Watch Your Step (26 page)

“You're telling me,” I say.

Elinor continues. “ ‘Anyway, what did my son do? When he found out he wouldn't be having fish sticks after all? I can tell you what he
didn't
do. He didn't tell Bartholomew John to stop hogging them, or snatch some from his tray. He did what he always does. He walked away. He didn't stand up for himself.' ” Elinor looks up. “How'd your mom find out what you did?”

I nod to the K-Pak. She keeps reading.

“ ‘When Seamus shared this story at dinner tonight, and his voice actually cracked at the idea of missing out on frozen fish, I wanted to tell him to toughen up, to be the kind of boy other kids respected. But I didn't. There was no point.' ” Elinor gives
me a sympathetic frown. Continues. “ ‘Which means the time has come. If he can't fix his flaws, then I will.' ” Elinor pouts, hands me the K-Pak. “She sounds like my mom.”

She does. Of course, she's never tossed me into a pit of snakes and left me there to fend for myself, but maybe that's just because Scales, Slithers, and Sliders, Cloudview's one-stop-shop for all things reptilian, doesn't have enough snakes to fill a sink let alone a swimming pool.

I'd like to talk more about my mom with Elinor. But the mention of her mom reminds of something else I've been meaning to bring up.

“Not to totally change the subject,” I say, “but you must be wondering why Abe's been insisting that you help him in his parents' cabin.”

She shrugs. “He's Abe. Most of what he does doesn't make sense.”

“Right. Only he did have a reason. And I think it's only fair that you know what it is.”

“Okay?”

I take a second to think about how to say this. But beating around the bush will probably only raise more questions—and
make her even more uncomfortable—than simply stating the truth would.

“He thinks you're working for the Incriminators.” The words tumble from my mouth like ice cubes from a glass.

Her face stills. “What do you mean, working for them?”

“Helping them. Feeding them information. By pretending to be one of us.” I wait for her to respond. When she doesn't, I add, “He didn't trust me to keep an eye on you. Because of how I—I mean, because he doubts pretty much everything I do. That's why he wanted you with him. So he could watch you himself.”

“I don't understand,” Elinor says. “After all this time and everything we've been through . . . why would he think I'd do something like that?”

“I'm not sure . . . maybe to make your mom happy?”

She looks at me, her copper eyes worried. “Do
you
think that?”

“Seamus!” Down the hall, the elevator door whooshes open. Fast footsteps pound toward us. “Where are you? We have a lot to discuss! Let's do it!”

“Speak of the devil,” I say. “Sorry. We have that emergency alliance meeting.”

She looks down. Nods.

“Which you're coming to, right?”

“I'm not in the alliance.” She says this so softly, I'm not sure she says it at all.

“Hustle, Hinkle!” Abe shouts.

I take a step toward Elinor. She takes a step away from me. Then she lowers her right hand to her left wrist, covering her bracelet, and hurries from the room.

I should go after her. Apologize. Insist that Abe's completely out of his mind. Reassure her that I'd never think she was capable of doing anything like what he's suggested she is.

But before I can do any of those things, Abe dashes into my room, grabs my arm, and pulls me down the hall.

“Good news!” he says. “Look who decided to show up.”

I stop short in the kitchen doorway. “Lemon?”

My elusive best friend is poking around the refrigerator. Now he looks over his shoulder and grins. “Seamus! Hey!”

“And there's more,” Abe says. “Lemon, why don't you tell Hinkle what you just told us?”

Lemon grabs a pear from the fridge, stands up straight, and swings the door shut. “No biggie. Abraham just said your parents
keep disappearing on you. And I just said I know where they've been going.”

My heart skips. “You do? Where?”

“Meetings.”

“What kind of meetings?” I ask.

“Secret ones, by the looks of it.”

“For?” I prompt.

He takes a bite of pear. Chomps. Swallows. Gives a partial answer. Takes another bite. Chomps. Swallows. Gives a partial answer. Repeats the routine a third time. Until, eventually, his answer's complete.

“The Secret . . . Society . . . of Masterful . . . Angel Makers.”

W
e're going to die out
here.”

“No, we're not.”

“Yes, we are. It's pitch black. And freezing. And we're walking in circles through an endless forest. It's just like that time we climbed that mountain for history class and Mystery abandoned us at the top and told us to find our way back by ourselves!”

“Gabby,”
Abe says. “This is nothing like that. Lemon knows exactly where he's going . . . don't you, Lemon?”

Personally, I don't think Gabby's far off. We do seem to
be walking in circles through an endless forest. According to my K-Pak clock we left our underground house an hour ago. Powered by adrenaline, we crossed the lake in our leaky boat in record time and sprinted across our parents' beach like the sand was pavement. But we haven't seen a single light or any other sign of life since ducking into the woods behind the Kamp Kilter beach.

“Almost there!” Lemon calls back.

We're hiking in a line. I glance behind me. It's so dark I can barely see Elinor.

“Doing okay?” I ask.

“Fine,” she says.

“Warm enough?”

“Yup.”

“Bet you didn't think you'd be doing this today when you woke up this morning, huh? I know I didn't. Nope, when I opened my eyes, there was no way I thought I'd—”

“Seamus?”

“Yeah?”

“I don't really feel like talking. If that's okay.”

I frown. “Sure. No problem.”

Why
would
she feel like talking? During our alliance meeting, when Lemon said he knew where our parents were, and that they were meeting tonight, we all agreed we needed to see what they were up to—and I said Elinor had to come with us. Abe looked like he was going to refuse, so I asked him a question. That was: Wouldn't he rather know exactly where she is? So he doesn't have to wonder what she's up to when he's not around?

His answer: “Now you're thinking like a Troublemaker, Hinkle.”

Elinor didn't hear this conversation. At least I hope she didn't. She's been pretty quiet ever since Gabby pulled her from her room and filled her in, but maybe she's just tired. I know I'd be if I'd spent the day scrubbing floors with a toothbrush.

Or maybe she doesn't feel like talking because she's still hurt from what I told her about Abe and his suspicions. This is probably the likelier reason. I don't want to think about this, though, because it makes me feel terrible. Either way, I promise myself that I'll do everything I can to make her feel better as soon as we're back home.

“Here we are!” Lemon exclaims.

He stops short. Abe runs into him. Gabby runs into Abe. I
run into Gabby. Elinor must have excellent reflexes, because she doesn't run into anyone.

“Where?” Abe asks.

“At the Angel Makers' secret meeting spot,” Lemon says.

“Um, no offense,” Gabby says, “but we're standing by a rock. A really
big
rock . . . but still. A rock.”

“Lemon,” Abe says, “if you wasted our time by dragging us all to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the—”

“Aha!” Lemon's been stooped down and rummaging around. Now he straightens and raises one fist. “Found it.”

“What?” Gabby asks.

“The spare key.”

“Right,” Abe scoffs. “Because a secret organization would really leave a key to its top secret meeting place for anyone to just come along and find.”

“Of course not.” Lemon faces the tall granite wall. “That'd be silly. They bury it. In a different place near the door every night.”

“Hon,” Gabby says, “I hate to break it to you, but there's no door here. There's only—”

A tunnel. With walls lined by lit torches. Which appears after
Lemon sticks the key into an invisible lock, turns it, and a large chunk of rock slides out and to the left.

“A secret
passage
!” Gabby bursts. “I've always wanted to find one of these! Thanks, Lemon!”

She gives him a quick hug, then darts down the tunnel, taking one of the torches with her. Abe follows her. Lemon follows him. I turn around to ask Elinor if she's okay with this, but she ducks past me and hurries after the others before I can.

Once we're all inside, Lemon presses a button by the opening, and the rock chunk slides back into place.

“Impressive,” Abe says as the door's outline disappears. “Unless you knew it was there, you'd never know it was there.”

“That's the point,” Lemon says cheerfully. “This way!”

We start down the tunnel. Lemon's a confident leader. He walks tall and fast without looking around, like he's traveled this hall many times before. This makes me quicken my pace until I'm hurrying next to him.

“This is amazing,” I say. “How'd you even find it?”

He glances behind him, then leans toward me. “Finn.”

“Your little brother? What does he have to do with the Angel Makers?”

“Nothing. Except that he's too little to be left alone, so when my parents come here, they bring him with them. Most of the parents do that with their other kids. That's why Kamp Kilter looks like a ghost town so much of the time.”

“And Finn told you about this?”

He nods. “I didn't want to come back to Kilter. Not so soon, anyway. I wanted to stay home and spend time with my family. With Finn especially.” He slows slightly, looks at me. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Always,” I say.

His eyes darken, his lips turn down. When he speaks, his voice is so soft I have to strain to hear. “One day, many months ago, I was playing with a new lighter and a can of my mom's hairspray. Together they create the effect of a fire-breathing dragon. That's usually fun.”

“Sure.”

“Well, it wasn't fun that day. Because when I was done, I accidentally left the lighter on the bathroom counter. The lighter was shaped like a robot, so when Finn went into the bathroom after I left, he picked it right up, not knowing what it really was. And . . . he got hurt. He must've flipped the switch,
and the flame got him. Just barely—he dropped the robot as soon as it turned on—but enough that he got a tiny red mark on his thumb. My parents flipped, as they should've. And even though he was totally fine and didn't shed a single tear, it was the last straw.”

“That's why your parents sent you to Kilter?” I ask.

“Yes. They knew it was an accident, but they couldn't risk another one. I don't blame them.” Lemon shudders, stands up straighter. “So, anyway, when I got Annika's invite and my parents said it sounded like fun, I even tried to talk them out of coming. But they said they thought it'd be a great bonding opportunity for us. And if we stayed home, they would've gone to work the way they always do. But they were willing to take off for Kamp Kilter, so I agreed. Because I thought we'd have even more time to spend together. But then when we got here and were split up right away  . . .” He shakes his head. “That wasn't what I signed up for.”

“So you started following your little brother?”

“Every chance I got. He was easy to find the first few days, but then they all seemed to spend more and more time away from camp. That's why I bought the Turbo Talkies. I kept one
and gave him the other so we could talk no matter where he was. When he started talking about my family's long walks in the woods and his special playtime, I started trailing them. They never take the same route—probably to throw off people like me—but they always end up here.”

“Do they meet every day?”

“Sometimes more than once.”

As we round a corner and start down another hallway, I try to process this information. On one hand, I'm relieved he's finally opening up. This explanation is what I've been hoping for. But on the other hand, something doesn't make sense.

“Lemon . . . why didn't you say anything? I was getting pretty worried. Since you were gone all the time. If I'd known you were just trying to spend time with your little brother, I would've—”

“What?” he asks. “Encouraged me to go? Told me to have fun?”

“Well—”

“No,” Lemon says. “You would've said you understood me wanting to be with my brother, but that I still needed to jump when Annika said to. And do my assignments. And practice with my tutor. And keep our teachers happy.”