STARSCAPE BOOKS(51)

“I love this whole area. I’ve been coming here since I was little.” He pointed across the street to a store on the corner. “I used to get candy over there. And the place next to it had the best comic books.”

“Hey, candy and comic books. Sounds like the perfect world,” I said.

“Pretty much.” He pointed to the building directly across the street, and leaned toward me. “I’ll tell you a secret. The guy who owns that place—he’s got a ton of fireworks stashed in there. It’s illegal, but everyone around here knows about it.”

“Fireworks? We’d better keep Torchie away from there,” I said, glancing toward the kitchen.

“That’s for sure.” Cheater told me about five or six of his other favorite places on the block. When he finished the tour, he said, “Being here is just like being at home.”

“That’s something we need to talk about.” I went back to the couch and called everyone over. “I don’t think any of you can go home until this is settled. It’s too dangerous. Bowdler probably has all our names and addresses.”

“I’m not meeting my cousin until Sunday night,” Flinch said. “If we need to stay together longer, I can think up something.”

“I’m okay for almost two weeks,” Torchie said. “I can miss a couple days of camp. And it’s not like I can play my accordion right now.”

“I’m okay forever,” Martin said. “Or maybe even longer.”

“I have time,” Cheater said. “My brother isn’t going to tell my parents he doesn’t know where I am.”

“All right,” Martin said. “What do we do?”

“We rescue Lucky and destroy Bowdler,” Flinch said.

“Great plan,” I said. “But we have no idea where they are.”

“So what do we have?” Martin asked.

I turned to Martin. “He got in your face back at the cell. What did you pick up?”

“He’s real proud of his theories about brainwashing,” Martin said. “And he thinks he’s smarter than anyone else. But he’s bummed that he never got to be a general.”

“That explains the stars on his buttons. All grown, and he’s still playing dress-up. But it doesn’t tell us anything that will help us find him.” I turned to Cheater. “What about you?”

He shook his head. “I just picked up the stuff he was thinking about at the time. Did you see anything when you searched the lab?”

“Nope. Not while I was there.” I pulled the MP3 player from my pocket. “But I’ve got their computer files.”

“I’ll go borrow Uncle Ray’s laptop.” Cheater hopped up from the couch and dashed out the door.

“He moves good for a kid who’s been stomped flat,” Martin said.

“He’ll heal faster running around than staying in some hospital bed,” I said.

As Cheater came back with the laptop, the rest of us nearly snapped our necks. The most gorgeous girl I’d ever seen walked past the open door. She had long, black hair that swayed with every step she took, and a body that justified the existence of blue jeans. I felt a tingle of electricity shoot through my tired nerves. She glanced inside the room and smiled at us. Then she must have caught sight of Cheater, because she said, “Oh, no! Dennis, what happened to you?”

“I fell.”

“Repeatedly?” she asked. “Or in with the wrong crowd?”

“The latter.”

“Bad move. But you’re ok?”

Cheater nodded.

“You look good without your glasses.”

“Thanks.”

The girl turned and headed down the hall.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s just Livy,” Cheater said. “She’s staying here while she goes to this summer program at the college. She’s a second cousin on my mom’s side.”

“No way.” I walked toward the door so my eyes could follow her down the hall. “You two can’t possible share any DNA.”

“Humans and bananas have ninety-nine percent of the same genes,” Cheater said.

“And you’re ninety-nine percent bananas.” Flinch crowded next to me at the door.

Martin joined us. I heard him gulp. Then he squeezed past us and jogged after her.

“That is so unfair,” Flinch said. “He’s going to suck up to her with his talent.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

Before Flinch could ask me what I meant, there was a thud in the hall as Martin tripped over his own feet—with a little help from my talent. By the time he got up, Cheater’s cousin had disappeared behind the door at the end of the hallway.