Hunter Moran Saves the Universe (4 page)

William's head is buried in his shoulders. He's reading
The Lightning Thief
under the table.

But Steadman interrupts Pop, looking thrilled. “Can I wear a uniform?”

Zack and I begin to laugh, Zach spraying milk over the ketchup drowning his plate, and the two of us are sent to our room. Pop says he doesn't want to see us for the rest of the summer.

Upstairs Zack hands me half of one of his emergency Hershey bars. We need it for energy because what we're going to do next is more dangerous than anything we've attempted so far.

We have to break into Pop's laptop.

“You're a good guy,” I tell Zack. He knows it's not because of sharing the candy. It's because he doesn't remind me that I dropped our laptop down the stairs during a fight with William.

Zack and I sit on our beds slowly chewing the Hershey bar. We have to wait until everything settles down in the kitchen. And that takes forever.

Dishes clang. Mary screams as she gets her bath and bed. At last Pop and Mom leave Linny in charge and take their nightly walk around Tinwitty's Kettle. After all, Mom is a descendant of Lester Tinwitty. That's why she judges the soup contest. A disgusting job, if you ask me.

It's a relief to have Mom and Pop gone. Pop will be happy by the time they get back, and we'll have the vital
information from his computer on how to get rid of a bomb without blowing ourselves to kingdom come.

“Ready?” I ask Zack.

He crosses his fingers. We just have to find out where Pop hid the computer tonight.

“I'm ready,” says Steadman from the doorway.

“Talk about spies,” Zack says.

Steadman stands there holding a glass of chocolate milk. It's filled to the brim, which is a surprise, because a river of chocolate wends its way down his pajamas, joining the bunnies who are chasing carrots from sleeve to sleeve.

Steadman is the fifth kid in the family to wear those pajamas, but he's done the most damage to them. They're a mess of backyard dirt.

But what does he care? The legs are almost up to his knees. Soon the pajamas will be handed down to Mary and he'll get Zack's old ones with footballs all over them.

“Is Linny calling you, Steadman?” I ask, and Zack nods.

“What are we doing?” Steadman says.

“Linny probably has candy,” I tell him.

“I know where Pop's laptop is,” Steadman says.

“Where?” we say together.

“You're not supposed to—” Steadman begins.

Zack gives up his last emergency Hershey bar and Steadman leads us to the laptop. It's stashed in Pop's sock drawer under two thousand unmatched socks.

We drag it out and rush back to our room, slamming the
door behind us. We sink down against the bedroom door to keep it sealed tight as a tomb; Linny will be making her rounds any minute. I hold the computer on my lap. It's the key to saving Newfield, and even more important, the rest of the family. I press the On button.

One thing about Pop. He has limited imagination. We figure out his password in three tries. Helen, Mom's name.

The rest should have been easy. Zack was born knowing how to get the best out of a computer. He puts in
bomb
+
blow up
+
how to.

“Not enough,” I say. “Add
dismantle
.”

“Right,” Zack says.

But Steadman leans over to wipe a drop of chocolate milk off the shift key. And that's when it happens. The entire glass of milk splats down on the keyboard and the screen goes dark.

My mouth turns as dry as Diglio's front lawn. But Zack is a good man in an emergency. He begins to work on the laptop first with the edge of his T-shirt and then with the bed quilt.

“I think Linny is calling me,” Steadman says.

We move away from the door. “Don't tell—” I begin, but he's out of there.

Zack and I finish the cleanup job as best we can, zip the laptop into its orange case, and race it to Pop's sock drawer.

Back in our room, we sit on our beds trying to figure out what to do next. Zack's idea is to let Diglio bomb Newfield.
“The two of us are finished anyway,” he says, jerking his head toward Mom and Pop's bedroom.

But I think of Mom and poor little Mary, who smiles when she sees me; Mary, who has only two white teeth. I think of Steadman, who will never even get to kindergarten. Even William and Linny aren't so bad when you come right down to it. They'd save me if they could.

No, letting Diglio get away with bombing the town would be the coward's way out.

Instead, my idea is to dig up the bomb and throw ourselves on it to take the impact.

“We might even get a medal,” Zack says, considering.

“Of course, we'd be gone,” I say.

Zack bites his lower lip. “We'd have saved Newfield, though. They could put the medal right on top of the coffin.”

I nod. “Pop would be so proud.”

“I wouldn't go that far,” Zack says.

Without another word, we dash outside to the garage and gather the equipment we'll need. We know what we have to do. We'll stay awake until the whole house is asleep, then head for Diglio's backyard.

Chapter 7

Outside, the front door slams shut. “We're back,” Mom calls out to all of us. Tonight she sounds a little tired.

Usually Mom and Pop sit in the living room to watch the news of the world: boring stuff about potholes on Linden Boulevard, or the mayor running off with the city's money. But tonight we hear Pop's heavy footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Goodbye,” I tell Zack, whose eyes are the size of pizzas. “This is the end of us.”

The door flies open and Pop looms over us. “You're making your mother an old woman before her time,” he says.

We hang our heads. The poor guy doesn't realize Mom is old already. She's at least thirty. She still looks pretty good, though.

Pop goes into his “I want you to turn over a new leaf immediately” speech. And immediately Zack asks what time it is.

Pop looks at him, openmouthed.

But I understand exactly what Zack is doing, even though
it's a little complicated. When Pop finds out we've ruined his laptop, Zack will be able to point out that the computer crash came before we were into the new-leaf phase.

Pop veers into his “You two have one last chance” speech. But this time there's a new ending. We'll be allowed to leave our bedroom if—

And it's a big if—

We take Steadman off Mom's hands. “Follow him around. Make sure he doesn't get into trouble,” Pop says. “Tinwitty Night will be here before we know it. Lots of excitement.”

Tinwitty Night, the most boring night in the history of the world. A thousand speeches. Disgusting soup. Hot dogs that taste as if they're actually stuffed with old dogs. But worse than that, Pop finds a million jobs for us to do beforehand.

Pop keeps going. “And most of all, set Steadman a good example. We have enough problems in this house as it is.” He begins to mutter to himself, his hands up to his forehead. “The house is falling apart. Leaks and garish murals all over—”

I wonder what
garish
means. But now Zack is making pizza eyes at me that fortunately Pop can't see.

For a moment I'm confused. Then I see Pop's shovel leaning against the wall with his wire cutters, hacksaw, and a loop of rope.

I hardly pay attention to the rest of Pop's talk. I'm trying to think how we'll explain what we're doing with
that stuff. I decide to meet the whole thing head-on. “We'll build Steadman a playhouse,” I say.

But for once Zack doesn't get it. “You mean take care of Steadman for the rest of the summer?” His voice is desperate.

I understand. Following Steadman around will make this the worst summer on record.

But Pop shakes his head. “No, not for the summer. For the rest of your lives.” He slams out the door.

We listen to his footsteps pounding down the stairs. “It could have been worse,” I say. “It could have been Mary.”

Zack nods, kicking at the shovel, which hasn't been cleaned since we moved into the house. There's a trail of dirt leading from the door to the window.

We sit on our beds to wait forever, until at least eleven o'clock; then we pull some shirts and jeans out of our dresser drawers and stuff them under our quilts. “Like a pair of Tootsie Rolls,” Zack says. “Sleeping Tootsie Rolls.”

We saw that helpful trick in
Spider-Boy Returns
, Saturday morning, eleven-thirty.

We take a last look at our beds. We may never be back. It's a sad moment for both of us. But then I shake myself and grab the flashlight.

We just have to decide how we'll exit the house. Either way is dangerous: over St. Ursula's roof again in the dark, or down the hall without alerting Mom. Luckily Pop sleeps through anything, snoring like a rhinoceros.

But Zack brings up a third way. We both vote for that.
All we have to do is sneak into Steadman's room next door. Pop's rose trellis is right up against the window, so Zack and I can twirl down like a pair of roses going the wrong way. We've never tried that before.

“You have a head on your shoulders,” I say. “Like William, who is painting garish murals.”

Zack nods, proud of himself.

There's nothing left to do. We grab the shovel, rope, and cutters and tiptoe into Steadman's room. The moon is shining in on him and he looks peaceful lying there, his eyelashes down over his cheeks, a smear of chocolate on his chin, his thumb still in his mouth.

His eyes fly open. “Let's go, guys,” he says.

“Go back to sleep,” I whisper. “We're just checking to see if you're all right.”

Like a miracle, he closes his eyes. We throw the equipment down on the lawn below. It makes more noise than we thought, and unfortunately, the shovel lands on the base of the rosebush.

We tackle the trellis. One thing I have to say about Pop. When he builds something, it stays built. About a thousand screws join the trellis to the side of the house. Hand under hand, we climb down, trying to avoid the rosebuds. Pop probably has every one of them counted.

Then, aside from a few nasty thorn scratches, we're outside, free. “Look back, Hunter,” Zack says. The house is quiet, with only the hall light shining dimly through the windows.

“It was a great house,” I say.

Zack bites his lip. “Maybe the bomb will be a dud. We'll be back in bed in an hour.”

Neither one of us believes it.

Without a sound—“Utmost secrecy,” we remind ourselves—we take giant steps around St. Ursula's Church. We try to avoid the sprinkler, which Father Elmo leaves on every night. He's in love with green grass.

We look toward Old Lady Campbell's house across the street. Every light is on in there. She must be on the lookout for burglars. So is Fred, who guards her property from her front porch. We move slowly, carefully. It would be a mistake to alert him.

A moment later, we stand outside Diglio's house. No lights, no dog, nothing to stop us. We climb over his fence and there we are in his backyard jungle.

We stand there, bent over a little, so we're not so obvious if Diglio looks out the window. He's probably lying there on the alert for one sound. Then he'll be outside, grabbing us, strangling …

“Which tree?” Zack asks.

I turn around, looking from one to the other. I like to look as if I know what I'm doing, so I do
eeny, meeny, miney, mo
in my mind, and point to the tree farthest away from the house.

Zack digs in with the shovel. I chop away with the cutters so we can get a better angle. I stack the branches carefully
so we don't make a mess. After all, it's Diglio's yard, even if he's a spy. He may like that jungly effect.

Wrong tree.

Eeny, meeny, miney, mo.

I point to the second one, almost hoping I'll be wrong again.

“Listen, Hunter,” Zack says. “My arm is going to fall off any minute.”

I take the shovel. It's only fair.

At Old Lady Campbell's house, Fred begins to yap hysterically. I wonder how she stands that barking. We look toward Diglio's window, but all is well. The enemy sleeps like a baby. Wait, all isn't well after all. Something is moving outside Diglio's fence. We throw ourselves on his weeds. We hardly breathe.

“It's just your imagination,” Zack says.

I nod, wondering if Fred has imagination, too.

When it's quiet, I begin to dig. I turn over the earth as quickly as I can. Too bad Diglio doesn't water once in a while. The ground is like cement.

I hear the clink. The shovel hits the box. And something—someone—climbs over the fence and drops into the yard. We hear the thud of feet.

We leave the bomb exactly where it is. We grab the tools and dash along Diglio's driveway, shoulders hunched. There's a killer loose in his backyard, and a bomb set to go off any minute.

It's the worst experience we've ever had.

Chapter 8

We don't stop until we reach no-man's-land, a narrow patch on the far side of our house. You can't see it from the street, so Pop puts no effort into mowing there. It's just as well; it's a great hiding place.

We throw the tools and ourselves over the cyclone fence and land in weeds up to our waist; we lie there, flat out, breathing in dirt and dandelions. The sound of crickets, or whatever they are, is loud in our ears.

We don't move for about a thousand hours.

“We're doomed,” I say at last. “Someone else is after the bomb, or after us.”

“Maybe we should work on an underground bomb shelter in here tomorrow,” Zack says.

I don't answer. How much digging would it take to hold Mom, Pop, and the six of us? We'd have to keep going, tunnel under the whole house, and come up on the other side.

“Doomed,” I say again, drawing the word out until it sounds like
Mysterious Voices
, Monday night, seven o'clock.