by Dan Gutman
Thanks
Thanks to Jane Sturdivant Britt, Steve Busti, Trish Carlberg, Christine Feller, Dennis Geoffroy, Emma Gutman, Andrew Harwell, Sarah Kaufman, Dave Kelly, Barbara Lalicki, Carrie O’Banion, Diandra Mae, P.J. Meriwether, Dianne Odegard, Lara Robertson, and, of course, my wife, Nina. A special thank-you to Google Maps and RoadsideAmerica.com.
Epigraph
“Sometimes we spend so much time and energy thinking about where we want to go that we don’t notice where we happen to be.”
—Nobody said this. But somebody should have.
To the Reader . . .
All the places mentioned in this book are real.
You can visit them. You should visit them!
Contents
Thanks
Epigraph
To the Reader . . .
1 You Missed a Lot!
2 No More Running
3 Family Hug
4 Sweet Ride!
5 The Dividing Line
6 Talking with Strangers
7 Return of an Old Friend
8 Heaven in Hot Springs
9 The Joy of Arkansas
10 Top of the World
11 Happy Birthday, Mrs. McDonald!
12 The First Cipher
13 Welcome to Texas
14 This Is Why We Travel
15 X Marks the Spot
16 Hub City
17 Framed
18 A New Sport
19 Spin Cycle
20 A Lost World
21 Thanks for Nothing
22 Breaking and Entering
23 Death by Chocolate
24 Keeping Austin Weird
25 Going for a Ride
26 Another Clue
27 Majority Rules
28 A Drowsy Revelation
29 Joyland
30 The End of a Nightmare
Epilogue
About the Author
Back Ad
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
YOU MISSED A LOT!
There were thirteen items on Coke McDonald’s To Do list on July 11th. But getting shoved into a spinning clothes dryer was not one of them.
SEND POSTCARDS HOME was on the list.
FINISH SUMMER READING was on the list.
GET A BIRTHDAY PRESENT FOR MOM was on the list.
LEARN HOW TO PLAY HARMONICA was on the list.
But nothing about getting shoved into a spinning clothes dryer.
And yet, strangely enough, getting shoved into a spinning clothes dryer was the one thing that Coke McDonald was actually going To Do at the middle of July.
Right now, I could tell you the amazing story of how Coke was shoved into a spinning clothes dryer. But to fully appreciate the awesomeness of it all, you should really read the first three books in The Genius Files series. So you might want to close this book for now, ask your librarian for the other books, and start reading them. I’ll be waiting right here.
Don’t worry, I won’t let anybody else read this book until you get back.
Back so soon?
What? You say somebody else checked out the first three Genius Files books? How dare they!
Okay, tell you what I’m going to do—and I don’t do this for everybody. I’ll give you a quick recap of what happened up until this point. Ready?
(Deep breath)
The first book started with a pair of twins—Coke and Pepsi McDonald—jumping off a cliff near San Francisco, California. Why would two perfectly normal twelve-year-old kids jump off a cliff? Glad you asked. They were being chased by some evil-looking dudes wearing bowler hats who were shooting poisoned darts at them with blowguns. Why were these bowler dudes trying to kill Coke and Pep? Because the eccentric Dr. Herman Warsaw told them to, that’s why. And bowler dudes always do what they’re told.
You see, after witnessing the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11, Dr. Warsaw started a secret government program—called The Genius Files—to have the smartest kids solve the problems of the world. But as you well know, the younger generation has this nasty habit of not doing what grown-ups tell them to do. So Dr. Warsaw decided to kill off the program, and kill off all the kids with it.
Did I mention that Dr. Warsaw is insane?
(Deep breath)
So the twins and their clueless parents set off in an RV on their cross-country summer vacation. Their dad is a history professor who’s trying to come up with a killer idea for his next book. Their mom runs a popular website called Amazing but True, and so they had to stop off along the way at oddball tourist destinations such as the Duct Tape Capital of the World (Avon, Ohio), the Largest Frying Pan in the World (Rose Hill, North Carolina), and the Largest Ball of Twine in the World (Cawker City, Kansas). They also visited the National Yo-Yo Museum, the Waffle House Museum, and museums devoted to Spam, Pez dispensers, and hot dog buns.
Who knew that America had such a rich cultural heritage?
(Deep breath)
Anyway, as Coke and Pep were on the road, Dr. Warsaw and his henchman were in hot pursuit, desperately trying to—oh, how do I put this delicately?—KILL THEM. In addition to being forced to jump off a cliff, the twins got locked in their burning school, pushed into a sandpit and left to die, zapped with electric shocks, lowered into boiling oil in a giant french fry machine, run down by a remote-controlled car, and dipped in soft-serve ice cream while tied up in a Mister Softee truck.
Other than that, it was a fairly uneventful summer.
The final scene of The Genius Files: You Only Die Twice took place in Memphis, Tennessee. Coke and Pep were chased out of Graceland by an Elvis Presley impersonator who turned out to be (spoiler alert!) their own Aunt Judy in disguise. The twins ran away to hide in their RV, where Coke had stashed his backpack stuffed with enough fireworks to wage a small war. Evil Elvis/Aunt Judy (who happened to be a pyromaniac) accidentally lit the backpack on fire. That was the end of the RV, and that, for better or worse, was the end of Aunt Judy too.
You’re probably curious to know what’s going to happen next. Well, you’re about to find out. So sit back, relax, and enjoy The Genius Files: From Texas with Love.
Chapter 2
NO MORE RUNNING
Coke McDonald looked up and saw blue sky overhead, crisscrossed by a series of wires stretching on into what appeared to be infinity. He was lying on a hard surface that seemed to be vibrating. It was windy and cold, and he couldn’t move.
Of course he couldn’t move. His legs were tied together with rope, and his wrists were shackled by handcuffs.
He saw something else too. The horrible smiling face of Dr. Herman Warsaw leaning over him. His breath was bad.
“I had thought that you, and geniuses like you, would be able to solve the problems of the world,” Dr. Warsaw told him. “That was my grand plan. But then I realized you were just like all the other kids—snotty, disrespectful, disobedient, and immoral. You killed my young assistant Archie. Then you killed my wife. And you almost killed me. So now I’m going to kill you, at last!”
Coke trembled with fear. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see he was on the roadway of a long suspension bridge. Cars and trucks were whizzing by, but none of them were stopping.
“I didn’t mean to do anything!” Coke pleaded. “I’m just an ordinary kid. I didn’t ask to be part of your stupid Genius Files program!”
“Shut up!” Dr. Warsaw hissed. “I’m finished arguing with you! This is the end of the line.”
“That’s right!”
The voice came from behind, and Coke realized the two bowler dudes were kneeling there, hovering over him.
“You tell ’im, boss,” said the mustachioed bowler dude. His clean-shaven brot
her just snickered in the background.
On Coke’s other side was the maniacally grinning face of Mrs. Higgins, his health teacher.
“No more running,” she said, touching the scar on her neck that she received back at The House on the Rock. “No more hiding. Finally, we have you right where we want you, and this time none of your pals are around to bail you out.”
She was right. Coke looked around frantically. Mya and Bones weren’t anywhere to be seen. Neither was his sister.
“Where’s Pep?” Coke shouted. “Where’s my sister? What did you do to her?”
“She’s dead!” yelled Mrs. Higgins. “We threw her off the bridge.”
“Noooooooo!” Coke screamed.
Why weren’t the cars stopping? Where were the police?
“Mrs. Higgins,” Dr. Warsaw said politely, “would you like the honor of sending this young man to his watery grave?”
“Oh, I’m flattered and honored that you would even consider me for such an important task,” Mrs. Higgins said, smiling girlishly. “But this is your moment, Doctor. It would only be right if you did the deed yourself. The boys and I will assist you, of course.”
“If you wish.”
The bowler dudes grabbed Coke by his legs while Dr. Warsaw and Mrs. Higgins hoisted him up under each arm.
Coke looked around and saw they were in the middle of the bridge. It would be a long way down to the water. He knew from skimming a physics textbook years earlier that for a body falling from a great height, hitting the water would be like hitting concrete. Mentally, Coke began calculating the angle and velocity his body would reach just before impact with the water. He remembered that the kinetic energy in different parts of his body was greater than the binding energy keeping them connected, so when it struck the surface his body would act more like a fluid, in the most disgusting possible way.
In simpler terms, he was about to die.
“Any last words?” Dr. Warsaw asked, interrupting Coke’s train of thought.
“No!” Coke shouted. “I’ll do anything you want! Anything! Just let me go!”
“Too late for negotiations,” Dr. Warsaw said. “It’s the real thing, Coke.”
“Good one, boss,” said the bowler dudes.
“Shut up!” Dr. Warsaw barked at them. “Help me throw him over this railing.”
“No!” Coke protested as they swung his body backward, and then forward.
“One! Two!” the bowler dudes counted off.
The four of them swung Coke’s body back once more, and this time they let go, heaving him over the railing and off the bridge.
He was falling.
He was helpless.
It was all over.
Chapter 3
FAMILY HUG
“Coke!” Pep shouted. “Wake up!”
“I don’t want to die!” Coke shouted. “I don’t want to die!”
“You’re not gonna die!” his sister insisted.
Coke looked around. He was no longer on a bridge. He was sitting on the bench in the RV park across the street from Graceland, just as he had been before he nodded off.
“Huh? What? You’re alive!”
“You must have been having a bad dream,” Pep told him. “How could you possibly fall asleep at a time like this? You were snoring and shouting and slobbering all over me.”
Coke shook his head and snapped out of it. He could see and smell the smoldering ruins of the RV, and he instantly remembered everything that had happened.
“Aunt Judy,” he whispered. “She’s dead.”
“We killed her,” Pep said, choking back tears. “I’m responsible for the death of another human being.”
“She killed herself,” Coke said quietly. “We had nothing to do with it.”
It certainly wasn’t their fault, but even so the twins had played a part in the accident. And it was their own aunt who was the victim. This was after they had already been involved in another accidental death back in Washington, when Archie Clone tried to drop them on the Washington Monument. They were beginning to think they were not entirely innocent in these tragedies. And bad news, it is said, comes in threes.
“What do you think happened to her?” Pep asked. “I mean, why did she go crazy like that?”
“Who knows?” Coke replied. “She was in love with Dr. Warsaw. I guess she would do anything for him.”
The police had not arrived on the scene yet. There was nothing left of the RV, except for the charred remains of the vehicle’s chassis. A crowd of gawkers had gathered around to watch it melt and take cell phone pictures of the carnage. This was the most exciting thing to happen around Graceland since the days when Elvis—the real Elvis—used to live there.
“Somebody was probably smoking in bed,” a lady said.
“Coulda been a propane tank,” said a man in overalls. “I never trust them things.”
Only Coke and Pep knew what really happened. Pep covered her nose to avoid inhaling the noxious fumes, and scanned the crowd. There were several suspicious-looking characters walking around, but at least none of them looked like Mrs. Higgins, Dr. Warsaw, or the bowler dudes.
“What do we tell Mom and Dad?” Pep asked her brother.
“I don’t know,” Coke replied. “But we can’t tell Mom about Aunt Judy. Knowing that her sister was an assassin would be too painful.”
Soon their parents returned from their tour of Graceland.
“What’s that smell?” Dr. McDonald asked Coke and Pep as he walked through the gate at the Graceland RV Park & Campground. “It smells like burning tires.”
Yes—burning tires, a burning engine, a burning transmission, a burning radiator, and every other part of an RV that can burn. When Dr. and Mrs. McDonald realized which RV it was, they stopped in their tracks.
“Honey, is that where we parked our . . . ,” Mrs. McDonald said.
“I’d better call the insurance company,” said Dr. McDonald.
It had been a good vehicle, all in all. It took them over four thousand miles without any problems. It never needed any serious maintenance. But now all that was left was a pile of twisted metal.
“I can’t believe it,” Mrs. McDonald said, stunned. She repeated it over and over again, as if that would change what had happened. “Everything’s gone.”
“It’s all my fault,” Coke admitted. “I’m really sorry.”
“You blew up the RV?” his mother asked.
“Not exactly,” Pep explained.
“It’s like this,” Coke said, and then he proceeded to tell his parents the whole story. He explained how they met Evil Elvis back in New Bern, North Carolina, and how The King had terrorized Pep at the Birthplace of Pepsi and almost shredded him at the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta. He told his parents how Evil Elvis had pulled a gun on them at the grave site of Elvis, and how he chased them into the RV, grabbed the backpack filled with explosives, and accidentally ignited it and detonated the fireworks inside.
Dr. McDonald took a long look into Coke’s eyes, as if he was trying to peer inside his son’s soul. Mrs. McDonald just shook her head. Coke fully expected to be grounded for the rest of his life, if not longer. He deserved it.
Instead, Dr. McDonald leaned back his head and burst out laughing.
“Oh man, that is a great story!” he said, clapping each of the twins on the back. “If only I had your imagination. It makes me wish I was a kid again.”
“You’re not mad?” Pep asked.
“Mad?” said Dr. McDonald, pulling the twins close to him. “How could I be mad at you two? It wasn’t your fault. The RV must have spontaneously combusted. It had a full tank of gas. One little spark from somebody’s campfire or cigarette could have set it off.”
“I never trusted that thing,” said Mrs. McDonald. “You read about crazy things like this happening all the time, but you just assume they’ll never happen to you. And then, boom, it happens to you. It was just bad luck. Luckily, we paid for the insurance.”
Mrs. McDo
nald moved in closer and threw her arms around the twins so they were in a big group hug.
“I’m just glad neither of you was inside the thing when it blew up,” she said. “We’re all alive, and that’s what matters. Our stuff can be replaced. I don’t know what I would do if something ever happened to you kids.”
Coke and Pep looked at each other, and they each knew what the other one was thinking. They were the ones who bought all those fireworks back in South Carolina. They were the ones who stored them in the backpack. They were the ones who ran back to hide in the RV. It never would have exploded if it hadn’t been for them. Aunt Judy would still be alive if it hadn’t been for them. And they would have to live with that knowledge for the rest of their lives.
There was a lot that needed to be done. Mrs. McDonald, luckily, had her laptop and camera with her when the RV exploded. But everything the McDonalds had inside the RV was gone. They had no clothes, except for what they were wearing. They would have to get new toothbrushes and toiletries. Coke did a mental inventory of all the souvenirs and trinkets they had accumulated in their travels—Silly String, Frisbee, bars of soap, a harmonica, duct tape. All gone.
There were a lot of phone calls that needed to be made, police reports to fill out, statements to be given. They would have to rent a car to get back to California.
“Can we get a cool car this time?” Coke asked. “Like a Ferrari?”
“We’re not going to rent a Ferrari,” Dr. McDonald said firmly.
“Maybe we should just fly home,” Pep suggested. “Then we could put this whole thing behind us.”
“Fly home? No way!” her mother replied. “We said we were going to drive across the United States and back. We’re almost three-quarters of the way there. It wouldn’t be right to fly home now. Besides, the readers of Amazing but True are depending on me to send back reports.”
The sun was sinking below the horizon, and most of the work that needed to be done could wait until tomorrow. For now, the immediate priority was finding somewhere to spend the night.