Even though Benny and I were getting better and better, Thimon seemed to be more and more nervous. He spent a lot of time talking to Uncle John on the phone. Finally, on Tuesday night, he came into our room, carrying the papers I’d printed out from Juanita. I’d almost forgotten about them.
“Do you know if Juanita is still looking for the Joneses?” Thimon asked. “And do you know if she’s shared this information with anybody else?”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure about either one. I haven’t spoken to her since she gave that to us.”
I felt a stab of guilt. I hadn’t called or texted Juanita. I’d all but forgotten her. Benny and I had been busy with our new powers.
Thimon rubbed his chin. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days. “Well, I can’t send all this stuff to Uncle John over regular email because the Joneses might intercept it. Your brother still hasn’t got the secure email up and running, right?”
I shook my head. Juanita had sent it over regular email, but Thimon was right. We didn’t want to take any more risks than we had to.
“You’ll have to meet Juanita somewhere,” Thimon said.
I continued to shake my head. “Can’t do that. Her whole family is on lockdown. And besides, I don’t think I could convince her anyway.”
“Why do we need her?” Benny asked. “I thought you could only give powers to two people at once. I don’t want to have to take turns.”
“We can’t tell her about the powers,” Thimon said. “We just need to talk to her . . . to see if she can find anything else about the Joneses.”
I frowned. “Well, we can give it a shot,” I said. “But I can’t make any promises.”
Over the next two days, I talked with Juanita over email. Apparently, part of being on lockdown meant her grandmother had taken her phone. Because we were talking through regular email, though, we had to talk in . . . general terms. I would ask Juanita if she could meet to “talk about summer reading.” And Juanita would tell me that her grandmother wouldn’t let her come out and play.
Thimon kept pushing, until finally he said there was no point in practicing with the powers if we couldn’t get Juanita’s help. Upon hearing that we might not get to practice, Benny begged me to do whatever I had to in order for Juanita to agree to meet.
I hated to do it, but I wrote Juanita a very short message.
Hi, Juanita.
I know your grandmother doesn’t want you to come out and play, but this is very important. I’m asking you as a friend. Can you meet us downtown? At Edlund Park?
Rafter
I knew she’d understand what I was saying. Friends are there for each other. No matter what. That night I had a reply from her.
Rafter,
I’ll be there. At noon. Meet me by the statue of the guy fighting a bear. Look for the Roylance’s Taco van.
Your friend,
Juanita
Thimon patted me on the back and told me good work. Benny gave me a high five. But when they left, I stared at my computer screen and read the email again.
I felt sick to my stomach. I’d used my friendship with Juanita for my own selfish purposes. I was making her do something she didn’t want to do. Had she gotten permission to leave her headquarters, or was she going to sneak out?
At least I’d get to see her, face to face. I could apologize for what I’d said at the senior center, and explain everything in person. If she didn’t want to get involved, I wouldn’t push her, no matter what Thimon and Benny said.
“Why do we have to take the bus?” Benny asked. “Why can’t we just . . . you know?”
I couldn’t answer Benny because we were surrounded by people, but Thimon could. His voice came through our earpieces.
“You can’t just fly into the middle of Edlund Park, Benny. Everybody would see you. I can give you powers, but only in an emergency.”
“We’d be fine if we had our s—” Benny stopped short.
“Your supersuits,” Thimon said. “I know. Actually, I’m working on that. We have a bunch back in Three Forks that aren’t being used anymore. Uncle John is going to see if he can ship two up here that would fit you.”
Benny’s eyes went wide and his mouth fell open. I could tell he wanted to get up and dance. His knee started bouncing up and down.
I looked around the bus. There were twelve other people sitting and standing around. One man had headphones on, his eyes closed. A woman stared at a magazine. It took me a moment to realize that she wasn’t reading it. At least, it didn’t look like she was. Her eyes stared blankly at the pages, never wavering. She never turned a page.
I looked at the other passengers. All of them seemed . . . distant. Almost like their minds were on something else. Or maybe on nothing else.
“This is our stop.” Benny slapped my arm. We got off and walked the three blocks to the park and found the statue of the man wrestling the bear. Juanita hadn’t arrived.
I found a bench and sat down. Benny went over to the statue and examined the plaque.
The park was relatively empty. I could see a few people playing Frisbee in the distance. Some runners were jogging away from us. But we had this part of the park to ourselves.
Benny came and sat down beside me.
“What did the plaque say?” I asked.
“It says this guy named Herman Wallbanger wrestled a bear one time and stole a fish right out of its mouth.”
“I guess you didn’t have to do much back then to get a statue made of you.”
Benny waved behind me. “Juanita! Over here.”
I turned and saw Juanita coming toward me. She walked with a slight hunch, as if she were carrying an invisible backpack on her shoulders. Something seemed . . . off.
“Hey, Juanita,” I said. “Is everything okay?”
Juanita nodded. Her eyes seemed to look right through me.
“I can’t stay long,” she said. “My parents don’t know I’ve left. I have to get back.”
I remembered the promise I’d made to myself. To make things right. “I’m sorry, Juanita. I didn’t mean for you to—”
“I’ve found more information about the Joneses. A lot more. I’ve copied about a hundred files on this drive.” She held out a flash drive. I took it and looked at it. It was black with a silver stripe around the outside. I slipped it into my pocket.
My job had been to convince Juanita to help us find more information about the Joneses, but she’d already done just what we needed. “Juanita, that’s incredible. Thank you.”
“I have to go now.” Juanita turned.
Something wasn’t right. “Juanita, wait.”
She turned back and faced me. She still didn’t seem to want to look me in the eye.
“What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “Nothing is wrong.” There was an awkward moment of silence.
“Look,” I said. “If we can find where the Joneses are located, Benny and I—” I couldn’t tell her about the powers. I’d made a promise. But Juanita was my friend. Maybe even my best friend. “We’re going to try to stop them. Will you help us?”
Juanita considered this for a while before responding. “Okay. But right now, I really have to get back. Look on that flash drive as soon as you can. It’s important.”
She turned, and I watched her go.
“Is it just me, or was Juanita acting a little strange?” I asked.
Benny nodded. “She looked a little scary. I think if I had to choose between wrestling Juanita and wrestling a bear, I’d choose the bear. Well, unless Juanita had a fish in her mouth. Then it’s a toss-up.”
Thimon spoke in my ear. “Her whole family is on lockdown and she snuck out. She’s probably just afraid and wants to get back.”
“Juanita is a lot of things,” Benny said. “But I’ve never seen her afraid. Not even that time Rafter told her to fight a giant Jones guy with a van.”
My brother was right. Juanita was as fearless as Benny. She wouldn�
�t be nervous just because she’d sneaked out of her headquarters. I touched the flash drive in my pocket. Whatever was on here must be truly terrifying.
Benny and I caught the bus home. Thimon was waiting for us. He touched our foreheads and broke the connection.
“She gave you a flash drive?” Thimon asked.
I nodded, stood up, and touched my pocket. I felt a moment of panic. The flash drive wasn’t there.
“Did you put it in your backpack?” Thimon asked.
“I don’t think so.” I couldn’t believe Juanita had gone to all the trouble to give me a flash drive, and I’d lost it.
I opened my backpack and sighed with relief. I held up the drive. “I must have dropped it in here on the bus. Let’s get this to Rodney and see what Juanita has found.”
The three of us made our way down to the root cellar. I felt a small headache coming on, and wondered if it had anything to do with the mental connection from Thimon.
“How’s it going, Rodney?” I asked when we got to the computer room. Benny and Thimon crowded in behind me.
“It’s going terrible,” he said. “I’m trying to install three updates to the antivirus software, but I can’t do it because the current antivirus software thinks I’m trying to install a virus.”
I saw the device October had used to give us dud powers. I knew it was pointless to ask, but I had to. “Any chance that thing is working yet?”
Rodney looked at the device, looked at me, and then turned back to his screen. I knew it was bad if he wasn’t even going to answer my questions.
I pulled out the flash drive Juanita had given me and held it up. Rodney plucked it out of my hand.
“What’s this?” he said. “Where’d you get it?”
“Juanita,” I answered. “She said there’s some important information about the Joneses on here. It may give us a clue as to where they are.”
Rodney looked at me over his glasses. “It’s not safe to go plopping random flash drives into the main computer. You’re sure this is from Juanita?”
I took it back and looked at it. It was the same drive Juanita had given me.
I nodded.
“I’ve disconnected this computer from the internet for three months because we can’t let anybody break into this computer,” Rodney said.
“She handed it to me herself,” I replied. “About an hour ago.”
Rodney gave me one more look. “What were you guys doing out of the house on your own?”
“It’s okay, I was with them,” Thimon said.
“All right then, let’s see what we’ve got.” He turned to his computer and slipped the flash drive into the USB slot.
At first, nothing happened. Rodney pressed a few keys, and then . . . more nothing happened.
“That’s strange,” Rodney scooted closer to the keyboard. He moved the mouse, then tapped a few more keys.
The screen went blank.
“Gah!” Rodney leaned over and yanked the flash drive from the computer, and then turned to the screen. The monitor came back on but remained black, and code started scrolling by faster than I could read.
Rodney gasped.
“What is it?” Thimon asked. “What’s going on?”
“This is why computers should only be used to play video games,” Benny said.
Rodney jammed keys on the keyboard, but nothing changed. The code kept scrolling. He reached down and unplugged the computer. The screen went dark.
Rodney looked like he’d just been punched in the stomach. “You say Juanita gave this to you?”
I nodded, a feeling of dread creeped over me.
“Well, then,” Rodney said, “Juanita Johnson just infected our systems with a virus. That flash drive hacked our main computer.”
9
THAT MEANS IT’S BAD NEWS
Rodney spent the next eighteen hours straight working on the computer. I found him asleep at his desk the next morning. He jumped when I touched his shoulder. He gave me a sleepy update, and then started working again.
Besides bringing him coffee, there wasn’t anything I could help him with. I went upstairs and found Benny in our room.
“Any news from Rodney?” Benny asked.
“He finally got the virus off the mainframe,” I said. “He can’t find evidence that it’s done any damage, but he also doesn’t have his superbrain. The virus might have done something he missed. I mean, for twelve whole hours it had access to emails, files, secret identities . . . everything.”
“Do you think this is Juanita’s fault?” Benny asked. “Do you think the Johnsons betrayed us?”
I shook my head. “Juanita would never do that. I’ve just missed something. Something important.”
Juanita was my friend. And besides a few hiccups here and there, the Johnsons were on our side one hundred percent. I trusted them as much as I did my own family. “Have you heard anything from her since the park?” Benny asked.
I shook my head sadly.
A knock came at our door, and Dad popped his head in. “You boys ready to go?”
“Shotgun!” Benny yelled, and raced out of the room whooping and hollering. For a second, I wished that I could forget things and move on as easily as Benny could.
It was Friday. The day we went out to the motor pool to study boring things like glove compartments and the impact of heated seats on the modern driver’s mental health and well-being. Dad used to fly us out to Grandpa’s ranch with his power, but now we drove. The jetpack was too risky in the daylight.
We rode in an old beat-up Mitsubishi. We could afford a really nice car—our family had plenty of money—but the older car was part of our secret identity. Plus, I think Dad had a soft spot for it.
I followed Dad, and the three of us piled into the car.
“Grandpa called me about thirty minutes ago,” Dad told us as he drove. “He said he has some news and wants to talk about it when we get there.”
I didn’t want to ask, but I asked anyway. “Good news or bad news?”
“He didn’t say,” Dad answered.
Benny turned around in his seat, looking at me like he was letting me in on a secret. “That means it’s bad news.”
It was probably about the flash drive. This was my fault. I’d missed something.
“I feel like I’m going to throw up,” I said.
“You should do it,” Benny replied. “Throwing up always makes you feel better when you’re sick.”
“I can’t just throw up on command,” I said.
“Sure you can,” Benny said. “Throwing up is like riding a bicycle. Except there isn’t a bicycle. And you’re throwing up.”
When we arrived at the ranch, Grandpa seemed serious, almost cross. He sent Benny and me out to the motor pool to find Dirk. He and Dad stayed behind to talk.
We walked across the backyard until we came to the outhouse. Stepping inside, Benny activated the code that opened a door to a hidden elevator. We went inside, the elevator shuddered to life, and we rode deep into the belly of our headquarters.
When we stepped out of the elevator, Dirk was nowhere in sight.
Benny looked over at me, a sly smile on his face.
“Dirk’s not here,” he said. “Should we cross the line?”
Painted on the floor was a bright red line. All of our family’s vehicles—cars, trucks, tanks, boats, helicopters—were on the other side of the line. On our side of the line were a few desks, a bookcase, and a worktable. Benny and I weren’t allowed to cross the line for any reason. Dirk once said that if he was working under a car, and it fell on him, we couldn’t even step over to save him. Dirk tended to be particular about his vehicles.
“If you cross the line,” I said, “you’ll have to deal with Dirk.”
“I could outrun him,” Benny said.
We both knew that was a lie. Dirk had been born without legs, but when he’d gotten his superpower—he was brilliant at building things—he’d crafted some titanium prosthetic legs with hydraulic
shock absorbers. He could run faster than either of us.
Dirk stood up from behind a tank where he was working. “Of course, if you crossed the line,” he said, “then I wouldn’t give you the new Dirt Hog manual I just got in the mail.”
That was all it took. Benny was on his best behavior until Dirk handed over the manual. I sat at a desk and tried to get into my studies, but my mind was elsewhere. When Dirk surprised us with a pop quiz, it was a welcome relief. Well, until I read the questions.
Thirty minutes later, I found myself staring at question fifty-eight.
Car horns produced on the Chevy Impala at the Oshawa, Canada, plant between 1958 and 1963 all toot in the tone of which note?
a. A#
b. C
c. E♭
d. F
I put my pencil down, rubbed my eyes, and wished that Dirk had some shins so I could kick them.
The elevator dinged and the door opened. I turned to see Grandpa and Dad enter the room. Dad’s face was pale. Grandpa looked grim. He walked straight over to me and sat on my desk. His eyes bored into mine. I wanted to look away, but couldn’t.
“Did Juanita give you that flash drive, Rafter?”
I nodded. “But this isn’t her fault,” I said quickly. “There was something wrong. She wouldn’t have—”
Grandpa held up his hands. “Nobody is accusing Juanita or the Johnsons. We’re on the same side. But we’re trying to re-create what happened.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I was afraid that the flash drive might cause the two families to start fighting again. And with relatives disappearing, now wasn’t the time to be divided.
Dirk put down his wrench and came over. “Re-create? What’s wrong?”
Grandpa’s eyes never left me. “Was there anybody with Juanita?”
I looked over at Benny. He gave a slight shake of his head. “No,” I said. “She was alone.”
“You got there at noon?” Grandpa asked. “By the bear statue?”
“Yep,” Benny said. “We got there about five minutes early. I checked my watch.”
I nodded.
“What happened now?” Benny sounded worried.
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