Secret Weapons (2 page)

They met on the sidewalk only a few feet from Ari’s tree. “Well?” he heard Aurora say in a questioning tone of voice. He leaned forward, listening intently. “Hey, I’m sorry,” Kate said, and then something about it not being her fault, before they started up the driveway and the sound of their voices died away. Ari rucked his pencil and notebook into his fanny pack, climbed down from his observation post, and, using his best investigative-reporter tailing techniques, followed at a safe distance. He was an expert at safe distances. He knew, for instance, that when you were following Kate and Aurora the distance had to be safer than usual, since Aurora was so good at knowing things and Kate was so good at karate.

Kate was doing a lot of talking—complaining, from the looks of it—and the two of them were moving very slowly. So slowly that Ari had to stop once and duck for cover in a prickly holly bush and again in the backyard gazebo. Crouching on the gazebo floor among his father’s weird sculptures, Ari rubbed the scratches on his arm where the holly bush had got him, and waited for Kate and Aurora to get on with it. To finish crossing the backyard, disappear into the old storage shed, and lock themselves in.

Once or twice he eased up into a standing position and, peeking around the bronze snake that climbed one of the gazebo’s purple roof poles, he peered out. Very carefully. They were still standing there talking. Or at least Kate was talking and Aurora was listening. Ari sat back down again, folded his arms around his knees, and waited. While he waited he thought about the exciting fact that, this time for sure, he was finally going to get a good look at what had been going on inside the old shed.

Up until now, of course, the problem had been the lack of windows. The old storage shed that his mother had used as a painter’s studio when they first moved to Castle Court had lots of skylights—but no windows. Which was fine for a painter’s studio but tended to make things difficult for investigative reporters.

Not that he didn’t already have a pretty good idea about what Kate and Aurora were doing. He knew, for instance, that it had something to do with the science fair that was going to be held next month at Beaumont School.

He had known that for a long time. Ever since the day that he’d just happened to overhear Aurora asking their mom if she and Kate could use the old studio for their science-fair project. Ari’s mother had said yes, of course. Ari knew she would. Diane Pappas, who was a slightly famous artist, was also slightly famous, at least in Castle Court, as an unusual kind of mother. The kind who almost never says no. And besides, there really wasn’t any reason to say no. The ratty old shed had been empty, and more or less abandoned, ever since his parents had built the big new artist’s studio onto one wing of their house.

When Diane had said yes, Aurora and Kate had looked very happy. And Ari himself had been rather pleased. An old deserted shed was not only a good place to do secret scientific experiments, but it was also, as Ari quickly realized, a good place to do secret scientific investigations—since, as far as he knew, there’d never been any kind of lock for the door. But then, almost immediately, Kate spoiled it all by bringing over a huge, shiny combination lock. So far Ari hadn’t been able to figure out the combination, so up until now his investigations hadn’t been too successful. And since Kate had threatened to practice her karate on him if she caught him spying on them again, he had to go about the whole thing very carefully.

Nothing he’d tried had been very productive. Once or twice he had crouched outside the door when the girls were in the shed, but he hadn’t been able to see anything at all, and all he’d heard were some vague mumbles. There had been an interesting smell, however. A kind of repulsive smell, actually, but nothing he could put his finger on. So up until today his investigation of Kate and Aurora’s science-fair project had been pretty much of a flop. But today was going to be different. Today he had a ladder.

The ladder, which his father sometimes used when he was working on a particularly tall sculpture, usually sat against the back wall of the new studio. But late last night after everyone had gone to bed, Ari had carried it out and hidden it in the tall weeds right behind the shed. It hadn’t been easy, because it was a long ladder and pretty heavy. But now all he had to do was wait until Kate and Aurora were busy inside the shed and then creep around it and
very quietly
lift the ladder up against the wall. And once he was on the roof he could peek down through the skylights—and see exactly what was going on. He could hardly wait. He was crouched down in a “ready-set-go” position when Kate and Aurora finally stopped gabbing and went on toward the shed.

At last the distant mumble of voices stopped, and a moment later Ari heard the creak of rusty hinges. And then silence. He eased himself up and peered around the bronze snake. Sure enough, they’d gone inside. A very few moments later Ari was behind the shed, getting ready to lift the ladder into place.

He’d known it wasn’t going to be easy, and it wasn’t. The ladder was heavy and hard to handle. After several tries he managed to get it up on one end and began to walk it toward the shack. He was almost close enough to begin lowering the top toward the edge of the roof, when he suddenly became aware of a threatening sound. Something was buzzing around his left ear. Something that sounded like a particularly nervous honeybee.

Ari wasn’t too fond of honeybees, and he knew, from painful past experience, that they didn’t like him much either.
Hold perfectly still,
he told himself.
Pretend you’re not even there. Nobody’s here, bee. See, there’s nobody here at all.

But the bee didn’t buy it. Instead it kept getting closer and buzzing louder. But it wasn’t until he actually felt something—like the bee coming in for a landing on the top of his ear—that he jerked his head and tried to duck away. And at that moment the heavy ladder gave a lurch, slipped out of his grip—and came crashing down against the shed roof.

Ari froze in horror. A split second later a loud voice yelled, “Hey! What was that?” And in another split second Ari was off, running as if his life depended on it. Which it probably did.

H
ALFWAY UP THE DRIVEWAY
, while running at top speed, Ari came to a swift decision. The kind of swift decision that investigative reporters have to be good at making. This time the decision was—forget the
cherry tree
. Head for the
holly bush
.

His cherry tree hiding place was farther away, and besides, he was pretty sure Aurora knew about it. And if she did, he wasn’t at all sure she wouldn’t tell, even though he was her only brother and not quite nine years old, which was way too young to be used for karate practice. The holly bush, on the other hand, was closer but a lot pricklier. Ari was way back in the holly bush when Kate came pounding down the driveway. Closing his eyes, he scrunched down among the prickly branches, trying not to say “Ouch.” At least not very loudly.

After a minute he heard other footsteps going by. Softer ones. Probably Aurora’s. Both sets of footsteps came to a stop on the sidewalk only a few feet from Ari’s hiding place.

“Did you see anyone?” It was Aurora’s voice.

“No,” Kate answered, “I didn’t see the little geek. But it must have been Ari.”

For a moment no one said anything. “Well,” Kate said, “don’t you think it was?”

“Well, maybe,” Aurora said finally. “But maybe not. It could have been Bucky.”

Right! Good for Aurora,
Ari thought. It certainly could have been Bucky. In fact he’d heard a rumor that Bucky and his PRO buddies were planning to spy on other people’s science-fair projects to get some new ideas, because all the ones they’d tried had self-destructed. “Tell her, Aurora,” he whispered under his breath. “Tell her about Bucky getting new science-fair ideas by spying.”

But Aurora didn’t say anything more and only a few seconds later Kate said, “Well, where are
you
going, twerp? I thought you were still asleep.”

Ari pushed aside a particularly prickly branch and peeked out in time to see a small, pigeon-toed, bristly-haired figure trudging up the sidewalk. Carson Nicely. “I’m going to Web’s house,” he heard Carson say. “To see Web.”

Just before Ari turned loose of the holly branch so he could stick his punctured finger in his mouth, he saw Carson start on up the sidewalk. But a moment later he heard Kate’s voice again. “Wait a minute. Come back here. I want to ask you something. Did you see anybody running out from behind the Pappases’ house just now?”

There was a long pause. Ari pushed the dangerous branch aside again and saw Carson peering nearsightedly down the driveway. “No,” he said finally. “Who was it?”

“Holy cow!” Kate said in an exasperated tone of voice. “That’s what I was asking you. We don’t know who it was. But somebody just tried to spy on our science project. Or else sabotage it.”

“Sabo … what?” Carson said.

“Sabotage. You know. Blow it up, or steal it, or stuff like that.”

“Ohhh,” Ari heard Carson say. “Ohhh.” He didn’t say anything more but Ari could see that he was nodding his head slowly up and down and his eyes, behind his round glasses, were wide and glassy.

“Oh for Pete squeaks,” Kate said. “You’re no help. Come on, Aurora. Let’s go look for clues. Maybe whoever it was left some clues.”

Ari scrunched down again as Kate and Aurora’s footsteps went past him down the driveway. But he didn’t hear Carson’s going anywhere, so after a minute he peeked out again. Carson was right where the girls had left him—in the middle of the sidewalk. He was standing very still and his eyes were even more glassy-looking.

As Ari watched, Carson caught a deep, shaky breath and muttered something that sounded like “Terrorists.” He glanced from side to side, quickly and nervously, as if he expected to see something sneaking up on him. “It’s the terrorists,” he said again before he blinked, swallowed hard, and added, “Web. I gotta tell Web.” Then he started on up the sidewalk at top speed, which in Carson’s case was a kind of lopsided trot.

“Hmmm!” Ari said. “Terrorists?” His hand was reaching back automatically for his fanny pack before he remembered about the prickles and stopped. But a couple of minutes later, when he was sure Kate and Aurora had had enough time to get clear back to the old studio, he crawled out of the holly bush and started up the sidewalk in the direction of Web Wong’s house.

Ari was almost to the Wongs’ driveway when he stopped for a minute to get out his notebook and pencil, in case he might want to do some spur-of-the-moment writing about terrorists. It was while he was trying to get his fanny pack unzipped that he heard an odd thumping, scuffling noise and looked up in time to see Susie Garcia jumping rope down the sidewalk right at him. He ducked quickly to one side, but not quite quickly enough. Susie’s jump rope hit him on the shoulder, and a second later she hit him again. With her fist this time.

Susie Garcia, who was in Ari’s third-grade class at Beaumont, was like that. She hit people a lot, particularly boys. But Ari had always figured it wasn’t her fault. Growing up with lots of older brothers could probably do that to a person of the opposite sex.

“You made me miss,” Susie said. “Why didn’t you get out of the way? I was almost to five hundred.”

Ari grinned at Susie. He liked the way her funny baby-rabbit face looked when she was angry. In fact, he pretty much liked the way Susie looked anytime. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I guess I was too busy getting out my notebook.”

Susie’s frown changed from plain old mad to slightly curious. “Why?” she asked.

“Why was I getting out my notebook?” Ari thought fast. If he came up with a really interesting answer, maybe she’d stay and talk for a minute. It was a long shot, he knew. Susie never talked to boys if she could help it. “Well …,” he said. And then suddenly he had it. “Well, it’s because of the terrorists.”

“Terrorists?” Susie’s huge black eyes seemed to grow even bigger.

“Yeah,” Ari said. “Haven’t you heard about them?”

Susie shook her head.

Ari took a deep breath. “I don’t know too much about it yet, either, but I know it has something to do with Web Wong.”

“With Web? Why would a terrorist want to …”

Ari racked his brain.
Why would a terrorist be after Web Wong?
his brain asked itself—and almost immediately came up with an answer. Web, who along with Ari and Susie and Carson Nicely was in the third grade at Beaumont, was a genius. A scientific genius. Web was always doing absolutely amazing scientific things, and right at the moment he and Carson were doing a special project for the science fair. Ari knew that for sure because he was supposed to be part of their team. But after he’d talked to Ms. Nelson about how basically unscientific he was, she’d agreed to let him write about the science projects instead of doing one. So he didn’t really know what Web and Carson were doing. Except that Carson had said that he
had to tell Web
about the terrorists. So …

Lowering his voice to a whisper, Ari said, “It’s his science-fair project, I think. It’s like—some kind of secret weapon and these terrorist guys probably want to steal it.”

“Ohhh,” Susie said. “Ohhh, wowee!”

W
HILE ARI WAS HAVING
his ladder disaster, and then running into Susie, Carlos Garcia was at home. In the Garcias’ game room, actually, and Bucky Brockhurst and Eddy Wong were there too. Eddy and Bucky were there that day because the three of them—the three PROs—were supposedly working on their science-fair project. Supposedly! Except at the moment, Eddy was about to walk out.

Eddy was lucky, Carlos thought. It was a lot easier to walk out when you lived someplace else.

“Look, Brockhurst,” Eddy was saying. “I’m outta here. It’s not going to work.”

But Bucky, who was fooling around with an eggplant he’d swiped out of his mom’s refrigerator, wasn’t listening. He never listened when the three of them were trying to choose a subject for their science-fair project. Instead he just came up with an idea and that was it, no matter what the other two guys thought.