Enemy Spy (5 page)

He came out through the front door, looking around, and when he saw me, he said, “Nolan?”

“Mr. Green!”I cried.

“Are you all right?”

“I was lost! I was riding my bike but it got a flat, so I started walking, but then this…”And then I remembered—Mr. Green wasn't the Bouncer anymore. He'd quit! I couldn't tell him about the trench coat guy or the shabby guy—he'd tell me to lie low!

So I took a deep breath and said, “I got lost, that's all.”

He looked at his watch. “Your parents must be worried.”

I nodded.

I followed him inside, where he let me call my mom. And when she heard it was me, the first thing she said was, “Oh, honey! Oh, honey,
you're okay!”Then she called over to my dad, “Steven! It's him! He's fine!”Then, like a light switch, she clicked on the anger. “Nolan,
why
did you leave without saying where you were going? What were you thinking? Do you know how wor-ried we've been? Just because things are not going exactly the way you want them to doesn't mean you can thumb your nose at us and start throwing around attitude!”

And that was just her warm-up! She was getting
really
worked up when Mr. Green took the phone away from me and told her he'd be happy to drive me home.

After he hung up, he smiled at me and said, “Don't sweat it too much, Nolan. That's just how parents get when they've been worried.”

I followed him to his van without a word. I was back to feeling sick inside. I wanted to tell Mr. Green and my parents about the trench coat guy and the shabby guy, but I couldn't. It would get
me in more trouble than I already was. And boy, was I in
major
trouble with Mom and Dad.

But still, I had to do something!

And I had to do it without the trench coat guy or the shabby guy finding out who I was.

There was only one answer—Shredderman.

So after Mr. Green dropped me off and Mom and Dad were done scolding me, I ate cold chicken and beans and went straight to bed.

Only I didn't go straight to sleep!

I lay in bed, waiting.

And thinking.

And when the house was finally quiet and I was sure my parents were asleep, I got up, booted up, and went to work. First I scanned in all the pages of calculations and diagrams that I'd pulled out of the fake boulder.

Always smart to make a backup!

Then I got to work putting together a Photoshop page. I moved a picture of the trench
coat guy next to a picture of the shabby guy, and added a shot of the “CLASSIFIED”pages. Then between the images I wrote:

I think you should investigate! (And check your snail mail. I'm sending you the classified documents.)

Yours in Truth and Justice, Shredderman

Then I sneaked down the hall and booted up my mom's computer.

I went to her e-mail.

I checked her address book.

I found him!

Sergeant William Klubb—my dad's friend at the police station. And his e-mail was easy: [email protected].

Oh, yeah!

I tiptoed back to my bedroom, attached the Photoshop file to an e-mail, and sent it to Sarge with “URGENT”in the message box. Then I tagged it with a red exclamation mark and sent it into cyberspace.

Step one, complete!

Step two, mail the documents.

I looked up the address of the Cedar Valley Police Department on the Internet, then printed out a mailing label addressed to Sergeant William Klubb.

I typed up a return label: Sergeant William Klubb, same address! Whether it went forward or backward, it would get to him.

Then I shut down my computer and started stuffing the envelope.

Documents in!

Labels on!

Sealed with tape (saliva has DNA)!

Then I slapped a bunch of stamps on the enve-lope and wrestled my feet into my shoes. And I was starting to climb out my window to go mail it, but at the last minute I turned around and scrawled a note that said:

Don't be mad! I'll be right back!

Nolan

(2:10 a.m.)

Then
I climbed out my window.

I landed
whoosh,
like a cat. I zoomed up the street. Around the corner.

There it was—the neighborhood mailbox.

I slid the envelope down the hatch.

I whispered “Good luck!”and zoomed back home.

By 2:16 a.m., I was back inside. Am I speedy, or what? I fell into bed happy. Happy to be Shredderman.

In the morning, Mom was real nice when she woke me up. “Nolan…”She was stroking my hair. “Nolan, honey, it's time to get up.”

For a minute I forgot that I was mad at her. And that she'd been mad at me. The way she was stroking my hair felt so nice.

Then my dad came in, saying, “Hey, champ. I think I figured out what road you left your bike on.”He had a map, and squashed my leg when he squeezed onto my bed to show me.

“Ow!”I said, and rolled toward the wall. Boy, did I sound grumpy!

Mom stood up and said, “Come on, Nolan. You
can do better than that. Help your father find your bike while I make us all some breakfast.”

So I sat up and looked at the map. “Where?”

“Well, here's where Mr. Green lives,”Dad said, pointing. “And if you follow the river this way, the first road you come across is this one— Blackstone Way.”

I studied the map, trying to figure out where I'd gone and where I'd gone wrong. But then Dad said, “If you'd stuck to the road, you'd have been home free, Nolan.”He pointed. “A quarter mile, max, and you'd have been on Leeward, then
vroom,
straight out to Old Town.”He shook his head. “I still don't understand why you left the road. Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? How could we have ever found you? What were you
thinking
?”

I shrugged and looked away. It did seem really, really stupid, but that's because I couldn't tell him the truth.

“Well,”Dad sighed. Then he stood up and said, “I'll go out there and see if I can find your bike.”

“Can I go with you?”

He looked at his watch. “You won't have time before school.”

“So? I'll just—”

“No. You will go to school like you're supposed to.”He said it real sternly, then took a deep breath and said, “If I can't find it on my own, I'll take you back out there after school.”

“But—”

“No ifs, ands, or buts, Nolan. Just tell me which side of the road, and how far from the bridge you think it is.”

I could tell I wasn't going to get him to change his mind, so I started calculating out loud. “If you're walking toward the bridge, it's on the right side of the road. And I walked for… forty-five minutes?”

“How fast?”

“As fast as I could.”I thought for a minute. The fastest I'd run a mile at school was nine minutes. Call it ten. If I was going even half that speed, I'd be going one mile in twenty minutes.

That made three miles in sixty minutes.

Three miles an hour?

Sheez.
Some kind of superhero.

Finally I said, “It's probably about two miles from the bridge.”

“Good enough,”Dad said, folding the map. “I'll do my best.”He slapped my leg. “Now hustle up!”

“Uh…,”I said when he'd reached the door, “thanks, Dad.”

He turned to face me. “Thank me by not pulling a stunt like that again.”

“It wasn't a stunt, Dad!”

“Well, whatever you call it, don't do anything like it again.”

I looked down. “I'm sorry.”

“We'll talk more when I get home tonight,
okay? I know you're mad about Shredderman, and I do understand that. For now, try to see more than just your side of it, okay? We'll figure some way to work this out.”

I nodded, but I didn't believe him. “Working it out”meant lying low. Boy! If they knew what was going on, I'd be in some boiling hot water!

I did lie low at school, though. Even lower than usual. I didn't even play four-square or go to the computer lab at recess. I just went down to the swings and sat on the edge of the sand, looking at birds peck around the lower field.

Then out of nowhere, my dad showed up in the cafeteria at lunch. He sat right across the table from me. It was strange to have him suddenly appear in the cafeteria, but I could tell something big was on his mind.

“You couldn't find my bike?”I asked him.

“Oh, I found your bike, all right,”he said. “It took me nearly two hours, but I found it. And I
got the flat fixed, too. It's back in the garage, good as new.”

“Wow, Dad. Thanks!”I really was happy. From the way he was acting, I thought for sure he was going to say my bike was ruined. But it was fine. Fixed! Ready to ride!

So why was he frowning?

“Dad?”I asked him. “What's wrong?”

He was looking around. “Why are you here all by yourself?”

“Huh? Oh.”I shrugged. “This is where I eat.”

“Every day?”

I nodded.

“Always by yourself?”

I shrugged and nodded some more.

“Why aren't you eating with… with some friends?”

“Dad,
shhhh.
It's okay. I'm used to it.”

“But—”He was shaking his head. “Nolan, I had no idea…”

He was making me feel worse than I already did about having no friends. So I switched the subject. “Thanks for coming here to tell me about my bike, Dad.”

He focused on me and said, “I didn't actually come here because of that. I came here because… because Sergeant Klubb called me.”

Uh-oh.

I tried to act cool. “Oh, yeah?”

“Apparently he got an e-mail from Shredderman. Sarge wanted to know if I'd made any progress figuring out who he is.”

Brother. It'd only been half a day. Couldn't any-one give a superhero a break?

“Nolan?”

“What, Dad?”

“You're not denying it? I thought for sure it was some other guy pretending to be you.”

I shrugged.

“It
was
you?”

His lips got tight.

His eyes got twitchy.

Finally he whispered, “What do you think you're
doing
?”

My lips got tight right back.

I made my eyes into little slits.

I leaned forward and whispered, “Fighting for truth and justice, like I'm supposed to!”