by Brandon Mull
Mr. Stott harrumphed. “Life gets that way.”
“You think we should go undercover and try to take these guys down?” Pigeon asked.
“That would be the noble and brave thing to do,” Mr. Stott said. “It might even be the wisest thing to do, considering all the trouble that might come unless this magician is stopped. But don’t forget that being noble and brave is one of the most proven ways to die young.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Pigeon replied.
*****
Pigeon lay in bed trying to remember how to fall asleep. Sometimes it was so easy—you just closed your eyes and relaxed, and the rest took care of itself. That was not the case tonight. No position seemed comfortable. No trick could stop his mind from worrying about what new dangers the morning would bring.
Nate had called earlier. Apparently they had caused quite a stir by using Peak Performance to dominate the arcade games. Nate and the others had stopped by the candy shop after Pigeon had left, and Mr. Stott had essentially given his blessing for them to keep trying to infiltrate the arcade by winning tickets.
Pigeon rolled to his other side, curling his knees and bundling his covers, hoping to find a perfect position that would finally let him slip off to sleep and leave his stresses behind. He was supposed to go to Arcadeland tomorrow with the others and keep winning tickets. Nate had basically been thrown out today for that very thing! How did he expect tomorrow to be any different?
The door to his bedroom nudged open. Was Aunt Rhonda checking on him? No, it was Diego.
“Hey, boy,” Pigeon said softly. “What are you doing in here?” The Labrador normally slept in his own house out back. Maybe Aunt Rhonda had left a door ajar.
“Lindy opened a window,” the dog replied.
“You’re talking,” Pigeon said.
“Lindy brought Brain Feed. She’s waiting on the back patio.”
“She wants to talk?” Pigeon asked.
“She seems a little upset,” Diego replied.
Suddenly Pigeon wished he had played possum when Diego entered. The uncomfortable exchange between Lindy and Mr. Stott had been bad enough. He didn’t want to try to manage her curiosity on his own.
“Can you tell her I’m sleeping?” Pigeon asked halfheartedly.
“She ordered me to wake you,” Diego said.
“All right,” Pigeon relented. He got out of bed and put on some slippers. His plaid pajamas looked sort of goofy, so he grabbed a robe from his closet and slid his arms into the loose sleeves. “Do I look okay?”
“I’m a bad judge,” Diego said. “Dogs don’t require artificial coverings.”
“That didn’t stop Mom from dressing you as a cowboy for Halloween.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Pigeon led Diego to the back door.
“Stupid hat,” Diego muttered.
“Sorry I brought it up,” Pigeon said.
“And that bandanna! Cruel and unusual.”
They crept out to the patio.
Lindy stepped out of the shadows. “Hi, Pidge.”
“You’re out late,” Pigeon said.
“I snuck away,” Lindy replied. “I needed to talk to somebody.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Where did I come from, Pigeon?” Lindy asked. “Who am I really?”
“How should I know?”
Lindy wrung her hands. “Somebody must know something! Everyone acts like my origin is some big mystery. I have a feeling there’s more to it than people are telling me.”
Pigeon tried to collect his thoughts. She was wasting no time in taking the conversation exactly to the subject he most wanted to avoid. “We didn’t meet you until after we defeated Mrs. White.” At least that was true in a sense. She looked like she expected him to elaborate. “None of us knew much about your past. One of the guys who worked for Mrs. White made it clear that you had no family. John picked Mr. Stott to watch over you because he thought he would take good care of you and could accept your mysterious background. We all care about you, Lindy.”
“I know you care,” Lindy said. “I don’t doubt that. Dad is just so protective lately. He has let me do some crazy things with you guys, but he seems extra worried about me trying to help John. Maybe he’s just being cautious, but it started me thinking. It makes me wonder if he knows more than he’s telling me.”
Pigeon licked his lips. His fingers felt fidgety. “I don’t know anything.”
“I’m sure you’re not supposed to spill any secrets,” Lindy said. “But we’re friends, right?”
“Of course.”
Her voice became more sincere. It sounded like she might cry. “I’m having a hard time, Pidge. A really hard time. Can you imagine having no memories of yourself? Of the person you call Dad? Of any friends or family? I can’t shake the suspicion that you all know more than you’re saying. It’s there in certain looks you give each other. I know you guys think you’re protecting me from something, but it’s making me crazy. I need somebody to be straight with me.”
Pigeon felt unsure how to respond. He had no right to give her the information she wanted. Knowledge of her past could end up harming her. It could harm everyone.
“Everybody clams up when I talk like this,” Lindy said. “I don’t push the issue too often. At first I felt too off balance to really worry about it. I just wanted to fit in. But lately it has been gnawing at me. When Dad banned me from helping you guys, he forced me to really confront the issue. Let me tell you my guess. I’m worried . . .” She put her hands up to her face, as if hesitant to utter the next words. She finally whispered them: “I’m worried that my parents were bad guys. Evil magicians, maybe, working with Mrs. White. And John Dart had to lock them away. Or maybe they got killed? I was devastated, so somebody erased my memory. Then John felt guilty and brought me to live with Mr. Stott.”
Pigeon felt tense. She expected a response. He felt like the truth must be written all over his face. Her guess wasn’t too far off—except her parents weren’t the evil magicians. She was. What had Mr. Stott said about handling these inquiries? He tried to respond without blatantly lying.
“I don’t know anything about your parents,” Pigeon said. “As far as I know, they might have been really good people. Maybe they were hexed by bad magicians or something. Maybe Mrs. White kept them prisoner. Maybe they weren’t magical at all.”
“Maybe some big spell killed my parents and wiped my memory at the same time,” Lindy said. “Somebody threw a magic bagel of power at us and I lost my family.”
“Not all magic is edible,” Pigeon pointed out.
“Do you get why I’m freaked?” Lindy asked. “If my real parents were good people, why all the secrecy? They must have been bad. It must be a dirty secret. Maybe I hated them. Maybe I loved them. I might never know. Am I supposed to believe that I lost my memory and nobody knows how it happened or where I came from? Seriously? What happened before I turned up in that candy shop with you, Nate, Summer, and John? My life didn’t start at that moment. What happened before?”
“What did John tell you?”
“Dad and John both told me that I lost my memory by accident. They told me no magic can restore it. They claimed not to understand the spell. They said they never knew my parents, but they’re certain that I have no living relatives. My first memories from the candy shop are hazy. Everything was so new and unfamiliar. I felt deeply confused. I hardly heard what anyone was saying. It was as if in that instant, fully conscious, I had just been born.”
“If Mr. Stott can’t explain what happened,” Pigeon said, “I don’t have a prayer.”
“Does it have to do with Mrs. White?” Lindy asked. “The lady who owned the candy shop before Dad? Was I her prisoner? Her helper? I know she was a big villain.”
“John and Mr. Stott defeated her,” Pigeon said. “We helped. Nate especially. She went away. She won’t be back.”
“Did Mrs. White do something to my parents?” Lindy asked. “I
mean, my first memories are at her candy shop.”
“I don’t know, Lindy,” Pigeon said, terrified by how close her questions came to revealing the truth. “I’d never met you before that day. I don’t know much about what Mrs. White was doing, except that she was trying to take over the town with her magic. I was a captive there myself. Have you considered that there might not be any big conspiracy to hide your past? Maybe nobody can answer your questions because nobody knows?”
After staring at Pigeon searchingly, Lindy sighed. “It stinks getting left out. I want to help John. I want to help you guys.”
“We don’t even understand what’s going on yet,” Pigeon said.
“What do you know?”
Pigeon paused. How much should he say? Anything?
“Have you ever felt left out, Pigeon?” Lindy asked.
“All the time,” he confessed. “I mean, I used to feel like that all the time. Before I became friends with Summer, Trevor, and Nate.”
“That’s how I’m feeling,” Lindy said. “I’m wondering if I have any real friends.”
She was his friend. He couldn’t tell her where she came from. Shouldn’t he tell her something? Making her feel friendless and desperate might be worse than telling her that she used to be a psychotic, murderous magician.
“You can win tickets at Arcadeland,” Pigeon finally said. “That new arcade in Walnut Hills.”
“You just blew my mind,” Lindy said dryly. “Why haven’t I heard about this on the news? How have they covered this up?”
“There’s more,” Pigeon said uncomfortably. “You use the tickets to buy prizes. The most expensive prizes are four hand stamps that grant membership into four different clubs. We think the kids in the clubs can get magic candy like Mr. Stott makes. We’re not positive about anything. We have no idea who runs Arcadeland. We’re not even sure about the clubs. But we’re investigating.”
“You’re trying to earn tickets to join the clubs?” Lindy asked. “So you can find out what’s really going on?”
“Pretty much,” Pigeon replied, worried that he had said too much.
“I could help,” Lindy said, her eyes lighting up. “You need help earning tickets.”
“Lindy, no,” Pigeon said. “Please. Your dad would kill me if I got you involved. I trusted you by telling you. Don’t betray that by getting us busted.”
“He won’t know,” she promised. “I’ll be sneaky.”
“It could be extra dangerous for you,” Pigeon said, his mind racing. “We don’t know where you came from, but we suspect your origins must be magical. I mean, your memory was wiped, and we found you at Mrs. White’s. Nobody wants you exposed to magical bad guys.”
Lindy regarded Pigeon thoughtfully. “You guys are going there tomorrow?”
“Right when it opens at nine,” Pigeon said.
“Don’t stress,” Lindy said with resignation. “I won’t crash the party.” She reached out and rubbed Pigeon’s shoulder. “Thanks for trusting me. I appreciate it. I won’t let you down.”
“Okay. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.”
“You were great. I should go. You need your rest.”
“Good night, Lindy.”
“Good night.”
Chapter Seven
Odd Hours
Hunched over a rifle at the shooting gallery, Nate chewed his fourth stick of Peak Performance gum since entering the arcade. When the doors had opened at nine, he, Trevor, Summer, and Pigeon had wasted no time getting started.
By his third consecutive stick of Peak Performance, Nate could feel the effects waning. The light games were getting tougher to freeze at the right time, and he could no longer break the high scores on basketball, Skee-Ball, or the football tossing game. But if he took his time, he could still hit all ten of the far targets at the shooting gallery.
The arcade workers had made some adjustments since last night. Shooting Stars remained out of order, as was a high-paying game where the player spun a huge wheel. The shooting gallery jackpot for the ten far targets had been reduced to 250 tickets. When the ten farthest targets were hit, sirens no longer indicated that anything unusual had happened. Nate saw the lack of attention as a good thing, although he lamented losing the huge payout. Still, 250 tickets remained very attractive when you could claim them every turn.
Nate was sighting through the window at the star when a hand came down on the back of his neck. He accidentally pulled the trigger and missed the shot. Disgruntled, he looked up to find Roman standing over him.
“You’re swimming in tickets,” Roman said.
Nate had won the shooting game nine times in a row, which meant 2250 tickets were currently snarled around him on the ground. “I got a hot tip about the gallery.”
“You have a weird way of thanking me,” Roman said. “It’s barely ten and the records are all worse than yesterday. Didn’t you hear what I told you?”
“We upped them little by little,” Nate assured him. “We started right when they opened. We never beat the basketball records by more than three points. We usually only won by one or two.”
“They’re already so high!” Roman complained. “You would have had to raise them every try.”
“It happened pretty quickly,” Nate admitted. “A few of us were working at it.”
Roman shook his head, clearly frustrated. “My day is shot. Without records to beat, earning tickets will be a pain. How many have you won this morning?”
Nate hesitated to answer. “Lots. Over 8,000.”
“In an hour?”
“I had a hot streak.”
Roman shook his head, trying not to let his irritation show. “You’ve obviously got the shooting gallery figured out. Did you snag the jackpot?”
“Yesterday.”
“Unbelievable.”
“They reset the prize. It pays 250 now if you hit all the far targets on one turn.”
“What was the prize yesterday?”
“Twenty-five hundred.”
Roman made a low whistle. “You’re raking them in faster than anyone I’ve seen.”
“It’s going all right,” Nate said.
Roman sighed. “Congrats. I better go start playing. Tomorrow I’ll make sure to come when the doors open.” He walked off.
Nate could tell Roman wasn’t happy, and he felt a little bad about it. He knew Roman was excited to earn a stamp, and the process would be slower while the records stayed high. But in a way they were doing him a favor. Roman didn’t know what he was getting himself into. The perks that came with the stamp would be cool, but there would be strings attached. Bad people were running this arcade. People who had taken down John Dart. The deeper Roman got involved, the greater the danger he would face.
Nate settled back in and started shooting targets again. He hit all of the far targets three times in succession before somebody cleared their throat behind him. Nate looked up, recognizing Cleon.
“You couldn’t resist?”
“We’re not cheating,” Nate replied. “We have the same right to play as anyone else. You guys set the rules. It’s not our fault if we’re good.”
“Gather your tickets,” Cleon said. “The director wants to have a chat.”
“Are we in a movie?”
“The director of the arcade, smart guy.”
“Why does the director get to chat with me?” Nate resisted. “Is he a police officer? Are you? Am I under arrest for winning tickets?”
Cleon leaned closer. “You’re in her arcade. You’re on her property. If you wish to continue playing here, you’ll have a talk with her.”
Cleon awaited a response. If this would provide a chance to meet the person running the arcade, Nate supposed he should play along. It might give him the knowledge the Battiatos needed. Then again, he might end up disappearing just like John and Mozag.
Nate noticed Pigeon watching him from not too far off. Trevor was observing from across the room. His friends could call in the Battiatos if he disa
ppeared. Besides, who knew what Cleon might do if Nate tried to run? The man currently had the air of a disgruntled bouncer.
“I’ll come,” Nate said, collecting his tickets.
“Good choice,” Cleon replied, kneeling to help.
*****
Trevor watched Cleon lead Nate away from the shooting gallery. He kept one hand in his pocket, fingering the Shock Bits hidden inside. At the first sign of any struggle, he was ready to spit out his gum and replace it with the electrifying candy.
Summer walked up to Nate and Cleon with a camera and blatantly snapped a picture of them together. Shaking his head slightly, Cleon gave her an amused smirk as he walked past her. She returned his attention with an innocent grin. Trevor thought it was a smart move. With Cleon knowing she had photographic evidence, he would think twice before letting Nate come to harm.
Nate seemed to go along willingly. Trevor followed until they passed through a nondescript door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.
Pigeon came up beside him. “What should we do?”
“I want the Battiatos ready to move,” Trevor said. “You have the other walkie-talkie?”
“Yeah.”
“Keep an eye on that door. Call if anything happens. And watch my tickets.”
“Got it.”
Trevor handed over his tickets to Pigeon. Summer approached as Trevor headed to the door.
“You’re telling them?” she asked.
Trevor nodded. “Help Pidge keep watch.”
On his way out, Trevor noticed a girl staring at him. She looked to be in her older teens or early twenties. Her light brown hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail. She wore a blue Arcadeland work apron and was sweeping debris into a dustpan attached to a pole. Her glance moved past him as Trevor returned the eye contact. She had a slight build—fairly short and quite slender.
Trevor ignored her until he reached the doors to the outside. As he pushed through, he glanced over and saw her watching him again.
Only after reaching the Arcadeland parking lot did Trevor realize that he wasn’t sure where the Battiatos could be found. He scanned the lot for a white van, then tried the street, but saw neither a van nor any sign of the husky twins.