Mastermind?
“Not going to happen!” I shouted back. As I glanced toward our enemy, I saw him raise the drumstick.
“Jump!” I shouted to Avery.
We both leaped in the air as the drumstick hit the train track. The shockwave passed beneath us, and we landed on our feet. I liked to imagine that Wreckage’s face was totally surprised behind that black welding mask.
Suddenly, Avery’s top hat tilted back and Fluffball’s white paws stretched out, clutching a light bulb. “It electrifies anything it touches,” the rabbit’s deep voice hurriedly explained, giving us the knowledge we needed to use the boon’s true magic.
“But the vest . . . ,” I said.
“We can’t electrify him with the boon directly,” said Avery. “But that doesn’t mean he can’t be electrocuted by something else.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, but Avery seemed to have a plan. She drew in a sharp breath and snatched the light bulb from his paws.
“Give up!” Wreckage shouted. “There is nowhere you can run. Nowhere you can hide—”
Avery bent over, touching the fragile light bulb to the train track. Blue bolts of electricity streamed out of it, connecting to the metal rail and traveling the distance to where Wreckage stood with one foot on the track.
The electricity surged into the big man, his body jolting and spasming until he finally fell to the ground.
Avery pulled the light bulb away from the rail, and the blue bolts vanished as quickly as they had appeared.
We didn’t wait to see if Wreckage recovered. We didn’t wait to see if the police would arrest him. We ran, finally reaching the stairs and moving down to the New York City streets, leaving the High Line and the traitorous bird artist behind.
Chapter 14
THURSDAY, MAY 14
2:33 P.M.
A DIRTY ALLEYWAY, NEW YORK CITY
“Our only clue was a trap!” I wailed as soon as we had found another quiet alley to hide in.
“Not necessarily,” said Avery.
“What do you mean, not necessarily?” I cried. “The bird artist texted that guy—Wreckage—and told him to get us!”
“I’m going to side with Stinkbug on this one,” said Fluffball, who was sniffing around behind a dumpster. “The bird lady was bad news.”
“I’m just saying that the actual clue might have been fine,” continued Avery. “We were told to find a bird artist at the High Line, and we did. But we have no way of knowing if that was the right bird artist.”
“You think there might have been two?” I said. “And we just happened to pick the one who wanted to get us killed?”
“Technically, captured,” said Fluffball. “If that Wreckage guy had wanted to kill you, it wouldn’t have been very hard.”
“Thanks for believing in us,” I said to the bunny. Then I turned back to Avery, who was peering around the corner, where police had swarmed the elevated park. “You want to go back and find the right bird artist?” I asked.
“I don’t think there are two,” she replied. “And it was definitely a trap.”
“But you just said—”
“What if someone knew about the note I received?” Avery said, looking back at me. “What if they sent a woman to replace the real bird artist and lay the trap?”
Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that.
“I mean, we never actually saw that lady paint anything,” continued Avery. “Maybe she was a fraud.”
“But how did Magix find out about the note in your locker?” I asked.
“Magix?” Avery wrinkled her forehead. “Magix had nothing to do with that trap up there.”
“But Wreckage was using magical boons,” I pointed out.
“That’s exactly how I know he didn’t come from Magix,” said Avery. “They would never reveal magic in such a careless way. What Wreckage did up there”—she gestured over her shoulder toward the park—“goes against everything Magix stands for. In fact, the Magix agents are going to have a month’s worth of work tracking down exposed Igs and trying to alter their memories.”
“But if Wreckage didn’t come from Magix,” I said, “then who sent him to get us?”
“The Mastermind,” said Avery.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” she replied. “I just heard Wreckage mention him.”
“Do you realize what this means?” I whispered.
“Does it mean you’re going to buy me a salad now?” Fluffball asked.
I ignored him, talking only to Avery. “It means Magix isn’t the only group looking for us.” I slumped against the wall and slowly lowered myself until I was sitting in the alleyway. “I’m Magix’s most wanted criminal, there’s a crazy supervillain after us, and we don’t have a single clue to help prove that I’m innocent. We should just go free my dad, and he and I can live out our days as fugitives together.”
“We might not have a clue,” Avery said, “but we’ve got plenty of leads.”
“Leads?” I repeated.
“It’s something we talk a lot about in detective training,” she said. “A lead is something that can lead us to a clue.”
“Well, I knew that.” I’d picked up on a lot of legal and investigative terms during my dad’s trial. “But what leads are you talking about?”
“If we’re going to solve this case,” said Avery, “we’re going to have to start thinking like detectives. This whole thing started with that music box. Where did you get it?”
I shrugged. “I told my mom I needed one for a book report. I think she borrowed it from somebody.”
“I’d call that a lead,” Avery said. “And during your trial, they showed you pictures of some stolen boons from the church that were found in your room.”
“I’d never seen them before,” I said. “I definitely didn’t take them to my room.”
“But someone did,” replied Avery. “And that’s another lead.”
“So, how do we investigate?”
“We need to go to your house,” said Avery. “Question your mom and see if we can find any clues.”
“My house is in Indiana,” I reminded her. “It’ll take us forever to get there.”
“Not if we have a transportation boon,” said Avery. “That seems like an essential thing to keep stocked in the top hats for Magix field agents.” She knelt down in the alley and lifted the hat from her head. “Fluffball?”
The rabbit glanced over, a look of annoyance on his face. “Whaddaya want?”
“We need to get a list of all the boons in this top hat and what they do,” she said.
“How am I supposed to make a list?” he asked. “I can’t write with a pencil. I’ve got no thumbs.” He waggled a paw in our direction.
“You don’t have to write anything down,” Avery said. “Just tell us about every item that’s in there.”
The rabbit sauntered over, grumbling under his breath and rolling his reddish eyes. “Okay, but you’ve maxed out your favors for the day.” He rose onto his back legs, front paws resting on the brim of the black hat. “It’ll take me a while to sort through everything. And I ain’t doing nothing else until I get a salad.”
Avery scooped up his back legs, and he tumbled headfirst into the hat again.
“That was good thinking with the magic light bulb back there,” I said.
“I just hope it didn’t hurt anyone else,” Avery said. She turned to me. “Did you really break your femur?”
“Of course,” I said. “Why would I lie about that?”
“I just thought maybe . . .” She shrugged. “Maybe you were just too scared to jump.”
I took a deep breath. “Heights and I don’t really mix. Ever since the accident.”
“What happened?”
“It was about three years ago,” I said. “When I was ten. I was helping my dad on the roof and I fell off.”
“Ouch,” she said. “Bet that hurt.”
“Worst pain ever,” I said. “
Mom was so mad about it. She didn’t want me up on the roof in the first place.”
“She sounds really protective,” said Avery.
I chuckled. “You could say that. . . . Speaking of my mom, how are we going to deal with her?”
“What do you mean?” asked Avery.
“Well, Frank Lawden told me that one of his agents gave my mom a boon bracelet that makes her think I’m always at piano lessons. Apparently, other people believe it without question when she tells them.”
“We should be glad about that,” said Avery. “The last thing we need is for your mom to file a missing persons report and have even more people looking for us.”
“That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” I said. “We’ll probably have to leave my house after we talk to my mom. What if showing my face ruins the magic of the bracelet?”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” said Avery. “She’ll just think you came home. And when we leave again, the boon will make her think you’ve gone back to piano lessons.”
“Wait a minute.” I scrunched up my face in confusion. “How can my mom be operating a boon if she’s an Ig with no knowledge about real magic?”
“By the sound of it, your mom isn’t the one who activated the boon,” said Avery. “It was probably the Magix agent who gave her the bracelet. Your mom’s more like the target.”
I grimaced. “That makes me even madder at Magix.”
Avery shrugged. “She’s the target, so the magic is influencing her, but since she’s also an Ig, she’s probably getting quite a bit of good luck rubbed off in the process.”
Fluffball’s head popped out of Avery’s top hat. “You gotta lotta good treasures in here,” he said.
“How many?” I asked.
“An even nine,” replied the rabbit.
“Nine isn’t an even number,” I pointed out. “It’s odd.”
“You’re odd,” snapped Fluffball. “Now, listen up, because I’m only going to tell you once.”
With the speed of an auctioneer, Fluffball rattled off the nine items along with their magical powers. By the time he was finished, I could only remember two or three of them, but Avery was nodding her head.
“We can use the atlas transportation boon,” she said, reaching toward her hat. “What does it feel like?”
Fluffball sighed wearily. “Just give me your hand and I’ll guide it to the right boon.”
She put her hand on his soft back as the rabbit ducked out of sight again. A moment later, Avery withdrew her hand, pulling out a large book.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s an atlas, dummy.” Fluffball leaped out of the hat, flicking his long ears as he landed on the street. “Weren’t you listening to anything I said?”
“Yeah,” I said, “but I actually don’t know what an atlas is.”
Avery flipped open the book, and I saw that the pages were covered in complex maps.
“It’s what people used before fancy phones and GPS devices,” explained the rabbit. “Road maps. This one is almost too good to be true. Magix officials are going to have their undies in a knot when they realize that you two swiped it.”
“Does it have every road in the world?” I asked.
Avery flipped back to the cover, and she read the title out loud. “Atlas of the United States of America: East of the Mississippi.”
“Good enough,” I said. “Find Indiana.”
She thumbed through the pages before handing me the book. “You should probably . . . I don’t know where you live.”
It took me a painfully long time to find the page that included my suburb. Fluffball muttered something about how “kids these days” didn’t know how to read old-school paper maps. I shot back that “rabbits these days” shouldn’t be able to talk.
“Here,” I said, pointing to an intersection on the page. “Or, maybe here.” I slid my finger half an inch to the right.
“You don’t know your address?” Fluffball challenged.
“I do,” I answered. “It’s just . . . I think this book was made before my neighborhood was built. But I think this will get us pretty close.”
Avery put on her hat and scooped up Fluffball. “How do we activate it?”
“You need a pen or a pencil,” he answered. “Really, anything pointy will do. When you touch it to the page, you’ll instantly be transported to that location.”
“Just one of us?” Avery asked.
“Anyone touching you will get pulled along. And anyone touching them,” explained Fluffball. “Like a chain reaction.”
There were some obvious similarities to the music box, only that one transported anyone who was simply looking at me. The atlas seemed much better, and more controlled, since we’d be able to choose where we were teleporting.
“Something pointy . . . ,” mused Avery.
“Will this work?” I asked, spotting a toothpick beside the dumpster. I stepped over and scooped it up.
“Ugh!” Fluffball cried. “You’re just gonna pick up a nasty old toothpick? You’ve got no idea whose teeth that was picking.” He shuddered. “No wonder you smell like a wet shoe.”
I held back an angry response. “Will it work, or not?” I nearly shouted.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said defensively. “It’s gross, but it’ll do the trick.”
Avery suddenly reached out and touched my shoulder. And since she was holding Fluffball, he would be coming as well. Too bad, really. If the bunny weren’t so valuable, I’d have loved to leave him behind.
With the open atlas in my left hand, I touched the point of the chewed toothpick to the intersection on the road map, and the three of us instantly disappeared from that New York City alleyway.
Chapter 15
THURSDAY, MAY 14
2:48 P.M.
MASON’S NEIGHBORHOOD, INDIANA
Teleporting didn’t feel like anything strange, just like when I’d used the music box. In the blink of an eye, we found ourselves standing on the street corner of a familiar neighborhood. Well, familiar to me, at least.
“My house is just a couple of blocks away,” I said, shutting the atlas and flicking the toothpick into the road.
Avery took her hand off my shoulder, and I handed her the book of road maps. She pulled off her top hat and dropped it in.
As we walked, I wondered if the neighbors would notice my new friend and her talking bunny. Over the last year—since my dad’s arrest—I’d had the constantly growing feeling that people were watching my mom and me. I’d heard their whispers more than once, but I didn’t need to know what they were saying to read the looks on their faces.
It was stuff like: “There goes that poor Morrison boy.”
Or: “Can you believe his dad would try to rob a bank? Did he seriously think he would get away with it?”
Or: “It would have been better if the man had just pleaded guilty. Pretending to be innocent gives his wife and boy false hope.”
It wasn’t false hope for me. My mom and I had been going to a therapist for months to talk about it. Mr. Morano had been trying to help us accept that my dad was guilty. I went along with everything he said, but there was always a little piece of me that just couldn’t believe it. And I was more sure of it than ever, now that Magix had found me guilty of a magical crime I hadn’t committed.
“Home sweet home,” I said, pausing on the sidewalk and pointing at my house.
The houses in this neighborhood weren’t very big, and they all looked pretty similar. They were packed close together, and everybody had a fence as if trying to defend what little land they did have. Mom did a good job caring for our small front yard. She’d planted some tulips last year, and lots of them were still in bloom.
“Anything special we ought to know about your old lady?” asked Fluffball.
For a moment, I thought about telling him that she really didn’t like animals. “She’s nice,” I said instead. “Works hard for our family. I guess I should mention that Mom’s been a little pa
ranoid since, uh . . . since my dad was arrested.”
“Paranoid?” asked Avery.
“Well, she installed a security system on the house a few months ago. And she always keeps the front door locked.”
“But you’ve got a key, right?” Fluffball asked.
“Yeah,” I said. Then I grimaced. “With my cell phone, in my backpack, at my school.”
“Nice work, genius,” the rabbit said. “How are we supposed to get inside?”
“I know the garage code,” I replied, grateful that my house wasn’t as high security as Magix Headquarters, so there was no risk of getting blended up if I entered the code wrong. “Or we can just ring the doorbell,” I continued. “It’s Thursday, so Mom should be home.”
Avery started up the walk, but I grabbed her sleeve.
“Fluffball’s got to be quiet from here on,” I said. “We have one of those fancy doorbells that takes video of everyone who comes onto the porch.”
“And you’re ashamed of me?” Fluffball retorted. “Is that it? You’re ashamed to be seen coming home with an Angora rabbit? It’s because I talk, isn’t it.”
“Well . . . yes, actually,” I answered.
Fluffball grunted and lowered his ears as we moved onto the porch. Avery pressed the doorbell, and I stared at the little camera right above it.
“It’s me, Mom,” I called. “I guess I lost my key.”
There was a moment of silence, and then I heard both deadbolts unlock and the door whipped open.
“Mason!” she cried, gesturing Avery and me inside. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at piano lessons.”
My eyes fell to the bracelet on her right wrist. It was made of thin braided pieces of leather, with a few beads set in the middle. Not really my mom’s style at all. She definitely would have taken it off if she hadn’t received magical instructions not to.
“I had to run home to ask you a question,” I replied. “I’ll go back soon.” Didn’t she think it was strange that I’d been at piano lessons since yesterday?
“And who’s this?” Mom asked, turning to Avery.
“Avery,” the girl answered. “Avery Lobster.” Then she added, “Ma’am.”
“Avery and I take piano from the same teacher,” I said, hoping it would explain why we were together.
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