Science Fair
Author: Dave Barry
Date: 2011-06-15 01:35:47+00:00
Keywords: Middle Grade; Mystery; Humor; Adventure; Childrens; Fantasy; Juvenile; Fiction; Science Fiction; Young Adult
Description: Grdankl the Strong, president of Kprshtskan, is plotting to take over the American government. His plan is to infiltrate the science fair at Hubble Middle School, located in a Maryland suburb just outside Washington. The rich kids at Hubble cheat by buying their projects every year, and Grdankls cronies should have no problem selling them his government-corrupting software. But this year, Toby Harbinger, a regular kid without designer clothes, is determined to win the $5, 000 prizeeven if he has to go up against terrorists to do it. With the help of his best friends, Tamara and Micah, Toby tak
Publisher: Paw Prints
Rights: Copyright 2010 Disney. All rights reserved.

The Star Wars films and characters are owned by Lucasfilm, Ltd.

Coca-Cola, Coke, and Diet Coke are registered trademarks of The Coca-Cola Company.

Copyright © 2008 Dave Barry and Page One, Inc.

All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book
Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion, 114 Fifth Avenue,
New York, New York 10011-5690.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file.

ISBN 978-1-4231-4079-5

Table of Contents

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Chapter Fifty-four
Chapter Fifty-five
Chapter Fifty-six
Chapter Fifty-seven
Chapter Fifty-eight
Chapter Fifty-nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-one
Chapter Sixty-two
Chapter Sixty-three
Chapter Sixty-four
Chapter Sixty-five
Chapter Sixty-six
Chapter Sixty-seven
Chapter Sixty-eight
Chapter Sixty-nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-one
Chapter Seventy-two
Chapter Seventy-three
Chapter Seventy-four
Chapter Seventy-five
Chapter Seventy-six

We dedicate this book to the students.

Also, the teachers.

Also, while we’re at it, the frog.

Also by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

Peter and the Starcatchers
Peter and the Shadow Thieves
Peter and the Secret of Rundoon
Peter and the Sword of Mercy
Escape from the Carnivale
Cave of the Dark Wind
Blood Tide

Also by Ridley Pearson

The Kingdom Keepers—Disney After Dark
Kingdom Keepers II—Disney at Dawn
Kingdom Keepers III—Disney in Shadow
Steel Trapp—The Challenge
Steel Trapp—The Academy

FIVE LARGE, HAIRY MEN were gathered for a top secret meeting in a bunker under the presidential palace in the city of Krpsht. Krpsht (pronounced “Krpsht”) was the capital of the Republic of Krpshtskan, a poor, mountainous nation with few vowels and a population of four million, including goats.

The five were very powerful men, at least for Krpshtskan. The oldest and largest and hairiest man, known as Grdankl the Strong, was the president, a position he had won in a national election contest against nobody. His campaign slogan had been “Vote for Grdankl, or Die.” The other four men were Krpshtskan’s first, second, third, and fourth vice presidents, who also happened to be the president’s brothers. Their job was to agree with the president at all times.

These five men were looking over the shoulder of a very thin and very nervous young man seated at a computer. The young man’s name was Vrsk, and he held the lofty title of Krpshtskan minister of technology. Vrsk had been appointed to this post because he was the only person in Krpshtskan who could work the official government computer, which was the only working computer in Krpshtskan.

At the moment the screen was dark.

“Why is it taking so long?” barked Grdankl the Strong, speaking in the Krpsht language, which has been compared to the sound of a duck burping. The first, second, third, and fourth vice presidents nodded vigorously and frowned to indicate that they, too, thought it was taking too long.

“It’s booting up,” said Vrsk. “It takes a while. It’s Windows 98. I tried to upgrade to Vista, but the processor—”

“No more talking!” said Grdankl the Strong, who did not like to hear people say things that he did not understand. “Turn it on!”

Vrsk turned back to the computer screen, relieved to see that it was now flickering to life. His relief turned to horror when he saw that he had failed to disable his usual screen saver, which was a picture of Halle Berry in her Catwoman suit.

Grdankl the Strong looked at the screen, grunted, and said, in English, “Catwoman.”

The four vice presidents nodded in agreement and said, “Catwoman.”

Vrsk, relieved that nobody was going to hit him, at least for now, clicked the computer mouse and opened a Web browser. He was pleased to see that the Internet connection—it was the only one in Krpshtskan—was working. Manipulating the mouse, he opened a map site. An image of Earth, seen from space, came into view. Vrsk centered the window over eastern North America, then began to zoom in, closer and closer, until the sprawling metropolis of Washington, D.C., filled the screen. He zoomed in closer until individual buildings could be easily recognized. One by one, he showed the president close-up aerial views of the Capitol, the White House, and the Pentagon.

The president nodded. The four vice presidents nodded also.

Vrsk then zoomed out a bit and began to pan north on the screen window. He stopped over a Maryland suburb just outside the Washington city limit, then zoomed in until the screen was filled with a large building complex surrounded by parking lots and athletic fields.

“There,” he said.

Grdankl the Strong frowned at the screen.

“You are sure?” he said. “This is the place?”

Vrsk checked a sheet of paper next to the computer. “I am sure,” he said.

Grdankl the Strong nodded and turned to his vice presidents. “It is very close to the American government,” he said, “just as Prmkt told us.”

The vice presidents nodded in agreement. Grdankl the Strong turned back to Vrsk, and, pointing at the buildings on the screen, said, “Prmkt is there?”

“Yes,” said Vrsk. “He works there, under a different name. He sends me e-mails from there.”

Grdankl the Strong looked at the buildings, nodded, and turned back to his vice presidents. “He is very smart, Prmkt. Very smart.”

The vice presidents agreed.

“If Prmkt is right,” continued Grdankl the Strong, “if his plan works, then in one instant—one instant—the whole American government will stop, and America will be like a chicken with its head cut off, running around like…like…” He snapped his fingers, trying to think what it would be like.

“Like a chicken with no head?” suggested the first vice president.

“Exactly,” said Grdankl the Strong. “Like a chicken with no head. And then the Americans will be sorry that they ever dared to insult the Republic of Krpshtskan. Very sorry.” Grdankl the Strong started to laugh, thinking about America’s impending doom. The four vice presidents also laughed. Vrsk also started to laugh, but he was stopped by a look from the fourth vice president, letting Vrsk know that this was strictly a high-level laugh.

Then Grdankl the Strong grew quiet, and immediately all laughter in the bunker ceased. Grdankl the Strong gestured toward the buildings on the computer screen.

“And the beauty of it is,” he said, “if Prmkt’s plan works—and I am certain Prmkt’s plan will work—the Americans will do it to themselves. The American children will do it. They will bring down their own country! It is genius!”

The four vice presidents nodded, agreeing on the genius of the plan.

Grdankl the Strong tapped the screen with a fat finger and asked Vrsk, “What is this place again?”

“It is a school,” said Vrsk. “A public school. Its name is…” he consulted the piece of paper, then, in heavily accented English, said, “…Hubble Middle School.”

Grdankl the Strong looked at the screen and smiled.

“The mightiest nation on earth,” he said, “brought to its knees by children.”

TOBY HARBINGER, backpack slung over his left shoulder, hurried through the halls of Hubble Middle School. His goal was to get to Gifted Science before the ME kids got there.

ME was short for Manor Estates, a development of giant houses that cost millions of dollars and had more bathrooms than people. Toby knew that, based on the law of averages, there should be at least one Manor Estates kid who was not a total jerk, but so far he had not met that kid.

The ME kids stuck together. Their families vacationed together at ski resorts and in Europe, Hawaii, and any other place where it cost a lot of money to be. On weekends, the ME kids went together to the mall, where they used their personal credit cards to buy stuff they didn’t need, like cell phones with even more unnecessary features than the cell phones they had bought three months earlier. They wore expensive clothes that were designed to look used. They made fun of kids who wore clothes that really were used.

Such as Toby. For years the ME kids had made fun of his freckled face, his apparent lack of biceps, and his high voice, which had recently begun to break, so that at times he croaked like a frog. But they’d moved on: now it was his clothes.

Toby reached the door to the Gifted Science classroom, took a breath, and went in.

Oh, no.

The ME kids were already there. They sat together, of course, right by the door, so Toby had to walk past them to get to his seat. Today they focused on his shoes, which, for a change, were new. They were a name brand, but not the right name brand. This was the kind of fashion error that ME kids, who had brand radar, always spotted immediately.

“Nice sneakers, Hardbonger,” said Jason Niles, who had been calling Toby “Hardbonger” since third grade, and still, after five years, could not get over how hilarious this was. Toby ignored him, partly to send the message that he didn’t care, and partly because Jason Niles was the size of a UPS truck.

“Oooh, Toby,” said Haley Hess, making her voice sound like she thought Toby was cute, which of course she didn’t, because she was Haley Hess. “I love them! They’re so…white! Did your mom get them at Discount Warehouse?”

Toby ignored her also, but his ears turned red, because, first, that’s what always happened when Haley Hess spoke to him, and, second, his mom had, in fact, bought the shoes at Discount Warehouse. The ME kids would go to school dressed only in mud before they would wear clothing purchased from Discount Warehouse.

The ME kids insulted Toby’s sneakers a few more times as he passed, then turned their attention to new victims. Toby slid into his seat at the back, between Micah Porter, who was his best friend, and Tamara Reilley, who was his best friend for a girl, although Toby tried not to stand next to her too much because she was four inches taller.

“Morons,” said Micah, whose nose never stopped running, which is why he was known, unfortunately for him, as Mucus.

“Yeah,” said Toby.

“I don’t see why everybody says Haley Hess is so hot,” said Tamara. “Do you think she’s hot, Toby?”

“No,” said Toby, lying.

“Of course he thinks she’s hot,” said Micah. “She’s a moron, but she is hot. She’s a hot moron.”

“I think she looks like Kim Possible,” said Tamara, whose name had never been used in the same sentence with hot.

“Exactly,” said Micah. He noticed that Toby and Tamara were both staring at him. “What? You don’t think Kim Possible’s hot?”

“Please shut up,” said Toby, who said this often to Micah.

The bell rang, and in walked the Gifted Science teacher, Mr. Neckstrom, a small, nervous-looking man with hair that grew unnaturally far down his forehead, threatening to merge with his eyebrows. He wore khaki pants and a brown shirt with large, permanent-looking wet spots under each arm.

“All right, settle down,” he said. “Haley, stop texting and put away that phone.”

“Sure,” said Haley, continuing to text.

Mr. Neckstrom turned away so he didn’t have to see her ignoring his order. “All right,” he said to the class. “It’s March first. Do you know what that means?”

“It’s time for your monthly shower?” said one of the ME kids, just loud enough so everybody could hear, but just soft enough that Mr. Neckstrom could pretend he didn’t hear, which was what he usually did when an ME kid said something. He had learned, as most teachers had, that it was better not to mess with ME kids, because if you did, you had to answer to their parents. And nobody wanted to do that.

The ME parents had money and power. They could have sent their children to private school; if they lived anywhere else, they would have. But it happened that Hubble Middle School was the best middle school in Maryland, and it fed its students into Spiro T. Agnew High School, which sent more of its graduates to Ivy League colleges than any other school in the United States. It was the best, and the parents of Manor Estates demanded the best.

So their children attended Hubble, and every one of them got into the Gifted Program. This was not because they were all gifted; Jason Niles, for example, had the IQ of a zucchini. No, the ME kids all got into Gifted because it was the best program, so the ME parents made sure their children were in it. They did this in various ways—sometimes by making generous donations to the school; sometimes by threatening lawsuits, or worse. Some of the ME parents held powerful positions in the federal government, and they knew how to threaten. The teachers at Hubble did not want to mess with them or their children, and so Mr. Neckstrom pretended not to hear the remark about his monthly shower.

“March first,” he reminded, “is the first day to register for the science fair. And thanks to the generosity of Mr. Swingle, first prize this year will be…” He paused, noting with pleasure that all of the students were paying attention. Haley Hess had actually stopped texting.

“…five thousand dollars,” said Mr. Neckstrom.

The classroom erupted with a chorus of whoas. Even the ME kids were impressed by the prize amount, which was double the previous year’s $2,500. The prize money came from a billionaire Hubble alumnus, Lance Swingle, who had started a hugely successful company, TranScent, based on a system he invented for sending smells over the Internet. Swingle credited his success in part to the scientific education he got at Hubble Middle. In gratitude, he donated a generous cash prize each year to be given to the winner of the science fair.

His goal, he said, was to create an interest in science.

What he had actually created was a near-maniacal interest in winning first prize. The Hubble science fair was very competitive. You did not win by hooking a flashlight bulb up to a battery to show how an electrical circuit works. No, to win the Hubble Middle School science fair, you had to do something really impressive. For example, the winner two years ago had built a robot that could do professional-quality French manicures. The winner last year had created, through genetic manipulation, a mutant gerbil with an extra pair of eyeballs located on its butt, so it could go through a maze either frontward or backward.

Both of these winners had been students from Manor Estates. In fact, every year since Lance Swingle had started offering cash prizes, the Hubble science fair had been won by an ME kid. They didn’t need the prize money; sometimes they didn’t even seem all that knowledgeable about their own projects. But they always won.

It was widely believed among the rest of the Hubble students that the kids from Manor Estates cheated. The teachers had their suspicions as well. In fact, six years ago, a veteran science teacher named Mrs. Feeney had gone so far as to reject a project brought in by an ME student, Taylor Niles, who happened to be the older brother of Jason Niles. Taylor claimed that he had made, all by himself, a powerful handheld laser. Mrs. Feeney doubted this, because—among other things—Taylor didn’t know how to spell “laser.”

Taylor’s father, as it happened, was a very important man in Washington. Within a week, Mrs. Feeney had been transferred to another school. On her last day at Hubble, she went out to the parking lot to discover that somebody had burned twenty-seven small circular holes through the steel body of her car. She was replaced at Hubble by Mr. Neckstrom, who never questioned anybody’s science-fair project.

“Five thousand dollars,” said Micah, as Mr. Neckstrom walked around the classroom, passing out the science-fair entry forms. “If I had that kind of money, I could—”

“You could wake up,” said Tamara, “because you’d be dreaming. You’re not gonna win. One of them is gonna win.” She nodded toward the ME kids.

“She’s right,” said Toby. “We don’t have a chance.” As he spoke, Jason Niles turned around and looked at him.

“Hey, Hardbonger,” he called. “When I win the five grand, maybe I’ll buy you some decent shoes.”

“If you win,” answered Toby, “maybe I’ll explain your project to you.”

A bunch of kids laughed, including even some ME kids. Jason reddened, giving Toby a look that said: You’ll be sorry you said that.

Toby knew he should have kept his mouth shut. But he was angry. Five thousand dollars meant nothing to Jason Niles’s family, but it would mean the world to Toby’s.

Especially now.

“I got an idea,” said Micah.

“Uh-oh,” said Tamara.

“No, really,” said Micah. “I’m gonna win it this year.”

“How?” said Toby.

Micah lowered his voice. “I’m gonna levitate a frog,” he said.

Tamara shook her head sadly. “So young,” she said, “and already on drugs.”

“No, really,” said Micah. “I read about it in Wikipedia. These Dutch scientists made a frog float in the air. It’s called dia…diamagnetism. You just need a frog and a magnet.”

“He’s insane, right?” Tamara asked.

“Actually, no,” said Toby. “Some guys did levitate a frog. But you need, like, a superpowerful magnet.”

“So, Micah,” said Tamara, “do you have a superpowerful magnet?”

“No,” said Micah.

“I see,” said Tamara.

“But I have a frog,” said Micah. “His name is Fester.”

Tamara turned to Toby and said, “He has a frog.”

“Well, then,” said Toby. “He’s halfway there.”

IT WAS LUNCHTIME in the Hubble Middle School cafeteria, and Toby, Tamara, and Micah were sitting at the same table they always sat at, with the same kids they always sat with. At tables all around them several hundred other students were doing the same thing.

Tamara examined the cafeteria’s featured lunch entrée, which consisted of yellowish brown lumps.

“The menu says they’re nuggets,” she said. “But it doesn’t say what kind of nuggets.”

“Chicken,” said Micah. He bit into one. “I think.”

“Then why doesn’t the menu say chicken?” said Tamara. “For all we know it’s squirrel nuggets.”

“If it’s squirrel,” said Micah, chewing, “it’s not bad.”

“Maybe,” said David Wemplemeyer, whose nickname was Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer because he looked absolutely nothing whatsoever like Brad Pitt, “they don’t say what kind of nugget because there’s no meat at all. Maybe it’s just a blob of fried grease, a pure nugget, uncontaminated by food of any kind.”

“Or maybe,” said Jennifer “Pencil” Wenzel—known as Pencil Wenzel, because she was very skinny, a redhead, and always wore yellow—“food scientists have created a new genetic mutant species of animal that’s actually called a ‘nugget.’ It’s this little hairless blob of meat that has no head or feet or anything, so it’s real easy to prepare. You just hit it with a hammer and pop it into the fryer.”

Everyone laughed except Tamara.

“I hear,” said Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer, “that they’re working on an improved nugget species that you don’t even have to hit with a hammer. You just whistle, and it rolls into the fryer on its own.”

“That’s disgusting,” said Tamara.

“Well, you’re the one who’s eating it,” said Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer.

“Speaking of disgusting,” said Micah, “what’s your lunch today, Toby?”

Toby was peering into a paper bag. His mom always packed his lunch. His parents believed cafeteria food was unhealthy. In fact, as a general rule they believed that any food humans enjoyed was unhealthy. On Halloween, they gave out carrot sticks. The day after Halloween, there were discarded carrot sticks all over their lawn and usually toilet paper on their house.

Toby reached into the bag and pulled out something wrapped in a paper towel. He unwrapped it and, sighing, set it in front of him.

Micah leaned over to have a look.

“Toby,” he said, “did your mom send the wrong bag? Because that looks like a stool sample for the vet.”

“It’s a tofu enchilada,” said Toby. Toby’s mom believed that tofu had a near-miraculous ability to masquerade as any other kind of food—that if a lump of tofu was shaped like something, it would also taste like that thing. Thanksgiving in Toby’s house was a nightmare.

He was about to attempt to eat his tofu enchilada when he felt something cold and slimy land on his neck, followed by laughter from the Manor Estates kids’ table.

He did not turn around.

“What is it?” he said.

The others examined his neck.

“Yogurt,” said Pencil Wenzel. “Peach, I think.”

Toby tore off a piece of the paper towel that held his tofu enchilada and wiped his neck.

“Who threw it?” he said.

Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer looked over at the ME table and said, “Judging from how hard he’s laughing, it’s The Ferret again.” The Ferret was Farrel Plinkett, who lately had begun amusing himself by flinging food at Toby’s table. The Ferret was also one of the few ME kids not physically capable of beating Toby up.

“Okay then,” said Toby. He picked up his tofu enchilada and walked to the line of garbage and recycling cans at the end of the cafeteria. Then, staying by the wall, he walked all the way around to the other side of the cafeteria, so he could approach the ME kids’ table from the opposite direction. The ME kids didn’t see him coming; they were deep in conversation, hunched forward over the table, heads close together. The Ferret had his back to Toby. As Toby approached, Jason Niles was talking, sounding angry. Toby stopped as he heard:

“Fifty dollars?” Jason was saying.

“That’s what was in the note,” said Haley Hess. “Cash, put the envelope in the regular place, get your plans tomorrow.”

“But fifty,” said Jason. “Last year it was twenty-five.”

“Like you don’t have fifty dollars,” said Harmonee Prescott, who was considered to be almost as hot overall as Haley Hess, and hotter in some specific areas. “You just get the money from your dad anyway.”

“I know,” said Jason, “but…”

“Hey!” said Haley, noticing Toby. “What’s he doing here?”

As the ME kids turned, Toby stepped forward and grabbed the back of The Ferret’s pants. The Ferret liked his pants loose and baggy, so there was plenty of room for Toby to pull the waistband out, deposit his tofu enchilada, and let go.

“Hey!” shouted The Ferret, scrambling to his feet, hands groping his buttular area. “Hey!”

The rest of the ME kids were also on their feet, with the boys, especially the massive Jason, moving toward Toby. The commotion quickly spread as kids all over the cafeteria stood to get a better view of what they hoped would be a fight.

Toby was very much hoping there would not be a fight, at least not between him and Jason, who was advancing on him like a tank, only larger. Toby had been thinking more along the lines of a confrontation with The Ferret, but The Ferret was fully occupied with the problem of getting the enchilada out of his pants, not an easy thing. Jason had just about gotten into striking range when a voice shouted:

“What is going on here?”

The voice belonged to Mr. Pzyrbovich, an algebra teacher who was always called Mr. P, for obvious reasons. He had a heavy accent, which a lot of kids said made him hard to understand, although to be fair some of these kids would never have understood algebra anyway. Mr. P was always in a bad mood, but it was especially bad when he had cafeteria duty.

“What is going on?” he repeated.

Pencil Wenzel stepped forward, a look of deep fake concern on her face.

“Mr. P,” she said, “we’re all worried about The Ferret here, because he seems to have pooped his trousers.”

Everyone looked at The Ferret. A brownish glop was oozing from his right pants leg onto the floor.

“That’s not poop,” The Ferret said.

“It certainly looks like poop,” said Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer.

“It’s not,” said The Ferret. He pointed at Toby. “He put it in there!”

“So what you’re saying,” said Pencil Wenzel reasonably, “is that Toby put the poop in your pants?”

“IT’S NOT POOP!” said The Ferret.

“Stop it! Stop all of this!” said Mr. P. He pointed at Toby. “Did you put that in his pants?”

“Yes,” said Toby, “but he…”

“Quiet!” said Mr. P. “You will have three detentions, starting today.”

“But…”

“Quiet!” Mr. P turned to The Ferret and said, “Go clean yourself up.” The Ferret turned to go. He brushed past Toby, and as he did, he said, “You’re dead, Hardbonger.”

“Ooh!” said Toby, wiggling his hands to show fear. “Like on The Sopranos!”

“I told you, quiet!” said Mr. P. “Now everybody sit down!” He looked down at the remains of Toby’s tofu enchilada, then yelled across the room: “Get over here and clean this floor!”

A tall, thin man with long hair, a scraggly beard, and a vacant stare, dressed in a janitor’s uniform and flip-flops, shuffled across the cafeteria with a mop. This was J.D., which stood for Janitor Dude. J.D. was often held up to the students at Hubble Middle as an example of exactly why you should not mess with drugs. As he got to work, the students sat down, although the ME kids took the time to glare meaningfully at Toby. Finally, the cafeteria returned to its usual random clatter and conversation.

“Well,” said Toby. “That went well.”

“So you’re not worried that The Ferret’s gonna kill you?” said Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer.

“I’m more worried about Jason the Giant,” said Toby.

“Speaking of which,” he leaned in closer to the others, lowering his voice, “I heard him say something weird.”

“What?” said Tamara.

“Something about fifty dollars,” said Toby. “He and Haley were talking about it, and she said you had to put fifty dollars cash in an envelope, and put it some place, and then you’d get the plans.”

“Plans for what?” said Micah.

Tamara was staring at Toby. “The science fair,” she said.

“That’s what I think,” said Toby. “They buy their project plans from somebody.”

“Who?” said Micah.

“They didn’t say,” said Toby. “Haley just said you put the money in the regular place, and you get the plans tomorrow.”

“Do you think the regular place is here?” said Tamara. “At the school?”

“I don’t know,” said Toby. “But I gotta stay for detention anyway. I’ll see if I notice anything.”

“I would SO love to catch them cheating,” said Pencil Wenzel, glancing over at the ME table.

Everybody nodded. They went back to their lunches, except for Toby, who had put his down The Ferret’s pants.

“Nugget?” said Micah, offering a lump to Toby.

“Thanks,” said Toby. He took a bite and chewed thoughtfully.

“I think maybe it is squirrel,” he said.

THE AFTERNOON WAS FADING, and the daytime clamor of Hubble Middle School had morphed into the quiet of evening. The main hallway was empty except for J.D., the Janitor Dude, who was swishing a filthy mop back and forth across the floor, thus making it wet but not actually cleaner.

Toby was in the detention room along with fourteen other detainees serving time for various crimes, ranging from talking in class to keeping an unauthorized snake in a school locker. These detainees were, in theory, being supervised by Coach Furman, known to generations of Hubble students as Herman Furman, because (a) it rhymed, and (b) he looked a little like the patriarch of the Munster family. Coach Furman’s supervision consisted entirely of yelling “Keep it down!” if he heard anybody say anything. He never actually looked at the students; his attention was fully focused on his laptop computer, on which he was playing Internet poker for real money. Depending on what cards he held, Coach Furman might not have noticed if the detention students were engaging in ritual human sacrifice.

This meant that Toby, sitting by the door, was free to observe the goings-on in the hallway outside the detention room. What was mainly going on was J.D. mopping the hallway.

“You want a piece?”

Toby turned and saw he was being offered a stick of gum by Malcolm Kornblatt, who held the Hubble School record for most detentions by a single student. He was always in for something, most recently an unsuccessful attempt to win a bet that he could flush an entire accordion down a boys’ room toilet. He would be in detention for the next few decades. Chewing gum was a school offense and punishable by detention, so it only made sense to Malcolm to chew gum while in detention.

“No, thanks,” Toby said. “If I put that in my mouth, they’d carry me out on a stretcher. I’m allergic.”

“For real?” said Malcolm.

“I turn blue and can’t breathe,” said Toby. “It goes away pretty fast, but it’s scary.”

“Hey, you could get out of detention!” said Malcolm, holding out the gum stick again.

“Keep it down!” shouted Coach Furman, not looking up from the computer screen.

Toby waved the gum away and went back to watching the hallway. Every few minutes somebody walked past, and Toby had noted with interest that these evening passersby included quite a few ME kids, a group not known for hanging around after school. Sometimes they were alone, sometimes in pairs; Toby saw at least four carrying envelopes. They all passed left to right, then a few minutes later went in the other direction—without envelopes.

Toby thought about what was down that hall: some classrooms, a storage area…

…and the faculty lounge.

Toby frowned, trying to remember which teachers he’d seen since detention started. There’d been Miss Cooney, the French teacher who looked like she could be a student; Mr. Shroder, the science teacher; Mr. P, the algebra teacher; and Mrs. Cortinas, the Spanish teacher. But a lot of teachers were around after school, Toby knew; it might not mean anything.

The detention students were all watching the clock now; fifteen pairs of eyeballs were focused on the minute hand, wishing it ahead to 4:27…4:28…4:29…and finally 4:30.

“Umm,” said one of the braver detainees, “Coach Furman?”

“Keep it down!” yelled Coach Furman, not looking up from the poker hand on his screen. All he needed was a diamond, any diamond.

“But Coach…”

“I said KEEP IT DOWN!” He clicked his mouse, watched the card turn. A spade. He banged his fist on the desk so hard that all fifteen students jumped. He looked at the detainees. Several pointed at the clock.

“All right,” said Coach Furman. “Get out of here.”

Quickly, they did. The others headed left, straight for the exit, but Toby paused, then turned right toward the faculty lounge. He’d just reached the door when it opened and Mr. P stepped out. They stared at each other for a moment, then Mr. P said, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m…I mean, I was just…I’m…I had detention,” said Toby.

“I know that,” said Mr. P. “I gave it to you, remember?”

“Oh…yeah,” said Toby.

“You want me to give you another one?” said Mr. P.

“No,” said Toby.

“Then go,” said Mr. P.

So Toby went. The last thing he heard as he exited the building was an angry roar echoing down the hall from the detention room, where Herman Furman had once again missed winning by one lousy card.

NIGHT HAD FALLEN. Prmkt stood in the deserted main hallway of Hubble Middle School and listened for fifteen seconds; he heard nothing. He went to the bank of lockers next to the faculty lounge and, standing on tiptoe, reached up above the third locker from the end. His hand touched an envelope. He pulled it down, then another, then still more, until he had them all.

He unlocked the door to the faculty lounge, went inside, then closed and locked the door. He went to the big battered round table in the center of the room, where generations of Hubble teachers had drunk coffee and complained about generations of Hubble students. He set the envelopes on the table and, using a flashlight, examined them. Written on the outside of each was a name and a number. He opened the envelopes carefully, counting the cash inside each one.

When he was done, he stuffed the money into his right-hand pants pocket. From his left-hand pocket he drew a sheaf of papers, each covered with writing and diagrams. He folded these carefully and placed one in each envelope, resealing the envelopes with tape. When he was finished, he arranged the envelopes in numerical order, reopened the door, stepped into the hall, and locked the door behind him. He looked around and listened; he saw nothing, heard nobody.

He looked down at the top envelope; the number next to the name was 107. He went to locker 107 and pushed the envelope through one of the vent slots in the door. He continued down the hall, slipping the envelopes into their corresponding lockers. In less than ten minutes he was done. He would e-mail his report to Vrsk tonight. The plan was working perfectly.

TOBY’S FAMILY LIVED in Woodland Meadows, an older development lacking both woods and meadows. Their house was a small brick ranch on Milkwort Court. It was dark when Toby got there, and his stomach was growling for food. But he didn’t walk straight to his front door. Instead he stopped, keeping to the darkness away from the streetlights, and checked out the neighborhood, especially his yard. He was looking for two guys, one big, one bigger.

Darth and the Wookiee.

Those weren’t their real names. But that’s how Toby thought of them. They’d appeared the previous day outside Hubble Middle, right before school started, asking kids if they knew a Toby Harbinger. Nobody told them anything, because they were weird. But word quickly got to Toby that there were two guys outside looking for him. Toby had spied on them from a classroom window: Darth, a tall bald guy, wore a black raincoat even though it was sunny out; the Wookiee, even taller and much wider, had hair shooting out everywhere and a thick beard that looked as if fairly large birds lived in it.

Toby knew right away who they were and why they were looking for him. What he didn’t know was what to do about it. Ordinarily, he would have told his parents. But if he did that, he’d have to confess what he’d done.

He’d done it because he needed money. No, that wasn’t right; he didn’t need the money, the way poor people need money for food. He wanted the money so he could buy a decent gaming computer. His parents couldn’t afford to buy him one, and even if they could, they never would. They’d given him their old Mac, and as far as they were concerned that was all the computer anybody needed, and when they were kids, they didn’t even have computers, blah-blah-blah.

Toby didn’t even try to explain that you couldn’t be a competitive gamer with an old computer running the wrong operating system at the speed of a dead slug. His parents were clueless about electronic things. They still could not, on their own, get photographs out of their digital camera. When they wanted to show their pictures, people had to gather around and squint at the teeny camera screen, trying to figure out whether they were looking at a wedding, or the Chrysler Building, or what.

So Toby didn’t waste time discussing his computer needs with his parents. Instead, he went down to the basement, which was mostly filled with all this supposedly valuable and sacred Star Wars junk collected by his parents. His parents were, to Toby’s ongoing horror, major Star Wars geeks. They had actually met at the premiere of The Empire Strikes Back, which was the second Star Wars movie, although it was Episode V, which was one of many reasons why Toby thought Star Wars was stupid.

His mom had gone to the movie premiere dressed as Princess Leia, and his dad—Toby was glad he had not been alive then because he would have had to kill himself—had been dressed as C-3PO. Toby found this appalling. His feeling was, if you have to go out dressed as a Star Wars character, why wouldn’t you at least be a human? And if you have to be a robot, why would you be the dork robot?

Fortunately, his parents were older now, and the Force was not as strong in them. But they still sometimes watched the movies, and they hadn’t thrown out any of their sacred junk. There was so much of it, they couldn’t possibly know everything they had. At least that’s what Toby told himself when he went down there and took the autographed BlasTech DL-44 blaster pistol used in the Star Wars movies by Han Solo.

His father bought the pistol in 1978 and took it to the premiere, where he somehow managed to get it signed by Harrison Ford himself.

Or so he had always claimed.

Toby put the pistol up for auction on eBay, where, to his utter amazement, it sold, after frenzied bidding, for $2,038. Toby set up a PayPal account to get the money; to make sure his parents didn’t know, he used the Hubble Middle School address. When the money showed up in his account, he mailed the blaster pistol to the winning bidder, whose name—Toby later realized this should have made him nervous—was D. Arthur Vaderian. Using the money, Toby had bought, online, a totally screaming notebook gaming computer, the Tarantula Disemboweler 666X, which his parents, being clueless, did not realize was not his old Mac. For a short while, Toby was happier than he’d ever been, using his new computer to kill huge numbers of online enemies.

Then he got the e-mail from D. Arthur Vaderian.

Mr. Harbinger, it said. The alleged signature of Harrison Ford on the BlasTech DL-44 you sent me is a fake. I demand that you send my $2,038 back immediately.

Which was a problem, seeing as how Toby had already spent the money. Toby couldn’t think of what to do, so he didn’t do anything. He hoped D. Arthur Vaderian would go away. But D. Arthur Vaderian did not. He kept sending e-mails, each one angrier than the last. Toby didn’t answer them. The last e-mail he had gotten said:

Since you have chosen not to respond to my e-mails, I am going to take direct action.

He didn’t say what direct action. But when the two weird guys showed up at Hubble Middle asking about him, Toby knew right away who they were. He also knew it was only a matter of time before they found out where he lived.

They had his name, and there weren’t that many Harbingers.

And so he paused at the dark end of Milkwort Court, checking the neighborhood for Darth and the Wookiee. Seeing nobody, he walked quickly to his front door and let himself in.

“Hi, honey,” said his mother, Fawn Harbinger, who was sitting on the sofa. She actually did somewhat resemble Princess Leia, if Princess Leia had let her hair go gray and gained a little weight from pretty much never doing anything except Sudoku. “You’re late.”

“Yeah,” said Toby. “I was busy working on my science fair project.”

“I saved you some dinner,” said his mom. “Tofu pork chops.”

“Yum,” said Toby.

“After you eat,” she said, “your father needs some help packing shipments.”

“Okay,” said Toby. His parents operated a home-based business selling health products. His mom sat in the living room, taking orders and playing Sudoku; his dad worked in a corner of the basement, packing and shipping the orders. Their big seller was a product called HydroxyPulse 3000, which, according to the label, cured basically every human ailment. As far as Toby could tell, it was water.

He started toward the kitchen.

“Also, Mrs. Breetle called, from the school office.”

Toby stopped.

“About what?”

“She said some man came by the school, wanting your home address. Something about winning some kind of Internet contest. She didn’t give out your address, of course, but she got his name and number. He’d like you to get in touch with him. His name is…wait, I wrote it down…here it is: D. Arthur Vaderian.”

Toby’s stomach clenched. He started toward the kitchen again, though he was no longer hungry.

“Hey!” said his mom. “I just noticed something!”

“What?” said Toby.

“Well, D. Arthur Vaderian! If you take out some letters, it spells Darth Vader! Isn’t that funny?”

“Yeah,” said Toby. “Hilarious.”

THE ME KIDS GATHERED every morning at a certain reserved spot in the hall near the front entrance to Hubble Middle School. It was a prime location because everybody had to walk past it, which meant (a) everybody saw the ME kids, and (b) the ME kids could observe all the other students and make note of their numerous flaws.

This morning, however, the ME students were formed into a close little clot, examining the contents of the envelopes they’d found in their lockers.

“Wow,” said Harmonee Prescott, frowning at a piece of paper. “Mine has a lot of seriously big words.”

“Mine, too,” said Jason Niles. “Like, what’s an alg…algri…What’s this word?”

The Ferret glanced at Jason’s paper. “Alligator,” he said.

“Whoa,” said Jason. “I need an alligator.”

“Let me see that,” said Haley Hess, snatching the paper from Jason. “You morons,” she said. “It says algorithm.”

“What’s an algorithm?” said Jason.

“I have no idea,” said Haley, handing the paper back. “But it’s not an alligator.”

“These are, like, way more complicated than last year,” said Harmonee.

“Yeah,” said Haley. “But it doesn’t matter to us, does it?”

The others smiled.

“Whoa,” said Jason. “Look at that.”

They turned to watch a girl come through the front door carrying a tray, on which sat what looked like a big silver ball, nearly two feet across. As the girl drew near they realized that the ball was actually thousands of paper clips. From the look of it there was nothing holding the paper clips together—no glue, no tape. The girl clearly enjoyed the looks of astonishment from the other students.

“What is that?” said The Ferret.

“That,” said Jason, “is the competition.”

“It’s a magnet ball,” said Haley. “I read about one on the Internet. You charge all the paper clips until they’re magnetized. Then they stick together and you make them into all sorts of stuff. It looks impressive, but it’s pretty lame. No way that wins.”

“She’s already done with hers?” Harmonee said. “It was only announced yesterday!”

“I’m not worried,” said Haley, tapping her piece of paper.

“So when do we go see our friend at the mall?” said The Ferret.

“Today,” said Haley. “I can’t wait to start learning all about”—she looked at her piece of paper—“co-resonant phase-shifted induction sequencers.”

“Me, neither,” said Jason. “And alligatorithms.”

“Algorithms,” said Haley.

“Whatever,” said Jason.

“Uh-oh,” said The Ferret, looking down the hall. “It’s The Armpit.”

Striding toward the ME kids was Assistant Principal Paul Parmit, Hubble’s disciplinarian. The Armpit—as everyone, including teachers, called him, although of course not to his face—was a remarkably sweaty, prematurely bald man in his mid-thirties who always looked as though at least one of his eyeballs was about to explode. He spent the time before classes patrolling the halls, telling clots of students to break it up. Nobody knew why The Armpit felt that it was so important for clots to break up, but he did.

“Hide the papers,” hissed Haley. The MEs scrambled to put their papers away. Harmonee, finding nowhere to put hers, shoved it up the back of The Ferret’s shirt.

“Break it up!” said The Armpit, bearing down.

Haley’s paper slipped back out of The Ferret’s shirt and fell to the slick hallway floor directly in front of The Armpit. “Let’s break it UUUUUUNNHOOF!” he said, stepping on the piece of paper in such a way that his foot slid violently forward and the rest of him flew backward, causing him to land hard on his butt, sweat spraying outward from his body in a small perspiration typhoon. The paper flew forward and into the air, directly into the face of Toby, who had just entered the school and was hoping to slip past the ME kids while The Armpit was breaking them up. Reflexively, he reached out and grabbed the paper.

“Give me that!” said The Armpit, scrambling to his feet, his face a deep, glistening red. He snatched the paper from Toby with one hand and grabbed Toby’s shirt with the other.

“Do you think that was funny?” The Armpit yelled.

“Yeah, Hardbonger,” said Jason. “Do you think that was funny?”

“But I didn’t—” Toby began.

“Quiet!” said The Armpit. “You’re going to come with…”

“Excuse me,” said Haley, sweetly, putting her hand on The Armpit’s arm. “But there’s been a mistake.”

“There has?” said The Armpit, softening, as all males did when targeted at close range by Haley’s blue-eyed gaze.

“Yes,” said Haley. “This paper belongs to Harmonee. She dropped it. Didn’t you, Harmonee.”

“I did,” said Harmonee, batting her eyelashes at The Armpit. “And I am so sorry, Mr. Armp…Mr. Parmit.” She, too, put her hand on The Armpit’s arm, trying hard not to show how seriously grossed out she was by its dampness.

The Armpit looked at the piece of paper. “Ah!” he said, nodding. “I see.” With an odd smile, he handed the paper to Harmonee. Then he turned to Toby and said, “Okay, break it up.”

“But,” said Toby, “I’m not—”

“Are you trying to get into trouble?” said The Armpit.

“No, sir,” said Toby.

“Yeah, Hardbonger,” said Jason. “Break it up.”

Toby sighed, turned, and headed down the hall, ignoring the laughter of the ME kids behind him. His thoughts were on the brief glimpse he’d gotten of Harmonee’s paper.

TOBY FOUND MICAH AND TAMARA at their regular morning spot, located down the hallway about fifteen yards—or, in Hubble Middle status distance, 287 million miles—from the ME kids.

“What’d you do to tick off The Armpit?” asked Micah, as Toby walked up.

“Well, first I was walking past when he slipped on a piece of paper,” said Toby. “And then I didn’t break it up.”

“Break what up?” said Micah.

“I have no idea,” said Toby. “But get this. I think the piece of paper was an outline for Harmonee Prescott’s science fair project.”

“Really?” said Tamara. “What was it?”

“I don’t really know,” said Toby. “I only saw it for a second. But it was really technical, with all kinds of numbers and stuff.”

“Harmonee?” said Tamara. “The lip gloss queen? Technical?”

“I know,” said Toby. “There’s no way she understands it. They’re up to something.” He told Tamara and Micah what he’d seen the previous evening during study hall—the ME kids walking past with envelopes, then returning without them, and his unsuccessful effort to investigate further, thwarted by Mr. P.

“Do you think Mr. P is helping them cheat?” said Micah.

“I dunno,” said Toby. “I didn’t see him holding any envelopes.”

“Those cheaters,” said Tamara, glaring at the ME kids. “I would so love to bust them. Or at least beat them, for once.”

“Yeah,” said Toby and Micah together.

“Did you see the paper-clip ball?” said Micah.

“Yeah,” said Toby. “It looks cool, but it won’t win. You have to be more original than that.”

“Well,” said Tamara, “my project is very original.”

“You have an idea?” said Micah.

“Yup,” said Tamara.

“Does it involve stinging insects?” said Toby. Two years earlier Tamara’s project had been a cross-section of a beehive that Tamara believed had been abandoned by the bees. Unfortunately, not all of the bees had been informed that they were supposed to have left. One of them stung a judge, who had an allergic reaction and had to be rushed to the hospital. Fortunately, he recovered, but as Tamara learned, even if your project does not actually kill a judge, you are still unlikely to win a prize for it.

“Ha-ha,” said Tamara. “Very funny.”

“So what is your project?” asked Micah.

“It’s called, ‘Packaging: The Deadly Killer in Your Home,’” said Tamara.

“Huh,” said Micah.

“Seriously,” said Tamara. “Think about it. You know how whenever you buy anything, it’s sealed up inside that thick, hard plastic, and there’s no way to open it, so you have to try to cut it with scissors or a knife, but it’s really hard to cut, and it turns into these jagged pieces of plastic that are really sharp, and you end up cutting yourself?”

Micah and Toby both nodded.

“My aunt got my cousin a Barbie doll for Christmas,” continued Tamara, “and by the time she got it out of the package, she needed eight stitches in her hand. There was blood all over Barbie. She looked like Texas Chainsaw Massacre Barbie.”

“And this is a science-fair project…how?” said Toby.

“I haven’t figured it all out,” said Tamara. “But I’m gonna show how easy it is for package plastic to slice through human flesh.”

“Whose flesh are you going to use?” said Micah.

“Ha-ha, very funny,” said Tamara. “I’ll use something to simulate flesh, like a canned ham.”

“A canned ham,” said Toby.

“Right,” said Tamara. “Or baloney.”

“Why don’t you use a Barbie doll?” said Micah.

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” said Tamara. “It would be more dramatic. In fact, I have this old Barbie at home that would be perfect. My mom got it at a yard sale. Rollerblade Barbie. She has these pink booties with wheels that shoot out sparks when you roll them. It’s really stupid.”

“So,” said Toby, “your science-fair project is going to be to show that plastic can slice luncheon meat.”

“Or Rollerblade Barbie,” said Tamara.

Toby sighed and turned to Micah. “What about you?” he said. “Still planning to levitate the frog?”

“Yup,” said Micah. “Fester is ready. He’s good to go. I just need a really strong magnet.”

“Where’re you gonna get that?” said Toby.

“That place at the mall,” said Micah.

“The Science Nook,” said Tamara. “With the weird guy.”

“He’s weird,” said Micah. “But everybody says he can get anything. You guys wanna go with me after school?”

“Sure,” said Tamara.

“I have detention,” said Toby. “But I can meet you there after.”

“Okay,” said Micah. “Hey, what’s your experiment gonna be?”

“I dunno yet,” said Toby. “I need to think of one.”

A really good one, he thought. Good enough to win.

Toby hadn’t told Tamara or Micah—even though they were his closest friends—about the mess he was in. This was partly because he didn’t want them telling anybody else, but mostly it was because he was ashamed of himself. He wished he’d never taken the blaster, never sold it on eBay, never bought the computer. The only way out he could see was to somehow win the science fair and pay back the money to the Darth Vader guy.

That was the other thing on Toby’s mind, every minute: where were Darth and the Wookiee? He’d had trouble sleeping the night before, fearing another phone call to his house, or worse, a knock on the door. But there had been nothing, and this morning Toby had seen no sign of the two creepy guys on his way to school.

Where were they?

Toby’s unhappy thoughts were interrupted by the bell. The crowded hallway began to empty as students headed for their homerooms. From the distance came the voice of The Armpit, telling people to break it up.

“So,” said Micah, as the three friends separated, “we’ll go to the mall later and get my magnet?”

“Right,” said Tamara. “And I’ll buy something packaged in plastic.”

“You’re really gonna do that packaging thing?” said Toby.

“Absolutely,” said Tamara. “‘Packaging: The Deadly Killer in Your Home.’ You don’t think that’s a winner?”

“I think,” said Toby, “you were better off with the bees.”

NOTHING HAPPENED DURING detention except for Coach Herman Furman yelling at nobody in particular to keep it down.

When detention finally ended, Toby slung his backpack over his shoulder and hurried down the near-empty hallway to the front door. He burst out into a spring afternoon of sunshine, humid air, and the thunk of aluminum bats from the ball field, where members of Hubble Middle’s baseball team—the Fighting Orbital Observatories, a.k.a the Foos—were practicing.

Toby started to cross the parking lot, the shortest route to the mall. He’d gone five steps when he saw an ancient yellow AMC Gremlin—with two faces staring at him through the bug-stained windshield.

Darth and the Wookiee.

Toby froze for a moment, during which the Wookiee creaked open the passenger door and climbed out. For a big guy, he moved fast.

Toby turned and ran. A voice behind him shouted “Wait!” But Toby kept running, straight onto the baseball infield.

“Hey!” shouted a coach. “Off the field!”

“Sorry!” shouted Toby, not slowing down. He sprinted past the infielders into the outfield. He glanced back over his shoulder: the Wookiee, not daring to chase him onto the field and draw the attention of the coaches, had veered right and was running behind the bleachers alongside the first-base line. The detour slowed him down; Toby had gained some time. He crossed the outfield and, with effort, clambered over a six-foot wooden fence into a backyard. As he dropped down the other side, he glanced back and saw that the Wookiee was well behind.

That was the good news.

The bad news was that the yard contained a dog. A very, very large dog, wide and hairy, like a cross between a rottweiler and the Goodyear blimp. It was coming toward Toby, making an unpleasant sound deep in its throat, its lips pulled back to reveal two rows of drool-drenched daggers.

“Nice doggy,” said Toby, although this was not his actual opinion of the Goodyear rottweiler. He backed up until he was pressed against the fence. He felt something behind him. The backpack.

He quickly peeled it off and dug down into it until he found the hummus-and-onion sandwich his mom had packed him for lunch. He had not eaten it; it smelled like a dead llama. He yanked it out and heaved it, still wrapped in aluminum foil, toward the dog, who snatched it from the air with a terrifyingly loud clack of its teeth and gulped it down, foil and all.

With the dog momentarily distracted, Toby slung the backpack onto his shoulder and turned, intending to vault the fence. He got his hands on top of it and was about to hoist himself over when he heard a snarl and felt himself being yanked violently backward by the shoulder strap, which was attached to his backpack, which was in the mouth of the dog, which apparently desired another tasty helping of hummus, onion, and aluminum foil.

Toby wriggled out of the backpack and staggered to his feet. He got his hands on the top of the fence again and, with a desperate, fear-powered leap, hurled himself over it headfirst. At exactly that moment, three feet to Toby’s left, the Wookiee vaulted over the fence going the other way.

“Hey!” shouted the Wookiee. He reached out to grab Toby but missed, his momentum carrying him over the fence. As Toby tumbled to the ground, he heard the dog snarl and the Wookiee scream—a surprisingly high-pitched sound coming from a human that size. Toby scrambled to his feet and sprinted along the fence, going several more yards before he finally reached the street.

He turned and looked back. The Wookiee was scrambling back over the fence, using one arm to climb and the other to beat the dog with…

Toby’s backpack.

The Wookiee was over the fence now. Toby noted that his clothes were torn, and he was bleeding from his arms. This did not seem to have improved his mood. Seeing Toby, the Wookiee roared and began running, still holding the backpack. Toby turned, crossed the street, and ran down a driveway and into another backyard. He vaulted a low picket fence, crossed the connecting yard, and hurried out into the next street.

He glanced back: the Wookiee was gaining.

Toby sprinted across the street and plunged into a muddy slosh, a tangle of brambles and wild shrubs littered with trash. Just beyond lay the railroad tracks. Toby slogged through the mud, thorns scratching his arms, his new white Discount Warehouse sneakers sinking into the stink. He found firmer ground as he reached the railroad embankment. Behind him, he heard the Wookiee crashing through the brambles and cursing. He’d found the thorns, too.

As he neared the top of the railroad embankment, Toby saw two things—one good and one bad. The good thing was, a freight train was coming. A long one. If he could get across the tracks, the train might block the Wookiee and enable Toby to get away. The bad thing was, sitting directly across the tracks was a police car with a policeman inside.

* * *

Unlike his fellow officers, Lucius Broyle didn’t mind Choo Choo Patrol. The assignment was to apprehend students who took the shortcut across the railroad tracks. Young people had done this for many generations; in fact, Officer Broyle had crossed these same tracks at this very spot many times in his own youth. Nobody had ever been hurt, but in recent years, track-crossing—like rock-throwing, tree-climbing, whittling, spitting, unsupervised play, and countless other things young people once did routinely—had been deemed too dangerous, and the Choo Choo Patrol had been instituted. It appealed to Officer Broyle because it mostly consisted of doing nothing. This gave him time to work on his secret hobby: knitting. At the moment he was in the middle of a very tricky section of a sweater pattern he’d found on a knitting blog called Needles on Fire.

Toby weighed his options. The policeman hadn’t seen him yet; he seemed to be occupied with something in his lap. To Toby’s right, the train was very close. Behind him, the Wookiee was charging through the bushes. In a few seconds he’d be on the embankment, and Toby would be caught.

The sound of the train broke Officer Broyle’s concentration. He looked up and saw a boy standing by the tracks on the other side.

“Hey!” he shouted. He yanked the door handle and started to climb out, at the same time tossing the sweater aside, knowing that this action could very well cost him an entire row of critical stitches. “HEY!” he repeated, his voice drowned out by the train.

The Wookiee, still holding Toby’s backpack, crashed through the bushes and up the embankment. He roared in rage: the train was rumbling past, blocking him from following the boy. He stood next to the tracks, his face only a few feet from the freight cars, ready to dash across as soon as the train passed. He waited impatiently until he saw the green caboose approaching and then finally passing him. As it did, he ran around behind it…directly into the arms of Officer Lucius Broyle.

Toby, crouched in the bushes a few yards away, watched the Wookiee run into the policeman, the two of them almost falling over. There followed a heated exchange, in which the officer demanded to know where the boy was, while the Wookiee pointed out that he was clearly not a boy, and since when was it against the law to cross railroad tracks?

While they argued, Toby crept through the bushes until he was far enough away to dart across the tracks unseen. He hurried down the other side of the embankment and up the street to the Looper Avenue overpass, a concrete bridge that spanned State Highway 9. He was halfway across when something yellow flashed in the corner of his eye: the Gremlin. He glanced over and found himself looking at Darth, who was driving very slowly, keeping pace with Toby’s trot, his passenger-side window cranked down. Toby looked back at the road and resumed trotting.

“You owe me a refund,” said Darth, in a voice that Toby realized, with horror, actually sounded like Vader’s—deep and creepy. Toby took another glance and saw that the guy had some kind of black box, with a knob and switches, strapped to his mouth.

“Do not,” Toby panted. The end of the overpass was only twenty yards ahead. Once clear, he could drop down the embankment and escape this lunatic.

“The autograph is a fake,” said Darth.

“No, it’s not,” panted Toby. “My father got that at the premiere. He saw Harrison Ford sign it, in person.”

“Your father is a liar,” said Darth, jerking his head so angrily that he bumped the knob on his black box, changing the setting from Lord of the Dark Side to Chipmunk.

“You owe me $2,038,” he said, sounding like Chip, or possibly Dale. Quickly he readjusted the knob back to Darth. “And you’re going to give it to me,” he said, “or you and your family will pay.”

“But I can’t…” Toby said.

“You WILL pay me!” said Darth, stomping on the accelerator, which, in the case of the Gremlin, mainly resulted in backfiring accompanied by a slight increase in speed. Toby stopped and caught his breath as he watched it disappear up the street.

He started walking, considering his plight. He had two maniacs chasing him; one of them had his backpack. The only way to get rid of the maniacs was to pay them a ton of money, and the only way to get that was to win the science fair. And he had no project yet. And his new white sneakers were dark brown and smelled like a toilet. Other than that, things were going great.

Toby reached the end of the overpass, turned down the embankment, and began trudging toward the mall.

WANDERING OAKS MALL was considered to be one of the three or four most upscale malls in the Bethesda, Maryland, area. It had all of the major high-end department stores, including a Bergstram’s, a Wentmickler’s, a Plock & Hingle, a Frempner’s, a Winkle & Curd, and a Storkbutters. Surrounding these retail giants were hundreds of smaller stores selling hundreds of thousands of upscale products that nobody actually needed. There was a store that sold just corkscrews (it was called Just Corkscrews) and two stores devoted entirely to fragrant little soaps shaped like animals.

Almost all of these stores were clean, brightly lit, and welcoming, with attractive, ever-changing merchandise displays. The lone exception was the Science Nook. It was at the far end of the highest concourse, and it violated many of the Wandering Oaks tenant rules. It was open at odd hours, and some days it did not open at all. It was dimly lit and often emitted strange sounds and odors. The display window contained a bizarre collection of apparently random objects—a snorkel mask, a toilet plunger, a Hello Kitty vanity mirror, a spatula, and many deceased insects. The proprietor and sole staff member was a man named Neal Sternabite, who was never seen without sunglasses, and whose hair appeared to have been styled by crazed squirrels.

The store attracted little business; its customer base consisted of eccentric experimenters and science enthusiasts, many of them as odd as Sternabite himself. He tolerated the regulars but was generally rude to unsuspecting shoppers who wandered in. He disliked answering what he considered to be stupid questions—this meant most questions—and he routinely ordered shoppers who annoyed him to leave the store. He once threw his lunch (the number-six lunch platter from the House of China restaurant in the Wandering Oaks food court) at a man who attempted to return what he claimed was a defective circuit board.

“The BOARD is not defective,” yelled Sternabite, as the man ran from the store with kung pao chicken dripping down his shirt. “YOU are defective!”

Many people wondered how the Science Nook was allowed to remain at Wandering Oaks. In fact, the mall had tried to evict Sternabite several years earlier. The mall manager, a man named Dwight Craven, delivered the eviction letter to Sternabite personally. Sternabite read it, then handed it back to Craven and said, “You don’t want to do that.”

“Yes, I do,” said Craven.

“All right,” said Sternabite. Immediately the electricity went out in Wandering Oaks Mall. All the concourses and stores went dark; the air-conditioning system shut down; all the stores’ computer screens went blank. Even the phones stopped working.

Except in the Science Nook. The lights stayed on there.

Craven looked out at the suddenly dark mall, heard the shouts of alarm from shoppers and the cries of fear from children. He turned back to Sternabite.

“What did you do?” he said.

“How could I do anything?” said Sternabite. “I’m standing here talking to you.”

“We’re not finished,” said Craven, walking quickly from the store to deal with the emergency.

“No,” said Sternabite, “we’re not.”

For the rest of that day, and all of the next day, engineers for the electric and telephone companies tried to restore power to the mall. They checked every connection and ran every test; the found nothing wrong. Yet the mall—except for the Science Nook—remained dark.

“We’ve never seen anything like this,” one of the engineers told Craven. “It’s almost like there’s some kind of…force field in the mall, interfering with the grid. But of course that’s impossible.”

“Of course,” said Craven.

On the third powerless day, with the mall stores losing small fortunes and threatening large lawsuits, Craven went to the Science Nook, where he found Sternabite sitting behind the counter, sunglasses on, reading a Stephen King novel.

“Turn the electricity back on,” said Craven.

“How can I do that?” said Sternabite.

“I don’t know,” said Craven. “But if you do, I’ll tear up the eviction letter.”

“You could write another letter,” said Sternabite.

“I promise I won’t,” said Craven.

“You’d better not,” said Sternabite.

And the lights came back on.

Craven turned and looked, blinking, at his once-again brilliant mall. He turned back and looked at Sternabite, who had not, as far as Craven could tell, moved a muscle. Without a word, Craven walked quickly out of the Science Nook. He had never gone back in.

So the Science Nook stayed in business, serving its small, weird clientele. But once a year, at science-fair time, business improved as students from Hubble Middle showed up, lured by the rumor that the Science Nook sold things that were unavailable elsewhere—things that could be used to make a science-fair project that the judges would notice.

On this particular afternoon, the first students to arrive were Micah, who was carrying a Tupperware container, and Tamara. When they arrived, the Science Nook appeared to be empty. They looked around the store for a minute, but there was little to see other than cardboard boxes scattered around the floor, some empty, some containing electrical components, and one filled with what appeared to be eggplants. Also, in a back corner of the store on a battered wooden cabinet, was a large stuffed owl.

“Do you think he’s here?” said Micah.

“He must be,” said Tamara. “The store’s open.”

“Maybe he’s in the back,” said Micah. He wandered over to the counter and saw a row of four buttons.

“There’s some buttons here,” he said. “Maybe one’s a buzzer.”

“Try it,” said Tamara.

Micah pushed a button. Nothing happened. He pushed another. Nothing. He pushed a third. Instantly there was a loud BANG, as one of the eggplants exploded, sending eggplant innards all over the store, some clinging to the walls and ceiling. The rest of the eggplants were hurled out of the now-destroyed box and landed all around the store. As Tamara and Micah stood frozen, a door opened, and Sternabite came out of the back room.

“I’m sorry!” said Micah. “I didn’t know…”

“Which button did you push?” said Sternabite.

“Th…this one,” said Micah, pointing.

Sternabite looked at the button, nodded, and said, “Good.”

There was a pause of about thirty seconds, during which nobody said anything. Finally, Micah realized that there was going to be no further discussion of the exploding eggplant. He said, “I need a magnet.”

“What for?” said Sternabite.

“To levitate a frog,” said Micah.

If Sternabite found this unusual, he gave no indication. “Hubble science fair?” he said.

“Yes,” said Micah.

“Did you bring the frog?” said Sternabite.

“In here,” said Micah, setting the Tupperware container on the counter. “His name is Fester.”

Sternabite removed the lid and looked at Fester. “Hmm,” he said, more to Fester than to Micah.

“Do you have a magnet that’ll work?” said Micah.

“I can sell you the magnet for forty dollars,” said Sternabite. “That’s not the problem.”

“What’s the problem?” said Micah.

“Power supply,” said Sternabite. “You only get 110 AC in the Hubble gym. You need more than that. A lot more.”

“So he can’t do his project?” said Tamara, brushing eggplant innards from her hair.

“I didn’t say that,” said Sternabite. He turned to Toby. “Come back tomorrow,” he said. “I’ve got an old cold-fusion reactor I can lend you. Weighs about two pounds, supplies 150,000 watts.”

“Cold fusion?” said Micah. “I thought that was impossible.”

Sternabite snorted. “It is impossible,” he said, “for morons.”

“But is it safe?” said Tamara. “All those watts?”

“He should be fine,” said Sternabite, looking at Fester.

“I meant,” said Tamara, “is it safe for people.”

Sternabite thought about it. “Probably,” he said.

Tamara was about to ask another question when from behind her came the distinctively whiny voice of Harmonee Prescott, saying, “What are they doing here?”

Tamara and Micah turned to see Harmonee, Jason Niles, Haley Hess, and The Ferret entering the store. “Yeah,” said Haley, frowning. “What are you doing here?”

“They’re leaving,” said Jason Niles, looming over Micah. “Aren’t you, Mucus?”

Micah quickly resealed Fester’s container, turned to Sternabite, and said, “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“Right,” said Sternabite, his eyes on the ME kids. Micah and Tamara headed for the door.

“Your hair looks nice, Tamara!” called Haley sweetly. “Is that eggplant?”

“I hate Haley Hess,” said Tamara, once they were out in the concourse. “I hate her I hate her I HATE her.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’d be nice enough if you ever got to talk to her alone,” said Micah. “And she had a brain transplant.”

Tamara was glaring back toward the Science Nook. “What do you think they’re doing in there?”

“Same as us,” said Micah. “Getting science fair stuff.”

“They’re up to something,” said Tamara.

“There’s Toby,” said Micah, nodding down the concourse. Toby was trotting their way.

“Sorry,” he said, when he reached them. “I got held up.”

“Where’s your backpack?” said Tamara.

“I…I left it somewhere,” said Toby. Tamara frowned and started to say something, but Toby cut her off. “You ready to go to the science place?”

“We already did,” said Micah. “The weird dude’s gonna fix me up with a magnet and a cold-fusion reactor.”

“There’s no such thing,” said Toby.

“That’s what all the morons say,” said Micah.

“The ME kids are in there now,” said Tamara.

Toby perked up. “Really?” he said. “Doing what?”

“Dunno,” said Micah. “They kicked us out.”

“Interesting,” said Toby. He started walking toward the Science Nook.

“What’re you doing?” said Micah.

“I’m gonna have a look,” said Toby.

“Niles is in there,” said Micah.

“I’m not afraid of Niles,” said Toby.

“Yes, you are,” said Tamara.

“Yes, I am,” said Toby. “But I’m gonna be stealthy.”

“We’ll wait for you here,” said Micah.

“Stay away from the eggplants,” said Tamara.

Toby looked back, frowning.

“She’s serious,” said Micah.

Toby walked to the Science Nook entrance, glanced at the strange window display, took a breath, and stepped inside. He saw nobody. He looked around, checking out the boxes and the stuffed owl. He noted with interest the eggplant splatter on the walls and ceiling, and the loose eggplants on the floor. Hearing voices, he moved to a door along the back wall; it was open a crack. He put his ear close. A man was talking.

“…Some unusual items this year,” the man said. “For example, this…” There was a pause, and Toby heard paper rattling “…this item here, this is highly classified technology. Only certain government agencies are even supposed to know it exists.”

A boy’s voice—Toby recognized The Ferret—said, “How come you know it exists?”

“Because I’m smarter than the government,” said the man. “But the point is, all of your projects this year involve classified technology. Who gave you these plans?”

“We told you, we don’t know.” That was Haley Hess’s voice. “They just showed up, same as last year. But what do you care where they come from, as long as you get paid.”

“Just curious,” said the man. “But yes, as long as you pay my price, I don’t care. I’m just saying some of these components are hard to get. Very hard to get. There are countries in the world that would love to get their hands on this technology.”

The next voice belonged to Jason Niles. “Whatever it is, my dad can get it,” he said.

“My dad, too,” said another voice, which Toby recognized as Harmonee Prescott’s. “If I tell my mom I need it for my project, she’ll make him get it.”

“So what’s the deal?” said Haley.

“A thousand apiece,” said the voice.

“A thousand?” said Jason. “That’s a rip-off!”

“Fine,” said the man. “Make your own project.”

Jason mumbled something that Toby couldn’t hear.

“Five hundred up front,” said the man. “Five hundred when you get the project. You supply the parts I need. I circled them on your project sheets. Understood?”

There was more mumbling, and suddenly Toby realized that they were about to open the door. He had no time to get out of the store. He looked around frantically and saw the stuffed owl. In three quick tiptoe steps he was around the cabinet, crouching behind it.

He peered over the top and watched as the ME kids walked past, back out into the mall. The Ferret said something; they all looked back and giggled.

Toby was about to leave when Sternabite, whom Toby recognized as the store owner, came out of the back room. Toby almost showed himself but decided not to; after what he’d just heard, he didn’t want this weird man to suspect he’d been listening. He decided to hold still for the time being, hoping Sternabite would go into the back room again, so he could escape.

Instead, Sternabite went out the door and pulled out a key ring. Toby’s stomach froze.

He’s closing up.

Sternabite walked over and pushed the middle button. Then he stepped outside, pulled the door shut, and put his key in the lock. Toby half rose behind the owl, wanting to yell, but afraid of what the weird dude might do.

The door lock clicked. As it did, the store lights went out.

And then the stuffed owl started to move.

Toby dropped back to the floor. Instantly the owl’s head whipped around 180 degrees. Lying on his back on the floor, not breathing, Toby saw that the owl’s eyes were glowing bright red. Two rays of red light shot out, causing two dots to appear on the wall.

Lasers, thought Toby.

The two dots scanned slowly down the wall; in a few seconds they would reach Toby. As quietly as he could, he felt around on the dark floor. His hand found something round and hard. An eggplant.

With the laser dots only inches away, Toby gripped the eggplant and, as quietly as he could, tossed it. It landed with a thud in the middle of the store.

Instantly, the owl spread its wings—to Toby, directly below, its wingspan looked gigantic. It flapped twice—Toby felt the air—and swooped off the perch. By the mall light filtering through the store window, Toby saw the owl pounce on the eggplant. There was an ugly wet splat. The owl stood there for a moment, and then, apparently satisfied that it had killed the eggplant, flapped its wings, took off, circled the room once, and returned to its perch.

Directly above Toby.

TOBY LAY AS STILL AS POSSIBLE, his eyes on the owl—or whatever it was—perched overhead. Toby could see its talons gripping the perch. They glinted in the light coming through the store window from the mall concourse. Made of metal—steel, it looked like—the talons were at least six inches long, ending in curled, sharpened points. Definitely not a standard-issue owl.

Its laser eyes tracked back and forth, scanning the store. Toby studied the pattern: the twin red dots started up on the ceiling, then swept down to the floor. They continued across the tile to a spot right in front of the owl, and then the owl’s head rotated slightly to the right as the beams flicked back up to the ceiling and the process started again. Each cycle was fast, taking only a second or two, ceiling to floor. In no time—less than a minute—the red dots would fall on him, and the owl would do to him what it had done to the eggplant: turn him into sauce.

His instinct was to run, but to where? The front door was locked. That left the door to the back of the store…but what if it, too, was locked?

He fought his growing panic. The dots were coming right for him. He’d have to try the back door. But the owl, when it moved, moved fast. If the door gave him any trouble, slowed him down at all, the owl would attack. Toby tried to remember what, if anything, he’d seen at the front of the store that he might use to defend himself.

An image flashed into his mind.

It would have to do.

Carefully, he groped out with his right hand, hoping desperately to find…There! Another eggplant. With the moving red dots now only inches away, he threw the eggplant as hard as he could toward the back door.

Before the eggplant hit the wall, the owl was already moving, its huge wings lifting it off the cabinet perch. At the same moment, Toby rolled to his right, scrambled to his feet, and ran toward the store’s front window. Behind him he heard the ugly splat as the owl landed on the eggplant.

As Toby reached the window, he looked back: the owl was on the floor, eggplant goo seeping from between its glinting talons. Its head was aimed directly at Toby.

Toby looked down: two red dots were centered on his chest.

The owl flapped its wings.

Frantically, Toby turned back to the window, looking for ... There it was. As he felt the rush of air behind him he grabbed the Hello Kitty vanity and whirled, holding it in front of his face, mirror-side forward.

He staggered off balance as the owl’s right wing brushed against him—the thing was powerful—and he peered around the side of the vanity to see that the owl had veered sharply left, following where the two red dots, now reflected by the vanity mirror, danced on the side of an old, dust-covered TV set.

The owl, talons raised in attack position, slammed into the TV, which in turn slammed into the wall, its tube exploding in a thousand shards of glass. Toby, still holding his Hello Kitty anti-owl vanity, ran to the back door. As he reached it, he heard the flap of wings and saw the owl—the thing was indestructible—swooping at him again. He lifted the mirror just in time to redirect the lasers and send the owl careening into the side wall with a crash so violent that it brought down ceiling tiles. Immediately, the owl turned, located Toby again, and flapped its huge wings.

Toby tried the doorknob. It was unlocked! He pushed the door open and slammed it shut just as the relentless owl slammed into it. Toby’s relief lasted for perhaps two seconds; then the owl, which clearly had not given up, slammed into the door again—this time so hard that the wooden door frame began to give. Toby heard the huge wings flapping as the owl went airborne, evidently preparing for another lunge.

Frantic to get out of there, Toby looked around. He was in a back office lined with shelves full of tools and electrical components. A battered desk stood by the back wall, near the only source of light in the office.…

An exit sign.

Toby jumped as the owl, with another resounding CRASH, smashed into the door again; this time the door itself began to splinter as the points of the owl’s steel-sharp talons pierced it. Toby, trying not to think about those same talons piercing him, ran toward the exit sign. As he reached it, he spotted a sheet of paper on the desk. Handwritten at the top was the word “Hubble.” Beneath that was a list. Toby grabbed the paper and stuffed it into his pocket. He turned and slammed the panic bar on the door beneath the exit sign just as the owl burst through a hole in the office’s wooden door. Toby heard an alarm sound as he slammed the metal door. A second later, the owl thudded into it.

Toby found himself in a wide, windowless corridor lit by overhead tube lights—a service hallway behind all the stores. He ran down the corridor, dodging cardboard boxes stacked outside the back doors of the stores. A dozen yards ahead he saw another exit sign.

“HEY! STOP!” a deep voice shouted from behind him.

Toby kept running. He reached the exit door, blasted through it, and was out of there, running from the mall as fast as he could into the approaching night.

“I NEED A THOUSAND DOLLARS,” said Jason Niles. “For the science fair.”

Jason was eating dinner with his parents in their kitchen, which—in the style of Manor Estates homes—was the size of a volleyball court. It had two restaurant-quality stoves and a state-of-the-art refrigerator with a touchscreen, Internet-connected computer in the door that you could use to plan meals, generate grocery lists, and do many other helpful things, if you knew how to use it, which nobody in the Niles family did. The Niles family rarely used any of their vast array of advanced kitchen technology. Tonight they were eating—from designer ceramic plates that cost $280 apiece—takeout Mexican food from Mister Burrito.

“A thousand dollars?” said Jason’s dad, Carl Niles, looking up from his BlackBerry, which he took everywhere, including into the shower in a special waterproof case. “For the science fair?”

“Yeah,” said Jason. “That’s what the other kids are spending.”

“But a thousand dollars?” said Carl.

“If that’s what he needs,” said Jason’s mother, Jeanette, “that’s what he needs.”

Carl Niles was an imposing, powerful man who had thousands of people working for him. He had no trouble disagreeing with generals, senators, even presidents. But he knew better than to disagree with Jeanette.

“Whatever,” he said, looking back down at his BlackBerry.

Very few people argued with Jeanette Niles. She was an attractive, petite blond woman with perfect teeth and blue eyes capable of producing a gaze so intense that people felt as though she was burning holes in their faces. Jeanette sometimes sold real estate—always Manor Estates homes—but mostly she was a mom, an extremely involved mom, a mom who made certain that her son Jason, like his brother, Taylor, before him, had every possible advantage in what Jeanette viewed as the fierce, relentless, and critically important competition to always be ahead of all other children, and thus ahead in life.

Jeanette was very, very good at this competition. In elementary school, when Jason, along with the rest of his first-grade class, had to do a report on a country, Jeanette had chosen Switzerland. On the day the report was due, Jason had arrived at school wearing authentic Swiss lederhosen and carrying a 124-page, professionally printed report that Jeanette had been up all night assembling in an attractive leather binder. Some of the other involved moms had also produced high-quality reports, but nobody else had broken the 100-page barrier. The rest of the kids—the ones who had actually done their own reports—showed up with a few stapled-together pieces of construction paper, on which they had pasted maps and pictures cut out from magazines. Jeanette could not imagine what kind of parents would allow such a thing to happen to their children. Losers.

Every school assignment Jason was given received a 110 percent effort from Jeanette, who had produced, over the years, dozens of detailed, well-researched, error-free, professional-quality reports. In addition, there was her beautifully crafted miniature medieval village, her rainforest simulation complete with actual running water, and her solar-system model with planets that revolved and rotated, to name just a few of the projects she had done for Jason. She gave just as much effort, night after night, to Jason’s homework. As he progressed through the grades, this had become more and more of a challenge for Jeanette; trigonometry, for example, did not come easily to her. But she had, through hard work and perseverance, mastered it. That’s how involved a mom she was.

Jason’s test scores, often below average, were her biggest headache. Jeanette was certain he was gifted—had had to be gifted—so she had concluded that he must have some kind of learning disability. This she dealt with by hiring tutors for Jason and volunteering at his school, where she could keep an eye on Jason’s teachers, who quickly learned the importance of always giving Jason the benefit of the doubt and then some.

Thus Jason had managed to compile an impressive academic record as he progressed through the grades. He was right on course to get into one of the best colleges, as his brother had. Jeanette would see to that.

“What’s your project this year?” she asked Jason. “Do you need help with it?”

“Nah,” said Jason. “The Science Nook guy is doing it.”

“You mean he’s helping you,” said Jeanette. “Like a coach.”

“Whatever,” said Jason.

It bothered Jeanette, a little, that the strange man at the Science Nook was so involved with her son’s project. But the strange man got excellent results—he’d done a marvelous job for Jason’s brother—so Jeanette tried not to think about it.

“Oh, yeah,” said Jason, pulling a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handing it to his mother, “I need this stuff.”

Jeanette unfolded the paper and read it. It was a list of technical words, meaningless to her. She tapped her husband, who looked up from his BlackBerry. She handed him the paper.

“Jason needs these things for his science-fair project,” she said.

Carl looked at the paper, frowned, and looked up at Jason.

“Where did you get this list?” he asked.

“From some guy,” said Jason.

“Can’t you get him those things?” said Jeanette.

“I can get them,” said Carl. “But this is highly restricted technology. This isn’t supposed to be available outside of—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Carl,” interrupted Jeanette. “It’s for your son’s science-fair project.”

Carl could feel his face burning under his wife’s gaze. He turned to Jason.

“All right,” he said. “But you have to get this stuff back to me as soon as the science fair is over.”

“Whatever,” said Jason.

THE NEXT MORNING, Toby squished through Hubble Middle’s main doorway on sneakers still wet and mud-stained from the previous evening’s Wookiee adventure. Toby had seen no sign of either the Wookiee or Darth this morning; that was good. Not so good was the fact that they had his backpack. Also not so good was the fact that Jason Niles was detaching his large self from the clot of ME kids to block Toby’s path.

“Nice shoes, Hardbonger,” he said.

“Good one, Niles,” said Toby. “That must have taken all four of your brain cells.”

Haley Hess, behind Jason, giggled, which made Toby secretly pleased and Jason openly infuriated. He stepped toward Toby and gave him a shove, sending Toby staggering backward, directly into The Armpit.

“Hey!” said The Armpit. “Break it up!”

“But he—” began Toby.

“I said BREAK IT UP!” said The Armpit, giving Toby a shove with his sweat-slimed hands.

Toby stumbled forward past the smirking ME kids. He detoured around a ladder in the middle of the hallway occupied by J.D., the Janitor Dude, who was replacing a fluorescent ceiling lightbulb, a task that often took him more than an hour, because he spent long stretches of time staring into space. This spawned many jokes about how many Janitor Dudes it took to screw in a lightbulb.

Toby found his friends in their traditional hallway spot. As he walked up, Micah, Tamara, and Pencil Wenzel were gathered around Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer, who was telling them something that required a lot of arm motions.

“Hey,” said Toby. “I found out—”

“Wait,” said Micah. “You gotta hear what B.P.W.’s doing for his project.”

“But I—”

“A nuclear Mentos!” said Tamara.

“A what?” said Toby.

“You know how, when you put a Mentos in a Diet Coke, it shoots up, sploosh, like a geyser?” said Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer.

“Yeah,” said Toby, who’d seen video of this on the Internet. “It’s like a chemical reaction.”

“Wrong,” said Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer. “It’s a physical reaction. The Mentos lowers the surface tension of the Diet Coke, so the dissolved carbon dioxide turns to gas really fast, sploosh.”

“Okay,” said Toby. “But how’s that a science fair project? I mean, everybody’s already seen the videos.”

“Of regular Mentos, yes,” said Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer. “But I’m gonna make a huge Mentos, a giant mint, and drop it into a whole tub of Diet Coke, like fifty gallons.”

“What science thing would that prove?” said Toby.

“I dunno,” said Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer, “but it’s gonna be awesome. A nuclear Mentos. Think about it!”

“I’m not sure I want to,” said Toby.

“You’re just jealous,” said Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer.

Before Toby could answer, Tamara said, “Hey, Toby, what happened at the mall? We waited, but you never came back.”

Toby glanced back toward the ME kids, then, lowering his voice, said, “That’s what I was trying to tell you. They’re definitely cheating. The Science Nook guy is making their projects for a thousand each.”

“A thousand dollars?” said Micah.

“Each,” said Toby. “And that’s not all.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the piece of paper he’d found on Sternabite’s desk. The others gathered closer to look.

“What is this?” said Pencil Wenzel. “I don’t understand most of these words.”

“Me, either,” said Toby. “But I heard the Science Nook guy tell the ME kids that it’s classified stuff. They’re gonna get their parents to get it for them.”

“Classified, like, classified?” said Pencil Wenzel. “Like top secret?”

“That’s what he said,” said Toby.

“You sure you heard them right?” said Tamara.

“They were in the back,” said Toby. “I listened by the door. I heard everything.”

“So how’d you get the list?” said Micah.

“I took it,” said Toby. “I was hiding behind the stuffed owl, and the Science Nook guy locked the store with me inside. Only it turned out the owl is this, like, robot that protects the store. So I ran into the back room and—”

“Waitwaitwait,” said Micah, holding up a hand. “The owl is a robot?”

“Yeah,” said Toby. “It has these laser eyes that track you, and these sharp pointy claws, and it flies fast.”

“So how’d you get away from it?” said Micah.

“I threw eggplants,” said Toby.

Tamara and Micah nodded, remembering the eggplants.

“So,” said Pencil Wenzel, speaking slowly, “you escaped from a robot owl by…throwing eggplants.”

“Right,” said Toby.

“And you’re mocking me because of nuclear Mentos?” said Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer.

“Watch it,” said Micah. “Mr. P’s coming.”

Toby quickly folded the paper as Mr. Pzyrbovich, the algebra teacher, stalked toward them with the facial expression—normal, for Mr. P—of a man who had not gone to the bathroom for at least four days. As he passed, he glared at Toby’s group. It seemed to Toby that Mr. P glared a little extra at him.

“So, Toby,” said Tamara, after Mr. P had passed. “What’re you gonna do about this? Did you tell anybody?”

“Just you guys so far,” said Toby. “I thought about telling my parents, but…you know. They’re weird.”

The others nodded in unspoken confirmation of the weirdness of Toby’s parents.

“Even if they believed me,” continued Toby, “they’d come to school acting all weird, and nobody would believe them.”

“So what’re you gonna do?” repeated Tamara.

“I’m gonna tell Neckstrom,” said Toby.

“I dunno,” said Micah. “You think he’d do anything to the ME kids? He’s like their personal slave.”

“I know,” said Toby. “But he’s the science teacher and head of the fair.”

“No,” said Tamara. “Micah’s right. You have to go over Neckstrom’s head.”

“You mean…” said Toby.

“Yep,” said Tamara. “The Hornet.”

The Hornet was Helen Plotz-Gornett, the principal of Hubble Middle, a short but terrifying woman. Nobody had ever seen her smile; nobody could say for sure that she even breathed. She knew everything about everybody in the school and could strike anywhere at any time without warning. You’d be doing something you shouldn’t be doing, and you’d turn around, and YIKES, there would be The Hornet. Even in the boys’ room.

“I don’t want to go see The Hornet,” said Toby.

“You have to,” said Tamara. “She’s the only one who’s not afraid of the ME kids.”

Toby’s reply was interrupted by the ringing of the bell, and the approach of The Armpit, weaving wetly toward them through the corridor bustle. “Let’s break it up!”

The little group began to break up, its members joining the throngs of students heading for their various homerooms. Tamara and Toby were the last to leave. She put her hand on his arm.

“Seriously,” she said. “Do it. The ME kids have been cheating way too long. It’s got to stop, and the only way to make it stop is for honest people to stand up to them.”

“So you’ll go with me to see The Hornet?” said Toby.

“Are you nuts?” said Tamara.

She turned toward her homeroom, leaving Toby to trudge, alone, toward the principal’s office.

GRDANKL THE STRONG WAS UNHAPPY. He did not like being interrupted at any time, but he especially did not like it today, during one of the Republic of Krpshtskan’s most important national holidays, the Tournament of the Fighting-Death Hamsters.

On this day almost everyone in the capital city of Krpsht stopped working to gather in the national arena, where a circle three feet in diameter—the Circle of Doom—had been drawn in the middle of the concrete floor for the death match. After the opening ceremony, which concluded with the singing of the Krpsht national anthem (“Krpshtskan, My Country, for Now”), the audience fell silent as two men entered the arena, each carrying a cage.

The men set the cages down on opposite sides of the Circle of Doom, then opened the cage doors and stepped back.

The crowd watched in anticipation as, from each cage, a legendary Krpsht Fighting-Death Hamster emerged. Or not. Sometimes the hamster wranglers had to shake the cages to get them moving. But eventually they came out and, with prodding from the wranglers, waddled into the Circle of Doom. Each hamster was dressed in a little tank top—one red, one yellow. The one wearing red, known as Lethal Thunder, was the five-time Fighting-Death Hamster champion and the favorite of Grdankl the Strong. The hamster in yellow—known as Harmful Killer—was the number one-ranked challenger.

The crowd watched expectantly for several minutes as the hamsters simply sat there, noses quivering. Then, as the crowd held its breath in anticipation, Lethal Thunder took a tiny step forward and pooped.

The crowd exhaled. The hamsters were once again motionless, as they would be for most of the death match. The one thing the Fighting-Death Hamsters never actually did—being hamsters—was fight. The death match was, in fact, more of a staring contest; the loser was the first hamster to leave the circle. But this could take hours. Days, even.

Nobody could remember how this event got its name, or why it became a national holiday. It was an ancient tradition, and the Krpshtskanis observed it for the same reason they did everything else: because they always had. Also, it was a day off work.

Grdankl the Strong especially liked the Tournament of the Fighting-Death Hamsters because he got to sit in the Presidential Chair, which was a recliner—in fact, the only recliner in the Republic of Krpshtskan. He enjoyed reclining it and normally fell asleep during the tournament.

Grdankl the Strong had been snoozing today when he was awakened by a tentative tap on his arm. He opened his eyes and glared angrily at the person who had dared interrupt his nap. This was the fourth vice president, formally known as Drmtsi the Medium-Sized, who had been assigned the unpleasant task of waking the president by the first, second, and third vice presidents, who were hovering nervously in the background.

“What?” snarled Grdankl the Strong, using the form of the word “what” that, in the Krpsht language, caused the speaker to eject as much as two ounces of saliva.

“I apologize with deepest sincere groveling regret, Your Utmost Excellency,” said Drmtsi, wiping his face with his sleeve. “But there is a message for you.” He lowered his voice. “From Prmkt.”

Grdankl the Strong smacked Drmtsi the Medium-Sized.

“Why did you not tell me!” he roared, in a voice so loud that it echoed throughout the arena, causing Lethal Thunder to make weewee on his wrangler.

Drmtsi might have pointed out that he had, in fact, just told Grdankl the Strong about the message. But he was not that stupid.

“Where is the message?” said Grdankl the Strong.

“It is on the computer, Your Utmost Supreme Excellency.”

Grdankl the Strong grunted unhappily. The only way to read the e-mail was to go look at the screen, as the Republic of Krpshtskan did not have a printer.

“Up!” he said.

Drmtsi pushed the lever that un-reclined the Presidential Chair; the first, second, and third vice presidents heaved Grdankl the Strong to his feet. He turned toward the hamster wranglers and bellowed, “Nothing may happen until I return!” Then, followed by his vice presidents, he waddled out of the arena and into the presidential limousine, a 1961 Checker that had once been a New York City taxi. For a change it started on the first try, and it soon arrived at the presidential palace, which was directly across the street.

Grdankl and his vice presidents entered the palace and descended into the bunker. Waiting nervously in front of the computer screen was Vrsk, the Krpshtskani minister of technology. He stepped aside as Grdankl the Strong waddled to the computer and, frowning deeply, read the e-mail on the screen. This took some time because Grdankl the Strong was a poor reader.

Finally he turned to the vice presidents.

“It is from Prmkt,” he said.

The vice presidents nodded.

“There is a problem at the school,” continued Grdankl the Strong. “A student has found out about our plan. Prmkt says he can deal with it, but he needs help.”

Vrsk’s eyes widened. He had read the e-mail, and Prmkt had in fact specifically stated that he did not need help. Grdankl the Strong had read the e-mail wrong. But Vrsk did not even consider correcting Grdankl the Strong; that would be suicide.

“It is a dangerous mission,” said Grdankl the Strong. “Probably it means certain death. But we must help Prmkt. I will send two men.” He pointed to Drmtsi. “You are one.”

Drmtsi, looking like he had just eaten a live spider, managed to say, “I will not disappoint you, Your Utmost Supreme Excellency.”

“If you do,” said Grdankl the Strong, “I will make your liver into a pudding. The second man to go will be…” Grdankl the Strong looked around at the others, all of whom avoided his gaze “…you.”

Vrsk realized, with horror, that Grdankl the Strong was pointing at him. Vrsk knew a lot about computers but absolutely nothing about helping a spy. He didn’t even own a passport.

“You will leave now,” said Grdankl the Strong. “Go! Do not be afraid! If you die, it is okay!”

Drmtsi and Vrsk, both pale, stumbled from the room. Grdankl the Strong and his remaining three vice presidents returned to the presidential limousine, which failed to start. This greatly displeased Grdankl the Strong, who ordered the chauffeur imprisoned, then walked, most unhappily, back across the street to the National Arena and the Tournament of the Fighting-Death Hamsters.

TOBY HAD BEEN SITTING IN THE HORNET’s outer office for twenty minutes, watching J.D. the Janitor Dude mop the same spot in the hall over and over, and listening to the semituneless humming of The Hornet’s secretary, Mrs. Breetle. She was tapping on her computer and humming a song that Toby had finally figured out was “Oops!…I Did It Again.” This surprised Toby because Mrs. Breetle did not strike him as a Britney Spears fan. Mrs. Breetle struck Tony as being, by a conservative estimate, one hundred and fifty years old.

Also in the office was Mr. P, who glared briefly at Toby before resuming whatever he was doing with the fax machine; and five students who were also waiting, unhappily, to face The Hornet. One by one they were summoned in to see The Hornet, emerging a minute or so later looking as if they had just had dental work without anesthetic. Toby was about to abandon his plan when Mrs. Breetle pointed at him and said, “Your turn.”

Toby stood and shuffled into The Hornet’s office. The Hornet was sitting behind her desk, which had nothing on it but a letter opener the size of a bayonet. She looked at Toby with the expression of a person who had seen thousands of students standing in exactly the same spot and had not yet been impressed.

“Yes?” she said.

Toby found that his throat didn’t work.

“Urg,” he said.

“I see,” said The Hornet. “Was there anything else?”

“Urg,” repeated Toby.

The Hornet sighed. “Mr. Harbinger,” she said, “I enjoy a good frog imitation as much as the next person. But if you’ve nothing else to say, I have work to do.”

The amazing fact that The Hornet actually knew his name jolted Toby out of his paralysis.

“They’re cheating,” he blurted. “On the science fair.”

“Who is?” said The Hornet.

“The ME kids,” said Toby.

“Close the door,” said The Hornet.

Toby closed the door.

“By ME you mean—”

“The Manor Estates kids.”

“How are they cheating?” said The Hornet.

Toby told The Hornet about overhearing the ME kids talking in the cafeteria about envelopes and the fifty dollars; about seeing ME kids after school in the corridor, first heading one way with envelopes in hand, then returning without; about picking up Harmonee Prescott’s paper in the corridor and seeing that it was covered with technical terms; about listening outside the back-room door at the Science Nook and hearing Sternabite tell the ME kids that the price of a project was a thousand dollars, and that some of the components were classified technology. Toby then gave The Hornet the list he took from Sternabite’s desk, telling her only that he picked it up while Sternabite wasn’t looking. He didn’t think now was a good time to mention the robot security owl.

The Hornet read the list, placed it on her desk, and frowned at the wall for a minute while drumming her fingers on her desk. Then she picked up her phone, pushed a button, and said, “Please have Mr. Neckstrom come to my office. Yes, now.”

Two minutes later, Neckstrom entered The Hornet’s office, looking every bit as nervous about being there as Toby did.

“Toby,” said The Hornet, “tell Mr. Neckstrom what you just told me.”

Toby did. As he spoke, Mr. Neckstrom’s face got red, and then redder, and then very close to purple. When Toby was finished, Mr. Neckstrom glared at him then turned to The Hornet and said, “This is ridiculous. He’s making it up.”

“Why would he do that?” said The Hornet.

“It’s obvious,” said Mr. Neckstrom. “He wants to win the science-fair prize money. He made up this story to eliminate his competition.”

Toby started to say something, but The Hornet held up her hand. “What about this?” she said, sliding Sternabite’s list across her desk.

Mr. Neckstrom picked up the list, looked at it for a moment, then tossed it back on the desk. “This is probably just technical-sounding gobbledygook he made up from words he found on the Internet,” he said. “Who knows if these things even exist?”

The Hornet looked at Mr. Neckstrom, then at Toby, then back at Mr. Neckstrom.

“I’m going to talk to the other students,” she said.

The color of Mr. Neckstrom’s face went immediately from borderline grape to skim milk.

“Bu…but do you think that would be wise?” he said. “If you accuse them of cheating, it could be very…I mean, their parents . . .”

“I’m well aware who their parents are,” said The Hornet. “But this is a serious charge, and I intend to…”

She was interrupted by the harsh electronic beeping of the Hubble Middle School fire alarm. As The Hornet rose to her feet, Mrs. Breetle appeared in the doorway.

“It’s a locker,” she said, “in the main corridor. Some kind of smoke or something. The fire department’s on its way.”

“Start the fire drill,” said The Hornet. As Mrs. Breetle hurried away, The Hornet said, “We’ll finish this later. Mr. Neckstrom, please see to your students. Toby, you’ll join your homeroom class out on the ball field.”

Mr. Neckstrom, with a last glare at Toby, stalked out, followed by The Hornet, followed by Toby. The corridor echoed with the earsplitting sound of the alarm. Students were streaming from the classrooms in reasonably orderly lines, heading toward the main exit. Toby looked back down the corridor and saw the cause of the alarm: a cloud of what looked like bright green, glowing smoke was wafting from a locker just past Miss Cooney’s classroom.

Toby frowned. He counted the lockers leading to the smoking one.

Three, four, five…

He felt a cold lump in his stomach.

It was his locker.

AN HOUR LATER, the students still stood waiting on the ball field. The excitement of watching the fire trucks arrive, with sirens whooping, had gradually turned into the disappointment of realizing that the school was not, in fact, going to burn down.

Now, as they watched the firefighters load their gear back onto the trucks, most of the students were bored enough to actually be glad to hear it was time to go back into the school. The exception was Toby, who would have preferred to go anywhere else, including another planet. He had no idea why his locker had been emitting glowing green smoke, but he was pretty sure that whatever it was, it was not good for him.

As Toby’s class filed through the main door, The Armpit was waiting.

“Harbinger,” he said, “come with me.”

Toby shuffled behind The Armpit down the corridor to where a small group of grown-ups had gathered around his locker. The Hornet was speaking softly to a fire-department guy. Mr. Neckstrom and Mr. Pzyrbovich were watching as J.D. mopped up something on the floor.

Each locker had a combination dial with a key slot in the center of the dial. The firefighters had taken a crowbar to Toby’s locker rather than wait for the master key. His locker door was now badly bent and had been sprung open. In front of it, on the floor, was a pile of Toby’s stuff: some random papers, a copy of PC Gamer magazine, an old banana that he’d forgotten about that was now a really gross banana-shaped mass of mold, some dead double-A batteries, a lone white sweat sock, and a baseball cap that Toby had been required to remove the day he wore it to school because it said BITE ME.

Included with Toby’s stuff was a canister about eight inches tall made of brushed steel. Its screw-on lid was off and lying next to it.

“Toby,” said The Hornet. “Is this your locker?”

“Yes,” said Toby.

“A little over an hour ago,” said The Hornet, “Mr. Pzyrbovich happened to be walking by and noticed that your locker was emitting some kind of smoke or gas. He sounded the alarm.”

Toby looked at Mr. P, who was staring at him with an unreadable expression.

“The firefighters forced the locker open,” continued The Hornet, “and found that the gas was leaking from this.” She pointed at the canister. “Toby, why was this canister in your locker?”

“I don’t know,” said Toby. “I never saw it before.”

Mr. Neckstrom snorted.

“Really!” said Toby. “I swear I never saw it!”

“What about this?” said The Hornet. She handed Toby a piece of paper, on which was a brief printed note:

This is the plasma that will power the robot for your science project. You will get the robot and the instructions when you pay me the rest of the money. Keep the plasma in a safe place and KEEP THE CANISTER UPRIGHT OR IT WILL LEAK.

“I never saw this either,” said Toby.

“Really?” said The Hornet. “It was also locked inside your locker.”

“You didn’t follow the instructions, Harbinger,” sneered Mr. Neckstrom. “Your plasma leaked.”

“It’s not mine,” said Toby. “I don’t have a robot! I don’t even have a science-fair project yet!”

“We have two serious issues here,” said The Hornet. “First, we cannot have students bringing unknown substances to school. Fortunately, Chief Nichols”—she nodded toward the fire chief—“has determined that this…plasma is harmless.”

“We don’t know that,” said Mr. Neckstrom. “Look what it did to that banana.”

“That’s mold,” said Toby.

“So you claim,” said Mr. Neckstrom. “But why should we believe somebody who cheats on his science-fair project?”

“But I didn’t—”

“AND,” continued Mr. Neckstrom, ignoring Toby, “tries to frame other students? Good students.”

“But—”

The Hornet held up her hand, silencing Toby and Mr. Neckstrom. “As I was saying,” she said, “the first problem we have is this plasma substance—where it came from and how it wound up in your locker. The second issue is your accusation of other students cheating on the science fair, when in fact the evidence seems to suggest that the cheater, Toby, is you.”

Toby could feel his throat tightening and tears welling up in his eyes.

Don’t cry. Not now.

“What I said before,” he choked out, “about the Science Nook…that was true. I don’t know if this,” he said, indicating the canister, “has anything to do with that. But the rest of it is true. The stuff on that paper from the Science Nook…I bet that stuff is for real. I swear I didn’t make it up.”

“Just like you didn’t know about the plasma in your locker,” said Mr. Pzyrbovich.

“But I didn’t,” said Toby.

“That’s enough,” said The Hornet. “We’ll sort this out in my office. Chief Nichols, thank you for your prompt response. Mr. Neckstrom, Toby, come with me. Mr. Pzyrbovich, you may return to your students.”

The Hornet led the way, followed by Toby, with Mr. Neckstrom behind. They passed through the outer office, where Mrs. Breetle was back at her computer, once again humming “Oops!…I Did It Again.” The Hornet opened her office door and went inside, followed by Toby and Mr. Neckstrom.

The Hornet stopped, frowning at her desktop. She turned and went back to the doorway.

“Mrs. Breetle,” she said, “did you remove a piece of paper from my desk?”

“No,” said Mrs. Breetle. “I haven’t been in your office at all.”

The Hornet turned back to Toby and Mr. Neckstrom.

“I left that paper on my desk,” she said.

They looked at the desktop, which was empty except for the letter opener.

“Somebody must have taken it,” said The Hornet.

“It wasn’t me,” said Mr. Neckstrom. “It was here when I left for the fire drill.”

The Hornet frowned, remembering. “Yes, it was,” she said. “And I followed you out. Which means”—she looked at Toby—“you were the last one in here with it.”

“I didn’t take it,” said Toby. “Why would I? I’m the one who brought it in the first place. It proved I was telling the truth about the Science Nook!”

“Perhaps,” said The Hornet. “But it might also have proved you were lying.”

WHEN TOBY FINALLY LEFT SCHOOL—after a very unpleasant hour in The Hornet’s office—he found Micah and Tamara waiting for him outside the main door.

“So?” said Tamara.

“I’m suspended,” said Toby.

“Suspended?” said Micah. “From school?”

“No, moron, from Major League Baseball,” said Toby. Shoulders slumped, he started trudging along the sidewalk, his friends walking on either side of him.

“How long?” said Tamara.

“The Hornet said three days, while she investigates,” said Toby. “And then if she decides I’m guilty, I get expelled.”

“Whoa,” said Micah.

“Yeah,” said Toby.

“But you didn’t do anything!” said Tamara. She paused. “Did you?”

“No!” said Toby. “I don’t know how that stuff got in my locker. Or that note.”

“Well if you didn’t put it there,” said Tamara, “who did?”

“It had to be somebody with a master key to the lockers,” said Toby.

“I think that’s, like, a lot of people,” said Tamara.

“Or somebody could have stolen a key,” said Micah.

“True,” said Tamara.

“So that narrows it down to…let’s see…everybody in the universe,” said Micah.

“I can narrow it down more than that,” said Toby.

“What do you mean?” said Tamara.

“According to The Hornet,” said Toby, “the person who discovered the stuff coming out of my locker was…guess who? Mr. P.”

“Interesting,” said Tamara.

“Yeah,” said Toby. “Quite a coincidence, him being the one who discovered it, and him being around yesterday when the ME kids were dropping off their envelopes.”

“So you think Mr. P put the stuff in your locker?” said Micah.

“Who else?” said Toby. “And maybe Neckstrom’s in on it, too.”

“But why would they do that?” said Tamara.

“I dunno,” said Toby. “Maybe the ME kids are paying them, too.”

“But they’re teachers,” said Tamara.

“Right,” said Micah. “And teachers don’t need, like, money or anything.”

“Good point,” said Tamara.

“The point,” said Toby, “is somebody set me up, and somehow I gotta prove that to The Hornet.”

“What about the paper?” said Tamara. “From the Science Nook?”

“It’s gone,” said Toby. “Somebody took it during the fire drill.”

“Man,” said Micah. “You are dead.”

“I appreciate your support,” said Toby.

“So what are you gonna do?” said Tamara.

“I’m going back to the Science Nook,” said Toby.

“With the robot owl?” said Micah. “Are you insane?”

“That’s where the proof is,” said Toby.

“But what if the weird dude recognizes you?” said Tamara.

“He never saw me,” said Toby.

“Yeah, but I bet he has a security camera,” said Micah. “A guy who has a robot owl is gonna have cameras.”

“I’ll have to risk it,” said Toby. “And I’ll go with a distraction.”

“What distraction?” said Micah.

“You,” said Toby. “You’re going back there, right? For the magnet for whatshisname? Your frog?”

“Fester,” said Micah. “But that was before I heard about the robot death owl.”

“C’mon, Micah,” said Toby. “I really need to go back there.”

“All right,” said Micah. “But if the owl moves, I’m gonna point at you and yell, ‘I’M JUST THE DISTRACTION!’”

“I appreciate your support,” said Toby.

“So when are we going?” said Tamara.

“You’re going, too?” said Micah.

“I can be distracting,” said Tamara, batting her eyelashes.

“Is there something wrong with your eyes?” said Micah.

“Never mind,” sighed Tamara.

They had reached the intersection, where, to get to their homes, Toby went right, and the other two went left. They agreed to meet at the Science Nook the next day after school, said their “see-yas,” and split up.

By the time Toby got to Milkwort Court, night had fallen. He stopped at his front door and took a deep breath, bracing himself for the moment when he’d have to tell his parents about the suspension. Then he noticed that the house lights were off, and he relaxed a bit, remembering that his parents had told him they’d be at a seminar on vitamin B.

Toby opened the front door with his key and went inside. He had taken two steps into the darkened living room when he caught sight, through the archway, of a black-clad figure sitting at the dining-room table. He froze for a moment, then turned to run to the door. He froze again when he saw that his path was blocked by the massive form of the Wookiee.

“Hello, Toby,” said D. Arthur Vaderian. He was talking through his electronic voice-changer again. “Please come sit down.”

The Wookiee started moving forward, forcing Toby into the dining room. Toby saw that, in addition to the voice-changer, Vaderian had tucked a light saber into his belt.

He’s completely out of his mind, thought Toby. And he’s in my house.

The Wookiee pulled out a chair and pointed at it. Toby sat, his mind racing, trying to remember when his parents said they would get home.

“You know, Toby,” said Vaderian, “you shouldn’t leave your bedroom window unlocked. Anybody could get in.” He chuckled in what he apparently thought was a Darth Vader manner. “Oh, and here’s your backpack.” He pointed to the backpack on the floor in the corner. “I found nothing interesting in it. Other than your address, of course.” He chuckled again. He had clearly been working on the chuckle.

“What do you want?” said Toby.

“I want brvvvrtt brrrrvvvppppp.” The voice-changing device made a sound like a squirrel passing gas, then went silent.

“What?” said Toby.

Vaderian angrily yanked the device off his face and tossed it at the Wookiee, shouting, “I told you, no more discount batteries!” Without the device, Vaderian’s voice was high-pitched, almost girlish. Toby could see why he wanted to change it.

Vaderian drummed his fingers on the dining-room table while the Wookiee changed the batteries in the device. When he was done, he handed it back to Vaderian, who put it on and said, “What I want, Toby, is to know where you got the autographed BlasTech DL-44 you sold me.”

“It’s real,” said Toby. “I swear I…”

“I know it’s real,” said Vaderian.

“You do?” said Toby.

“Yes,” said Vaderian

“But you told me…”

“I know what I told you,” said Vaderian. “I told you I thought the Harrison Ford autograph was a forgery. His signature is often forged, and the one on the blaster looks different from the others in my collection. But as a precaution, I e-mailed a photograph of the blaster to an autograph expert, and today I received his response. He says the signature is authentic. It looks different because Mr. Ford signed it on a curved surface, rather than on a piece of paper.”

“So,” said Toby, “you broke into my house to apologize and return my backpack?”

Vaderian chuckled again. It was getting on Toby’s nerves.

“No, Toby,” he said. “I’m here because I want to know what other items you can get me.”

“What are you talking about?” said Toby.

Vaderian leaned forward. “That pistol wasn’t yours, Toby. You’re too young to own an item of such historic value.”

“I don’t get what you mean,” said Toby.

“I mean that pistol belonged to a real collector, Toby, and no real collector would have put such an item on eBay. Which means you stole it. That’s why you didn’t tell anybody when I came after you. I’m guessing that the owner doesn’t know you stole it. Does he, Toby?”

“No!” said Toby. “I mean he…” He fell silent.

Vaderian nodded. “I thought so,” he said.

“What do you want?” said Toby softly.

“I want more,” said Vaderian.

“More what?” said Toby.

“You know what,” said Vaderian.

“He doesn’t have any more.”

“You are a poor liar, Toby. Of course he has more. Only a serious collector would have had that blaster, in that condition. He has more items, and you’re going to help me get them.”

“No,” said Toby.

“Would you prefer that I tell your father about the blaster you sold on eBay?”

Toby looked down.

“It was your father’s, wasn’t it?” said Vaderian.

Toby put his head in his hands.

“Show us where the collection is,” said Vaderian, “or I call your father, anonymously, and tell him about your little eBay business.”

“No,” groaned Toby.

“Then tell us,” said Vaderian. “It’s in the house, isn’t it? We noticed the basement was locked.”

“It’s my parents’ business,” Toby said. “They keep the stock down there.”

Vaderian was about to say something when car headlights shone through the living-room window, and a car pulled into the driveway.

Vaderian rose quickly. “I will be in touch with you soon,” he said. “I will tell you where and when you will meet me with something else from the collection. Something valuable. If you don’t cooperate, I will call your father.” He drew the light saber from his belt and, in his most Vaderesque voice, said, “Do not disappoint me, young Toby.”

With a flourish, he pressed a switch on the light saber. Nothing happened.

Vaderian whirled toward the Wookiee.

“No more discount batteries,” he hissed.

There were footsteps at the door. Vaderian, followed by the Wookiee, hurried down the hallway to the bedrooms. As they disappeared, the front door opened, and Toby’s parents entered. Toby’s mom was first, followed by his dad, who looked the way Luke Skywalker would have if he got older and lost his hair and had that pasty, unhealthy appearance that comes from years of eating health food.

“Toby?” said his mom. She switched on the light and saw him sitting at the dining-room table. “What are you doing sitting there in the dark?”

“Nothing,” said Toby.

There was a clunk as the window in Toby’s room closed.

“What was that?” said his dad.

“Nothing!” said Toby, leaping up.

“Are you all right?” said his mom.

“Yes,” said Toby. “No,” he added.

“Toby,” said his dad, “what’s going on? Is there someone in your room?”

“No!” said Toby.

“Are you sure?” said his dad, moving toward the hallway. “Because I definitely heard…”

“I got suspended from school,” said Toby.

“What?” said both of his parents.

“It’s a mistake,” said Toby. “I didn’t do it.”

“Didn’t do what?” said his dad.

“Put the stuff in my locker.”

“Stuff in your locker?” said his dad.

“Drugs?” said his mom. “Are you doing drugs?!”

“I’m not…”

“It’s those video games he plays,” said his father. “That’s where this started.”

“But it isn’t…”

“What kind of drugs was it?” said his mom. “Was it pot? Ohmigod, was it crack?”

“Crack? Mom, no!” said Toby.

“So it was pot,” she said.

“I didn’t mean that!” said Toby.

“It was STP, wasn’t it?” said his dad. “It’s showing up in middle schools. I heard about this on NPR.”

“You mean Ecstasy,” said Toby.

“Ohmigod,” said his mom, putting her hands over her mouth. “Ecstasy. Ohmigod.”

“No, no, no!” said Toby. “I’m just saying that’s the name. I’m not saying I’m doing it.”

“Then what was it doing in your locker?” said his dad.

“It wasn’t…”

“Who gave it to you?” said his mom.

“Nobody!” said Toby.

“Then how did you get it?” said his dad.

“You hear about this happening,” said his mom, breaking down sobbing. “But you never think it’s going to happen to you.”

“It’s okay, Fawn,” said his dad, putting his arms around her. “We’ll get him help. And we’ll get rid of those video games.”

“Listen!” said Toby. “Will you just please LISTEN for a minute?”

His parents, arms around each other, looked at him.

“First,” said Toby, “there were no drugs in my locker, okay? No drugs.”

“Then why did you just say there were?” said his mom.

“I DIDN’T SAY THERE WERE!” said Toby.

“Don’t you shout at your mother!” said his dad.

Toby took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m sorry I shouted. I’m just trying to explain that they didn’t find any drugs in my locker. They found some green stuff. Some kind of chemical or something. They think I put it there, but I didn’t.”

“Then who did?” said his dad.

Toby considered telling his parents his suspicions about Mr. P, but he decided that, for the time being, he would rather not have his parents charging into the school and trying to help him but basically just being weird while accomplishing nothing or managing to make things worse.

“I dunno,” he said. “But whoever it was left a note, supposedly written to me, that makes it look like the green stuff was part of a science-fair project that I’m supposedly buying. They’re making it look like I’m cheating.”

“Are you?” said his dad.

“No! Of course I’m not!” said Toby.

“Then why are you suspended from school?” said his dad.

“It’s just for three days,” said Toby. “While The Hornet investigates.”

“The who?” said his dad.

“Principal Plotz-Gornett,” said Toby. “I’m sure she’ll find out I’m innocent.” He also decided not to tell his parents about his plan to go back to the Science Nook for proof that the ME kids were cheating.

“I think we need to speak to the principal,” said his mom.

“No!” said Toby. “Please! I’m sure it’ll be fine. It’s just three days.”

His parents looked at each other.

“Go to the kitchen and set the table while we discuss this,” said his dad.

They called him out a few minutes later. His dad said, “Your mother and I have decided that you’re going to be grounded during the suspension.”

“Grounded?” said Toby. “Why?”

“If you’re not at school, we want you here, studying,” said his dad.

“What about after school?”

“You’re still grounded,” said his mom.

“But I didn’t do anything!” said Toby.

“Watch your tone, young man,” said his mom.

“And no video games,” said his dad.

Toby argued some more, but it was no use. Once his parents had made a decision, they stuck to it, no matter how irrational it was. Toby was grounded.

They ate dinner (tofu foo yong) in silence. Toby spent most of the meal trying to figure out how, if he was grounded, he was going to get to the Science Nook. When dinner was over, he trudged to his bedroom. When he turned on the light, he saw dirty footprints on the bedspread next to the window—a reminder that, in addition to being suspended and in danger of being expelled, he was being stalked by a lunatic with a large, hairy assistant. He went to bed but spent the next hour and a half squirming restlessly, unable to stop his brain from thinking about his problems. But his thinking did no good: he came up with no answers.

The only consolation—and the last thought he had before he finally fell asleep—was this: at least it can’t get any worse.

IT TOOK DRMTSI AND VRSK three days to travel from Krpshtskan to Washington, D.C.

They prepared for the journey in traditional Krpshtskani fashion by stuffing their pants legs with smerk, a very strong cheese that could be used as either food or wolf repellent. For money, they had four bills issued by the Krpshtskani treasury, each in the amount of one million purds. The purd was the official currency unit of Krpshtskan; one million purds, at the current exchange rate, was equal to about six dollars. As a backup, they also had some gold coins in a leather pouch.

With their preparations complete, Drmtsi and Vrsk set off by oxcart for Grdankl the Strong International Airport.

This was a weedy dirt strip next to a small, rundown wooden terminal building. On the side of the terminal was a sign in Krpsht that translated roughly to:

AIR KRPSHTSKAN
“IT IS GOING UP, THEN IT IS COMING DOWN IN DIFFERENT PLACE”

Parked next to the terminal was the Air Krpshtskan fleet, which consisted of a lone Russian-made World War II-era cargo plane. A goat was chewing on the tail. Drmtsi and Vrsk found the Air Krpshtskan pilot asleep in the cockpit, surrounded by the littered remains of several meals. Drmtsi shook the pilot awake and ordered him to fly them to the neighboring nation of Fazul, which had a larger airport. The pilot shooed the goat away and managed to get both of the engines started. He gestured for Vrsk to sit on the floor behind him. Drmtsi, fourth vice president of Krpshtskan, sat on a folding chair, which represented business class.

The pilot taxied the plane to the end of the rutted runway and then, after offering a brief prayer, advanced both throttles to full. The engines belched black smoke, and the plane lurched forward, causing the business-class chair to collapse, and sending Drmtsi tumbling backward. The plane gained speed, rattling violently. Vrsk got on his knees to look out the plane’s windshield and saw they were rapidly approaching the end of the runway, beyond which was a wooden fence. The pilot, shouting another prayer, pulled back on the yoke. Slowly, the nose of the plane began to rise. They were taking off! The pilot turned, smiling hugely, and gave his passengers a thumbs-up gesture. At that moment there was a loud explosion, and something fell off the right-hand engine. The pilot struggled with the controls as the plane came back down, went off the end of the runway, and plowed through a fence, plunging into a field. It bounced along violently for a hundred yards, finally shuddering to a stop. With a shrieking sound of tearing metal, the right engine detached completely from the wing and fell to the ground with a whump. A goat wandered over to the plane and began chewing on the tail.

The pilot turned to look at his passengers, who were now both on the floor, their faces white.

“We are having slight mechanical delay,” he announced.

With the Air Krpshtskan leg of their journey over, Drmtsi and Vrsk traveled the rest of the way to Fazul by oxcart. In Fazul they used some of their gold to purchase tickets on Air Fazul (motto: “Very Reliable. Sometimes.”) to the Republic of Zerkistan. From there they flew Air Zerkistan (motto: “At Least It Is Safer Than Air Fazul.”) to Paris. The flight lasted eight hours, during which they were given nothing to eat except one stick, apiece, of Air Zerkistan chewing gum. Drmtsi attempted to eat his, but it was so hard that he cracked a tooth. Vrsk put his stick in his pocket for later.

In Paris, Drmtsi and Vrsk were required, for the first time, to produce passports. Solemnly, they handed their documents to the French immigration official. These were not actually passports: Krpshtskan did not produce passports. Before they left, Drmtsi and Vrsk had gone into the government files and grabbed two official-looking pieces of paper. Drmtsi’s was a 1937 wedding license. Vrsk’s was a 1993 bill, unpaid, from a plumber who had unclogged the presidential palace toilet.

The French official frowned at these documents, then said something in French. Neither Drmtsi nor Vrsk spoke French. Vrsk, who had learned some English from the Internet, said, “Can you say in English, please?”

The French official sighed. “These passports,” he said, “do not have pictures.”

Vrsk translated this to Drmtsi, who replied, in Krpshtskani, “Why does he need pictures? We are standing in front of him! He can see us! Tell him he is stupid moron idiot with brain of salamander.”

Vrsk translated this as: “Our country is very poor. We have no camera for picture.”

“What is the purpose of your trip?” said the French official.

Vrsk translated this to Drmtsi, who replied, “Tell him we are on important secret mission that is none of his business.”

Vrsk translated this as: “We are tourists.”

The French official frowned at the documents some more, then said, “Your final destination is the United States?”

Vrsk translated this to Drmtsi, who said, “Tell stupid moron idiot if he asks any more stupid questions I feed his tiny idiot brain to pigs.”

Vrsk translated this as: “Yes.”

The French official frowned at the documents some more, looked at the growing line behind Drmtsi and Vrsk, sighed, then waved them through for the Americans to deal with.

Eleven hours later, Drmtsi and Vrsk, tired and hungry and smelling strongly of smerk, arrived at Dulles Airport outside of Washington. They shuffled along in a long line of people waiting to pass through immigration. When they reached the front, the immigration agent took one look at their documents and called for his supervisor. His supervisor, a woman named Wanda Lefkon, took them to a holding room for questioning.

“So, Mr.…Vrsk is it?” she said, frowning at Vrsk’s plumbing bill.

“Yes, Vrsk,” said Vrsk. “And this is Fourth Vice President Drmtsi. He is brother of Grdankl the Strong, president of Krpshtskan. He is very important man.”

Lefkon looked at Drmtsi.

“Halle Berry,” said Drmtsi, this being one of the very few things he could say in English.

“Excuse me?” said Lefkon.

“He is big fan,” Vrsk said. “She is from here, yes? Halle Berry?”

“Yes,” said Lefkon. “Now…”

“Catwoman,” said Drmtsi.

“Right,” said Lefkon. She rubbed her temples. “And you came from Kpr…Krt…”

“Krpshtskan,” said Vrsk.

“Right, you came from there to here for what purpose?”

“Touristism,” said Vrsk. “We are tourists.”

“I see,” said Lefkon. “And are there any particular sights you’re planning to see?”

Vrsk thought about this. “No,” he said.

Lefkon rubbed her temples again. The small room was starting to fill with an unpleasant aroma. As she watched in horror, Drmtsi reached into his pants and pulled out a greenish blob that smelled like a full Dumpster on a hot day. He thrust this toward Lefkon.

“Smerk?” he said.

“Is tradition,” said Vrsk.

“No, thank you,” said Lefkon. “Please wait here.”

Lefkon spent the next several hours on the phone with officials at the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security. Eventually it was determined that Drmtsi was, in fact, the fourth vice president of Krpshtskan, and that he and Vrsk would be admitted to the United States as diplomats. But it was also agreed that, because so little was known about Krpshtskan, and because the two men were so vague about the purpose of their visit, their activities would be closely monitored.

It was late afternoon when Drmtsi and Vrsk left the airport. They went to the taxi line, waited their turn, and got into a cab. The driver got one whiff of his passengers and immediately rolled down all four windows.

“We go to Hubble Middle School, please,” said Vrsk.

“Where’s that?” said the driver.

“Is near to Washington,” said Vrsk.

“A lot of things are near Washington,” said the driver.

“Yes,” said Vrsk, “but we only want to go to Hubble Middle School.”

The driver sighed, then radioed his dispatcher, who looked up the school and told the driver the address. The driver wrote it down, then said to Vrsk: “That’s Maryland. You got money for the fare?”

“Yes,” said Vrsk. He showed the driver one of the one-million-purd bills. It featured a picture of Grdankl the Strong wearing a traditional Krpshtskani fur headpiece. He looked like a man whose scalp was being attacked by a raccoon.

“What kind of money is this?” said the taxi driver.

“Is purds,” said Vrsk.

“Purds?” said the driver.

“Purds,” said Vrsk.

“I don’t take purds,” said the driver.

“What about gold?” said Vrsk, showing the driver a coin.

“Gold is good,” said the driver.

“Halle Berry,” said Drmtsi, to be part of the conversation.

“She’s good, too,” said the driver. With that, he put the taxi into gear and eased away from the curb. Traffic was heavy; it was rush hour. Neither the taxi driver nor his two tired passengers paid any attention to the white government-issue Ford sedan that began moving when the taxi did and was now following about one hundred feet behind.

DANIELLE PRESCOTT MARCHED PAST the secretary into the large, modern office of her husband, Tim, and took a seat without asking if she was interrupting. Which, in fact, she was: Tim was on a conference call with some men in Taiwan who were about to pay Tim’s company, PresTech Industries, fifty-three million dollars to build a surveillance satellite that could count the dimples on a golf ball from space. Although that probably wasn’t what they planned to do with it.

“Excuse me for a moment, gentlemen,” Tim said into the phone. He pressed the MUTE button. “Dani, you can’t just…”

“Where’s the thingie?” she said.

“The thingie?”

“The whaddyacallit,” Danielle explained. “The computer thingie. For Harmonee’s project.”

Tim quickly rose from his desk, crossed the office, and closed the door.

“Dani,” he said, “this is not something we should be discussing here.”

“Yes, it is,” she said. “Harmonee needs the thingie tomorrow.”

“Yes, and I will—”

“So I thought I’d just pick it up now, since you might forget.” Danielle checked her diamond-encrusted watch. “I have a nail appointment in fifteen minutes.”

“This is…a delicate situation,” said Tim. “It’s not exactly”—he lowered his voice—“legal.”

“This is the science fair,” said Danielle, raising her voice. “Do you care about your daughter’s education at all?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, I hope so.” Danielle checked her watch. “Thirteen minutes.” She drummed her flawless nails on her husband’s desk. Tim wondered why nails that perfect needed a manicure, but he was way too smart to ask.

He looked at the phone, its light blinking to indicate that the fifty-three-million-dollar customers were waiting. He cleared his throat and said, “I’ll meet you at the loading dock in ten minutes. Have the trunk open.”

Danielle smiled a flawless smile. “You’re such a good father, Timmy,” she said. “Have I told you that?”

* * *

Carl Niles lugged the heavy aluminum case into the spacious, spotless, and fabulously ultramodern Niles kitchen, where his wife, Jeanette, and son Jason were eating food from Burger King. Jason was watching his video iPod. Carl set the case down gently on the floor. He tapped Jason’s shoulder to indicate that he wanted to talk. Reluctantly, Jason removed one of his earbuds.

“What?” he said.

Carl pointed at the case. “Be very, very careful with this,” he said.

“Yeah, whatever,” said Jason, starting to put the earbud back in.

Carl gripped his son’s shoulder. “I’m serious,” he said.

“Ouch,” said Jason.

“Carl, you’re hurting him!” said Jeanette.

Carl let go, took a calming breath. “Okay,” he said. “But he needs to understand that this”—he gestured toward the case—“is an extremely sophisticated piece of technology. If anybody found out it was in civilian hands…”

“I’m sure Jason will be very careful,” said Jeanette, scraping the breading off a chicken nugget. “Won’t you, dear?”

“Sure,” said Jason.

“And above all,” said Carl, “tell the…tell your guy to follow the power-supply specifications. This is very important, all right? If he exceeds them, this thing could…It would be very bad. You understand, Jason?”

“Yeah,” said Jason.

“Then tell me what I just said,” said Carl.

“You said he shouldn’t exceed…something.”

“The power-supply specifications!” said Carl, gripping Jason’s shoulder again. “This is very important.”

“Ouch,” said Jason.

“Carl, stop hurting him!” said Jeanette. “I’m sure it will be fine. Jason will tell the science coach what you said. Won’t you, Jason?”

“Yeah,” said Jason, reinserting the earbud, his eyes on the iPod screen.

Carl looked at his son for a moment, then at the metal case, then at his wife.

“I need a drink,” he said.

DRMTSI AND VRSK STARED OUT through the taxi windows at America, their mouths wide open like groupers. Everything they saw astonished them, starting with the sheer number of cars—more cars on just this street than there were in all of Krpshtskan. And these were new cars, cars that actually worked, driving at amazing speeds on smooth roads as wide as the Krpshtskani presidential palace.

The taxi whizzed past forests of fantastic buildings, new and clean and spectacularly high, some of them looking as though they were made entirely of glass. And then there were fields of houses, big houses; Drmtsi and Vrsk assumed that houses this grand must be occupied by the rulers of America. But there were so many of them, and every one had a car out front. Sometimes two cars. Just sitting there. The houses were surrounded by grass, big swaths of it, green and lush. Drmtsi and Vrsk saw no livestock; they assumed that the cows and goats were kept inside the houses, let out to eat the grass at night. Much different than the Krpsht system.

Drmtsi turned to Vrsk, and, speaking Krpsht, said, “Is large country.”

“Yes,” replied Vrsk, also in Krpsht. He was thinking, Maybe it is not such a good idea to attack this country.

“Where are you from?” said the taxi driver.

“Krpshtskan,” said Vrsk.

“Gesundheit,” said the driver.

“What?” said Vrsk.

“Gesundheit,” said the driver. “It’s a joke.”

“Ah,” said Vrsk. “Ha-ha. Thank you.” He did not actually understand the joke. But in Krpshtskan, where people had little else to give each other, a joke was considered sort of a present. If somebody told you one, good manners required that you tell one in return. Vrsk frowned, trying to think of a Krpshtskani joke he could translate into English. Finally, he settled on one that was popular with Krpshtskani children. He said to the driver, “How are you keeping chicken out of toilet?”

“What?” said the driver.

“How,” Vrsk repeated slowly, “are you keeping chicken out of toilet?”

“You need a toilet?” said the driver.

“No, no,” said Vrsk. “Chicken is trying to get into toilet.”

“Chicken?” said the driver.

“Yes,” said Vrsk. “Chicken.”

“What chicken?” said the driver.

“Is not real chicken,” Vrsk assured him.

The driver eyed Vrsk in the rearview mirror.

Drmtsi said to Vrsk, in Krpsht, “What are you saying to him?”

“I am telling him joke about chicken and toilet,” said Vrsk.

“Ha! Good one!” said Drmtsi, roaring with laughter and pounding his thighs hard enough to send powerful puffs of smerk smell billowing through the taxi.

“Is there a problem back there?” said the driver.

“No problem,” said Vrsk. “Is joke.”

“You think it’s funny, stinking up my cab?” said the driver.

“Ah,” said Vrsk. “Is not stink. Is smerk.”

Recognizing the word, Drmtsi reached into his pants and held a reeking green glob out toward the driver.

“Smerk?” he said.

“Get that away from me!” said the driver, almost swerving off the road.

“He says he is not hungry,” Vrsk said to Drmtsi.

They rode the rest of the way in silence, the driver darting suspicious glances at his aromatic passengers in the rearview mirror. By the time they pulled into the Hubble Middle School driveway, dusk had fallen. The taxi stopped in front of the enormous, two-story brick building, which appeared deserted. Drmtsi and Vrsk got out and gave the driver a gold coin. He grunted—he was pretty sure the coin was worth far more than the fare—and drove away, keeping all the windows open to rid the taxi of smerk stench.

Drmtsi and Vrsk approached the school’s large, glass front doors. They pushed and pulled on the handles; the doors were locked. They pounded on them and waited; nothing happened. They pressed their faces against the glass and peered into the dark corridor. They saw nobody.

Drmtsi and Vrsk looked at each other. They hadn’t given much thought to what they would do when they got here. They’d just assumed that they would find Prmkt. But there was no Prmkt here, and it was dark, and they were both very tired and very hungry. Drmtsi frowned. As fourth vice president, he knew it was his responsibility to come up with a plan.

“Perhaps,” said Vrsk, “we should find a place to sleep and come back to school in morning.”

“Quiet,” said Drmtsi. “I am thinking of a plan.”

“Sorry,” said Vrsk.

Drmtsi frowned some more. It was hard work. After a minute he said, “I have a plan.”

“Yes?” said Vrsk.

“Right now,” said Drmtsi, “we find a place to sleep.”

“Ah,” said Vrsk.

“Tomorrow,” said Drmtsi, “we come back here and look for Prmkt.”

Vrsk nodded. “It is a good plan,” he said.

“Yes,” said Drmtsi. “Follow me.”

With Fourth Vice President Drmtsi in the lead, the two Krpshtskani agents began walking along the school driveway. When they reached the street, they turned right, toward the business district.

They did not notice the white Ford sedan creeping along the street about fifty feet behind them.

The two occupants of the Ford—both wearing starched white shirts and dark suits—were not thrilled to have pulled this duty. They’d followed the cab from the airport into the suburbs, only to realize—as the two targets started walking—that it was going to be a long night.

With all their attention on the two in front of them, they did not notice the man following them—a man who had emerged from Hubble Middle School a minute behind Drmtsi and Vrsk. A man keeping an eye on the Ford as well as the two men the Ford was following.

A man with a plan of his own.

FOR THE HUNDREDTH TIME on this endless day, Toby looked at his watch. Six-thirty p.m. Finally. He was meeting with Micah and Tamara at the mall at seven p.m. Time to put his escape plan in motion.

Toby took a deep breath and blew a final lungful into the full-scale Luke Skywalker blow-up doll that was a central part of his parents’ cherished memorabilia collection. He closed off the valve and pulled up the bedcovers so that when the room lights were off it would look as if he were asleep—as long as nobody looked too closely. Next, he slipped his iPod’s extension speaker inside the pillowcase right next to Luke’s head. The speaker was connected to his laptop computer over on his desk via a concealed wire. Finally, he tested the small wireless microphone taped above the door by speaking into it.

“Testing…one, two…”

A small light blinked on the computer, confirming that it was receiving the microphone’s signal.

Hope this works, Toby thought.

He went out to the living room, where his parents were watching an infomercial for gluten-free pasta products.

“I’m going to bed,” he announced.

“Now?” said his dad.

“Is something wrong?” asked his mom.

This was the tricky part. Toby, who normally fought to stay up past the eleven o’clock news, had to convince his parents that he wasn’t feeling well. He had to sound tired enough to go to bed but not so sick that they would try to force him to take some of their natural remedies. Toby still had nightmares about the time they’d decided that the best treatment for his sore throat was a mustard enema.

“No, I’m cool,” he said. “Just kind of tired is all.”

His mom’s eyes brightened. He could hear it coming.…

“I have a wonderful avocado-smoothie recipe. The ginseng helps to promote—”

“No, thanks! Really, Mom, I’m okay. Just tired.” Toby yawned a big fake yawn. “So, g’night then.”

“Good night,” said his dad, glued to the television.

But his mom looked concerned. Toby knew that look: she would check on him later.

Which was why he’d rigged his bed.

He returned to his room. He double-checked that the microphone was still picking up a signal and that the shareware voice-recognition program was up and running. He decided he’d done all that he could.

Then, after listening at the door to make sure his parents weren’t coming down the hall, he turned off the lights, quietly raised the window, and climbed out, pulling the curtains closed before sliding the window shut. Hunching down low and crawling below the living-room window, he skirted around the house to the street and started trotting toward the mall.

A few minutes passed. As Toby had anticipated, his mother had to check up on him. She went to his bedroom door and tapped lightly. There was no answer, so she opened the door a crack. The room was dark.

“Toby?” she said softly.

“I’m trying to sleep,” said Toby’s voice, coming from the speaker under the pillowcase. Toby had recorded this and other phrases on his computer, which now played back his own voice in response to his mom’s voice triggering the wireless microphone. He’d programmed the software, downloaded from the Internet, to listen for certain key words and phrases. He pretty much knew what his mother would say to him.

“Are you all right?” asked Toby’s mom.

Toby had expected this question. The computer had no trouble with how to answer.

“I’m fine,” said Toby’s recorded voice on the computer. It added, “I’m trying to sleep.”

“Are you hungry?” said Toby’s mom.

The computer recognized “hungry.” There was a moment’s hesitation as the program found Toby’s recorded answer and played it.

“No thanks,” said the computer.

“I could make you some herbal tea,” said Toby’s mom.

The program did not recognize any of the key words in this phrase. There was a longer hesitation this time. Then it played the default response that he’d recorded just for this situation: “I just want to sleep, okay?”

“I know, but herbal tea is relaxing,” said Toby’s mom.

“I just want to sleep, okay?”

“I know that,” said Toby’s mom. “I’m trying to help.”

“I just want to sleep, okay?”

“You don’t need to take that tone with me, young man,” said Toby’s mom.

“I just want to sleep, okay?”

“Well fine, then,” said his mom. “Good night.” She closed the door with a bit of a thump.

The computer hesitated for a second, then said “Good night,” to the door.

DRMTSI AND VRSK WERE TURNED away by three chain hotels that did not take either purds or gold. Finally they found an old motel called the Shady Inn Motor Court, whose owner, a coin collector, quickly agreed to give them a room for three nights in exchange for just one of their coins.

He was definitely getting the better of the bargain. The room he assigned to Drmtsi and Vrsk was seedy and drafty, with an ancient heater/air conditioner that clattered like a clothes dryer filled with rocks. The wallpaper was peeling; the carpet was worn; the toilet ran constantly; and the bedspreads appeared to have been laundered in radioactive waste.

Drmtsi and Vrsk thought it was fabulous. They had never known such luxury. Not only did the room contain two beds—two beds!—but it also had electric lights, a working telephone, and—most amazing of all—a color television. It took Vrsk a while to figure out how to operate the remote control, but once he did, he and Drmtsi could not take their eyes off the TV screen.

In Krpshtskan there was only one station, which broadcast speeches by Grdankl the Strong alternating with long periods of static (the static was more popular). But the TV in the Shady Inn Motor Court had dozens and dozens of channels, showing every kind of program—including drama, comedy, news, sports, weather, cartoons, people talking, people exercising, people shouting at each other, and a courtroom show in which people were tongue-lashed by an angry lady judge, who frankly terrified Drmtsi and Vrsk.

They were sitting on their beds watching this show, when the telephone rang. They looked at each other. Drmtsi nodded toward the phone. Vrsk picked it up.

“Hello,” he said in English.

“Let me speak to Drmtsi,” said a voice in Krpsht.

“Who is this?” said Vrsk, switching to Krpsht.

“Prmkt,” said the voice.

Vrsk handed the phone to Drmtsi. “It is Prmkt,” he said.

“Where are you?” barked Drmtsi into the phone.

“I am…nearby,” said Prmkt. “What are you doing here?”

“We are watching the television,” said Drmtsi. “The angry-woman-judge show. Have you seen it?”

“No,” said Prmkt, “I mean, what are you doing in America?”

“We are here to help you destroy the American government,” said Drmtsi.

“I don’t need your help,” said Prmkt.

“Yes, you do,” said Drmtsi. “You sent a message asking for help, so we come here to help. I will, of course, take charge. These are orders from Grdankl the Strong.”

There was a sigh, then a silence. Then Prmkt said, “All right.”

“Good,” said Drmtsi. “Now, first thing we must do is…” He paused, because that was as far as his thinking would take him. Besides, the lady judge was shouting again.

“Perhaps we should meet,” said Prmkt.

“Yes,” Drmtsi said decisively. “We will meet. These are orders from Grdankl the Strong.”

There was another pause, then Prmkt said, “Would you like me to find a safe place for meeting?”

“Yes,” decided Drmtsi. “You will find a place for meeting. These are orders—”

Prmkt interrupted. “Yes, sir. I will call again in morning.”

“I suggest you call me back in the morning,” said Drmtsi, peering over at Vrsk. He grunted into the phone, hung up, and looked back at the TV. The scary woman judge was now snarling at an unhappy-looking man. Drmtsi turned to Vrsk, who was watching intently, remote control in hand.

“Change the channel,” ordered Drmtsi, a man in charge.

AS TOBY ARRIVED AT THE MALL, Micah and Tamara were already waiting for him by the main entrance. “Did you bring your laptop?” Toby asked Micah. Micah indicated his backpack. “Right here,” he said.

“Good,” said Toby. He wrinkled his nose. “What’s that smell?”

“It’s her,” said Micah, pointing at Tamara. “She put perfume on so she could be a distraction.”

“It’s called Fruit of Passion,” said Tamara, leaning forward. “Like it?”

Toby recoiled from the wave of powerful aroma.

“How much did you put on?” he said.

“Just half a bottle,” said Tamara.

“You smell like you took a bath in Hawaiian Punch,” said Micah.

“Thank you,” said Tamara, batting her eyelashes.

“Okay, listen,” said Toby impatiently. “When we get to the Science Nook, you guys need to distract the weird guy, so I can figure out where to put this.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cantaloupe.

“That’s a cantaloupe,” observed Tamara.

“My parents didn’t have any eggplants,” said Toby.

“I see,” said Tamara.

“You do?” said Micah.

“No,” said Tamara.

Toby sighed. “I cut it in half, hollowed it out and put the webcam inside, and glued it back together,” he said. He showed them the camera lens peeking out one side of the cantaloupe. “I figure with all the other junk in the Science Nook, he won’t notice this.”

“It just might work!” said Tamara.

“You really think so?” said Toby.

“No,” said Tamara.

“Well, it’s the best I could do,” said Toby. “Come on.”

The three friends rode the escalator up to the highest mall concourse and walked to near the end. The Science Nook was open; they walked inside. Toby, in front, looked warily over to his left, where the robot owl sat motionless on its perch. Suddenly, Toby heard a humming noise to his right. He jumped backward, along with Tamara and Micah, as a canister vacuum cleaner zipped past them. It went to a corner of the store, extended its hose, and began rapidly darting this way and that, vacuuming the random Science Nook clutter.

“Who’s operating that thing?” said Micah.

“I dunno,” said Toby. There was no one in sight. The door to the back room was closed.

“Hello?” Toby called toward the door. “Is anybody here?”

Immediately, the vacuum zipped over to them. It raised its hose and pointed its nozzle at Toby, as if studying him. It looked like a snake about to strike.

“I think we should go,” whispered Micah.

“It’s just a vacuum cleaner,” whispered Tamara.

“Yeah,” whispered Micah. “The vacuum cleaner from The Exorcist.”

The hose darted over to Micah, who made a small squeaking noise and took a step back. He was getting ready to sprint when the nozzle spoke to him. It spoke in Sternabite’s voice, loud and clear.

“Frog Boy,” it said.

Micah stopped, frozen.

“You need an electromagnet and a major power supply for the science fair,” said the nozzle. “Correct?”

Micah remained frozen.

“Say yes,” hissed Tamara. Instantly the nozzle darted in front of her. It moved close to her neck, then said, “Are you wearing Hawaiian Punch?”

“Fruit of Passion,” said Tamara.

“I like it,” said the nozzle. It zipped back to Micah and said, “Did you bring the money?”

“Y…yes,” said Micah, finally finding his voice.

“Wait here,” said the nozzle. The vacuum cleaner zipped toward the door behind the counter, opened it with its nozzle, and went through into the back room. A moment later Sternabite emerged, wearing sunglasses, as usual. He was carrying two cardboard boxes, which he set on the counter. He looked at Toby for a moment, then turned to Micah.

“Forty dollars,” he said.

Micah dug into his pocket and handed Sternabite the money.

“The money is for the electromagnet,” said Sternabite, pointing to one of the boxes. “The trouble is, it draws a huge amount of power. You’ll blow every breaker in the school. So I’m lending you the cold-fusion power supply.” He reached into the other box and pulled out what looked sort of like a miniature Slurpee machine.

“Come here so I can show you how it works,” said Sternabite.

Reluctantly, Micah approached the counter. Toby caught Tamara’s eye and nodded his head toward Sternabite, mouthing the word “distraction.” Tamara followed Toby over and stood near Sternabite, who was demonstrating the reactor to Micah.

“It’s pretty basic,” he was saying. “The power source is this plug. You’ll connect your magnet here, once it’s up and running. To power it up, you flip this switch, and then watch this temperature gauge until the electrolyte reaches eighty-three degrees. You with me so far?”

Micah nodded and said, “Eighty-three degrees.”

“This is fascinating,” Tamara said to Sternabite, batting her eyelashes.

“Is there something wrong with your eyes?” he said.

“No,” sighed Tamara.

“All right,” said Sternabite, turning back to Micah. “When it’s at eighty-three degrees, you turn this knob to—I’m gonna say—ten percent, to start the reaction. Then you watch your voltage meter, here on this readout. Still with me?”

“Ten percent,” said Micah.

“Okay,” said Sternabite. “Pay attention, because this is where it can get tricky.” As Sternabite continued to give Micah instructions for operating the reactor, Toby edged behind his back and looked around for a place to put his cantaloupe. He settled on a cluttered shelf behind the counter, where there was an opening between an accordion and what looked like either a clump of moss or a very old sandwich. Toby tiptoed over, keeping an eye on Sternabite, and set the cantaloupe on the shelf, with the lens pointing outward. From there the camera would take in most of what happened in the store, and the microphone would pick up whatever was said in the vicinity of the counter. Toby edged away from the cantaloupe.

“Whatever you do,” Sternabite was saying, “don’t let this meter read higher than forty thousand. Dial it back closer to five percent if you see it approaching forty K.”

“What happens if it goes past forty?” said Tamara.

Sternabite aimed his dark glasses at her.

“Have you ever seen lightning strike?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Inside a gymnasium?” he said.

“Oh,” she said.

Sternabite turned back to Micah. “Okay,” he said. “Take this stuff and get out. I have other customers coming.” He put the reactor back into its Slurpee box. “And make sure you bring this back after the science fair.”

“Okay,” said Micah. Then he frowned and said, “Can I ask you a question?”

“What?” said Sternabite impatiently.

“How come you’re letting me use this thing for free?”

Sternabite stared at him for a long moment. Then he said, “Two reasons. Mainly, I think it’s high time there was some real competition in the science fair.”

“You mean for the ME kids,” said Tamara.

“Exactly,” said Sternabite.

“But don’t you help them?” said Toby. Sternabite turned toward him. Several seconds passed. Toby worried that he’d gone too far.

Finally Sternabite spoke. “Maybe I do,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m on their side.”

“What’s the other reason?” said Micah.

Sternabite turned back to Micah. “This will serve as an excellent field test for the reactor.”

“Test?” said Micah.

“Field test,” said Sternabite.

“So you’re saying it’s never actually been tested?” said Micah.

Sternabite studied Micah for a moment.

“Just do what I told you, Frog Boy,” he said, “and you’ll be fine.”

Micah started to say something, but Tamara, looking out into the mall concourse, interrupted. “The ME kids are coming,” she said.

“Let’s go,” said Toby. “Come on, Micah.” He handed Micah one of the boxes and grabbed the other.

“But…” said Micah.

“Come on,” said Toby, dragging Micah out of the store after Tamara. They turned right on the concourse, heading away from the approaching ME kids. Toby glanced back into the Science Nook to make sure the webcam cantaloupe was still in position. Sternabite was facing him, his eyes unreadable behind his dark glasses.

Toby quickly turned away and followed his friends.

DRMTSI AND VRSK LOVED all the TV channels at the Shady Inn Motor Court, except for the one with the scary judge lady. But their favorite channel, the one they kept returning to, was the shopping network. Such excellent merchandise! Such friendly hosts! It was as if they were talking to Drmtsi and Vrsk personally, wanting so much to make their lives better by giving them an opportunity to own these wonderful products.

No matter what the friendly hosts were selling—exercise equipment, jewelry, clothing, cookware, home beekeeping equipment—Drmtsi and Vrsk found that they wanted to buy it. Drmtsi was especially smitten with a smiling blond woman who was selling a cappuccino machine for only $489, which you could pay for in three convenient installments. After watching her explain the benefits of this machine for twenty minutes, with Vrsk translating, Drmtsi could contain himself no longer. He ordered Vrsk to call the toll-free number.

Vrsk called. A nice lady told him that the shopping network did not take purds or gold; only credit cards. Vrsk said he did not have a credit card. The nice lady said this was not a problem; she’d be happy to take an application for the official shopping-network credit card. In half an hour, both Drmtsi and Vrsk had been approved. The cards would not arrive for a day or so, but they would be given special account numbers that they could use right now. They could begin shopping immediately!

Drmtsi and Vrsk could hardly believe it. Such a generous country! So trusting! Drmtsi returned his attention to the smiling blond woman on the TV screen. Vrsk translated what she was saying: the cappuccino machine had been reduced to just $419! An amazing price, according to the smiling woman. But there were only a few left! Drmtsi ordered Vrsk to buy one—no, two—cappuccino machines. Vrsk picked up the phone again, and in minutes the order was placed. They paid extra to have the machines delivered to the Shady Inn Motor Court by overnight delivery. It was $80 more, but Drmtsi decided it was worth it.

Vrsk hung up the phone and gave Drmtsi the good news. They shared a smile of accomplishment. The mission was going well. Two cappuccino machines! Neither Drmtsi or Vrsk knew what cappuccino was, but they were sure it was a good thing.

They turned back to the TV. The smiling blond woman had been replaced by two new hosts who were selling a large, miracle rubber ball that could be used for many purposes, including toning the thighs. It was only $49.95! Drmtsi leaned forward with interest, his eyes on the screen, his ears taking in Vrsk’s running translation. He was tempted to order the miracle ball right away, but his instinct told him that if he waited, the price might drop. So he held off, biding his time, waiting for just the right moment to strike. He could feel the pressure. But he was an agent in the field; pressure was his business.

TOBY, TAMARA, AND MICAH set up Micah’s laptop on a table in a deserted corner of the mall food court. They hoped it was close enough to the Science Nook to get a decent signal from the Cantaloupe Cam. Micah booted up the laptop, worked the keyboard for a few moments, then said, “There.”

The image on the laptop screen was a little dark, but clear enough. Standing at the Science Nook counter, facing the camera, were four ME kids: Haley Hess, Harmonee Prescott, Jason Niles, and Farrel “The Ferret” Plinkett. Sternabite was also visible, his back to the camera. He finished placing some cardboard boxes on the counter and some larger ones on a hand truck. Then he opened and looked into some envelopes, which appeared to contain cash.

“Can we get sound?” asked Toby.

Micah increased the volume. There were some rustling noises as Sternabite finished checking the envelopes. Then his voice came through the laptop speakers, surprisingly loud and clear.

“Okay, it’s all here,” he said.

“So how do we, like, set the projects up?” said Haley.

“The instructions are inside the boxes,” said Sternabite. “Nothing complicated.”

“All right,” said Haley. She turned to Jason and The Ferret. “You guys carry the heavy ones, okay?”

“It might be a couple of trips,” said Jason, eyeing the boxes.

“Whatever,” said Haley. “Just get started.” She and the others began picking up boxes.

“Hold on a minute,” said Sternabite.

The ME kids looked at him.

“Is this important?” said Harmonee. “Because Celebrity Cage Fight is on in a half hour.”

Indicating the boxes, Sternabite said, “These components…some of them are very…sophisticated.”

“You told us that already,” said Jason Niles.

Sternabite nodded. “And I’ve been thinking more about it,” he said. “There’s a potential situation that concerns me about these projects.”

“Are you saying they won’t work?” said Haley.

“No,” said Sternabite. “They work. I built them.”

“Then what’s the problem?” said Jason.

Sternabite paused, then said, “I’d like to talk to whoever designed these plans—whoever gave them to you.”

“We told you,” said Haley. “We don’t know.”

“What difference does it make who gave them to us?” said Jason. “We bring you the stuff, we pay you, and you make the projects. Same as always.”

“No,” said Sternabite. “It’s not the same as always. The others I’ve done…those were always separate, very different projects. They didn’t relate to each other. But these”—he gestured at the boxes—“there’s a possibility…the combination. It’s…troubling.”

“Troubling, why?” said Haley.

Sternabite paused. “I…can’t…say exactly,” he finally muttered, sounding as though it caused him physical pain to speak these words. His voice returned to normal. “I haven’t worked it out yet. Not completely. But I will. I’m just worried that in the meantime, should these technologies be used in combination, it could be…interesting. Potentially very dangerous.”

“Potentially,” said Haley. “If it’s used wrong. But it won’t be. It’s just for the science fair.”

“I still don’t like it,” said Sternabite. “I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t even…”

“Listen,” interrupted Jason. “We need these projects. You can’t back out now.”

“Yeah,” said The Ferret. “You took our money.”

“That’s right,” said Haley. “You took our money. And you told us to bring you all the classified stuff.”

“I didn’t tell you to bring it,” said Sternabite. “Whoever designed these did. You’re the ones who brought me lists.”

“That’s your story,” said Haley. “The four of us might remember it differently, if, say, the police got interested. It could look very bad, an adult tricking innocent kids into getting him dangerous classified technology.” She turned to the other three. “Isn’t that right?”

“That’s right,” said The Ferret.

“Yeah,” said Jason.

“What are we talking about?” said Harmonee.

Haley sighed and turned back to Sternabite. “I think,” she said, “that the best thing for everyone would be if you just forgot about your little worries. When the science fair is over we’ll return everything and it’ll all be fine. Okay?”

There was a long pause. Then Sternabite nodded reluctantly.

“Okay!” said Haley brightly. “Bye!”

The ME kids moved the boxes out of the Science Nook and out of range of the Cantaloupe Cam. Sternabite was motionless for a few seconds, then left, apparently going to the back room.

Toby, Tamara, and Micah continued staring at Micah’s computer screen. Tamara broke the silence.

“Wow,” she said.

“Micah,” said Toby, “did you by any chance record that?”

“No,” said Micah. “Was I supposed to?”

Toby shook his head ruefully and said, “I should’ve thought of it before. This is unbelievable. They’re using classified technology.”

“Dangerous, classified technology,” said Tamara. “Potentially very dangerous. What do you think he meant by that?”

“I dunno,” said Toby. “But we have to tell somebody about this.”

“Who?” said Micah.

“The FBI?” said Toby.

“Oh, sure!” said Tamara. She held an imaginary phone to her ear. “Hello, FBI? I want to report that the guy in a shopping-mall science store used classified technology to make something very dangerous.…No, I don’t know what it is, but I saw the whole thing on a camera hidden inside a cantaloupe.…Hello? FBI? Hello?”

“Okay, so maybe not the FBI,” said Toby.

“Then who?” said Micah.

Toby thought. “The Hornet,” he said.

“Are you insane?” said Tamara. “No, let me rephrase that. You are insane.”

“Listen,” said Toby. “She loves the school. She would never let anything bad happen there. Plus, she’s a human rottweiler. If I can convince her that Sternabite knows something, she will make him tell.”

“How’re you going to convince her?” said Micah. “She already thinks you’re a lying cheater.”

“Right,” said Toby. “But she doesn’t think you are.”

“You want us to tell The Hornet,” said Tamara.

“Just tell her what you saw and heard on the computer,” said Toby. “She’ll have to check it out. I’ll back you up.”

“Oh, that’ll help,” said Tamara. “Being backed up by a lying cheater.”

“Come on,” said Toby. “We gotta do this. If we don’t go to The Hornet, these morons could end up blowing up the school. Is that what you want?”

Tamara looked down, then shook her head. Micah just stared at Toby.

“Well is it?” said Toby.

“I’m thinking,” said Micah.

IT WAS DARK BY THE TIME TOBY returned to Milkwort Court. He paused out on the street for a moment, watching his house. Through the living room window he saw the TV on, which meant his parents were still up. He hoped they hadn’t discovered that he’d snuck out. But it was equally important they not hear him sneak back in.

So he tiptoed across the yard cautiously and around the side of the house to his bedroom window. He peered inside: thankfully the room was dark and the door closed. Good. He reached for the window to raise it.

“Hello, Toby,” spoke an electronically distorted voice from directly behind him.

Oh, no!

Toby spun around: stepping out from the shadows were Vaderian and the Wookiee. Vaderian was dressed in full Darth Vader costume, including helmet. He was holding a glowing light saber—apparently he’d replaced the batteries—which he now pointed at Toby’s chest.

“So, young Harbinger,” he said, “we meet again.” He emitted an electronic chuckle, as though he had said something witty.

“What are you doing here?” said Toby.

“As I told you last time,” said Vaderian, “I want more from your father’s collection.”

“I can’t get you anything now,” said Toby, glancing nervously at the house. He whispered: “My parents are home!”

“Fine,” said Vaderian. He produced a cell phone from inside his cloak. “Then I’ll call them and tell them you stole the Han Solo blaster.”

“No!” said Toby. “Don’t call them!”

“Then get me something else.”

“But…”

“Now.” Vaderian held up the phone. “I’ll count to ten. One, two…”

Toby’s mind raced.

“…three, four…”

He rubbed his face, trying to think of a way he could get out of his room and past his parents, down to the basement.…

“…seven, eight…”

Then Toby remembered: his room.

“…nine…”

“Stop!” said Toby. “I have something for you.”

“What?” said Vaderian.

“A Luke Skywalker blow-up doll.”

Vaderian almost dropped his light saber. “You have one?” he said. “An original?”

Toby nodded glumly, racked by guilt.

“That’s more like it,” said Vaderian eagerly, putting away the phone. “Where is it?”

“I’ll get it,” said Toby. “But you have to stay out here.”

“All right,” said Vaderian. “But don’t try anything stupid. If you don’t come right back here with the Luke doll, I’m calling your parents, understand? I might even ring the doorbell and introduce myself.”

“No, no, I’ll bring you the doll,” Toby said. “Just don’t make any noise, okay?”

He turned, slowly raised his bedroom window, and climbed onto the sill. In the darkness, he felt around with his foot, locating the Lego castle he’d built when he was nine. He didn’t want to step on it, so he reached his foot out farther, shifting his weight into the room.

Too far. Toby’s foot missed the edge of the bed. He tumbled into the room and landed on the floor with a loud thump, followed by a louder BAM as the window, which he’d let go of as he fell, slammed shut. A moment later he heard voices from the living room and the sound of footsteps coming his way. He quickly rolled under his bed.

The bedroom door opened, flooding the room with a soft light from the hallway. Through the small gap between his dangling bedspread and the floor, he saw his mom’s silhouette in the doorway.

“Toby?” she said. “Are you all right?”

Toby was about to answer when his voice, coming from the speaker under his pillow, said, “I’m fine. I’m trying to sleep.”

“We heard a noise,” said his mother. “It sounded like it came from your room.”

The computer, not recognizing these words, hesitated, then said, “I just want to sleep, okay?”

“Yes, but it was quite a loud noise,” said his mother.

“I-fell-out-of-bed-but-I’m-okay!” said Toby, talking fast, to beat the computer.

“I’m fine. I’m trying to sleep,” said the computer.

His mother hesitated.

“Are you sure?” she said. “You sound…strange.”

“I’m-fine-really-Mom-thanks!” Toby said quickly.

“I’m fine. I’m trying to sleep,” said the computer.

His mother hesitated again. Under the bed, Toby held his breath.

“All right, then,” said his mother. “Good night.”

“Good night!” Toby said quickly.

“Good night,” said the computer.

His mother closed the door. Toby waited a few moments, listening to her footsteps recede. He crawled out from under the bed and turned off his computer, then pulled the Luke Skywalker doll out from under the covers. Carefully, he raised the window again. Vaderian and the Wookiee emerged from the shadows. Toby pushed the doll through the window. Vaderian took it eagerly, and, after inspecting it for a moment, he giggled softly and handed the doll to the Wookiee. Toby started to lower the window, but Vaderian’s black glove stopped it.

“What now?” Toby whispered angrily. “I gave you your stupid doll.”

“I’m going to need more,” said Vaderian.

“I can’t,” whispered Toby. “You’ve got enough. You’re not even paying for that! Just…leave me alone. Please.”

“I see,” said Vaderian. “So you prefer that I tell your father who’s been raiding his collection?”

Toby hung his head. “No,” he whispered.

“Good,” said Vaderian. “I’ll be in touch.” He made a point of breathing heavily through the electronic device, like Darth Vader, before lowering the window. And then he was gone.

With a groan, Toby flopped onto his back. Somehow, he had to get rid of this maniac and convince The Hornet he was telling the truth about the kids’ science-fair cheating…not to mention the involvement of classified technology. Toby stared up at the darkness, begging his overworked, overworried brain to produce an answer, or at least an idea.…

In the living room, Mr. and Mrs. Harbinger were discussing their son’s odd behavior.

“It was the strangest thing,” Fawn was saying. “He said everything twice, and he spoke…oddly.”

“How so?” said Roger.

“Like he was distracted,” said Fawn. “Worried about something.”

“It’s this suspension,” said Roger. “You know how kids are at that age. They think everything’s a huge crisis.”

“True,” said Fawn, smiling at the cluelessness of the young. “He’ll feel better after some sleep.” She yawned. “I could use some sleep myself. I’m going to bed.”

“Me, too,” said Roger. He rose and went to the window and started to close the blinds, then suddenly stopped, pressing his face to the window.

“What is it?” said Fawn, coming over.

“Just for a second there, I thought I saw something,” said Roger.

“Saw what?” said Fawn.

“It’s nothing,” said Roger, peering out. “It’s just shadows. But for just a second, out there past the streetlight, I thought I saw…this is so ridiculous…”

“Saw what?” Fawn repeated.

Roger looked sheepish. “Darth Vader,” he said.

Fawn laughed out loud.

“You do need sleep,” she said.

THE PHONE JANGLED. Vrsk jerked awake. In the other bed, Drmtsi groaned.

The TV was still on, tuned to the shopping channel. Vrsk and Drmtsi had finally fallen asleep around four a.m., but not before using their new credit cards to purchase a variety of items to go with their two cappuccino machines, including jewelry, clothing, shoes (men’s and ladies’), exercise equipment, a set of ovenware, an Air Hockey table, and an eight-foot inflatable gorilla pool toy.

The phone jangled again. Vrsk fumbled for the handset.

“Hello?” he said, in English.

“It is Prmkt,” said Prmkt, in Krpsht.

Vrsk, switching to Krpsht, turned to Drmtsi and said, “It is Prmkt.”

Drmtsi groaned again.

“Men are watching you,” said Prmkt.

“What men?” said Vrsk.

“I don’t know yet,” said Prmkt.

Vrsk turned to Drmtsi and said, “Men are watching us.”

Drmtsi opened one bloodshot eye.

“What men?” he said.

“He doesn’t know yet,” said Vrsk.

Drmtsi rubbed his face. His head hurt.

“I will find out who these men are,” said Prmkt. “I will call later.”

Before Vrsk could relay this, Drmtsi said, “Tell him to find out who these men are and call later.”

Vrsk, speaking into the phone, said, “Drmtsi says find out who these men are and call later.”

“I just said that,” said Prmkt.

“Exactly,” said Vrsk.

The line went dead. Vrsk hung up the phone. On the TV screen, a perky woman was selling a kitchen appliance that could toast bagels and play DVDs. The price had just dropped twenty dollars, to $179.99. Despite their exhaustion, both Vrsk and Drmtsi sat up to watch. This could be big.

TOBY GOT A BREAK the next morning: both his parents left home to attend an all-day seminar on curing baldness with zucchini oil. That meant Toby didn’t have to think up a new way to sneak out of the house.

The trick was getting into school. He’d agreed to meet Tamara and Micah at The Hornet’s office at 8:20, just before the homeroom bell. But Toby was still suspended. He was afraid one of the teachers might spot him and kick him out before he could get to The Hornet and help his friends convince her—they had to convince her—about the science-fair cheating plot. As he left his room, he grabbed one of his baseball caps and pulled the brim low to cover his face, hoping this would be enough of a disguise.

On the way to Hubble Middle he kept a wary eye out for the maniac Vaderian and his hairy sidekick; to his relief, he saw neither. He entered the school at 8:19, the hallways quickly emptying as students headed for their homerooms. Keeping his head down, Toby hurried toward the main office. Nobody stopped him. He reached the office just as the bell rang. Ducking inside, he was relieved to see Tamara and Micah in the outer room, sitting on the bench, not looking thrilled to be there.

“Does The Hornet know we’re here?” Toby asked.

“Mrs. Breetle just went in to tell her,” said Tamara.

“We still have time to escape,” said Micah.

“Micah, we have to do this,” said Toby.

“Remind me exactly why we have to do this,” said Micah.

“Because of what Sternabite said,” Toby explained, “about the projects being dangerous.”

“But that’s just his opinion,” said Micah.

“But he’s really smart about science,” said Toby.

“Right,” said Micah. “He’s also a lunatic with a robot attack owl.”

Toby was trying to think of a good comeback for that when The Hornet’s office door opened and Mrs. Breetle came out, holding an armful of papers.

“Principal Plotz-Gornett will see you now,” she said. “But she only has a minute.” Mrs. Breetle bustled off toward the copy machine.

Prodded by Toby, Micah and Tamara shuffled into The Hornet’s office. Toby stopped just outside the doorway, fearing that if he went in, The Hornet would immediately banish him. His plan was to eavesdrop and then step forward when he was needed.

Micah and Tamara continued into the office. The Hornet was sitting behind her desk, looking even more irritated than usual.

“What is this matter that’s so important?” she said.

Micah and Tamara looked at each other, both too nervous to speak. Finally Micah cleared his throat and said, “We, um, found out something that we, ah, found out about. So we, ah, came here.” He stopped there, his brain apparently frozen by The Hornet’s gaze.

“I see,” said The Hornet.

“Good,” said Micah.

“That was sarcasm,” said The Hornet. “In fact, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh,” said Micah.

“The science fair,” blurted Tamara. “We saw them cheating.”

The Hornet turned her gaze on Tamara, who now felt her own brain freezing. Finally, The Hornet said, “Whom?”

“Whom what?” said Tamara.

The Hornet sighed. “Whom,” she said, “did you see cheating?”

“The ME kids,” said Tamara. “Jason Niles, Haley Hess, Harmonee Prescott, and The Fer…I mean Farrel Plinkett.”

The Hornet’s eyes narrowed.

“And how, exactly, were they cheating?” said The Hornet.

“They’re hiring the guy at the Science Nook to make their projects,” she said. “They’re paying him. They’re not working on them themselves.”

The Hornet’s eyes narrowed even more.

“Did Toby Harbinger tell you to say this?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Tamara. “I mean, no. I mean, he told us to tell you, but we were there. We saw them. And we heard the Science Nook guy say the projects were dangerous.”

“Very dangerous,” said Micah.

“So you were in the Science Nook when this happened?” said The Hornet.

“Yes,” said Tamara. “I mean, no. Not exactly.”

“Excuse me?” said The Hornet.

“I mean,” said Tamara, “we were in the food court.”

“You were in the food court,” said The Hornet.

“Right,” said Tamara. “But we saw them.”

“Through the Cantaloupe Cam,” added Micah.

“You saw them,” The Hornet said slowly, “through a cantaloupe?”

“Through a camera in a cantaloupe,” said Tamara. “Yes.”

“We didn’t have an eggplant,” added Micah.

“I beg your pardon?” said The Hornet.

Before Tamara or Micah could answer, Toby, realizing that things were not going well, took a deep breath and stepped through the door. The Hornet fixed him with a stare that could stop a rhino.

“What are you doing here?” she said.

“Please listen,” he said. “This is my fault. I asked them to come here because I didn’t think you’d believe me. But they saw it. They saw the ME kids talking to the Science Nook guy about their projects. He got all freaked out, because he said they were using classified technology and that it could be dangerous.”

The Hornet’s office was utterly quiet for five long, scary seconds. Then The Hornet said, “Mr. Harbinger?”

“Yes,” said Toby.

“First,” said The Hornet, “you will remove that disgusting hat.”

Toby snatched the hat off his head and realized, with horror, that it was the one that said BITE ME.

“Ohmigod, I’m sorry,” he said. “I—”

“Be quiet,” said The Hornet. “I am deeply disappointed in you, Mr. Harbinger. Deeply. It was bad enough that you accused your fellow students of cheating, when it appears that you are the one who is cheating.”

“But—”

“I said be quiet. But then you compound your transgression by getting your friends to back up your accusations, thus not only causing them to embarrass themselves with this pathetic story about cantaloupes and eggplants, but also exposing them to serious disciplinary action.”

Micah and Tamara looked at Toby. Toby looked away.

“I didn’t mean to—” he began.

The Hornet cut him off. “Whatever you meant to do,” she said, “you have managed to make a bad situation far worse for yourself and your friends.”

Toby started to speak, but The Hornet held up her hand. “Before you say any more,” she said, “I’m going to bring Mr. Neckstrom here, since he is in charge of the science fair that you seem so determined to sabotage.” She pressed the intercom button on her phone and said, “Mrs. Breetle, please tell Mr. Neckstrom I want to see him in my office immediately. I also want Jason Niles, Haley Hess, Harmonee Prescott, and Farrel Plinkett to report to the outer office and wait there until I call them in.”

Two uncomfortable minutes later, there was a tap on the door and Mr. Neckstrom entered The Hornet’s office, closing the door behind him. Catching sight of Toby, he glared and said, “I thought he was suspended.”

“He is,” said The Hornet. “He has returned to the school, without permission, to bring new accusations concerning the science fair. He and his friends now claim that not only are some of the children purchasing their projects from this mall store, but that these projects may involve classified technology and could be dangerous.”

Mr. Neckstrom’s face was now exactly the same shade of red as a baboon’s behind.

It took him a moment to control his anger enough so that he could speak.

“That’s ridiculous,” he spat.

“I agree,” said The Hornet. “But since he is now raising the issue of safety, I am obligated, as principal of this school, to inform you of it and ask if you have any reason to believe there is any truth to it.”

“Absolutely not,” said Mr. Neckstrom, glaring at Toby. “He’s still trying to save his own skin, and he doesn’t care who he hurts.”

The Hornet nodded. She pressed her intercom button. “Mrs. Breetle,” she said, “please come here and bring your notebook.”

The office door opened. Mrs. Breetle stood in the doorway, notebook in hand. Behind her, Toby saw the ME kids sitting on the bench. He also saw Mr. P by the copy machine, apparently making copies. For an instant their eyes met. Mr. P looked away.

“Mrs. Breetle,” said The Hornet, raising her voice. “Please take this down and prepare it for my signature and inclusion in the files. I want to note for the record that today these three students—Toby Harbinger, Tamara Reilley, and Micah Porter—came to me with new allegations regarding their fellow students and the safety of the science fair. I have discussed this matter with Mr. Neckstrom, and our preliminary finding is that these allegations are unfounded. However, because of the safety issue, I am instructing Mr. Neckstrom to investigate this matter further, as I intend to do myself.”

The Hornet paused for a few moments while Mrs. Breetle scribbled furiously to catch up.

“Also,” The Hornet went on, “as of now, I am placing all three of these students on indefinite disciplinary suspension from Hubble Middle School.”

Tamara and Micah gasped.

“But they didn’t do anything!” said Toby. “I’m the one who—”

“Be quiet, Mr. Harbinger,” snapped The Hornet. “They did indeed do something. They listened to you. Perhaps in the future they will think twice before they make that mistake.”

Toby hung his head.

The Hornet resumed dictating to Mrs. Breetle: “During this suspension,” she continued, “these students are banned from attending school and from participating in any school activities.”

“In…including the science fair?” said Micah.

“Especially including the science fair,” said The Hornet.

“But I need to go into the gym!” said Micah. “Tamara and I already set up our projects, and Fester’s going to be hungry.”

“Fester?” said The Hornet.

“My frog,” said Micah. “He’s in my project. It’s about…”

“Mr. Porter,” interrupted The Hornet, in a voice that sounded the way a cold shower feels.

“Yes?” said Micah.

“Be quiet,” said The Hornet.

“Okay,” said Micah, “but Fester…”

“I said be quiet,” said The Hornet. “You will not go to the gymnasium. The three of you will wait in the outer office while Mrs. Breetle contacts your parents to come pick you up.”

All three children looked stricken. Their parents.

“That’s all,” said The Hornet, dismissing them. “Mrs. Breetle, send in the four students waiting outside. Mr. Neckstrom, please remain here while I question them.”

As he turned to leave The Hornet’s office, Toby felt his stomach churning. This had gone horribly, horribly wrong. The room seemed to be swirling around him as he stumbled blindly through the doorway, almost knocking over a bucket being used by Janitor Dude to mop the outer-office floor. A wave of filthy water sloshed against his legs, drenching his pants and shoes. The ME kids roared with laughter. They were still snickering as they filed past Toby, Tamara, and Micah. They didn’t seem a bit worried about facing The Hornet and Mr. Neckstrom. As he passed, Jason Niles deliberately stepped hard on Toby’s right foot.

Wet and hurting, Toby stumbled to the bench and sat down on the end. He noticed that Tamara and Micah sat on the other end.

“I’m sorry,” Toby said, his voice hoarse. “I didn’t think…I never thought…”

“No,” said Tamara, “you didn’t.”

Toby wanted to say something more, but he didn’t know what, and Micah and Tamara obviously didn’t want to hear it anyway. Toby looked around the office. Mr. P was taking some papers from the copier. His eyes met Toby’s again for a moment, then he left. At her desk, Mrs. Breetle was on the phone. She apparently had just gotten through to Tamara’s mother.

“Yes, Mrs. Reilley,” she was saying, “suspended.”

Tamara’s shoulders shook; she was weeping.

Toby leaned over and put his face into his hands, hoping his own tears would not leak through.

TOBY WAS IN HIS ROOM, instant messaging Micah, who was in his room, since both of them, along with Tamara, had been grounded for all eternity, if not longer.

Toby was in the midst of yet another apology for causing the suspensions when he heard the doorbell ring. He froze, fearing that Darth and the Wookiee were back. He listened intently, his fingers hovering over his laptop keyboard. He heard the front door open, then close, followed by footsteps heading for the kitchen. Toby relaxed; it was his mom returning from errands. A minute later he heard the angry whine of the blender. His mom was experimenting with a brussels-sprout-yogurt-protein facial cream.

Turning back to the keyboard, he typed:

my rents r 4 real ths tme
mine 2, answered Micah.

im srry
u shud b

The door to Toby’s bedroom opened behind him. Toby started to turn, annoyed that there’d been no knock.

“Mom,” he said, “I thought we agreed that…”

He cut himself off as he spun around. The door stood ajar, but his mother wasn’t there.

Brb, he typed. He got up and peered into the hallway—nobody. He could hear his mom in the kitchen. Frowning, he closed the door and turned around.

Sternabite was sitting in his chair.

Toby screamed. He didn’t mean to; it came out before he could stop himself.

“Calm down,” said Sternabite calmly.

There were quick footsteps in the hall, then pounding on the door. For once, Toby’s mom was observing the knock-first agreement.

“Toby?” she said. “Are you okay?”

Toby glanced at Sternabite, then the door. What to do? He looked back at Sternabite.

Except Sternabite wasn’t there.

Toby blinked.

Sternabite wasn’t there.

“Toby?” said his mom. “May I come in?”

“Um, yeah,” he said, still looking at his empty chair.

His mother came in, looking worried. She smelled like brussels sprouts. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”

“I…ah…yeah,” he said. “I’m fine.” He frowned at the chair, noticing something. The chair was leaning back. By itself.

“Are you sure?” said his mom. “Because I heard you yell.”

“Yeah,” he said, tearing his eyes away from the chair. “I guess this, ah, being grounded thing is getting to me.”

His mom gave him a disgusted look and shook her head. “Nice try,” she said, closing the door.

Toby waited until her footsteps had receded. Then he turned back to the chair.

“I know you’re there,” he said.

“Just don’t scream again,” said Sternabite’s voice.

That was weird enough. What followed was weirder: the light in front of the chair flickered, and suddenly…there was Sternabite again. He wore a baseball cap, sunglasses, a dark sport coat, khakis, and running shoes. He had an iPhone clipped to his belt, in the front. His hair was all over the place, sticking out of the cap as if he’d grabbed a live wire.

“How did you do that?” Toby asked.

“Quantum mechanics,” said Sternabite. “You’ll study it in high-school physics. Applying it, though…” He reached down, touched the iPhone, and disappeared.

“Whoa,” said Toby.

Sternabite reappeared, his hand again on the iPhone.

“Whoa,” Toby said again.

“It was you, wasn’t it,” said Sternabite, “in my store that night.”

“What?” said Toby.

“Don’t act stupid. You took a list of science-fair components, yes?”

“Yes,” admitted Toby.

“How did you evade the owl?”

“I used the Hello Kitty mirror,” said Toby.

Sternabite nodded approvingly. “Not bad,” he said.

“What would the owl have done?” said Toby. “If it had caught me, I mean.”

“We wouldn’t be having this conversation,” said Sternabite.

Toby started to ask another question, but Sternabite held up his hand. “It was your locker, wasn’t it,” he said.

“What?”

“Where the firemen found the plasma.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Toby. “But I didn’t put it there.”

“Of course not,” said Sternabite. “You’d have no way to obtain plasma. I assume it also wasn’t you who returned the component list to me.”

“You got that back?” said Toby.

“Somebody slid it under the door to my store,” said Sternabite.

“Not me,” said Toby. “I took it to The Horn…to the principal. It disappeared from her office.”

“And why,” said Sternabite slowly, “did you steal that list and take it to the principal?”

“I wanted to show her that the ME kids were buying their science fair projects from…” Toby’s voice trailed off.

“From me,” said Sternabite.

Toby nodded. He could feel Sternabite’s gaze from behind the dark sunglasses. He tensed as a thought flashed through his mind: He’s here to kill me.

“Calm down,” said Sternabite. “I’m not going to kill you.”

“Why are you here?” said Toby.

“Because something’s wrong,” said Sternabite. “Whoever gave the plans to these idiot rich kids is up to something, and he’s using me to accomplish it. And I don’t like being used.”

Toby hesitated, then said, “You didn’t mind last year, and the year before that.”

“True,” said Sternabite. “In fact, I enjoyed messing with Hubble’s precious science fair, and that idiot Lance Swingle.”

“Idiot?” said Toby. “He made billions from TranScent, and he…”

“He stole that idea from me,” snapped Sternabite.

“What?” said Toby.

“Ten years ago,” said Sternabite, “he came into my store looking for help, with this vague notion of sending smells over the Internet. But he was clueless about the science of it. It took me ten minutes to figure out the basic idea and another five to draw up a rough schematic. He paid me fifty dollars for my time; said he was just doing it for fun. Then he went on to start his company and make his billions and claim all the credit. He’s never once mentioned my name.”

“So why don’t you sue him?”

Sternabite waved his hand. “I hate lawyers,” he said, “and I don’t need his money. I don’t do science for money. I do science because it amuses me. And it amuses me greatly that every year, the great Lance Swingle, when he gives his big award for first prize at his famous science fair, is giving it to a rich cheat—just like himself—for a project done by me.” Sternabite smiled at the thought. “That’s why I do the projects for those idiot rich kids.”

“Where do the project plans come from?” said Toby.

Sternabite’s smile faded. “That’s the troubling thing,” he said. “For the first few years, the ideas were mine. These kids would come in looking for help, and I’d whip something up that I knew would win. Then five years ago they started coming in with plans of their own. Some of the science was pretty sophisticated, actually. I asked the rich kids where they got them, but they claimed not to know. That bothered me a little, but I assembled the projects, because I didn’t see why not, and to be honest I found them interesting. Until this year. This year, I found them disturbing.”

“So why did you make them?” said Toby.

Sternabite looked sheepish, or as sheepish as he knew how. “Because,” he said, “I didn’t see it at first. I had suspicions, but it wasn’t until late last night, after I gave the projects to the idiot rich kids, that I figured it out.” He stopped, shaking his head.

“Figured what out?” asked Toby.

“What he plans to do,” said Sternabite. “Whoever’s behind this…he’s clever, I’ll give him that. Brilliant, actually. He had obviously been testing his plan in the previous science fairs, seeing if he could use idiot rich kids’ insanely competitive parents to get classified technology, and then using me to assemble the projects. And it all worked.” Sternabite’s face reddened. “And now he’s ready to put his plan into effect, unless we stop him.”

“Why don’t you just tell the police?” said Toby.

“The police?” Sternabite snorted. “Let’s say they believed me, which I doubt they would. But say they do. Who are they going to arrest? Who put the projects together?”

“You,” said Toby.

“Right,” said Sternabite. “I’m the first person they’d arrest. No, no police.”

“But what…” Toby stopped at the sound of footsteps in the hall and another knock on the door. Sternabite put his hand on the iPhone, preparing to disappear.

“Time for lunch,” said Toby’s mom through the door. “I made beef tacos.”

“With actual beef?” said Toby.

“Don’t be silly,” said his mom.

“Five minutes, okay?” said Toby.

“Five minutes,” said his mom, walking away.

Toby turned back to Sternabite. “So what do the projects—”

Sternabite interrupted. “No time. I need to show you how this works.” He began to untie his sneakers.

“How what works?” said Toby. “Why’re you taking off your shoes?”

“You need these,” said Sternabite, carefully pulling what looked like a blue insole out of each shoe. He set these on the desk along with his ball cap. Then he pulled an iPhone from his jacket pocket and set it inside the hat. Stepping closer, Toby could see that there were thin, transparent wire filaments connecting the insoles and the cap to the iPhone.

“Okay,” he said, pointing to the insoles. “You put these in your shoes. The switch is on the iPhone—it’s this magic-wand icon. You have to be careful with the fiber optics”—he pointed to the filaments—“because they break easily, and then you’re not invisible anymore. Of course, you’re not really invisible anyway.”

“I’m not?” said Toby.

“Of course not,” said Sternabite, relacing his sneakers. “You’re still there. This is just bending the light so it goes around you. You know how polarized sunglasses remove glare? The glare’s still there, but you don’t see it. This works on a similar principle. In fact, anyone wearing polarized sunglasses can see you. You need to remember that. I’m giving you two sets of the fiber optics, so you have a spare. You put the phone on your belt, and…”

“Waitwaitwait,” said Toby, holding up both hands. “Why are you giving me this thing?”

Sternabite looked at him for a moment, then said softly, “Because you’re the key to finding whoever’s behind this.”

“What? Why me?”

“Because he knows you know. And he’s at your school. He has to be. He put the projects in the kids’ lockers. He found out that you went to the principal. He stole the components list from the principal’s office and gave it back to me. Did you see anybody suspicious around when you went in to see her?”

“Yeah,” said Toby, thinking back. “A teacher, Mr. P. He’s also the one who supposedly found the plasma stuff leaking from my locker.”

“Then I would say he’s definitely a suspect,” said Sternabite. “Because whoever took the list from the principal’s office also put the plasma in your locker to frame you. But whoever he is, we’re going to need solid proof to get him. We need to force him to make a move. That’s your role. This guy sees you as a threat. As far as he knows you’re the only person who knows about the science fair. If you show up at the school again, causing trouble for him, he’ll try to get rid of you again.”

“So…you want me to go back to school,” said Toby.

“Right,” said Sternabite. “You sneak in, invisible. Then you do something to draw this guy out.”

“Like what?”

“The science fair,” said Sternabite. “It’s being set up in the gym, right?”

Toby nodded.

“Okay, then that’s where he’ll be,” said Sternabite. “He’ll be watching the rich kids’ projects. I guarantee you. He can’t let anything happen to them. If he sees you poking around, he’ll figure you’re going to sabotage them, and he’ll have to show himself. So you go to school today, at the end of the day. The school will be mostly empty, and you’ll be invisible. You go into the gym and make sure everybody’s out of there. Then you make yourself visible, and you fool around with the projects I built. The next person you see—and you will see him—is the guy behind all this.”

“Then what do I do?” said Toby.

“Then you call me. Press the sunglasses icon on the iPhone. I’ll be there in seconds.”

“How can you be there in seconds?”

“Trust me,” said Sternabite. “I’ll be there. Plus, if you get scared, all you have to do is press the magic wand on the phone, and you’re invisible again.”

“So basically,” said Toby, “you want to use me as bait.”

“Exactly,” said Sternabite.

Toby thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I’m already in way too much trouble.”

Sternabite shifted closer, his sunglasses only inches from Toby’s face. “Trouble?” he said. “Trouble? You don’t have any idea what trouble is, kid. If we don’t stop this maniac’s plan—if we let this science fair go ahead—this whole country will be in trouble. The whole world. Do you understand?”

“No,” said Toby. “I don’t. What’s going to—”

Toby was again interrupted by his mom’s footsteps and sharp rapping on the door.

“Toby!” she said. “It’s past five minutes!”

“But…”

“Now.”

The footsteps receded. Sternabite rose quickly and opened Toby’s window.

“Wait,” said Toby.

But Sternabite was already climbing out. “Remember,” he said, “when he shows himself, press the sunglasses icon. And be careful not to break the fiber optics.”

Before Toby could say anything else, Sternabite had lowered the window and was gone.

Toby’s laptop beeped. He’d forgotten his IM conversation with Micah, who had grown impatient and typed dozens of lines of question marks. Toby went to the keyboard and typed,
sorry got 2 go
r u ok? typed Micah.

Toby hesitated, then typed: u wd NOT blve

?? typed Micah.

Toby was about to answer when his mom shouted, “TOBY HARBINGER YOU COME TO LUNCH RIGHT NOW !”

“Coming!” he called, opening his door and leaving a growing string of question marks on his laptop screen.

TOBY WAS JITTERY DURING LUNCH, barely chewing his food before he swallowed, which was probably the best way to eat tofu tacos anyway. All he could think about was trying out Sternabite’s invisibility device. He pretended that he was chewing for a few minutes and then excused himself, leaving his mother to continue her work on the brussels sprouts facial cream.

Back in his room, Toby carefully clipped the iPhone to his belt. He then put a blue insole into each of his shoes and laced them up. Finally he put the ball cap on his head. He made sure that the fiber-optic filaments from each shoe and from the cap were attached to the coupler plugged into the iPhone.

He was ready.

Heart pounding, he stood in front of his closet-door mirror, held his breath, looked down, and touched the magic-wand icon on the phone. Then he looked up at the mirror.

He wasn’t there. He could see the opposite wall of his bedroom. He backed up, mesmerized, and stumbled on a footstool. The footstool moved in the mirror; the blanket came off the end of the bed as he reached out and grabbed it to break his fall. But there was no boy in the mirror. No Toby.

“Awesome!” he said.

He looked down to turn the device off, but couldn’t see the iPhone. Couldn’t see his hand. Couldn’t see anything but the floor of his room. How could he push the magic wand on the phone if he couldn’t see the iPhone in the first place?

His throat tightened as he panicked.

Then he remembered: polarized sunglasses. He pulled open his desk drawer—and that was weird, the drawer opening as if by itself—and found his shades. He put them on, and sure enough: he could see himself. And the iPhone. He made a mental note of where the wand icon was: the lower righthand corner of the screen.

He pressed the icon, and there he was. He slipped the sunglasses into his shirt pocket. He opened his door and called, “Is it okay if I watch some TV?”

“Okay, honey,” his mother called back. Toby preferred the massive television set in the basement, the one his parents watched all the Star Wars movies on. It had a big old comfy couch in front of it and surround sound. If Toby was lucky, his mom wouldn’t call him upstairs until dinner was ready; he’d have time to get to school and back.

He opened the door to the basement and, without going through, shut it loudly. Then he tiptoed back to his bedroom, quietly closed his door, touched the magic wand on the iPhone, and sneaked out his bedroom window. As he closed the window, a car pulled into the driveway next door; it was Mrs. Penin, their neighbor. She stopped no more than twenty feet from where Toby stood, and as she got out of the car she looked in Toby’s direction. He waved his arms at her—no reaction. Toby grinned an invisible grin.

Now he turned his attention to his mission. The fastest way to get to school would be on his bike, but he figured a bike riding itself would raise some eyebrows. So he set off at a trot. From time to time, out of habit, he glanced at his watch, only to realize each time that he couldn’t see it. He didn’t pass many pedestrians, and he swerved wide around the few people he did encounter. One man heard Toby’s trotting footsteps and looked around curiously; Toby stopped and held his breath, and after a moment the man, frowning, moved on.

In less than a half hour Toby was within a block of his school. He didn’t know the time exactly, but he figured it was just about right. So far, so good. If Sternabite’s plan worked, he’d be…

“Hey!”

Toby froze. The voice came from a side street to his left.

Toby looked and saw a Gremlin parked at the curb, facing away from Toby. The Wookiee was leaning against the rear of the car.

He was wearing…sunglasses.

“Get over here, kid!” He pounded on the roof of the car.

Through the window Toby could see Vaderian’s head slumped to the side, apparently dozing.

“The kid’s here,” said the Wookiee, still pounding. Vader’s head snapped up. He turned toward the Wookiee. Vaderian wasn’t wearing sunglasses.

Toby had a quick decision to make: if he ran, the Wookiee would chase him; he’d have to abandon his mission to get into the science fair, as Sternabite had asked. So he felt forced to talk to them.

But if Vaderian got out of the car and saw Toby—or, rather didn’t see him—he and the Wookiee would figure out that Toby had something even better than the Star Wars collection. They’d want the invisibility device. Toby couldn’t let them get it.

Vaderian had opened the car door and was climbing out. He looked pretty stupid in the cape. Toby felt for the iPhone and touched what he prayed was the lower right-hand part of the screen. Vaderian was now out of the car, looking Toby’s way.

“There you are,” he said.

Toby looked down and saw with relief that he was, indeed, there. He checked his watch: 4:25. The school doors would be locked for the night in five minutes. He had to get rid of these lunatics quickly.

“Hey,” he said.

“So, young Toby,” said Vaderian. He was about to say more, but then he remembered something. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his voice-changer, and clapped it over his mouth.

“So, young Toby,” he said, his voice now distorted. “We meet again.”

Toby rolled his eyes and looked at his watch: 4:26.

“I’m kind of in a hurry,” he said.

“Are you, now?” said Vaderian. He electronically chuckled as though this was the single cleverest thing anybody had ever said. He chuckled so hard that it turned into a cough, which continued until the Wookiee pounded Vaderian on the back, which stopped the cough, but which also sent the voice-changer clattering onto the sidewalk, where it came apart, spilling its batteries.

“Idiot!” Vaderian yelled at the Wookiee. “Pick it up!”

The Wookiee scrambled to reassemble the voice-changer. Toby rolled his eyes again, and for the hundredth time berated himself for getting involved with these morons. He looked at his watch: 4:27.

Finally Vaderian was ready to speak again. “You did well, young Harbinger, giving me the Skywalker doll.”

“Like I had a choice,” said Toby.

“I’m glad you understand that you don’t have a choice,” said Vaderian. “Because I want the rest of the collection.”

“What?” said Toby. “You can’t…”

“Yes, I can,” said Vaderian. “And you’ll help me, unless you want me to tell your parents what you’ve already stolen from them.”

Toby was shaking his head. “I can’t.”

Vaderian lowered his electronic voice to what he apparently thought was a soothing tone. “It will look like a burglary,” he said. “We’ll do it when nobody’s home. All you have to do is leave a door open for us and tell us where the collection is.”

Toby was still shaking his head.

“So you’d prefer that I called your parents?” said Vaderian.

“No,” said Toby. “Please.”

“Then cooperate. The collection is in the basement, isn’t it?”

Toby, feeling trapped, looked down and nodded once. He couldn’t believe that this was happening, that he was helping this lunatic. But he could see no way out of this. He just wanted it to be over.

“That’s better,” said Vaderian. “And will it all fit into this car?”

Toby glanced at the car. He was surprised it even fit the two men. He shook his head.

“Excellent!” said Vaderian. “We’ll bring a truck. And when should we bring it?”

Toby thought about this for a few seconds, then said, “Tomorrow night. There’s an event at school. A science fair.” He was hoping, desperately, that by the next day he’d be reinstated at school.

“Good,” said Vaderian. “The sliding glass door at the back of your house. Leave it unlocked.”

“You’ve been to the back of my house?”

“Just leave it unlocked.”

“But my parents check the doors before we go out.”

“You’ll think of something. You’re a smart boy.”

Toby looked at his watch and flinched at what he saw: 4:32.

“I gotta go,” he said, turning.

Vaderian grabbed his arm. “The door will be unlocked, right, Toby?”

“Okay. Okay,” Toby said. He shook off Vaderian’s grip and hurried away.

4:33.

He turned and ran. He rounded a corner and headed toward the school. As he neared it, he looked around. Seeing nobody, he touched the magic wand on the iPhone. Invisible now, he ran toward the school. He thought he saw a shape move across the glass of the front doors.

They were locking the doors.

He sprinted.

Up the sidewalk. Up the steps.

He grabbed the door handles.

Locked.

He sprinted around the side of the school to the gymnasium doors.

Locked.

Toby took a step back, then slumped down on the concrete walkway, trying to think of what to do next. Nothing came to mind. He’d failed in his mission to get into the school. He’d failed Sternabite and his friends. He’d been a traitor to his own parents. And he had no idea, none at all, how to make any of this right.

He leaned forward and put his invisible face into his invisible hands. He muffled a sob. A tear, then another, leaked through his hands. The tears became visible in midair, just before they splattered onto the hard concrete.

THE PHONE RANG in the crowded room at the Shady Inn Motor Court. Vrsk stumbled toward it through a cloud of steam, banging into empty cardboard boxes.

The steam was coming from the two cappuccino machines that Vrsk and Drmtsi had purchased from the TV shopping show. The machines had arrived by express delivery an hour earlier; Vrsk had been trying to get them to work. He still had no idea what cappuccino was, but he had produced a lot of steam. The cloud was so thick that Drmtsi had to sit right in front of the TV, his face only inches from the screen, so he could monitor the status of the item currently being sold—a set of eight deluxe tiki torches, propane-fueled, with electronic ignition. The price was currently $89.95, but Drmtsi was sure he could get them for under $70.

The phone rang again just as Vrsk reached it.

“Hello?” he said.

“It is Prmkt,” said Prmkt, speaking Krpsht.

Switching to Krpsht, Vrsk said to Drmtsi, “It is Prkmt.”

“Not now,” said Drmtsi, his eyes glued to the screen.

The price had just dropped to $75.99. Any minute now…“Drmtsi is very busy,” said Vrsk into the phone. Prmkt sighed. “Tell him I have arranged a meeting. You must go to Jungle Norman’s Pizza Party Place.”

“Where?”

Vrsk repeated the name slowly: “Jungle. Norman’s. Pizza. Party. Place. It is on Wackmore Avenue, seven blocks north of your motel. Meet me there in one hour.” “What about the men watching us?” said Vrsk, remembering Prmkt’s warning from the night before.

Prmkt hesitated, then said, “These men are gone.”

“Gone? But didn’t you say—?”

“Not to worry about them,” interrupted Prmkt. “Just meet me at Jungle Norman’s in one hour. When you arrive, you will give the special signal, and I will come to you.”

“Special signal?”

“Yes. You will lift up the hat from the head of the gorilla.”

“The what?”

“The gorilla. You will lift up its hat.”

“The gorilla wears a hat?”

“It is not a real gorilla,” said Prmkt impatiently. “It is a robot gorilla that sings ‘Happy Birthday.’”

“I…see,” said Vrsk, although this was not entirely true. “When you lift up the hat, I will come to you. One hour. You must be there on time. Do not fail. The mission depends on you.”

“We will not fail,” said Vrsk, but Prmkt had already hung up. Vrsk turned and peered through the ever-denser fog of cappuccino-machine steam at Drmtsi, who suddenly leaped to his feet and shouted, “Sixty-nine ninety-five! I knew it!”

Vrsk pointed to the phone. “Prmkt says we must meet him in one hour.”

“Where?”

“Jungle Norman’s Pizza Party Place,” said Vrsk, speaking the name slowly.

“What is this place?” said Drmtsi.

“I do not know,” said Vrsk. “But it is seven blocks from here. We are to lift the hat of the gorilla.”

“The gorilla?” said Drmtsi.

“It is not a real gorilla,” said Vrsk. “It is a robot gorilla, for singing ‘Happy Birthday.’”

Drmtsi and Vrsk eyed each other through the steam, both thinking the same thing: America was a mysterious place.

“All right,” said Drmtsi. “We will go to the meeting. But first”—he pointed at the screen, where two enthusiastic women were admiring the set of deluxe propane-fueled tiki torches with electronic ignition—“you must call and order this item.”

Vrsk picked up the phone and dialed the number, which he now knew by heart. Drmtsi watched him, then looked back at the TV screen. Then he made a command decision. He was going out on a mission; there was no telling what might happen out there. He turned back to Vrsk.

“Order two of this item,” he said.

TOBY CLIMBED QUIETLY through the window and into his bedroom. His plan was to sneak down to the basement, where he was supposed to be watching TV. But as he crossed his room, he heard the beep of an instant-message box popping up on his computer. He glanced at the screen and stopped when he read the message.

SecretAgentMan: Hello, Toby. Enjoying your suspension?

Toby’s first thought was that it had to be Micah or Tamara messing with him. But neither of his friends bothered with the formalities of capitalization, punctuation, or spelling when they IM’d. Besides, this was a new name on his Buddy List. How could someone have gotten onto his Buddy List without him putting them there? Toby frowned, then sat down at the computer and typed a response.

toby: who r u?

SecretAgentMan: I am the one person who can help you with your problems.

toby: wht do u mean?

SecretAgentMan: The plasma in your locker? The list you left on the principal’s desk? I think you know what I mean.

toby: but y? who *r* u?

SecretAgentMan: Go to Jungle Norman’s Pizza Party Place 30 minutes from now, at exactly 5:45. I will meet you there and give you proof of who is behind this.

toby: y shud i trust u?

SecretAgentMan: That is for you to decide. Stay suspended if you want. But if you want to resolve this, be at Jungle Norman’s at 5:45. Stand next to the gorilla. This is your only chance. I won’t make this offer again. Good-bye.

Before Toby could answer, SecretAgentMan signed off. Toby’s mind raced. SecretAgentMan could be the person behind the science-fair plot; he could be setting a trap. But he’d picked a very public place to make trouble. Besides, a trap could be laid both ways. Toby had just tried, and failed, to draw out whoever was behind all this; now maybe that very person was offering to meet him. And if SecretAgentMan had a trap planned, Toby figured he had a surprise or two of his own: the invisibility device and Sternabite.

Toby made up his mind: he’d go to Jungle Norman’s. As soon as SecretAgentMan revealed himself, Toby would press the sunglasses icon on the iPhone to summon Sternabite. If there was trouble, he’d also press the wand icon and disappear. And as a precaution, he’d let somebody know—somebody other than Sternabite—where he was going to be, so if worse came to worst they could tell his parents. Toby started to dial Micah’s cell phone but then changed his mind; Tamara was more levelheaded. She answered on the first ring.

“Are you calling to see if I still hate you?” she said. “Okay, since you ask, yes.”

Toby winced. “That’s not why I’m calling,” he whispered.

“Why are you whispering?”

“I don’t want my mom to hear. I need to tell you something.”

“Well, whatever it is, make it quick, so I can get back to doing nothing for the rest of my entire life except be grounded.”

Toby winced again. “Listen,” he said. “I’m going to Jungle Norman’s.”

“Is that why you called? I’m afraid I can’t join you, because, as I believe I mentioned, I’m grounded for the rest of my entire—”

“No,” interrupted Toby. “I just want somebody to know where I am, in case.”

“In case what?” said Tamara, her voice suddenly serious.

“In case…something happens,” said Toby.

“Like what?”

Toby briefly summarized Sternabite’s plan to draw the enemy out, Toby’s failure to get into the school, and his IM exchange with SecretAgentMan about the meeting at Jungle Norman’s.

“You’re not actually going to meet him, are you?” said Tamara.

“Yes, I am,” said Toby. “What if he can help us?”

“You can’t possibly think that’s for real! He’s obviously planning to do something bad to you!”

“Maybe,” said Toby. “But there’ll be tons of people around at Jungle Norman’s. And Sternabite’s gonna back me up.”

“Sternabite’s insane,” noted Tamara.

“Insane,” agreed Toby, “but smart. He gave me this device.”

“What device?”

“A device that makes me invisible.”

“What?”

“For real. It uses an iPhone.”

There was a pause, then Tamara said, “Have you been experimenting with your parents’ vitamin supplements?”

“Tamara, I swear, this thing is amazing! People can’t see you! Unless they’re wearing polarized sunglasses.”

“Sunglasses?” said Tamara.

“Really!” Toby looked at his watch. “Listen, I gotta go. If anything happens, remember I was going to Jungle Norman’s, okay?”

“Toby—”

“Gotta go.” Toby disconnected. The phone rang again almost immediately. Toby looked at the screen and saw it was Tamara calling back. He ignored it and went back out the window. He looked at his watch again: he had to be at Jungle Norman’s in twenty minutes. No way he’d make it on foot. He grabbed his bike, which was leaning against the side of the house, and hopped on. He was about to start pedaling when he realized that his mom might see him out the kitchen window. He decided he had no choice but to become invisible, even though this meant somebody might see the bike apparently riding by itself. He tapped the wand on the iPhone.

Next door, the Harbingers’ neighbor, Mrs. Penin, was having a glass of wine and watching the TV news. She glanced out the window and saw a bicycle pedaling furiously out of Milkwort Court.

She didn’t see anybody riding the bicycle.

Mrs. Penin rose, walked to the kitchen sink, and poured her wine down the drain.

INSIDE THE WHITE, government-issue Ford sedan parked across the street from the Shady Inn Motor Court, the mood was less than perky. The aroma wasn’t so great, either. The two FBI agents—Iles and Turow—had been living in the car for two days now, watching Room 17 and surviving mainly on Red Bull and Cheez-Its, food purchased from a nearby convenience store. They were tired, grumpy, and increasingly smelly.

They were also bored. Almost nothing had happened since they’d begun the stakeout. The only action had been the delivery of two boxes to the suspects’ motel room. Iles and Turow had reported this to their supervisor, hoping he would tell them to arrest the suspects or question the delivery man, or something. But he had ordered them to continue the stakeout. And so they had, taking turns sleeping and watching the door to Room 17, while their white shirts and dark suits slowly turned orange from Cheez-It dust.

Currently, Agent Turow was on duty, staring dully out the window and listening to Agent Iles snore. Turow wondered how his partner could sleep through the racket he was making; the man sounded like a defective chain saw.

Then the door to Room 17 opened.

“Hey,” said Turow, nudging Iles.

Iles sputtered awake. “What?”

Turow pointed at the door. Drmtsi and Vrsk were coming out of their room, surrounded by a billowing white cloud.

“Is that smoke?” asked Iles.

“Steam,” said Turow. “I hope.”

“What are they doing in there?” said Iles.

“No idea,” said Turow.

The agents slouched low in their car as Drmtsi and Vrsk headed across the parking lot in their direction. At the sidewalk, they turned toward the main street. When they reached it they hesitated, then turned right and set off at a brisk pace. Iles started the Ford and eased it away from the curb. Turow flipped his cell phone open and hit the speed dial.

“They’re moving on foot,” he said. “North on Fenster, toward downtown. Right. Okay.” He closed the phone, turned to Iles, and said, “He said to stay with them.”

“Duh,” said Iles. He turned right on the main street, staying about twenty-five yards behind Drmtsi and Vrsk, who were still walking fast.

“You snore, you know,” said Turow.

“That’s what my wife says,” said Iles. “I don’t hear it.”

“I think people in Baltimore could hear it.”

“It’s that bad? Really?”

Turow was about to answer when his phone chirped. He flipped it open. “Hello?”

Turow listened for a few moments, then said, “Still northbound on Fenster Avenue. Uh-huh.” He said “Uhhuh” a few more times, then “Okay,” and he flipped the phone closed.

“Whoa,” he said.

“What?” said Iles.

“The bureau got a call,” said Turow. “Anonymous, from a pay phone around here. The caller says these two”—he pointed at Drmtsi and Vrsk—“are trafficking in classified technology. Highly classified. Caller says they’re on their way to an exchange right now.”

Iles snorted. “Classified technology? These clowns? It has to be a hoax.”

“That’s what they thought at the Bureau,” said Turow. “Except the caller gave them the name and serial number of some kind of highly specialized computer chip. So the Bureau checked it out with the Defense Department. And guess what.”

“It’s real?”

“It’s not only real, but it’s supposed to be top secret. And guess what else?”

Iles opened his mouth to speak, but Turow answered his own question. “The chip with that particular serial number is missing. Nobody is supposed to know that. So Defense is very interested in this. Very.”

“Whoa,” said Iles. “So what do we do now?”

“First,” said Turow, “we do not lose these guys.”

Iles drove the Ford a little faster.

“Easy,” said Turow. “We also don’t want to spook them. If there’s gonna be an exchange, we let it happen.”

“Then we take them down?” said Iles hopefully. A high-profile espionage arrest could do a lot of good for an FBI agent’s career.

“Dream on,” said Turow. “Everyone wants a piece of this. Half the Bureau’s gonna be here in five minutes, not to mention about nineteen other agencies.”

“Oh, man,” said Iles, looking down at his Cheez-It-colored suit. “All that brass coming, and we look like traffic cones.”

“We don’t smell so great either,” said Turow.

“Look,” said Iles. “They’re stopping.”

Drmtsi and Vrsk had stopped in front of a strip shopping center in the middle of which was a large building whose walls were covered with mucus-colored fiberglass panels. Apparently, the panels were supposed to look like grass, so that the building resembled a giant mutant grass hut. A fiberglass giraffe poked its long neck through the roof, its grinning giraffe head hovering over a huge neon sign that read, JUNGLE NORMAN’S PIZZA PARTY PLACE.

Drmtsi and Vrsk studied the building for a moment, then crossed the parking lot and went inside. Turow grabbed his cell phone and hit the speed dial again.

“It’s Turow,” he said. “Hey, we just observed the suspects entering twenty-thirty-eight North Fenster. An establishment called Jungle Norman’s. Yes. J-u-n-g-l-e.” He listened for a moment, nodded, then said, “Copy that.” He closed the phone.

“Copy what?” said Iles.

“We’re going to cover the exits,” said Turow. “I’ll take the back. We are not to enter the premises, not to engage the suspects until directed.”

Iles said a bad word.

Turow said, “There’s an insertion team in a chopper on its way.” As he spoke, they heard the whup-whup-whup of an approaching helicopter.

“That was fast,” said Iles, yanking the Ford over to the curb. The two agents quickly climbed out. Turow headed around back of the shopping center; Iles jogged toward the front door of Jungle Norman’s. As they ran, both men brushed their dark suits, trying, without much success, to get rid of the Cheez-It dust.

IT WAS A TYPICAL FRIDAY EVENING at Jungle Norman’s Pizza Party Place, meaning it was a cross between a school recess and a prison riot. There were fourteen birthday parties going on simultaneously, and the huge room echoed with the earsplitting din of dozens of sugar-crazed children running, shoving, laughing, shouting, shrieking, crying, and fighting for turns on the various video games, at least half of which were out of order.

Toby, having made himself visible again, covered his ears as he picked his way through the chaos toward a group of long tables swarming with more shrieking kids and tended by harried waiters wearing safari outfits. The tables were littered with pizza crusts, fries, ketchup blobs, spilled drinks, and giant gooey smears that had once been birthday cakes. An air war had erupted between two of the tables, with a party of eight-year-old boys hurling chicken nuggets at a party of seven-year-old boys, who retaliated by throwing cupcakes, one of which had just knocked the princess tiara off the head of a sobbing five-year-old birthday girl at a third table. Parents at all three of these tables were shouting at their children, at other people’s children, and at the parents of other people’s children. None of this shouting had any effect on anybody.

The tables were grouped around a low stage, on which was Toby’s objective, the centerpiece attraction of the Jungle Norman experience: the Jivin’ Jungle Jammers. This was a band made up of five large, brightly colored robot animals: Ernest Elephant on drums, Harriet Hippo on keyboards, Gina Giraffe on guitar, Leon Lion on saxophone, and Gordon Gorilla, the MC and lead singer, who wore a purple top hat. Every few minutes the band would come to life and go through its computerized routine. First, Gordon Gorilla told some stunningly unfunny jungle jokes. (“Why are bananas never lonely? Because they hang around in bunches!”) Then the band performed “Happy Birthday,” followed by some songs that had been popular, or at least vaguely familiar, several decades earlier, when Jungle Norman’s had first opened.

As Toby neared the stage, the Jivin’ Jungle Jammers were performing an anemic version of the Pointer Sisters’ “Jump (For My Love).” A wedge of pepperoni pizza soared gracefully over three party tables and landed on Harriet Hippo’s nose. Toby, remembering SecretAgentMan’s instruction, got as close as he could to Gordon Gorilla. He turned and quickly ducked as a cupcake whizzed past. Then, with his back to the stage, he scanned the crowd, not sure what or who he was looking for. He glanced down to make sure he had the iPhone clipped to his belt; he hoped the fragile fiber-optic filaments hadn’t been damaged as he pushed his way through the crowd. He resumed scanning, watching, waiting.

“Toby!”

Toby, startled, turned and saw Tamara and Micah working their way through the crowd toward him.

“What are you doing here?” he said, as they reached the stage.

“We’re here for the pizza,” said Micah. He pointed at the slice on Harriet Hippo’s nose. “Is anybody eating that?”

Toby looked at Tamara. “I told you not to come.”

“Right,” said Tamara. “And your plans have been working out so well.”

“But your parents…”

“They already grounded us for life,” said Micah. “What’re they gonna do, ground us for the afterlife?”

Toby allowed himself a small grin. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks for coming. You guys’re good friends.”

“Shut up,” said Micah.

“No, really,” said Toby. “I mean it.”

“Me, too,” said Micah. “Shut up.”

“Enough,” said Tamara. “Have you seen your mystery guy?”

“Not that I know of.”

“So what’s your plan?” said Tamara.

“I’m supposed to stand by the gorilla,” said Toby.

As he spoke, the Jivin’ Jungle Jammers, having finished “Jump (For My Love),” launched into “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog.”

“Maybe,” said Micah, “he’s planning to kill your brain cells with this music.”

“Who’re those guys?” said Tamara. She pointed at two men working their way through the crowd. One was young, thin, and intense-looking; the other was older and heftier, with a thick beard. Both men wore ill-fitting brown polyester suits festooned with stains. Both looked overwhelmed by the chaotic mobs of children swirling around them.

“They don’t look like birthday boys, either,” said Toby.

“They’re coming toward us,” said Tamara.

As the men approached, Toby glanced down at the iPhone clipped to his belt. He located the sunglasses icon that would, he hoped, summon Sternabite.

“Okay,” he said to Tamara and Micah. “Let me handle this.”

“Handle what?” said Tamara.

“I have no idea,” said Toby.

“It is food!” Vrsk said to Drmtsi, in Krpsht. “They are throwing food!” Such a thing would never happen in Krpshtskan. For one thing, food there was scarce; for another thing, what food there was tended to be heavy.

“Really?” said Drmtsi. Like Vrsk, he had eaten nothing but smerk for days; there was only a little left in his pants. “They are throwing food?” As he spoke, a half-eaten, ketchup-drenched nugget landed on his lapel. He picked it off, sniffed it, and ate it. “Not bad,” he said.

They were almost to the gorilla, which was singing about joy to the world. Vrsk scanned the crowd, looking for Prmkt. But the only people near the singing gorilla were three teenagers, who stared at Vrsk and Drmtsi as they approached.

“They’re coming right at us,” said Tamara.

“Yeah, I can see that,” said Toby.

“What is that smell?” said Micah.

Tamara sniffed, wrinkled her nose, and said, “I think it’s coming from the fat guy’s pants.”

“That is gross,” said Micah.

Vrsk and Drmtsi reached the edge of the stage. The teenagers watched them closely, but nobody else at Jungle Norman’s seemed to be paying any attention. Drmtsi, showing excellent quickness for a man his size, caught a slice of pizza in midair and took a bite.

“Where is Prmkt?” he said in Krpsht, through a mouthful of cheese.

“Prmkt said he will come to us when we give the special signal,” said Vrsk.

“What is the special signal again?” said Drmtsi, taking another bite.

“We lift the hat of the singing gorilla,” said Vrsk.

Drmtsi, chewing, studied Gordon the Gorilla for a few seconds, then made a command decision.

“You do it,” he said.

Jungle Norman’s Pizza Party Place was now swarming with heavily armed federal agents wearing black SWAT-team uniforms. Most were from the FBI, but there were also personnel from a half-dozen other agencies, including two men who were with the CIA, although if questioned they would claim they were with the Department of Agriculture. The various agents had formed a perimeter around the stage area, taking cover behind video games. A few parents and staff members had noticed them but thought they were there to entertain one of the birthday groups. In the general wildness of Jungle Norman’s, the agents had not yet created much of a stir.

The agents were under the command of a veteran field operative named Blount. He was monitoring the situation on night-vision binoculars from behind the Dance Dance Revolution machine. Blount raised his wrist to his mouth and spoke quietly into a microphone, which would transmit his voice to earpieces worn by the agents inside, as well as those outside on the barricaded street and others in cars and in the helicopters—there were now four of them—hovering overhead.

“The two individuals have approached the gorilla,” he said. “There are three other individuals in the vicinity of the gorilla. We wait for the exchange, people. I repeat, we wait for the exchange. We move only on my command.”

Both Agent Turow and Agent Iles clipped their FBI identification shields to their orange-crusted suit coats at about the same time. On opposite sides of the same building, they grabbed the door handles, ready to rush inside. They’d spent two days following these suspects; they wanted to be part of the takedown.

Toby, Tamara, and Micah watched as Vrsk put his foot up on the stage, as if preparing to get on it. The man looked around nervously. Toby was convinced this guy and his friend had something to do with the IMs he’d received. Why else would he be here, hanging around the gorilla?

Vrsk now was up on the stage. His eyes scanned the crowd and met Toby’s. Toby made a decision and stepped up on the stage with him.

“Are you looking for me?” Toby asked.

“What?” said Vrsk. “Who? Me?”

“Are you SecretAgentMan?”

“Who are you?” said Vrsk. He said it in Krpsht, so it came out sort of like spitting.

“Hey!” said Toby, wiping off his shirt. Tamara and Micah quickly climbed up onto the stage to back up their friend.

“Sorry,” said Vrsk, switching to English.

Now Drmtsi was also clambering up onto the stage. “Who is this?” he said in Krpsht, waving his pizza slice at Toby.

“Hey!” shouted a voice from the crowd. “You’re not allowed on the stage!”

Toby, Tamara, Micah, Vrsk, and Drmtsi looked down to see a waiter in a safari outfit glaring at them.

“I said, off the stage!” the waiter hollered over the music. “You’re not allowed to…uhhh.”

The waiter staggered sideways as his right buttock was penetrated by a small but potent tranquilizer dart fired from behind a Skee-Ball machine by an FBI sharpshooter acting on orders from Field Commander Blount. As the five people on the stage watched, the waiter staggered sideways with a puzzled look on his face, smiled, then slumped into a chair, unconscious and drooling.

Toby turned back to Vrsk and repeated, “Are you SecretAgentMan?”

“What is boy saying?” Drmtsi asked Vrsk, indicating Toby.

“He is asking if I am a secret agent,” said Vrsk.

“Admit nothing!” said Drmtsi. “Tell him we are tourists.”

“We are tourists,” Vrsk said to Toby.

“Smerk?” said Drmtsi, smiling at Toby and his friends while reaching into his pants.

“Ick!” said Tamara.

The drama on the stage had started to attract attention. People were pointing; several more safari-outfitted waiters were coming. Vrsk sensed that things were getting out of hand.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I must go to gorilla.” Pushing Toby aside, he started toward Gordon Gorilla, who had just launched into the Jivin’ Jungle Jammer’s big finale, Lee Greenwood’s patriotic anthem “God Bless the USA.”

“Wait a minute,” said Toby, grabbing Vrsk’s arm. “Who are you? Why are you here? Do you know Mr. P?”

“Please to let go!” said Vrsk. He struggled toward the gorilla, with Toby still tugging on his arm. Tamara and Micah stepped forward to help Toby. Drmtsi stepped forward to help Vrsk. Vrsk, determined to carry out his mission, dragged Toby to Gordon Gorilla, reached up with his free hand, and lifted the top hat. It took some effort—the hat was attached to Gordon’s head with duct tape—but it popped off. A small package wrapped in brown paper, which had been concealed under the hat, fell out and tumbled onto Gordon Gorilla’s shoulder. Vrsk grabbed for the package, but at that instant Gordon Gorilla sang “I’d proudly stand UP!” and raised his powerful robotic right arm to wave an American flag. Gordon’s fist slammed into Vrsk’s jaw, and Vrsk went down like a sack of rocks. As he fell, Toby reflexively grabbed the tumbling package.

That was all Field Commander Blount needed to see.

“GO!” he yelled into his wrist microphone. “GO! GO! GOGOGO!”

In an instant, Jungle Norman’s became even louder and more chaotic than it usually is, as two dozen agents charged. One of them went down immediately as he ran face-first into the path of an entire airborne basket of nachos. Another hit a nasty patch of vanilla frosting on the floor and lost control, slamming into two other agents, the three of them knocking down a row of classic Space Invaders games, which fell like dominos, one crashing into another, video tubes exploding, glass shards flying everywhere. There was some applause, which quickly changed to shouts and screams as excited partygoers and their parents realized this wasn’t a show. The crowd dove frantically out of the way of the burly black-clad men charging the stage, where Gordon Gorilla and the Jivin’ Jungle Jammers were hitting the dramatic final notes of “God Bless the USA.”

The humans on the stage—Toby, Tamara, Micah, and Drmtsi (Vrsk was on the floor, unconscious)—watched in stunned incomprehension, still as stones, as the first wave of men reached them and, without slowing down, tackled them. They went down like bowling pins, only faster; Toby lost hold of the package. Tamara managed a short scream, but that was the only sound any of them had time to make before they were lying under a minimum of two agents apiece, unable to breathe, let alone shout.

In seconds their hands were behind their backs as all of them, including Vrsk, were handcuffed. Toby, his face smushed against the stage, watched as one of the agents picked up the package he’d been holding, shouting, “I got it! I got it!” He pointed at Toby. “This one here had it.”

“That’s not mine!” Toby said, fighting to get the words out with two agents—Turow and Iles—sitting on him.

“But you were holding it,” said Iles.

“But I don’t even know what it is,” said Toby.

“We’ll sort that out later,” said Turow.

“But what did we do?” said Toby. “What is this about?”

“We’ll sort that out later, too,” said Turow. Toby felt the weight come off him as Iles pulled him to his feet. He looked around the vast room. It was emptying quickly as the partygoers and their parents streamed toward the front door, leaving a chaotic mess of overturned chairs and tables, with food and drink spilled everywhere. At the front door, a TV crew was forcing its way in past the crowd, lights blazing. Some agents ran to intercept it, but the camera was aimed at the stage already, focusing on Toby and the others in handcuffs.

“This can’t be happening!” said Tamara. “I have to be home in twenty minutes! My parents think I’m in my room!”

“They’ll probably stop thinking that when they see you on TV,” said Micah, nodding toward the camera.

“Ohmigod,” said Tamara. “Ohmigod, we’re on TV. Toby, what’s gonna happen? What are we gonna do?”

Toby looked at his friends.

“I don’t know,” he said. His eyes were burning. He looked down at the floor.

“I don’t know,” he said again.

INSIDE TOBY’S HOUSE ON MILKWORT COURT,

Fawn Harbinger was in the kitchen cooking dinner, which involved pickled seaweed. She poked her head through the doorway to the family room, where Toby’s dad was reclining on his recliner, watching the local news.

“Roger,” she said, “could you please call Toby up for dinner? He’s in the basement watching TV.”

“Just a second,” said Roger. “The helicopters we’re hearing?” He pointed at the TV. “Look at this.”

Fawn moved closer to the screen, which had the words LIVE AND BREAKING across the bottom. She frowned as she recognized the building.

“Isn’t that Jungle Norman’s?” she said.

“Yup,” said Roger. “There’s some kind of huge federal raid going on. There are FBI agents and SWAT guys all over the place.”

“That’s less than two miles from here!” she said. “What on earth happened?”

“No one’s saying much.” Roger threw a lever, and the recliner lurched forward, nearly ejecting him. “The reporter said the FBI allegedly busted some kind of spy ring that was stealing defense secrets.”

“At Jungle Norman’s?” she said.

“I know!” said Roger.

As he spoke, the TV news camera showed four men coming out the front door of Jungle Norman’s beneath the giraffe head, carrying something large toward an FBI van. The image jumped around for a few seconds, as the camera person was jostled by the mob of newspeople shoving each other for a closer look. Finally the camera stabilized, and Roger and Fawn got a look at what the agents were carrying.

“Is that the singing gorilla?” said Fawn.

Roger nodded. “Gordon,” he said.

“But why on earth would—”

Roger held up his hand and said, “They’re bringing out the suspects.”

There were shouts, and again the image went jerky. For a moment, Roger and Fawn could see only a blur of bodies and faces. And then, all at once, there he was, filling the screen.

“Ohmigod,” said Roger.

“Toby!” screamed Fawn, staggering backward.

Their son was being half carried through the surging crowd by two men in dark suits flecked with orange dust. For just a moment, Toby’s pale and terrified face filled the screen. The next shot showed him being hustled into the van along with Gordon Gorilla. The van doors were slammed shut and the van roared away. The camera swung back to pick up…

“That’s Micah and Tamara!” Fawn gasped.

They were being hustled toward a second van. But by then Roger and Fawn were no longer looking at the screen; they were staring at each other, speechless, their faces slack with shock. Finally, Fawn found words.

“He was supposed to be in the basement,” she said.

“Yeah?” said Roger. “Well, guess what?”

GRDANKL, THE STRONG president for life, lumbered unhappily into the bunker deep beneath the presidential palace. Waiting for him were his first, second, and third vice presidents, who were gathered around the lone working computer in the Republic of Krpshtskan. They appeared nervous.

“Well?” said Grdankl the Strong.

The first and second vice presidents stared at the third vice president, indicating that he was going to have to do the talking. He cleared his throat and said, “The red flag is up.”

“What red flag?” said Grdankl the Strong.

“On the little mailbox,” said the third vice president, pointing to the computer screen. Grdankl leaned over and frowned at the mailbox, then rose up, looking displeased.

“You disturbed my presidential nap for this?” he said.

The first and second vice presidents edged away from the third vice president, who quickly said, “The flag means we have e-mail.”

“How do you know this?” said Grdankl.

“Vrsk told me,” said the first vice president. Vrsk had given him a hasty lesson on the computer before leaving for America with Drmtsi.

Grdankl nodded. “E-mail,” he said. “It must be from Prmkt. What does it say?”

“In order to read it,” said the third vice president, “we must first open it.”

“Then open it!” said Grdankl the Strong.

All eyes were now on the third vice president, who was sweating as he tried to remember his lesson.

“To open it,” he said, “we must press on the mailbox.”

As the others watched, Grdankl the Strong reached toward the screen and aimed for the little mailbox, pressing a meaty, sausage-shaped forefinger against the glass of the computer monitor. Nothing happened. Grdankl glared at the third vice president, who was sweating harder now as he racked his brain, trying to remember.…

“The mouse!” he said, startling the others.

“What mouse?” said Grdankl, looking at the floor.

“Here,” said the third vice president, pointing at the computer mouse. “We must use this to press on the mailbox.”

Grdankl the Strong picked up the mouse and pressed it against the computer screen.

“No!” said the third vice president, quickly adding, “What I mean to say, Your Supreme Democratically Elected Excellency, is that you do it like this.” He gently took the mouse from Grdankl the Strong, set it on the computer table, and slid it back and forth. “See? It moves this little arrow on the screen.”

Grdankl looked at the mouse, then at the arrow. “It is a stupid system,” he said.

“Yes,” agreed the third vice president. “Stupid.” He put the arrow over the mailbox and pressed the mouse button. An e-mail header appeared on the screen. “Your Exalted Highness is correct,” he said. “It is from Prmkt.” He clicked on the header, and the e-mail filled the screen.

“Let me see,” said Grdankl. He leaned forward and read the e-mail slowly, his lips moving. He grunted in surprise, then read some more. When he was done, he faced his vice presidents.

“Drmtsi and Vrsk have been captured by the Americans,” he said. “In a jungle.”

The vice presidents gasped.

“America has a jungle?” asked the first vice president.

“Yes,” said Grdankl the Strong. “It is called Norman.”

The vice presidents nodded.

“What will the Americans do to Drmtsi and Vrsk?” asked the first vice president.

“They will hang them by their ears,” said Grdankl, “and poke them with sticks.” Grdankl did not know this for a fact, but it’s what he would have done.

“It is terrible!” said the second vice president.

“Yes,” agreed Grdankl, although he did not seem particularly upset.

“Does this mean,” the first vice president said cautiously, “that our plan to destroy America has failed?”

Grdankl the Strong smiled. “No,” he said. “The Americans think they have stopped the plan. But Prmkt”—Grdankl pointed at the e-mail—“says they do not know the real plan. Everything is still in place. We will still destroy the United States.”

“Excellent!” said the first vice president.

“But…” the second vice president began.

“But what?” said Grdankl the Strong.

“What about Drmtsi and Vrsk?” said the second vice president.

Grdankl the Strong waved his hand, indicating this was not a major problem. “I will name something for them. A street, perhaps. A nice one, without too many mud holes.”

The vice presidents applauded the generosity of Grdankl the Strong. He bowed, graciously acknowledging their praise. Then he sat down in front of the computer screen, put his hand on the mouse, and turned to the third vice president.

“Now show me,” he said, “how to find Catwoman.”

A KEY TURNED IN THE LOCK of the cell door, startling Toby out of his snooze. He jerked up and said a bad word when, for the fifth or sixth time, he banged his forehead into the ceiling only inches from his face.

Toby was in the upper bunk of a bunk bed in a cell in a building somewhere near Washington, although he had no idea where. Micah was sleeping in the lower bunk. The other bunk bed in the small cell was occupied by the two weird foreign guys who had been arrested with them at Jungle Norman’s. Toby was pretty sure that the cell had microphones and cameras hidden in it and that the feds had put them all together so they would talk. But they hadn’t talked, because the weird foreign guys were not good at English. They also emitted a funky odor: the cell smelled like a cross between old cheese and dirty laundry.

Both foreign guys were snoring. The big foreign guy was in the upper bunk, where he had insisted on sleeping even though it took him five minutes to climb up there. The little foreign guy was in the lower bunk; he had a bandage on his chin where he’d been decked by Gordon, the singing robot gorilla.

Toby glanced at the clock: it was almost noon. They’d been in the cell a few hours after being kept up all night getting fingerprinted and questioned. The feds had taken away their belts and personal belongings—including Toby’s special iPhone and the special hat. Then the suspects were placed in this cell and instructed to get some sleep. Thanks to the snoring, Toby hadn’t gotten much.

The door opened, and in came FBI Agent Turow, who apparently had not gotten much sleep either. His face was stubbled with beard growth; he still had orange dust on his suit. Wrinkling his nose at the smell in the cell, he nudged Micah and the two foreign guys.

“Wake up,” he said. “Time to move.”

“Move to where?” said Toby.

“Interrogation,” said Turow.

“Again?” said Toby.

“Oh, yes,” said Turow, with the hint of a smile, but not a friendly one. “There’s gonna be lots more.”

“I want to talk to my parents,” Toby said.

“Me, too,” said Micah, adding, “I don’t mean I want to talk to Toby’s parents. I want to talk to my parents. But if I can’t talk to mine, I want to at least talk to his. But I’d rather talk to—”

Turow cut Micah off. “As I told you both last night,” he said, “your parents have been contacted. They know you’re in custody. You’ll see them later.”

“How much later?” said Toby.

“Later,” said Turow.

“Where are we?” said Micah.

“You’re in a government facility, in what we like to call an undisclosed location,” said Turow.

“But don’t we…” began Toby, “I mean, don’t we get to talk to a lawyer?”

“Where’d you get that idea?” said Turow. “From TV?”

“Yes,” admitted Toby.

“Well, guess what, Toby?” said Turow. “This isn’t TV. This is real life, and in real life you don’t get to talk to a lawyer if it’s deemed a matter of national security.”

Toby blinked. “National security?” he said.

“Oh, yes,” said Turow. “Call us a crazy federal law-enforcement agency, but when we at the FBI find somebody holding stolen highly classified defense technology, which he’s apparently passing to two foreign nationals, we become curious.”

“But I told you!” said Toby. “We don’t know these guys! We never saw them before! I only went to Jungle Norman’s because of the…”

“Right, I know, the instant messages,” said Turow. “Except you can’t tell us who sent them.”

“But it’s true,” said Toby. “Somebody IM’d me, and whoever it was is planning…”

“I know,” said Turow. “He’s gonna do something terrible at your school science fair. Except you don’t know what.”

“But…”

“Save it,” said Turow. “You’ll have plenty of time to try to explain. Days, in fact.”

“But the science fair is tonight,” said Toby.

“Looks like you’re gonna miss it,” said Turow.

“But…”

“Save it,” snapped Turow. He pointed to the door. “Let’s go, gentlemen.”

The little weird foreign guy on the lower bunk said something to the big weird foreign guy in the upper bunk. The big guy said something back. The language they used made them sound as though they were just about to hawk up major loogies, but they never actually did. They both climbed out of their bunks. This was a major effort for the big guy, who seemed to be the main source of the odor, emitting powerful stink rays from his pants. When he finally had both feet on the floor, he turned to Turow and said something, sounding pretty angry. The little guy translated it.

“Fourth Vice President Drmtsi demands to speak immediately to a representative of the embassy of Krpshtskan,” he said.

Turow nodded and said, “Mister…Vrsk, is it? Did I say that correctly?”

“Vrsk, yes.”

“Here’s the thing, Mr. Vrsk,” continued Turow. “There isn’t any Krpshtskan embassy here in the United States.”

“Is not?” said Vrsk.

“Is not,” said Turow. “Believe me, we checked. We also tried to call your country and speak to the authorities there, but we haven’t been able to reach anybody.”

Vrsk nodded. The phone system in Krpshtskan was unreliable because people kept using the telephone poles for firewood.

“Please tell Vice President Drmtsi we will keep trying,” said Turow.

Vrsk translated this to Drmtsi, who said something back. Vrsk turned to Turow and said, “Fourth Vice President Drmtsi demands to know where is credit card.”

“Tell him it’s in a safe place,” said Turow.

Again Vrsk translated. Drmtsi answered at length. Somewhat reluctantly, Vrsk turned to Turow and said, “Fourth Vice President Drmtsi says he requires card for TV shopping peoples show. Very good price coming on machine for to make fodge.”

“Fodge?” said Turow.

“Yes, fodge,” said Vrsk.

“I think he means fudge,” said Micah.

“Yes,” said Vrsk. “Fodge.”

Agent Turow rubbed his tired, stubbled face with both hands. “Listen,” he said. “Right now, you cannot watch TV, and you cannot have your personal belongings. Right now, you are going to be interrogated. I must insist that all of you come with me.”

Vrsk translated this, and the four cell mates trooped reluctantly into the hall, where a half dozen largish agents were waiting, apparently ready to help Turow if there was trouble. Toby, as casually as he could, stuck a hand into his back pocket; he felt the two backup coils of thin fiberoptic cable. He wiggled his toes: the insoles were still in place.

But he needed the phone and the hat. They’d been taken when he and the others had been brought into this building—wherever it was—the night before. The feds had stopped them at what looked like a reception counter and made them put their possessions into manila envelopes. Toby wondered where those envelopes were now, and how he could get to them.

Accompanied by their large escorts, the four cell mates trooped down the corridor. They stopped at another cell. The door opened and Tamara came out, accompanied by an agent whose ID badge said IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION, and under that, LEFKON. Tamara looked exhausted, and her eyes were red from crying, but she managed a wan smile when she saw Toby and Micah.

“You know,” she said, “I used to think the worst thing that could happen would be if I got detention.”

Toby managed to smile back and was about to say something when Turow nudged him forward. The group continued down the corridor into a large room, which Toby realized was the reception area. As they passed the counter, Toby noticed that there was a small room behind the receptionist. On the door, which stood ajar, there was a red cross; apparently it was a first-aid station. Inside the room, Toby could see a supply cabinet, a sink, a cot, a chair, and a small desk. On the desk was a plastic box containing a stack of manila envelopes. Toby’s heart leaped; they looked like the envelopes the feds had used to hold the prisoners’ possessions.

They were past the reception desk now, but Toby’s thoughts were still focused on the first-aid room. If he could get in there, get his hat and phone…

“In here,” said Turow, opening a door. The five prisoners trooped into what looked like a conference room. In the center was a long table surrounded by eight chairs. On a sideboard was a pitcher of orange juice, some plastic cups, and a plate of muffins.

“You’ll wait here,” said Turow. “We’ll be back for you in a bit.” He closed the door, and the room echoed with the click of a dead bolt sliding home.

Drmtsi and Vrsk headed straight for the food. Each man took a muffin and, while chewing it, stuffed several more into his pockets. Tamara, Micah, and Toby stood looking at each other.

“We gotta get out of here,” said Micah.

Toby shook his head and pointed at the ceiling. Micah looked up.

“What?” he said.

Toby pantomimed a video camera.

“What are you doing?” said Micah.

Toby sighed.

“He’s pantomiming a video camera,” said Tamara.

“Why would he do that?” said Micah.

“Because they’re watching us, you moron,” said Tamara.

“Ah,” said Micah. He winked at Tamara and Toby, then, aiming his voice at the ceiling, said, too loudly, “Well, we certainly aren’t planning to get out of here!”

Toby and Tamara rolled their eyes.

“What?” said Micah. “I don’t really mean it. I’m just saying it for the…”

“Just shut up, okay?” said Toby.

“Okay,” said Micah, looking hurt.

Toby sat down and drummed his fingers on the table, trying to force his tired brain to think. If he could get to the first-aid station behind the reception desk…

Toby sat up straight.

The first-aid station.

He looked toward Tamara and Micah, who had gone over to the side table with Vrsk and Drmtsi and were helping themselves to juice and muffins. Trying to keep his voice calm, Toby said, “Hey, Micah, Tamara—either of you guys have any gum?”

“Nope,” said Micah.

“I don’t chew gum,” said Tamara.

Toby slumped in his chair. So much for his brilliant plan.

“Excuse me?”

Toby looked up: Vrsk was speaking to him.

“Did you say gom?” said Vrsk, through a mouthful of muffin.

“Gum, yes,” said Toby.

“I have gom,” said Vrsk.

Vrsk reached into his pocket and pulled out a small package. On it, in several languages, were the words “Air Zerkistan.”

THE GYMNASIUM OF HUBBLE MIDDLE SCHOOL was humming. Literally. Motors were whirring, keyboards were clicking, lights were flickering, and the air itself seemed to buzz with tension as students worked frantically to get their science-fair projects ready before the deadline.

At four p.m. sharp, Mr. P would blow a whistle, then throw the master switch that cut off the power to the outlets. The gym would be cleared, closed, and locked. At six p.m., the students, along with parents, teachers, and school administrators, would gather outside on the ball field for what had become a major Hubble tradition and the much-anticipated highlight of the school year.

All eyes and ears would turn skyward, awaiting the dramatic arrival of the TranScent Corp. helicopter, which would land near second base. Billionaire scientist/businessman/celebrity Lance Swingle would emerge from the chopper, waving to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd. After greeting the dignitaries, Swingle would lead the throng into the gym and take his place at the podium set up next to the master switch. There he would make what the official program described hopefully as “brief remarks,” although they usually lasted quite a while, as Swingle loved to tell the story of how he overcame many obstacles and was able to succeed because of hard work and because of being, with all due modesty, a genius.

When Swingle was finally done, he would turn to the master switch, and, with a dramatic flourish, flip it up to the “on” position. Instantly, the science fair would come spectacularly to life. Then Swingle, accompanied by a clot of science teachers, would personally inspect the projects. With the inspection completed, they would confer, although this was really for show, as only one opinion counted. And then Swingle would, with great drama—he loved drama—announce the winner. The lucky student would come forward and, as cameras flashed, receive a check from Swingle.

This year the check would be worth $5,000, a fact that was on the mind of every student in the gym. Many of them were still fiddling with their projects when the big clock on the wall clicked off the last minute to four. A shrill blast echoed through the gym as Mr. P blew his whistle. A second later, he grabbed the master switch on the wall and flipped it down. The project lights went off; the motors stopped whirring. Within ten minutes, all the students and teachers were gone. The doors were locked. The gym was empty.

Except for Prmkt.

Using his key, he entered through the side door of the gym. He carried a cheap vinyl athletic bag. It contained a coil of thick black cable, a flashlight, tape, rubber gloves, and tools. He walked down a long row of exhibit tables passing a variety of projects, including three, which were standing side-by-side, titled: DEATH BY PACKAGING, THE FLOATING FROG, and NUCLEAR MENTOS.

Prmkt paid no attention to these. His objective was a group of four projects, all submitted by idiotic, spoiled ME students who had no idea what the projects really were. These projects really looked as though they’d been made by middle-schoolers—they had loose wires, paint smears, scratches, excess glue blobs, and misspelled words in the explanations. But this was camouflage to fool the judges, part of the service provided by the Science Nook.

In the quiet of the gym, Prmkt quickly examined the four projects. When he was done, he allowed himself a small smile. The Science Nook, as in previous years, had followed his plans exactly. Of course, in previous years, the projects were harmless. They were clever and technically sophisticated; that’s why they won awards. But they posed no threat to anyone.

These four projects were different. These were the result of years of patient research and careful planning by Prmkt. He had designed the projects on two levels. On the surface, they were scientific demonstrations that were educational, if a bit silly. But each project had far greater hidden capabilities, made possible by the technology supplied by the foolish ME parents, thinking they were helping their idiotic, spoiled children.

When the projects were linked together, as they would be shortly, their hidden capabilities would be networked and amplified, and they would become something altogether different: a hugely powerful, highly sophisticated weapon. It would be a weapon unlike any ever built—a weapon against which there was no defense; a weapon that would bring the mighty United States to its knees, groveling for mercy before Krpshtskan.

Prmkt smiled again, thinking about it, savoring the cleverness of his plan. He was confident now that it would work. He had been concerned when the student Toby Harbinger and his two friends had somehow become suspicious and tried to warn Principal Plotz-Gornett. He had been even more concerned when Grdankl the Strong had sent his idiot brother Drmtsi and Vrsk to the United States to “help.”

But Prmkt had dealt with both of these threats, decisively and cleverly. He had, by planting the plasma in the boy’s locker, managed to make the boy himself the object of the investigation, at the same time taking advantage of the fire-drill distraction to retrieve the project list from the principal’s office and return it to the Science Nook. He had, even more cleverly, managed to send both the boy and his countrymen to Jungle Norman’s, where they were caught with the classified chip that had been planted by Prmkt, who had also called the FBI.

He had overcome all the obstacles. Nobody would stop him now; nobody was intelligent enough to even suspect what he was up to. He was sure that the Science Nook proprietor, Sternabite—clever as he was—had no concept of the true capabilities of the devices he had built. All Sternabite cared about was getting his money. As for the foolish ME parents and their idiotic, spoiled children, all that mattered for them was winning the stupid science fair and getting a check they didn’t need.

But there would be no winner this year and no check. When the blowhard billionaire Lance Swingle threw the master switch to start the science fair, he would instead be starting Prmkt’s machine. After that would come chaos.

Prmkt opened the athletic bag and began removing the tools and the roll of cable. He knew exactly what he needed to do; he had rehearsed this a thousand times in his mind. He uncoiled the cable, went to the four projects one by one, and carefully connected them together.

He began with the project submitted by Jason Niles. It was titled TERMITE FLATULENCE: POWER SOURCE OF TOMORROW. It looked a like a high-tech ant farm: a large metal box filled with dirt and rotting lumber, the front side of which was made of glass to show the termites inside busily eating tunnels through the wood. Atop the farm was a small, clear-plastic box containing a series of tubes and some crude-looking wiring—allegedly soldered by Jason—that connected various basic electrical components. Sitting atop this was a single glowing five-watt lightbulb. According to the project explanation, the termites, as they digested the wood, produced methane gas, which was collected by the apparatus on top and converted, by a process called “oxidative coupling,” into electricity, which powered the bulb.

This explanation was a lie. In fact, hidden behind the wood and dirt was the world’s smallest neutron generator, a top-secret experimental prototype being developed by the military for use by troops in remote areas that lacked electricity. This generator was powering the lightbulb. But it could produce a lot more than five watts; it could power a small city.

Prmkt carefully connected the cable to Jason’s project, then, routing it under the table, moved to the project submitted by Farrell “The Ferret” Plinkett, titled A PRACTICAL SOLUTION TO CELL-PHONE NOISE POLLUTION. It consisted of a lifelike female department-store dummy inside a crude box made of Plexiglas. The dummy’s mouth had been replaced by a small speaker; wires ran from this speaker to a volume knob on the outside of the box. Next to the speaker was a decibel meter, and next to that was an older model cell phone, with some extra batteries taped to the back.

When the project was turned on, the speaker played a recording of a woman talking, with the volume controlled by the knob. If the volume was turned up past fifty decibels, the cell phone emitted a loud crack and a shower of sparks, charring the dummy’s right ear, as a reminder that the dummy should keep its voice down.

The project explanation said that Farrell had built this “noise-suppression technology” using inexpensive capacitors that could easily be incorporated into new cell phones. But what was actually inside the cell phone in The Ferret’s project was no ordinary capacitor. It was a bank of state-of-the-art supercapacitors made from an experimental process that used barium titanate nanoparticles in a polymer matrix. Each supercapacitor could hold extremely high voltage levels and discharge this energy extremely fast. Right now, the bank was getting its energy from the weak batteries strapped to the phone. Prmkt was connecting it to a far more powerful source.

He moved next to Harmonee Prescott’s project, which was called THE HOTNESS BOX. It consisted of a black box with a dial labeled HOTNESS. The input to the black box was a video camera; the output was a computer screen. According to the project explanation, the box contained a programmable chip running a program written by Harmonee, which she had adapted from a program used to enhance digital photographs. Except that instead of just fixing the contrast and removing red-eye, Harmonee’s program, according to the explanation, could make pictures of people’s faces more attractive.

To demonstrate how it worked, the video camera was aimed at a picture of Ursula, the sea witch from The Little Mermaid.

With the HOTNESS knob set at zero, the image on the computer screen was identical to the picture. But as the HOTNESS knob was rotated from zero to ten, the output image gradually changed, becoming more and more attractive, until finally, at maximum hotness, it looked remarkably like…Harmonee Prescott.

The project explanation said that the Hotness Box could make the same transformation with any image of a face, male or female, and could be used “by less-attractive people in a variety of applications, such as Facebook photos and dating Web sites.”

It was an impressive demonstration. But the software running on the chip inside the black box was not written by Harmonee. It had been developed for the Central Intelligence and National Security agencies by Harmonee’s father’s company, PresTech. And it was capable of far more than altering a still photo. The software that turned the sea witch into a hot babe could radically alter the image and sound transmitted by any broadcast signal, TV or radio, in real time. It could make anybody look or sound like anybody, or anything, else. For example, if the leader of a hostile nation were to make a televised speech, the signal could be intercepted by U.S. spy satellites and almost instantaneously be processed and rebroadcast, with a far more powerful signal, so that the leader appeared to be saying something completely different. Or he could be made to appear tired or sick. For that matter, he could be made to look exactly like the sea witch.

Of course, this software, like the technology in the other projects, was supposed to be top secret, a fact that amused Prmkt. He had been surprised at how easy it was to find out about these things. If you were smart—if you knew where to look in scientific journals and, of course, on the Internet; if you befriended disgruntled or gossipy employees working for certain companies, certain agencies—it turned out that the “secrets” weren’t so secret after all.

Prmkt then ran his cable to the final project, submitted by Haley Hess. It was titled THE ULTIMATE REMOTE CONTROL. This was the heart of Prmkt’s weapon; this was his masterpiece.

In outward appearance it was unimpressive, consisting of what looked like an ordinary laptop computer and a foam-core poster board explaining the project. When the computer was turned on, it displayed a Google Earth map of North America; using the mouse, the user could zoom in on a specific location. In the science-fair demonstration, the user clicked a box that said RUN DEMONSTRATION. The computer then zoomed in on Haley Hess’s house in Manor Estates—a large structure ablaze with lights in the gathering night. The user was instructed to position the mouse arrow over the house and click the left button; this highlighted the house. The user was then instructed to click the right button; suddenly the house lights all went off, leaving a dark hole in the middle of the neighborhood. Another right click turned the lights back on.

The explanation on the poster (written in Haley’s neat handwriting with little circles for the dots over the i’s) said that the user really was, from the Hubble Middle gym, turning her house lights on and off over the Internet. This was made possible, the explanation said, by a device that Haley had designed and built herself, using an electrical relay and a wireless router. There was a photograph on the poster showing a smiling Haley holding this device, which looked like a toaster oven with an antenna taped to the side. The explanation said that Haley’s device had been installed on the main circuit breaker at Haley’s house by a professional electrician, under Haley’s supervision. There was also a photograph of this, showing Haley frowning thoughtfully at a man holding the device and peering at the circuit breaker.

The explanation stated that, with Haley’s simple and inexpensive device, you could control your home electrical system, or even individual lights and appliances, from anywhere in the world, as long as you had access to a computer with an Internet connection.

But, as in the case of the other projects, Haley’s remote control was quite deceptive. The device Haley was holding in the photo was, in fact, a toaster oven with an antenna taped to the side. The “electrician” allegedly installing the device in the other photo was a pizza-delivery man whom Haley had paid ten dollars to pose with the circuit breaker. The map demonstration was a fake, using a real Google Earth image but altering it to make it appear as if the lights were going on and off.

The key to the project was the laptop, which Haley’s father had obtained for her. He worked for a company called DeathVolt, which did security consulting for power companies around the world; the laptop was designed to demonstrate to them why they needed it. It was a rugged, superfast computer capable of connecting to the Internet via satellite from anywhere in the world. And it was running software developed by DeathVolt with the help of some extremely smart hackers who were paid very well for their time and knowledge.

This software probed the Internet sites of power companies, looking for ways past the firewalls into the business and administrative systems, which it almost always penetrated quickly. It then probed for weaknesses into the grid-control systems, which actually distributed the power. This took a bit longer, as these systems were supposed to be sealed off from the business side. But the seal was never perfect; the DeathVolt system found a way in. And once inside, a hacker could control the switches, the substations—the entire grid. With a few keyboard clicks, a hacker could utterly paralyze a vast area of the country.

Or worse.

Prmkt was almost done now; the four projects were networked via the thick cable. He ran the cable beneath the tables, where it blended in with the dozens of extension cords providing power to the projects. He routed his cable alongside these other wires and extension cords to the wall of the gym, where he guided it beneath the bleachers and through a hidden hole that he’d drilled earlier and that led into the utility room.

He now went to the utility room and unlocked the door. Once inside, he pulled his cable through and carefully laid it on the floor beneath a gray electrical box that was mounted to the wall. This was the main electrical breaker box for the school; through it, the school was connected to the city’s electrical grid and to the larger grids beyond. Next to the box was a small table on which Prmkt had set up some equipment, including his own laptop computer, which was packed with special software he had written. He put on a pair of rubber gloves, opened the breaker box, and went to work. When he was done, he looked at his watch. He’d set everything up in under forty-five minutes. Perfect.

He rose and left the utility room, locking it behind him. He went back to the darkened gym and took one last look around. For a moment he was tempted to do it himself—just walk over to the podium, throw the master power switch, and start his machine right now. Prmkt thought about it, but he didn’t do it. One reason was that he wanted to wait until it was dark in more parts of the country. The other reason was that he liked the idea of having Lance Swingle throw the switch. Prmkt allowed himself another small smile at that thought. It was the windbag Swingle who had turned the science fair into a corrupt competition for spoiled kids and their foolish parents; let it be Swingle who would now unwittingly turn that same science fair into a weapon that would bring down the mighty and arrogant United States.

Prmkt looked at his watch: almost exactly an hour to go. He left through the side door. The gym was once again silent, except for the clock on the wall, where the big hand clicked forward every sixty seconds, signaling another minute gone.

THE BATTERED U-DRIVE-IT rental truck rattled into Milkwort Court and pulled to the curb in front of Toby’s house. The Wookiee was behind the wheel; Vaderian, in the passenger seat, was dressed in his full Darth Vader outfit, including light saber, helmet, and voice distorter. He looked at the sky, which was getting dark. They watched the house for a few minutes, seeing no lights or signs of activity.

“Go check the back door,” said Vaderian.

The Wookiee climbed out of the truck and walked around the side of the garage to the back of the house. A few minutes later, he returned to the truck, standing at Vaderian’s window.

“Locked,” he said.

“What?” said Vaderian.

“Locked,” repeated the Wookiee.

“That little weasel,” snarled Vaderian, pounding the truck seat. He took a breath, calming himself. “What about the house? Did you see anybody?”

“No,” said the Wookiee. “It’s dark inside.”

“The little weasel said they’d be at the science fair,” said Vaderian. He checked his watch, drummed his fingers on the dashboard, thinking, then said, “Try the kid’s bedroom window, where he sneaked out.”

The Wookiee returned a minute later. “It’s unlocked,” he said.

Vaderian nodded. “All right,” he said. “We’ll go in there.”

They went to Toby’s window, raised it, and climbed inside, the Wookiee helping Vaderian, whose cape made movement awkward. They opened Toby’s bedroom door and listened for a long time. The house was silent. There was no sign of anyone.

“Nobody home,” said Vaderian.

“I just want to sleep, okay?” said Toby’s voice, causing both Vaderian and the Wookiee to jump and whirl around.

“Who said that?” said Vaderian.

“I just want to sleep, okay?” said Toby’s voice.

“I think the bed,” said the Wookiee, pointing at Toby’s pillow.

“I just want to sleep, okay?” said Toby’s voice.

“Yup,” said the Wookiee. “The bed.”

“I hate that little weasel,” said Vaderian.

“I just want to sleep, okay?” said Toby’s voice.

Vaderian, realizing he was losing a battle of wits with a pillow, closed his mouth. With a last glare toward the bed, he turned and slipped into the dark hallway. He drew his light saber and flicked the switch, filling the hall with a reddish glow. The two men moved carefully down the hall. They stopped at each door to listen; then Vaderian would quietly open the door and peer inside.

Near the kitchen, they encountered a locked door. Vaderian nodded to the Wookiee, who grasped the knob in his massive hand and twisted it hard. With a clank of snapping metal the doorknob gave way, and the door swung open.

They descended the stairs. The air was suddenly cooler and dryer. On the wall near the bottom of the stairs, they found a wall-mounted box with a row of indicator lights and a digital display showing temperature and humidity—a sophisticated environmental-control unit.

Vaderian started getting a good feeling about this.

He swung his light saber around. It was a furnished basement. At the far end he could make out a big-screen TV, an exercise bike, and…

An imperial stormtrooper uniform!

Vaderian jumped as he caught sight of it. It was mounted fully erect, like a museum piece, occupying the near corner and ghostly white in the cast of his light saber’s glow. He walked over to it quickly and examined it with an expert’s eye. He’d seen hundreds of reproductions, but this one was different; the more he studied it, the more he wondered: could it be? For years he’d heard rumors of a few undocumented, authentic, original stormtrooper uniforms out there, somewhere.…

He tore his eyes away from the uniform and moved along the basement wall. The light-saber glow illuminated a box. Vaderian knelt, opened it, and found bundles of bubble wrap. He picked one off the top, unwrapped it, and gasped as he revealed the hilt of a light saber—not a later reproduction like the one he wore, but one that had the distinctive (to Vaderian’s eyes) indications of an original handmade prop.

Could it possibly be?

“Is this the stuff we’re after?” the Wookiee asked.

Vaderian glared at him. “This,” he said, “is not stuff. This is…this is…” He waved a hand to indicate that there was no way he could explain the importance of this to an idiot like the Wookiee.

Valderian’s heart beat faster as he rummaged through that box, and then another box next to it, and then another, finding more and more treasures, each more astonishing than the last, including what appeared to be the actual Chewbacca’s ammunition bandolier. Flashing his light saber around the room, Vaderian saw more rare artifacts, large and small. In another corner he saw a sheet draped over a distinctive domed shape; peeking out the bottom were the unmistakable wheeled appendages of R2-D2. Under his black mask, Vaderian’s face broke into a wide smile. He emitted a giggle, which the voice distorter transformed into a hideous sound.

This was it. Vaderian was certain. This was the mother lode. This was the fabled lost ark of Star Wars memorabilia. And soon it was all going to belong to him.

He stood and turned to the Wookiee, about to give orders for getting the collection upstairs and into the truck.

Then, a sound from upstairs. He froze. The front door had opened and shut. Voices: a man and woman. Footsteps crossing directly overhead. Vaderian and the Wookiee looked at the basement ceiling, the two of them rigidly still in the deathly glow of the light saber.

Vaderian considered their options. They could wait here in the basement until the people upstairs—the little weasel’s parents, no doubt—had gone to sleep. But that could be hours. And even then, how could he and the Wookiee get the collection up the stairs and out the back door without being heard? Or what if the people upstairs noticed the broken doorknob on the basement door? What if they decided to come downstairs?

Vaderian pondered this, trying to figure out how he and the Wookiee would respond. One thing he knew for sure: now that he had found the mother lode, he wasn’t about to let it out of his grasp.

Listening to the footsteps overhead, Vaderian tightened his grip on the light saber.

He would not let these people stop him.

TOBY, TAMARA, AND MICAH sat in uncomfortable plastic chairs on one side of the long wooden conference table. Drmtsi and Vrsk sat across from them, chomping their way through the plateful of muffins, which they had moved onto the table for easier access. The five of them had been sitting in silence for a while, pondering their situation and waiting for whatever was going to happen next. Toby was still holding the stick of Air Zerkistan chewing gum that Vrsk had given him; he planned to use it when the feds returned. Meanwhile, there was nothing to do but wait and watch the weird foreign guys eating the muffins.

Finally, tired of the silence, Toby spoke to the men across the table.

“Where are you guys from, anyway?” he said.

“We are from Krpshtskan,” said Vrsk, pronouncing the name of the country in such a way that he sent a spray of muffin crumbs halfway across the table.

“Where’s that?” said Toby, eyeing the crumbs warily.

“Is near Fazul,” said Vrsk.

“Fazul?” said Toby.

“You know Fazul?” said Vrsk.

“No,” said Toby.

“Is very famous hole there,” said Vrsk. “Great Hole of Fazul. You never heard of this?”

“Sorry, no,” said Toby. He glanced at the ceiling, where he was pretty sure there were cameras and microphones. He decided he no longer cared: he wanted to know who these guys were.

“So,” he said. “What brings you here?”

“What?” said Vrsk.

“Why did you come to the United States?” said Toby.

Vrsk’s eyes darted sideways toward Drmtsi before he answered. “We are tourists,” he said. “We are here for touristism.”

“Is that why you were at Jungle Norman’s?” said Toby.

“Yes,” said Vrsk. “We were touristing at Jungle of Norman.”

“And you don’t know anything about the thing that was in the gorilla’s hat?”

Vrsk nearly choked on his muffin, then coughed for half a minute before he could speak. “No,” he said finally. “We are never seeing this gorilla before. Is stranger gorilla to us.”

“Really,” said Toby.

“In our country,” said Vrsk, “is no gorillas. Is mostly goats. But not singing.”

Drmtsi, who had been watching this conversation with narrowed eyes, swallowed a mouthful of muffin and said to Vrsk in Krpsht, “What are you talking to this boy about?”

“He is asking why we are here. I told him we are tourists.”

“Good,” said Drmtsi. “But now stop talking to the boy, because I must tell you the plan to escape.”

“Escape?” said Vrsk.

“Yes,” said Drmtsi. “It is our duty to escape and help Prmkt destroy America. Also, I must order more merchandise from the television shopping people.”

“But there are many guards here,” said Vrsk. “Perhaps we should wait for—”

“No time to wait!” snapped Drmtsi. “Here is the plan. Do you have any more smerk?”

Vrsk felt his pants. “A little,” he said.

“Good,” said Drmtsi. “When the guards come back, I will watch them for the right moment. This moment is when the door is unlocked, and the guards are nearby to you. At this right moment I will give you a secret signal, like this.”

Drmtsi clapped his hands twice, startling Toby, Micah, and Tamara.

“These guys,” said Tamara, “are even weirder than they smell.”

Drmtsi glanced at her, then continued speaking to Vrsk in Krpsht. “When you hear this secret signal, you will take the smerk from your pants and hurl it into the eyes of the guards.”

“Their eyes?” said Vrsk. “Are you sure?” There was an old expression in Krpshtskan that roughly translated to “Better to have an angry scorpion in your underwear than smerk in your eyes.”

“Yes, I am sure,” said Drmtsi. “When you throw the smerk, I will run out the door and escape.”

“I see,” said Vrsk. He frowned. “But how will I escape?”

Drmtsi reached for another muffin. “Maybe, after hurling the smerk, you can run out the door also,” he said. “But if not, Prmkt and I will come get you after we destroy America.”

“I see,” said Vrsk.

“It is a good plan, yes?” said Drmtsi, chewing.

“Yes,” Vrsk agreed, although not sincerely.

The hall outside echoed with the sound of approaching footsteps. All eyes turned to the door, which opened; in walked agents Turow, Iles, and Lefkon, who closed the door behind them. Toby quietly removed the Air Zerkistan gum from its wrapper, put it into his mouth, and began chewing. It was like chewing cardboard, only it didn’t taste as good. Across the table, Drmtsi sat up, and watching the agents closely, prepared to give the attack signal to Vrsk when they got close enough.

But the agents didn’t approach the two men. Instead they went to the head of the table. They looked tired, and they were. They’d been up all night monitoring their suspects, first in their sleeping quarters, then in the conference room; both rooms, as Toby had suspected, were bugged. The agents had hoped to learn something, anything, about the relationship between the Krpshtskanis and the children. They had been disappointed. The children had said little, obviously aware of the cameras and microphones. The two men had spoken, but mostly to each other, and in a language nobody in the building understood; their conversation had been recorded and sent to government linguists with an urgent request for translation.

Meanwhile, there was intense pressure on Turow and the others from higher-ups in a half-dozen government agencies to find out who the Krpshtskanis were, what connection they had with these children, and—above all—how this motley group came to be in possession of what was supposed to be extremely classified technology.

Turow leaned on the table with both arms and glared. The agents had decided to use the Good Cop/Bad Cop interrogation technique. Lefkon was the Good Cop; Turow was the Bad Cop.

“All right,” Turow said. “We need some answers, and if we don’t start getting them right now, things are going to get very unpleasant for all of you.”

Micah raised his hand.

“What?” said Turow.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” said Micah.

“Tough,” sneered Bad Cop Turow.

“But I—”

“I said NO!” bellowed Turow, slapping his hands hard on the table causing Micah to jerk backward so hard he almost tipped his chair over.

“Hey, easy,” said Good Cop Lefkon, putting a restraining hand on Turow’s arm. “If he has to go to the bathroom, let him go.”

Turow glared at Lefkon as though he was about to slap her, although of course this was part of the act. For several dramatic seconds the room was silent as the two agents faced off. The silence was broken by Tamara.

“So, let me guess,” she said. “You”—she pointed at Turow—“are the Bad Cop, and you”—she pointed at Lefkon—“are the Good Cop.”

Turow sighed. Lefkon suppressed a giggle. They were both thinking the same thing: These kids watch too much television. Turow was pondering what he would say next when Vrsk said, “He is growing dark.”

“What?” said Turow.

“Boy,” said Vrsk, pointing at Toby. “He is dark.”

Everyone looked. Tamara screamed. Toby’s face had turned a startling deep purple. His eyeballs were rolled back, wide-open, showing only the whites. His body was rigid, vibrating; cords stood out in his neck.

“Toby, what’s happening?” shouted Micah at his friend.

“He’s having a seizure,” said Iles, moving quickly to Toby. “Get some help!”

Lefkon ran from the room; Turow stood guard by the door. Drmtsi and Vrsk exchanged a look, but there was no opportunity to execute Drmtsi’s escape plan. A moment later Lefkon returned with the facility nurse, a man named Levine. He went to Toby, who was lying on his back on the floor, moaning. Toby’s color was starting to return. He had quietly spat the gum into his hand.

“Son,” said Levine, “can you hear me?”

“Yes,” said Toby weakly.

“Can you tell me what happened?” said Levine.

“No,” said Toby.

Levine examined Toby briefly, then said to Iles, “I’m going to move him to the station for observation.” Iles, Turow, and Lefkon exchanged glances, then Iles said, “Okay. But you stay with him, and you keep the door locked.”

Levine nodded and said, “I’ll get a wheelchair.”

In a few minutes, Toby was being wheeled down the hall to the first-aid station. He was feeling much better now; he always recovered quickly from the gum allergy. But he pretended he was still very weak. He felt a jolt of excitement as Levine wheeled him into the little room: the manila envelopes were still in the plastic box on the desk.

Levine helped Toby onto the cot, then took his pulse and blood pressure, and shone a light into his eyes. He asked a few questions, which Toby avoided answering by pretending to be tired and dazed. After a few minutes, Levine told Toby he’d be outside, and left the room. He closed the door; Toby heard the click of the dead bolt.

Toby lay on the cot for a minute, then rose, crept to the desk, and looked through the envelopes. One had his name on it. He opened it; inside were his iPhone and his hat. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the two spare fiber-optic filaments. He uncoiled them and, glancing at the door every few seconds, attached them to the hat, then the iPhone, then the insoles in his shoes.

He stood up, hoping there was power left in the phone battery. He turned it on; the screen lit up. He pressed the magic-wand icon, then looked down at his legs. They weren’t there.

Toby’s eyes scanned the room, stopping at a wall-mounted phone. Toby went to it, lifted the handset, unplugged the cord, and tossed the handset under the cot. He turned off the light; the windowless room went dark. He positioned himself on the back wall of the room next to the cot facing the door. He took a deep breath and shouted, “Help!”

In seconds, Levine unlocked the door and swung it open. His eyes went to the cot, and in the dim light he saw that it was vacant. He stood in the doorway, scanning the small room. He did not see Toby, who stood just five feet away.

Toby tensed, praying that Levine would now look in the one remaining hiding place—behind the door.

Levine stepped into the room, swung the door partway closed, and looked behind it. As he did, Toby lunged past him through the doorway, grabbing the door and yanking it closed. Levine shouted as Toby spun and twisted the dead bolt. Levine attempted to turn the knob, but finding it locked, hurled himself against the door. He shouted and pounded.

Toby looked both ways down the corridor; it was empty. For now, nobody could hear Levine. Toby started running toward the conference room. Behind him, Levine stopped pounding; Toby figured he was now groping for the wall phone in the dark. It would take him a while to find the handset.

Toby sprinted down the corridor, considering his next move. His goal was to spring Micah and Tamara somehow, get out of this place somehow, get to the Science Fair, and somehow stop whatever was going to happen from happening. It was a lot of somehows. One at a time, he told himself.

As he approached a corridor intersection he slowed down to soften his footsteps. He turned right into the cross corridor; the conference room door where Tamara and Micah were being held was about twenty-five feet ahead on the left. There was a large man by the door, apparently standing guard. Toby looked past him all the way down the corridor. At the far end glowed a red EXIT sign.

Toby cupped his hands in front of his mouth and, in his deepest official-announcement voice, said, “ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL.”

The guard startled, spun, and looked right at Toby. He frowned, seeing nothing.

“THIS IS AN EMERGENCY,” said Toby. “WE HAVE…UM…POISON GAS IN THE BUILDING. ALL PERSONNEL WILL PROCEED TO THE NEAREST EXIT IMMEDIATELY.”

The guard, still frowning, took a few steps toward Toby, his eyes searching the walls and ceiling for the source of the sound.

“THIS IS NOT A DRILL,” said Toby. “THIS IS REALLY POISONOUS GAS. IT WILL EAT YOUR SKIN AND, UH, EXPLODE YOUR EYEBALLS.”

Toby backed up quietly as the guard kept coming closer, approaching the corridor intersection. Toby slipped past him and hurried quietly to the conference room door. He carefully unlocked the dead bolt, constantly checking to his left, where the guard, still facing away from him, was searching for the source of the earlier announcement. Toby then quietly turned the knob, opened the door, and stepped inside. Tamara, Micah, and the weird foreign guys were still sitting at the table. All four heads had turned to face the door, which to them appeared to have opened and closed by itself.

“It’s me,” said Toby, causing everyone at the table to jump.

“Who said that?” said Micah.

“It’s me! Toby!” said Toby. “I’m wearing the invisibility iPhone Sternabite made.” He tried to press the invisible iPhone to make himself visible, but in his nervousness he couldn’t find the right place on the screen. Frustrated, he reached across the table, grabbed the lone remaining muffin, and waved it in the air. “See?” he said. “I’m doing this.”

“Whoa,” said Tamara and Micah together.

Drmtsi and Vrsk stared at the floating muffin, their faces a mixture of awe and fear. Drmtsi said to Vrsk in Krpsht, “Ask them why this good-tasting bread item is floating in the air and speaking.”

Vrsk, his eyes still on the muffin, said in English, “Why is bread item floating in air and speaking?”

“It’s our friend,” said Micah.

“What did boy say?” Drmtsi asked Vrsk.

“He said the bread item is his friend,” replied Vrsk.

Vrsk stared at the floating, talking muffin. “The Americans must be giving us drugs,” he said.

Finally Toby’s fumbling fingers found the right spot on the iPhone screen. In an instant he became visible.

“Very powerful drugs,” said Drmtsi to Vrsk.

“How does that—” began Tamara.

“No time,” interrupted Toby. “Listen, there’s a guard outside, down the hall to the right.” Toby pointed. “I’m going to go out and try to get him around the corner. You peek out the door. As soon as he goes around the corner, you run the opposite way. There’s an exit sign down there. I’ll get past the guard and follow you.”

“And why are we doing this?” said Tamara.

“Because we have to get to the science fair,” said Toby. “We have to stop whatever’s gonna happen.”

“But if we escape,” said Micah, “won’t we get in trouble?”

“Micah,” said Toby, “we’re terrorism suspects. We’re being held in a secret location. We can’t get in any more trouble.”

“Oh, you’ll think of something,” said Tamara.

“Listen,” Toby said angrily, “I came back here to get you. If you don’t want to…”

“Oh, shut up,” said Tamara. “Of course we’re coming.”

“We are?” said Micah.

“Of course, we are,” said Tamara, rising.

The three friends moved toward the door. Drmtsi said to Vrsk, in Krpsht, “What are these children doing?”

“I think they are escaping,” said Vrsk.

“How?” said Drmtsi.

“They are walking out the door,” said Vrsk.

“Ah,” said Drmtsi, admiring the cleverness of this plan. He rose and said, “We are escaping also.”

Toby turned the knob, quietly opened the door, and peered out into the hall. The guard was still at the intersection of the corridors, twenty-five feet to the right. Toby turned to Tamara, put his finger to his lips, then reached down and touched the wand icon on the iPhone.

Invisible now, he stepped into the corridor. Behind him, Tamara closed the door almost all the way, leaving it open just a crack so she could see what was happening. The guard had just finished looking around the intersection and was walking back toward the conference room. Toby ran past him, making no effort to soften his footsteps. The guard turned toward the sound, swiveling as Toby passed him. Toby stopped a few feet away, turned, cupped his hands, and shouted, “I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU PERSONNEL TO EXIT THE PREMISES.”

The guard stepped forward, waving his hands at the air. He reached to his belt and unclipped a walkie-talkie. As he raised it to his mouth, Toby stepped forward, grabbed the antenna, and yanked. The walkie-talkie came free of the stunned guard’s hand. Toby turned and ran with it.

“Hey!” shouted the guard, pursuing the floating walkietalkie around the corner.

Behind him, Tamara quietly swung open the conference room door, turned left in the corridor, and sprinted toward the EXIT sign, followed by Micah, who was followed by Drmtsi, who was followed by Vrsk.

After fifty feet, they ran past another door, on the other side of which was the surveillance station. Inside this stuffy, dimly lit room was a wall-mounted bank of television monitors connected to the hidden cameras in the conference room. In front of the monitors was a long table with a speakerphone on it. Gathered around this table were agents Turow, Iles, and Lefkon, along with some other officials. None of them were looking at the monitors, which was why they hadn’t noticed that the conference room was now empty. Instead, their attention was focused on the speakerphone, from which came the voice of a CIA linguist, who was heading the team trying to translate the recorded conversation between Drmtsi and Vrsk.

“I’m afraid it’s a very obscure dialect,” she was saying. “We’ve only been able to translate a fragment. We’ll keep working, though.”

“Well, tell us what you’ve got so far,” said Turow. “We need something, anything.”

“To be honest,” said the linguist, “all we have so far is ‘cheese.’”

“‘Cheese?’” said Turow. “As in, ‘cheese’?”

“Cheese,” said the linguist.

Turow rubbed his weary face with both weary hands.

“Well, that’s a big help,” he said.

“We’re doing the best we can,” snapped the linguist.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Turow, pressing the DISCONNECT button. He looked around at the others. “Cheese,” he said.

“Maybe it’s a code,” said Lefkon.

Suddenly they heard shouting in the hall. All eyes went to the monitors, which showed an empty conference room. Lefkon yanked the door open; they all ran outside. To their left was the source of the shouts: the guard. He had chased his walkie-talkie around the corner and then down the corridor, where the invisible Toby had hurled it. He had then run back to the conference room, yanked the door open, and saw that it was empty. Meanwhile, Toby was racing down the corridor after his friends. He passed the surveillance-room door just as the agents opened it; in fact, Lefkon nearly ran into him as she burst from the room.

At the moment, the feds were all looking left toward the guard. He was standing at the doorway to the conference room.

“They’re gone!” he shouted.

“Where?” shouted Turow.

“There!” shouted Lefkon, who had just spotted the running figures at the far end of the corridor.

“Call security!” shouted Turow, sprinting toward the figures. “Lock it down NOW!”

Lefkon ran into the conference room and grabbed the phone; the guard was shouting into his walkie-talkie. Moments later, a recorded voice boomed down the corridor, saying, “WE HAVE A CODE MAGENTA SITUATION. REPEAT, THIS IS A CODE MAGENTA SITUATION.”

At the far end of the corridor, Tamara, Micah, Vrsk, and a red-faced, huffing Drmtsi reached a T-junction. To their right, they saw men running toward them; to their left was a door with a sign that said EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY—ALARM WILL SOUND. Tamara sprinted toward it and slammed into the bar. The door banged open, and an alarm began emitting a shrill beep beep beep. Tamara stopped and looked around. Night had fallen; she was in an alley in the rear of the building, and it was lit by the harsh glare of a security light. Along the wall next to the door was a large green Dumpster.

Micah burst through the door followed by Vrsk, who was followed by the flagging Drmtsi. Pounding down the corridor toward them were a half-dozen men.

“What now?” said Micah.

“I don’t know,” said Tamara. “Where’s Toby?”

“Here!” said a voice next to them. “Close the door and give me a hand with the Dumpster!”

Micah slammed the door shut, then he and Tamara ran to the Dumpster and grunted, trying to move it in front of the door. It didn’t budge.

“Help us!” shouted Tamara at Drmtsi and Vrsk. Vrsk said something to Drmtsi in Krpsht, and the two men ran behind the Dumpster and pushed. Slowly it began to roll on its creaking wheels. Just as it reached the doorway, the door slammed open, but the Dumpster kept it from opening more than a few inches.

“Push it toward the building!” shouted Toby. He and the others shifted positions and tried to push the Dumpster against the door. But the men inside were also pushing, and they were stronger; the Dumpster was moving back, and the door was opening. The men were going to get out.

“You guys run!” said Toby. “I’ll hold this as long as I can. They can’t see me.”

Tamara and Micah looked at each other, unsure about leaving Toby. Meanwhile Drmtsi was saying something to Vrsk.

“Looking out!” Vrsk shouted at the kids. “Is danger!”

Toby, Tamara, and Micah turned to the two men, who were reaching into their pants. The Dumpster, shoved by the men inside, creaked and shuddered as it was pushed toward them. The door was almost open enough for the men to slip through. Inside, somebody shouted “One…two…” as the men prepared for one last coordinated shove.

“THREE!” shouted the voice. As the men heaved into the door, Drmtsi and Vrsk pulled their hands out of their pants and hurled two globs of smerk through the opening. Instantly, the air was filled with a stench that smelled like a cross between a rotting buffalo and a sewer explosion, only worse. From inside, there were shouts of surprise, followed by yelps of terror.

“GAS ATTACK!” shouted a voice. “IT’S A GAS ATTACK!”

There were more shouts and the sound of pounding feet as the men fled back down the corridor.

“What was that?” said Micah to Vrsk.

“Is smerk,” said Vrsk. “Cheese.”

“Whoa,” said Micah.

“Smerk?” said Drmtsi, preparing to reach back into his pants.

“No thanks!” said Micah and Tamara hastily.

Toby pressed his iPhone and made himself visible. “Come on,” he said, trotting away from the building. “We gotta get to Hubble.”

“Right,” said Tamara, trotting behind followed by Micah. “But which way is Hubble?”

“I have no idea,” said Toby. “But we can’t stay here. They’ll be coming back.”

“Excuse me,” said Vrsk, who was also trotting behind and followed by the huffing Drmtsi. “Did you say Hobble?”

Toby glanced back. “I said Hubble,” he said.

“Yes,” said Vrsk. “Hobble. Is this Hobble Middle School?”

Toby stopped short and turned around. “You know about Hubble Middle School?”

Vrsk nodded rapidly. “Yes,” he said. “Is where we are going also.”

“Why?” said Toby.

Vrsk exchanged a few rapid Krpsht words with Drmtsi, then turned back to Toby.

“Touristism,” he said.

Toby was about to say something more when he heard shouts in the distance coming from the building they had just escaped.

“Let’s go,” he said, running away from the building toward the dark streets beyond, followed by his two old friends and his two new weird and smelly allies.

ON THE HUBBLE MIDDLE SCHOOL ball field, nearly a thousand excited people—students, teachers, parents—watched the dark night sky, waiting.

“There it is!” shouted a boy. He pointed toward the south, where flashing lights showed on the horizon. A few moments later, the crowd heard the whupwhupwhup of big rotors slicing the air. As the TranScent Corp. helicopter swooped toward the school, teachers shouted at the excited throng to keep back from the roped-off landing area, which was brilliantly illuminated by four huge portable spotlights.

Soon, the chopper was over the ball field. It hovered for a few seconds, then settled gently onto second base, its downdraft kicking up a swirling dirt storm. The pilot shut down the engines. As the rotors wound down, the chopper door opened and the folding stairway deployed. Cheers erupted from the crowd as Lance Swingle himself appeared in the doorway, waving as he descended the stairway. The handsome billionaire looked younger than his forty-three years, his radiantly white teeth gleaming in the spotlights, his dark hair tousled by the dwindling rotor breeze.

Swingle was greeted at the bottom of the stairs by Principal Plotz-Gornett and a dozen other school officials. Then, with Swingle triumphantly leading the way, the excited crowd thronged into the gymnasium and gathered around the platform set up for the opening ceremonies of the science fair.

Swingle was introduced by the president of the school board, who read brief opening remarks in which he compared Swingle’s achievement of sending smells over the Internet with the work of Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Copernicus, Isaac Newton, and Bill Gates. Swingle smiled bashfully to indicate that he was unworthy of this praise, although in fact the opening remarks had been written by his vice president for public relations.

When the introduction was finished, Swingle strode to the microphone, acknowledging the crowd’s cheers with sincerely faked modesty. He then launched into his “brief” remarks.

“Thirty-one years ago,” he began, “an eighth-grade boy walked into this very same gymnasium. In many ways, he looked like an ordinary young man; in fact”—here Swingle flashed a brilliant smile—“you might say he looked like a younger version of…me.”

The crowd chuckled in recognition of the fact that the young man was, in fact, Lance Swingle. Principal Plotz-Gornett groaned inwardly and shifted on her feet; she knew from experience that it would take Swingle a good twenty minutes to get through the dull but supposedly uplifting story of how the young, ordinary-looking young man transformed himself, against great odds, into the wealthy, brilliant, handsome genius entrepreneur standing on the stage tonight.

Prmkt, listening from the edge of the crowd, was also calculating the time left before the insufferable windbag finished his speech and threw the master switch to power up the science fair. After listening for exactly five more minutes, Prmkt slipped away from the crowd. Passing between rows of silent exhibits, he walked quietly to the utility-room door, opened it, went inside, and gently closed and locked the door. He went to the laptop computer and tapped some keys, running a quick test; numbers flashed on the screen telling Prmkt that all was ready. He glanced at his watch and calculated that Swingle would throw the master switch in about ten minutes. Prmkt would then begin executing his plan.

The plan consisted of several stages. The first stage was designed to get the country’s attention—to shake the smug Americans awake and show them that the safe and happy world they lived in was only a dream. Once he had their attention, Prmkt would proceed to the next stages of his plan—showing the Americans what they had done and then delivering their punishment.

He looked at his watch. Less than ten minutes now. He rested his hands gently on the keyboard, feeling the power in the keys—keys that he would soon use to turn the American dream into the American nightmare.

THE SIRENS DREW CLOSER. Toby, Micah, and Tamara, running as fast as their tired legs would carry them, made yet another random turn into yet another unfamiliar street. Ten yards behind them trotted Vrsk; behind him staggered the gasping and utterly exhausted Drmtsi.

Toby stopped and put his hands on his knees, gulping air. Micah and Tamara did the same. The whoop whoop whoop of the sirens grew louder.

“Maybe we should split up,” said Tamara.

“Why?” asked Toby.

“I dunno,” admitted Tamara. “But in the movies, when people are getting chased, they always split up.”

“I wish they’d split up from us,” said Micah, nodding at Vrsk and Drmtsi, who had just staggered up.

“I wish I knew where we were,” said Toby.

“There’s some lights that way,” said Micah, pointing toward the far end of the street. “Hey! There’s a Starbucks!”

“Great,” said Tamara. “That narrows our location down to…the planet Earth.”

“No, it’s good,” said Toby.

“See?” said Micah. “It’s good!” He turned to Toby. “Why is it good?”

“We can ask the Starbucks people where we are,” said Toby, trotting toward the end of the street, followed by the others. In two minutes they were inside the Starbucks. Behind the counter, a young man and a young woman eyed them curiously, noting the filaments running from Toby’s hat to his shoes, and the stained and stinky clothing of the two Krpshtskanis, who were pointing to the cappuccino machine and talking excitedly in Krpsht.

“May I help you?” said the woman.

“Yes,” said Toby. “Where are we?”

The man and woman eyed each other. The woman said, “In a Starbucks.”

“I know that,” said Toby. “I mean, which one?”

“It doesn’t have a special name,” said the woman. “It’s just a Starbucks like every other Starbucks.”

“No, no, no,” said Toby, exasperated. “I mean, where is it located? What’s the address?”

But before the woman could answer, Vrsk, on orders from Drmtsi, broke in.

“Excuse my pardon,” he said. “But are you selling this?” He pointed at the cappuccino machine behind the counter.

“You want a cappuccino?” asked the attendant.

“We are wanting this, yes,” said Vrsk.

“What size?” said the man.

“What?” said Vrsk.

“We have tall, grande, venti,” the man answered.

“Tall, grande, venti,” repeated Vrsk.

“Tall is actually small,” noted Micah.

“Tall is small?” said Vrsk.

“Yeah,” said Micah. “I don’t get it either.”

“So, what size cappuccino?” said the man.

“Wait a minute!” said Toby. “We don’t want a cappuccino, okay? We just want to—”

“Listen, sir,” interrupted the attendant. “If this customer wants to buy a cappuccino, then we’re going to—”

“Excuse my pardon,” said Vrsk. “But we are to pay you with TV shopping–people’s card? Is okay?”

“What?” said the man.

“TV shopping–people’s card,” said Vrsk. “We can use to purchase this machine?”

“The machine?” said the man. “You want to buy the machine?”

“Yes,” said Vrsk. “The tall-small-grande-venti machine. We wish to purchase this.”

The man and woman glanced at each other again. Outside, a police car shot past, siren whooping. The attendant followed it with his eyes, then studied the strange group in front of him.

“Who are you people?” he asked.

“We are touristing,” said Vrsk.

Outside, there was a screech of tires. The police car had skidded to a stop about fifty yards down the street and began executing a hasty U-turn.

Behind the counter, the woman pulled out her cell phone.

“Let’s get out of here,” suggested Tamara. The three friends and two Krpshtskanis rushed out through the front door. To the right, the police car had turned and was heading back.

“This way!” shouted Toby, turning left and sprinting around the side of the Starbucks into a service alley. They crossed the alley and clambered over a low chain-link fence into a small darkened lot strewn with discarded tires and other junk. They stumbled through this lot onto another street, turned left and then right, trying to head away from the sound of the sirens.

But every minute there were more sirens.

After ten minutes of hard running, they stopped to catch their breath in a ragged, wheezing circle.

“Now what?” said Micah, gasping.

“I don’t know,” admitted Toby, feeling cold, tired, lost, and planless.

“Toby,” Tamara said softly, “maybe we should just give up. Turn ourselves in.”

Toby shook his head. “But then they win,” he said. “Whoever they are, whoever got us into this, whatever they’re going to do at the science fair—they win.”

“Whoever they are,” said Tamara, “they already did win. The science fair must’ve started by now. All we’re doing running around out here is making things worse and maybe getting ourselves hurt. It’s bad enough that we’re in this much trouble—how would your parents feel if, on top of all of this, something happened to you? How would they feel, Toby?”

Toby bowed his head, thinking about his parents not knowing where he was, sitting at home…

His parents. At home.

“Oh, noooo!” he wailed.

“What?” said Tamara.

“My parents!” he said. “Those guys are coming to my house!”

“What guys?” said Micah.

“The Star Wars lunatics!” said Toby. “They’re gonna rob my house tonight! I have to warn them!” He unclipped the iPhone from his belt, careful not to detach the filaments, then stabbed the ON button and moved the slider to unlock the phone.

“How do you know they’re gonna rob your house?” said Micah.

Toby, tapping the phone touchscreen with trembling fingers, didn’t answer. He finished dialing and held the phone to his ear, listening to the ringing tone, hoping he was in time.

Please, please answer.…

IN THE HUBBLE GYM, Lance Swingle was finally reaching the climax of his speech. This was the part where he stressed that even though he, personally, because of his scientific genius, had made millions and millions of dollars, science was not about money. Here he paused and, with a winning and boyish grin that he practiced in front of a mirror, added, “But don’t worry—the winner still gets the five thousand dollars.”

The audience roared with laughter. Especially amused were Jason Niles, Harmonee Prescott, Haley Hess, and Farrel “The Ferret” Plinkett, who were standing near the front of the crowd with their parents and some other ME kids. They were absolutely sure that one of them would win; they had agreed, earlier that evening, that whoever got first prize, they’d split the money four ways.

“But money,” Swingle was saying, “is not the goal. Yes, I am a wealthy man. Yes, I travel the world, dine with heads of state, date actresses and top supermodels. Yes, I have eight homes, two helicopters, an NBA team, a three-hundred-foot yacht and a 737 jet with a customized interior including a sauna. But those things are not important to me.”

In the crowd, The Ferret whispered, “Okay, then give me the supermodels.”

“Shut up,” hissed Harmonee Prescott.

“What is important to me,” continued Swingle, “is that, through my role in making the Hubble Middle School science fair one of the most prestigious science fairs in the nation, I can encourage young people to advance the cause of science.” He gestured toward the rows of projects in the gym before the crowd. “Who knows,” he said, “what great new idea is sitting out there right now, waiting to be brought to life? It could be another TranScent, or perhaps something even more wonderful.” Theatrically, Swingle reached out his hand, placing it on the master power switch, then said, “Let’s find out, shall we?”

He paused for a moment of drama, then flipped the switch. The crowd cheered as the gym exploded with flashing lights and a cacophony of sounds—the whir of motors and gears, the clunk and clink of levers, the snap of sparks, the alarmed ribbit of a frog being suddenly levitated. Swingle stepped down from the stage and, followed by a flock of judges, headed for the exhibits to begin the judging.

In the utility room, Prmkt began tapping his keyboard.

THE PHONE WAS RINGING AGAIN. Toby’s parents had ignored it the first three times, assuming it was reporters. Toby had been identified from the TV news broadcast of the Jungle Norman raid, and the press had been calling constantly, trying to get information. Except Toby’s parents didn’t have any information.

They had called the FBI over and over, but were told only that their son was being held on a matter of national security, and for the time being they could not see him. They had called the local police, who said they had no jurisdiction in a federal matter. They had called their congressman’s and senators’ offices and been told, essentially, nothing. They had just returned from a visit to a lawyer, who, after making a few phone calls, had told them that, for the moment, they had no effective legal options.

It was like a bad dream. Their son! A matter of national security!

The phone stopped ringing. It was quiet for five seconds and then started ringing again. Roger and Fawn, their faces haggard from worry and sleeplessness, looked at each other across the small round kitchen table where they were trying to eat dinner. Neither had much of an appetite, mainly because of Toby, but also because the dinner was meatless shish kebab, which was basically tofu on a stick.

“This is ridiculous,” said Roger. “I’m gonna take it off the hook.” He rose and went to the wall phone.

“What if it’s not a reporter?” said Fawn. “Maybe you should check.”

Roger looked at the phone for a second, sighed, and picked up the handset.

“Hello?” he said.

“Dad!” said Toby.

“Toby?” said Roger, and in an instant Fawn was on her feet.

“Yes, it’s me,” said Toby. “Listen—”

“Where are you?” said Roger.

“Ask him if he’s all right,” said Fawn.

“Are you all right?” said Roger.

“Please, Dad, just listen,” said Toby. “There’s these guys. They’re gonna come to the house tonight.”

“What guys? What are you talking about?”

“Two weird guys. One of them thinks he’s Darth Vader. They want to steal your Star Wars stuff.”

“What? Darth Vader? What are you talking about?”

“I can’t explain it now,” said Toby. “Just trust me. These guys are nuts, and they want your collection, so watch out, okay?”

“But—”

“I can’t talk. I gotta get to the science fair. You and mom be careful. I’m sorry. I love you. Bye.”

“Wait!” said Roger. But all he heard through the earpiece was the sound of a siren, which was cut off in mid-whoop. Toby had hung up.

“What is it?” said Fawn. “What did he say?”

Roger, frowning, hung up the handset. “He said some guys are coming to steal our Star Wars collection.”

“But how would he know that? Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” said Roger. “But I heard a siren. And Toby said he was going to—”

THUMP.

Roger stopped.

“What was that?” said Fawn.

“I don’t know,” said Roger. “But it came from the basement.”

TOBY, MICAH, TAMARA, and the Krpshtskanis were trapped. They’d been running away from the sound of sirens, going from street to alley to street, turning in so many directions they no longer knew which way they were headed. They had just emerged from an alley when they found themselves on a brightly lit, four-lane street with strip shopping centers on both sides.

Toby, leading the way, started running to his right, but before he’d taken ten steps, four police cruisers appeared at the end of the block, sirens whooping and lights flashing. The cars skidded to a stop in the intersection, blocking it; police in riot gear quickly emerged.

Toby turned to go the other way, only to see still more police cars screeching to a stop. Still more blue lights flashed at the end of the alley they’d just left.

“Now what?” panted Micah.

Toby looked around frantically: from several directions, at least two dozen shouting police officers were running toward them. The only escape path Toby saw was the parking lot across the street, which served a large grocery store.

“This way,” he said, running toward the lot, followed by Micah and Tamara, who were followed by Vrsk with Drmtsi chugging in the rear. The pursuing police swerved to intercept them; some were shouting into two-way radios.

Ahead, Toby spotted a crowd that had gathered in front of the grocery store; he didn’t know what it was about, but it gave him a flicker of hope. Maybe they could get into the crowd, where, hidden from the police, they could slip into the store and escape through the back.

As he reached the edge of the crowd, Toby saw why it had gathered: parked outside the main entrance to the supermarket was the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.

About a hundred children and parents had gathered to look at the giant rolling hot dog, and get wiener whistles and other trinkets being handed out by the Wienermobile staff. Adding to the excitement was the presence of an animal-rights group, which was chanting and carrying signs to protest the Wienermobile and the practice of factory-farming animals. As Toby and the others drew close, an angry parent entered into a confrontation with one of the protesters—a person wearing a large, furry, pink pig costume and holding a sign that said PIGS ARE FRIENDS NOT FOOD.

Toby darted past the shouting match, heading for the supermarket entrance. But he stopped suddenly when he saw two police officers standing in the doorway, apparently stationed there because of the protest. One of the men was talking into his radio. His eyes scanned the crowd—and stopped at Toby. The man shouted something into his radio, then pointed; both officers began moving toward Toby and his group.

Toby whirled, looking for a way out; on every side, he saw police officers. He, Micah, Tamara, Vrsk, and Drmtsi stood in a small circle, watching as the officers approached them warily through the crowd—which was still focused on the parent-pig confrontation. Toby noticed that some of the officers had their hands on their pistols.

“Use your phone,” said Tamara.

“What?” said Toby.

“Make yourself invisible,” she said. “You can still get away. Maybe you can do something.”

Toby looked down at the phone. Tamara was right: he could get away. His hand went to the magic-wand icon.

But he couldn’t bring himself to touch it. He couldn’t leave his friends here in a mess that he alone was responsible for. And even if he got away, what good could he do? He’d only make a bigger mess.

“Go on, do it!” said Tamara. “Do it! They’re almost here!”

Toby shook his head.

“No,” he said, his voice choking. “It’s over.”

He bowed his head, not wanting to see the police, not wanting to look at his friends. He’d failed everyone. He stared at the ground, waiting. He heard the police shouting at him and the others to “GET DOWN! GET DOWN NOW!”

He started to kneel on the hard, cold, parking lot asphalt.

And then the world went dark.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.

The harsh sound of an electronic alarm echoed through the master control room of the Mid-Atlantic Power Company’s command center, a reinforced-concrete bunker 125 feet underground, where not even a bomb could do any harm. Two dozen technicians, suddenly jerked from their dull routines, sat up quickly to read the trouble messages flashing urgently across their computer screens.

A door banged open; a tall man with a football-flattened nose strode from the only enclosed office in the command center. This was Bernard Kosar; he was in charge and thus responsible for the entire Mid-Atlantic power grid. He hated alarms.

“Turn that off!” he shouted. Somebody hit a switch, and the beeping stopped. Kosar nervously slapped a football back and forth between his hands; he carried it everywhere, except the shower.

“What do we have?” Kosar said to the nearest technician, a woman named Laura Schweitzer, who really wanted to be a rock singer but had learned the hard way that being a power-company technician was steadier work. Although she often hummed at her computer station.

“It’s down,” she told Kosar.

“What’s down?” he said. Slap, slap went the football.

Schweitzer waved an arm and said, “Everything.”

“That’s impossible,” snapped Kosar. Technically, he was right: the power grid was designed with many safeguards and backup systems. Parts of the grid—even large areas—might go down. But only very rarely, and never for long.

Technically.

“Look at the tree,” said Schweitzer, pointing. Kosar’s gaze went up to a map high on the wall, dotted with over a thousand lights. This was the Master Grid Status Indicator Board. It was more commonly known as the Christmas Tree, because normally most, if not all, of the lights were green, indicating that electricity was flowing everywhere in the Mid-Atlantic region. Sometimes, during lightning storms or bad winter weather, parts of the Christmas Tree—little patches here and there—might glow red. Even then, it was mostly green.

Not now.

Now, every light—every single light—was red.

The entire grid was down. This meant that Maryland, Virginia, and much of West Virginia and Delaware had no electricity. It also meant that all of Washington, D.C., was dark, except for buildings that—like the command center—had emergency generators.

As Kosar stared at the Christmas Tree, a chilling thought came into his mind: nuclear attack.

“Anything from the military?” he asked, keeping his voice calm.

“Nope,” said Schweitzer.

Kosar exhaled. “Weather?” he said.

“Nope,” said Schweitzer.

Phones were ringing all over the command center. Technicians were answering them, speaking urgently while tapping their keyboards.

Kosar raised his voice, addressing the room: “Can someone tell me what’s happening?”

A young man two desks over looked up. His name was Robert Joseph, and he was the command center’s sharpest computer jockey. He was also Laura’s boyfriend; they thought nobody knew this, but everyone did.

“What?” said Kosar.

“We’ve been hacked,” said Joseph, pointing at the screen.

“So un-hack us,” said Kosar. He felt a bit of relief; Mid-Atlantic Power’s computer network, like most big corporate and government networks, was often attacked by hackers. They rarely succeeded, and even if they did penetrate the system, the problem was usually corrected quickly.

“We’re trying,” said Joseph, his eyes back on his screen. “But whoever they are, they’re good. They got the whole net, and they’re shutting us out.”

“What do you mean?” said Kosar, frowning.

“I mean, right now, it doesn’t respond to anything we do,” said Joseph. He quickly tapped some keys, hit ENTER, and pointed at the screen. “Nothing,” he said.

“Is anybody getting anything?” Kosar asked, looking around the room. All the technicians shook their heads. Every phone in the room was ringing now. Behind him, Kosar heard his office hotline phone ringing; that would be somebody very important and very unhappy.

Kosar ran a hand through his wiry hair. “ALL RIGHT, PEOPLE,” he shouted. “WE NEED TO FIX THIS RIGHT NOW.” This was unnecessary; the technicians were all working furiously on keyboards and phones. Kosar again looked up at the Christmas Tree, a mass of red dots. For every tiny dot, he knew, there were more than ten thousand people—people who had just been jolted out of their comfortable, brightly lit, electrically powered cocoons; people who were now confused, frightened, and vulnerable.

Kosar turned away and walked toward his office to answer the insistent ring of his hotline. But his mind was still on all those helpless people without electricity.

Bad things happened to people in the dark.

WHEN THE LIGHTS WENT OUT, Toby’s parents had been in the kitchen, arguing in whispers about the thump they’d heard in the basement. Fawn Harbinger wanted to call the police in case it was an intruder. Roger was balking.

“We’ll look stupid if the police come and there’s nobody down there,” he said.

“I’d rather look stupid than get shot by a burglar,” Fawn replied.

“There’s no burglar down there,” he said.

“Then what went thump?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the plumbing.”

“If it’s the plumbing,” said Fawn, “why are you whispering?”

Roger didn’t have a good answer for that. The truth was, he’d been a little spooked by the thump. But, being a guy, he was reluctant to admit this even to himself, let alone his wife. And he definitely didn’t want the police to see the basement filled with rare Star Wars memorabilia. He didn’t want word of the collection to get out.

“I’m gonna go look,” he whispered. He went to a drawer next to the sink and began rummaging through it.

“What are you looking for?” asked Fawn.

“Just something…just in case,” he said, pulling out the largest kitchen implement he could find in the drawer. It was a set of barbecue tongs. The Harbingers used them in the summer when they barbecued tofu.

“You’re going to tong the burglar?” said Fawn.

“Maybe I am,” said Roger, who at this point was feeling pretty stupid but, still being a guy, could not see a way to back down. Gripping the tongs, he started toward the basement door. He was relieved when Fawn grabbed his arm and stopped him.

“Please, Roger,” she said. “I really don’t want you to go down there. I’m going to call the police and tell them it was totally my idea.”

Roger sighed. “All right,” he said.

“Thank you,” said Fawn. She went to the wall phone and picked up the handset.

Then the lights went out.

For a moment they stood in darkness. Then Roger said, “Maybe it’s a circuit breaker.” He hoped it wasn’t, because the circuit breakers were in the basement.

“I don’t think so,” said Fawn, peering out the window. “The whole neighborhood is dark.”

Roger looked out. The neighborhood was ink black. “Call the power company,” he said.

“I can’t,” said Fawn. “The phone’s dead.” All the phones in the Harbinger house were cordless and required electricity to work.

Roger unclipped the cell phone at his waist. He looked at the screen: NO SIGNAL.

“The cell isn’t working, either,” he said. “Weird.”

In the distance, a siren wailed.

“What should we do?” said Fawn.

“I’ll get a flashlight,” said Roger. He put the tongs on the counter and began to feel his way through the darkness toward the drawer where they kept things like flashlights, Scotch tape, mystery keys, foreign money, random pieces of string, and half-used tubes of Krazy Glue.

“No,” said Fawn. “I mean what are we going to do about the noise in the basement?”

Roger didn’t answer that. He found the drawer, opened it, and groped around until he found a flashlight. He flicked the switch; nothing. He found a second flashlight; nothing.

“What good is it to have flashlights,” he said, “if the batteries are dead?”

In the distance, another siren wailed.

“I think we should get out of the house,” said Fawn.

“Are you crazy?” said Roger. “It’s pitch black out there.”

“It’s also pitch black in here,” Fawn pointed out. “And there might be somebody in the basement.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Roger. He began groping the counter for the barbecue tongs.

“What was that?” hissed Fawn.

“What was what?” whispered Roger.

“I heard a voice,” said Fawn. “Listen.”

The voice was the Wookiee’s. He was getting antsy waiting in the basement, listening to the footsteps in the kitchen directly above. He also didn’t like hearing sirens.

“I’m leaving,” he said.

“Shh!” said Vaderian, pointing at the ceiling.

“I don’t care,” said the Wookiee. “I’m outta here.”

“But the collection,” whispered Vaderian, waving his light saber at the Star Wars memorabilia. “We have to—”

“No,” said the Wookiee. “This junk ain’t worth going to jail for.” He started toward the stairs.

“No!” said Vaderian, and as he did, he realized he’d said it much too loudly.

“See?” hissed Fawn. “There is someone down there. We’re leaving.” She started toward the door. Roger was right behind her. But then he grabbed her arm.

“Wait,” he said.

“What?”

“The truck,” he said. “Outside, when we got home. Remember?” They’d noticed the U-Drive-It truck when they came home.

“So what?” she said, trying to yank her arm free. “Let go!”

“Toby said they’re after the collection,” he said, recalling the strange phone call. “I didn’t believe him at the time, but what if that’s what the truck is about? What if that’s why there are noises coming from the basement?”

Fawn hesitated, thinking about the memorabilia, all the effort they’d put into collecting it, maintaining it.…

“We can’t let them take the collection,” Roger whispered. “We can’t.”

“But…how can we stop them?” she said. “We can’t call the police.”

“Maybe we can trap them down there,” said Roger. “Until the power comes back.”

“How?” said Fawn.

“I have an idea,” said Roger, groping his way back to the flashlight drawer.

“A thousand dollars extra,” said the Wookiee.

“Yes,” said Vaderian.

“Cash,” said the Wookiee.

“Yes, cash,” said Vaderian.

“For one load of stuff,” said the Wookiee.

“As much as you can carry in one load, yes,” said Vaderian. He was already gathering together the items he intended for them to take. His plan, formulated out of desperation, was that he and the Wookiee would load themselves with memorabilia and charge up the stairs. Whoever was up there—the parents of the little weasel, he assumed—might not like it. But whoever they were, they would back off when they saw the Wookiee. Everyone did.

They’d bully their way out of the house, put the memorabilia in the truck, and be gone. Vaderian deeply regretted that he’d have to leave some items behind. But he’d take what he could get.

In two minutes he’d loaded up the Wookiee. The big man’s arms strained under the weight of four large items, including the stormtrooper uniform, and a half-dozen smaller ones. Vaderian carried only one item, but it was the ultimate prize: R2-D2 himself. He thrust his glowing light saber into his belt and reverently picked up the robot.

“Let’s go,” he said. With the Wookiee going first, feeling his way with his feet, they started slowly up the stairs.

Fawn was in the ink black hallway, her ear to the basement door.

“Hurry!” she whispered. “They’re coming up!”

She felt Roger behind her, coming from the kitchen.

“How many were there?” she said.

“I found two,” he said. “Here, take this one.” He thrust something into her hand. “I think I got the cap loose. Ready?”

“Ready,” she said.

“Now!” shouted Roger.

He yanked the door open. Fawn screamed at the sight of the two figures on the stairs lit by a ghastly reddish light, one huge and hairy, one black-clad, with that hideous yet familiar helmet.…

“Do it!” said Roger, his voice snapping Fawn out of her shock and into action. As they’d agreed, she took the lower part of the door, and he took the upper. Squeezing the tubes as if their lives depended on it, they squirted two long lines of Krazy Glue along the door frame.

Roger finished first. The figures on the stairs, momentarily stunned by the sudden opening of the door, had started up again.

“Hurry!” Roger shouted.

“Done!” answered Fawn.

Together they slammed the door shut. Roger grabbed the knob and pushed with all his strength, pressing the door against the glue. From the other side, he heard the steps coming closer. In those desperate fearful seconds, he had only one thought in his mind:

Please let this be the quick-drying kind.

TOBY WAS CROUCHING under the Wienermobile.

Next to him were Micah and Tamara; Drmtsi and Vrsk were behind them.

All around was chaos. It had started the instant the lights went out and blackness enveloped the supermarket parking lot. People started shouting; children started crying. The crowd began surging in random directions; people were knocked over, including whoever was in the pig suit. Somebody grabbed a woman’s purse; she screamed. Then there were more screams.

The police switched on their flashlights and waved them around, looking for the escapees and shouting at everyone to “STAY CALM, STAY CALM.” But nobody was calm, and soon the police had a small riot on their hands.

As the police struggled with the crowd, Toby and the others—already on their knees, as ordered by the approaching police—had crawled under the Wienermobile, mainly to avoid being trampled. They could see little of what was going on around them except for running feet occasionally illuminated by darting flashlight beams.

After a few minutes the police began to get better organized. Peeking out from under the left side of the Wienermobile, Toby saw that the police had formed a rough perimeter, waving their flashlights and shouting at the crowd to “MOVE! MOVE!” They were herding everyone to an open area behind the Wienermobile, where people were being funneled toward a half-dozen officers who were shining their flashlights into each person’s face, one by one.

“They’re still looking for us,” Toby said. He looked out at the edge of the parking lot.

He crawled to the right-hand side of the Wienermobile, the side next to the supermarket. It was deserted and dark.

“Stay here,” Toby whispered to Micah and Tamara.

“Where are you going?” said Tamara.

“To see how we can get out of here,” said Toby. He crawled out from under the Wienermobile, stood up, and slid forward along the side of the big hot dog. When he got to the front, he saw that the police—there were a lot of them now—had established a perimeter all around the edge of the parking lot, clearly intended to keep anybody from sneaking away.

Toby stood there, drumming his fingers, trying to think of a way past the line of police. Then he looked at what he was drumming on.

The Wienermobile.

He went to the passenger door and, holding the door closed with one hand, pulled on the latch with the other. It was unlocked. He took a breath; he’d have to do the next part fast and hope that the confusion behind the Wienermobile, and all the flashlights shining around, would keep the police from noticing the cab light go on.

He yanked the door open, jumped inside, and closed the door. The light had been on for maybe three seconds. Toby listened for a few seconds but didn’t hear anyone approaching. In the dark cab, he felt for the steering wheel, then the ignition switch. No key. He felt for the visor, which was where his parents sometimes hid their car keys. Nothing.

He dropped to his knees and felt under the driver’s seat. His hand touched something.

Keys.

Toby reached up and found the dome light switch; he slid it to the off position. Then, clutching the keys—which were attached to a wiener-shaped holder—he got back out of the cab. There was still a lot of shouting going on in the parking lot behind the Wienermobile. Toby crouched.

“Tamara,” he whispered.

“What?” said Tamara.

“Can you drive this thing?” Tamara’s family spent summers at a cabin in Maine; she’d told Toby that her dad sometimes let her drive their car on the dirt roads up there.

“What?”

“I have the keys.”

“You want to take the Wienermobile?” said Micah.

“Yes,” said Toby.

“Cool,” said Micah.

“I can’t drive this!” said Tamara. “It’s huge.”

“Excusing,” said Vrsk.

“What?” snapped Toby.

“I can drive,” said Vrsk.

“You can?”

“Yes,” said Vrsk. Back in Krpshtskan, one of his duties was to be backup driver for the 1961 Checker taxi that served as the presidential limousine. Vrsk figured that qualified him to pilot the giant sausage vehicle.

Toby nodded. “All right,” he said.

In a minute they were all in the cab of the Wienermobile, with Vrsk in the driver’s seat, Toby next to him, and Micah and Tamara with Drmtsi in an open area behind. The smell of smerk hung heavy in the air. Toby put the key into the ignition.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay,” said Vrsk, none too confidently. He turned the key. The engine started. Vrsk started fiddling with his feet.

“Where is clotch?” he said.

“Where is what?” said Toby.

“Clotch. Is not a clotch here.”

“I think he means the clutch,” said Tamara.

“What’s a clutch?” said Micah.

“It’s a pedal on old cars,” said Tamara. To Vrsk, she said, “There is no clutch.”

“No clotch?” said Vrsk.

“No clotch,” said Tamara.

Micah, peering out a side window, said, “I think somebody’s coming.”

“Forget the clotch,” said Toby. “Just go!”

Vrsk stomped on the gas. The engine roared. Nothing else happened.

“The cops are coming!” said Micah.

“You have to put it in gear!” said Tamara.

“What?” said Vrsk, over the roar of the engine.

“THE GEARSHIFT!” shouted Tamara. She leaned forward, grabbed the shift lever, and yanked it down. With a squeal of tires, the giant frankfurter-shaped vehicle lunged forward, sending Tamara, Micah, and Drmtsi tumbling backward. Toby saw police running outside toward the Wienermobile from all directions, shouting. Vrsk was rigid, gripping the wheel with a look of pure terror on his face. The Wienermobile, gaining speed, was heading straight toward a half-dozen police officers waving flashlights and shouting.

“DON’T HIT THEM!” shouted Toby.

“I AM NOT WANTING TO!” shouted Vrsk.

“THEN TURN THE STEERING WHEEL!” shouted Toby.

Vrsk looked down at the steering wheel, as though realizing for the first time he was holding it. He yanked it hard to the left, sending Toby slamming into the passenger door and the three in the back tumbling sideways. The giant hot dog, now going fifty miles per hour, skidded and squealed into a sharp left turn, leaning so far over that Toby thought it might flip. Outside, the police scattered as the Wienermobile shot past them, sideswiped a cruiser, went off a curb, and landed in the street. Vrsk spun the wheel right, fighting for control as the fishtailing Wienermobile roared forward into the utter darkness of the blacked-out neighborhood.

“I CANNOT SEE!” shouted Vrsk.

“TURN ON THE LIGHTS!” shouted Toby.

“HOW?” shouted Vrsk. The lights in the Krpshtskani presidential limousine were never used, the last bulb having burned out in 1989.

Toby pushed away from the door and reached across the cab, praying that the light switch on the Wienermobile was in the same place as on his parents’ car. It was; he found it and turned the switch. The lights came on just in time for Vrsk to see that they were about to ram a Dunkin’ Donuts. He yanked the wheel to the right again, sending everyone sprawling left. He managed to miss the building as he made a skidding turn onto a cross street. For the moment, the road ahead was clear, although in the distance Toby could hear sirens wailing. Many sirens.

Behind him, Micah, Tamara, and Drmtsi, having been hurled around by Vrsk’s violent maneuvers, were struggling to get up. Tamara looked out the windshield.

“Where are we?” she said.

“I have no idea,” said Toby.

“So,” she said, “we’re wanted as terrorists, we’ve stolen the Wienermobile, police are chasing us, and we’re lost.”

“Yeah,” said Toby.

“I honestly don’t see how things can get any worse,” said Tamara.

Micah said, “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

IN THE UTILITY ROOM next to the Hubble Middle School gym, Prmkt was hunched over the computer screen, watching the futile efforts of the power-company computer people to regain control over their system. Prmkt smiled: they weren’t even close.

Through the utility-room door, he could hear the sounds of scared people—students, teachers, parents—as they groped their way around the science-fair projects in the dark gym. A voice was shouting for everyone to stay calm.

“There’s nothing to worry about!” the voice was saying.

Yes, there is, thought Prmkt.

He touched the control pad, opening a window on his computer screen. He tapped some keys; the window was now showing the CNN satellite feed. Superimposed on the screen were the words MASSIVE BLACKOUT. A frowning announcer was talking.

“…Millions of people are affected,” he said. “There is still no word from Mid-Atlantic Power about what caused the blackout, or when power will be restored. We have been told by the FAA that planes in the affected area are being diverted to airports outside the blackout area, which as we said earlier covers much of the Mid-Atlantic region. We’ve also been told that telephone service has been severely disrupted, which is making it difficult to get any information; in fact, at the moment we are not in touch with our CNN Washington bureau. Already there has been speculation that, since so many major government facilities are affected, this could be an act of terrorism. But I repeat that at the moment we have no information that would confirm this. We are continuing to…”

Prmkt clicked off the sound. His hands went to the keyboard again.

He would show them what terror felt like.

“WE’RE BACK UP!” shouted a voice in the Mid-Atlantic Power command center.

Bernard Kosar slammed his phone down and ran from his office, so excited that he left the football on his desk.

He looked up at the Christmas Tree and felt a surge of relief: the red lights had turned green. The power was on again.

Kosar turned to Robert Joseph, the computer genius, and said, “What happened?”

Joseph shrugged and answered, “I have no idea.”

“What?” said Kosar.

Joseph pointed at his computer screen. “We didn’t get it back. They gave it back. Whoever they are.”

Kosar felt a knot in his stomach. “Are you saying they could take it down again?” he asked.

Joseph nodded glumly. “Yup,” he said.

Kosar ran both hands through his wiry hair. “All right, listen up, people!” he said. “We need to…”

“Excuse me, Bernie,” said the technician/singer Laura Schweitzer.

“What?” Kosar said, annoyed at the interruption.

“I think you’ll want to see this,” she said, pointing at her screen.

Kosar leaned over. The screen showed a map of the eastern United States. The top half of the map was covered with dozens of symbols flashing red.

“Does that mean what I think it means?” he said.

Schweitzer nodded. “I’m afraid it does. Now the whole Northeast is down. New York, Boston, Philly—all down.”

Kosar straightened up. “All right, people!” he said. “We have to find out WHO IS DOING THIS, and we have to STOP THEM, and we have to do it NOW.” There was no need for this speech; everybody in the room was already busy.

Kosar’s direct-line phone was ringing again. On the way to answer it, he picked up his football.

“HEY,” SAID TOBY, looking out the Wienermobile windshield, “the lights are back on.”

Tamara, in the backseat with Micah and Drmtsi, looked out. “Good,” she said. “Maybe now we can figure out where we are.”

“Can we stop?” said Micah. “Because I am really carsick.”

“If you throw up,” said Tamara, “I will kill you.”

“Thanks for your concern,” said Micah.

Vrsk had taken a number of sharp, random turns since they had driven away from the supermarket; at the moment, there didn’t seem to be any police cars behind them. But in the distance, the sound of sirens seemed to be coming from all directions.

“We can’t stop yet,” said Toby. “If we stop, the cops’ll catch us.”

“Maybe we should lose the Wienermobile,” said Tamara. “It’s a little obvious, don’t you think? People tend to notice a giant hot dog.”

“Yeah,” said Toby. “But it’s all we have right now. When we get near the school we can ditch it. But right now we need to figure out where we are.”

“There’s a Starbucks,” said Micah.

“That’s a big help,” said Toby.

From the backseat, Drmtsi, who was feeling a bit queasy himself, said to Vrsk, in Krpsht, “Are we there yet?”

“I will ask the boy,” answered Vrsk. He asked Toby in English, “How far is to school?”

“I don’t know,” said Toby. “We’re trying to figure out where we are.”

“There’s another Starbucks,” observed Micah.

“What did the boy say?” Drmtsi asked Vrsk.

“He said we will be there soon,” answered Vrsk, who was busy driving and didn’t want to be answering questions from Drmtsi.

“Can I ask you something?” Toby said to Vrsk.

“Yes,” said Vrsk.

“Who are you really?”

Vrsk kept his eyes on the road. “I told you, we are tour—”

“You’re not tourists,” interrupted Toby.

Vrsk said nothing.

“Why do you want to go to the school?” asked Toby.

Nothing.

“What do you know about the science fair?”

Nothing.

“There’s another Starbucks,” said Micah.

“Micah,” snapped Toby, “will you stop pointing out every single…wait a minute. I know that Starbucks. That’s the one near my house!” He frowned, then said to Vrsk, “Turn left here.”

“What’re you doing?” said Tamara.

Toby turned around to look at her. “We’re going to stop by my house just for a second.”

“What? I thought we were going to the science fair!”

“We are,” said Toby. “But we’re right near my house. I just want to stop by, in case the Star Wars guys are there.”

“What if they are?” said Tamara. “What’re we going to do about it?”

“I could throw up on them,” said Micah.

“Turn right here,” said Toby to Vrsk.

From the backseat, Drmtsi said to Vrsk, “Where are we going now?”

“We are going to the boy’s house to stop there on the way to the school,” Vrsk answered.

“Why?” said Drmtsi.

“I am not certain, but I think the boy said that people from Star Wars are coming to his house.”

“Excellent!” said Drmtsi. It did not surprise him that, in this amazing and rich country, show-business celebrities would be abundant. In English, he declared: “May this Force is with you!”

Toby, Tamara, and Micah looked at him.

“These guys are weird,” whispered Tamara.

“Turn left,” said Toby to Vrsk. “We’re almost there.”

“Good,” said Micah, suppressing a burp. “Because I’m almost there, too.”

NOW THAT THE POWER WAS BACK, the anxiety level in the Hubble gym had ratcheted down a few notches—from panicky to merely nervous. The big room roared with the sound of a thousand excited voices; rumors swirled everywhere as the crowd, half of whom held mobile phones pressed to their ears, tried to work out what, exactly, had happened.

So far they’d learned little, other than that the blackout had hit a large area around Washington and that there was no official explanation yet. Somebody had just picked up a rumor that the Northeast, including New York City, had also been hit by a blackout; hearing this, parents exchanged worried looks and a few whispered the feared word…terrorism. This particular buzz was spreading quickly across the gym when the PA system came to life.

“Attention! May I have everybody’s attention, please!”

As always, The Hornet’s commanding voice quickly quieted the room. All eyes turned toward the small stage, where The Hornet stood with Lance Swingle, her prim, pursed lips close to the microphone.

“As I’m sure you all know by now,” said The Hornet, “the blackout we experienced here at Hubble was widespread. I am sure the authorities are taking whatever steps are needed to deal with any, ah, problems that may have arisen. But for the time being, the police have ordered all nonemergency traffic to stay off the roads. So since we’re temporarily confined here anyway, and since Mr. Swingle has very graciously agreed to remain with us, we are going to continue with the science fair.”

The crowd applauded. Swingle waved and smiled, as if he were absolutely thrilled. He was not. The second the lights had gone out, he had grabbed his nearest lackey and said he wanted to get out of there immediately. The lackey had run out to the ball field to inform the helicopter pilot, who had informed the lackey that the Federal Aviation Administration was not allowing any civilian aircraft to take off, even one owned by a billionaire. This was the only reason Swingle remained in the gym.

After acknowledging the applause, Swingle shouldered The Hornet off the microphone and said, “We’re not going to let a little blackout worry us, are we?”

“Nooo,” answered the crowd, somewhat unconvinced.

“Of course we’re not!” said Swingle. “So let’s have a look at these projects!”

With that, he joined The Hornet and a gaggle of teachers.

“Ready?” he said to The Hornet.

The Hornet frowned and looked around. “Where’s Mr. Pzyrbovich?” she asked.

“He was here a few minutes ago,” answered one of the teachers.

Swingle looked pointedly at his watch. The Hornet looked around some more, but saw no sign of Mr. P. She did not look pleased.

“We’ll just have to do this without him,” she said.

“Good idea,” said Swingle, leading the way, as the group set out once again to judge the science fair.

A few feet away, inside the utility room just off the gym, Prmkt was watching his computer screen. He had four windows open. Two were showing him the efforts—still futile—of the power companies to regain control over their systems. One was showing the statuses of various communications satellites. The fourth window was showing CNN. There were several people on the screen, all frowning deeply; one was described on the screen as a terrorism expert. They were saying that the president of the United States would soon be addressing the nation.

Prmkt smiled at that. He began tapping the keys again.

He would give the president something more to talk about.

NOBODY HAD EVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT anywhere, ever. Somebody, somehow, was turning the power off, and then back on, over huge sections of North America, like a child flicking switches in a living room. A few minutes earlier the power had been returned to the Northeast, but at that same moment the Midwest, including Chicago, had gone dark. Then the Midwest came back and California went down. Right now Texas was dark.

Every available technician in North America was working frantically to find answers. But as yet nobody had a clue who or what was causing the blackouts or where the next one would strike.

The U.S. military was now on high alert all over the world—a world becoming more tense by the second as the chaos spread across America. Financial markets were severely disrupted as critical computer systems lost power, threatening huge amounts of data. Backups were holding; but for how long? Planes were making emergency landings everywhere as the FAA, not knowing which airports would be affected next, struggled to halt commercial air travel. Telecommunications, including the Internet and e-mail, had become highly erratic and unreliable, as had radio and TV transmissions. Many cities were paralyzed by horrendous traffic jams; tens of thousands of drivers were abandoning their cars on freeways and trying to get home on foot.

This disruption had already—in less than an hour—cost the country billions of dollars. But that was a pittance compared to the devastating price to be paid if the mysterious blackouts were not stopped soon. Americans depended on electrical technology for every element of their lives—their economy, their government, their food, their shelter, their communication, their transportation, their medical care—everything. Without that technology, American society would plunge into a primitive, desperate, fearful, and dangerous state from which the country might never recover.

Panic was spreading, particularly in the big cities. There already were reports of supermarkets being looted by mobs of people who feared that the food would soon run out. Gunshots had been reported in some areas. Rumors swirled everywhere about who, or what, was causing the blackouts. Most of the rumors involved terrorists, but there were many other theories, including some that blamed extraterrestrial beings.

Americans were scared. They felt their comfortable world crumbling around them. They wanted the blackouts to stop, and they wanted somebody to assure them that everything would be all right again. The person they most wanted to hear these assurances from was the president, who was scheduled to address the nation “in a matter of minutes.” The networks had been saying that for the last half hour.

The problem was that, at the moment, the president didn’t know any more about the blackouts than anybody else did. The president was very angry about this. He was running for re-election, and he did NOT want to tell the nation he didn’t know what was happening. He wanted to tell the nation he had everything under control. So he was putting extreme pressure on his people to get him some answers RIGHT NOW. His people were, in turn, putting extreme pressure on power-industry officials, who were putting extreme pressure on their staffs.

This was why Bernard Kosar was currently holding a phone to each of his ears. In each ear was the shouting voice of a high-level executive of Mid-Atlantic Power. Kosar had tried to explain that his people were already working as hard as they could, but this didn’t stop the executives from shouting; they had been shouted at by the people above them, and they felt a need to shout at the people below.

Kosar heard a tap on his doorframe and looked up to see Robert Joseph gesturing to indicate he wanted to tell Kosar something. Kosar put the two phones down on his desk.

“What?” he said to Joseph.

“It’s coming from around here,” Joseph said.

“What is?’

“The hack,” said Joseph. “It’s coming from Maryland.”

Kosar waved his arms. “For everything? The whole country?”

“I think so,” said Joseph.

Kosar was on his feet. “How do you know that?”

Joseph started to answer, but he was using computer terms so technical that to Kosar it might as well have been Chinese. Worse, actually, because Kosar spoke a little Chinese. He waved an arm to make Joseph stop.

“Okay, never mind,” he said. “Where, exactly, are they in Maryland?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Joseph.

“Find out,” said Kosar.

Joseph started to say something, but then he saw the look in Kosar’s eyes.

“Okay,” he said and left.

Kosar picked up the phones. The executives were still shouting. He gently put the phones back down, a few inches apart. He’d let the executives shout at each other, while the nerdy kid in the other room tried to save the world.

BAM BAM BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM

The men in the basement were trying to break down the door. They’d been pounding on it with their fists, but the door proved to be too solid. Now, however, they’d found something heavier to bludgeon it with—a chair, maybe, or a baseball bat. They were hitting the door hard; from what Toby’s parents had seen, one of them was huge.

Roger stood by the door, watching it warily as it shook with each blow. Fawn was at the kitchen telephone; she’d just dialed 911 yet again. She hung up in frustration.

“It’s still busy!” she said. “How can 911 be busy?”

“It’s the blackout,” said Roger.

BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM

“Roger,” said Fawn, “they’re going to knock it down. We should go.”

“You go,” he said. “I’m staying. I’m not letting them take the collection.”

She went to him, put a hand on his arm. “Roger,” she said softly, “it’s just some old movie props.”

He turned from the door, took her hands in his, and looked into her eyes. “Fawn,” he said, “do you remember how we met? Do you?”

She nodded, but he answered anyway: “We met in a movie theater, Fawn. We met because we were the only two people who went to every single showing of The Empire Strikes Back. Every single one, for three days, until the movie theater called the police. People said we were crazy, but we didn’t care, because we knew we were part of something great, something that would last.

“And it did last, Fawn. We were right, and those people were wrong, just like they were wrong when we quit our jobs and spent all our time and money scavenging for those props. That collection is worth a fortune today, Fawn.”

BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM

“What does it matter what it’s worth?” said Fawn. “You’ll never sell it.”

“That’s right,” said Roger. “I won’t sell it because it’s part of me—part of us. Star Wars brought us together, Fawn. It gave us a purpose when we didn’t have one. It taught us that there is good and evil in the universe, and if good doesn’t stand up to evil and fight back, then evil will win.”

He pointed at the door. “And right now, somebody dressed as Darth Vader, the very embodiment of evil, is trying to take our collection.”

“But the big one looks like Chewbacca,” said Fawn. “Isn’t he supposed to be good?”

“Maybe he switched sides,” said Roger.

BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM—CRACK

The door was giving way.

“You go,” said Roger. “Maybe you can find help. I’m going to stay and fight.”

“With what?” said Fawn. “You don’t have a weapon.”

“I do too have a weapon,” said Roger. He turned and strode down the hall to their bedroom, with Fawn following. He went to the closet and reached up to the top shelf.

“Are you insane?” she said. “It’s a movie prop!”

Roger brought down a custom-made case and set it on the bed. He flipped the latches and opened the lid.

BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM

“It may be a movie prop to you,” he said. “To me, it is the weapon Luke Skywalker used in the greatest duel of all—the duel with Vader in the freezing chamber on Cloud City.” He pulled out a battered-looking light saber.

“But Luke lost that duel,” said Fawn. “Vader cut off his hand.”

“Yes, but Luke lived to fight again,” said Roger.

“I think you’re better off with the barbecue tongs,” said Fawn.

Ignoring her, Roger put the light saber on the bed and went back into the closet, emerging a moment later with a black Jedi Knight uniform on a hanger. He quickly stripped down to his underwear and shrugged into the black top.

BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM

“You’re wearing that?” said Fawn.

“I want him to know what he’s fighting,” said Roger.

“A lunatic?” said Fawn.

“He’s fighting the Force,” said Roger. “The good side of the Force. And there is no power in the universe more powerful. Help me with my pants.” Roger had put on a few pounds since the last time he had been a Jedi Knight. The black pants were stuck midway up his thighs.

BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM CRACK CRACK CRACK

“Roger!” said Fawn, “they’re breaking through the door!”

There was no time now for pants. Roger grabbed the light saber and, hindered by his halfway-up pants, waddled into the hallway to do battle with evil.

LANCE SWINGLE—TRAILED BY THE HORNET, a gaggle of science teachers, and a crowd of spectators—walked slowly through the Hubble Middle gymnasium, pretending to be interested in the science fair. What he was really interested in was getting out of there. The mysterious blackouts had made him very nervous; he’d told his lackeys to let him know as soon as the TranScent helicopter could take off.

Meanwhile, though, he was looking with fake fascination at science-fair projects. He had just reached the one submitted by Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer, who stood next to it, beaming with pride. His project consisted of a fifty-five-gallon drum containing a brown liquid. Suspended over this, hanging from a wire, was a large, multicolored disc, about the size of a small car tire. Next to the project was a sign that said THE POWER OF SURFACE TENSION.

Swingle stopped, looking at the disc.

“What is that thing?” he said.

“It’s a giant Mentos,” said BPW.

“A what?” said Swingle.

“A Mentos,” said BPW. “The candy. Actually I made it by gluing a whole bunch of regular Mentos together. It took, like, a week.”

Swingle leaned closer to the disc and saw that it was, in fact, made of thousands of Mentos.

“And why did you do that?” he asked Brad.

“To see what happens when you drop it in Diet Coke,” said Brad, pointing at the drum.

“You filled a fifty-five-gallon drum with Diet Coke?” said Swingle.

“Yeah,” said Brad. “We had to get it from the beverage distributor. My dad says this project better win the prize, because he spent my college tuition on Diet Coke.”

“Perhaps we should move on,” said The Hornet, glaring at BPW.

“Not yet,” said Swingle. To BPW he said, “I have to know. What, exactly, will happen when you drop that thing into the Diet Coke?”

“I’m not totally sure,” said Brad. “For the actual experiment, I’m going to move it outside. They won’t let me do it in here. You want to see it happen?”

“Not really,” said Swingle.

There was a loud Ribbit! and a sudden motion next to Brad’s project. The group turned to see a large frog inside a glass globe rise several inches off a metal plate. It hovered in the air, looking nervous even by frog standards.

“What is THAT?” said Swingle.

“It’s Fester,” said BPW. “He’s a frog.”

“I see it’s a frog,” said Swingle. “But what…what…”

“It’s Mucus’s project,” said Brad.

“Mucus?” said Swingle.

“Micah Porter,” said BPW. “It works on magnets or something. Micah has it on a timer. He’s not here because he got kicked out of school for…”

“That’s enough, Mr. Wemplemeyer,” snapped The Hornet.

“Okay,” said BPW. “But I think Fester’s getting hungry.”

“Why don’t we move on?” said The Hornet.

“Why don’t we?” said Swingle.

Ribbit! said Fester the floating frog. But nobody was listening.

The judges came next to a row of impressive-looking projects, all submitted by ME kids. The Hornet perked up, as did the teachers with her; one of these projects, they were sure, would be Swingle’s choice for first prize. This was also the opinion of the group of ME kids and their parents—including Harmonee, Haley, Jason, and The Ferret, all of whom were smiling with varying degrees of smugness.

But The Ferret’s smugness turned to fear when Swingle pointed at his project and said, “This looks interesting. Can someone tell me what it’s about?”

“Go ahead, Farrel,” Harmonee said to The Ferret, her smiling face radiating sweetness. “Explain your project to Mr. Swingle.” The other ME kids snickered, knowing that The Ferret could no more explain his project than he could produce frozen yogurt from his ear.

“Is this your project, young man?” said Swingle.

“Um,” said The Ferret, adding, “um.”

“Yes?” said Swingle.

“Um,” said The Ferret.

“He means yes,” said Harmonee, batting her eyelashes at Swingle.

“Well, then,” said Swingle to The Ferret, “tell me what it does.”

But before The Ferret could totally humiliate himself, one of Swingle’s lackeys tapped him on the shoulder and whispered something into his ear. He, in turn, conferred quietly for a minute with The Hornet. She nodded grimly and turned to face the crowd.

“Apparently,” she said, “the situation with the blackouts is becoming, ah, a bit more of a problem.”

A man in the crowd, with a cell phone to his ear, said in a loud voice, “There’s rioting in Los Angeles.”

“Miami, too,” said another voice. “And Cleveland.”

The crowd was buzzing now.

“Quiet, please!” shouted The Hornet. The crowd quieted, stunned; The Hornet never shouted.

“We cannot have panic,” said The Hornet. “We will not have panic. Now Mr. Swingle has informed me that the president is going to address the nation about this situation, and I’m sure he will tell us what steps are being taken to bring everything under control. I’m going to ask everybody to move to the north end of the gymnasium, and I’m going to ask Coach Furman to bring a television monitor so we can watch the president’s address.”

The crowd, buzzing again, began moving. Swingle grabbed his lackey by the arm and snapped, “Get me out of here. I don’t care how you do it, but get me out of here.” The lackey trotted off through the crowd, leaving Swingle, momentarily alone, standing by the ME kids’ projects. His eyes happened to fall on a thick cable running from one of the projects; he noticed the same type of cable running from another project, and another. For a moment he wondered about that. But then he decided it was not his concern.

He started walking toward the end of the gym, having decided that, until his idiot staff could get him out of here, he would hear what the president had to say about what was causing these strange blackouts. He took a few steps. Then something made him stop, turn, and take another look at the ME projects. Something bothered him about them—the elaborate technology, the thick cable.…

He stared at the projects for a few more seconds.

Nah, he decided. Not my concern.

He turned and started walking again.

ROGER HARBINGER, JEDI KNIGHT, stood in the hallway, gripping his light saber with his right hand while using his left to pull up his Jedi pants. His eyes were fixed on the basement door.

BAM CRACK CRACK CRACK

The door was being splintered into kindling. It now had a big hole, through which Roger could see the legs of a chair. The men in the basement were breaking out.

CRASH

The last pieces of the door clattered into the hallway, followed by the chair. Roger, hardly breathing, gripped his light saber tighter and focused on the now-empty doorway. He felt a drop of sweat run down his forehead and sting his eye.

He twitched as the Wookiee’s enormous hairy head appeared in the opening. The head swiveled and looked directly at Roger. Then the Wookie looked back over his shoulder and said, “He has a light saber.”

From the stairwell, Roger heard a voice he knew well from hours spent in the tenth row of the movie theater—a deep voice taking loud hissing breaths between each phrase.

“Step aside!” spoke the voice of Darth Vader. “I shall deal with him.”

The Wookiee stepped aside. Roger heard the tromp of heavy bootsteps climbing the stairs. Finally, the gleaming plastic of the black-helmeted head appeared. Vaderian stepped into the hallway, adjusted his cape, and faced Roger.

“So,” he said, “we meet at last.”

He flicked the switch on his light saber. Nothing happened.

“I said no more discount batteries!” Vaderian hissed at the Wookiee.

“The batteries are good,” said the Wookiee. “Jiggle the switch.”

Vaderian jiggled the switch, and the light saber came to life. Again Vaderian faced Roger.

“So,” he said, raising his saber, “we meet at last.”

“So we do,” said Roger, wishing he could come up with something more dramatic. He also wished his light saber lit up, but it was a real prop, and in Star Wars the glow was added as a special effect.

Vaderian, waving his light saber, stepped forward. Roger stepped back. In moments they were in the living room, circling. The Wookiee stood in the hallway entrance, watching.

Vaderian slashed his light saber toward Roger. Vaderian’s saber hummed as it sliced the air. The hum was digitally recorded and triggered by motion sensors in the handle of the light saber, which Vaderian had purchased on the Internet.

Roger, still tugging at his pants with his left hand, dodged out of the way and thrust his saber at Vader. Vader blocked it with his own saber. The two sabers made a loud clunk as they hit each other. Each man winced, secretly afraid that his saber would break.

Now they were circling again. The Wookiee was watching intently.

Then all three heard it: “AIIIEEEEEEEEE!!!”

The piercing shriek came from the end of the hallway. Roger and Vaderian turned to see what had caused it. The Wookiee started to turn, but before he got his head around, Fawn Harbinger had leaped on his back. She was wearing one of her Princess Leia costumes, specifically the metal bikini Leia wore when she was held captive by Jabba the Hutt.

Fawn had considered wearing her white-robe costume, but she felt it would be too confining for fighting. Also, she was proud that she could still fit into the bikini.

“LEAVE MY HUSBAND ALONE!” she shouted, pounding a fist on the Wookiee’s head.

“Get off me, lady!” shouted the Wookiee. “OWW!” he added, as Fawn grabbed a handful of his thick hair and yanked on it. Her other arm was now wrapped around the Wookiee’s head, covering his eyes. Temporarily blinded and shouting in pain, he staggered, spinning, back to the hall, with Fawn still screeching and clinging to his back like a crazed bikini-clad monkey.

“Fawn!” shouted Roger. He lunged after his wife but found his path blocked by Vaderian, breath hissing in his voice-changing box.

“Get out of my way, Vader!” said Roger.

“Make me, Jedi!” snarled Vaderian.

Roger swung his light saber, but Vaderian was ready. With a quick and practiced move, he parried Roger’s blow and then struck one of his own, hitting Roger’s light saber just above his hand. Roger lost his grip; the light saber clattered across the living room.

Roger was now unarmed. He stepped back as Vaderian swung at him, the humming blade just missing his face. He heard screeching and thumping from the hallway, but couldn’t see what was happening because of the advancing black-caped bulk of Vaderian.

Roger looked to his left and saw his light saber on the floor, ten feet away. He took a step toward it, but Vaderian cut him off.

“Why don’t you use the Force to get your light saber, Jedi?” said Vaderian. Then he chuckled a chuckle that he had been waiting his entire adult life to deliver.

Roger looked at the light saber. He remembered the scene from The Empire Strikes Back when Luke, left hanging upside down by an ice creature on the Planet Hoth, stretches his hand out and summons the light saber to him.

If only…

Roger jerked his head away as the humming blade flashed past again. He took another step back; he was almost to the wall. In desperation, he reached his hand out toward his light saber. Vaderian chuckled. Roger could tell he had practiced chuckling. Another step back, and Roger felt the wall behind him. There was nowhere to go now. Vaderian drew back for a final blow.…

And then Roger’s light saber moved. Roger gasped; Vaderian turned to look. Both men stared in astonishment as the light saber rose, traveled across the floor, and settled gently into Roger’s outstretched hand.

“Here you go, Dad,” said Toby’s voice.

Roger gripped the light saber with both hands, allowing his pants to fall to his knees. He swung the saber with all his strength. Vaderian raised his saber to block it.

CLUNK

Both men opened their eyes and saw that Vaderian’s light saber had shattered into pieces; the batteries—six C cells—were rolling across the floor. Vaderian held only the handle now. Roger drew his saber back, preparing to strike again. But Vaderian was already at the door, yanking it open and barging out, followed closely by the Wookiee, howling in pain and chased by Fawn, who was holding a clump of hair in each hand. As the Wookiee ran out the door, she stopped and shouted, “AND DON’T COME BACK, HAIRBALL!”

As Vaderian and the Wookiee fled, they barely avoided barreling into Drmtsi, Vrsk, Tamara, and Micah. The four had been ordered by Toby to remain outside while he entered the house, invisible, through his bedroom window. They’d been standing on the front walkway, listening to the battle rage inside; now they jumped aside as Vaderian and the Wookiee barreled past.

For a moment, all four of them could only stare at the two weird figures. It was Drmtsi who first found words, calling out in English as Vaderian and the Wookiee disappeared into the night: “May this Force is being with you!”

PRMKT’S QUICK, ACCURATE FINGERS danced over the computer keyboard. His eyes were focused on the screen window displaying the status of a Hughes communications satellite. The satellite hosted several dozen network relays that fed ground-based cable systems.

Prmkt intercepted a feed being relayed to the satellite from a location not far from Hubble. His fingers flashed for a few more seconds. The feed was now routed through his laptop, then back to the satellite for rebroadcast.

He watched the window on his screen, which now displayed a test pattern. He checked his watch. Any second now…there.

On the screen, the test pattern had been replaced by the image of a man sitting at a large desk, a pair of flags behind him. Prmkt studied the man’s face. He looked tired; Prmkt thought he detected a hint of anxiety in his eyes.

Prmkt nodded. He enjoyed knowing that he was the cause of this man’s anxiety. And soon he would be the cause of more.

Much more.

TOBY HAD SPENT SEVERAL MINUTES talking very fast, trying to explain to his parents how he and his fellow prisoners had managed to (a) escape from federal custody, and (b) show up in the middle of a robbery with the Wienermobile and, by the way, an invisibility device. Toby had then tried to explain why they needed to get to the science fair right away, because of Sternabite’s warning that something very bad was going to happen.

His parents were still stunned from their battle with Vaderian and the Wookiee and still wearing their Star Wars costumes. They did not want to go anywhere. They were more interested in explaining to Toby why—if he ever got out of prison—he was going to be grounded for the next, approximately, three thousand years.

“But the science fair!” Toby cried. “We have to—”

“If there’s a problem with the science fair,” interrupted Roger, “the police will handle it.”

“But the police won’t handle it!” Toby shouted. “They don’t believe us. Nobody believes us. Please, we have to get to the school!”

“No, Toby,” said Roger. “We’re not going to discuss—”

He was interrupted by the sudden blare of the TV set, which Drmtsi had managed to turn on, hoping to find the shopping network. On the screen, in big letters, were the words BLACKOUT PANIC SPREADS. The announcer was saying: “…expecting the president to address the nation at any moment now about the rapidly deteriorating situation as city after city is descending into anarchy. We have still not received any hard information about what is causing these blackouts and communications disruptions, although as we said moments ago there has been a report—so far unsubstantiated—that whatever is causing this problem is originating from Maryland, possibly in the Washington, D.C., area. But again, we have no…”

“Did you hear that?” said Toby. “It’s got to be the science fair!”

“You don’t know that,” said Fawn. “It could just be a coincidence.”

“No!” said Toby. “Sternabite said the ME kids had collected all this, like, top secret technology!”

Roger and Fawn exchanged a look. Vrsk said something in Krpsht to Drmtsi.

“Dad,” said Toby, “what if I’m right?”

“That would be a first,” said Micah. “Ouch,” he added, when Tamara punched him.

“Really, Dad,” said Toby, “what if I am right, and something terrible happens, and we didn’t try to stop it? Don’t you always tell me that no matter what, you have to try to do the right thing?”

Roger exchanged a look with Fawn—Fawn, who had jumped on the Wookiee to save him; he turned back to Toby, took a breath, and exhaled.

“All right,” he said.

“We have to hurry!” said Toby, already at the door.

They rode in the Wienermobile, because there wasn’t enough room for all of them in the Harbingers’ car. They took side streets in an effort to avoid the police. Vrsk drove, with Toby in the front passenger seat giving directions; the others were crowded into the back.

“What exactly are we going to do when we get there?” asked Micah.

“We’re going to find the ME kids’ projects,” said Toby.

“And then what?” said Tamara.

“I don’t know,” admitted Toby. “Unplug them?”

“Good thing we have a plan,” said Tamara.

“What’s that smell?” said Fawn, wrinkling her nose.

“It’s some kind of cheese,” said Toby.

“They keep it in their pants,” added Micah.

“Their pants?” said Fawn.

“It is traditional Krpshtskani cheese,” said Vrsk, who’d been following the discussion. “Also is for scaring wolfs. Is called smerk.”

Hearing that word, Drmtsi, who was sitting next to Fawn and admiring the way she looked in her Star Wars bikini, reached into his pants and said, “Smerk?”

“No!” said Fawn, recoiling.

“UH-oh,” said Toby.

“What?” said Roger.

Toby pointed at the sideview mirror. “Police!”

They heard the whoop of a siren.

“He wants us to pull over,” said Toby.

WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP

“So,” said Micah, “are we gonna pull over?”

“We’re almost to the school,” said Toby, looking out the window. He turned to Vrsk and said, “Can this hot dog go any faster?”

“We will find out,” said Vrsk, as he stomped on the accelerator.

SWINGLE LOOKED AROUND the crowded gym, seeing anxiety on the faces of the people waiting for the president to speak. Swingle hated this situation—hated waiting, hated crowds, hated the feeling of not being in control. He made up his mind. He wasn’t staying here with these losers.

He was getting out.

He slipped away from his lackeys and, keeping his face down, pushed through the crowd to the exit. He strode quickly across the ball field to the TranScent helicopter sitting in the darkness. He yanked open the door, startling the pilot, a young man named Jake Ungerman, who had dreamed his whole life of being a helicopter pilot. He loved his job and took great pride in it.

“Mr. Swingle!” he said. “Is something…”

“We’re leaving,” snapped Swingle, climbing into the chopper. “Now.”

“Uh, sir, we can’t right now. The FAA…”

“I don’t care what the FAA says,” said Swingle. “Start the engine!”

“Sir,” said Ungerman. “I’d lose my license.”

Swingle leaned forward and grabbed Ungerman’s shirt. “You listen to me, kid,” he said. “I can get you your license back if you lose it. But if you don’t take off right now, I will make sure you lose it forever. You’ll never fly again. You won’t be allowed to fly a kite. Do you understand me?”

Ungerman nodded glumly.

“Good,” said Swingle. “Then start the engine.”

Ungerman began flipping switches. “What about your staff?” he asked.

“Forget them,” said Swingle. “Go.”

The big rotor began to turn. Swingle buckled himself into his seat. He looked out the window toward the gym, which was full of scared people worrying about what was going to happen, waiting to be told what to do. Bunch of sheep, Swingle thought. He was very pleased with the way he’d handled the situation. He had taken charge. That’s why, he, Lance Swingle, was a winner. As the rotors spun faster, he took one last look out the window at the school and the gym full of losers. He smiled a thin, self-satisfied smile, the smile of a man in control of his own destiny.

If he had looked out the window on the other side, he would have seen an indication that his destiny was not, after all, entirely in his own hands: a four-ton frankfurter, coming fast.

“YOU’RE GOING OFF THE ROAD!” shouted Toby.

“I KNOW THIS!” answered Vrsk.

The hurtling Wienermobile, followed by the whooping police car, had barely made the turn into the Hubble Middle School driveway. The giant hot dog fishtailed wildly as Vrsk fought to regain control. He did not totally succeed. The driveway curved gently left, but the Wienermobile kept going straight, lurching into the air as the wheels hit the curb. The impact shoved the terrified occupants forward, and Vrsk’s foot slammed down hard on the accelerator. The Wienermobile shot forward onto the ball field.

WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP

The police car vaulted the curb right behind them. Directly ahead was the chain-link fencing of the baseball backstop.

“STOP STOP STOP STOP!” shouted Toby, whose voice was joined by a chorus of desperate shouts and screams from the people in the back of the Wienermobile. None of this had any effect on Vrsk, who was totally focused on trying to get the steering under control, and thus had pretty much forgotten about his right foot, which remained on the accelerator as the Wienermobile crashed into and through the backstop, bouncing wildly as it hurtled over fencing and fence post. The police car hit the fallen backstop next and lost control, spinning in a full circle, then another, then rolling over several times before ending up on its side, still whooping.

Meanwhile the Wienermobile hit the pitcher’s mound at a good sixty miles per hour. The sudden impact sent the occupants sprawling, including Vrsk, who now lost all control. Toby was the first to get his head up and see, directly ahead, a helicopter.

A HELICOPTER?!?

“LOOK OUT!” shouted Toby, but at that point even if Vrsk had the skills of a NASCAR driver—which he definitely did not—he could not have prevented the collision. As the occupants screamed and covered their faces, the Wienermobile slammed into the back of the TranScent helicopter. The entire tail section was sheared off cleanly, and it tumbled wildly toward first base, with the tail rotor still spinning. The cockpit and cabin rolled over several times and wound up at third base.

Meanwhile, the Wienermobile hurtled into the outfield, where Vrsk was finally able to slam on the brakes and bring the vehicle to a fishtailing stop. The windshield was shattered; the front end was badly smashed. Smoke poured from the engine and billowed around the Wienermobile, which looked like a bratwurst left on the grill too long.

Toby felt himself for injuries; he seemed to be okay. He looked at Vrsk, who was still gripping the wheel, staring ahead, breathing hard. A medley of groans sounded in the backseat as Micah, Tamara, Drmtsi, and Toby’s parents disentangled their limbs and sat up, blinking.

“Well,” said Toby. “We’re here.”

“THIRTY SECONDS, MR. PRESIDENT.”

The president, sitting at his desk in the Oval Office, nodded slightly, his eyes on the teleprompter. He looked grim and felt grimmer. Trouble was erupting all over the United States; as the blackouts continued to wreak havoc, the national mood had quickly gone from worry to fear to full-blown panic. The president understood now that he was facing his ultimate test as a leader: this was the crisis that would define his presidency and his place in history. In a few moments, the nation—no, the world—would be watching him, expecting reassurance, answers—leadership.

But the president had no answers. He had shouted at people; he had bullied; he had pressured; he had begged. He had committed the vast resources of the mightiest nation on earth to an intense effort to stop the blackouts, or at the very least, explain them. So far, that effort had produced, essentially, nothing. The consensus of the experts was that the blackouts were being caused by some very sophisticated technology. But as for the specific kind of technology and who was using it—the experts had no clue.

So the president was about to face the world armed with nothing more than a vague speech about the need to remain calm and a promise that all would soon be well.

The president didn’t believe that all would soon be well.

“Five seconds, Mr. President.”

The president took a breath. The red light on the camera came on.

“Good evening,” the president said. “As you know, large areas of the United States have been affected by a series of power outages, which have also affected communications in many areas. Tonight I want to talk to you about what action we in the federal government, along with the public utilities, are taking to correct these problems. I also want to talk about how we, as a nation, can work together to minimize the disruption until this situation passes. And you have my word: it will pass.”

The president paused and smiled his most confident-looking smile.

I hope they’re buying this, he thought.

Prmkt, seeing the president’s smile on his computer screen, responded with a smile of his own.

His fingers went to the keyboard.

It was time to show America who was really in charge.

In the Hubble gymnasium, only yards away from Prmkt’s makeshift headquarters in the utility room, the science fair crowd was gathered around a large-screen television, watching the president. The volume was cranked up; nobody had heard the Wienermobile-helicopter collision on the ball field two minutes earlier.

By the second sentence of the president’s speech, the crowd had already begun to relax a little. The president was a good speaker, and he had a sincere-looking face. When he smiled his confident smile, people in the crowd, relieved to be reassured by their leader, smiled gratefully back at him.

And then something began to happen to the president’s face.

“What on Earth?”

The White House communications director grabbed his phone. He was in his office, watching the president’s speech on network TV. He could have been in the Oval Office, just down the hall, but he preferred to see the president exactly as the American people saw him.

At the moment, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

He stabbed the speed-dial for the broadcast control room. Two seconds later a voice said, “Yes?”

“What’s wrong?” the communications director asked.

“What do you mean?” said the voice.

“Something’s wrong with the broadcast!” said the communications director, pointing the remote control at the screen and switching rapidly from channel to channel. “Look at the president’s face!”

The voice said, “I’m looking at the president’s face right now, on our monitors and on the satellite feed. It looks fine.”

“WELL, LOOK AT IT ON THE NETWORKS, YOU MORON!” said the communications director.

There was a pause, and then the voice came back.

It said: “Oh. My. God.”

The crowd in the Hubble gym—along with millions of people around the nation and the world—stared at the screen with a mixture of fascination, puzzlement, and fear. As the president’s face began to change, he still sounded like the president; he was giving a very reassuring speech about the need to remain calm while steps were being taken to blah blah blah.

But the president no longer looked like the president. As he spoke, his face was morphing into another face entirely—the hair getting longer, the skin getting softer.…And although the president’s new face was unfamiliar to the rest of the world, it was recognized instantly in the Hubble gym.

“Hey!” shouted a voice. “The president turned into Harmonee Prescott!”

Prmkt said a very bad Krpsht word. After doing everything else perfectly, he’d forgotten to change the settings on the Hotness Box. His fingers flashed furiously over the keyboard. Meanwhile, on millions of television screens around the world, the president’s deep and manly voice continued to come from Harmonee Prescott’s heavily glossed lips.

The White House communications director was on his feet now, shouting into the phone: “How can somebody hijack a satellite? GET THE SATELLITE BACK!”

He paused a moment, listening, then said, “No! We can’t stop the speech! That would look even worse! You have to…what?” He looked back toward the TV. “It is?”

On the TV screen, the president—or, more accurately, the girl whose mouth the president was speaking through—had started to change once again, morphing back to an older face, a masculine face. A wave of relief swept through the communications director, who was already starting to formulate an explanation to give to the media about what had just happened. Technical difficulties…solar flare interference with satellite radio transmissions…

“Okay,” he said into the phone. “When we get his face back, we’ll have him wrap it up as quickly as—” He stopped speaking, now staring at the screen, his throat tightening as if tied into a knot. When he managed to say something again, his normally deep, controlled voice came out close to a shriek.

“THAT…IS…NOT…THE…PRESIDENT’S…FACE!”

AMONG THE FEW AMERICANS not watching the president on television were federal agents Lefkon, Iles, and Turow. They were sitting in the conference room that, a short time earlier, had held their high-priority, top secret prisoners. Now it held only them.

They were still trying to comprehend how these prisoners had managed to escape their top secret facility and then elude a massive manhunt. At the moment, the federal government’s attention was focused on the blackouts. But Lefkon, Iles, and Turow knew that once the immediate crisis was over, they would need to explain how they managed to be outwitted by two bumbling foreigners and three teenagers. Teenagers! The three agents could already see their careers swirling down the toilet. Their only hope was to find the escaped prisoners right now.

The problem was, they had no idea where to look for them.

“I still don’t understand,” Turow was saying, “how you lose track of a thirty-foot-long hot dog.”

“It’s more like twenty-five feet,” said Iles.

“Oh, well, THAT explains it,” said Turow, giving Iles a you-moron look. “No wonder we can’t find them! They’re in a twenty-five-footer! It’s practically invisible!”

“You don’t have to be sarcastic,” said Iles.

“Well, if you would…” Turow began, but he was cut off by the ringing of the phone on the wall. Lefkon reached it first. She listened for a few moments, then said, “They what?” She listened another minute, then said, “Okay, get everybody we have over there. Hold them until we get there. Do not let them get away.”

She hung up and turned to Turow and Iles, who were watching her intently.

“They’re at their school,” she said. “A patrol car picked up the Wienermobile and chased it there. It crashed into a helicopter. The patrol car crashed, too, but the officers saw three kids and some adults running into the school gymnasium.”

“How did they crash into a helicopter and manage to survive?” said Iles.

“Who knows?” said Turow, already out the door. “And who cares? Let’s get over there.”

Only minutes later, the three of them were in a government car with Turow at the wheel, violating many traffic laws.

“You know, it’s funny,” Lefkon said.

“What is?” asked Iles.

“Well, the one kid, Toby,” she said, “kept insisting that something really bad was going to happen at his school science fair tonight.”

“So?” said Turow, running a red light.

“And now he’s gone to all this trouble to escape, and where does he go? He doesn’t go home. He doesn’t run away. He goes to his school science fair.” She turned to Iles.

“What’s your point?” said Iles.

“Well,” said Lefkon, “this might sound a little crazy, but what if he’s right? What if the science fair has something to do with all this weird stuff going on?”

“You mean the blackouts?” said Turow.

“Yes,” said Lefkon. “They’re saying on the news that whatever’s causing the blackout might be in this area.”

Turow looked at her, then back at the road.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “That’s definitely crazy.”

TOBY REACHED THE DOOR FIRST. He peeked inside and saw hundreds of people crowded at one end of the gym watching a TV screen set up on a stand. That was good news; as long as the crowd’s attention was on the TV, it would not be on the science-fair projects.

Toby turned around. Behind him, just outside the door, were Micah and Tamara; behind them were Toby’s mom and dad, who were still—Toby was beginning to regret this—wearing their Star Wars costumes. Behind them were Drmtsi and Vrsk, who had been talking to each other quietly in Krpsht.

“All right,” Toby said to Micah, Tamara, and his parents. “We need to find the ME kids’ projects and disable them.”

“How do we do that?” said Roger.

“I don’t know,” said Toby. “Unplug them, or just break them, if we have to. Just as long as they don’t work.”

“I need to check on Fester first,” said Micah. “I bet he’s starving.”

“Micah,” said Toby, “we’re trying to save the country, okay? This isn’t the time to feed your frog.”

“It’ll only be a minute,” said Micah, trotting off.

“Good to have priorities,” said Tamara.

“Come on,” said Toby. “Let’s find the ME kids’ projects.”

He and Tamara took the first aisle; his parents, trailed by Drmtsi and Vrsk, took the second. Toby had hoped it would be an easy search, but there were dozens and dozens of projects, many of them elaborate, emitting a confusing profusion of lights and sounds. He and Tamara had to stop and check each one, looking for the student’s name. Toby glanced back toward the crowd at the end of the gym; people seemed to be getting quite agitated about whatever was happening on the TV screen. That was fine with Toby; he was grateful for the distraction. He turned to look at the next project.

Then he froze, as a voice boomed behind him:

“THERE THEY ARE! STOP THEM!”

Toby whirled around and saw, standing in the gym doorway, the furious figure of Lance Swingle. His hair was messed up, his jacket was torn, and his nose was bleeding. He was pointing at them.

“GET THEM!” he bellowed. “THEY WRECKED MY HELICOPTER!”

In the crowd, heads turned. One of the heads belonged to Jason Niles, who yelled, “Hey! It’s Hardbonger!” More heads turned.

“GET THEM!” yelled Swingle again.

Some people—including Jason Niles and Coach Furman—separated from the crowd and started heading toward Toby and the others.

“What do we do now?” said Tamara.

“Now,” said Toby, “we run.”

THE PRESIDENT, now that his emergency broadcast to the nation had been hijacked, was no longer sitting at his desk in the Oval Office. He was a few doors down, in the office of the communications director, who was on the phone. Also in the room was the president’s chief of staff, talking on another phone and furiously scribbling notes.

The president was watching a bank of six television monitors. Each was tuned to a different network, but all showed the same picture: a man sitting at the president’s desk in the Oval Office, wearing the president’s suit, the same suit the president was wearing now. But the head sticking out of the suit was not the president’s. It was, instead, the head of a large man with a puffy red face, a thick beard, a low forehead, and small, close-together eyes peeking around an enormous red nose.

The man on the screen wasn’t talking. He was simply staring into the camera, as he had been doing for several minutes now—ever since the satellite had been hijacked. The president was glaring back at the man wearing his suit. The president was very, very unhappy.

The chief of staff hung up the phone.

“Well?” snapped the president.

“Okay,” said the chief of staff, glancing down at his notes. “The State Department says this guy”—he pointed at the screen—“is Grdankl the Strong.”

“Who the what?” said the president.

“Grdankl the Strong,” said the chief of staff. “He’s the president of Krpshtskan.”

The president frowned and said, “Is that the one with the hole?”

“No, that’s Fazul,” said the chief of staff. “Krpshtskan is next door.”

The president glared at the screen again. “And can anybody explain,” he asked, “how on earth the president of Krap…Karp…Kapa…”

“Krpshtskan,” said the chief of staff.

“…of this dirtbag little nation is being broadcast to the entire world while sitting in my office, wearing my suit?” said the president, his voice straining.

“At the moment, sir, no,” the chief of staff admitted. “But—”

“Well, can we at least shut the satellite down?” said the president, aiming his glare at the communications director.

“Apparently we…cannot…sir,” he answered.

The president took another breath, trying to calm himself. “So,” he said, “you’re telling me that in the biggest crisis of my presidency, in the most powerful nation on earth, we can do nothing about the fact that I can’t communicate to the American people BECAUSE MY HEAD, ON MY BODY, HAS BEEN REPLACED BY THE HEAD OF A FOURTH-WORLD DICTATOR WITH A NOSE THAT LOOKS LIKE A TOMATO?”

The chief of staff and the communications director looked at each other but said nothing. Neither wanted to inform the president that, minutes earlier, he had had the head of an attractive teenage girl. Now both men cringed as the president prepared to bellow something. But before he could start, he was interrupted by a new voice.

Grdankl the Strong had begun to speak.

All three men turned to the bank of TV screens. “Turn it up!” said the president. The communications director increased the volume, and the room was filled with the harsh sounds of the Krpsht language.

“What’s he saying?” snapped the president.

“I’ll find out,” said the chief of staff, reaching for a phone.

“Wait,” said the president. “I’m hearing English.”

A new voice was coming from the speaker, talking over Grdankl’s voice. The new voice spoke English with a thick accent, apparently translating Grdankl’s words.

“People of the United States of American,” the voice said. “I am Grdankl the Strong, president of Krpshtskan, son of Bmepl the Brave, grandson of Kminkt the Good at Remembering Names. I will tell you now why my country, Krpshtskan, will destroy your country.”

The president turned to the communications director and snapped, “Is this being broadcast everywhere?” The communications director nodded. The president rubbed his face with both hands.

“In Krpshtskan,” said the Grdankl translator, “we have a saying. We say, if you steal the goat of a Krpsht, you are stealing a goat from all Krpshts. And you, United States of American, you have stolen a Krpsht goat.”

“We stole their goat?” said the communications director.

“Shut up,” said the president.

“Five years ago,” said the translator, “a young Krpsht man came to your country with a big hope in his heart. You told him, ‘Welcome! We are liking you very much!’ But these were lies, United States of American. You were laughing at him. Big funny ha-ha American joke. But this joke was not funny to this young man. You stole the goat of his hope. And now, for this, you will be destroyed. But first you will see one last time a brave son of Krpshtskan. Enjoy this, people of American. It is the last thing you will see.”

On the screen, the president body/Grdankl head disappeared. It was replaced by a brightly lit stage. On it was a smiling young man with long, floppy hair.

“Who is that?” said the president.

Both the chief of staff and the communications director shrugged.

An unseen piano began to play. The melody sounded familiar to the three men, but none of them could quite place it.

Then the young man began to sing:

“Spring was never waiting for us girl…”

The chief of staff snapped his fingers. “That’s ‘MacArthur Park,’” he said.

“The one about the cake?” said the president. “In the rain?”

“Yeah,” said the chief of staff.

The president, his eyes on the screen, said, “What was it he said? The Grdankl guy? That this is the last thing we’re going to see?”

“Yeah,” said the chief of staff.

“All right,” said the president. Beads of sweat had formed on his brow and upper lip. “We need to find out right now who this kid is, what the heck we supposedly did to him, and how to communicate with Mr. Tomato Nose. We are putting an end to this now.”

“Right,” said the chief of staff, grabbing a phone.

The president turned to the communications director. “And you,” he said, “need to find out how long this song is.”

THREE MINUTES AND TWENTY-SEVEN SECONDS. That was the precise length of the version of “MacArthur Park” that Prmkt was now broadcasting to the world from the utility room next to the Hubble Middle School gym.

Prmkt looked at his watch. The song had been going for thirty seconds. Just under three minutes to go. When the song ended, he would start the final sequence.

Some kind of commotion had erupted in the gym; Prmkt could hear muffled shouts through the utility-room door. He thought about checking to see what it was, but decided he should focus on the task at hand.

He glanced at his watch again. Just over two minutes left.

Prmkt flexed his fingers over the keyboard, getting ready.

“GAH YAFOO OUMA MOUF,” said Tamara.

“What?” whispered Toby.

“I said get your foot out of my mouth,” said Tamara, giving Toby’s sneaker a shove.

“Sorry!” said Toby, shifting position.

The two of them were crouched under one of the science-fair exhibit tables, hidden from view by the cloth that was draped over each of the tables. They’d been here for several minutes, listening to running feet tromp past and to the shouts of their pursuers, directed by Lance Swingle. They heard other voices, as well, coming from the crowd gathered around the TV set. People were reacting with alarm to something, but Toby and Tamara couldn’t tell what it was.

Toby pulled the drape aside and peeked out. He and Tamara were almost at the end of one of the rows of tables. At the far end, he saw Jason Niles and Coach Furman, one on each side, methodically going from table to table, lifting the drapes and looking underneath. Toby ducked back.

“They’re looking under the tables,” he said.

“What do we do?” said Tamara.

“I dunno,” said Toby. “Maybe we could crawl under the tables until we get to the ME projects—but I don’t even know which way that is.”

“Okay,” said Tamara. “So get out and look for them.”

“They’ll see me,” said Toby.

“Not if you’re invisible,” said Tamara.

“The iPhone!” said Toby, reaching down to turn it on. “I forgot!”

“Duh,” said Tamara.

“Uh-oh,” said Toby, looking at the phone’s screen.

“What?” said Tamara.

“The battery’s low.”

“Then you better get going,” said Tamara.

“What about you?” said Toby.

“Don’t yew worry ’bout me, podner,” said Tamara. “Ah’ll hold ’em off long as ah kin.”

“What accent is that supposed to be?” said Toby.

“Cowboy,” said Tamara.

“Needs work,” said Toby.

“I’ll practice in jail,” said Tamara. “Get going.”

“Okay,” said Toby. He reached for the drape, then said, “Seriously, what are you going to do?”

“I’ve got a bold and daring plan,” said Tamara.

“Which is?”

“I’m going to scream like a girl.”

Toby, despite the seriousness of the situation, smiled. He looked for a moment at Tamara—his oldest and, now that he thought about it, his closest friend—who had stuck with him right to the end of this basically insane effort. He realized this was probably the time to say something meaningful.

“What are you waiting for?” she said.

“I’m, uh…I just…”

“You’re not going to say something meaningful, are you?” she said.

“’Course not,” said Toby.

“Good,” she said. As she said it, she touched his hand for part of a second, and they both blushed.

“Okay,” said Toby. His finger hovered over the magic wand on the iPhone screen. He noticed the sunglasses icon next to it. Back before everything had gone horribly wrong, Sternabite had said to use the sunglasses icon to summon him. Probably too late now, Toby thought, but he touched the sunglasses anyway. Then he touched the wand, and he disappeared.

“See you,” he said, ducking out through the drape.

“Good luck,” said Tamara from under the table.

Toby stood up and looked around. Jason and Coach Furman were getting closer; they’d reach Tamara’s table in a minute. In the next aisle over, Swingle was looking under tables and directing his lackeys to do the same. Beyond them, at the end of the gym, Toby saw the crowd gathered around the TV; over the buzz of the crowd Toby heard a wavery voice singing about a cake in the rain.

Weird.

Toby trotted away from the searchers to the back of the gym. His plan was to do a methodical search for the ME kids’ projects. He went to the end row, rounded the corner, and…

“Micah!”

Micah spun to look but saw nobody.

“Toby?” he said.

“Yeah,” said Toby. He made himself visible as he trotted up to Micah, who was standing next to his project, which was between Tamara’s and Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer’s projects.

“Listen,” said Toby, “have you seen…”

“Fester’s okay,” said Micah, holding up his frog.

“Great,” said Toby. “Listen, have you…”

“I had him on a timer,” said Micah, pointing to his project. “He was going up and down, up and down, like, a foot. It must’ve been awful. I’m gonna turn it off.” He reached for the knob that controlled the power to the fusion reactor Sternabite had lent him. Toby grabbed his arm.

“Micah, listen,” said Toby. “I need to find the ME kids’ projects! Do you know where they are?”

“Yeah,” said Micah. “I was going to tell you as soon as I got Fester…”

“WHERE ARE THEY?” shouted Toby, grabbing Micah’s shirt.

“Right there!” said Micah, pointing at the tables to the right of his.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” said Toby, letting go of Micah’s shirt. He looked around for something he could use to trash the ME kids’ projects. His eyes fell on Tamara’s project, on the table to the left of Micah’s. It was labeled PACKAGING—THE DEADLY KILLER IN YOUR HOME. On the backboard were vivid photographs showing a shard of plastic packaging being used to decapitate a Rollerblade Barbie doll. Displayed on the table was the headless Barbie herself, wearing tiny pink Rollerblades with flint wheels that sparked when they were rolled. Alongside Rollerblade Barbie was her head, still looking blond and perky, next to the shard used to sever it. The shard, Toby decided, might be just the thing for slashing the electrical cables in the ME kids’ projects. He was about to grab it when Micah tugged at his arm.

“Uh, Toby…” said Micah.

“What?” snapped Toby.

“They see you,” said Micah.

“Who does?”

“THERE HE IS!” shouted Lance Swingle.

“Them,” said Micah.

Toby looked toward the far end of the row. Swingle stood there, pointing at him; two burly lackeys were already running his way. Toby whirled and looked away. Jason and Coach Furman were coming. Toby was trapped in the middle of the row. He reached for the iPhone and stabbed the magic wand. He looked down and watched with relief as his legs disappeared.

And then they reappeared.

He looked at the phone. The screen was black.

The battery was dead.

“GET HIM!” screamed Swingle.

Swingle’s men had arrived; so had Jason and Coach Furman. Toby and Micah were surrounded. Swingle’s men moved in.

“Stay back!’ shouted Toby, reaching his right hand behind him. “I have a knife!”

One of Swingle’s men reached into his sport jacket. Toby felt around desperately on the table. Finally his hand closed on something. “I’m warning you!” he said. “If you come near me, I WILL cut you!” Then, with a dramatic flourish, he whipped his arm around and waved his weapon.

Unfortunately, it was the headless Rollerblade Barbie.

“Whoops,” said Micah.

“Is that a doll, Hardbonger?” said Jason.

“No!” said Toby, quickly stuffing it into his back pocket.

The large man pulled his hand from his jacket; he was now pointing a large gun at Toby. “Raise your hands,” he said.

Toby raised his hands.

“You, too,” said the man to Micah.

“I have a frog in my hands,” said Micah.

“Then raise the frog, too,” said the man.

Micah raised his hands, and Fester.

“Now don’t move,” said the man with the gun.

“We’re not moving,” said Toby.

“I think I’m gonna wet my pants,” said Micah.

“Well, do it without moving,” said Toby.

THE PRESIDENT WATCHED as the floppy-haired young man on the TV screen headed into the home stretch of “MacArthur Park,” straining hard and failing to reach the high notes. The president turned to his two aides, both on the phone, both frantically taking notes.

“He’s finishing,” the president said. “Somebody tell me something.”

“Okay,” said the communications director, reading from his notes. “Here’s what we’ve got: this kid is from America’s Next Superstar, the TV show, five years ago.”

“Five years ago?” said the president.

“Right,” said the communications director. “The song ends”—he listened to a voice on the phone—“pretty soon.”

“I know the song,” said the president. “But who is this kid? Why do we care?”

“His name is Gmygmy,” said the chief of staff.

“What?” said the president.

“G-m-y-g-m-y,” said the chief of staff, looking at his notes. “Americans pronounce it basically like ‘Jimmy-Jimmy.’”

“But who is he?” asked the president.

“He’s the son of the president of Krpshtskan.”

“What?”

“He’s the oldest son of Grdankl the Strong,” said the chief of staff. “Five years ago, he came to the U.S. to compete on America’s Next Superstar. He got pretty far into the competition, but it seems people were voting for him mainly as a joke. But he didn’t know it. He bought into it. Thought he was going to win. When he got voted off the show he broke down on camera, cried like a baby, had a nervous breakdown right on TV. It was a huge scandal in Krpshtskan—son of the president and all. It’s a culture where a man never cries. Big loss of face for the family.”

The president looked at the TV screen. Gmygmy was finishing “MacArthur Park,” trying, with no success, to hit a final high note, sounding like a seriously injured cat. The camera flashed to the three judges, one of whom was plugging his ears with his fingers.

“So you’re telling me,” the president said, “that this lunatic Grdankl wants to destroy the United States because his son got voted off a TV show?”

“It looks that way, sir.”

“It gets great ratings,” said the director of communications. “My daughter and wife—”

“Shut up,” said the president.

“Yes, sir,” said the director of communications.

“Sir,” said the chief of staff, his ear pressed to the phone, “there’s something else.”

“What is it?” said the president.

The chief of staff listened over the phone for another few seconds, then said, “Grdankl the Strong has another son. Named…ah…Pr…P-something. I can’t pronounce it.”

“So?” said the president.

“He’s here.”

“Here?” said the president. “As in?”

“INS places him as being employed at a middle school in the Maryland suburbs. Which…” The chief of staff was listening to the phone again.

“Which what?” the president said impatiently.

“Which is in the same general area the FBI thinks the power-grid attack is coming from,” said the chief of staff. Again, he listened to the phone. His eyebrows arched. “Seriously?” he said.

“WHAT?” said the president.

“Seems the local cops up there just chased two suspect Krpsht nationals to the same middle school in…well…in a Wienermobile,” said the chief of staff.

“The police were driving a Wienermobile?” said the president, rubbing his hair.

“No, sir. The Krpshts were. Apparently they stole it from a supermarket in—”

“Never mind how they got it,” snapped the president. “Are they in custody?”

“Um, no, sir.”

“WHY THE HECK NOT?”

“The police car…crashed, sir. Wrecked.”

“I want EVERY AVAILABLE AGENT at that school NOW,” shouted the president.

“Yes, sir. We’re on it. Everybody’s responding and converging on the school,” said the chief of staff. “FBI, Homeland, police, everybody we’ve got.”

The president looked at the screen. It showed a freeze-frame close-up of Gmygmy’s smiling, floppy-hair-framed face. From the speakers came an odd moaning noise, like a walrus giving birth. On the screen, below the smiling frozen image of Gmygmy, appeared the words REPUBLIC OF KRPSHTSKAN NATIONAL ANTHEM.

The president glared at the screen. “A TV show,” he said, spitting out the words. “I am going make those people so sorry they ever—”

“Sir,” said the chief of staff, his ear still to the phone.

“What?” said the president.

“The grid’s going down again.”

“Where?” said the president.

The chief of staff waved an arm.

“Everywhere,” he said.

PRMKT’S FINGERS DANCED on the keyboard, issuing command after command in rapid sequence. One by one, he was taking down the major regions of the North American power grid. Soon all of America—except for Hubble Middle School, which Prmkt would keep online—would lose its electricity. More than three hundred million people—already terrified—would be plunged into full-on panic, in the dark.

But that would be just the beginning. Because when the grid was down, and America was most vulnerable, Prmkt would issue his last sequence of commands. He would summon the full power of the science-fair projects he had net-worked, and then, in one lightning strike, he would unleash the final punishment, the attack from which the United States would never recover.

He would unleash the Pulse.

TOBY’S ARMS WERE GETTING TIRED. He and Micah had stood for several minutes with their hands up, watched closely by Swingle’s big bodyguard with the big gun. Behind this man stood Swingle with two more lackeys. A third lackey was just trotting up to meet them.

“The cops are here,” he told Swingle. “They’re rounding up the rest of them.”

“Good,” said Swingle, glaring at Toby.

“Listen,” said Toby. “You got us, okay? Can you tell the Hulk here to put down the gun?”

“Not a chance,” said Swingle.

“What are you afraid of?” said Toby. “The frog?”

“Listen, punk,” said Swingle, stepping forward. But before he could say any more, a commotion erupted to the right. Toby looked that way and saw Tamara being dragged toward them by Coach Furman and Jason Niles.

“Unhand me!” she was shouting. “I am a lady!”

“Unhand?” said Micah.

“Lady?” said Toby.

As Jason and Coach Furman dragged Tamara up from one direction, a large group appeared at the other end of the row of tables. The group was headed by The Hornet, who was followed by agents Turow, Iles, and Lefkon, who were followed by a dozen police officers, some with guns drawn. Toby saw why: they had captured Drmtsi and Vrsk, who were being hustled forward, along with…

Oh, no. Toby groaned as he saw, in the middle of the cluster, his mom and dad in their Star Wars costumes.

As The Hornet walked up, she gave Toby a glare that he could feel all the way down his back. Then she turned to Swingle and, gesturing to the three feds, said, “These are agents of the federal government. They’re going to take these students into custody.”

“Good,” said Swingle. “I want them prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Not only did they destroy my helicopter, but they nearly killed me!”

“This isn’t about your helicopter,” said Turow. “Or you.”

“By the way,” said Iles. “Your pilot? The one you left unconscious in the cockpit? Paramedics say he’s going to be okay. In case you were worried.”

Swingle reddened.

“Later on,” said Turow, “we’ll talk about why you were trying to take off against an FAA directive.”

Swingle started to say something, but Turow, ignoring him, turned to Toby.

“For a supposedly smart kid,” Turow said, “you are unbelievably stupid.”

“Please,” said Toby. “Listen. I—”

Turow held up his hand. “I’ll listen when you and the rest of the Wienermobile gang”—he waved at the prisoners—“are locked up again.”

“My parents had nothing to do with this,” said Toby.

Turow glanced at Roger and Fawn.

“Mr. and Mrs. Han Solo?” he said. “They’re your parents?”

“It’s a Luke Skywalker costume,” said Roger.

“Yes,” sighed Toby. “They’re my parents.”

Turow shook his head. “Should have guessed,” he said. “Anyway, they aided the escape, so they’re coming with us.”

“Please,” said Toby. “Let me do one thing first, okay? Please?”

“What?” said Turow.

“Let me unplug those projects,” said Toby, pointing at the ME kids’ section.

“Hey!” said Jason. “Those aren’t yours!”

“They’re not yours, either,” said Toby. “You didn’t build them.”

“You shut up!” said Jason, stepping toward Toby.

“Hold it!” said Turow, shoving Jason back. To Toby, he said, “You’re not unplugging anything. You’re coming with us.” He took Toby’s arm. Toby shook free.

“No! Listen!” said Toby. “The blackouts! They’re coming from here! He’s using those projects to cause the blackouts!”

“You’re nuts,” said Jason.

“Toby,” said agent Lefkon, “who is using the projects?”

“I don’t know,” said Toby. “But he’s here!”

“See?” said Jason. “Nuts.”

Turow looked toward the ME projects, then back at Toby. “All I see,” he said, “is some stuff on some tables. Let’s go.”

“No!” said Toby. “You have to believe me!”

“Why?” said Turow.

“Because he’s right,” said a new voice.

“And who are you?” said Turow.

A tall, thin figure with wild hair and dark glasses stepped forward.

“My name,” he said, “is Neal Sternabite.”

Lance Swingle’s face went from red to white. “You!” he said.

“Yes,” said Sternabite. “Me.”

THE PRESIDENT, at the insistence of his staff, had been hustled down to the Situation Room in the basement deep under the West Wing of the White House, where he would be safer in case of an attack. He was now standing with his top civilian and military advisors, looking at a large video screen displaying a map of the United States. Overlaid on the map of the States were lines showing the ten major regions of the U.S. power grid.

The regions that still had power were white; the ones that had lost power were dark gray. At the moment, there were only three areas left with power: Texas, the Southeast, and the Mid-Atlantic states. As the president watched, Texas went gray. The president said a bad word, then spun toward his chief of staff, who was, as always, on the phone.

“Well?” said the president.

“FBI is at the school, and they have apprehended some suspects,” said the chief of staff.

“Have they found the guy who’s doing this?” said the president, pointing at the screen.

“Not yet, sir,” said the chief of staff, wincing.

“WELL TELL THEM TO FIND HIM NOW!” said the president.

On the screen, the Southeast went gray.

TUROW LOOKED AT STERNABITE, then at Swingle.

“You know this guy?” he said.

“Yes,” said Swingle. “And I wouldn’t believe anything he says. He’s insane.”

“Nice to see you, too, Lance,” said Sternabite.

“Okay, whoever you are,” said Turow, “I don’t have time for you now. We’re dealing with a matter of urgent national security.”

“It’ll get a lot more urgent if you don’t listen to that boy,” said Sternabite.

“Is that a threat?” said Turow.

“No,” said Sternabite. “It’s a fact. The blackouts are being controlled from here, from this science fair.”

“Okay,” said Turow. “Who are you?”

“My name is Neal Sternabite. I’m a scientist.”

Swingle snorted loudly. Turow ignored him.

“Mr. Sternabite,” he said, “if you know something about the blackouts, I’m going to ask you to come with us. You can explain your theory when we get back to headquarters.”

“It’s not a theory,” said Sternabite. “And we don’t have time to go anywhere. Do you know what an EMP is?”

“No,” said Turow. “And I don’t have time to—”

“It’s an electromagnetic pulse,” said Sternabite. “It’s usually created by a nuclear detonation, but there are other ways. That’s what’s going on here.” Sternabite pointed toward the ME kids’ projects. “He’s going to shut the power down again, and then he’s going to discharge a capacitor bank into the grid. The grid will act as a giant antenna. He’s going to fry all the electronics in Washington, D.C., and probably for hundreds of miles around. You understand what that means?”

“No,” said Turow. “And I—”

“It means the government goes down,” said Sternabite. “And it doesn’t come back up. Even when they get the power restored, if they can, most of the federal government computers are lost, along with a major chunk—a huge chunk—of data. All erased. The government is crippled. Its brain and central nervous system are gone. There are no records, no communications, no money coming in or going out. You, for example, no longer get paid—you and millions like you. Federal authority breaks down everywhere. These blackouts? The riots? The panic? It’s nothing compared with what’s going to happen next. The economy goes, civil society collapses, and the United States stumbles back to the Stone Age.”

“How do you know this…this EMP is going to happen?” said Turow.

“Because I built these kids’ projects,” said Sternabite.

“Wait a minute,” said Turow. “Why would you build them, if you want to stop them?”

“Because I didn’t realize what he was going to do with them,” said Sternabite.

“What who was going to do?” said Turow.

Sternabite looked at Toby, who shook his head.

“I don’t know,” said Sternabite.

“I told you,” said Swingle, smirking. “He’s insane.”

Turow looked at Iles and Lefkon, then turned back to Sternabite.

“You’re coming with us,” he said.

“No, listen,” said Sternabite. He took a step toward the ME kids’ projects. “Just give me two minutes and I’ll—”

“Hold it,” said Iles, grabbing Sternabite’s arm.

Turow said, “You’re not touching anything.” He turned to the waiting police officers. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get these people out of here. And don’t let any of them touch anything.”

As two officers approached him, Sternabite looked around desperately. His eyes fell on Micah, who was standing next to Toby and still holding Fester.

“You,” he said. “Kid. Did your frog levitate?”

“What?” said Micah.

“Your frog,” said Sternabite, his voice rising. “Did it float?”

“What’s he talking about?” said Turow.

“He’s lost his mind,” sneered Swingle.

“Did it float?” repeated Sternabite.

“Um, yeah,” said Micah. To Toby, he whispered, “Why’s he asking about Fester?”

Toby was wondering the same thing.

“Because I was thinking,” said Sternabite, as the officers grabbed his arms, “you’d get better results if you increased the power.”

“Huh?” said Micah. “But you said to keep it at ten percent. You said if—”

“I know what I said,” hissed Sternabite. The officers were pulling him away, along with Toby’s parents, Vrsk, and Drmtsi. Two more had taken hold of Tamara; four more were coming toward Micah and Toby.

“You need more power!” shouted Sternabite. “Now!”

“What is he talking about?” said Micah.

Suddenly, Toby understood. As the officers reached him he reached for the controls to Micah’s project. The power knob was set at ten percent.

“STOP HIM!” shouted Turow. “DON’T LET HIM TOUCH THAT!”

An officer grabbed Toby’s right arm, but his left was still free. He grabbed the knob and cranked it all the way to one hundred.

Suddenly, Toby, Micah, the four police officers, and Fester the frog were lifted off the ground, tumbling in the air above Micah’s project. Micah yelped as he lost his grip on Fester, who floated upward to the gym ceiling.

“Fester!” shouted Micah, watching helplessly as the levitating frog landed upside down on a heating duct, then wriggled through a vent. Toby and the other humans stopped rising about ten feet above the table, where they waved their arms and legs with no effect other than to accidentally punch and kick each other. Toby heard shouts below, the loudest being Turow yelling, ‘“GRAB THEM! GRAB THEM!” Three more officers lunged forward, only to be swept up in the super-powerful magnetic field. There were now nine bodies thrashing in the air while the FBI agents and the remaining earthbound officers stood by uncertainly.

In the confusion, Sternabite broke away from Turow and walked quickly toward the ME projects.

“HE’S GETTING AWAY!” shrieked Swingle, pointing at Sternabite.

“Stop him!” shouted Turow. Before Sternabite could reach the projects, one officer tackled him to the gym floor, and a second landed on top of them. As they struggled on the floor, Turow turned his attention back to the shouting people suspended in the air above Micah’s project.

“Any ideas?” he said to Lefkon and Iles.

“Maybe we could unplug it?” said Lefkon.

“Right!” said Turow. “The plug must be under the table.” He studied the situation for a moment, then dropped down onto his belly. “Hold my feet,” he said to Iles. Then, with Iles gripping his shoes, Turow inched forward toward the table. He pulled the drape aside and looked underneath. Micah’s project, he saw, was not plugged into the school electrical system; it was plugged into a small, humming device that looked strangely like a Slurpee machine. The device had an on/off switch. Wincing, Turow reached out and turned it off.

THUD CRASH CRASH THUD OWW OOOH CRASH THUD

Nine bodies slammed down onto the table, which slammed down onto Turow. Iles, Lefkon, and the remaining officers lunged forward to help. Moaning bodies were sprawled everywhere. Nobody noticed that when Micah’s table collapsed, it knocked the lid off the fifty-five–gallon drum full of Diet Coke that formed part of Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer’s project. And nobody noticed that, in the struggle to help his fallen comrades, one of the police officers was now bumping into the metal stand that held the giant nuclear Mentos, which was s-l-o-w-l-y falling over into the barrel…

FWOOOOOOSH

What happened next was undoubtedly the greatest demonstration of unleashing the power of surface tension in the history of science fairs, although none of the participants actually saw it. Instead, they found themselves engulfed in a wave of brown foam that billowed upward and outward from the fifty-five-gallon drum in a spectacular Diet Coke volcano. Toby felt himself being swept across the floor, unable to see anything except foam, and barely able to breathe. He slammed into a wall and managed to get to his feet, then felt himself being dragged sideways. He clutched the wall, trying to find something to hold on to. He came to an opening—a doorway?—and tried to duck into it, but the foam surge was pulling him past.

Then somebody grabbed his arm. He felt himself being yanked into the opening. It was, in fact, a doorway. Like Toby, the person holding his arm was covered with foam; his only distinguishing characteristic was his sunglasses.

Sternabite.

“Okay, kid,” he said. “Now it’s up to us.”

AS THE PRESIDENT AND HIS TOP STAFF watched glumly, the last bright section on the electronic map of the power grid—the Middle Atlantic region—went gray.

The president shot a questioning look at his secretary of Homeland Security, who was on the phone. The secretary nodded and said, “Washington’s dark again, sir. Telecommunications are totally down everywhere, nationwide.”

The president said a bad word. Nobody disagreed.

“What about the school?” barked the president. “What’s taking them so long?”

“Uh, sir,” said the chief of staff, also on the phone. “About the school. There’s been a, um, setback.”

“What?” said the president.

“Our FBI people have, um, lost contact with some of the suspects.”

“Lost contact? How?”

“There was some kind of…eruption.”

“You mean explosion?”

“No, sir. They’re calling it an eruption, a massive quantity of foam.”

“Chemical weapons?”

“Uh, no, sir. They’re saying it smells like, um…”

“It smells like what?”

“Coke, sir.”

“Coke? As in…Coca-Cola?”

“They say it also could be Pepsi, sir,” said the chief of staff. “They’re not sure.”

The president stared at his chief of staff for five full seconds. “Are you saying,” he said, “that our people have been DRIVEN OFF BY A SOFT DRINK??”

One of the military men snorted. The president silenced him with a glare.

“Um, apparently, yes,” said the chief of staff. “The school building has been evacuated.”

“WELL TELL THEM TO PUT ON GAS MASKS OR SOMETHING AND GET BACK IN THERE!” said the president.

“Yes, sir,” said the chief of staff, back on the phone.

The president looked at the map of the country, now totally gray. Then he looked at the circle of people gathered around him.

“Coke?” he said.

Nobody had an answer.

PRMKT CHECKED HIS SCREEN. The power grid, except for Hubble Middle, was completely shut down. This left the country’s huge power-transmission network free of electrical charge, ready for the Pulse. He checked the capacitor bank, which stored the electrical voltage he would use; it was fully charged and ready to go. The Pulse would travel through the empty grid and every wire plugged into the grid. It would attack any magnetic medium—including computer chips and hard drives; the data stored on them would be erased or permanently corrupted. Anything that used these media would instantly become junk. Computers would be useless, as would telephones, televisions, elevators, microwave ovens, refrigerators, even some toasters.

One more command to enter. Prmkt typed it slowly, carefully. He checked to make sure it was correct. He put his finger on the ENTER key, took a breath, and thought for a moment about Gmygmy.

Then he pushed ENTER.

Nothing happened.

Prmkt cursed in Krpsht. Swiftly he retyped the command and again pressed ENTER.

Nothing.

Prmkt clicked on a diagnostics program and ran it. In a few seconds, he saw the problem—a cable had come unplugged from Farrell Plinkett’s project. Prmkt had heard shouts and the sounds of a struggle outside; apparently, the cable had been knocked loose in the commotion.

Prmkt didn’t panic; he never did. This was a setback, but a minor one, easily corrected. Plinkett’s project had been set up close to the utility door. Prmkt would simply slip out, reattach the cable, return to the utility room, and proceed with the Pulse.

He went to the door, unlocked it, and carefully opened it a crack. A spray of brown foam shot through the opening. Prmkt quickly shut the door and staggered back, sputtering and frantically wiping the foam from his face. His first fear—that it was a chemical attack—dissolved when he realized that the foam was a cola-flavored soft drink. He didn’t know why the gym was suddenly filled with cola foam, and he didn’t much care: all he knew was that he had to get to the cable.

Prmkt stood for a moment with his hand on the doorknob, visualizing the layout of the science-fair projects outside. Then he took a breath, opened the door, and stepped through the surge of incoming foam. He closed the door behind him, electing not to lock it, so he’d be able to get back in quickly. He dropped to his hands and knees. He found that, even though he was engulfed in foam, if he kept his head down, he could create enough of a pocket so that he could breathe foam-free air.

Slowly, surrounded by the swirling, blinding foam, Prmkt began crawling across the gym floor.

TOBY WAITED ANXIOUSLY in the small air pocket formed by the doorway, cut off from the world by the wall of Diet Coke fizz. A dim, brown-colored light filtered through the foam from the gym lights, which, somehow, were still burning.

Toby wiped off the face of his watch: Sternabite had been gone for five minutes now. He’d told Toby to stay in the doorway, while he’d crawled off through the foam to try to disable the ME kids’ projects. Toby had offered to go with him, but Sternabite had said no.

“You don’t know what to look for,” he said. “You might touch the wrong thing and kill yourself.”

Toby looked at the foam, still thick, still surging. He wondered how Sternabite could breathe in that stuff. If he could breathe.

He jumped as he felt something touch his leg. With relief he saw that it was Sternabite, returning from his mission. He got to his feet, sputtering and dripping foam from head to toe. He still had his sunglasses on.

“From now on,” Sternabite said, “I am drinking Mountain Dew.”

“Did you find the projects?” said Toby.

“I found one,” said Sternabite. “I pulled out a cable. I wanted to do more, but the foam is really thick by the floor; I was starting to drown out there. For now we’re okay. He can’t launch the EMP without that cable. Now we need to find him.”

“How do we do that?” said Toby.

“He has to be nearby,” said Sternabite. “He could be in a classroom or in a room right off the gym, like this one.” He tapped the door they were standing next to, which they had already determined opened to a small supply closet.

“So what do we do?”

“We start with the gym,” said Sternabite. “We go along the walls—the foam’s not as bad there—and we open every door we come to. If we don’t find him, we start looking in the rest of the school.”

“How do we know what he looks like?”

“We don’t,” said Sternabite. “But he’ll have a computer, and it’ll be near some gear that’s hardwired into the school electrical system. He won’t be able to move it. We’ll know when we see him.”

“But then what do we do?”

“We point him out to these moron FBI agents who want to arrest everybody in the world except the guy causing the problem.”

“Okay,” said Toby.

“I’ll go this way,” said Sternabite, pointing to the left. “You go that way. Stay against the wall. If you see the guy, run in my direction and yell.”

“Okay,” said Toby.

“Good luck,” said Sternabite. He stepped into the foam and was gone.

“You, too,” said Toby, to the foam. He took a breath, stepped out of the doorway, and felt the foam surround him. He turned and pressed his face against the wall, then began sidestepping along it, keeping his head turned to give himself a breathing space. He counted his steps, figuring that might help him find his way back.

He’d gone twenty-seven steps when he came to another doorway. He stepped into it and tried the knob. The door opened. He stepped inside and found himself in a room considerably larger than the supply closet. It was lit by fluorescent lights, with plumbing, air-conditioning, and electrical conduits running along the walls and ceiling. Toby’s eyes quickly scanned the room; there was nobody else there.

Stepping inside, he closed the door behind him. His eyes fell on a workbench at the far end of the room. He took a few quick steps toward it.

The workbench held some electronic gear and a laptop computer.

The laptop’s screen was glowing.

Cables ran between the gear and some kind of electrical box on the wall.

This is it.

Toby turned to run back and alert Sternabite.

Then he heard it: click.

The door was about to open.

TOBY LOOKED FRANTICALLY around the utility room.

In the gloomy far corner stood a large tank with pipes running to it. Toby, on tiptoe, hurried over to the tank and squeezed behind it just as the door swung open. This was followed by the sound of the door closing, a key sliding into a keyhole, and the disturbing finality of a click as the door was locked from the inside. Then he heard footsteps come across the room. Toby crouched low to the floor and peered around the tank. From here, hidden in shadows, he could see the workbench and computer.

A figure appeared. It was a man, but his features were obscured by a head-to-toe coating of brown foam. He turned away from Toby and began brushing himself off. Toby considered making a break for the door. If he could get outside, he could find Sternabite, maybe the FBI agents. But he’d have to unsqueeze himself from behind the tank, then run right past where the man was standing; even if he reached the door, he couldn’t unlock it without the key. So he stayed crouched where he was, watching, waiting to see the face of the man who had caused so much trouble and was about to cause so much more.

The man looked vaguely familiar from the back: his build, his hair, the shape of his head. Toby was pretty sure he’d seen him before. But where? He frowned, studying the man, who was still brushing himself off, the foam spattering onto the concrete floor. The man said something harsh in a foreign language—apparently a curse word. It reminded Toby of how the two weird smelly foreign guys talked.

Then the man turned, his face finally coming into view. Toby cupped his hand over his mouth, stifling a gasp as he recognized the man—a man he’d seen around Hubble Middle School hundreds of times.

Janitor Dude.

Toby shook his head in disbelief. Could it possibly be? He thought he must be mistaken—J.D. had come into the utility room for some other reason, like escaping the foam.

But then why did he lock the door?

As Toby watched, J.D. stepped to the computer and tapped a key, bringing the screen to life. That did it. Toby realized there was no mistake. The school janitor—the guy everybody saw as a complete loser—was about to cripple the United States government. And there was nobody to stop him.

Except Toby.

He was looking around for something to use as a weapon. To his right he saw nothing. To his left, a few feet away, a thick pipe ran from floor to ceiling. Scattered on the floor around the pipe were some filthy rags and a bunch of old paint cans. There was nothing else. Toby decided a paint can would have to do. As quietly as he could, he slipped from behind the water tank, took a step, then another, and then slowly reached down for the wire handle of the nearest paint can.

He never touched it. There was a sound, and before Toby could turn toward it, he felt his head slam into the concrete-block wall. The next thing he knew he was on his back, with J.D. leaning over him. J.D.’s face was the same, but the look in his eyes was profoundly different. It was no longer slack and listless; now this total loser appeared utterly focused and intense.

And scary.

“I thought I got rid of you,” said J.D., his deep voice calm, cold.

Toby said nothing; he could barely think, let alone talk. The left side of his head throbbed viciously. He felt blood seeping from his scalp.

“How did you know to come here?” said J.D.

Toby shook his head. That was a mistake; a wave of pain surged through his body.

“Doesn’t matter,” said J.D. “You’re too late anyway.”

Quickly, J.D. snatched a fat roll of duct tape from the workbench. He took Toby by the shoulders and yanked him up to a sitting position. Toby moaned as another wave of pain engulfed him. J.D. dragged him backward, pushed him up against the thick pipe, and yanked his arms around the pole and behind his back. Toby heard tape being ripped off the roll, then felt his wrists being wrapped very tightly with the sticky tape.

“That will hold you long enough,” said J.D. He started toward the workbench and the computer. Toby yanked on the tape, but it was too tight. He wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

J.D. had just reached the workbench when the doorknob rattled. He whirled around.

“HELP!” shouted Toby.

“Quiet!” snarled J.D., taking a step toward Toby, realizing he should have gagged him as well.

“Hello?” Toby recognized Sternabite’s voice coming from the other side of the locked door.

“HE’S IN HERE!” shouted Toby, though his last word was garbled as J.D., moving swiftly, reached him and roughly wrapped duct tape around his head, covering his mouth.

“Make another sound,” he hissed into Toby’s ear, “and I will bash your skull in.”

He turned back toward the workbench. The doorknob rattled as Sternabite tried it again. But the door was locked.

Sternabite had heard the fear in Toby’s voice. He gave the doorknob one last try, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. He flipped it open. The thing inside looked, sort of, like a large spider: it was black, with eight metallic legs. Sternabite called it Charlotte.

Charlotte was a robot. Mostly, anyway. Sternabite had taken the two main nerve clusters from an actual spider—its “brain”—and implanted them in a computer microchip, which controlled Charlotte’s mechanical body. His theory was that the spider “brain”—which had amazing capabilities—could work together with the computer chip to form a new, enhanced creature that could be used to peform many tasks, including surveillance and counterespionage.

Unfortunately, Charlotte still had some bugs. Her spider brain and her computer brain didn’t always agree, so her behavior could be erratic. But Sternabite had brought her along anyway, on the hunch that she might come in handy. That hunch had been right: he needed her now.

“Charlotte,” said Sternabite. “Wake up.”

Two glowing red eye spots appeared, and Charlotte, with a whir, came to life, rising up on her eight legs. Sternabite moved the box next to the doorknob.

“Charlotte,” he said, “open.”

Charlotte scuttled onto the doorknob and slid a jointed leg into the keyhole. Locks were child’s play for Charlotte; in a second, the door was unlocked. Sternabite plucked Charlotte off the doorknob and tucked her into his pocket as he opened the door and stepped inside.

The first thing he saw was Toby on the floor in the corner, hands behind his back, mouth gagged, his head bloody. Sternabite started toward him.

MMMPHH! said Toby, pointing with his head. Sternabite looked and saw a man standing with his back to a workbench on which sat a laptop computer. The man was facing Sternabite. In his right hand he held a thick, black wand. A stun baton. He raised it, showing it to Sternabite.

“Eight hundred thousand volts,” he said. “If I touch you with this…”

“I know what it will do,” said Sternabite.

“Yes,” said the man, with a hint of a smile. “I imagine you would know.”

Sternabite took a casual step forward. “So you’re the one who sent me those project plans,” he said. “Mr.…”

“My name is Prmkt,” said the man. “Although the students here call me Janitor Dude. They think I’m a loser. This makes them easier to use.”

“You used me pretty well, too,” said Sternabite, taking another step forward.

“Yes,” said Prmkt. “I was afraid you’d catch on sooner or later. I respect you. You’re a very intelligent man.”

“As are you, obviously,” said Sternabite, taking another step. “It’s a brilliant plan, using these kids, their parents…”

“I am intelligent enough to know what you are trying to do right now,” said Prmkt, thrusting the baton at Sternabite. “If you come any closer…”

“Charlotte,” said Sternabite.

Prmkt frowned.

“Attack,” said Sternabite.

It happened faster than Prmkt’s eyes—or any human eyes—could follow. Charlotte shot from Sternabite’s pocket and scuttled in a whirring blur to his forehead, from which she launched herself at Prmkt. She could jump thirty feet, so she easily shot across the five feet separating the two men. She hit Prmkt, as she was programmed to do, directly between his eyes, clinging to his face with needle-sharp legs. Prmkt reached up with both hands to claw at her and, in the process dropped the stun baton, which clattered to the floor and rolled under the workbench.

Sternabite ran toward the bench, but Prmkt sensed the movement and managed to get in front of him. Sternabite ran into him, and the three of them—including Charlotte—fell to the floor. The two men wrestled for position, each trying to get to the baton and to keep the other at bay. Sternabite quickly noticed two things: one was that Prmkt was stronger than he was. The other was that Charlotte was no longer clinging to Prmkt’s face. In fact, Sternabite didn’t see her at all.

“Charlotte!” he gasped. “Attack!”

Nothing.

Where was she?

In fact, Charlotte was attacking; she had simply chosen a new target. Her sophisticated robot sensors had detected an intruder, and her spider brain, overruling her computer brain, had decided that the new intruder was far more worthy of her attention. And so at the moment, as her creator struggled on the floor below, Charlotte was climbing up the wall. Stalking.

* * *

In the corner, Toby struggled to break free from the duct tape. He’d made no progress; Prmkt had bound him too tightly. As the two men rolled around on the floor in front of him, grunting, Toby felt around behind himself, looking for something, anything, that might help. His fingers brushed against an oily rag. He shifted position so he could grab it. As he did, he felt a sharp pain in his butt, caused by…

Rollerblade Barbie.

Frantically, Toby twisted his body until, with painful effort, he was able to pull the doll out of his pocket. Turning his head as far as he could in an effort to see behind his back, he pressed the doll’s roller wheels against the oily rag and then spun the flint wheel with his thumb. He saw a flash of sparks. He spun the wheel again.

He smelled it, then saw it: gray smoke. Then he felt the heat.

Great, he thought. I just set myself on fire.

He bit his lip to keep from screaming as the rag caught fire, and flames singed his arms. But he also felt the tape weakening. He leaned forward and yanked with all his might—once, then again, then…

Yes. The burning tape parted. Toby lunged forward on the floor. Behind him, the burning rag ignited others. Flames shot up, and an acrid, billowing smoke began to fill the utility room.

“Stop him!” shouted Sternabite. He’d lost the wrestling match; Prmkt had knocked him aside and was crawling toward the stun baton. Toby staggered to his feet and jumped onto Prmkt’s back, but the man was too strong for the boy. He flung Toby off, sending him crashing to the floor. In a second, Prmkt was on his feet. He had the baton in hand and was backing away toward the computer.

“No!” gasped Sternabite. He made a last desperate lunge toward Prmkt, who raised the baton and squeezed the trigger. Sternabite screamed, twitched violently, and fell to the floor with a sickening thud, unconscious. Prmkt whirled and aimed the stick at Toby, who was pulling himself up, coughing in the dense, choking smoke.

“Stay back!” shouted Prmkt, thrusting the baton at Toby. He took another step toward the workbench.

Toby looked down at Sternabite’s limp body, then, through the thickening smoke, at Prmkt. He moved closer.

“I said stay back!” shouted Prmkt. He thrust the baton at Toby again and pulled the trigger. Toby heard a ZZZZZZZT as it brushed his shirt. He jumped back.

One more step and Prmkt would reach the computer. He switched the baton to his left hand, to keep it between himself and Toby. Then he turned and reached his right hand out toward the ENTER key.

And then they both heard it, from directly above:

RIBBIT!

Prmkt looked up, an unfortunate move for him, because he caught the full, moist force of Fester—not a lightweight frog—who had fallen directly on his face after wriggling through the vent from the heating duct above. Prmkt yelped and swiped at the frog with his right hand, still keeping Toby at bay with the baton. Another RIBBIT, and Fester leaped off, which again was unfortunate for Prmkt, because a millisecond later Fester was replaced by Charlotte, who was in hot pursuit of Fester. Charlotte landed hard on Prmkt’s face with all eight of her sharp talons in Full Penetration Mode.

Prmkt screamed and reached for his face with both hands, including, of course, the one holding the baton. Toby saw his chance and lunged, managing to get hold of Prmkt’s left arm. Prmkt roared with rage and swung the baton down. His target was Toby, but with his vision mostly blocked by Charlotte, his aim was way off.

It was only at the last possible second, as he simultaneously knocked Charlotte loose and pulled the trigger, that Prmkt saw where he was sending the 800,000 volts.

Directly into the computer.

There was a loud crackling sound as a brilliant flash of light shot from the end of the baton and across the keyboard. Sparks flew everywhere, and then smoke curled and rose from the laptop, joining the already-thick smoke filling the utility room. The screen flashed white and went black.

And then it started to rain.

Actually, it was the fire sprinklers, which had been triggered by the smoke. For a moment, as the water cascaded down on them, neither Prmkt nor Toby moved. Toby stared at Prmkt, who was still holding the baton. Prmkt stared at the smoking ruins of his plan to destroy America.

Then Prmkt turned toward Toby. Slowly, he raised the stun baton. Toby flinched, closing his eyes, waiting for the awful shock.…

Clunk

No shock came. Toby opened his eyes.

Prmkt had dropped the baton. In a daze of defeat, he turned away from Toby and slumped to the floor, his back against the wall. He sat there, unmoving, his eyes utterly blank, as sprinkler water cascaded down his face. Like the Janitor Dude of old.

Toby heard a groan. It was Sternabite, regaining consciousness. Toby went over and knelt next to him.

“Are you okay?” he said.

“No,” said Sternabite. He raised his head a little, blinking, looking around the room through the smoke and the drizzling water. His eyes fell on Prmkt, slumped against the wall. Then he looked up at Toby.

“What happened?” he asked.

Toby smiled.

“I think we won,” he said.

OF ALL THE THINGS that happened over the next month, the coolest, for Toby, was meeting the president. This happened at a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden honoring the group the news media had dubbed the “Hubble Heroes”: Toby, Tamara, Micah, and—to the president’s annoyance—Fester.

“I am NOT going to honor a frog,” the president had declared when his chief of staff briefed him on the ceremony.

“But, sir,” said the chief of staff, “the frog played a critical role in taking out the Krpsht agent. And it was almost killed by the robot attack spider. The Porter boy has been nursing it back to health, and he won’t come to the ceremony without it.”

“But it’s a frog,” said the president.

“It’s a hero frog, sir.”

The president sighed. He knew he didn’t really have a choice; at the moment, the Hubble Heroes were a lot more popular than he was. They were huge, their names in every newscast, their faces on the cover of every magazine. Oprah had them on speed dial, and at least three movies were already in the works. They had been offered millions for endorsements, most notably from the manufacturers of Diet Coke and Mentos.

“All right,” said the president. “The frog can come. But I’m not touching it.”

“I doubt the Porter boy would let you anyway, sir. He’s concerned about infection.”

The president shot his chief of staff a glare, then said, “What about whatshisname? The science genius?”

“Sternabite, sir. He declined the invitation to the ceremony.”

“Declined? Why? Is he still worried about legal problems?”

When the science-fair plot details became public, there had been some discussion of prosecuting Sternabite for illegally obtaining classified technology. But in light of his heroic efforts to stop Prmkt once he realized what was happening—not to mention his immense popularity as a Hubble Hero—the president had decided to grant Sternabite a pardon for any crimes he may have committed.

“No, sir, it’s not that,” said the chief of staff. “It’s a privacy issue. Sternabite has been besieged by offers from companies and investors who want to give him money for his inventions.”

“Doesn’t he want to be rich?”

“Apparently not, sir. He threw both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs out of his store. He used some kind of owl on them.”

“Owl?”

“Owl, sir. Anyway, he’s gone into seclusion now, and says he won’t be attending the ceremony. At least, not in person.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know, sir, but those were his exact words. ‘At least, not in person.’ ”

As it turned out, Sternabite showed up as a hologram. One moment he wasn’t there, and the next moment he was standing next to the president and looking totally lifelike, except that when two freaked-out Secret Service agents tried to tackle him, they passed right through him.

Eventually, after everyone calmed down, the president proceeded with the ceremony, noting that the Hubble Heroes deserved the nation’s thanks for thwarting the terrorist plot “against overwhelming odds.” (He did not mention that one of the biggest obstacles confronting the Hubble Heroes had been federal agents trying to arrest them.) The president also noted that the “misguided threat from the Republic of Krpshtskan had been swiftly and permanently eradicated.”

This was definitely true. The Republic of Krpshtskan had formally surrendered to the United States before the Diet Coke had finished fizzing in the gym. Grdankl the Strong had agreed to turn over to the Americans all of the Krpsht army’s weaponry, which consisted of a few dozen nonfunctioning rifles and a cannon from World War II that had rabbits living in it. Grdankl had also agreed to resign. For the first time in Kprshtskan’s history, free elections were held, under American supervision, with more than a dozen candidates vying for the job. The winner, by a landslide, was: Grdankl the Strong. He immediately requested, and received, a multibillion-dollar aid package from Kprshtskan’s new ally, the United States; within weeks, construction had begun on more than a dozen Starbucks.

As for Prmkt, he had been taken into federal custody and interrogated extensively by the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and other agencies. He was totally cooperative, and, after much analysis, the experts concluded that he was a brilliant if unbalanced man who, out of love for his shamed brother, had managed to concoct and execute his intricate plot with no American help, other than from some clueless spoiled rich kids and their hyperambitious parents.

Clearly, Prmkt had to pay for his crimes: the question was, how? After much discussion at the highest levels, it was decided to punish Prmkt by making him a full-time employee of the federal government. Specifically, he would work for Homeland Security, where he would head the Anti-Hacking Task Force. The feds wanted him to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet on his ankle, but within fifteen minutes after they attached it to him, he had reprogrammed it so that it appeared, to the tracking computer, to be sending signals from Mount Everest. In the end, the feds decided that they either had to put Prmkt in jail or trust him, and by that point it was clear that he was way too valuable to put in jail.

Vrsk and Drmtsi were also a bit of a headache for the American government. On the one hand, they had entered the country with the intent of aiding and abetting Prmkt. On the other hand, they had not actually done anything useful for him; in fact, they had, in their own way, helped the Hubble Heroes as well as the American retail economy. They had also both declared their desire to remain in America and become citizens.

The government decided to let them stay as long as they could support themselves. This they did by forming what turned out to be a very successful business venture with Toby’s parents—a new health-food-product television channel. From here they sold a “dietary additive,” based on a secret Krpsht recipe that allegedly offered near-miraculous health benefits to anybody who was able to actually choke it down. This product was called “smerk.”

As for Gmygmy—whose humiliation was the cause of Prmkt’s elaborate scheme—his career received a huge boost when the video of his hideous rendition of “MacArthur Park” on America’s Next Superstar, broadcast incessantly as part of the news coverage, became a camp hit.

Cable-TV host Greta Van Susteren tracked Gmygmy down. He had spent the past five years traveling around the country, pursuing his hopeless dream of stardom, but mostly working as a waiter. When Van Susteren found him, he had worked his way up to a small part in a dinner-theater production of Cats in Sandusky, Ohio. Her interview with him got such strong ratings that he was offered a good-paying gig in Las Vegas, opening for Barry Manilow.

On the other hand, Lance Swingle’s fortunes declined rapidly after the science fair. Word quickly got around that he had acted like a coward during the blackouts, and that he’d ordered his thugs to stop the Hubble Heroes. Even worse, his company, TranScent, whose core business was transmitting fragrances over the Internet, started to have major technical problems. No matter what fragrance a sender scanned into the fragrance digitizer—lilac, rose, watermelon, strawberry, cinnamon, etc.—the decoder at the other end emitted a smell like a musk ox passing gas. Swingle was sure that Sternabite was responsible, and he ordered TranScent’s lawyers to sue him. All of them quit when their BlackBerrys mysteriously exploded.

D. Arthur Vaderian, disheartened by his defeat at the hands of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, abandoned his Star Wars hobby altogether and became a successful political consultant.

As for Toby, life was good. Mostly, anyway. There were a few not-so-good parts: for example, his parents were very, very unhappy when he confessed to them about selling their Han Solo blaster pistol to buy a computer. They made him sell it and give them the money, and they grounded him for two months, a record. Toby accepted this punishment without complaint, because (a) he knew he deserved it, and (b) Sternabite let him keep the invisibility iPhone so he could get out of the house if he really needed to.

Life at school was definitely better for Toby. The Hornet called him into her office and apologized to him—The Hornet! Apologized! To him!—for not believing him.

The Hornet also ordered Mr. Neckstrom to apologize to Toby. She would have forced Mr. Pzyrbovich to do the same, but he was no longer at Hubble Middle. It turned out that on the night of the blackouts, he had panicked and gone home without telling anybody. The Hornet, who did not tolerate this kind of disciplinary breach, had insisted that he be transferred.

Speaking of discipline: the ME kids, of course, got into big trouble with the school, and their parents got into even bigger trouble with their companies and the federal government. All of the ME projects were disqualified from the science fair. There was no way to judge the rest of the projects, since most of them were destroyed by the nuclear Mentos, so the judges—consisting of The Hornet and the science teachers—decided to give four special achievement awards. Three of them went to Tamara, Micah, and Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer, since theirs were the three projects that, combined, had helped to save the country. The fourth special achievement award went to Toby. He protested that he didn’t deserve it, because in all the craziness, he never got around to actually doing a science-fair project. The judges disagreed; in their citation, they said that Toby had done “important scientific research concerning the effects, on combustible materials, of sparking Rollerblade wheels.”

Winning the award was cool; all the other attention was pretty cool, too. But for Toby, the best part was going to the White House and being honored by the president. Toby could hardly believe it was happening as he stood in the Rose Garden with Tamara, Micah, and, in hologram form, Sternabite, listening to the president of the United States thank them for saving the country.

“Without your efforts,” the president was saying, “this nation could have suffered an attack from which it quite likely would not have recovered. You, the Hubble Heroes, saved America from a vicious act of terrorism—the greatest threat that we, as a nation, face today.”

Next to Toby, hologram Sternabite snorted.

“What’s so funny?” whispered Toby.

“The line about terrorism being the greatest threat we face,” Sternabite whispered back.

“You mean it isn’t?” whispered Toby.

“Not even close,” whispered Sternabite.

Toby turned to stare at Sternabite. “What do you mean?” he whispered.

Sternabite was about to answer, but then he and Toby saw that the president, annoyed by their conversation, was glaring at them.

“Don’t worry,” whispered Sternabite. “We have a couple of months to deal with it.”

“Deal with what?” said Toby.

“If you don’t mind?” said the president.

“Deal with what?” repeated Toby.

But Sternabite, in a flicker of light, was gone.