by Dan Gutman
“No, no! It’s nothing like that,” Bones told Coke. “It’s a toy. You throw it to somebody and they catch it. Then they throw it back to you. Something fun for you to play with in your travels. The only thing you can kill with it is time.”
“No razor blades?” Coke said, disappointed. “No laser beams or force fields?”
“Just plastic,” Bones said.
“Plastic explosives?” Coke asked hopefully. “I heard about them. They’re invisible to metal detectors.”
“No. Just plain old plastic plastic.”
Coke looked at the Frisbee.
“Well, this thing is lame,” he decided.
“You’re giving us a Frisbee?” Pep said. “We’re expected to go out and protect the free world with a Frisbee? I don’t even know how to throw a Frisbee.”
“It’s just for fun!” Bones told the twins. “You’re kids! Don’t you want to have fun? Here, I have a deck of cards for you, too.”
“A deck of cards?” Pep said. “What am I supposed to do with that?”
“I know,” Coke said. “The playing cards contain the secret codes to launch a nuclear attack, right?”
“Uh, no,” Bones said.
“I think they’re just plain old playing cards,” Pep told her brother, disappointed.
“What, is each card actually a video camera?” Coke asked. “That is ingenious! How do you fit the camera into such a thin piece of cardboard?”
“We don’t. It’s just a—”
“Don’t tell me,” Coke said, holding up his hand. “The edges of the cards are coated with poison. When you flip them at somebody, they get a paper cut, the poison enters their bloodstream, and they die within thirty seconds. Am I right?”
“No.”
“Sixty seconds?”
“Look, you’ve got to understand,” Bones said. “The Genius Files project doesn’t have a lot of money. These are just going-away presents I’m giving you. It’s like a goody bag you get when you go to somebody’s birthday party.”
“Don’t we get any real weapons to use so we can defend ourselves?” Coke asked.
“No. Here, take some fruit too.”
“Thank you,” Pep said graciously. “This is all very generous of you.”
“Are there bombs inside the fruit?” Coke asked.
“No. You eat it,” Bones said wearily. “Now listen, because this is very important. You will not tell your parents anything I have told you. You will not tell your friends. You are undercover. There appear to be some extremely dangerous people out there who want The Genius Files to fail. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Pep said.
“When are we going to see you again?” Coke asked.
“Soon, hopefully. Or maybe never.”
“Gee, can you be more vague?” asked Coke.
“Would you like a ride home?” Bones asked.
“It’s a short walk,” Pep said.
The twins took their goody bag and climbed back up the ladder into the garage. Bones yanked open the creaky door and let them out.
“Good-bye,” Bones said. “And good luck.”
The twins left the garage and had walked about ten yards when Pep stopped.
“What did we just get ourselves into?” she asked her brother.
“Relax,” Coke replied. “I have a feeling this is gonna be cool. We’re gonna be like spies. Hey, I thought of a new name for myself. From now on, I want you to call me Ace Fist.”
“What?!”
“Ace Fist,” Coke repeated. “That would be a cool nickname. Doesn’t it sound like an action hero? Ace Fist, secret agent.”
“It sounds stupid,” Pep told her brother. “That’s what it sounds like.”
“You’re just jealous because you didn’t think of it.”
“I am not.”
“Are, too.”
The twins were jawing back and forth when a flash of light came from the garage they had just left. As they turned to look, a huge orange fireball rocked them backward as the entire building exploded in a shower of bricks, dirt, glass, wood, and concrete. Coke and Pep dove to their left into a ditch at the side of the parking lot.
When things explode in the movies, it’s usually shown in slow motion. You see debris gracefully floating through the air. It takes about ten seconds for everything to hit the ground.
In real time, it’s a different story. Explosions aren’t beautiful. After the initial flash of light, it’s pretty much finished. The building is there and then it’s gone.
Tiny pieces of the building were flying everywhere like bullets. The whole thing was over before Coke or Pep even realized what had happened.
“Bones!” they screamed.
Chapter 10
Manifest Destiny
Well, now it looked as if the two people who could help the McDonald twins were both dead. Mya, the woman in red who saved their lives up on the cliff, had been shot in the neck with a poisoned dart. And now Bones, blown to pieces.
For a moment, Coke thought about becoming Ace Fist the action hero and running back into the garage to save Bones. But the building had been obliterated. Nothing was left. There was no way anybody could have survived the blast. And it would be risky to try. Whoever set off that explosion was, in all probability, trying to kill him and his sister. The smart thing to do would be to get out of there as quickly as possible.
“Do you think it’s our fault that Mya and Bones are dead?” Pep asked as they ran home. “Maybe we’re bad luck.”
“Of course it’s not our fault,” Coke told her. “It’s their fault. They’re the ones who put us in danger. The people who have been trying to kill us just got them instead. No wonder Dr. Warsaw decided that it’s up to kids to save the world. Grown-ups have no idea what to do.”
On the inside, though, both twins felt a twinge of guilt. Mya and Bones had been trying to help them, and now they were gone. Coke and Pep were on their own.
There was a chill in the air as they got closer to home. Coke wished he hadn’t so gallantly ripped his T-shirt in half when they were trapped in the burning school. He felt cold now.
“Do you think Mom and Dad know what happened at school?” Pep asked her brother.
“Are you kidding?” he replied. “Aliens could land on our front lawn, and Mom and Dad wouldn’t notice. I bet all the parents were called. Mom and Dad probably didn’t pick up the phone or check their email.”
In fact, Dr. McDonald had checked his email. An emergency message had gone out to parents telling them the school had burned down after everyone had left for summer vacation. Dr. McDonald assumed it was another one of those internet hoaxes he received all the time. He deleted it from his in-box with a laugh.
When the twins finally got home, their parents barely noticed them. They were in the middle of a heated discussion on the front lawn.
“I can’t believe this, Bridge!” Dr. McDonald complained. “The garbagemen took my garbage can!”
“That’s what they’re supposed to do, Ben,” Mrs. McDonald informed him.
“No, they took my good garbage can,” he added. “The small one in my office.”
“Well, why did you put your good garbage can out with the trash?” Mrs. McDonald asked logically.
“I wanted them to take the garbage in the can, not the can itself,” he explained. “The can wasn’t garbage. The stuff in the can was garbage. It was obvious!”
“You shouldn’t have put your good garbage can out on the lawn, Ben,” she said. “It’s your own fault.”
“Well, they shouldn’t have taken it away!”
The twins looked from one parent to the other as if they were watching a Ping-Pong tournament.
“How are the garbagemen supposed to know what is or isn’t garbage?” Mrs. McDonald continued. “They’re not mind readers.”
“What do I have to do, spell it out for them?”
“Apparently so,” she replied. “Why don’t you make a sign that says not garbage and p
ut it on the can you don’t want to throw away?”
“I’m not making a sign for the garbagemen!” he said, exasperated. “You know, last year I was trying to throw away an old beat-up garbage can, but they wouldn’t take it. They didn’t think it was garbage. And now they took my good garbage can that I didn’t want to throw away. I’m telling you, Bridge, you can’t win with these people!”
Coke and Pep silently prayed that they would never become grown-ups.
Their parents turned and faced them, finally realizing there were more important things in life than garbage cans.
“It’s about time you kids got home,” Dr. McDonald said, pulling his children to him in a bear hug.
“What happened to your shirt?” Mrs. McDonald asked Coke.
“It ripped,” Coke replied. It was, technically, the truth. “I had to throw it away.”
“Is that any way to treat your clothes? Shirts don’t grow on trees, you know,” his mother said. “They cost money. You need to take better care of your possessions. Ben, should there be consequences to this?”
Dr. McDonald didn’t like to hear his children being scolded. He always believed you get better results by rewarding good behavior than you do by punishing bad behavior.
“Anything exciting happen at school today?” he asked to change the subject.
“Nope, other than the fact that it burned down,” Coke said.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Dr. McDonald chortled. “I got that email too. You kids crack me up. Bridge, I’m so glad we decided to have children after all.”
Pep and her mom went inside to prepare dinner, while Dr. McDonald brought Coke around to the side of the RV, which was parked in the driveway.
“We’re heading out first thing in the morning,” he told Coke. “And I have a job for you. I need you to clean the toilet.”
“Why do I have to clean the toilet?” Coke complained. “Why can’t Pep do it?”
“Because you’re a guy,” Dr. McDonald said, “and we guys are disgusting, filthy creatures, right? Besides, which would you rather do: clean the toilet or help Mom cook dinner?”
“I’d rather watch TV,” Coke replied.
“That wasn’t one of the options,” his dad said. “Come on! This is going to be fun! C’mere, I’ll show you how to do a dump.”
Instead of using water to flush, the toilets in RVs use gravity. There’s a holding tank underneath the bowl. When you get to a dump station at a campground, you attach a thick hose to the RV and let the contents of the holding tank fall into a ground inlet that leads to the sewer system. It’s fairly disgusting when you think about it.
So don’t think about it.
Dr. McDonald gave Coke a pair of yellow rubber gloves and showed him how to attach the hose to the connectors below the toilet.
“You want a real tight fit,” he told his son, “or you’re in for a big surprise.”
Dr. McDonald showed Coke which lever he needed to pull to open the valve and which one to pull to flush some water through the system when he was done.
“And that’s how you do a dump,” Dr. McDonald said, packing up the hose again. “Easy as pie.”
“It’s gross, Dad,” Coke said. “We’re going to be essentially driving a Porta-Potty cross-country.”
“It’s completely sanitary and environmentally friendly,” Dr. McDonald told him. “And it’s fun, too! Think about it: a full week’s worth of waste from the four of us can fit in this tank.”
“Nice image, Dad,” Coke remarked.
“Someday they’ll figure out a way to turn human waste into fuel,” Dr. McDonald said, “and we won’t need gasoline anymore. We’ll drive cars powered by our own poop. Can you imagine? The holding tank will also be the gas tank.”
“And when that glorious day comes,” Coke said, “our dependence on foreign oil will be . . . eliminated!”
“Very funny,” Dr. McDonald noted.
When dinner was ready, Coke and his dad washed their hands and charged into the kitchen. They knew this would be their last home-cooked meal for some time. The RV had a little kitchen in it, but meals on the road were likely to be a lot of fast food and burgers over a campfire. But tonight it was roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob.
There was a large map of the United States taped up on one wall of the kitchen. Mrs. McDonald had drawn a line with a marker starting in San Francisco and extending all the way across the country.
“Remember, Aunt Judy is getting married near the Lincoln Memorial on July Fourth,” she explained as she spooned potatoes onto everyone’s plate. “So we have to get to Washington by that date. But we’ll be stopping off at lots of fascinating spots along the way.”
Dr. McDonald rolled his eyes. He knew what kinds of fascinating spots his wife had in mind. Not important historical spots such as the Liberty Bell. Not the Grand Canyon. Not Yosemite National Park.
No, Mrs. McDonald’s idea of fascinating would be a town that had a museum devoted to Star Trek. A giant statue of Paul Bunyan. The largest ball of twine in the world.
“We’ve never been to the East Coast,” Pep said. “We’ve never been to the Midwest. You never take us anywhere.”
“We took you to Disneyland,” Mrs. McDonald pointed out.
Dr. McDonald had been waiting almost thirteen years to go on a cross-country trip with the family. It would have been pointless when the twins were little, because they wouldn’t have remembered anything they had seen. Now that they were less than a week away from becoming full-fledged teenagers, they could appreciate it. They would remember this trip for the rest of their lives.
“Do you kids know what ‘Manifest Destiny’ means?” Dr. McDonald asked as he munched across an ear of corn like he was typing on an old-fashioned typewriter.
“Yeah,” Coke said, recalling a library book he’d read years earlier. He could see the page in his head. “When the country was young, Manifest Destiny was a belief that the United States should expand across North America all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.”
Sometimes that photographic memory came in handy.
“That’s right, son,” Dr. McDonald said, beaming. Having really smart kids did have its advantages. “You might say it’s part of the American Dream. Tomorrow we’re going to begin a reverse Manifest Destiny. We’ll start near the Pacific Ocean and drive all the way to the Atlantic. Go east, young man!”
“But wasn’t Manifest Destiny just an excuse to steal the land and kill the Indians who were living in North America long before we did?” asked Pep. “Wasn’t it almost like genocide?”
“Pass the chicken,” Dr. McDonald said. Having really smart kids did have its disadvantages.
After dinner, the kids packed their duffel bags for the trip. They needed to bring a lot of clothes because their mother said she didn’t want to stop every few days to do laundry.
It had been a long day, and the next one would be longer. Pep usually read before going to sleep; but on this particular night she spent an hour Facebooking, emailing, and texting good-bye to her closest friends. There were about a hundred of them. She wished she could tell them all about The Genius Files, but of course she had promised Bones she would keep quiet. It wasn’t easy. After jumping off a cliff to avoid some crazy guys with poisoned darts and watching a building explode, what are you supposed to type when Twitter asks, “What’s happening?”
Coke thought about calling his friend Jimmy Erdman but decided to text instead. . . .
COKE: See U in Sept. If Im lucky.
JIMMY: What U mean, if Im lucky?
COKE: Cant tell U. Maybe when it’s all over.
Most kids want to have their own bedroom. But Coke and Pep had been together since the day they were born; and despite their differences and disagreements, neither one minded sharing a room with the other. They had bunk beds: Coke on the bottom, and Pep on the top.
“You okay?” Coke asked a few seconds after he turned off the light.
“Yeah,” his
sister replied in the darkness. “I think it’s gonna be all for the better.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Well, once we’re away from home, out in the middle of nowhere with Mom and Dad,” she explained, “Mrs. Higgins and those bowler dudes won’t be bothering us anymore.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet this whole thing is gonna blow over,” Coke said. “The school will be rebuilt over the summer, and everything will be back to normal.”
There was no more talking after that. Pep dropped off to sleep. Coke tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable in his bed. His leg was aching from when he kicked himself trying to put out the flames on his pants when they were trapped in the school. That reminded him of all they had been through in the last twenty-four hours, which made it even harder to fall asleep.
He punched his pillow and flipped it over. That’s when he discovered an envelope tucked neatly underneath the pillow. He picked up the flashlight that was always under his bed and tore open the envelope. There was a note inside.
This is what it said:
KCAORE HTANAO EASUO HEAHT
NIAUO AYTEA EMLLIAWI
Chapter 11
On the Road
Wake up!” Dr. McDonald shouted from the bottom of the stairs. “Today is the first day of the rest of your lives!”
Coke rolled over for one more minute of precious sleep. In the back of his mind, he vaguely remembered the envelope he’d found under his pillow the night before. He had memorized the message that was inside it: KCAORE HTANAO EASUO HEAHT NIAUO AYTEA EMLLIAWI.
But just because you’re classified a genius with a photographic memory doesn’t mean you’re good at figuring out secret messages and codes. Coke considered himself a numbers guy, an action guy. Ace Fist. Before he’d fallen asleep, he had slipped the envelope into his backpack so he could show it to his sister in the morning. She would be able to decipher it. She was good at that kind of stuff.
“Who’s ready to go coast to coast?” hollered Dr. McDonald as he bounded into the twins’ room clapping his hands enthusiastically. “It’s our manifest destiny!”
