One of the little squirrels clicked and chirped.
“It doesn’t matter where in this world we go, little one,” Simon said. “For very soon I will have the entire planet in the palm of my hand.”
It had taken Simon two months to construct his vessel. It was nothing fancy: a raft, a sail, and a makeshift cabin to shelter them when the waves were too strong. He knew a hurricane was coming. As part of his training as a member of NERDS, he had learned to read weather patterns, and this one indicated a particularly nasty storm.
The next morning, as the first cold drops of rain fell, he loaded the raft with the nuts they had been collecting for months, then marched his small army of squirrels aboard. Once they were settled, he gave his ship one final touch: With the juice of some blackberries, he painted a name on the side. Then, with all his strength, he shoved the raft into the water. The waves were rough and the squirrels squeaked in fear, but he ignored them. There was no turning back; the island offered them no hope anymore.
Who could say how long they were adrift? The bigger question was how they survived. The storm bullied the little boat, smashing it from left and right. It pounded on its hull while the thunder bellowed doom overhead, but still the tiny boat stayed upright.
When the hurricane finally passed, the danger wasn’t over. The hot sun beat down mercilessly on the castaways. They drank the last of their fresh water. Soon, even the nuts were gone. Lying delirious on his battered raft, Simon prepared for his final hours. Then he felt a jolt; his little boat had hit dry land. He looked around. His squirrel crew shoved and pushed at one another for a better view. They had washed ashore on a rocky beach. Just beyond was a highway with cars zipping past in both directions.
“Where are we?” Simon said to himself. He saw buildings in the distance. One was a giant white tower rising high above everything. Simon recognized it at once and smiled. It was the Washington Monument. “We’re home,” he whispered.
The boy and his squirrels left their little ship on the shore of the Potomac and clambered up the embankment to the road. Simon turned and looked down at the tiny boat that had saved their lives. He smiled to see that the name he had painted on the side hadn’t washed away. The Revenge had served its purpose.
Simon turned back to the highway and immediately stepped out into the path of a speeding Volkswagen Beetle. The car came to a screeching stop only inches from Simon, and the angry driver leaped out, his face as red as a fire truck.
“Are you crazy, kid? That’s how you get killed, you know. You can’t just walk out into traffic. If I hadn’t seen you and . . . hey! What’s with all the squirrels?”
“Look at me, sir,” Simon said.
The man tore his attention away from the army of furry rodents and eyed the boy. The kid looked as if he hadn’t had a bath in a long, long time, but what was most interesting were his teeth. He had the biggest set of buckteeth the man had ever seen, and this particular man had grown up on a horse farm.
“We need a ride,” Simon said as a strange fog came over the man. His eyes, fixed on Simon’s teeth, glazed over and his jaw slackened.
“Sure,” he said as if lost in thought. “Whatever you want.”
Simon ordered the man back into his tiny car. Simon and the squirrels climbed in as well, and the boy directed the man to an address in nearby Arlington, Virginia.
On the way, they got a number of odd stares. A few people nearly drove off the road. It wasn’t every day you saw a Volkswagen full of excited squirrels in the carpool lane.
Soon, the driver pulled up in front of a two-story Colonial home on a leafy green street in South Arlington. Simon told him to wait with the squirrels, and the boy snuck behind the house into the empty backyard. He scowled. Where was the swing set his father had built for him? Why would they take it down? Wouldn’t his parents still hope he was coming back?
When he carefully peered in the window of his house and saw the spot on the wall that had once held his photograph, it dawned on him what had happened. The NERDS had erased his parents’ memories and then removed all evidence that he had ever existed. After he disappeared, they wouldn’t have wanted Simon’s mother and father asking a lot of questions about his whereabouts. They couldn’t risk the exposure of their secret society. Every agent knew that if he or she died on a mission, his or her very existence would be erased like dust from a chalkboard, but Simon had never thought it would happen to him.
Unfortunately, Simon’s swing set had been more than a swing set. He raced to where it had once stood and got down on his hands and knees. He dug frantically in the ground. Just when he was about to give up, his fingers brushed against a tiny knob. He gave it a twist and a small portion of the yard lifted, revealing a compartment that held an odd collection of objects. Simon reached in, snatching a toothbrush and toothpaste, as well as a cell phone, a case of protein bars, and, finally, a black mask with a white skull painted on it. He closed the hole, turned the knob, and prepared to rush back to the car, then stopped. He had caught sight of his parents through the picture window. There they were, sitting together and reading the paper—his father working his way through the sports section, his mother busy with her real estate listings. Something inside Simon stirred. It hadn’t been a bad life. In fact, his mother and father had tried hard with him. Suddenly, he wanted to rush in and demand that they remember him, but he fought the impulse. Someday, when he had conquered the world, he’d come back here. Someday . . .
He walked back to the car. The driver was starting to come out of his trance, so Simon flashed his choppers once more and got the man back under his control. He tossed the protein bars into the backseat, where the squirrels attacked them. He devoured two himself and then took out the toothpaste and toothbrush and snatched up one of his furry companions.
“This toothpaste will let you hypnotize people. It won’t give you the same powers that I have—I’ve been upgraded by a supercomputer—but it will help you do what I just did to this driver for a short period of time.”
The squirrel chirped as Simon started brushing its teeth.
“Why do you need the toothpaste?” Simon asked the squirrel. “Because if I’m going to take over the world, we need some spending money.”
WELL, WELL, WELL—LOOK WHO’S BACK.
LONG TIME, NO SEE. I COULD HAVE SWORN
I’D SCARED YOU OFF WITH THE TEAM’S
SPINE-TINGLING ADVENTURE FROM THE
FIRST BOOK. MOST PEOPLE WHO READ IT
RAN HOME CRYING TO THEIR MOTHERS.
IT’S TRUE.
IT WAS ON THE NEWS!
BUT NOT YOU, HUH?
I GUESS YOU’RE MADE OF TOUGHER STUFF.
WE’LL SEE.
IN CASE YOU’VE FORGOTTEN, MY NAME IS
MICHAEL BUCKLEY. I’M A FORMER MEMBER
OF THE SECRET ORGANIZATION KNOWN
AS NERDS (THE NATIONAL ESPIONAGE,