There was silence and the clinking of silverware, when Mom spoke up again. “The streetcar was easier than this.”
“We didn’t have to return the streetcar, did we?” said Sharkman. “And all because of your kid.”
“Lay off, okay?” she retorted. “You think I wanted him to show up? Think I invited him?”
I turned away from the corner and pressed my head to the wall.
I know it sounds naïve and stupid, but up until then, I’d still been clinging to the idea that Mom was an unwilling party in all of this. That Bartholomew had hypnotized her or threatened her to get her to stay. I hadn’t prepared myself for the possibility that she was really, truly a thief herself. I was trying to come up with something, some idea to explain away what I’d heard. But as if to drive it home, Mom went on.
“After we return the silverware, we’ll entertain Spartacus. There’s nothing we can’t explain away. He’ll end up doubting himself. He’ll go home. Then we’ll only have to lie low for a few months, and everything will blow over. It’ll be like it never happened.”
I felt sick listening to her talk to these maniacs like she was one of them.
“Indeed,” Bart agreed. “I think that’s our only option at the moment. And dear, your most inconvenient child aside, I do have to hand it to you. This space. These—what are they? These Chinese Tunnels?”
“Shanghai Tunnels,” Mom corrected him.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.
“They are quite a bit nicer—and cleaner—than the sewer. Good find.”
“They cross the whole downtown,” Mom said. “We’ll have to come back to Portland and try this again.”
She couldn’t be in on this. But she was. And now that I knew it, did I want to take her down, right along with Bartholomew? Now that I saw she was every bit as guilty as he was?
No.
I was done.
I was officially done chasing after my mom.
This was, without a doubt, no longer a rescue mission.
I had to get out of there, while I still had a chance to save Will and Zeda and Nero and myself. Bartholomew couldn’t find out I’d heard everything they’d just said. That would mean they’d really have to get rid of me.
“I think this is the last piece,” Sharkman was saying. Then—a noise, coming from the dark, to my right. A rat maybe? Or was it the scrape of a shoe?
“Hey, what was that?” asked Sharkman. I held my breath and shrank back.
Then, even though I couldn’t see Bartholomew and the others, I saw their flashlights swivel in my direction. And that’s when I saw another shadow—a smaller one—appear on the wall.
It was Zeda.
She’d run right past me, and right into the middle of them.
“Who is this now?” I heard Sharkman exclaim. “Kids are friggin’ everywhere!”
Why did she follow me? I panicked. Why couldn’t she stay put?
“It is a circus,” Bartholomew said pointedly to Sharkman. “But please, miss, you are…?”
“I—I was looking for someone,” she answered in a small voice. “I’ll just…um, be going.”
She’ll be okay, I told myself. I still couldn’t see what was happening, but Mom was there. She wouldn’t let anything happen to her.
“No, no, by all means, stay,” snapped Sharkman.
“Hey! Let go of me!” Zeda cried out.
“Finn!” Mom exclaimed.
I couldn’t just listen and imagine what was happening any longer.
I peeked around the corner and there they were: Mom and Bart, dressed all in black with three large duffel bags at their feet—and Sharkman, holding Zeda by the arm. He’d apparently lost one of his black contacts in the scuffle with Nero, which made his eyes look all lopsided and even more terrifying.
As I watched, Bart stepped forward and Sharkman took a tiny, unconscious step backwards.
“This,” Bartholomew said through clenched teeth, “is not how we do things.”
I breathed a sigh of relief as Sharkman let go of Zeda’s arm. Her face was white and unreadable as Bart put his arm around her thin shoulders.
“Besides, it’s not necessary, is it?” Bart said, as much to Zeda as to Sharkman. “She’s just a girl, Finn. We’ll just keep her with us until we find out what’s going on. Sometimes it’s good to have a little bargaining chip.”
Then Bart took out what looked like a walkie-talkie and began fiddling with it.
“Hey, I recognize you,” said my mom, crossing over to Zeda. She actually reached out and raised Zeda’s face so she could see it better, like an evil villain. “Right! You’re from the sideshow, too. You’re the fire-breathing girl, right?”
“Nice to meet you, too, Athena,” Zeda said icily. Mom dropped her hand away, while Zeda rubbed her face. “We always knew you people were doing something funny.”
I cringed. Why would Zeda say that?
But she wasn’t done.
“I can’t believe you’re really Spartacus’s mom. What kind of mother—”
“You know Spartacus?” my mom asked. She returned to Zeda, looking her in the eye. “What do you know about my son?”
“I know he took on all sorts of danger to try to help you,” Zeda said, and I blushed. “And you sure don’t look like you’re doing him any favors.”
“I love my son. You don’t know anything about Spartacus or me.”
“Both of you—shut up,” said Sharkman. “I don’t want to hear that kid’s stupid name anymore.”
“Shhh! All of you,” Bart said before speaking into the walkie-talkie: “What’s happening up there?”
There was a static-filled pause before the crackling answer came.
“Everything has gone down the toilet. Grand finale went off without a hitch, but for some reason that sideshow is out front, performing—so now the audience isn’t leaving, they’re just milling around. And we lost the two kids—door was just wide open. I thought—”
But Bart turned off the walkie-talkie with a snap. “Oookay,” said Bartholomew coolly to Zeda. “I believe a certain line of civility has officially been crossed. Trespassing. Breaking and entering. Et cetera. Finn—as you were.”
There was a slight nod to Sharkman and he lunged immediately at Zeda, grabbing her by the throat. This time, he had a gun in his hands.
“Ow!” Zeda cried out in pain and fear.
Oh-no-oh-no-oh-no.
“All right, fire breather,” Sharkman said. Still holding Zeda’s neck, he put the gun to her stomach. “You tell me every single thing you know, right this instant.”
“He’s bound to get a fair bit angrier,” Bartholomew said to Zeda. “So I would start talking if I were you.”
Why did I bring her into this? Why didn’t I just go get help with her and leave Mom? My fingernails dug into my palms, my mind racing.
That’s when Mom stepped forward, looking concerned.
“This isn’t right,” she said to Bartholomew.
I breathed a small sigh of relief—she wasn’t completely rotten to the core. Bart just shook his head slightly at her, though, like everything was under control.
“I don’t know anything!” Zeda shrieked as Sharkman smiled, all his pointy teeth inches from her face.
I’d never felt more helpless in my life. Think, Spartacus! What should I do? What can I do?
I was about to just jump out and pummel someone (a lot of good that would’ve done) when my eye caught something shiny on the ground.
It was a fork. A large, heavy-looking fork.
I had only trained with knives, but what was the difference when you got right down to it? Without a moment of hesitation, I stepped out, snatched up the fork, and flung it as hard as
I could. It landed square in the middle of Sharkman’s back—where it stuck.
“Argh!” he cried out, his hands going to his back, dropping the gun. Zeda was in shock and didn’t move a muscle, staring at the three of them in horror.
“Who threw that?” Sharkman demanded. “Who threw that?”
Bartholomew picked up the gun—and the flashlight.
“I believe I can answer that,” he said, shining the light in my face. “Here’s our young hero now. Nice aim with that fork. I might have an opening for you after all.”
I squinted back at him, trying to look taller and braver than I was.
“Spartacus!” Mom and Zeda both exclaimed. Zeda rushed over to me and almost crushed my arm in her grip. She was shaking like a leaf. Then again, so was I.
“You’re going to pay for that, kid,” Sharkman sneered at me, throwing the fork to the ground. Bart looked at him and then at the fork. Sharkman scowled before picking the fork back up and putting it in his duffle bag.
“So you two know each other,” Bart said, gesturing wanly with the gun at Zeda and me. It was them versus us, facing off in the tunnel. “Certainly making some interesting friends on this trip, eh, Spartacus?”
I glowered at him. When Mom tried to take a step toward me, Bartholomew held out his arm and stopped her, sighing heavily.
“You don’t quit, do you Spartacus?” he asked. “I normally like that quality in a person.”
“You can’t keep getting away with this,” I said, but I was only talking to my mom. I had to reason with her. “Everyone knows about the robberies now.”
Zeda nodded in agreement, but otherwise remained silent. My mom started to answer, but Bartholomew interrupted.
“Spartacus, I must correct your language. You keep using the word ‘robbery.’ These are not robberies. Robbery is when you take something by force or threaten to harm someone to gain what you want. The word you are looking for is burglary. Or even theft. But we never hurt people.”
“Could have fooled me,” I said, glaring at Sharkman, who glared right back.
“There’s an exception to every rule,” Bart sighed. “Finn is who we use when there is, well—an exception.”
“I guess that includes putting me and Will in a cage?” I demanded.
“Will?” Mom asked, looking bewildered. “He’s here, too? What cage?”
Sharkman scowled at her. “Your other son showed up. We had to put them both in the monkey cage to keep them out of the way.”
Mom shot an angry look at Bartholomew. “What did I say about my kids? I said, Be gentle with them.”
He held up his hands innocently. “I swear to you, Athena. I knew nothing of this.”
After a long moment, Mom’s shoulders relaxed, and she nodded. I shook my head in a mixture of disbelief and anger.
“Really, Mom? Cages? You’re okay with that?”
“I’m sure the cage was just for a little while. To keep you both safe,” she said.
“What kind of mother are you?” Zeda interjected.
“You have a mouth on you,” Mom answered in a warning tone.
I stepped between the two of them. So much for her liking my first girlfriend.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked in desperation. “How can you work with these people? This isn’t you!”
“You don’t understand, sweetie,” she said. “It is me.” She wanted to say more, but I interrupted, trying to bargain with her.
“Look, if we could get all the silverware returned, like you said, the police wouldn’t know you robbed—I mean stole stuff. You could come back home, like it never happened, right?”
She shook her head, not like a “no” to the question, but like in a “you’ll-never-understand” way. It was the expression she wore when she was breaking bad news—the type of bad news that wasn’t going to change.
“Spartacus,” Bartholomew said, looking at his watch. “I’m sorry to say, but the time for returning the thieved items has come and gone.” He pulled the walkie-talkie out again, keeping the gun trained on us. “Our other show, on the other hand, must go on.”
“How is it up there?” he spoke into the radio.
“It’s crazy. People everywhere,” came the fuzzy answer.
“We can deal with that. Any boys in blue?” he asked.
I realized he meant the police.
“Not yet,” came the answer.
Geez, what does it take to get a couple of cops to show up around here? With accusations of theft and kidnapping, a sighting of a wanted killer, and a display of (very) public indecency, you’d think at least a couple of officers would be kind of curious!
“Perfect. We’re going to leave everything in the back yard, and go with Plan S. Copy? Plan S as in Sam.”
“Copy that. We have her up and running; meet at point W, as planned.”
Was that his escape car? I was confused. He was speaking in some weird code. Zeda looked just as puzzled as Bart put the radio away. He smiled his plastic smile at us.
“Sorry kids, but the intermission is over.”
He directed us toward a metal ladder conveniently located just a few feet away. “If I’ve guessed our location correctly—and I’m quite sure that I have—this exit ought to put us in the perfect position.”
Sharkman went up the ladder to remove a manhole cover.
“After you, children.” Bartholomew stood aside and waved us up with the gun.
Zeda climbed up ahead of me, glancing down as I followed. Bartholomew and my mom brought up the rear.
I heard Bart speaking to my mom as we climbed.
“I have to say, I’m very sorry to lose the circus—if even for a short time. The children will be so disappointed. I admit, I will be, too.”
What did it mean?
When we got to the top, I saw that we were in the empty main tent. The lights were mostly out, except for one of the spotlights. Mom’s cannon sat in the ring, but the audience was gone.
There was no one up there except Sharkman, looming over us.
No one to see us; no one to save us.
Zeda’s eyes met mine. What are they going to do? she seemed to ask.
I shook my head. I didn’t have a clue.
Bart and Mom emerged from below, and Zeda took my hand and squeezed it.
I can’t believe I got her into this! I glanced around for a way to escape, but all the exits were too far away. Seemed like, even with my mom there, Zeda and I were both in danger—and for once, there was nothing I could do.
And then—something strange happened.
Bartholomew tucked the gun into his jacket pocket.
“Your little burlesque routine on the high dive was—” He paused, pursing his lips. “Well, it was something else. I cannot imagine any other way you could have gotten yourself out of that situation.”
I stood there, not understanding.
Bart continued: “You have a lot of gifts, Spartacus. You’re cunning. You’re astute and quick-witted. You’re tenacious. Your aim is…impeccable.”
My mind was spinning. Where was he going with this?
“You would be an asset in my organization,” he said. “I don’t offer this lightly. Would you like to join us? I do believe your mother would approve.”
My mom looked at me expectantly. Sharkman glowered. Zeda scoffed.
But I just stood there, mouth agape. My whole life came at me in a flash. Will, and Eli, and my dad. Brenville and the pool and my normal, boring life as Spartacus Ryan Poop Lip Zander.
And even though they were thieves and criminals, my mind tried to picture what life with Bartholomew’s circus—I mean, his organization—would mean. And I couldn’t grasp any of it. It was a fuzzy, unimaginable life. All I knew of it was my mom—and when I looked at her, waiting for me to answer,
I realized that I didn’t know her at all.
“No,” was all I could manage.
“Very well,” Bartholomew said abruptly. “I rescind my offer. Athena, Finn. Shall we?”
“You’re letting us go?” Zeda blurted out.
“Regrettably, yes. And Spartacus,” Bartholomew said, bending that smooth, horrifying face close enough to whisper in my ear. “Never forget this: Freedom isn’t something I’ve offered to anyone. Ever. Don’t make me regret it.”
A chill went down my spine as I nodded.
Then Bartholomew turned to my mom, touching her cheek. Mom reached up and held his hand while I silently gagged.
“You have five minutes,” he said tenderly. “That’s all I can wait. I’ll meet you in the middle.”
Bartholomew and Sharkman strode off through the curtains, leaving Zeda and my mom and me in the empty tent.
I turned to Zeda. “Wait here?”
She nodded.
Mom put her hand out to me. I took it, confused about what this meant, what was happening. We walked toward the stage.
“I’m a bad mother,” she said in a shaky voice. I wanted to comfort her, and say she wasn’t, but it would have been a lie, and I didn’t have any energy left for lies.
It didn’t matter that I didn’t say anything, though, because she went on.
“I do love you, but I’ve also got some issues, bigger than you or your father or brother. Problems in my head.”
I started to protest, but she put her hand up.
“You have to let me speak,” she said softly. “I know how you feel about me. You love me. I know that. But you don’t really know me. To you I’ve always been just Mom. But that’s not who I am. I mean, that’s not all I am. I stayed as long as I could. And when I got the chance to join Bartholomew—well, I didn’t know this was the kind of adventure I wanted. But now that I have it, I wouldn’t trade it. Not for the world.”
Then I asked the obvious question. Call me naïve.
“Not even for Will and me?”
She shook her head and I looked away, tears blurring my own eyes now. I rubbed them away with my suit sleeve.
Spartacus Ryan Zander and the Secrets of the Incredible Page 27
