Wood Sprites(130)
What wasn’t clear was how many bombs had been made with the goods sent to Elfhome. The EIA paperwork claimed that Roycroft only transported one crate, but it also claimed that the crate contained a large ironwood chest. Had there been more than one bomb? Where were the other two triggers?
Louise created a temporary email account, making sure it couldn’t be traced back to them. She composed a short message that stated simply that Mr. Kevin Kessler of Perelman School for the Gifted printed the enclosed program on a 3D printer at the school to create the trigger. She hated that she hesitated at sending the message once she was done; the lives of hundreds of people might be at stake. Still, it was putting Jillian and Nikola and Joy at risk, and it scared her.
Was she doing the right thing? There was no sense of right or wrong. Pure logic said that she had to act and quickly. Steeling herself, she hit “send.” The message vanished into the Internet and she felt nothing but continued unease.
* * *
Mr. Kessler vanished that afternoon. He’d left his phone on his desk in the annex, rushed down twelve flights of stairs, careened through the seventh graders returning from lunch, and bolted out of the building. The FBI arrived an hour later with warrants. They started to dismantle the technology annex with frightening thoroughness. When they discovered the triggers in the storage room, school was hastily dismissed.
It was chaos on the street. The bomb squad was assembling outside as teachers herded out the students. Louise kept a firm hold on Tesla’s leash as the twins headed toward the subway. She hoped that they could slip away unnoticed by Tristan but he fell into step with her before they reached the station. The platform display had Mr. Kessler’s photo; it was captioned: Police search for teacher bomber; bombs found at private school.
What should Louise say if Tristan asked how they knew the bomber was Mr. Kessler? Should she admit she contacted the FBI? Did he think that she knew where Mr. Kessler went? Why was he still following them? What did he want?
They rode in strained silence to their station and got off.
As they walked down the steps to the street level, Louise realized there was nothing keeping Tristan from following them the whole way home. That they couldn’t go into their house and keep him out. It scared her and that made her angry. If he wanted to pretend he was nine years old, she’d act like he was nine years old.
She spun to face him. “Listen you stupid booger head! You’re making me mad! Are you some kind of pervert?”
“Booger head?” He took a step back, surprised by the attack. “What? I’m not a pervert!”
“Liar, liar, pants on fire!” She gave him a hard push. “You know what they call nasty old men who follow little girls around? Perverts! Just because you’re a little boy doesn’t mean it’s any different when you do it too! You’re a sick little booger head!”
Jillian gazed at them both in wide-eyed amazement.
“I’m not a pedophile!” Tristan cried.
“Neener, neener, boo, boo, stick your head in doo-doo!” Louise gave him a hard push. “Just go away. Cootie breath! Didn’t your mother teach you not to be mean to little girls? Your mother would be ashamed of you.”
Judging by the way he flinched, Anna would have been upset. Which meant that Anna didn’t know that he was there.
“I’m trying to protect you!” Tristan snapped.
“From what?” Louise cried.
Tristan pointed toward Manhattan and their school. “If you didn’t notice, there was a bomb at school!”
“And you were going to protect us how?” she shouted. “Poop on it?”
“I would have taken care of it!” Did that mean he hadn’t been the one who warned Mr. Kessler?
“By pooping and peeing on it?” Jillian realized what Louise was doing and joined in.
“Don’t be so stupid.” Tristan sounded his forty-some years. “I know you’re smarter than that. How did you know it was Kessler?”
Louise clamped shut her mouth, not sure how to answer.
Luckily, Jillian had something prepared. “Mr. Kessler hates us because we keep blowing his curve; he used to tease us during class. When we started working on the play, we had to go through him to use the printer in the annex.”
“Through?” Tristan mimed a ramming motion. “Like a plow through a snow bank?”
“Somewhat,” Jillian admitted. “He’d slipped once or twice and ranted about how much he hated elves in class. Once the FBI released the news about the trigger, Mr. Kessler was the first person we thought of.”
All mostly the truth. Convincing Tristan that they were still just normal fifth graders was probably the wisest thing to do. Louise took up the thread and started to weave out a more elaborate fabrication. “I was in the annex on the morning of the bombing. I saw him come in and trigger the bomb; I just didn’t realize it until later. After the bombing, he was really nice to us. Super nice. It made us suspicious.”