by Sybil Nelson
"I should be?" I said a little shocked. He hadn't told me about this. I quickly covered and pretended to be confident in my abilities by saying, "Yeah, that's right. I should be. I mean, I am. I'm in charge of this mission." I crossed my arms and puffed out my chest a little proud of the fact that Josh had so much confidence in me.
Ian looked back and forth between Josh and me a couple of times before saying, “You can't be serious. She's too young. And she's a girl. How can you put a little sheila in charge of this? There's too much on the line."
"Oh, your butt's gonna be on the line if you call me Sheila one more time,” I said, standing up so fast my chair fell to the floor. I didn't know what it was but something about this kid irked me. And this wasn't like a cute, flirty kind of irking. When Kyle and I used to fight I always knew that deep down I thought of him as a friend. Nothing about Ian said friend to me.
Josh put a hand on my arm to calm me down. He picked up my chair then guided me back to my seat. "She might be a girl and she might be young, but something tells me, she has to be the one to take the lead on this. I can't explain why. I just know that Priss has to be in charge,” he said.
Ian shook his head as if he didn't believe my brother. "I don't know how you people do things over here, but there's no way I'm putting my sister's life in a little girl's hands."
"You have no idea what these hands can do,” I said, staring him down. Then I lit both my hands on fire for effect. I don't know how long we were locked in this death glare, but I refused to be the one to break it first.
Finally, a cocky smile spread across Ian's face. He leaned back in his chair and cracked his neck. I had won the staring match! Ha! I shook out the flames and leaned back in my chair. I leaned back a little too far and almost fell over. Thankfully, Josh was there to catch me. Yeah, that kinda ruined the effect I was going for.
Ian yawned and said, “Well, I'm knackered."
"Knackered? What does that mean?” I asked.
"You are free to join Ryan and me in the guest room,” Marco said.
"Nah, I think I'm going bush."
"Going bush? What does that mean?” Was this kid even speaking English? "Oh no, does that mean he's gonna take his clothes off again?” I covered my eyes just in case.
"And you want her in charge of the mission?” Ian shook his head. "It means I'm tired and I'm going to have a sleep under the stars,” he added.
"I'll join you,” Ryan said. "Let me grab a sleeping bag."
"I'm gonna make sure the twins went back to sleep,” Josh said after Ryan and Ian left.
I sat at the breakfast table drumming my fingers trying not to explode with anger. I really didn't like this Ian kid. I hoped he didn't have to come with us when we went to save the others.
After a few minutes of fuming, I noticed Marco was still in the kitchen with me.
"He's really not so bad once you get to know him,” Marco said.
"I really don't even want to find out,” I said, rolling me eyes.
Marco and I fell into an awkward silence. He clasped his hands together and stared at his thumbs while I continued drumming my fingers.
"Are you feeling better?” he asked finally breaking the silence. "I know you were crying earlier. I wanted to talk to you then, but Josh said not to."
I had to remember to thank Josh later for that.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just dealing with some stuff back in River's Bend."
"Kyle?” he asked.
I nodded without looking at him. I didn't want to see that sad look in his green eyes that he got whenever I talked about Kyle.
"He wants you back doesn't he?"
I nodded again.
"What are you gonna do?"
How could he ask me something like that? How the heck was I supposed to know what I wanted to do? I'm only thirteen!
I took a deep breath and said, “First, I'm gonna save my mother." I turned and looked at him. "Everything else is gonna have to wait."
I stood up from the table and went back to bed.
Chapter 13: The Uh-huh Chorus
After Ian, Ryan and Marco went to sleep in a bush under the stars, or whatever, I went and paced my bedroom. I was still fuming over that Australian idiot. Ugh, he made me so angry. I couldn't believe he was Katya's twin. Katya was a sweetheart. A little stiff and naive but still a sweetheart. How could she even stand him?
I wish she was here now. I would beg her to erase the memory of him from my mind.
I just had to talk to Tai. After our last conversation, I set another watch to her time so I would know when I could call her. According to the watch, it was just after eight in the morning in Denmark. Not only would Tai be awake, she'd probably already eaten, showered, and written a textbook by then.
"Tai!” I screeched as soon as she answered the phone.
"What was it?” she was panicked again.
"Could my life get any worse?"
"Is this about your mom?"
"No."
"Kyle?"
"No."
"This better not be about that stupid pimple."
"No, it's worse. Much worse." I started filling her in on the details of the night as I paced my bedroom and twirled the telephone cord around my finger. Yes, we still had a phone with a cord. We were probably the last family in America without a cordless phone but Dad thought it was too easy to intercept transmissions from wireless phones. Whatever.
Anyway, I told Tai everything about last night, including the naked Australian. But apparently, Tai wasn't too interested. She barely said a word the whole time. "I'm so sick of being surrounded by boys, especially a rude, nude, flirting idiot with annoying accent!"
"Uh huh,” Tai said.
"And he keeps calling me Sheila. What's up with that?” I asked while walking in circles around my room. The long telephone cord was wrapped around my waist three times. I nearly tripped over my feet.
"Uh huh,” she said again.
"One good thing is that Josh has put me in charge of the mission to save Mom and the others,” I added even though I had the feeling she wasn't really listening. "It's nice to know that he has confidence in me, but he still won't let me just get in the jet and go already. He thinks I'm rushing it."
"Uh huh."
"I started to think he was right for a little while. I mean we don't know where to go so I would be like flying blind. Anything is better than sitting around doing nothing, though."
"Un huh."
"But if I'm in charge and it's my mission, who says I have to wait to get his ‘okay’? Maybe I should just go. What do you think?"
"Uh huh."
"Tai, are you even listening to me?” I asked when I got tired of her chorus of uh huh's.
"What? Oh yeah totally. I was totally listening to you."
"Really? So you're okay with me getting Marco's face tattooed on my butt?"
"Wait, is that what you said?"
"No, it's not what I said. But it proves you weren't listening to me." I tried to unravel myself from the telephone cord and somehow ended up making it worse. How was that even possible?
"Oh sorry, Priss. I'm a little distracted."
Suddenly I felt a little selfish. Here I was blabbing away about my problems and I hadn't even asked her how she was doing. She was all alone in another country taking some crazy hard science test. I bet she was homesick or something.
I stopped twisting around in circles for a second and said, “Sorry, Tai. I should've asked how your day was going."
"Uh huh,” she said, getting right back to her uh huh chorus.
"Tai!” I screamed into the phone trying to get her attention. "You wanna tell me what's going on?"
"Don't be mad,” she said after a second or two. That's never a good sign. Whenever someone started a story with the words "don't be mad", it usually meant you were about to get really really mad. I mean, no words can plop more fear in your gut except maybe "I think we should talk" from your boyfriend or "Is this poisonous?" from your li
ttle brothers.
I tried to prepare myself for the worst. Maybe in an attempt to get Kyle and me back together she'd told him where we lived and he was on his way. See, even though Kyle had been to visit me several times, Dad thought it was too dangerous for him to know our location. So after every visit, Katya erased his memory. There's no telling how many of Kyle's poor brain cells we killed.
I went to sit down on my bed not realizing that the phone cord was wrapped around my right foot. I tripped and fell face forward into a basketball that was lying in the middle of my floor. I yelled in pain, but Tai didn't even notice. She just started talking away.
"Remember when your family and I were kidnapped and taken to the Institute?"
When Colonel Selliwood kidnapped my family, they mistakenly took Tai instead of me. She was in my bed covering for me while I was out with Kyle.
"Tai, how could I forget that? That would be like forgetting my foot got ran over by a bus,” I said while rubbing my forehead from where it hit the basketball. I probably had "Rawlings" permanently branded on my forehead.
"And remember how I was able to figure out how to get Josh's inhibitor off so that he could help you defeat the guards?” she asked, ignoring my sarcasm.
The inhibitor was this collar-like thingy that they put on Josh and Mom to keep them from using their powers. After I rescued them, I went back into the Institute to save the other Specimens being held against their will. Tai figured out how to get it off of Josh. So when I was up against a room full of guards, Josh was able to use his hypnotic suggestion against them in order to help me out.
"Uh-huh,” I said, borrowing her favorite word of the last ten minutes.
"Did you ever wonder what happened to those collars?"
I thought back to that night. Once the institute blew up and the collars powered down, the kids yanked off their collars and threw them into the fire. Mom and Josh were already at the jet. I never thought about what happened to their collars.
"I took them. The inhibitors that were on Josh and your mom, I took them."
"Why?” I wasn't angry or anything. Just a bit confused. What would she want with a couple of glowing contraptions that can completely wipe out my powers?
"I took them so I could study them. I took them apart and I studied them."
"And?"
"And I completely understand their composition."
"And?” I was having a hard time figuring out what this had to do with me and how it was going to help me get a naked Australian out of my house.
"And I think, no, I know how to get your mom, Peter, and Katya back."
Chapter 14: Crang Revealed
After talking to Tai, I tried to go back to sleep. It was easier than I thought. All the stress must have been wearing me down, because I was out quicker than a Pittsburgh Pirate at bat.
Unfortunately, what felt like seconds later I awoke to Charlie and Chester standing next to my bed in their matching SpongeBob Square Pants pajamas. I jumped up so quickly I hit my head on the headboard. My poor forehead was really taking a beating tonight. I lay back down and threw my pillow over my face.
"What do you want?” I asked, trying not to sound as annoyed as I really was.
"We can't sleep,” Charlie said. Chester nodded in agreement.
"So?"
"When we can't sleep, Mommy or Daddy usually read to us,” Chester said. Charlie nodded in agreement.
"So?"
"Will you read to us, Prissy?” Chester asked.
"Please?” Charlie added
How could I deny them? If I was stressed out by the current situation, they had to be scared out of their little five-year-old minds. I sighed and rolled out of bed.
Lately, the twins hadn't really been into stories. They preferred it if someone read to them from a toy catalogue. I picked up a copy of their latest one and started reading out the different types of toy monster trucks available. I ended up reading through three catalogues, but they finally fell asleep by the time I started describing the Big Wheel Bone Crusher 3000.
Once they were asleep, I started spying out their room. The twins were notorious for snatching my things and hiding them in their room. After about five seconds I spotted one of my Batman comics, my Wonder Woman notebook, and my stuffed killer whale that was a souvenir from when we went to Sea World. They had even managed to snag my globe. Sneaky little monsters. I grabbed all my belongings and headed out of the room. That's when I ran into Ian from New Zealand in the hallway.
"It's like six o'clock in the morning. Why are you even awake?” I yelled completely forgetting my brothers had just fallen asleep. I hugged my stuff tighter and tried to scoot passed him.
"I live on a farm. I wake up with the sun,” he said coolly.
He seemed smug. Just the sound of his voice made me itch. "Did you wake up with the attitude, too?
Ian smiled. "What you think is attitude is just my Kiwi charm."
I rolled my eyes and continued to try to get past him. Kiwi charm? That sounded like a cereal. I wonder if that's what they eat back in Australia.
I didn't really care where he was from as long as he went back ... and soon.
He stepped to the side and blocked me. "Look, sheila. I think we got off on the wrong foot. How about a truce, Mate?"
"I'm not your mate and I'm not your sheila. So, you can take your truce back with you to your farm in Australia."
Ian clenched his jaw. Then he snatched the globe out from my arms causing all my other stuff to fall to the floor.
"Look at this,” he said, pointing to the globe. "Australia. New Zealand. Australia. New Zealand. Two different countries."
I shrugged. "So? Close enough."
He turned the globe around in his hands. "Look here. Canada. United States. Canada. United States. How would you like it if I called you Canadian all the time?"
I stared at the globe for a minute. Something was starting to click in my mind.
"Priscilla, what's wrong?” Ian asked when I didn't answer him after a few seconds. I took the globe out of his hands, forced my way by and sat down on the living room couch unable to speak. "Was it something I said?"
"Shh!” I said. I had to concentrate. There had to be a reason why the mention of Canada made me all tingly and I'm sure it wasn't because I think maple leaves are creepy. Cause they are, you know. That flag of theirs is ridiculous. Just a big red leaf looking like a hand about to grab you. I mean, why would they put a leaf on their flag? Who in the world would be afraid of leaf unless there was something sinister behind it? That leaf was up to something.
But no, it wasn't the leaf thing. Thinking of Canada made me all tingly because it reminded me of Specimen Xi. The first time I fought that psycho Chinese girl with the British accent was in a museum in Montreal. I was protecting a high-ranking official who had ordered Colonel Selliwood to stop some illegal research he was doing at the North Pole.
I looked at the North Pole on the globe. It had to be really cold up there. Once again I thought of Xi. When I fought her in United Arab Emirates, she took a phone call from Dr. Witherall right in the middle of our fight. She said she didn't want to go back to Crang because it was too "bloody cold." But that didn't really mean anything. I mean, it was cold in a lot of places. I'm sure it was just as cold in Russia and Norway and Alaska and all those places near the north pole. Wait a minute. That's it.
"I know where Crang is!"
Chapter 15: Check Mate
I ran into the kitchen with Ian right behind me.
"Priss, what is going on?" he asked. I just ignored him as I pushed through the door. I think I accidently knocked it off its hinges…again.
"Crang!" I yelled to Josh, Marco and Ryan. "They're at Crang."
"We've already been through this, Priss," Josh said. He rolled his eyes then rested his head on the table. He was completely exhausted. I wondered if he had gotten any sleep at all. "There's no such place as Crang," he continued with his head still down. "We've already spent hours looking
for it. It doesn't exist."
"No, Josh, listen." I put my right hand on his shoulder. The globe was tucked under my left arm. "You were right. I needed to go to United Arab Emirates that night," I said, referring to the mission that turned out to be a trap. Josh knew all along that it was a set up and that there wasn't a sheikh that needed to be saved, but he always stood by the fact that I had to be there at that specific time for some reason. We never knew why and now I did. "I figured it out. The reason I needed to be in UAE. I was supposed to hear Xi make plans to meet Dr. Witherall at Crang. And then she complained about it being cold up there."
