“You were a doctor?”
“A field medic—a military doctor … I had a couple years of medical school, but it didn’t take. I enlisted, and Uncle Sam puts you in the jobs you are best suited for—so I did it for a few years. I wanted to be a pilot like my brother …”He trailed off into his own memories, then came back just as suddenly. “I have no idea what you’re going to tell your folks.”
“They probably won’t notice. They’re too busy fighting,” Matilda said.
Agent Brand shifted uncomfortably. “Families are hard to keep together. Your mother is OK?”
“She’s a statue. It’s hard to tell,” Matilda said. “My brothers seem fine. It’s hard to tell if they’re acting out more now than they were before.”
“It can help when you have a sibling,” Brand said.
There was a long silence between them, as if Mr. Brand were somewhere else, a place where memories were filled with sharp edges.
Matilda knew she should change the subject.
“Well, I have another concrete suspect,” Matilda said.
“Who?”
“McKenna. She’s got the bridge device—that’s what they’re calling it—and she knows how to use it. Give me a couple of hours and I’ll go in and arrest her. I’m sure she’ll be awake and updating her social media profile, which, by the way, you should probably have Benjamin delete. I’m sure she’s just told the whole world she was in another universe.”
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
OMG! I’m totally going 2 another universe
today to rob it blind. Hate2BThem!
1 hour ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
Tiff wants 2 bring the new girl … ugh.
58 minutes ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
OMG! Almost murdered by py-rats and a
shark but the worst part—no cell service 4 10
minutes! I don’t know how I survived.
30 minutes ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
Countin’ my money. Holla’ 4 the dolla’ people!
22 minutes ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
Py-rats are scary, yo! Arrrrr.
15 minutes ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
Look at my loot, people. Jealous much?
10 minutes ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
Weird kids in the cabin. One has craz-ee braces.
6 minutes ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
Weird kids are arresting me. So lame!
5 minutes ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
Blindfolded but still txting! Take that nerd kids!
3 minutes ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
I M N A rocket! Craz-eeee!
1 minutes ago
McKenna Gallagher was not happy. She was locked inside a tiny room with concrete walls and floors. There was no way she could get a signal for her phone—not a single bar! How would anyone know that she had been kidnapped if she couldn’t update her Facebook status? Her Twitter followers should know that the room had one exposed light bulb hanging from a dirty lamp and that it was shining right into her eyes! She needed to let everyone know about the new girl—the Korean-American one with the bad temper—and her gang of nerdy misfits. They had locked her in a basement. This was not LOL! It was SOS!
Maddie sat across from McKenna. “I know you must be confused,” she said. She wasn’t wearing her cheerleader uniform anymore. Instead, she had on a black bodysuit that zipped up the front to her neck. If Maddie hadn’t kidnapped her, McKenna would probably have told her she looked fierce.
“T 2 the H!” she cried. “You better let me out of here!”
“Pufferfish, what did she say?” Maddie asked.
A girl with superkinky blonde hair stepped forward and opened a laptop. “Just a second. According to my search, she’s a talking in text messages. ‘T 2 the H’ means, ‘Talk to the hand’.”
“OMGYG2BK!”
“OMGYG2BK?” Maddie asked.
Her friend typed furiously. “Um, just a second. That means ‘Oh, my gosh, you’ve got to be kidding.’” The girl shook her head. “It’s like she speaks another language.”
“Yeah, it’s called annoying,” Maddie said, then turned back to McKenna. “Listen, we don’t want to waste our time and we don’t want to waste yours, so let’s just get to the point. It’s over. We know who you are.”
“LDO!” McKenna said.
“‘Like duh, obviously,’” the frizzy blonde translated.
“I was on homecoming court. I’m a cheerleader. I have nine thousand Facebook friends and twelve thousand My space friends. I’m topping out at seventeen thousand Twitter followers. Everyone knows me! IMDB!”
The blonde girl started typing. “That means, ‘I’m da bomb.’”
“Gerdie, let’s—”
“Who? My name’s not Gerdie, idiot!”
“We don’t need to play this game any longer,” Maddie said.
“I hope your parents have great lawyers, ’cause my dad is a crazy great lawyer and he’s going to sue you for every penny. H8TBU!”
“‘Hate to be you,’” the blonde girl translated.
“Please calm down, Gerdie,” the newbie said.
McKenna jumped to her feet and made a dash for the door. “My name’s not Gerdie and I will not calm down! Help! Help! Let me out of here!”
Another figure blocked her way. He was cute, with blue eyes and wavy blond hair. But when he smiled—ugh! She remembered him from her abduction—he had a mouth full of metal. Now that he was up close she could see his braces were moving around as if they were alive. They spilled out from between his lips and transformed into huge spindly spider legs and lifted the boy off the ground. McKenna was so shocked she fell backward. Her first instinct was to text Tiffany, but crawling away in a desperate gamble for her life was a close second.
“We’re not here to hurt you,” Maddie said.
“Help! Help!”
“Gluestick, Flinch?”
A roly-poly boy ran up the side of the wall, then across the ceiling, then down the other side to block her way. Frantically, she scurried to another side of the room, but a jittery Latino kid with a crazy look on his face was blocking that way, too. She turned again only to find him standing there as well. How did he move so fast?
McKenna shook with rage. She stomped her feet, and though later she would feel childish, “I’m telling!” was the first thing that came to mind. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.
“I am so posting this!” she snarled.
But she never got a chance. Maddie jumped out of her chair, snatched the phone, and then, much to McKenna’s surprise, flew into the air, hovering just out of reach like a bumblebee.
“OMG! You are in big trouble, you freaks!” she shrieked.
“Gerdie—”
“Who is Gerdie?”
“You! You are Gerdie Baker,” the girl with the computer said as she held up the bridge device. “And this machine you invented is very dangerous. You’re causing all kinds of damage to the national power grid, not to mention all the strange stuff that’s getting yanked into our universe.”