by Dan Gutman
Mrs. McDonald insisted on locking the doors of the RV, just to be on the safe side.
“Don’t worry about us, Mom,” Coke said. “We can take care of ourselves.”
The grown-ups went off to tour the windmill museum. Coke listened to his iPod, while Pep worked on a crossword puzzle. After about fifteen minutes, she suddenly looked up.
“I have a bad feeling,” she said.
Coke took off one earbud so he could hear her.
“What?”
“Somebody’s out there,” Pep told him. “I have a feeling.”
They both looked out the windows. Nobody was around. It was just a parking lot, and there were no other vehicles in it.
“It’s nothing,” Coke told his sister. “You’re paranoid.”
But in fact it wasn’t nothing, because ten minutes later a black pickup truck pulled into the parking lot and stopped about twenty yards away. A man wearing a baseball cap got out.
“Look!” Pep shouted.
The twins got out of their seats and crept to the window, keeping their heads low.
“Is it Archie Clone?” Coke asked.
“No,” Pep replied, “and it’s not one of the bowler dudes either. This guy is too big. I’ve never seen him before.”
The guy in the baseball cap rooted around in the back of his truck for about five minutes, like he was trying to find something. Then he pulled something out.
A chain saw.
“He’s got a chain saw!” Coke yelled, grabbing his sister.
“So what?”
“Didn’t you ever see The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?” Coke said. “A lunatic named Leatherface murders a bunch of people with a chain saw!”
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” both twins screamed.
The guy with the chain saw was walking slowly toward the RV.
“Help! Help!” Pep shouted. “What are we gonna do?”
“We’re gonna die!” moaned Coke. “He’s gonna tear our limbs off!”
The guy with the chain saw was getting closer.
And closer.
“This is it,” Pep said, sobbing uncontrollably. “We’re trapped in here. There’s no way out!”
“It’s all over,” Coke said, trying his best not to break down. “I never thought it would end this way. Oh no, he’s almost here! Here he comes!”
And then the guy with the chain saw walked past the RV without stopping. He opened the door to a shed on the side of the museum and went inside.
Coke and Pep collapsed on the floor of the RV, panting and sweating.
“I guess he’s going to cut down a tree,” Pep said.
“Yeah, probably.”
A few minutes later, their parents came out of the windmill museum.
“Oh, you kids missed a good time,” Mrs. McDonald said. “We learned all about windmills.”
“Anything exciting happen while we were gone?” asked Dr. McDonald.
“Nah,” Coke said, “except for the psycho who almost attacked us with a chain saw.”
“Ha, ha, you kids crack me up.”
Dr. and Mrs. McDonald felt a little guilty going to the museum while the kids sat in the RV. They had talked it over and agreed that the next day they would do something just for the kids.
The McDonalds followed Route 6 out of Kendallville, heading east. After twenty-five miles, they came to this.
“We did it!” Dr. McDonald shouted. “We made it all the way across Indiana in one day!”
“Woooo-hooooo!” roared Coke. “The Buckeye State!”
“What’s a buckeye?” Pep asked.
“It’s a kind of tree,” Coke told her. “Hey, I bet you guys can’t name four things that were invented in Ohio.”
“I know that Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers were born in Ohio,” Dr. McDonald said.
“Yes, but they were inventors, not inventions,” Coke said.
“Go ahead,” groaned Pep. “You know you want to tell us.”
Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/).
Click Get Directions.
In the A box, type Kendallville IN.
In the B box, type Paulding OH.
Click Get Directions.
“The traffic light, the cash register, chewing gum, and hot dogs!” Coke yelled.
“How can you possibly know that?” his sister asked.
“It’s all up here, baby,” Coke said, pointing to his forehead.
They crossed the Ohio state line and drove another ten miles before heading south on Route 127. The sun was dipping lower toward the horizon. Everybody was getting hungry for dinner.
After fifteen miles, they reached the town of Paulding and pulled into Woodbridge Campground. The kids were relieved that it wasn’t one of those bare-bones places with nothing to do but eat and sleep. A sign said there was bingo on Friday night, a horseshoe tournament on Saturday afternoon, and lots of other stuff to do.
Dr. McDonald went to check in at the office and get a newspaper so he could see what was happening in the world. Mrs. McDonald started preparing dinner. Coke noticed a tetherball court, and he and Pep went over there to hit the ball back and forth.
It had been a good day, all in all. For the McDonald twins, any day in which nobody tried to kill them was a good day.
In fact, it had been two days since there had been an attempt on their lives. Unless, of course, you were to count those angry Cubs fans who chased them out of Wrigley Field. But nobody had tried to kill them at Michael Jackson’s house. Nobody tried to kill them at the Lunkquarium, at the largest egg in the world, or at any of the places they had visited in Indiana. Maybe Bones and Mya had been right. They could relax a little until they got to Washington, D.C.
“Maybe we finally lost them,” Pep said hopefully as she whacked the tetherball over Coke’s head.
“I doubt it,” Coke replied, remembering the GPS chips that had been implanted in their skulls.
Mrs. McDonald called everyone to dinner—some kind of anonymous beefy stew that came from a bag in the freezer. It wasn’t gourmet cuisine, but it was food. Afterward, the kids started a game of Scrabble while their parents relaxed on Adirondack chairs and read the newspaper. It was Pep who spotted the headline on the other side of the page her father was reading.
HERMAN WARSAW, DEAD AT 39
Prolific inventor and government researcher Dr. Herman Warsaw died yesterday at the age of 39. Dr. Warsaw, who made a fortune by inventing a GPS device to locate missing cats and dogs, went on to a second career consulting for the government and worked for one dollar per year at the Pentagon in Washington. He died from injuries sustained during a fall in Spring Green, Wisconsin, where he had been vacationing. The circumstances of the fall have not been disclosed. Dr. Warsaw had no known relatives.
Coke and Pep read the obituary twice, just to make sure they didn’t miss a word.
“What are you kids staring at?” Dr. McDonald said. “Get your own newspaper if you want to read.”
Coke pulled Pep over to the empty basketball court, where they could talk privately.
“So Dr. Warsaw is dead for sure,” Coke said.
“And we killed him,” said Pep. “That makes us murderers.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. She felt no sympathy for Dr. Warsaw, but the realization that they had actually caused another human being to die would be tough for anybody to handle.
“It was self-defense,” Coke assured her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “We had to do it. He would have killed us if we didn’t fight back.”
There was a seesaw nearby, and each twin went over and sat on one end of it. It was time to take stock of their situation.
“What now?” Pep asked, not really expecting an answer.
Dr. Warsaw was dead, which was a good thing, of course. They wouldn’t have to worry about that nut job anymore. But they would have to worry about Mrs. Higgins, who was very much alive. From her little performance at Wrigley Field, it seemed that she was crazier than ever. And if it was true tha
t Dr. Warsaw was the love of her life, she would be all the more motivated to track Coke and Pep down and get revenge. She had said it herself—she was going to make their lives a living hell.
“If Dr. Warsaw is dead,” Pep asked, “who do you think has been sending us those ciphers?”
“Could be the bowler dudes,” Coke guessed.
Pep had almost forgotten about the lunatics who wore bowler hats. They were the ones who’d chased them over the cliff, and they were the ones who had thrown them into the pit at Sand Mountain. The last time they showed their faces, it was at The House on the Rock, when they’d dressed up in suits of armor and dragged both twins to The Infinity Room. But the bowler dudes didn’t seem bright enough to create ciphers.
“Mya or Bones could have sent the last one,” Pep said. “Maybe they’re trying to contact us.”
“Or it could be Archie Clone,” Coke suggested, recalling the red-haired teenage maniac who’d tried to drown them in boiling oil at McDonald’s. “Remember, he wants all The Genius Files kids dead so he can collect a million dollars when he turns twenty-one.”
“We can’t let down our guard,” Pep warned. “As soon as we relax, that’s when they’re going to strike again.”
Coke snapped his fingers.
“I think I know why nobody tried to kill us in Indiana,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because they’re on their way to Washington,” he replied. “It’s obvious. They know we’re going there.”
Pep thought it over and agreed that her brother was probably right. Why should anyone bother chasing them to every giant egg or hairball in the Midwest? He or she could just go to Washington and do the job there. All the people who were trying to kill them knew they were going to their aunt’s wedding in Washington.
“In other words, we’re walking right into a trap,” she said.
Coke and Pep had things figured out pretty well. But they were wrong about one minor detail. Whoever was trying to kill them was not going to Washington to do it there.
No, they were going to do it in Ohio.
Chapter 9
NEVER ARGUE WITH A GROWN-UP
Long after their parents went to sleep, Coke and Pep were still sitting on a bench outside the RV, whispering in the dark.
“We can’t go to Washington,” Coke said. “Mrs. Higgins or Archie Clone or those bowler dudes will be waiting for us. They may even be working together. We’re playing right into their hands. It’s a suicide mission.”
“What do you think would happen if we didn’t show up in Washington on July third?” Pep wondered. “What if we just turned around now and went home? Do you think they’d follow us?”
“I don’t know,” Coke said. “They seem pretty determined. But who knows? Maybe they’d just cross us off their list of Genius Files kids and move on to the next name.”
“They have lots of other kids to worry about,” Pep said hopefully. “Dr. Warsaw told us there were hundreds of kids in The Genius Files program.”
“The odds are sure to be better for us if we went home than if we continued on to Washington,” said Coke. “And if they did come after us in California, at least we’d have home field advantage.”
“But how are we going to talk Mom and Dad into letting us go home?” Pep asked. “Every time we tell them that people are trying to kill us, they think we’re just joking.”
“Leave it to me,” Coke replied. “I can talk Dad into anything.”
It was after midnight when the twins finally went to bed. In the morning, Mrs. McDonald made some eggs on the little stove in the RV and toasted some English muffins. It was a rare treat. Usually, breakfast on the road was cold cereal.
After they cleaned up the dishes, Coke and Pep pulled their father off to the side, near the volleyball court.
“Dad,” Coke said very seriously, “we need to talk to you about something.”
“Is everything okay?” Dr. McDonald asked, concerned.
“Everything’s fine,” Coke said quietly. “But … we want to turn back. We want to go home.”
“What?!” Dr. McDonald asked, surprised. “Why? This is a great vacation. Aren’t you kids having fun?”
“Sure we are, Dad,” Pep said. “It’s just that…”
“We’re homesick,” Coke said.
Coke had decided to play the homesick card. Parents are suckers for homesickness. It means your kids like being home so much that nowhere else compares. It means you must be a terrific parent to have raised wonderful kids who like being in your house. It means you have created a lovely atmosphere for your children. It pulls at the heartstrings. Home is where the heart is. Home sweet home.
A kid can’t miss playing the homesick card.
“I miss my friends,” Pep added, with her best puppy-dog face.
“And I have a ton of summer reading to do,” Coke said. “I’m worried that I won’t be able to finish it before school starts up again.”
“We just want to go home,” Pep said.
The McDonald twins were not lying. They were homesick. They did miss their friends. They had summer reading assignments. It might not have been the whole truth, but telling their parents the whole truth hadn’t worked. So it was time to try a different strategy. Pep’s watery eyes were not filled with fake tears.
Dr. McDonald put an arm around each of his children.
“Kids,” he said, “do you know how far we’ve traveled on this trip? More than two thousand miles. That’s a long way. Right now we’re only about five hundred miles from Washington. We’ve come so far.”
“We know, Dad,” Coke said. “But—”
“Don’t you want to see the nation’s capital?” Dr. McDonald continued. “The Lincoln Memorial? The Washington Monument? The White House? The Smithsonian? Believe me, you’re going to remember the things that happened on this trip for the rest of your lives.”
“I’ll say,” Coke agreed.
“But Dad—,” Pep said before her father cut her off.
“Tell me, what do you think would have happened if Thomas Edison had tried just a few filaments for his lightbulb and said, ‘Ah, forget it. It’s not worth the effort. Candles give off enough light’?”
“We’d still be using candles today,” Pep guessed.
“That’s right!” her father said.
Dr. McDonald was using the time-honored “what if” strategy. Kids are suckers for the “what if” strategy. The parent makes outlandish comparisons with the current situation, and the kids don’t realize the two situations are totally different. It works every time.
“What if,” Dr. McDonald asked, “Lewis and Clark had stopped in the middle of Iowa and said, ‘Okay, we get the idea. We’ve seen enough amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesties’? And what if Neil Armstrong had stopped halfway to the moon and decided that one small half step for man was good enough? And what if Magellan had turned back when he was halfway around the world?”
“He would have survived, Dad,” Coke said. “Magellan died before he could circle the globe. He was murdered in the Philippines.”
“You know what I mean,” Dr. McDonald said. “The point is that you don’t start a job and quit in the middle. That’s just not right. And it’s not the American way. If you start something, you should finish it.”
Coke had a pained look on his face. This wasn’t going at all as he had planned. He hadn’t counted on his dad pulling the old “what if” strategy right after he played the homesick card. He didn’t know what to say next.
That was the problem with arguing against parents. They had so much more experience at it. Coke had to try something else. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
“Dad,” he said, “I don’t feel very well. It’s my stomach. I didn’t want to ruin the trip for everybody, but I think it’s cancer. I’m probably dying. I need to go home and spend my final days there.”
Yes! Nothing tops the old “I’m dying” trick.
“Wait a minute,” D
r. McDonald said, taking his arm off Coke’s shoulder. “First you said you need to go home to do your summer reading, and now you say you have to go home because you’re dying?”
“I really want to finish my summer reading before I die,” Coke explained. “Like you said, it’s the American way to finish what you started.”
At that point, Mrs. McDonald came ambling over.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “It’s time to get this show on the road. I’m anxious to see Ohio.”
“The kids say they don’t want to go to Washington,” her husband said glumly. “They want to turn around and go home. Oh, and Coke thinks he’s sick and he’s going to die.”
“Out of the question,” Mrs. McDonald said immediately. “We can’t go home now. Aunt Judy is my only sister. When we were little girls, we promised we would be at each other’s wedding. She came to mine fourteen years ago, so I have to be there for hers. We promised. I haven’t seen Judy in so long. I barely even remember what she looks like.”
“What if you and Dad went to Aunt Judy’s wedding, and Pep and I caught a flight home?” Coke suggested lamely. He knew he had lost the argument, but it was worth a try anyway.
“We’re not sending you home alone,” Mrs. McDonald said. “You’re too young to be alone. The four of us are going to Washington. We’re a family. That’s all there is to it. End of story. And if you die, you’re in big trouble, mister.”
Mothers have a way of ending debates.
Silently, the twins climbed back into the RV. They would be going all the way to Washington, and they couldn’t do anything about it. They would have to make the best of it.
Chapter 10
ON THE ROAD TO PARADISE
Ohio is about two hundred fifty miles across. It would be a long day. Pep opened her book about circus animals. Coke fiddled with an empty Pez dispenser, which his mother had bought for him at the Museum of Pez Memorabilia back in California. It reminded him of home.
