My mom stepped out onto the front porch, and I saw a half-eaten sandwich in her hand. “I didn’t order any pizza. You must have the wrong address.”
The delivery guy checked a piece of paper and read aloud the address he had listed.
“Next street over.” Mom stepped forward to point, and for a second we saw nothing but a close-up view of her ham-and-Swiss sandwich.
“Thanks, ma’am.” Then the pizza delivery guy left.
“She should have claimed it,” I muttered. “I could have had leftover pizza for dinner.”
“Except you never came home from school that day,” Avery reminded me.
12:48 p.m.: My mom left for work again.
“Do you notice something different about this day?” Avery asked, gesturing to the screen. She didn’t leave me much time to think about it before saying, “No bird.”
“Hmm.” That was a good observation. “Maybe a cat got her.”
3:10 p.m.: Four figures in gray suits moved onto the porch. I tensed. I instantly recognized the two in the lead—Agent Clarkston and Agent Nguyen.
“Magix agents,” Avery said. “By this point, you’d already been arrested and taken back to headquarters. They’ve come to search your room.”
Suddenly, the video stopped, a spinning circle appearing in the middle of the screen to show that the feed was buffering. When it started again, the four agents were headed away from the house and more than a half an hour had passed, the time displaying 3:48 p.m.
I could barely hear Agent Nguyen’s voice as she moved down the steps. “Let’s find the mother and get the bracelet on her quickly . . .”
“Wait!” I cried, trying to back up the video. “What just happened?”
“Magic,” answered Avery. “The agents must have used a boon to get into your house. As you know, regular cameras can’t capture magical effects. All we know is that they were in your house for thirty-eight minutes.”
“Supposedly, they raided my bedroom and found boons. But they’re not carrying anything away,” I pointed out.
“Top hats,” Avery said. “They could have easily loaded those stolen items into their hats so they wouldn’t draw attention when they left.”
“If they’re worried about attracting attention, they shouldn’t wear suspicious gray suits and two-hundred-year-old hats,” I said.
4:33 p.m.: Hamid rang the doorbell. He rocked back on his heels, whistling a video-game theme. “Mason,” he muttered under his breath in a pretend scary voice. “You are no match for me. Prepare to burn.” Then he picked his nose for a second.
“I don’t think he knew he was on camera,” Avery said.
I shut off my mom’s phone. “So the FedEx guy and the pizza delivery guy are our only new suspects from Wednesday,” I said.
“And the Magix agents.” Avery added to her list. “We have to question everyone.” At least she wasn’t playing favorites. My mom and Avery’s agents were on the same chopping block.
“But again, neither of Wednesday’s suspects actually came inside,” I reminded her.
“We don’t know that for sure,” she replied. “The Magix agents and the repairwoman were the only ones to enter through the front door.” Avery stood up abruptly. “We should check your window.”
“Good idea.” I pushed aside an overflowing laundry basket with my knee and moved around my unkempt bed. I was walking close against the wall, almost to the window, when my foot suddenly crashed through the floor.
I grunted, catching myself on the side of my bed and gritting my teeth against the scrape on my ankle.
“You okay?” Avery asked.
I looked down at the floor to see what possibly could have happened. My foot was ankle-deep in the heater vent. One of my shirts had been draped across the hole like a simple pit trap for a wild animal.
I pulled my foot out of the duct. “Just the heater vent,” I explained.
“You know, people usually put a cover over those,” Avery said. “For safety.”
“I thought I had one,” I said. But then again, my room wasn’t exactly in great condition. Who knew how long that had been missing?
“The window’s locked,” I said, checking it.
Avery nodded as though she expected it. “Still, we can’t rule it out. There could be a magical boon to bypass locks. Or let people pass directly through the glass. Maybe we should sneak Fluffball up here and see if he can detect any traces of lingering magic.”
“I don’t think that’s a possibility,” I said, staring down into the yard from my upstairs window, my stomach sinking at what I was seeing.
“Why not?” Avery asked.
“Because Fluffball just ate my mom’s tulips!” I cried. “We’ve got to get out of here before she kills him!”
Chapter 17
THURSDAY, MAY 14
3:38 P.M.
MASON’S KITCHEN, INDIANA
Luckily, I caught my mom in the kitchen before she had a chance to look out the window and notice the hungry rabbit’s path of destruction through her flowers.
“Thanks,” I said, handing her the phone.
“Tom’s address is on that sticky note.” She pointed, and Avery snatched it off the edge of the counter. “But his shift at the call center doesn’t end for another hour or so.”
“Okay,” I said, moving backward to the front door. “We’d better get back to piano lessons.” I paused. “Be careful, Mom.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
I shrugged, trying to chuckle it off as a joke. “It’s dangerous work, ringing up people’s groceries.” But I was actually nervous for her. I didn’t like the idea of those Magix agents tricking her into wearing that boon bracelet. What if they came back to bother her? Or worse, what if Wreckage came sniffing around my house?
“One more thing, Mrs. Morrison,” Avery said. “Did you get a FedEx package in the mail earlier this week?”
Mom raised her eyebrows. “Your friend sure asks a lot of questions, Mason.”
“We, uh, saw the box in the garage,” I lied. “Avery wondered what you got.” My mom did a lot of online shopping, so it didn’t seem suspicious to me. Still, I guess it was good to ask.
“Clothes,” Mom answered. “And another pair of shoes.” She waved her hand at me defensively. “What? It was a good sale.”
“And when was the package delivered?” Avery continued.
“It came on Tuesday,” Mom replied. “I saw on the doorbell camera that it had been delivered, so I decided to come home for lunch that day and bring it inside.”
“That’ll be all,” Avery said. “For now.”
Sort of embarrassed by her interrogation of my mother, I followed Avery onto the front porch, quickly pulling the door shut behind me.
“You really need to lighten up on her,” I said. “She’s going to be suspicious of you.”
“Then I guess it’ll go both ways,” Avery remarked.
We reached the bottom of the porch steps. “Fluffball!” I whispered anxiously into the garden of downed tulips.
“I’ll admit, I was mad at first,” said the bunny, hopping into view through the floral carnage. “But I must say, this place is paradise.”
“No!” I scolded. “Look what you did to my yard! Bad bunny. Very bad bunny!”
“If I wasn’t so stuffed right now, I would bite your finger for that insult!”
“I’m not the insulting one!”
“Hey,” interjected Avery. “I’m ready to go whenever you two are done bickering.”
“Okay,” I said. “But we’ll need to use the atlas to get across town.”
“We’re not going to Tom Pedherson’s house yet,” she said. “Your mom said he wouldn’t be home from work for another hour. Besides, we’ve got other suspects in your neighborhood that we need to question.”
“We do?” I said.
“Mrs. Damakis and your ‘friend’ Hamid.” She did little air quotes with her fingers when she said friend. “Who lives closer?”
“Mrs. Damakis,” I said. “But she’s not—”
“Let’s go,” Avery cut me off. “Or do you still want to be standing here when your mom comes outside and sees the state of her tulips?”
“It’s this way,” I said, practically running down the sidewalk, Fluffball hopping along to keep pace.
“Anything we should know about this Damakis woman?” Avery asked.
I shrugged. “She and her husband are friendly. Nice retired couple.”
“Specifics,” Avery said as we made our way up their walkway.
“Umm . . .” I tried to think of something that would be useful to a detective. “Mr. Damakis mows his lawn three times a week in the summer. Mrs. Damakis has a new car, but she refuses to drive it.”
Avery reached down and lifted Fluffball as I rang the doorbell.
“I know, I know,” said the rabbit. “I won’t say a word.”
The door swung open. “Hi, Mr. Damakis,” I said.
“Mason,” the man replied cheerfully. He was heavyset, with a gray mustache. Today he was wearing a comfortable-looking sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. The fuzzy socks that covered his feet were blue with little polka dots on them.
“Is Mrs. Damakis home?” I asked.
“Sure thing,” he said. “Come on in. I’ll find her.”
“Before you go,” said Avery, “I was wondering if we could talk to you for a moment.”
I shot her a puzzled look as we stepped inside. So, Mr. Damakis was a suspect now, too?
“My name is Avery Lobster,” she said. “I’m a friend of Mason’s. He tells me your wife makes delicious Greek food.”
“That’s right,” he said.
“Does she ever make dolmas?”
Finally, I saw where Avery was going with this. But I didn’t understand why it was necessary.
“Oh,” Mr. Damakis said, “she hasn’t made dolmas in months.”
Wait. Mrs. Damakis had borrowed an onion from my mom just the day before yesterday. To make dolmas.
“What did you have for dinner on Tuesday night?” I asked. I realized it was a strange question to ask your neighbor, but he humored me with an answer.
“Chinese takeout,” he said. “We were watching the football game.”
Avery shot me a victorious glance. “Thanks,” she said. “We’d love to talk to your wife now.”
He bid us farewell and headed out of the room.
“So they had Chinese instead of dolmas,” I said quietly. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means Mrs. Damakis lied to your mom,” said Avery. “It means she didn’t really need an onion.”
“Or it means that Mrs. Damakis changed her dinner plans,” I said.
“We’ll find out,” whispered Avery as Mrs. Damakis entered the room.
“Hello, Mason,” she said. “Your mom told me you were at piano lessons.”
So, she’d talked to my mom since the bracelet went around her wrist yesterday afternoon.
“Remember when you borrowed an onion from my mom on Tuesday?” I asked bluntly. “What did you have for dinner that night?”
Mrs. Damakis shifted uncomfortably. “I made dolmas.”
“Interesting,” said Avery. “Then why did your husband say you had Chinese takeout?”
She sighed, as though she’d finally been caught. “Tony bought it on his way home from playing golf,” she admitted. “I didn’t know he was bringing it.”
“Then why were you sticking to the dolmas story?” Avery asked. I thought she was pressing the old woman unreasonably hard.
“I didn’t want to say anything because, well . . .” Mrs. Damakis stammered. “I should have brought the onion back. But I kept it.” She backed up toward the kitchen. “I’ll go get it, Mason. You can take it home and tell your mother I’m sorry I didn’t return it sooner.”
Mrs. Damakis ducked around the corner, but Avery headed for the front door.
“I think we’ve heard enough,” she said to me.
“You think she’s innocent?” I asked, following her.
“I haven’t decided yet,” said Avery. “They teach us in detective training not to rule anyone out until you figure out the whole truth.” She pulled open the front door. “We’re just gathering data right now. We’ll come back to Mrs. Damakis if we find out anything new that might involve her.”
“But shouldn’t we wait for the onion?” I asked, shuffling my feet in the doorway as Avery moved down the sidewalk.
“I hate onions,” Avery called over her shoulder.
Awkwardly, I pulled the Damakises’ door shut and ran to catch up to Avery and Fluffball.
“I’m guessing you use onions as deodorant,” Fluffball said to me, free to speak now that we were out of the house.
“That’s not even funny,” I said, instinctively sniffing at my own armpits to be sure he was lying.
“Where does Hamid live?” asked Avery.
“This way.” I moved across the street and veered down the sidewalk.
“What can you tell me about your friend?” she asked.
“Well, he loves video games,” I began. “His parents moved here from England when he was a baby, but he doesn’t have an accent.” What else did I know about Hamid? “He once ate a whole bag of potato chips without taking his hands off his Xbox controller.”
“Respect,” muttered Fluffball.
“Do you have any reason to suspect that Hamid is only your friend so he can gain access to your house?”
The question took me by surprise. It was tough to say how and why Hamid and I were friends. A lot of the kids from my school and neighborhood stopped hanging out with me after my dad went to prison. They each had their excuses, but it wasn’t hard to see the truth—their parents didn’t want their kids spending time with me. Maybe they thought jail time was contagious. Or that I was a criminal, too. It never made sense to me.
But Hamid showed up the day after my dad went away and wanted to play video games. We didn’t talk about personal stuff much, making him just the friend I needed.
“He might be using me,” I said, finally answering Avery’s question as we approached Hamid’s house. “I do have a bigger TV than he does.”
Hamid answered the door without a word. He wasn’t very tall, even for a ten-year-old. His black hair was a little longer than mine and swept to the side. Hamid’s dark eyes darted from me to Avery, and finally to the ball of white fur in her arms.
“Is that an Angora rabbit?” he asked.
“Yep,” I said.
“Cool.”
“I’m Avery,” she said, seeming annoyed that he hadn’t asked. “Can we come in?”
“Why?” asked Hamid.
“We have a couple of questions for you,” she replied.
“Is this, like, an interrogation?” he said. “Can’t I answer your questions out here?”
Avery raised an eyebrow in my direction. Well, Hamid was sure making himself sound suspicious. But she didn’t know him like I did. He was sort of a strange kid. It didn’t mean he’d committed a magical crime and framed me for it.
“Fine,” she said in a no-nonsense tone. I could tell Avery was going to interrogate him hard, clearly unintimidated by a kid who was younger than she was. “Where were you on April third, at eight o’clock in the evening?”
That was the day and time the church had been raided and the boons stolen. But it was over a month ago. Hamid wasn’t going to remember—
“I was at Game Net in the mall,” he said. “There was a video game competition happening that evening. Over a dozen people can confirm that I was there.”
Wow. That was a surprise. Hamid was taking this very seriously.
“How familiar are you with music boxes?” Avery asked.
“I’ve seen a few in my time,” he replied melodramatically.
“Have you ever seen one with a fox that chases a goose inside?”
“Maybe.”
“Just answer the question,” said Avery.
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Hamid folded his arms. “You can’t get me to talk.”
I rolled my eyes. Hamid loved dramatic games and movies. He was always muttering one-liners like that under his breath.
“We have ways,” Avery said, taking off her top hat.
“Believe it or not,” I cut in before things could escalate further, “Avery’s questions are actually very important. Have you ever seen a music box that plays a happy little tune while a fox chases a goose?”
“Do they go around and around in a circle?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, encouraged that he might have a clue for us, but fearful that he might actually be involved.
“If they’re going in a circle,” Hamid said, “then how do you know it’s not the goose chasing the fox?”
Avery sighed in annoyance. “I think it’s time for the shoe.”
“The truth shoe?” I clarified. I had almost forgotten that we’d stolen it from the armory. “But it’s a boon. We’d have to tell him the truth—give him knowledge—for it to work,” I muttered. “We can’t risk involving him more than he already is. Let’s just go, and we can come back later if we think of more questions.”
Avery narrowed her eyes at Hamid. “This isn’t over.” She placed the top hat back on her head.
“I’ll be waiting,” he said. “You can torture me, starve me . . . I’ll never betray the others.”
“Others?” Avery said. “What others?”
Hamid unfolded his arms, his dramatic demeanor falling away. “I don’t know. It just sounded good.” He turned to me. “She’s kind of crazy, Mason. But that was fun. It was like a real-life movie scene.” He snarled. “I’ll never betray the others,” he quoted himself.
By this point, Avery was halfway down the walk. I turned to catch up to her, but Hamid had one more thing to say. “Are you going to be home later? I thought we could team up to take on that double-barreled tank in the brickyard.”
I shook my head sadly, wishing that a video game tank was my biggest worry. “I’ll be at piano lessons.”
“Cool,” he said. “For how long?”
“I dunno. Probably a couple more days.” Then I dashed to catch up to Avery and Fluffball.
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