by Laura Ruby
“And to watch the other videos to see if that will help my case.”
Theo said, “What other videos?”
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?” Tess asked.
“I’m surprised. You kids seem to know what’s going on in the city before I do. There was an incident at Station One. Apparently, there were machines concealed in the stone eagles on the front of the building. Possibly Morningstarr Machines, but that hasn’t been confirmed.”
“Huh,” said Theo. Tess and Jaime said nothing.
“I have to say I would have thought the three of you would be more excited at this news. Previously unknown Morningstarr Machines in the shape of eagles? They weren’t known to design birds.”
“Fascinating,” said Theo.
“About as fascinating as congressional hearings, I can see,” said Theo’s mom, standing up.
“I love congressional hearings,” Theo said.
His mom laughed. “Right. Anyway, there were a bunch of people still at the station when the machines went bananas. They crashed windows and dive-bombed people and generally caused a lot of mayhem.”
“No one was hurt, though, right?” said Tess.
“Luckily,” said Theo’s mom. “And no one has seen the eagles since. But there was else something a bit strange. Well, stranger than mechanical eagles flying around a train station scaring everyone, that is.”
“What was a bit strange, Mom?” Theo asked.
“A witness said he saw some city employees fixing a clock. One of those employees was saved by an eagle. And one of the others of them took something from the eagle. The witness couldn’t see what it was. But the city said that there was no scheduled maintenance on that clock. And the men weren’t wearing the standard city uniforms. So we have to assume these men were working with the machines somehow. Maybe they did something to start them up. I don’t know. We’ll figure it out when we pull them in for questioning.”
Theo’s stomach dropped. Tess asked, “How will you find them?”
His mom smiled. “Easy. The witness got the whole thing on video. It’s hard to make out their faces from the distance at which it was taken, but I’m sure our techs can enhance it.”
“Great,” said Theo. “That’s really great.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Jaime
Theo and Tess and their mother were talking, but Jaime barely heard what they said. His drawing burned in his pocket, the woman’s face burned in his mind. It was as if he’d conjured her, brought her to life himself from memories of his mother and every comic-book heroine he’d ever loved. Her existence was completely incredible, more incredible than all the incredible things that he had seen and done in the last month.
Or maybe Theo was right and he had seen the woman before. On TV or online and he’d forgotten.
He didn’t know what to think, what to believe, what to do. All he knew is that he wanted to see her again, talk to her. Had she been looking for him? Following him? Did she recognize him, too?
He pulled the now-lukewarm cloth from his forehead and sat up. The twins were still talking with their mother, but now they were the ones that looked pale and gray. Their mom hugged them both, said good-bye to Jaime and headed out the door.
“What now?” said Jaime.
Aunt Esther said, “The eagles have landed.”
“Okay,” Jaime said.
“Nothing you three were involved with, I take it?”
Tess shook her head so that her braid swung back and forth like a pendulum. “Nooo,” she said, drawing out the word. “No way.”
“Good!” Aunt Esther said. “I will retrieve the takeout menus from the kitchen; you can pick what you’d like for dinner. Perhaps I can persuade Lancelot to stop making cookies for the next few hours.” She swept out of the room.
Tess swore under her breath. Theo said, “Language!”
“Language, smanguage. If they got us on video again, we’re sunk.”
“Wait, what?” Jaime said. The twins explained what their mother had told them. Jaime put the cloth over his head. It didn’t help.
“Maybe they didn’t catch our faces in the video,” said Tess.
“Mom seemed pretty confident that the ‘workers’”—he put air quotes around the word—“could be identified. Even if our faces aren’t clear, it’s not like she won’t recognize my hair from a distance.”
“She was pretty confident about finding Nine, too, but she hasn’t,” Tess said, her tone sad rather than sharp.
Theo didn’t answer, but his expression spoke for him. He wasn’t feeling confident about anything. Losing Nine had definitely affected Tess—her knees were practically dancing her out of her chair—but working the clues had also affected Theo, made him less certain. Jaime wondered whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“Here are the menus,” said Aunt Esther. “We have Chinese, Thai, Japanese, soul food, and Italian. Take your pick.”
Nobody but Jaime was hungry, but they seemed happy enough when he picked soul food. Forty-five minutes later the food arrived: mac and cheese, collards, corn bread, shrimp and grits, ribs, and fried “chkn” made of cricket protein because Tess was feeling sad for birds at the moment.
“All the birds?” Theo asked.
“Yes,” Tess said. “All of them. Even the scary ones. They didn’t ask to be scary.”
“Which birds are scary?” Mr. Biedermann wanted to know.
“They’re the descendants of dinosaurs, for one,” Theo said. “And certain birds retain memories of faces and will peck your head if they see you too often in their territory. Everyone thinks owls are cute but they’ll pluck out your—”
“Theo,” said Mr. Biedermann. “I am trying to eat here.”
“Ostriches can be terribly aggressive,” Aunt Esther said. “I had one chase me for a mile, once.”
“Was that when you managed the game preserve in Africa?” said Mr. Biedermann.
“No. Why?”
“Never mind. These collards are delicious.” Mr. Biedermann scooped up another mouthful.
Jaime stayed over at Aunt Esther’s, mostly because he was too tired and freaked out from the day to think about traveling all the way to Hoboken. That night, he dreamed of the woman in gray, kicking and punching and swirling her way through whole battalions of bad guys. When she was through, she asked Jaime, “Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you?” right before a giraffe-owary crashed through a fence and chased Jaime through a dimly lit city. He woke up just as the monster backed him into an alley with no escape, razor-sharp beak poised to strike.
After that, he didn’t get much sleep.
The next morning, he and the twins sat at the breakfast table waiting for Mrs. Biedermann to come downstairs and tell them they’d been identified on the video, that their adventures were over, that the blond lady had sung and they were all going to jail. But that was not what happened. Mrs. Biedermann shuffled into the kitchen looking as bleary-eyed and tired as her kids. Nobody asked her any questions until she’d finished one cup of coffee. (Every kid knew not to ask an adult any questions until that adult had had at least one cup of coffee. If you didn’t, you might as well throw yourself into a giraffe-owary pen.)
As her mother poured her second cup of coffee, Tess ventured: “So did you identify the workers from the station attack?”
“Not yet. Techs are still working on the video. And I’m not sure if that will be my case, anyway. We can’t consider the eagles stolen if they flew off by themselves, can we?”
“Guess not,” said Tess, suddenly tucking into a pile of waffles with a gusto she hadn’t shown before.
“What a weird week it’s been,” said Mrs. Biedermann.
“A weird month,” Theo said.
“The whole summer has been weird,” said Jaime.
“True, Jaime, true.” Mrs. Biedermann added cream and sugar to her coffee, sat at the table. “What are you kids planning for today?”
Oh, breaking
some more laws, risking death or dismemberment, Jaime thought. What every kid does in his spare time.
“Nothing much,” Tess said. “Maybe we’ll go to the movies or something.”
“You should see that new one, the one they shot in Manhattan last year. What’s it called? Monster something. Or Robot something. Monsters and Robots?”
Mr. Biedermann said, “You’ll have to put up with Slant’s old mug if you see that one. I heard he has a cameo in it.”
“Ugh,” said Mrs. Biedermann. “Then maybe you should see that other movie, the one that got all those awards. The Lost Ones, it’s called. Based on an old book. Same author as Penelope, I think. Published in the 1860s. It’s about the last people left on earth after some evil men destroy it.”
“Sounds cheerful,” said Mr. Biedermann. “Were the evil men named Slant?”
“Did you hear that he might run for office?”
“No!” said Mr. Biedermann. “Which office?”
“Mayor, I guess. Or senator. Whichever he can buy. He wants to ‘move New York City forward’ by cutting the budgets from things we don’t need anymore, and investing in ‘new technologies.’”
“What don’t we need anymore?” Mr. Biedermann said.
“Libraries for one. Arts programs. Public schools.”
“We don’t need libraries?” said Theo.
“Or schools?” said Tess.
Mr. Biedermann put down his fork. “I think I just lost my appetite.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry I brought it up,” said Mrs. Biedermann. “Anyway, you kids were telling me what you were going to do today?”
“We could go back to my apartment,” Jaime said. “We’ve got a pool on the roof. I’ve never used it, but it looks nice.”
“What a great idea!” said Mr. Biedermann. “It’s about eight thousand degrees outside, give or take a degree.”
“Try not to wear yourselves out, okay?” said Mrs. Biedermann. “You’re all looking a bit ragged.”
“Theo always looks ragged,” said Tess.
“Your brother, the hipster,” Jaime said.
“I resent that,” said Theo.
They helped clean up the breakfast dishes and said good-bye to the twins’ parents and Aunt Esther. If the twins’ aunt really knew some superheroes, they were stealthy ones, because Jaime didn’t see anyone in costume rescuing kittens from trees or shooting webs at bank robbers or even following Jaime and the twins to Hoboken to make sure they were safe. They seemed to be on their own the way they always were. Jaime opened the button on his front pocket so that Ono could peek out. Better to have another set of eyes than not.
They got to Jaime’s building with no trouble, possibly because it was so hot that everything and everyone was at risk of melting. Jaime broke his private promise never to use the facilities in the building and took the twins to the pool on the roof. He had to admit it was nice to swim in the cool, clear water, no threat of monsters anywhere.
After they swam for a while, they claimed several deck chairs for themselves and let the sun dry them. Tess slathered herself in sunscreen and offered some to Jaime, who paid special attention to his nose and the tops of his feet. A bunch of teenagers crowded a couple of lounge chairs next to them; the teens were all shapes and sizes and colors, like a box of crayons or a clothing ad. But they seemed to be wearing as little as possible, and the boys in particular flexed their pecs and biceps so often that it appeared they had medical problems. One of the teens, a pale, red-headed boy with a pimple in the middle of his forehead so large it looked like a third eye, observed Jaime applying the sunscreen lotion. “I thought black people didn’t need sunscreen,” he said.
“Only if they want to get sunburned.” Jaime noted the boy’s reddening nose and cheeks. “You want some of this? You’re looking a little crispy already.”
“I’m getting a tan,” the boy announced.
“You’re getting skin cancer,” said one of his friends.
“No, he’s just trying to clear up that pimple,” said another.
“I am not,” the redhead said.
“You don’t want to clear up your pimple?” said a third teenager, this one dark-haired with so skin so white it was almost blue. “We should name it.”
“Stop it,” said the redhead, laughing.
“What about Percival?”
“Nah. How about Wilhelm? Willy for short.”
“That’s a name for a plant.”
“Yeah, like a cactus or whatever.”
“What are you talking about?”
The teens then got into a towel fight that ended up with all of them splashing around in the pool.
Theo said, “Since when is Wilhelm a name for a cactus?”
“Hormones must make you really dense,” said Tess. “I wouldn’t mind skipping that part.”
“Yes, you would,” Theo said.
“Not the growing taller and older part,” Tess said. “Just the dense part.”
“I’m not sure we can skip that,” Jaime said. “They might go together.” He had a sudden urge to flex his biceps, but fought it.
“I really don’t want to be dense,” said Theo. “Denser than I already am, anyway.”
“You’re one of the smartest people I know,” Jaime said.
“I used to be,” Theo said. “Now you might as well call me Wilhelm the plant.”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” said Tess. “We do have a clue to figure out, don’t we?”
Jaime didn’t even have to look it up in his sketchbook. They all knew what the writing on the wall of the Smallpox Hospital said:
BURY ME RIGHT NEXT TO LOUIS MG,
THE MOST TALENTED MAN IN THE WHOLE OF THE CITY.
“We can start by identifying this Louis guy,” said Jaime.
“If he was so talented, why haven’t we heard of him?” Theo said.
“Remember that the clues mostly concern people and places and things that history has forgotten, right?” Tess said. “So maybe this guy was popular in the time of the Morningstarrs but has been overlooked or disregarded since then.”
“Hmmm,” said Jaime. “So if we do some searches for Louis online, maybe with 1850 dates, we can find something.”
They left the pool to the splashing, flexing teens and went back to Jaime’s apartment. By then, their suits were completely dry, so they pulled their street clothes over them and sat down to work at Jaime’s computer. In the search box, they put “Louis MG” “New York City” and “1850.” They came up with a Louis Vuitton exhibit, some comedian named Louis buying an apartment, and a whole bunch of listings on a whole bunch of other Louises, none of them particularly talented or even alive during the time of the Morningstarrs.
“‘Bury me,’” said Jaime. “Maybe that’s the clue.”
“Could be,” said Theo.
Jaime added “cemetery” to the search terms. They combed through the results, but nothing stood out.
“Maybe take out the date,” said Theo. “It might be too specific.”
So Jaime did. The first listing to pop up was an article called “The Most Famous Residents of New York City’s Cemeteries.”
“This might be something,” Jaime said, tapping the screen.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. Jaime got up to answer it, weirdly expecting the group of teens to be standing there, asking him for the sunscreen or maybe wondering what they should call the redhead’s pimple. (Roy, Jaime thought. Roy is a good name for a pimple.)
But it wasn’t the teens—it was Cricket and her mother. Her mother was holding a box using only her fingertips, as if she would like to burn what was inside or maybe drop it from a plane into an active volcano.
“Hi, Jaime,” Mrs. Moran said. “I was wondering if I could ask you a question.”
“Sure,” he said.
“What do you know about bugs?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Candi/Ashli/Toni/Tammi/Lori/Laci/Lu
On the seventeenth floor in a gla
ss tower in Manhattan, a group of women assembled to have their hair and makeup done for the day.
That morning, there were seven of them seated in a row, clean faced and dressed in identical red robes and slippers. Some mornings, there were just three of them; others, there were as many as fifteen women in the room. They had staggered appointments so that their favorite hair stylist, Anniq, and their favorite makeup artist, Belinda—along with their sundry assistants—could work their magic on them all. It was not every hair stylist who could achieve the exact shade of blond on so many different women with so many different hair textures, nor get the desired long banana curls that hung to the rib cage. And it was not every makeup artist who could affix false eyelashes with such dexterity, apply foundation so that each woman’s skin was the color of peaches and cream, no matter what color peaches they’d been born with. Every time Anniq suggested that perhaps this woman or that one might like an update to her look—streaks of honey in the long locks, layers, a bob, a pixie—the women would smile sadly and say, “You know I can’t.” And if Belinda showed them a palette of new eye shadows they might want to try, or suggest a nude lip instead of the red lipstick they were so used to, the women would shake their heads ruefully. “You know I can’t,” they would say. “This is what they want.” The women didn’t specify who “they” were, they didn’t have to. “They” meant everyone who watched their videos and listened to their commentaries, “they” were the police who were called when Duke wanted someone arrested, “they” were the investors who needed a little nudge in the right direction. Anniq and Belinda were professionals and would do their best to please their clients. Besides, the women didn’t give off even a hint of their resentment of Anniq and Belinda, whom they claimed to love and appreciate so, so much, whom they would greet every morning with a kiss on one cheek and then the other, like the French. Anniq, dark and lush and mysterious, with her thick curly hair streaked with indigo, and Belinda, with her rich, coppery skin, full lips, and brown eyes shot with flecks of green and gold. Neither looked like anyone else, both shone like stars being born. In the blond women’s more vulnerable moments—when they were overtired, or when they were just a bit too hungry—they would think to themselves, Who does she think she is, putting those silly streaks in her hair? Or, Those have to be contact lenses, she had to have injections in those lips. Nobody really looks like that. Or even, Why do I have to look like this? Why do I have to dye my hair this color, style it this way? What’s wrong with brown hair? Why do they believe me more when I wear this uniform? What am I doing here? But more often, they would tamp down these unproductive thoughts by intense yoga breathing or snacking on the kale chips that the servers brought for breakfast. They had to be ready for battle at all times, and a soldier couldn’t waste a minute feeling sorry for herself.