Never Say Genius (8 page)

“Dad, can we leave?” Coke asked.

“Leave?” he replied. “It’s only the top of the fourth inning! Let’s at least stay until the seventh inning stretch.”

“Okay,” the twins grumbled.

For the next two innings, Coke and Pep had little interest in watching the ball game. They were too busy scanning the crowd, looking out for guys with bowler hats, evil health teachers, Archie Clones, or perhaps even Dr. Herman Warsaw. Their names and faces had been up on the video screen. There was no telling who might be watching them through binoculars from some distant point in the ballpark—or what that person might be planning. They were strangely quiet while eating hot dogs their father bought from a vendor.

The Cardinals scored three runs in the fifth, and the mood of the crowd was turning sour. There’s nothing more dangerous than an angry Cubs fan. You would think that after a hundred years without winning a World Series, they would get used to losing ball games. But they never do.

It was 6–2 at the end of the sixth inning, when a female usher came over to their row and tapped Coke and Pep on their shoulders. They both jumped.

“Would you two come with me, please?” the usher said sweetly. “We have something special for you.”

Pep looked at her father, terrified. Surely he would protect them.

“Go ahead,” Dr. McDonald said, a big smile on his face. “This is part of your birthday present too. Have fun.”

The twins got up and followed the usher up the steps and through a doorway. There was a tunnel there that led to the press boxes.

“What’s this all about?” Coke asked.

“Nobody told you?” said the usher. “You’re in for a treat. Your dad must know somebody pretty important. They don’t let just
anybody
lead the crowd in ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ during the seventh inning stretch!”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!” the twins said.

The usher led them to a private booth on the press level and opened the door with a key.

“Sing loud!” she said before leaving.

A woman was sitting in the booth, looking out at the field. There was a microphone on the shelf in front of her, and a bottle of Purell. When the door opened, she swiveled around in her chair.

“Mrs. Higgins!” Pep screamed, shrinking back in horror.

Coke quickly grabbed for the doorknob, but it wouldn’t turn. They were locked in the little booth, and their evil health teacher was sitting no more than three feet away from them! They had no weapons, and not even a Frisbee or a deck of cards to defend themselves.

Mrs. Higgins was wearing a Cubs shirt and had a big smile on her face.

“Well, if it isn’t Coke and Pep, the McDonald twins,” she said pleasantly. “Fancy meeting
you
here!”

There was a four-inch horizontal scar that went across the front of her neck, and she touched it involuntarily.

“You leave us alone!” Coke said, getting into a defensive stance and pointing his finger at her. He was ready for anything. “You remember what happened the last time you messed with us!”

“Calm down, Coke!” Mrs. Higgins said, laughing. “I’ve retired from the paid assassin business.”

“Retired?” Pep asked. “Are you putting us on?”

“I got sick of it,” Mrs. Higgins said. “All of it. Chasing kids all over the country. Setting schools on fire. Luring unsuspecting victims into diabolical traps. It’s
exhausting
. And do you think Dr. Warsaw ever paid me a dime in overtime, or paid for my health insurance? Forget about it! I was glad you two got rid of him. It gave me the motivation I needed to start a new career. To try something different.”

“Do you mean it?” Pep asked, not quite sure if Mrs. Higgins could be trusted.

“Sure,” Mrs. Higgins said. “That’s why I applied for this job working in the public relations department. It gives me the chance to use my people skills.”

“People skills?” Coke said. “You tried to kill us!”

As Mrs. Higgins laughed heartily, the twins noticed the name tag on her shirt: AUDREY HIGGINS, PUBLIC RELATIONS DEPT., CHICAGO CUBS.

“You and I may have had our petty disagreements,” she said, “but it’s all water under the bridge. That’s my philosophy. I’m willing to let bygones be bygones. Any problems we had with each other in the past are history, as far as I’m concerned.”

“It was just
yesterday
!” Coke said.

“Come on,” Mrs. Higgins said, reaching into a drawer in front of her, “lighten up. We have these free Cubs T-shirts for the people who sing ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game.’”

She handed Coke and Pep the shirts. They looked at each other for a moment, to see what the other one was going to do.

“Go ahead. Put ’em on,” said Mrs. Higgins. “It’s almost time to sing.”

As the twins put the T-shirts over their shirts, the Cardinals made the third out in the top of the seventh inning.

That’s when Mrs. Higgins suddenly pulled out a gun and pointed it at Coke and Pep.

The smile was gone from her face. She looked like a different person.

“Now it’s time for you to
die!
”

“What?!” Coke exclaimed, sticking his hands in the air.

“You little punks killed my fiancé!” she barked.

“You and Dr. Warsaw were going to be …
married
?” Pep sputtered. “We didn’t know—”

“He was the only man I ever loved!” Mrs. Higgins said, her eyes watery. “And you killed him!”

“It was self-defense!” Coke explained. “He was trying to kill us!”

“I’ve got news for you little twerps,” Mrs. Higgins said, leaning in close and sticking the gun in Coke’s face. “I put a bomb under the bench in the Cubs dugout. It’s programmed to go off when you sing the phrase ‘One, two, three strikes you’re out.’”

“What?! Are you crazy?”

“Please rise,” the public address announcer said. “Today, Coke and Pep McDonald of Point Reyes Station, California, will lead us in the traditional singing of ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game.’”

An organ played the familiar introduction to the song. Coke and Pep looked at each other. Mrs. Higgins pushed the microphone closer to them with one hand and the gun closer to them with the other.

“Sing!” she ordered.

“
Take me out to the ball game
,” the twins croaked out the first line.

The crowd began to boo. Pep had her eyes closed in terror. She could barely speak, much less sing another line.

“I said
sing!
” Mrs. Higgins ordered.

“Take me out to the crowd…”

“Keep singing or I’ll blow your heads off!” Mrs. Higgins sneered, brandishing the pistol.

“Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack…”

“Those kids stink!” somebody shouted.

“Sing!” Mrs. Higgins ordered. Tears were rolling down Pep’s cheeks.

“I don’t care if I never get back…”

“Those kids sing worse than Ozzy Osbourne!” somebody yelled.

“Sing!” Mrs. Higgins said, sticking the gun into Coke’s ribs.

“Root, root, root for the home team. If they don’t win it’s a shame…”

“Now
finish
it!” Mrs. Higgins ordered. “It’s the Cubs … or
you
!”

“For it’s one … two…”

At that point, Coke grabbed the microphone. “There’s a bomb in the Cubs dugout!” he shouted quickly. “Under the bench! Get out! Evacuate the dugout! Evacuate the stadium! This is not a joke! There’s a bomb!”

Down on the field, the Cub players came running out of their dugout. In the stands, people got out of their seats and rushed for the exits.

Quickly, it became bedlam at Wrigley Field. Hot dog vendors were getting knocked over. Little kids and old ladies were getting trampled.

In the booth, Mrs. Higgins threw back her head and laughed. Then she took a bite out of her gun.

“It was fake?” Coke yelled. “You mean to tell me there’s no bomb in the dugout?”

“Mmm, I am such a chocoholic,” said Mrs. Higgins as she took another bite out of the gun.

Down on the field, a bomb squad in full protective gear was tearing apart the Cubs dugout, throwing bats, gloves, and seat cushions every which way. The game had been officially called on account of a bomb scare. The Cardinals had won. The Cub fans, who were already angry, were now furious as they streamed out the exits.

“Why did you do that?” Pep asked.

Mrs. Higgins glared at her with a look that sent shivers down Pep’s spine.

“Herman Warsaw was the kindest, gentlest, most loving man I ever met,” she spat. “We were going to spend the rest of our lives together. So now I’m going to make the rest of your lives a living hell, until the day that you die. And you can count on that being
very
soon. Let’s see if you can make it out of this ballpark in one piece.”

She opened the door with a key, and the twins ran out of the booth. They located the first exit sign and headed down the ramp, along with hundreds of Chicago’s beloved bleacher bums.

“Hey!” somebody shouted. “It’s
them
! The kids who made the bomb scare!”

“We forfeited the game because of them!”

“Let’s
get
those kids!”

“Yeah!”

Pep turned around.

“What do we do now?” she asked her brother.

“We get out of here,” Coke replied.

The twins dashed down the ramp, passing throngs of disgruntled fans heading for the parking lot.

“Kill them!” somebody shouted. “Kill those kids!”

“These people are angry way out of proportion to what happened,” Pep said as Coke grabbed her hand and started running full speed. “It’s just a game.”

“Not to them!”

Hundreds of people were chasing them out Gate K, some of them waving foam fingers and miniature wooden baseball bats.

“Run!” Coke yelled, sprinting down West Waveland Avenue. “These people are crazy!”

“We have to find Dad!” Pep yelled back.

Coke’s cell phone rang. It was his father calling. He didn’t pick it up.

“Later!” Coke told his sister. “Let’s get out of this neighborhood first.”

The twins ran for their lives two blocks down Waveland, then made a right on North Clark Street and a left on West Grace Street. By that time, the angry mob that had been chasing them had fallen back. The twins ducked into an alley and stopped, panting and gasping for breath. It was only then that they noticed what it said on the back of the T-shirts Mrs. Higgins had given them.

C
oke frantically pulled the T-shirt over his head and angrily stuffed it into a garbage can.

“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” he muttered. “How could we have been so stupid as to trust that lady? Mrs. Higgins is insane. She always has been. I should have
known
!”

“I really thought she had changed,” Pep said as she put her Cubs shirt into the same trash can. “She seemed so sad when she was talking about Dr. Warsaw. And she sounded so sincere when she was telling us how unhappy she was working as a paid assassin.”

“Sincere?” Coke sputtered. “She played us for fools.”

“Do you think she was really in love with Dr. Warsaw? Do you think she was really going to marry him?” Pep asked. “Or was that a lie too?”

“Who knows?” Coke replied. “The two of them were made for each other. They’re both psychos.”

The twins debated whether or not Mrs. Higgins could be working together with Archie Clone, but they were interrupted when Coke’s cell phone rang. As expected, it was their dad.

“Are you kids okay?” Dr. McDonald asked urgently. “Why did you say there was a bomb in the Cubs dugout? Are you crazy?”

“Yes, we’re okay,” Coke replied. “I don’t know why we said there was a bomb in the Cubs dugout. Maybe we
are
crazy.”

Dr. McDonald instructed the twins to meet him at a parking lot on North Sheffield Avenue, and hung up abruptly.