“Sure, what is it honey?” her mother asked.
“In private.”
“Yeah, OK,” Sarah said. “Let’s go to your room.”
Ruby tried to think of what to say to her family. How did she start a story as long and as involved as hers? Mom, Dad, I’m a spy. I have robots in my body. I save the world during school hours. I just got into a fistfight with the president’s daughter in the Oval Office. There was no time to come up with an easy way to tell them about her secret life. It would be a huge shock, but it wasn’t fair to—
“WHAT HAPPENED TO MY ROOM?” Ruby cried when she opened her bedroom door.
Every drawer was open. All of her books, pens, clothes, and shoes were scattered on the floor. Board games had been opened and their pieces thrown about like confetti. Her comforter had been used as a makeshift fort, held down by dirty bricks taken from the corner of the garage. A package of cookies had clearly been stepped on and mashed into her carpet, and several juice box containers had leaked onto her pillows. Her neat, super-organized sanctuary smelled of pungent, sweaty children.
“The kids needed a place to play,” Sarah explained. “It’s no big deal. We’ll clean it up.”
Suddenly, Ruby’s entire body broke out in angry, red welts. Her feet swelled so much that her toes felt like they might burst through her sneakers. Her armpits itched, her nose ran with snot, her ears were clogged and scratchy, and her eyes felt as if someone had rubbed lemons on them. Ruby was allergic to a messy room, but she was even more allergic to being exhausted.
“They ruined everything! You know how I feel about my stuff.”
“Ruby, they’re your family. You’re just going to have to roll with the punches,” her mother insisted.
“NO! This house already has two and a half slobs living in it!” she shouted. “Now you want to invite in a hundred more and give them my room? Well, I won’t do it! It wasn’t my idea to invite everyone here for the holidays, so why should I suffer? These people don’t even like each other. They bicker the whole time about which religion slash baseball team slash bagel is the best. They never stop talking, they trash the house, and then they try to guilt us because the two of you apparently aren’t raising me and Noah right. I don’t know why you had to invite them!”
Ruby heard a slight cough and looked to her right. Her entire extended family was standing in the doorway, listening.
“Someone is getting coal for Christmas,” Cousin Finn said.
“Ruby Tallulah Peet!” Sarah cried. “You apologize this minute.”
Grandma Tina shook her head. “She’s right. We should head home. This is too much for you folks.”
“Mom, don’t you dare take a step toward that door,” Sarah said. “You are more than welcome here.”
“Ruby, I think you need to spend a little time in your room thinking about being rude to the people who love you,” Francis said as he slammed shut her bedroom door.
Ruby scooted the juice boxes off her pillow and threw herself onto her bed. She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, bewildered by what she had just done. Sure, there were going to be something like fifty thousand people sleeping in her home that night, but why get so angry? Normally, she would have been thrilled with the chance to find a truckload of inflatable mattresses and quilts. She could have happily taken over the whole operation. So, why wasn’t she?
Was it really about her family’s bickering and the kids going through her sock drawers? No, she knew it wasn’t. Her messy room was just a reflection of her messy life. It felt like one layer of trouble was stacked on top of another, and then another, like a birthday cake of chaos.
And she had taken all of it out on her family. She needed to apologize.
She got up from her bed, ready to throw herself at the mercy of the entire Peet/Kaplan clan, when she heard a message alert coming from the computer in her backpack. She popped it open and found an encrypted e-mail from Duncan. She ran the decryption program and found a link to a video on a news website. A reporter stood in front of the busted fence outside the White House.
“Folks, this isn’t some big-budget Hollywood movie,” he said. “Superheroes are real. I’m here at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the scene of a battle right out of a comic book. As we reported earlier, President Lipton was arrested for leading an assault on the White House. Rumors circulated that he was with a group of superpowered children. We can now confirm that those rumors are true. We’ve got footage of the event, and I assure you, this is the real thing.”
The reporter vanished and a video of the fight replaced him. Ruby’s heart sank, fully expecting to recognize her face or those of her teammates.
“As you can see, one of these so-called superkids can fly. The other seems to be able to create things with the braces on his teeth. Now here’s one who appears to be able to create sonic booms with her voice. But most shocking of all is an exclusive image of President Lipton commanding a boy to fire what appears to be exploding mucus at Secret Service agents.”
Ruby watched intently. She saw Flinch leaping into the air and Duncan spraying glue out of his fingers and her own poofy hair as she fought Tessa Lipton disguised as the president, but the camera was shaky. There wasn’t a steady shot of anyone’s face. Could they really have been so lucky?
The reporter’s voice returned. “As we’ve reported, there is no information on what prompted the president’s actions or where these superpowered children came from. We’ve been told that President Lipton is in custody at the Pentagon. Sources say he is refusing to cooperate with the CIA and the FBI. At the moment, we have no comment from the White House or from the First Lady, but it is assumed that Vice President James Stephenson will be sworn in as soon as possible.”
The video switched to a wrinkly old man with an angry face. He wore a suit and stood at a podium in front of a room of reporters.
“The Senate majority leader had this to say about the incident,” the reporter said.
“When I was a kid if we wanted to go somewhere we walked! Now the sky is overrun with flying children. Clearly, the president is behind this. Perhaps he was some kind of sleeper agent. These kids could be Russians, North Koreans, or even aliens from another planet. But I believe this wild act of violence and these superpowered children are a direct result of playing too many video games. With the beeps and the boops and the cranky birds. It rots their brains. I think the good people of this country are starting to realize that video games are the cause of all the world’s problems—that and rock music.”
Ruby closed her laptop and sighed. It was a miracle that the NERDS had not been identified. Maybe her life wasn’t falling apart after all.
Suddenly, her scalp began to itch. She leaped from her seat and swung her leg around, connecting with the man that stood next to her bed. She clipped his chin and he fell backward, knocking over a lamp.
“I’m allergic to being snuck up on,” Ruby said. “I’m also allergic to strangers crawling in through my bedroom window, creepy grown-ups, and being underestimated.”
“Are you Ruby Peet?” the man asked as he staggered to his feet.
Ruby leaped forward with fists clenched. She threw several punches, connecting with the man’s jaw and sending him into a shelf that held her trophies for Best Gift Wrapping.
The man was well trained. He threw his own punches, aiming for her chest and gut. She tumbled into her desk, knocking a piggy bank to the floor and shattering it. Change rolled all over the floor. That hurt—a lot. She knew if she didn’t want to feel another hit, she needed to calm down and let her allergies tell her what to do.
Her tongue was swollen, which meant he was about to deliver a knee to her face. She blocked it and kicked his other leg out from under him. A pronounced wheeze in her lungs meant he was going to put her in a bear hug, but she squirmed out of the way and clunked him on the head with her computer. A weepy eye told her that she needed to step to the right to avoid an uppercut. The man swung with all his strength, throwing himself off-balance. He slammed onto the floor with a thud and Ruby leaped on top of him, twisting his arm into a chicken wing.