. (Most members were much older, as in hundreds of years older.) They were smiling dumbly at the camera, one of them holding an unhappy-looking baby—as far away from her body as possible.

  Cass smirked. “She looks like the baby just peed on her or something.”

  She opened the magazine to an article headlined:

  Twin Hearts IN AFRICA:

  THE SKELTON SISTERS’ LATEST ROCK TOUR

  IS A GOODWILL MISSION.

  A two-page picture showed the twins standing with a nun in a white habit. Surrounding them were a dozen grinning children.

  And in the background: a bright green bird with a long tail flying into the jungle.

  Cass read the caption aloud:

  Romi and Montana Skelton with Sister Antoinette at the Loving Heart Orphanage in the Cote d’Ivoire. The self-supporting orphanage runs a cacao plantation on which all the children lend a hand. “It’s a wonderful learning experience, like an open-air classroom,” says Sister Antoinette. “And of course at the end of the day there’s always plenty of chocolate for everyone!”

  Cass looked up from the magazine, shaking her head. “Can you believe they were at an orphanage? Probably they just went to have their photo taken… Hey, wait a second—we know this nun!”

  “I doubt it,” said Max-Ernest. “I don’t know any nuns. I mean, unless I know a nun but I don’t know I do—”

  “Well, you know this one.”

  Max-Ernest stared. “Oh no, is that who I think it is?”

  Cass nodded, excited. “Can you imagine anybody less likely to be a nun than Ms. Mauvais?”

  “So we found the Midnight Sun? How ’bout that?”

  Cass grinned. “How ’bout that? We have to tell everybody right away!”

  “Tell us what? We’re dying to know!”

  They looked up from the magazine, startled.

  Grandpa Wayne and Grandpa Larry had entered through the back, and were now standing over them, smiling.

  It wasn’t a very comforting sight.

  Larry and Wayne had been competing with each other in a beard-growing contest for the last six months, and they were both looking slightly bed-raggled, to put it mildly. (Larry brushed his beard religiously and Wayne braided his in two long strands—but neither approach really helped.)

  Sebastian, their old, ailing, and blind basset hound, was sleeping in a baby sling around Grandpa Larry’s neck. Dog drool dribbled down Larry’s arm.

  “So what’s the big news?” asked Grandpa Larry.

  “Oh, nothing,??
? Cass stammered. “You know, gossip. It’s a gossip magazine.”

  Grandpa Wayne eyed the magazine open on Cass’s lap. “Is that those girls—what are they called, the Skeleton Sisters?”

  “Skelton, not skeleton. But ghoulish nonetheless,” Larry sniffed. “Why a granddaughter of mine would be interested in girls like them, I’m sure I don’t know.”

  Cass’s first instinct was to defend herself, but instead she offered a rueful smile. “It’s just so I know what the other kids are talking about. So I don’t seem like a freak. Sorry, I know it’s lame.…”

  She would have to live with her grandfathers’ disapproval. Today she and Max-Ernest had made a major discovery. Maybe it wasn’t the discovery she’d been hoping for, but in a way it was much more important.

  “How’s Sebastian?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “Oh, he’ll be fine—won’t you, Sebastian?” Larry patted the dog’s head.

  The dog barked halfheartedly, drooling onto Max-Ernest, who hastily wiped it away.

  “Dander—it’s in the saliva. I’m really allergic,” he explained to no one in particular.

  Late that night, five people—a retired magician, a certified public accountant, an out-of-work actor, and a violin teacher and her student—all received the same e-mail message from somebody named Miss Ardnassac:

  LOOKING FOR SUN?

  CHEAP VACATION!

  ONE DAY ONLY!

  Anybody reading over their shoulders would have assumed it was spam. Junk mail. The recipients knew it was anything but.

  The message meant Cassandra had information about the Midnight Sun.

  “Vacation” was the Terces Society’s code word for meeting.

  “Cheap” signaled that the meeting was urgent.

  “One day only” meant the meeting would be the veryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy y y yy y y y

  Aaaargh, my head hurts!

  What happened? Is it night already?

  I must have dozed off in the middle of that last sentence.

  Don’t worry, there wasn’t much left. Just “the very next day.”

  I wonder what could have made me pass out like that. Too much chocolate? I have to admit: it wouldn’t be the first time.

  Hmmm. I could have sworn I left those pages in a pile. What are they doing on the floor?

  Has somebody else been here?

  Hey, you don’t suppose…?

  I wonder…

  If a certain person or persons wanted to come in and read the pages on my desk while I was working, how would they do it? How would they get me out of the way? Might they slip me a sleeping pill—say, in a gift box full of chocolate?

  What was that you said earlier? That the chocolate I received must be some kind of trick? Funny how positive you were about that. Almost like you knew something you weren’t telling me.

  Not that I’m accusing you.

  Or am I?

  You know, people always warn children about taking candy from strange adults. But they never warn us adults about taking candy from strange children.

  All those sweet-looking kids who sell boxes of candy bars on the street to help pay for their schooling—how do we know what’s in those bars? And don’t get me started on that nefarious institution designed to lure unsuspecting customers into buying mysterious frosted goodies: the bake sale.

  Adults, be warned: if a child wanted to poison you it would be a piece of cake! Literally a piece of cake.

  As for you, you’re showing yourself to be the worst kind of reader, aren’t you? The kind that skips ahead to the end to find out what happens without reading the whole book. The kind that stops at nothing to get what he wants.

  The kind that stoops even to drugging the writer!

  I should have you arrested.

  OK. Maybe I should calm down. I’m getting ahead of myself. After all, I have no proof that you are the culprit. Not yet.

  And I should consider you innocent until proven guilty, right?

  In the meantime, consider yourself warned: I will get to the bottom of this. Whoever was in here rifling through my papers, I’m going to sniff him or her out if it’s the last thing I do.

  Until then, back to the book.

  Don’t worry, Missus, we take great care of our campers here. Tightrope walking it is today, right Mickey?”

  “Morrie, don’t joke—you know that’s too dangerous for the kiddies! Today, we’re practicing… uh, squeezing into a Volkswagen. Or is it balloon-tying? Yeah, that’s it…Balloons 101—always the first course for us zanies.” *

  Clutching tight to her steering wheel, Cass’s mother looked dubiously at the two clowns grinning down at her from outside her car window.

  As with any self-respecting comic duo, one clown, Mickey, was tall and skinny, and the other, Morrie, was short and squat. But they were equally unkempt-looking; it was difficult to tell whether the color on their faces was clown makeup or leftover hot dog.

  Mickey had Cass under his arm, Morrie had Max-Ernest under his. Not a very reassuring sight for a mother.

  “OK, Mel—are you satisfied?” asked Cass. (Lately, Cass had taken to calling her mother by her first name, rather than calling her “Mom” or what her mother would have preferred, “Mommy.”)

  Her mother sighed. “All right… but don’t forget to meet me here right at two o’clock. We have that class this afternoon, remember?”

  As soon as Cass’s mother drove away, Cass and Max-Ernest disentangled themselves from the clowns.

  Mickey shook his red wig in amazement. “Clown Camp? Who’d a thunk? I wonder if there’s any money in it…”

  “Hey, you guys better get going. Don’t want to be late for balloon-tying,” said Morrie with a wink.

  “Um, do you know where?” asked Cass, slightly abashed.

  It was the first time the Terces Society had met since Pietro had decided they should leave their longtime home, the Magic Museum (having the Midnight Sun break in once was enough!), and she and Max-Ernest weren’t certain exactly where to go.

  Mickey gestured to the far end of the dirt parking lot where a big striped circus tent flapped in the wind. A few smaller, more dilapidated tents stood next to it. They looked as if they might collapse at any moment.

  “Farthest one from the Big Top. The Side-show tent.”

  “Thanks,” said Cass. She lowered her voice: “Keep your eyes open, OK? For anybody wearing gloves…”

  “Don’t worry,” said Morrie. “No rotten old alchemist is going to get past this clown!”

  Smiling mischievously, Morrie pulled a gun out of his baggy plaid pants and pointed it at an imaginary assailant.

  A red flag popped out of the barrel: B A N G!

  Inside the sideshow tent, a row of old folding chairs sat on the dirt in front of a small stage that slanted steeply down on one side and was missing boards on the other.

  For most of that morning, a tall boy with floppy hair had been standing on top of the stage taking a violin lesson. A long and hard violin lesson. He had been playing so long and hard his fingers were starting to bleed.

  It felt like that anyway. At the very least, his fingers were red.

  Raw. Definitely raw.

  The worst part was he’d only been allowed to play scales. For three months. Even though he was an advanced student.

  Yo-Yoji couldn’t help feeling that he was being punished. His teacher, Lily—or Master Wei, as she insisted he call her—was angry that he’d quit playing violin the year before in favor of electric guitar, and now she was making him make up for lost time.

  “You can run away from your talent, but you can’t run away from me!” she said.

  Master Wei was the toughest woman he’d ever met. Also, possibly, the most beautiful. But that was beside the point. You’d probably be killed if you ever mentioned it.

  Apart from being a violin teacher, she was also the
Terces Society’s head of physical defense and a martial arts expert. It was partly for this reason that Yo-Yoji kept practicing the violin.

  Yo-Yoji’s main interests consisted of rock music and video games and collecting rare, brightly colored sneakers. But ever since spending a year in Japan he’d become more and more fascinated with Japanese history, especially the history of the samurai. He had memorized the samurai’s Bushido (“way of the warrior”) code, and he spent much of his free time watching old samurai movies on DVD. *

  Master Wei was Chinese and specialized in judo and kung fu. But she was also well versed in most Japanese martial arts, including kenjutsu, the traditional form of Japanese sword fighting practiced by the samurai. He hoped one day she would make him her kenjutsu apprentice.

  It looked like he would be waiting a long time.

  “Violin or kenjutsu, the philosophy is the same,” she would say, whenever he asked about it. “As my father always said—”

  “I know, practice makes permanent,” Yo-Yoji would finish her sentence.

  “You think you are too advanced for scales? There is no such thing!” she would respond. “As my father always said—”

  “I know, to go forward, you must first go back.”

  Today, though, was different. They’d be quitting their lesson early—after three hours, rather than the usual four. So they could attend the meeting.

  The message from Cass had filled Yo-Yoji with excitement. At last, they had found the Midnight Sun! The Terces Society was back in business. And maybe, just maybe, Master Wei would let him stop practicing the violin and would teach him the skills he needed to face the Midnight Sun in combat.

  But he was worried about seeing Cass again. They hadn’t spoken all summer. Before that, they’d barely been on speaking terms. Ever since Cass learned that Yo-Yoji had been hiding his membership in the Terces Society from her and Max-Ernest.

  When was she going to forgive him?

  Knowing he was going to see Cass, Yo-Yoji had put on his lucky sneakers that morning. The neon yellow vintage ones he bought in Japan. * They were a little too big for him then and a little too small now, but they were the coolest shoes he owned. Very rare and collectible. Usually, he only wore them when he was playing with his rock band, Alien Earache. Or when he was taking a test.