She looked in the glass display case filled with watches and jewelry. She looked at an array of musical instruments hanging on the wall, mostly guitars and banjos. And she spent more time than she should have looking at a rack of samurai swords. Who in Greenmarsh had owned this collection? TJ would certainly love one of those, but she didn’t earn nearly enough to buy him a prosthetic limb once he accidentally chopped one of his legs off. She ended up standing at the register as if dragged there by an unseen force.
“Can I help you with something?” The round man sounded like a toad. Had warts like a toad, too.
Ellen fidgeted with the music box. Her second thoughts almost got the best of her, but the box caught the pawntoad’s eye. He opened a little drawer under the plastic window and gestured for her to place the box inside it. “Whattya got there?”
Ellen silently cursed her hand for being a traitor and giving up her most precious belonging so easily. But then, a moment later, the drawer snapped closed, and her music box was gone, now clutched in the sweaty palms of the pawntoad.
“Never seen one of these,” he croaked. “I think we can work something out here.” He rubbed his hairy chin as he studied the box, then Ellen. “I can lend you a hundred bucks on it.”
She fought the urge to scream at him, to call him a crook, to smash all the guitars, to stomp on all the watches, to take back her treasure and hit him upside the head with it—all things Gene Simmons would not have hesitated to do. Instead, she just said, “Sure. That sounds fine.” She browsed in a daze for a few minutes, not actually looking at anything in particular, just staring and staring…until something caught her eye.
That is so perfect. TJ will absolutely lose it!
“How much for that?”
The pawntoad grinned. “Oh, I could probably let it go for, say, a hundred bucks.”
Ellen clenched her jaw. Don’t throw anything. Don’t throw anything. “I’ll take it.”
The pawntoad hummed a happy little song as he wrapped TJ’s birthday present in bubble wrap then stuffed it in a box. Ellen focused on how happy this gift would make TJ and not how sad she was to leave her beloved music box behind. She climbed into her truck, scanned through her iPod, and blared Kiss as she squealed away in a rock ’n’ roll fueled burst of speed.
A man dressed in all black and covered in spatters of mud pulled into the parking lot just as Ellen tore away like her pants were on fire. The song leaped through his open window and got lodged in his head. “Haven’t heard that one in a while,” he mumbled to himself as he bobbed his head to the beat. He grabbed the bag on the passenger seat and entered the pawnshop. He eyed the case of guns along the far wall with genuine curiosity. None of them compared to the big revolver holstered on his hip though. His father had given him that gun when he’d completed basic training.
“Can I help you?” croaked the pawnbroker who, the man thought, kind of looked like a toad.
The man tipped his bag and a World War I-era Prussian Pickelhaub helmet thudded onto the counter. He turned it over and pointed to the small tag inside bearing the name of the pawnshop. “You can tell me who you sold this to.”
Chapter Nine
TJ had on his absolute best secret agent outfit. Inconspicuous yet versatile. Capable of blending into a crowd yet still totally awesome. Today was Saturday. His mom had Saturdays off from both jobs, which meant espionage was required.
He wrapped and packed everything he’d need for the picnic. Now, TJ understood that picnics didn’t sound like super spy stuff, but that was exactly the point. No one ever suspected a man with a picnic basket. Of anything! A picnic basket was the ultimate go anywhere, do anything camouflage. This was going to be perfect. He heaved it all downstairs…only to be stopped at the front door.
“Where you off to on a Saturday morning?” Ellen asked, poking her head up from a basket of laundry. “There aren’t any Scout things on the calendar.”
TJ played it cool. Super spy cool. “Just going on a picnic.”
Ellen froze mid-underwear fold. “A…picnic?” She seemed to find the sight of TJ holding a picnic basket rather odd. Not good. Was it possible his really great disguise was having the opposite effect than he’d intended?
Still, he played it cool. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah. I’m meeting Sam in the park.”
Ellen’s face scrunched in a totally different way. “You and Sam…on a picnic?”
Something fluttered in TJ’s stomach.
Play it cool. Let her run with it. She’ll be totally distracted.
“What’s wrong with two friends enjoying a meal on a blanket?” He flashed a sly smile and heaved his basket outside.
Shudders ran down TJ’s spine and the fine blond hairs on his arms stood on end. He tried to shake his mom’s playful smile and everything she was trying to imply with it out of his head. It didn’t work. “Gross,” he muttered and took off at an awkward jog, the basket rhythmically bouncing off his leg.
He ducked into the woods at the designated meeting spot and sat on a large rock to wait. He lifted the lid of the picnic basket and brushed the blanket aside. Rex poked his head out, a banana peel dangling from his mouth. TJ frowned. “I was gonna eat that later.”
At the sound of someone approaching, Rex jerked his head around and tossed the decimated yellow peel. It smacked into Sam and stuck to her shirt.
“Eww,” she said as she picked it off. Rex watched like an ambush predator just in case the banana peel decided to retaliate. Banana peels could be tricky like that. “Is this why I lied to my parents and snuck over here? To have garbage thrown at me?” She threw the peel into the woods. Rex tried to chase it, but his legs got caught in the blanket. “Why did I have to lie and sneak anyway?”
TJ laughed at her wide-eyed innocence. Oh, to be young and know nothing, he thought. She was, after all, three whole weeks younger than him. “Because what I have in this basket, besides a dozen oatmeal raisin cookies, is probably the most important discovery ever. You know what happens when people find out about important discoveries?” He tossed the bag of cookies to Sam, who immediately shoved two in her mouth.
“Mmwhat Mmhappens?” she said, oatmeal cookie crumbs falling to the ground. It had been a good ploy. Oatmeal raisin was Sam’s all-time favorite.
“They try to steal them. Super villains come out of their ocean floor hideouts for this kind of thing.” He stretched his back and arms and hoisted the basket again. “What did you tell your parents?”
Sam lead the way through the thicker part of the forest. “That we were working on a science project. What’d you tell your mom?”
“That we were going on a picnic.”
Sam stopped short, and TJ smacked right into her back. “You told her we were going on a picnic?”
TJ pushed past her and stepped from the forest into a large, open clearing. “Why is that so weird? A couple kids can’t go on a picnic? Plus, I had this to get past her.” He pointed to the basket.
“TJ, characters in romantic comedies go on picnics. Old people go on picnics. Kids don’t go on picnics.” Sam stepped into the clearing. “You should have said something else about the basket, like that the chemicals in the straw were perfect for making homemade rockets or something. Yeesh.” She shook her head. “Anything other than a picnic.”
TJ nodded. He couldn’t deny that her idea was better.
“So what are we doing here besides hiding from super villains and fake picnicking?” she said.
TJ lifted Rex out of the basket. His scaly legs wiggled in the air. “Rex has been cooped up in my room since he hatched. He needs to run around.” He set Rex down then reached into the picnic basket and took out a bright orange Frisbee. He tossed it to Sam, who snatched it out of the air. TJ noticed Rex’s eyes following it.
TJ tossed it one more time. “Hold it between your teeth,” he yelled after Sam caught it.
“Do what?” Sam called back with indignation.
“I want t
o show Rex how to do it.”
Sam grumbled to herself and reluctantly bit down on the orange plastic disc.
“Good girl,” TJ called as he clapped his hands. “Now bring it back.”
“Oh, no you didn’t,” Sam growled through her clenched teeth. She stomped up to TJ and spat the Frisbee at his feet. “Call me good girl again, and you’ll be fetching your own butt once I kick it clear across town.”
TJ swallowed a lump in his throat. He took something out of his pocket and held it in a clenched fist, suddenly reluctant to give it to Sam. He slowly opened his hand to reveal a dog biscuit.
Sam’s eye burned like volcanoes. “You’re brave, I’ll give you that.”
“Chill, Sam. I’m just trying to teach him.”
Sam snatched the biscuit out of TJ’s hand and pretended to eat it. “Fine. You can come to my house later and teach Hank how to drink out of the toilet.”
TJ pretended like he didn’t hear her. “Now you try, Rex. Ready?” Before TJ could pick the Frisbee off the ground, Rex took off at a sprint, tearing across the field faster than should have been possible for his tiny little legs. A cloud of dirt and clumps of earth kicked up behind him as his sharp claws shredded the ground. He was mostly a blur until he skidded to a stop at the opposite end of the clearing almost a hundred yards away.
Sam rubbed dirt and disbelief from her eyes. “He just ran the length of a football field in, like, ten seconds.” Her eyes went wide with the spark of a fantastic idea. “Do you know what this means? I’m thinking of some kind of Air Bud scenario. Rex, the football-playing dinosaur. We could call it Running Back Rex. We’ll be bazillionaires!”
“You sound just like one of those super villains I was talking about.”
Sam shrugged. “Hey, a girl’s gotta plan for her future.”
TJ took aim and let his Frisbee fly. Unfortunately, his aim was way off. The Frisbee soared far to the left and high over Rex’s head. Undeterred, Rex raced after it, closing the twenty-five yard gap in mere seconds. He leaped through the air, at least five feet off the ground, and snatched the Frisbee out of the sky.
TJ jumped and pumped his fist in the air, hollering his excitement.
Sam was so stunned she could hardly move. “On second thought, maybe he should be a wide receiver.”
“Bring it back, boy,” TJ yelled across the field. Rex was standing at his feet in seconds. “How did he learn to do that so quickly? I thought dinosaurs had walnut-sized brains.”
Sam sat on the ground and leaned back on her elbows. “Yeah, well I thought dinosaurs were extinct.”
TJ threw the Frisbee again and again for almost an hour. Rex never seemed to tire. If dinosaurs could smile, Rex’s would have been a mile wide—a grin almost as wide as TJ’s.
I finally got one. A pet of my very own. Someone to play fetch with. To take exploring in the swamp. To sleep on the foot of my bed.
But TJ’s moment of jubilation was short lived.
Except I can’t do any of those things. Not really. Because no one can ever know about Rex.
TJ sat down next to Sam, his enthusiasm starting to sweat out of his body. “What am I going to do?”
“Take a shower. You kinda stink.”
TJ dug his heels into the ground. “You know what I mean, Sam. How am I going to hide a dinosaur in my room? Someone will find out eventually. And what happens then?”
Sam sat up. She watched Rex chase a butterfly. He leapt and snapped his jaws but missed. She sighed with relief as the butterfly fluttered away to safety. “I don’t know. But I do know that if you worry about what might happen eventually, you’ll ruin all the fun you could be having right now.” She leaned back on her elbows again. “Throw that Frisbee.”
TJ smiled and stood up, the excitement bubbling in his chest again, and whipped the Frisbee as hard as he could. Rex took off after it, running faster than ever. When he was within range he jumped, grabbed the Frisbee out of the air, and landed like a graceful dinosaur ballerina. Then he clamped down and shook his head from side to side, tore the Frisbee to bits, and proceeded to swallow every shard of bright orange plastic.
TJ cringed at the carnage, watching as his favorite Frisbee was devoured.
Rex waddled back to them head hung low, a soft whining sound falling from his mouth. He pressed his head into TJ’s leg and pawed at him with his stumpy little arms like he wanted to be picked up. TJ struggled to hoist him off the ground.
The treetops suddenly started to sway and a whirring sound echoed from a half-mile off. The noise grew steadily louder, and the trees swayed faster. It was getting closer.
“Helicopter,” said Sam.
TJ darted for the forest. “Grab the basket!” he yelled over his shoulder.
Sam caught up quickly. She rocketed past him and disappeared in the thick brush. Carrying Rex, TJ could hardly move on account of the dinosaur’s weight. The helicopter appeared in the distance, coming straight for them. TJ leaped into the cover of the forest a second before the helicopter passed overhead. He landed hard on his side, knocking the wind out of himself. Rex rolled out of TJ’s grip and wiggled his tiny arms as he tried to get back on his feet.
Sam followed the helicopter as it continued to fly away. “You see that? Same kind of helicopter we saw in the swamp the other day. Military. They must still be looking for…” Her voice trailed off when an idea climbed out of the back of her mind. She looked down at Rex, still struggling to stand.
TJ noticed her stare fixated on Rex and the light bulb shining behind her eyes. “Looking for what?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.
“For Rex.”
TJ righted Rex, who looked like he wanted to run, but the plastic working its way through his digestive system kept him from doing so. “That’s crazy. How would the military even know Rex is here?”
Sam scoffed. “Because they have satellites and drones and stuff. You think it’s a coincidence that the day you found a dinosaur egg is the same day the military decided to start swarming Greenmarsh?”
TJ didn’t want to think about it at all. He just wanted to take Rex home. He wrapped Rex in the picnic blanket and carried him until they reached the edge of the forest. Rex didn’t struggle to get down or even perk up at the sight of a squirrel skittering up a tree. He just moaned and sank into TJ’s arms. “You’ll be okay, boy,” TJ whispered before putting Rex back in the basket.
Sam scanned the sky the entire way home. She was so distracted even that she almost walked into a mailbox because she wasn’t watching where she was going. They didn’t get swarmed by drones, and Seal Team Six didn’t rappel down on top of them, but Sam couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that they were being watched.
“Nah,” TJ said when Sam started up with another conspiracy theory. “They’re just here to help clean up after the storm. They aren’t looking for—”
They froze on the corner across from TJ’s house. TJ racked his brain for a reasonable explanation as to why a black Humvee was parked in his driveway. Unfortunately, Sam came up with a suitable explanation first.
“CIA,” she said. “We’re toast.”
***** ***** *****
Ellen Beaumont didn’t consider herself to be inhospitable—she just didn’t like having company. She waited on people all week. The last thing she wanted to do on her day off was to host someone at her home, too. That was why she cursed under her breath all the way from the couch to the front door. “Who is ringing my doorbell before noon on a Saturday?” she groaned. “I oughta hire a grumpy old man to sit in a rocking chair on the porch and scare people off.”
She was so annoyed that she didn’t bother looking the man on her front steps in the face when she opened the door. She didn’t even say hello. Okay, maybe she was a tad inhospitable.
The man didn’t say anything at first, either. They just stood there in silence. Then Ellen noticed the helmet in the man’s hand. TJ’s pointy-topped Pickelhaub helmet. A surge of worry rushed through her. “Where’d you get
that?” she said, finally looking the man in the eyes.
The man smiled his easy smile, the little scar stretching over his chin. “Hello again. Is your son home?”
Chapter Ten
Sam knew her part of the plan. She didn’t think it was a very good plan, but she’d promised to go along with it anyway. TJ had always been kind of sensitive, and he seemed to have only gotten more so since finding Rex. You just couldn’t tell a friend his plan was stupid when he was going through some stuff. That was a well-known fact.
She sprinted across the street as soon as she saw the man with the Humvee disappear into the Beaumont house. Reaching the yard she dove, tucked into her best front roll, and army crawled around to the back of the house. That wasn’t part of the plan, but she liked to add a little flare whenever she could. Not only was it more fun that way, but if there was a drone or spy satellite watching her, she wanted to put on a good show. She peered through the window, into the screened-in back porch.
All clear. Go! Go! Go!
Sam slipped inside the porch more quietly than a ghost moving through a haunted house. TJ’s mom was talking to Humvee Man in the living room. It didn’t sound like she was being interrogated. At least, her chuckle didn’t sound like it was being done under duress. Maybe this guy wasn’t a CIA spook sent to steal TJ’s dinosaur and whisk them away to a secret prison. Or maybe he was just that good, coming across like a friend rather than a fiend, all the better to trick her. Sam opened the door to the basement, careful not to let it creak or clack when she shut it behind herself.
Ellen and Humvee Man’s voices fell between the cracks in the floorboards, sprinkling into Sam’s hair along with the dust. The sounds were muffled, so she couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. She fumbled through the dark toward the fuse box, taking care to step over and between the stacks of who-knows-what, imagining it as a series of landmines or electrified fences. She slid up to the fuse box like a master thief approaching a safe. She popped it open and…a disappointed groan escaped her mouth before she could think to keep quiet. In the darkness, she couldn’t see which fuse triggered which lights.
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