OCTOBER 19, 3:43 P.M. EVANSTON, VIRGINIA
Upon arriving at the Foster residence, Jeffrey grabbed his cello and marched straight inside, without so much as looking back at his guests.
“Nice digs,” Shelley said as she entered, Jonathan immediately behind her.
“Follow me, Paul. I want to play something new for you,” Jeffrey ordered. “You too, Smelly.”
“Did you just call me Smelly?” Shelley asked incredulously.
“I did,” Jeffrey shot back. “And?”
Jonathan stared at Shelley, silently reminding her of what was at stake.
“And nothing. My name is Smelly… Smelly Smith.”
Jeffrey’s room was large; the walls covered with posters of the world’s greatest cellists—Yo-Yo Ma, Jacqueline du Pré, Mstislav Rostropovich, and so on.
“Silence your phone. And do not clap until I’m done,” Jeffrey said as Jonathan took a seat.
“You met the president?” Shelley asked, looking at a photo of Jeffrey and Max Arons in front of the White House.
“I thought you said she was mute!”
“Sorry,” Jonathan muttered. “Come on, Smelly, try and keep it down, would you?”
“No problem, Paul,” Shelley replied, and then turned to Jeffrey. “Can I use your bathroom?”
“Second door on the left,” the boy grunted before picking up his bow and starting to play.
Tiptoeing through the house, Shelley carefully pried open drawers, looked through papers, and generally just stuck her nose in places it most definitely did not belong. Thoughts of Vera drifted through her head as she fiddled with the pieces on a chessboard in the sitting area attached to the master bedroom. Who did Vera think she was? A genius? Ugh, she probably was a genius, Shelley thought as she knocked her knee against the coffee table, sending a book about talking in your sleep crashing to the floor.
Determined to find something on Secretary of State Harold Foster so she could help her country and show up Vera, Shelley peeked into the study. A large wooden desk and two wingback chairs filled the dimly lit room.
“‘Home is where the heart is’?” Shelley muttered, reading a needlepoint pillow displayed on one of the chairs. “That’s not right.… It’s ‘Home is where the car is’… because you only park your car at home.… Wait a minute, what’s that?” she whispered upon noticing a thick leather address book on the desk.
Flipping through the pages, Shelley paused at familiar names—George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Alan Feith, Al Gore. Sensing a dead end, she quickly moved on to the collection of framed photographs behind the desk. The Foster family at the Grand Canyon. Jeffrey and the Metropolitan Children’s Philharmonic. Rita and Harold at a fancy party. Frustrated with the lack of smoking guns, Shelley sighed and started back toward Jeffrey’s room, popping into the bathroom along the way.
After inspecting a few mundane items in the medicine chest—a toothbrush, toothpaste, hair gel—Shelley opened a small black case containing a pair of stainless steel tweezers. Almost instantly her eyes widened, her mouth opened, and her hands trembled; images of the vice president’s freshly plucked nostrils and the photo of Jeffrey with the Metropolitan Children’s Philharmonic raced through her head.
OCTOBER 19, 4:16 P.M. EVANSTON, VIRGINIA
Upon hearing thunderous clapping from Jeffrey’s room, Shelley opened the door. “Wow. Talk about a musical genius.”
“I get that a lot.”
“I mean you are seriously good. Like good enough to be in the Metropolitan Children’s Philharmonic,” Shelley continued.
“The Met Chil Phil is a joke!” Jeffrey fumed. “They are nothing but a bunch of talentless ingrates!”
“I’m sorry, but did you just call them ingrates?” Jonathan interjected.
“They didn’t appreciate me while they had me. But they’ll be sorry,” Jeffrey said ominously.
“And on that note, I think we should be getting home,” Shelley said as she and Jonathan started for the door.
“By the way,” the boy said before returning to his cello, “my fan page is jeffreyfosterisagenius.com.”
OCTOBER 19, 5:46 P.M. THE LEAGUE OF UNEXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN HEADQUARTERS. WASHINGTON, DC
Shelley and Jonathan paced excitedly back and forth in the conference room while Vera, Felix, Nurse Maidenkirk, and Hammett watched them carefully, hanging on their every word.
“Harold Foster is the Seal. And he used his son, Jeffrey, to pull this whole thing off,” Jonathan stated, still awestruck by what the two had discovered.
“Jeffrey called the Metropolitan Children’s Philharmonic ‘ingrates,’ which is the exact word the Seal used when talking to Arthur Pelton the night of the kidnapping,” Shelley added.
“That could be nothing more than a coincidence,” Felix offered dismissively.
“I also found a pair of stainless steel tweezers in Jeffrey’s medicine cabinet,” Shelley continued.
“So he tweezes, big deal, so do I,” Vera chimed in.
“If Harold and Jeffrey took the vice president, where did they keep him?” Hammett wondered aloud.
“A practice room at the Metropolitan School for Music. The walls are padded and there are lots of vending machines, making it very easy to feed your hostage potato chips and candy bars,” Jonathan expounded.
“No wonder we couldn’t find anything on Gupta Nevers,” Vera muttered to herself.
“That is not entirely accurate. You discovered that Gupta’s hamster, Clinton, died,” Nurse Maidenkirk responded. “And that his neighbor’s dog dug up the body.”
“Another great Maidenkirk story,” Jonathan mumbled under his breath.
“If you guys don’t mind, I’d like to take a moment to review the facts: Vera and Felix discovered a dead hamster. Jonathan and I revealed the identity of the man trying to bring down the United States government,” Shelley stated smugly, and then bowed.
“I think bowing might be overkill,” Jonathan whispered as she returned to a standing position.
Hammett pulled the toothpick from his mouth and stood up. “Tomorrow’s D-day, kiddos. And to put it bluntly, none of this means a doggone thing unless we stop the Seal in time.”
“Then let’s go pick up the Fosters now,” Felix suggested. “Vera and I are more than capable of bringing them in.”
“Back off, Felix,” Shelley snapped.
“No, the president wants us to wait,” Hammett explained. “He doesn’t just want the Seal, he wants the buyer too.…”
OCTOBER 20, 8:09 A.M. EVANSTON, VIRGINIA
The wind whipped through the streets of Evanston, carrying the faint sound of bells and chattering voices. Jonathan and Shelley sat on the bench just up the way from the Fosters’ residence. Stationed down the block, in his blue sedan, was Arthur Pelton. Across the street, crouched behind trash cans, Vera and Felix used their spy fly to peer through the windows.
“Jeffrey finished brushing his teeth; he’s headed downstairs,” Vera whispered into a microphone clipped to the cuff of her shirt while watching the video feed from the spy fly on her phone.
“Roger that,” Shelley said, also into her cuff.
“Hammett seems pretty sure that Harold Foster will send Jeffrey for the drop, seeing as Harold’s always surrounded by Secret Service agents,” Jonathan stated as the receiver in his ear crackled.
“Jeffrey is on the move. I repeat, Jeffrey is on the move,” Felix’s voice buzzed.
“Oh no… What is he doing?” Shelley squealed upon spotting Arthur walking toward them.
“Please get back in the car,” Jonathan begged as he simultaneously noted Jeffrey exiting the house.
“No way!” Arthur huffed. “You guys need me! I’m an adult!”
“We don’t need you, like not even a little bit,” Shelley responded as she watched Jeffrey walk down the block, occasionally stopping to swat at something in front of his face.
“You’re getting too close with the spy fly,” Jonathan whispered into his cuff. “Pull back
.”
“Do not tell us how to use the spy fly, unexceptionals.” Vera bristled through the radio.
“We need to move,” Shelley informed Jonathan as the two started down the street, Arthur waddling behind them.
“I will buy you a lifetime supply of hot dogs if you just go back to the car,” Jonathan pleaded.
“Why on earth are you bringing the security guard along?” Felix asked over the radio as he and Vera started covertly following Jeffrey.
“We’re trying our best to lose him. But it’s not easy!” Shelley huffed.
“What’s that smell?” Jonathan asked, covering his nose with his hand.
“Raw sardines. I brought them to lure the Seal,” Arthur explained as he pulled a small silver fish from his pocket.
“You let the Seal into the White House, so you obviously know he isn’t an actual seal,” Shelley said, shaking her head.
“Yeah, but he’s called the Seal, so he might like fish too,” Arthur answered as though it were the most logical of explanations.
“We have a problem,” Vera announced over the radio. “According to the images picked up by the spy fly, Jeffrey turned the corner and walked straight into some kind of convention on the village green. The area is swarming with people on bicycles with red flags.”
“Ugh, Evanston’s Community Patrol! They’re probably having their monthly meet-up,” Shelley groaned as she and Jonathan started running, Arthur wheezing behind them.
Upon turning the corner, Shelley and Jonathan promptly froze. The village green, a grassy area in the middle of town, was overflowing with Community Patrol volunteers, all of whom were wearing red vests and name tags.
“We’ve lost sight of Jeffrey,” Jonathan said into his cuff, short of breath from running.
“Not to worry, I have sardines,” Arthur mumbled as he wiped his sleeve against his heavily perspiring forehead.
“Unexceptionals!” Vera called out from behind them. “How could you lose Jeffrey?”
“But aren’t you following him with the spy fly?” Jonathan asked.
“One of those pesky people in the red vests smashed it with her hands, thinking it was an actual insect,” Felix griped.
“We don’t have much time. We need to locate Jeffrey before he makes the exchange. I’m not trying to scare you, but it’s highly likely he’s selling the nuclear codes,” Vera stated gravely.
“The nuclear codes?” Arthur shrieked. “We’re all going to die!”
Shelley shook her head. “Nice job, Vera. You freaked out the adult.”
“There’s no time for bickering,” Jonathan interjected. “We need to break up and find Jeffrey! Now!”
“Vera and I will go right, you go left,” Felix said as the two groups headed into the crowd, Arthur trailing behind Jonathan and Shelley.
“We need to pass proposition three point nine, unless of course you don’t mind those ugly satellite dishes ruining the neighborhood.”
“I think we should become a gated community—it’s the only surefire way to keep out the riffraff,” a woman from Community Patrol squawked and then paused upon seeing Arthur. “Do you remember that man from Mrs. Malins’s flier? I think that’s him!”
“I wish we could help, but there just isn’t time,” Jonathan remarked as he watched a slew of angry Community Patrol volunteers surround Arthur.
“Look at this place. Finding Jeffrey is going to be like finding a beetle in a haystack.”
“A needle,” Jonathan mumbled.
“Excuse me?”
“The saying is a needle in a haystack, not a beetle.”
“That makes no sense! Who uses needles outside? Beetles, on the other hand, live outside and could easily get lost in a pile of hay!”
“Who cares about beetles? We need to think! Where would Jeffrey go?” Jonathan exclaimed as he heard the familiar sound of people being bumped and pushed.
“Ouch!”
“Watch where you’re going!”
“Excuse me, but in Evanston we don’t push! You can even look it up, ordinance nine point eight!”
“This way,” Jonathan called to Shelley, and then whispered into his sleeve, “We think we’ve picked up Jeffrey’s trail, headed toward the playground.”
“Move those knees!” Vera shouted at Felix as the two sprinted across the green, desperate to catch up with Jonathan and Shelley. “Faster, Felix, faster! We can’t let the unexceptionals capture the Seal without us!”
“Oh, the shame of losing to them!” Felix uttered as the two increased their pace. “We’d have to go into hiding.”
Following the sound of complaints, Jonathan and Shelley finally caught sight of Jeffrey.
“There he is,” Shelley said upon spotting the boy moving toward the children’s playground.
“Wait a minute,” Jonathan muttered as he caught a flash of something familiar in the crowd.
“What is it?” Shelley asked.
“That man over there… on the other side of the playground… the one with the crazy hair…” Jonathan said as he focused in on a tall, slender man with gray locks teased approximately six inches high.
“It’s the Cookie Monster!” Shelley interrupted. “You know, Alan Feith, the guy who’s on trial for stealing all that money.”
“He must be the buyer. Why else would he be here?” Jonathan supposed as he watched the man enter the playground.
“If you’re right, we need to move fast!” Shelley stated as the two dove into a red plastic tunnel, then swung across monkey bars, and finally glided down a slide.
“I don’t see them! Where are they?” Jonathan asked while frantically looking around the playground.
“They have to be here somewhere,” Shelley mumbled.
“Shhh…” Jonathan whispered as he listened for even the faintest sound of Jeffrey or Alan.
“Look,” Shelley exclaimed quietly as she noted a trail of cookie crumbs leading toward a large pyramid built out of black tractor-sized tires.
The two instantly started up the mountainlike structure, although Jonathan quickly fell behind Shelley.
“Keep going.” Jonathan wheezed. “We can’t let him sell the nuclear codes!”
“Not on my watch!” Shelley huffed as she clawed her way to the top of the pyramid and stealthily grabbed hold of the corner of Jeffrey’s jeans.
“Hey! What are you doing?” the boy yelled, kicking his leg to loosen Shelley’s grip, ultimately knocking her down.
“You set me up!” Alan Feith screamed at Jeffrey as the two started barreling down the pyramid.
“I was so close,” Shelley whimpered as Jonathan grabbed her arm.
“Come on, Shells. This isn’t over yet. If we’re going to fail, let’s at least fail big!”
Sweating, out of breath, and deeply red in the face, Jonathan and Shelley descended the pyramid.
“I don’t see them,” Shelley said, frantically scanning her surroundings.
“We need a better viewpoint,” Jonathan assessed as he started to pull himself up the face of a tall and slippery slide.
After watching Jonathan struggle for a few seconds, Shelley walked to the back of the slide and quickly climbed the ladder to the top.
“I’ve got Jeffrey at three o’clock.”
“I’m… coming… almost there…” Jonathan said in between gasps of air while fighting to make it up the face of the slide.
“You know what? Maybe it’s more like two thirty… or four…” Shelley trailed off. “Oh, forget it! It doesn’t matter, he’s headed in our direction!”
“Jeffrey’s going down,” Jonathan whispered nearly inaudibly, after strenuously pulling himself atop the slide.
“You can say that again,” Shelley muttered, then crouched down and waited.
Seconds passed. Jeffrey grew closer and closer until he was mere feet from the slide. After a quick wink to Jonathan, Shelley lunged from her perch, catapulted through the air, and knocked Jeffrey to the ground.
“That was
awesome!” Jonathan shrieked as he slid down the slide and joined Shelley, who was wrestling Jeffrey for a small white piece of paper.
“You ruined everything!” the boy bellowed. “And now I’m going to ruin you!”
“Please, you don’t even know my name!” Shelley scoffed as Jonathan pinned Jeffrey’s left arm to the ground and finally wrenched the crumpled piece of paper from the boy’s thick fingers.
“Paul! What are you doing? Give that back!”
“The name’s Jonathan, Jonathan Murray, and don’t you forget it!” And with that, he popped the small white piece of paper into his mouth and swallowed it.
“Nice job!” Shelley exclaimed as she held up her hand for a high five, only to suddenly slap it against her forehead. “We lost the Cookie Monster!”
“Come on, Shells, we stopped Jeffrey. That’s pretty good for a couple of unexceptionals,” Jonathan responded.
“I was so focused on this menace,” Shelley moaned, motioning toward Jeffrey, “that I completely forgot about him!”
“Well, not to worry, we didn’t,” a calm, self-assured voice said from behind Shelley. “We saw this strange man fleeing the playground, looking highly suspicious, so we thought it best to detain him.”
Standing next to the slide, with Alan Feith in restraints, were Vera and Felix.
“Nice job,” Shelley proclaimed.
“Right back at you,” Vera responded.
OCTOBER 20, 9:56 P.M. THE LEAGUE OF UNEXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN HEADQUARTERS. WASHINGTON, DC
“You guys make a good team. Who knew exceptionals and unexceptionals could mix so well,” Nurse Maidenkirk declared as Vera, Felix, Jonathan, and Shelley entered the conference room.
“The president’s proud; he wanted me to thank you, to let each of you know that he’ll never forget what you’ve done for this country,” Hammett said while motioning for the kids to take a seat.
“What about Harold Foster?” Shelley asked. “Has he been arrested?”
“As it turns out, Jeffrey did this all on his own. He wanted the money so he could buy the Stradivarius cello from the Smithsonian. He thought it would make him the best cellist in the world,” Nurse Maidenkirk explained.