Masterminds (7 page)

       
BARON VLADIMIR VON HORSETEETH

       
Born: 0.003 seconds after the Big Bang

       
Hobbies: Tearing heads off live chickens, flatulence, knitting

       
Goal: To win Kentucky Derby

       
Major Accomplishment: Flossing

       
Favorite Foods: Hay, carrots, sugar cubes

       
Favorite Color: Thursday

I'm sort of shocked at first. At home and at school, we're taught to practically worship the Surety for the job they do protecting our town. But after a few seconds, I feel the corners of my mouth curling upward. The cards are just—funny. And they fit some of the subjects so well, like Bigfoot, who must wear size eighteen shoes; or Mr. Universe, whose muscles bulge clear through the fabric of his purple tunic; or Sunshine, whose sour-pickle face is the exact opposite of his name. I must have passed Baron Vladimir von Horseteeth dozens of times and noticed those choppers the size of piano keys.

“These are amazing,” I tell him. “What gave you the idea to make cards?”

“It was all Randy. We passed one of them and Randy blurted out a nickname for the guy. We were laughing so hard that we kept going, dreaming up all these details. Then we decided to do the cards, so we ran around taking their pictures and brainstorming goofy stuff about them. . . .” He trails off, probably thinking about the great
times he and Randy used to have.

I flip another card.

       
BRYAN

       
Hobbies: Marrying Mrs. Delaney

       
Favorite Quote: “Hey, Mrs. Delaney, will you marry me?”

“We never came up with much for Bryan,” he says apologetically. “Once they're real people, they're not that funny anymore. I wonder which one is Hammerstrom.”

“Hammerstrom?”

“Another one of the Purples,” he supplies. “Those are the only two names we have—Bryan Delaney and Somebody Hammerstrom.”

I replace the rubber band on the card pack. “The other kids have to see these, Eli. They're too good to keep hidden.”

He'd probably say no, but he's distracted by the search for this phantom message from Randy. I stick the pack in my pocket as he continues to riffle through the contents of the can again and again. There's no note.

His disappointment is so clear that it almost has a heat signature. It's like losing his best friend all over again.
I'm disappointed, too, but I'm also relieved. Although we're not technically breaking any rules, sneaking around doesn't feel very honest.

“You know, people promise to write all the time,” I offer. “They get busy or they forget. It's nothing personal. You're talking about a guy who spends hours making Purple People Eater cards while he's flunking math.”

“Sure.” He sits back against the wall of the tree house, utterly defeated. Poor Eli. He takes everything so seriously. It's one of the things I like about him, but he can be very hard on himself sometimes.

I shift my weight, and suddenly I'm sitting on a sharp-edged object that makes me jump. I pull it out from under me. It's a wooden boomerang, of all things.

Eli laughs. “Remember Randy's challenges? Well, the latest one . . .” He frowns, a look of discovery coming over his face. “
Think of it as our newest challenge . . .
”

“Huh?”

He's out of the tree house and starting down the ladder before I can ask him where he's going.

I follow, whispering, “Careful!” I can see what he can't—that he's back in view of the Hardaways' couch. At least he's got the brains to keep low. I duck behind a deck chair as he leans over the edge of the pool and reaches into
the filter. He digs around for a few seconds, his arm in the opening up to his shoulder. I catch a glimpse of his prize in the moonlight—a white envelope inside three layers of Ziploc bags. It's dripping on the outside, but it looks like the letter is dry.

Eli moves to open the Ziplocs, and I stop him. “Not here!” I hiss.

We retrace our steps to the fence, and retreat the way we came in. Huddled together so close we can feel each other's pounding heartbeats, we peel away the layers of plastic bags and examine the envelope.
ELI
is written on it.

“Randy's handwriting,” he says breathlessly. He tears it open, and we begin to read.

                 
Eli—

                 
I'm not going to live with my grandparents. I'm being sent away to boarding school at McNally Academy in Pueblo, Colorado. I think it's because of what happened when we went out on our bikes that day. I can't explain how, but I get the feeling that some of the kids in Serenity—including you—are special, and I'm not. Nobody will say why, but somehow that bike
trip was okay for me but not for you. I'm positive the answer lies in why you got sick and I didn't. Maybe the special people can figure it out. I sure can't.

                 
Since you're reading this, you were smart enough to follow the clues. Thanks for that. I'm not allowed to contact you, so I guess this is the only good-bye we're ever going to have. Protect yourself, Eli. There's something screwy going on in that town.

                 
Randy

I stare at the tri-folded paper. “This is nuts!”

Eli's white-faced. “There's nothing special about me.”

“Wait a minute—you're taking this seriously?”

He's floundering. “Randy thinks there's a connection between being special and getting sick . . .”

“Randy's not thinking!” I explode. “He's reacting! He's angry because he had to move away from his family and leave the best place in the world to live on some farm with grandparents he barely even knows! You'd be angry too.”

“But he didn't go to the farm,” Eli protests. “He's at boarding school. His parents sent him away on purpose.
That's why they won't talk to me.”

I take a deep breath. “Listen, I know Randy's your friend, but I also know Randy. Who spent more time in trouble than any other kid we grew up with, including Malik? Who mouthed off to adults and even your dad? Who spent half his time in school sleeping and passing gas? Who threw a football at the Serenity Cup?” I pull the card pack out of my pocket. “Who made
these
?”

“
I
did,” he says harshly. “If Randy's so terrible, then so am I. Ninety percent of what he did—I was right there with him.”

I relent. “I didn't mean it that way. Randy's not terrible. But you've got to admit he wasn't the ideal Serenity kid.”

“This is different.”

“Don't you see?” I persist. “If this letter's the truth, it doesn't just mean the Hardaways lied. At some point, every adult in town talked to us about Randy—Mrs. Laska, your dad, Mrs. Delaney, my parents,
everybody's
parents. Did they all lie too? That would be crazy! So who's lying? Is it the people who make it possible for us to live this great life? Or is it Randy because he's sore about being sent away?”

Eli's stubborn. “Maybe that's what he means where he
says there's something screwy going on.”

“Be real, Eli! Of all the things you could say about Serenity—it's a little bit small, it's a little bit conservative, it's a little bit dull. Screwy is the last thing you'd call it! I think there's something screwy going on with Randy Hardaway. It doesn't make him a bad person. But if he dreamed up a whole deck of cards just to make fun of the Purples, is it so hard to accept that he'd write one little letter to mess with you?”

“Maybe.”

I think I'm finally getting through to him. But he folds up Randy's note like it's something precious, and squirrels it away in his pocket.

I'd better keep an eye on Eli. I don't like the look on his face.

The Purple People Eater cards are a surprise hit at school.

Well,
I'm
surprised, anyway. I hang back in the corner of the classroom when Tori takes out the deck. The kids crowd around her, though, and I hear chuckles and a few out-and-out belly laughs.

“Yeah, I know that guy—the one with the giant head!”

“I saw Bigfoot a couple of days ago riding on one of the cone trucks.”

“Altoiletstan—is that a real country?”

Wherever Randy is—with his grandparents or at boarding school—I can't help thinking that he must be smiling. I'm kind of proud, even though most of the funniest stuff came from him.

Even Amber can't keep the disapproving look on
her face after reading Rump L. Stiltskin's details, which are—among other things—that he was raised by a family of otters that rescued him from a freak canoeing accident, and that he can perform photosynthesis.

“Good morning!” Mrs. Laska's voice silences the laughter.

Never before have I seen index cards disappear beneath shirts and into pockets so quickly.

Luckily, Mrs. Laska doesn't seem to notice. She walks around the room, placing a crisp page facedown at each seat. “We're starting with a geometry quiz today. I have a meeting with Mr. Frieden, so I trust you all to keep your books in your desks.”

As soon as she's gone, Malik has his math text open in front of him.

“She said no books,” Hector stage-whispers from his seat.

“No, she didn't,” Malik replies smugly. “She said ‘keep your books in your desks.' My book was never in my desk. It was in my backpack.”

Amber is disgusted. “Someone should make a card about you.”

“Call Hardaway,” he replies cheerfully. “Oh, right—he's gone.”

Don't I know it.

Speaking of Randy, he's also gone from the online town records. Our town is so small that it's easy to keep a running census. The information is open access. Anyone can go on the internet and check out who lives here, who their kids are, and what their job is—except the Surety, who are kept anonymous. So Randy's out, and Serenity is down to population 184. They sure do update fast around here. I wonder if Colorado is up by one.

That night, I'm in my room on my iPad, poring over the information on the town's website. I'm not sure what I expect to find, but Randy's words pass before me like a TV news crawl:

Some of the kids are special . . .

Is it true? Or is Tori right, and it's just Randy messing with my head—a parting shot to drive me crazy while he rides off into the sunset? It wouldn't be the first time, you know. And it would be just like me to fall for it. Last night I almost said, “Randy never lied to me.” But that's not true. Randy lied about the mountain lion in the crawl space under our house; he lied about seeing UFOs because we're so close to Roswell—which we aren't; he lied about seeing Mrs. Delaney hula dancing at the Purple People Eaters' luau; and, of course, he lied about the Purple
People Eaters' luau. For all I know, there was never any 1961 Alfa Romeo half buried in dust out there, and Randy just felt like a bike ride and wanted some company.

On the other hand: Randy's lies were all essentially goofs. Mostly, he lied because he was bored and wanted to stir things up a little. I can't remember him ever lying about something that really mattered. Sure, he put that giant spider in my sleeping bag. But when he found out it was poisonous, he confessed before I could get bitten. When it was important, Randy was always straight-up with me.

So what's the letter? A gag, like Tori says? I don't think Randy would joke about something like that. At the same time, his letter doesn't make a lot of sense. He said something screwy is going on, but not what. He said some of us are special, but not how. He connected it to the time I got sick, but he couldn't explain that either, or who my fellow “specials” might be.

Tori suspects she might have experienced my symptoms once. “I was at the edge of town collecting wildflowers for a painting I was working on,” she told me the night we found Randy's note, “when all of a sudden I felt like I had to throw up.”

“Did the Purples come?” I ask her.

“No, but it got so intense that I started home so my
parents could take me to the clinic. I've never been in so much pain!”

Brings back memories. “What did Dr. Bruder say?”

She shrugs. “I never went to him. Halfway to my house, I was totally fine again, so I figured what's the point?”

Okay, so if Tori and I are both “specials,” what do we have in common?

Not much. I'm a guy; she's a girl. She has two parents; I've just got my dad. We're not the same age and grade. My father's in education, and her parents work at the plastics factory. She's a great artist while I'm happier fiddling with computers and technology.

A gust of wind blows the rain against my bedroom window, startling me back into the present moment. I'm at my desk, researching my Serenity Day project on my iPad.

Serenity isn't as dry as the desert, but real storms are rare here. Still, distant thunder has been rumbling all around us. It was only a matter of time before we got our share.

Randy on my brain, I Google McNally Academy.

There is no such place. Not in Colorado, not in any state.

Am I angry? Amused? Disappointed? Relieved?

I tip an imaginary cap to my friend.
Good one, Randy. You really had me going.

I resolve to put the letter out of my mind and return to my Serenity Day project. I'm doing a timeline where you can see American history, New Mexico history, and Serenity history laid out side by side. This area belonged first to Spain and then to Mexico. So the birth of the USA far to the east must have seemed awfully distant to people around here.