Secret Weapons (6 page)

“Who are you?”

From where he was standing at the back of the pack, Ari couldn’t see who’d said it, but it sounded like Kate. A little squeakier than usual, maybe, but definitely a Kate kind of remark. Just a flat-out “Who are you?” to anybody she wanted to say it to. Even a terrorist.

“Who am I?” The round-headed guy laughed a too-loud laugh. “Nobody important. We’re just old friends of the people who live here. The Andersons? Just old friends of the Andersons’.”

“The Andersons aren’t home.” This time it was definitely Eddy’s voice. And then Bucky’s and a couple of others, saying things like, “Yeah, they’re not home.” “They went to the mountains.” “To Tahoe.”

“Is that right?” The round-headed terrorist did another “big surprise” act. “Well, I guess I must have gotten my calendar mixed up. I was sure Mr. Anderson said I should come over this afternoon. Well, what do you know.” Reaching in his jacket pocket, he pulled out a little notebook and leafed through it. Looking at his calendar—or pretending to.

Pretending to,
Ari thought, and suddenly he felt sure of it. The guy was pretending about the calendar. And probably about a lot of other stuff too—like being an old friend of the Andersons’.

Ari watched closely as the guy put away his notebook and with the same computer-graphic type smile said, “By golly. What do you know. You kids are right. Guess we’ll just have to come back later when the Andersons get home.”

The short terrorist turned around then and went back to where the tall one was waiting beside the van. He said something short and snappy to the other guy and then they both got in the van and drove away. And everybody just stood there watching them go.

W
HEN THE BIG, POWERFUL-LOOKING
black van pulled away and silently moved off toward Castle Avenue, the whole bunch of kids oozed in the same direction, drifting on around the cul-de-sac circle to where they could watch it disappear.

Ari went, too, although he was still staying at the back of the pack and keeping his mouth shut so as not to attract anyone’s attention. Like Bucky’s, for instance.

They had drifted almost to Prince Field when Bucky said, “Well, there they go. Did we scare those dudes off, or what?”

“I don’t know,” Carlos said. “I guess we did. But who were they? That’s what I want to know.”

“Yeah,” Eddy said. “Like, maybe they really are just some old friends of the Andersons’.” He laughed. “Some old friends of the Andersons’ who think they’ve got some pretty weird-acting kids living in their cul-de-sac.”

“Yes.” Carlos started grinning too. “Kids who stand around in a bunch and stare at strangers. Like—” And Carlos did a big-eyed, open-mouthed number that made everybody laugh.

Ari laughed too. That is, he was laughing until he happened to catch sight of Aurora’s face. She wasn’t laughing and the look on her face was just the same as it had been when she’d said that the people in the black van were
evil
. And suddenly he remembered his strong feeling when the guy was looking at his calendar—or pretending to.

“He was lying,” Ari found himself saying right out loud. “He was lying about everything.”

They turned around then, all of them including Bucky, and stared at him. They were all staring silently, and Ari was wishing he’d kept his mouth shut, when into the silence a soft, breathy voice whispered, “Yes. He was lying.” It was Aurora. It was the first time she’d said anything for a long time and now everyone was looking at her—and forgetting about Ari. Ari breathed a sigh of relief.

“Yeah, Aurora’s right,” Kate said. “Absolutely. I absolutely knew he was lying.”

“Right,” Carlos said. “I thought so too.”

“Me too,” Susie squealed.

Eddy was nodding. “I just now thought of it, but if he really was an old friend of Mr. A.’s, wouldn’t he have called him Henry, or at least Mr. A., like we all do, instead of Mr. Anderson?”

“Yeah, I thought of that too,” Bucky said. “That’s a good clue. As soon as I thought of that clue I was sure he was lying.”

While they were talking they’d continued to drift around the cul-de-sac circle. Past Prince Field, and from there right on up the driveway and then, following Carlos, right into the Garcias’ game room.

Ari had heard about the Garcias’ game room before, but it was the first time he’d seen it. He’d heard about it from Susie. But not directly from Susie, because she usually didn’t talk to him all that much. Mostly he’d heard about it on the phone, listening in when Susie was talking to Aurora. Susie tended to tell Aurora a lot of interesting stuff, including all about the Garcias’ humongous game room. According to Susie the PROs always hung out there when it was too cold to hang out around the swimming pool.

Inside the enormous room Carlos immediately headed for the fireplace.
“Brrr,”
he said while he was getting some logs in place and turning on the gas fire lighter, “I almost forgot I was freezing to death while those terrorists were staring at us. But as soon as they pulled out I remembered.
Brrr.
Did I ever.”

While Carlos was getting the fire started the other PROs collapsed on a couch near the fireplace. Everyone else drifted around the room for a while before they joined the group. Then Kate and Aurora sat down on a big leather footstool, and Susie and Athena on the floor. But Ari stayed where he was, standing near the pool table. Making sure that he kept the distance to the door a little shorter than the distance between him and Bucky.

When everyone had more or less settled down, Kate said in a loud “may I have your attention” type of voice, “Well. So that guy was lying. Which means he isn’t a friend of Mr. A.’s. Which probably means that, whether they’re really terrorists or not, they were probably planning to do something against the law, like—”

“Yeah.” The even louder voice was Bucky’s. “Yeah. Like stealing Web’s secret weapon. That’s what we heard. That those guys were hanging around because they wanted to steal a secret weapon that Web invented.”

“We heard that too,” Kate said. “But you couldn’t prove it by me. Carson knows but he isn’t talking.” She looked at Eddy. “How about you, Wong? Did Web tell you anything?”

“Nothing. Nada. Not a word. I don’t know about
weapon
, but whatever those dudes are doing it’s
secret
, all right. A big secret. Web’s even been sleeping out on the couch so I won’t hear him if he talks in his sleep.”

Suddenly Susie jumped to her feet. “Hey. What I want to know is, if those guys are after Web and Carson, why are they hanging around the Andersons’?” She looked around the room triumphantly. “Why aren’t they hanging around the Wongs’?”

Everyone nodded. “Good question,” Kate said. She bit her lip and rolled her eyes thoughtfully. “Unless—maybe they knew the Andersons were away, and they were going to take over one of those old dairy buildings on the Andersons’ property. You know, make themselves a kind of terrorist headquarters, where they could hide out until it’s time for the attack.”

People said things like “Yeah” and “Sure” and “That’s it,” and then for a minute no one said anything. Eddy was looking worried. Ari could see why. He wouldn’t want to think that some terrorist killer types were spying on his house just waiting for a chance to attack his little brother—if he had one. Of course, he didn’t really have a little brother, but a little sister was more or less the same. And imagining a terrorist after Athena probably would have the same effect. Except … Ari grinned, thinking that somehow Athena didn’t seem quite as helpless as Web and Carson.

“Hey,” Eddy said all of a sudden. “Maybe we ought to tell someone. Like maybe our parents or something.”

“What!” Bucky was staring at Eddy like he’d just suggested jumping off a cliff. “Are you crazy, Wong?”

“Well, why not?” Eddy began. “Why not tell our parents that—”

“Because you just don’t, that’s why.” Bucky had jumped to his feet. “Because you just don’t tell adults stuff like that. Because …” Bucky’s mouth kept opening and shutting but nothing more was coming out.

“Oh yeah? Why?” Eddy could really be stubborn at times.

“I’ll tell you why.” To Ari’s amazement it was Kate’s voice. “Because in the first place they probably wouldn’t believe us. I mean, what proof do we have? My dad, the lawyer, would want to know what proof we had. And if they
did
believe us it would be even worse. Can’t you just imagine. I mean”—Kate threw up her hands and her voice got louder—“police snooping around, and the sheriff, and the FBI probably—and none of us allowed out of the house. And besides, what if they aren’t really terrorists? I mean, what if it turns out those guys were just meter readers or something?”

When Kate finally ran down, everyone just sat there for a minute looking at her in amazement. But then Bucky said, “Yeah. That’s just what I was going to say.”

Bucky was nodding approvingly and so was Kate, when suddenly they looked at each other—and their mouths dropped open. As if they’d just realized they’d agreed with each other. Ari giggled. And then Susie giggled. And then everyone laughed.

“So okay,” Eddy said. “So we don’t tell our parents. At least, not immediately. So what
do
we do next?”

Right after Eddy asked what they should do next, the game room door slammed open and Rafe Garcia and a bunch of his high-school football buddies came in. Carlos was just saying that maybe they could move the meeting up to his room, when the phone rang and it was Mrs. Wong and Eddy had to go home. So what they decided to do next was—nothing. At least not until Wednesday.

“So we’ll meet here tomorrow,” Carlos said. “Right after school.”

“Here in the game room?” Ari asked.

“Sure,” Carlos said. “Unless it’s warmer. If it’s warmer we’ll meet out by the pool.”

Ari hoped it would be warmer. Not that he had anything against the game room, except that it had only two doors. Out by the pool there would be more ways to make a quick exit in case of trouble. Like Bucky trouble, for instance.

As Ari and his two sisters and Kate headed across the cul-de-sac a few minutes later, Kate said, “Well, we’ll decide tomorrow, I guess. We’ll meet and talk it over and come up with a plan of attack that everybody agrees on.”

Ari couldn’t help grinning. “Sure we will,” he said.

A
LITTLE BIT AFTER
three-thirty on Wednesday afternoon the A.T. Club had its first meeting on the swimming pool deck at the Garcias’. Everybody who had been present the afternoon before was there again. All eight of them. It was a nice warm day, for a change, and everyone was sitting around on deck chairs or, in Bucky Brockhurst’s case, sprawled out in the hammock. The first order of business had been to choose a name for the club, and it had turned out to be the A.T. Club.

A.T. stood for Anti-Terrorist, of course, but that fact was a total, absolute secret. When other people were around they would just call themselves the A.T.s, and if anyone asked they were supposed to say it meant Animal Trainers. The Animal Trainers Club.

The name was Kate’s idea and everyone except Bucky thought it was a good suggestion. Bucky wanted to call it the T.T.T.s, for Trash the Terrorists Club. “What’s with the animal-training thing?” Bucky said. “Who’s going to believe we’re training animals? Do you see any animals around here?” Bucky waved his arms so hard he almost tipped himself out of the hammock.

“Yeah, I see one” Carlos said. “What do you call that?” Carlos was pointing down over the deck’s railing to where Lump, the Garcias’ huge, overweight Saint Bernard, was lying on his back on the lawn. “Come on up here, Lump,” Carlos called. “You get to be our official trainee.”

Lump lumbered up onto the deck and when Carlos told him to lie down he did—immediately. Well, almost immediately. “See, he’ll be great,” Carlos said. “He really is in training, so that makes it not even a lie. Gabe’s been taking him to obedience school once a week ever since he knocked the mailman off the veranda and almost got us sued.”

So that was settled, and the next order of business turned out to be what to do about Athena. Even though Athena had been at the first meeting nearly everyone agreed that a four-year-old was too young to be a permanent member of an antiterrorist organization. But she’d heard Carlos saying “tomorrow at three-thirty” and it turned out that she was learning to tell time. She’d already learned how to tell noon and midnight, and last night after the meeting, she got her father to teach her how to tell three-thirty. So when her brother and sister showed up for the meeting, so did she.

“I mean, what can she do to help?” Bucky said. “How old is she anyway? About two or three?”

“I’m four.” Athena stood up as tall as she could. “And I can read a lot of words, and write my name and carry messages, and tell time and … and … and kick people too,” she finished, glaring at Bucky. Everyone laughed. Everyone except Bucky.

Carlos laughed so hard he almost choked. He didn’t know why exactly. It was just that there was something big-time funny about watching a four-year-old get the best of Bucky Brockhurst. He was still laughing when suddenly he had a good idea.

“Hey,” he said. “She’s right about carrying messages. If we had to send a secret message through the terrorists’ lines, or something like that, she’d be a good one to send. You know why? Because no one would believe that a little kid like that would be carrying an important message. Get it?”

Everyone nodded and said things like, “Good thinking, Garcia” (that was Kate Nicely) and “Hey, you’re right” (Eddy Wong). Bucky didn’t say anything, but he didn’t start yelling either, so he must have more or less agreed.

So the first two orders of business were taken care of without too much of a fight, but Carlos was sure the next one wouldn’t be as easy. The next one was choosing a president for the club.

President of the A.T. Club of Castle Court.
It had, Carlos thought, a nice sound to it. But he also thought he knew who was going to be
it
. The PROs were a kind of club, and over the years the three of them, Bucky, Eddy, and Carlos, had had lots of other clubs too. And you know who had been president of every single one. Bucky Brockhurst.