“Taylor?” Danny Underhill whispered. Danny was about Taylor’s height, his nose was a bit large, and currently there was a pimple on the inside thatch of his bushy eyebrow that was threatening to erupt. Taylor had been worried since February that Danny had a crush on her.

She glanced in his direction.“Is this right?” He scooted a piece of paper her way. Taylor gave it a cursory glance and scooted it back to him with a nod.

Five minutes until the bell.

Jill always asked Taylor to look over their homework. As much as Taylor loved her, the girl couldn’t do math to save her life. Taylor never minded helping out her few friends, but it was just fine with her that nobody else seemed to notice how smart she was.

Nobody except for Danny Underhill.

Danny was a transfer student from some place up north. His family moved to Macon shortly after her birthday in February—which seemed weird, but whatever. She didn’t know much about him except that he seemed like a nice enough kid in a geeky, no-social-skills sort of way. But he was always looking for an excuse to start up a conversation with her. Taylor had spent the last two months trying not to encourage him.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Don’t mention it.”

“Mr. Underhill? Miss Smart? Do you need my help?” Mr. Barfield said.

“N-no, Mr. Barfield,” Danny said. “I think I’ve got it now.”

“Losers,” Shelby muttered.

“I’ll have none of that!” Mr. Barfield said. He had pretty good hearing for an old guy.

Taylor noticed Jared McCaughey glancing at her from across the room. He smiled at her, and she immediately plunged her nose into her homework. Her face turned red, but she couldn’t help but smile. If only he would ask her for help with his schoolwork!

The bell rang as Mr. Barfield reminded them about the test coming up tomorrow. If anybody heard him, they didn’t let on. Rather, everybody bolted for the door like horses at the starting gate in the Kentucky Derby.

In a matter of minutes, she was at her locker. Directly across the hall, Danny fumbled with his combination.

“So, Taylor,” a voice behind her called. It was Shelby again. Of course. “Do you have plans this weekend with your boyfriend?”

“Who—?” Taylor began, but Shelby’s giggles signaled that something was up. Danny, still trying to get his locker open, turned several shades of pink all at once.

“I’d take him if I were you,” Shelby said. “I mean, it’s not like you can afford to be choosy! And is it just me, or have your ears gotten bigger since last year?”

Shelby was joined by her best friend, Jasmine Brown.

“What do you think, Dannyboy?” Jasmine said. “You want to ask her out?”

If anything, Danny turned ever redder. He finally got his locker open, but that only made things worse. Danny had one of the messiest lockers in school. As soon as the door flung open, a stack of textbooks and loose papers plopped to the floor.

“Cut it out, Shelby,” Taylor said through gritted teeth.

“Hey, we’re just trying to help,” Shelby teased. “We know it’s hard for some girls to get a boyfriend. If we can nudge things along…”

Taylor rounded on Shelby, and there was something different in her voice, an unexpected power or confidence. “I said, Cut it out.”

Her blue eyes turned icy cold. Shelby and Jasmine turned suddenly pale. Jasmine leaned on Shelby for support, as if her legs had turned to jelly. Both girls’ mouths dropped open.

“C-come on, Jasmine.”

They silently slinked away without another word.

Taylor stood there, dumbfounded. “That was interesting,” she said to herself.

“Whoa,” Danny sighed. “That’s some kind of death-glare you’ve got. Think you could teach me?”

“I…uh…No.”

She grabbed what she needed from her locker and joined the small clutch of kids streaming out the main entrance.

This wasn’t the first time Taylor had been able to scare off somebody who was bothering her. Last winter, she did the same thing to Cassie White. Cassie was giving her a hard time in the girl’s locker room after gym class. Taylor had a note from her doctor that excused her from activities whenever her asthma was acting up, and Cassie was teasing her about not being any good at sports. Taylor got so frustrated she felt like she could shoot laser beams out of her eyes. One look and Cassie choked up. She just walked away on the verge of tears.

And then there was the time she was home alone with her mom one afternoon and a vacuum-cleaner salesman showed up at their door. Mom was busy cooking supper, and Taylor learned the hard way that vacuum-cleaner salesmen didn’t like to take “no” for an answer. Then she looked him square in the eye and said, “I told you, We’re not interested.” The poor man dropped his clipboard as he retreated across the lawn.

“Death-glare,” Danny called it.

Most kids had to wait for the bus or for their parents to pick them up in the carpool line. Taylor lived less than a mile from school, so she walked home. Usually, it was just her and Jill.

The quickest way home was through the park three or four blocks from the schoolhouse. On a nice day like today, she and Jill loved to watch the birds and the squirrels, maybe sit and talk on the swings.

Today, there were just a couple of moms with preschoolers.

Something distracted her, a movement in the trees. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something was wrong. She suddenly had goosebumps all over her arms despite the warm afternoon sun. She took in her surroundings, and though nothing seemed out of the ordinary, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched.

Taylor pressed on. She made a point to steer as clear of the trees as she could. Whatever it was, it was hiding in those trees. Another hundred feet and she would be past the park and only a block from her house.

Then the stranger came into view from the other direction. He was tall, pale, with a sour expression on his face.

It was Uncle Waldo.

Read more…

Taylor didn’t mind the C-minus on her English paper, but she knew her parents were going to blow a gasket. Every report card, they had the same argument. “You’re a smart girl,” they would say. “Your teachers all say you’re very bright. Would it hurt you to try a little bit harder?”

The truth was, Taylor thought it probably would. Simply put, school was boring. It didn’t matter that she could usually get B’s in every class while barely trying. She had figured out a long time ago that nobody was ever going to teach her the things she was most interested in. When Mr. Barfield explained geometry, she wanted to know how his proofs about different kinds of angles would work if the triangles were drawn on a sphere instead of a flat surface. “You’ll get to that in college,” he said. Well, she was interested in that now!

That’s why she was so angry with Mrs. Markowitz. If she really was so far ahead of her classmates, what harm could there be in letting her study something that actually interested her? Instead, she had to write yet another brain-numbing report about stuff she had known since forever.

Taylor mostly quit caring about grades and schoolwork around the fourth grade. She had hoped her Greek mythology paper would be her crowning achievement: a paper written in one night with no prior research at all—just what was already in her head. She found it much more challenging—exciting, in fact—to wait until the last minute to finish her assignments, just to see if she could still land a good grade. And of course, she usually could.

A C-minus was not her definition of a good grade. She wondered how much trouble she was going to be in when she got home.

First, however, she had to get through fourth period. After Mrs. Markowitz’s impromptu meeting, she was almost certain to be late. She weaved through the corridors, trying not to get crushed as she made her way to Mr. Barfield’s room.

As Taylor navigated the halls, she tried to keep her head down, braced against any idiot classmates who weren’t looking where they were going. Of course, some of them know exactly where they were going but found ways to bump into her anyway. That came with the territory, Taylor supposed. Middle school was hard enough for a natural loner like her. It didn’t help that she was also pale, scrawny, and asthmatic.

“You did get my invitation, right?” a girl called ahead of her. Taylor looked up in surprise, only to see it was Shelby Crowthers. Thankfully, she was talking to somebody else. “Dad has reserved a room at the country club for Saturday night. It’s going to be the best birthday party ever! It’ll be a hundred times better than Jared’s lame party.”

Shelby Crowthers was pretty, popular, and rich—all the things Taylor wasn’t. Naturally, they hated each other. Taylor considered one of the high points of her year to be last September when she convinced her dad not to buy a car from Shelby’s dad’s car dealership—even though it boasted some of the best deals in central Georgia.

If only she could convince Mr. Crowthers to move to Australia.

Taylor wasn’t in a mood for a fight, but Shelby was standing in front of Mr. Barfield’s room, and the bell was going to ring any second. She didn’t have a choice but to wait there for her to finish arranging her social calendar. She probably should have kept her mouth shut, but she just couldn’t help herself.

“How inconsiderate of Jared to have a birthday the same week as yours,” she mocked.

“Jared’s party is fine with me,” Shelby sniffed. “It’ll just make it that more obvious who is who. The cool kids will be with me at the country club. The rest of you losers will just have to hope for the best.”

“All I’m hoping for is that you would just go away.”

“Dream on, honey. And are they ever going to do something about those eyes of yours?”

Taylor blushed. Shelby had said since third grade that Taylor’s eyes were funny. They were too far apart, she said, and Taylor looked like she was part goldfish. Plus, they weren’t a deep, pretty blue like Shelby’s, but washed-out and pale.

She sighed, rolled her not-pretty eyes, and sidestepped Shelby to enter the classroom. Shelby and her best friend, Jasmine, followed behind, along with Danny Underhill, Jared McCaughey, and the rest of the stragglers.

She took her usual seat in the back row and wished again that her best friend didn’t have the flu. Even though Jill’s brother William (never “Bill”) was kind of a dork, she and Jill had been best friends since fourth grade. The two girls lived across the street from each other. Jill would understand about Mrs. Markowitz. She was always there to listen to Taylor gripe—and to smack some sense into her when necessary.

“C’mon, your life is pretty good,” she could hear Jill say. “You’re super-smart, and really good at music and stuff. Plus, you’ve got about the coolest parents ever.”

The last part, which Jill never failed to point out, was the subject of ongoing debate between them. Jill insisted Taylor’s parents were much cooler than her own. Taylor wished they weren’t quite as strict and had a little bit more money. Though she had to admit she always knew her parents were in her corner, no matter what. They had fun family vacations every summer, and visits to Grandma Smart’s house for Christmas were definitely the best.

But on top of everything was the fact that they had chosen her.

Nobody knew anything about her biological parents. Taylor figured they were probably unmarried teenagers who at least had the sense to know they had no business trying to raise a baby. Whatever the case, the Smarts were her parents now—not because they had to be, but because they wanted to be. And stern lectures about schoolwork aside, most days that was something for which Taylor was very grateful.

Taylor came up from her daydream enough to realize that her balding, ruddy-faced teacher was already well into his geometry lecture. He had written about half a dozen diagrams on the board and a whole list of things that looked like they were important. Taylor jotted them down, half-listening to whatever it was Mr. Barfield was rambling on about. She figured out what page she was supposed to be on and scrambled to open her textbook without anyone noticing she was coming late to the game.

After about thirty minutes, he gave them a set of problems to work. Taylor finished them all in about fifteen. Most of her classmates would be taking at least a few of them home for homework.

She counted down the minutes until the last bell. Without Jill there, she had no one to pass notes to or to help her make fun of Shelby behind her back. Mr. Barfield was bent over Tommy Morgan’s desk, explaining basic geometry to the poor boy for what must have been the hundredth time.

She looked out the window. The sky was sunny and clear, but a stiff breeze blew through the trees. The school groundskeeper was mowing the grass outside her window.

Across the street, a fat lady in neon pink sweat pants was walking her poodle. A funny-looking guy in a dark suit stood on the corner as if he was lost. Taylor realized it was Uncle Waldo. What is he doing out there? she thought. That alien undead Justin Bieber fan was really starting to creep her out.

She wondered if he was one of those guys her Dad always slammed the door on when they came by wanting to tell them about their religion, but those types always seemed to travel in pairs. No, Taylor couldn’t imagine Uncle Waldo having any friends. And she definitely didn’t want to join any religion that would have him as a member. It was almost spooky the way he always seemed to show up lately. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she had even noticed him ducking around the corner of the restaurant when her folks went out for dinner last Sunday. Taylor’s neck hairs tickled her collar.

The lady’s dog nipped at Uncle Waldo, who bent down and yelled something. Fifi (or whatever its name was) twisted its leash around its human’s legs, and she nearly fell over. Taylor couldn’t help but giggle, and the spell of dread was broken. It was a perfect April afternoon, after all, and she couldn’t wait to enjoy it.

Read more…

The next day started badly. Taylor got a text from Jill. She had woken up with a fever and a stomachache—probably the flu. She wouldn’t be going to school today. Taylor would have to walk to school without her. That wasn’t usually a problem except that, apart from lunch, the walk to and from school was the only time Taylor and Jill could properly make fun of their teachers and classmates. Some of them desperately needed making fun of.

Which led to Taylor’s second problem. At breakfast her dad practically begged her not to get into any more trouble with Mrs. Markowitz, her English teacher. The old biddy had it in for Taylor ever since last September, when she complained, often and audibly, about the novels they were reading. It only got worse when they started a unit on “Technical Writing” last month. Although it fulfilled all the requirements of the assignment, Taylor’s sample complaint letter to the Board of Education about the quality of teachers they were hiring might have hit a little too close to home. Now they had begun a unit on myths and fables—something Taylor actually enjoyed—but Mrs. Markowitz seemed determined to do her best to suck every last drop of wonder from the subject.

“Sometimes you’ve just got to let things go,” her dad said. “Seventh grade won’t last forever.”

“Are you sure about that?” she scoffed.

“Positive. Come here.” He opened his arms and invited Taylor to sit in his lap. Taylor didn’t move. Sometime before Christmas, she had decided she was too grown up for such things. Her dad gave her a sad expression. He wasn’t mad at her, she knew, he just didn’t know quite what to do with her now that she was officially a teenager.

Mom came to his rescue. “All we’re trying to say, honey, is that part of this is up to you. All of your teachers think very highly of you. They just wish you’d—”

“Apply myself? Take school more seriously?”

“Well, yes,” Dad said, dropping his arms. “Taylor, right now, school is your job, and you need to start thinking of it that way.”

“It would help if my ‘job’ weren’t so boring!”

Dad sighed. “Every job in the world is boring some of the time. Do you think doing people’s taxes is a nonstop thrill ride? Do you think Mom has a party every day as Mr. Caulfield’s office manager?”

“No.”

“I understand you haven’t had the greatest year in school, but you still have to go. So, if there’s no way around your problem, and no way over it or under it, you know what you have to do, right? You’re just going to have to put your head down and go straight through the middle of it.”

And with that pep talk, Taylor trudged off to another fun-filled day at Archibald Bulloch Middle School.

Uncle Waldo, the crazy old man in the black suit, was sitting on the park bench again, scaring away the pigeons. There was definitely something odd about that guy. Taylor had noticed him hanging out in the park for a couple of weeks now. All alone, never speaking to anyone except himself.

She picked up her pace the slightest bit. Not because she was scared of Uncle Waldo, of course, but because she really didn’t want to walk to school with Jill’s twin brother William, who was only a hundred yards behind her.

The real fun began when she got to school. Reggie Banks dropped a whole handful of sheet music in Chorus, so when Taylor finally got her copy, it had somebody’s dirty shoe print all over it. As she and her classmates sang “‘Tis the gift to be simple,” she tickled herself with the thought some people were apparently more gifted than others.

Everybody was late for first period because a couple of eighth-graders got in a fight in the hallway.

The pizza in the cafeteria was greasier than usual—but still a better option than the overcooked-and-always-too-salty barbeque sandwiches.

And Jill wasn’t around to help Taylor complain about any of it.

As might have been expected, third period was the worst. Mrs. Markowitz was in rare form. When the bell rang, she called Taylor up to her desk to discuss the homework assignment she had just returned.

“I give up,” she began. She didn’t even rise from her chair. “I’ve tried befriending you. I’ve tried encouraging you. I’ve tried having conferences with your parents. I’ve even tried threats. Nothing seems to get through to you.”

It was all Taylor could do not to grin at the ridiculous shade of red of her English teacher’s hair. The poor woman apparently didn’t want anyone to know she was gray—probably had been for the last fifty years—but she never managed to buy the same brand of hair dye twice. Today, her hair was more violently red than usual. Actually, it was bordering on purple. That was appropriate, Taylor thought, as it pretty much matched the color the veins on her face were turning.

“This should have been a simple assignment for a bright girl like you. All you had to do was write a three-page summary of the major gods of Greek mythology.”

“But that’s what I did,” Taylor protested. She held up her paper with the “C-” written across the top in very large, very angry red pen strokes. She resisted the urge to shove it in her teacher’s face.

Mrs. Markowitz scoffed. “Two pages and only three lines onto the third page!”

“It’s still three pages,” Taylor said.

“In sixteen-point type?”

“Fourteen, and I don’t remember you saying anything about font size when you gave the assignment.”

“It is assumed that papers are to be printed in twelve-point type.”

“Well, you know what they say about what happens when people assume.”

Mrs. Markowitz seethed. Taylor’s lips began to curl into a subtle grin. She absolutely hated her English teacher. Knowing she was getting under Mrs. Markowitz’s skin was like a shark smelling blood in the water.

“Taylor, why must you always behave as if you’re smarter than everyone else at this school—your teachers included?”

Taylor shrugged. An honest answer would not have been terribly diplomatic at that point. She congratulated herself on being able to hold her peace. Instead, she pushed on at her strongest angle of attack.

“Did I leave out any Greek gods that you consider to be ‘major,’ Mrs. Markowitz?”

“Of course not,” she said. “You got all the Olympians and several others beside. But—”

“And I notice you haven’t highlighted any spelling or grammar mistakes. So I take it you have no complaints in that area?”

“Miss Smart—”

“And you have to admit I gave you the three-page summary you asked for. The page numbers are all right there at the bottom. You never said we had to write three whole pages.”

“Don’t try to twist my words, Miss Smart. You know precisely what this assignment entailed. You could have done it properly in your sleep, yet—once again—it seems you’ve put more effort into intentionally misunderstanding my instructions than you have into completing your work. You’ll be off to high school in another couple of years, and I can assure you that coasting along on your natural intelligence and hoping for a passing grade with the least amount of effort won’t get you very far.”

“With all due respect, Mrs. Markowitz, why shouldn’t it? You only teach what’s going to be on the state assessment tests anyway.”

“That is not true!”

Then why couldn’t we ever do anything different? I’ve already read just about everything there is about Greek mythology in the public library. But every time I brought up any of the really cool stuff in class, you shut me down.”

“The ‘cool stuff’ as you call it is not suitable for a class full of impressionable twelve- and thirteen-year-olds.”

“That’s why I offered to write a summary of some other mythology. If the rest of the class needed the basics, then why not let me learn about the gods of the Egyptians or the Vikings? Anything but the same boring stuff I’ve already heard about since I first read The Children’s Homer!

“Miss Smart, we are not going to rehash that conversation—”

“Of course we’re not. Because the truth is, you only teach what the big shots in Atlanta tell you to. That’s why everybody in the seventh grade is doing the exact same lessons in the exact same way at the exact same time. Oh, you may say you want your students to be creative and love learning. Heck, you might even think you mean it. But let’s face it, Mrs. Markowitz, you just want us to score well on the test so you’ll look like you’ve done your job.”

“That is enough of that, Miss Smart!”

“I’m only following your exact words,” Taylor mumbled.

“And I’m only giving you the grade your pitiful efforts deserve.”

The two glared at each other for several tense seconds until students began to file into the classroom. “You’ll be late for your next class,” Mrs. Markowitz said. The conversation, it seemed, was over.

Read more…

“Somebody’s out there,” Jill Matthews said. She peered over Taylor’s shoulders.

“You’re seeing things,” Taylor said as she drew the blinds of her bedroom. “There’s nothing back there but woods. You must have seen a bird or maybe a deer.”

“Right, ‘cause the brilliant Taylor Smart has never been wrong about anything in her life.”

Taylor just glared at her.

“Okay, that was cold. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Taylor said. She sat on her bed. Jill pulled up the desk chair and used the bed as a footstool.

“How long till you have to go home?”

Jill checked the time on her cell phone. “About an hour. Do you think we could do some geometry now? It was why I came over, you know.”

“I thought it was for my mom’s spaghetti,” Taylor said. She leaned over to grab her backpack from the edge of the bed. She reached in for her math workbook.

“Well, that too.”

“Okay. Geometry,” Taylor said. “But admit it, you’d rather sit here and talk about Uncle Waldo.”

“Taylor!” Jill threatened to throw her own workbook at her friend.

Uncle Waldo was Taylor and Jill’s pet name for the creepy guy who had been hanging out in the park lately, a pasty-white old man who always dressed in black.

“I’m telling you,” Jill said, “that guy is definitely up to something. He looks like a serial killer or something.”

“Oh? And how many serial killers have you met lately?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Jill, he’s just a reject from a mental hospital somewhere. Sure, he’s creepy, but he’s perfectly harmless.”

“Whatever,” Jill said.

“Unless, of course, he’s a foreign spy trying to steal Mom’s spaghetti recipe.”

Jill gave Taylor a sour look.

“Oooh! Or maybe he’s an alien shapeshifter who’s lost contact with the mother ship… Or a vicious monster on his way to a Cannibals Anonymous meeting!”

“That’s enough, Taylor. I get your point.”

“He could be the ghost of an evil mortician…or a zombie…or a Justin Bieber fan! But I shouldn’t repeat myself…”

“Give it up, okay?” Jill said. She fumbled through her math worksheets. Taylor pulled back. She knew her friend could only take so much of her teasing.

“You’ve got to admit, though,” Jill said. “He’s a little strange.”

“Yeah,” Taylor said. “But not ‘vicious criminal’ strange. More like ‘drools and talks to himself’ strange. Or maybe ‘dorky brother’ strange.” Taylor winked.

Jill grinned. “I’ll be sure and tell William you’re thinking of him.”

Taylor stuck out her tongue.

“Which reminds me. You never said if you’re going to Jared’s party this Saturday.”

Taylor sighed. “Probably not.”

“Oh, come on! Do you know how long it took to convince my parents to let me go? ‘Who are this Jared boy’s parents?’” she imitated her mother. “’Where do they go to church? He doesn’t get into any trouble at school, does he?’ I swear, I’m surprised they didn’t get the police to run a background check on him.”

Taylor realized this was one of those times she probably ought to keep her mouth shut. Amazingly, she found it in her to do so. It didn’t help.

“I don’t suppose your parents gave you the third degree?” Jill said.

“My dad is his folks’ accountant,” Taylor said. “I think he’s pretty sure they’re not drug dealers or anything.” She made a point of burying her face in her math book. “Look, if you want to go, just go. You already said your parents are okay with it.”

“Barely. They’d feel better if they knew my best friend was going, too.”

“I just haven’t decided yet, okay?”

“But I don’t want to go by myself!”

“Isn’t William invited?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Jill said. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

“Yeah, well.” Taylor studied the floor. Then the walls. Anything to keep from making eye contact.

“Okay, so you’re not the most sociable person in the world,” Jill said. “It’s really not that bad. Would it kill you to go eat some cake and ice cream?” She leaned in conspiratorially. “I notice the way you look at Jared at school, you know.”

“Don’t even start,” Taylor said, her cheeks reddening. Jill started to giggle, but Taylor pressed on. “Besides, you know I…I don’t like parties. I never know what to say. Nobody else is into the same things I am. I’m afraid people are talking about me. Laughing at me.”

“What am I going to do with you?” Jill said, shaking her head. “This is Jared McCaughey we’re talking about. You know the kids he hangs out with. He’s not going to invite any of those glamour school rejects who are always cracking on you. Just say you’re going, okay? I really want you to be there. Dad can drive us.”

“We’ll see.”

There didn’t seem any point to arguing, so Taylor held her piece, and she and Jill dove into their homework.

Read more…

Danny slipped through the brush as silently as a gentle breeze, nearly invisible in the twilight. He breathed deep the crisp springtime air as he skipped over the tiny stream behind the house and crept up the slope of the hill to the chain-link fence at the edge of the property. His partner was already waiting for him. Danny pulled his Atlanta Braves ball cap down over his black, curly hair.

“Where’ve you been?” Bryn asked. She had that look again—the one that said, “What did I ever do to draw Danny Underhill as a partner?”

“There was a…Actually, I kind of…”

“Got distracted? What was it this time?”

“Squirrel,” Danny said, shuffling his feet.

Bryn looked at him with both exasperation and endearment. “Well, at least you’re here now.”

“Anything to report?”

Bryn shook her head. “Pretty quiet. I thought I heard something in the woods a half-hour ago. It was just a bird.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mostly sure,” Bryn confessed. She turned back toward the back yard. “I swear,” she sighed, “we should have switched her out a month ago.”

“Mrs. Redmane said we had to be sure,” Danny protested. “Given the circumstances…”

“I know, Danny,” Bryn said. She smiled, and Danny’s heart jumped just a little. Then again, Brynhilde Delling seemed to have that effect on everything with an Adam’s apple. She tossed back her head in a way that made her golden hair seem to dance in the moonlight.

Crickets chirped. Somewhere, someone was grilling steaks. Danny realized he was hungry. The cafeteria food he had been eating for lunch the past few weeks never seemed to fill him up. Hopefully, all that would change tomorrow afternoon. He tried not to dwell on how much was riding on this assignment. He certainly couldn’t afford to think about the news he had just received.

No, best not to dwell on how this entire mission might be the death of him. Let Bryn think he was late because he got distracted by a squirrel. He kept telling himself—and Bryn—that it was just another switch-out. He’d done this plenty of times. No biggie. He was even starting to believe it himself.

“Are you listening?” Bryn asked. Apparently, Danny wasn’t.

“Uh,” he said.

“I said I’ll keep my distance till you call me. She knows you, after all.”

“Sounds good,” Danny said. “We don’t want to spook her. Well, any more than is necessary, anyway.” He gazed across the back yard toward the modest house. He pulled back as he got a little too close to the fence. Cold shivers spread in a wave up his arms and down his spine.

A light flicked on in the back bedroom. A young girl entered the room. Thin. Pale-skinned. A little on the tall side for her age—in fact, she was exactly the same height as Danny. Her long, straight hair that was not quite blonde and not quite brown hung loosely over her shoulders.

Behind her came another girl with caramel-colored skin and her hair in beaded braids. This second girl smiled at the first as they both plopped their backpacks on the bed.

“I just hope I don’t have to get between her and her friend,” Danny said. “That girl makes me nervous.”

“What do you mean? She can’t know anything.”

“She doesn’t like me,” Danny said. “I’m not sure why.” He wondered if she did know the truth about him. She didn’t show up in any of the background checks, but background checks could be wrong. Things can get lost in the shuffle—otherwise they wouldn’t be in this mess!

“You’re imagining things,” Bryn said. “It’s not worth getting all worked up over some Jack kid.”

“Yeah.” Danny was not so sure. The truth was, he couldn’t afford for anything to go wrong. Not now. He glanced at Bryn. She couldn’t possibly know how much was on the line—what Danny was planning, and how much might be riding on the skinny girl in the back bedroom.

Focus! he told himself. Only one more to go. You’ve got to get this right.

“I’ll talk to her in the park. It’s usually pretty empty right after school. Then I’ll take her to meet you at the ring.”

“What about the other one?”

Danny sighed. “I’ll play that by ear. If I have to, I’ll arrange for her to go home early.”

“Just don’t give her anything too serious,” Bryn said. “We need a clean ledger on this one. Nobody owes anything to anybody.”

“I’ve done this before, you know,” Danny said with a huff.

“I know you have,” Bryn said. “You’re in charge. I’m your backup.”

“Right,” Danny said. “But that means if anything goes wrong, it ain’t your tail on the line, it’s mine.”

“And a fine, waggly tail it is,” Bryn said, smiling. “You’ll do fine. Like you say, this is just another switch-out. You’re the expert. I’m just the placeholder until she makes her decision.”

“About that: do you need anything else to pull it off?”

“Give me a heads-up tomorrow when you see what she’s wearing. I can handle it from there.”

“Are you sure? Honestly, Bryn. I’m asking a lot of you here. You’ve got to be perfect. What if somebody doesn’t buy it? It could be a disaster! They’d call in the police, maybe even the FBI.” That would be a total disaster: guns, handcuffs…maybe even riding in a car! Danny shuddered at the thought. He found he had been drained of whatever optimism he had managed to gin up.

Then again, if Danny had to choose between the FBI and an angry Mrs. Redmane, he’d take the FBI any day of the week! One last switch-out and I’ve fulfilled my contract, he told himself. One last switch-out and I’m free. Unless, of course, the whole thing blows up in my face.

“Piece of cake,” Bryn smiled, oblivious to Danny’s concerns. “It could be fun. It’s been a long time since I was a teenager.”

“You’ve never been a teenager like her!” Danny scoffed.

“How different could it be?” Bryn pouted.

“Trust me, I’ve been living around them practically since Imbolc. They’re not like us, Bryn.”

“Then Taylor Smart’s life is about to get very interesting,” Bryn said with a twinkle in her eye.

“You can say that again!”

“Well, then, it looks like we’re all set,” Bryn said. “What do you say we stop by the drugstore and see if they’ve got any new teen music magazines. I’m still a little shaky on a couple of those boy bands you’ve told me about.”

“All right,” Danny said. “But just for a few minutes. I gotta study for a history test.” He glanced at the light in the back bedroom window one last time.

He nodded to his partner. Then they both vanished silently into the gathering darkness.

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