by Meg Cabot
Chapter 16
LULU WAS SHOUTING “HURRY!” TO ME—as if the taxi she had just climbed into might take off without me. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” I told her. Christopher was waiting on the corner with his hand on the open taxi door. His face had settled back into impassivity again, as if he were used to being pulled out of school every day by supermodels and their entourages. “Where, exactly,” Steven wanted to know, as I slid into the backseat where he was sitting next to Lulu, “are we going?” “This guy’s cousin is a computer genius,” I said, pointing at Christopher, who was seated up front next to the driver. I was pretty sure Christopher couldn’t hear what we were saying through the thick bulletproof barrier separating the front and backseat. The driver had the Bollywood music turned up pretty loud. “He says he can find your mom. ” Steven looked confused. “He’s with the NYPD? What was he doing in your high school? Is he a narc?” “Um,” I said, beginning to see some inadequacies with my plan. “No. ” “Did you see that girl’s top?” Lulu wanted to know. She was, apparently, talking about Whitney. “It was so…trying too hard. ” “But he’s with the government,” Steven said. “Tell me he’s got some kind of connections with a governmental agency. ” “Not exactly,” I said to Steven. “I mean,” Lulu went on, “it was practically see-through. And not in a good way. You didn’t like that top she was wearing, Steven, did you? That girl back there?” “Are you telling me,” Steven asked, ignoring Lulu as Cosabella, whom I’d let out of my tote, pranced on his lap, peering excitedly at the traffic all around us, “that he’s really just a high school student?” “You know what?” Christopher had turned around in the front seat and was looking back at us through the plastic barrier. It was clear he could hear us, after all, despite the tinny music urging us to Soniya dil se mila de and Just chill. “Don’t worry about it. If she’s alive, Felix’ll find your mom. Just sit back and relax, all of you. It’s taken care of. ” Which was exactly what a supervillain would say. Especially as he was taking you to your execution. But wouldn’t a truly threatening supervillain have been waving a weapon of some kind at us? Yeah, no, not so much. Considering we were all heading into this of our own volition. Well, more or less. I guess I didn’t have a choice, really. It was help Steven find his mother or let him go public with what he knew, which I’d started strongly to suspect last night was the direction Nikki’s brother was heading. I could just see it now…Steven on the national news, making appeals for help finding his mom, and then casually mentioning, “And by the way…the girl currently occupying Nikki Howard’s body isn’t really my sister. I don’t know who she is, but somebody please do an exorcism to get her the hell out, okay? Thanks. ” That’d go over real well with Stark, I bet. Lulu was on her cell phone next to me. “No,” she was saying to someone on the other end. “You have to make sure the caterer knows to deliver everything through the service elevator in the back. Last time they made a few deliveries from the front and they scratched the brass in the elevator, and the building management got really mad. Understand? Good. ” She hung up. “Is this party all you ever think about?” Steven asked. He sounded really irritated. Lulu looked past me and over at him. Her expression was stunned. “No,” she replied. “Of course not!” “It’s just a party,” Steven said. “I throw parties all the time. You get a keg and you pour out a couple bags of pretzels. You put on some music and you invite your friends. It’s not that big a deal. ” Lulu threw me an incredulous look. Since I wasn’t exactly the world’s greatest expert on parties, I was unable to contribute to the conversation. I’ve been to some parties with Lulu, it’s true, and they seemed a bit more complex than getting a keg and pouring out a couple bags of pretzels. The last one we went to involved a fire-eater. But I figured I’d let her handle the situation. “This isn’t just an ordinary party,” she explained carefully. “Sushi chefs from Nobu are going to be making hand rolls on the spot. There’s going to be every type of call liquor you can imagine, with bartenders who are also expert astrologists. I’m having a chocolate fountain installed on that little outside deck. And DJ Drama is going to be spinning. ” Steven just shook his head. “Why? Why are you doing all that? Who are you trying to impress?” “Impress?” Lulu said the word as if it were foreign. “I’m not trying to impress anyone—” Which wasn’t exactly true. Lulu’d been spending a lot of time lately trying to impress Steven. Still, not in a bad way, the way Whitney Robertson and the rest of the Walking Dead try to impress…well, me. Everything Lulu does, she does from a motivation of a hundred percent goodness. No one who knew her well could ever say otherwise. Steven, I’m sure, was just upset with the way things were going, and nervous about his mom. I hurried to intervene. “Lulu likes to entertain,” I said. “She’s compensating for a less than satisfactory childhood. She’d really like it if you could be there. ” Steven hesitated…then saw my expression, which was beseeching—I was sending him a telepathic message that read, Come on, dude. She has a huge crush on you. Don’t diss her. Just say you’ll come to her party. I don’t care if she’s not your type. Just say you’ll come. Come on, throw the girl a bone. He shrugged and sank more deeply back into the seat, as Cosabella’s panting made a steamy spot on the window beside him. “Sure. Of course. I appreciate the invitation. It sounds great. ” Lulu wriggled all over with excitement. “It’s going to be great!” she enthused. “We’re having some of the trapeze artists from Cirque du Soleil, you know? They’re installing trapezes, because our ceilings are so high. It’s going to be freaky! People should be able to see them through our windows from all over Manhattan!” Lulu went on about the party almost the entire way to Felix’s house, which we finally pulled up in front of about twenty minutes later. It was a nondescript attached home in a pleasant-looking middle-class neighborhood. Christopher paid the cabdriver and we stepped out into the cold, miserable rain, which disturbed Cosabella so much—she looked up at me with a perplexed expression, like, Why, Mom? Why would you do this to me?—that I had to lift her and stick her back in the tote, where she happily snuggled down again. Then, ducking his head against the steady mist of rain, Christopher led the way down the walk and up the stoop to the front door, where he lifted the American eagle-shaped door knocker and let it drop. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” Steven asked me as we waited for the door to be answered. “It’ll be fine,” I said. Though I didn’t actually believe this. Especially, I suspected, when Steven saw who we’d come to visit. I wasn’t wrong. A minute later, the door opened, and a plump middle-aged woman wearing jeans and a Stark brand sweater with a sparkly American flag on it cried, “Christopher! What are you doing here on a school day?” Christopher smiled and said, “Oh, they already let us out on winter break in the city, Aunt Jackie. ” Aunt Jackie beamed and said, “And you came to see Felix? And brought your friends? How sweet of you. Aren’t you a nice boy?” If only she knew. “Well, don’t stand out there in the cold,” Aunt Jackie cried. “Come in! Come in. ” Felix’s mother shepherded us inside, where it was warm. And decorated in everything you could buy at a Stark Megastore. I’m not kidding. I recognized a Stark brand shelving unit, a Stark sofa and love seat arrangement, a Stark entertainment set, even a Stark brand television. Felix’s family had the complete Stark living room, down to the matching green Naugahyde Stark brand love seats Christopher’s aunt and uncle evidently sat in to watch the Stark Shopping Network at night. I could even smell Nikki perfume emanating from Aunt Jackie, a fairly noxious combination when added to the fact she had something baking in the oven back in the kitchen. Nikki’s perfume didn’t go well with food. Or anything, really. “You’re just in time,” Felix’s mom was saying, confirming my suspicions, as she bustled around. “I’m about to take a batch of my world-famous brownies out of the oven—” “Gee, that’s great, Aunt Jackie,” Christopher said. “Maybe later. Right now we have to talk to Felix. Is he downstairs?” “Of course,” Aunt Jackie said with a laugh. “Where else would he be?” S
he kept looking nervously at Lulu and me. At first I couldn’t figure out why, then I remembered: We were Nikki Howard and Lulu Collins. She’d probably seen us before on Entertainment Tonight…not to mention my face on the tag of just about everything she’d ever bought. Maybe she couldn’t place how she knew us, but she knew we looked familiar. On top of which, it couldn’t be every day girls came over to visit her little Felix. Or, more like, ever. “We’ll just go say hi to Felix,” Christopher said, nodding his head for us to follow him as he made his way across the orange shag carpeting toward a nearby door. “We’ll only be a minute. We won’t stay long. ” “I’ll tell you what,” Aunt Jackie said. “I’ll bring the brownies down to all of you. Would you like some milk with them? Or, I know! Hot cocoa! It’s so cold out. ” Felix’s mom apparently hadn’t noticed one of us was in his twenties. “That’s okay, Aunt Jackie,” Christopher said. “We’ll be fine. ” He yanked open the door and I saw it led to a long, narrow staircase into the basement. Christopher started down the stairs, and, glancing over my shoulder at Steven and Lulu apprehensively, I followed him. This, I knew, was it. It wasn’t as scary as heading into the Bat Cave, exactly. Unless posters from Scarface, the movie, were scary. Which were what greeted us as we descended into Felix’s parents’ basement. They were everywhere. They covered almost every bit of wall surface, giant blown-up posters of Al Pacino, who starred in the movie, in all sorts of different costumes and poses. Someone, I was beginning to suspect, had a bit of a gangster complex. It wasn’t really very hard to figure out who. I mean, I was guessing it wasn’t Christopher’s aunt Jackie. The basement apparently served as a laundry room as well as an exercise room. There was a set of weights—which looked as if they hadn’t been touched in ages—as well as a treadmill, from which bits of laundry were hanging to dry. At least down here, though, you couldn’t smell the sickening scent of Nikki. The air smelled crisply of Tide. A corner of the basement had been converted to a media center. Well, of sorts. Computer monitors that appeared as if they’d been scrounged from other people’s garbage cans hung suspended from the ceiling by what looked like bungee cords. Some of them also sat on milk cartons or perilously leaned on entertainment consoles (Stark brand, of course). Sitting in the middle of this construction was a thin, hunched figure. The figure wore baggy jeans, a green velour shirt, and multiple gold chains. He was playing an online game involving a stick shift. “Die,” he was saying to one of the many computer monitors in front of him. “Die, die, die, die, die!” Behind me, I sensed rather than saw Steven freeze. Lulu crashed into him. “Oh,” she said. “Excuse me!” Steven didn’t react. He was too stunned. I didn’t blame him. The figure in front of the computer monitors turned its head. I recognized Felix from the other day. He smiled. I half expected to see that some of his teeth were capped in gold. But they weren’t. Just braces. “Christopher,” he exclaimed. “My man! And you’ve brought visitors…” His voice trailed off as he saw just who his visitors were. I thought there was a strong possibility Felix’s eyes might bulge so far out of his head that they’d detach from his retinas entirely…especially when he saw Lulu. At the last minute, however, he pulled it together. Then he said, “Ladies! Hello. Welcome to the Men’s Den. Good to have you here. How thoroughly excellent of you to come. Did the matriarch offer you brownies?” “You have got to be kidding me. ” Steven’s voice, behind me, was wooden. “Just give it a chance,” I said to him quietly. “I will not give it a chance. ” Steven sounded like he was strangling. “That is a child. ” “Au contraire, mon frère. ” Felix, evidently overhearing him, pulled up a pant leg to reveal an evil-looking black plastic device attached to one—surprisingly hairy—ankle. “Does this look childlike? I assure you, it’s anything but. This is a state-of-the-art house-arrest tracker system. Tamper-resistant. Communicates wirelessly to the docking station upstairs in the kitchen. It’s connected to a transformer and the phone line. It will notify the police the minute I step outdoors. Hardly something your average fourteen-year-old boy would wear, now, is it? But then,” Felix added, with a pointed glance in my direction, “I’m extremely mature for my age, as I’m sure you ladies can tell. ” Steven tensed up and looked like he was about to slug the kid. But Lulu laid a gentle hand on his arm, murmuring soothingly, “Oh, Steven, come on. Listen to Nikki. Just give it a chance. ” Christopher, meanwhile, was leaning up against a support post, a small smile playing across his lips. “Everyone,” he said. “My cousin, Felix. Felix. Everyone. ” “This,” I said, pointing, “is Steven—” Christopher held up a hand. “I think it’s probably better if we keep it anonymous,” he said. “I mean, as anonymous as we can, considering there are celebrity superstars among us. ” “Don’t think just because you’re famous, Ms. Howard and Ms. Collins,” Felix let us know, “that I’m going to treat you any differently than I would if you were any other attractive ladies. I actually know some celebrities—some of my best friends are celebrities, though I can’t mention names of course, because I’m too chill—and I know how upset they get when people make a big deal out of their fame. So you don’t have to worry. I’m cool about the celebrity thing. ” Lulu and I exchanged glances. Then I said the only thing we possibly could say, under the circumstances, which was, “Um…great. Thanks. ” The truth was, people said this kind of thing to me a lot. Everybody wanted me to know they weren’t the kind of person who was impressed by celebrities, and that they were going to treat me like a “normal person. ” Except that just by telling me that, they weren’t treating me like a normal person. Christopher—who had to know his cousin was a bit of a tool but was mostly keeping his gaze averted, as if he wanted to avoid the whole situation and escape off into his own little world—asked, “Nikki, do you have that information we asked you for?” “Oh. ” I was startled. Christopher was the one who’d always treated me like a noncelebrity. To the point where he’d almost treated me like a nonhuman at times. “Yeah…” I still wasn’t sure how I felt about ratting out Stark to Christopher and Felix. On the one hand, I honestly didn’t think their plan was going to work. I mean, we were talking about Stark, which according to Christopher was the largest corporation in the entire world. Were two teenagers really going to be able to take it down with their little hack? Yeah, so not. On the other hand, they were so going to get caught. One of them was already wearing an ankle bracelet and, from the looks of things, living in a basement, playing video games, and eating brownies served by his mother all day…on the surface the most ideal of existences for a kid, but in reality actually kind of horrible, with his obviously made-up relationships with “celebrities” and delusions of grandeur. Was that really the sort of future I wanted for Christopher? No, of course not. But if that were true, would I have gone to school this morning, pulled him out of class during finals week, and dragged him all the way out to Brooklyn to his cousin’s house? I wasn’t sure. But I had to do something. Because my days of doing nothing but running around with a bug detector in my pocket were over. “It’s Dr. Louise Higgins,” I heard myself saying. “That’s the user name. ”
