Meg Cabot - Code Name Cassandra

Rob came cruising up to me and then put out a booted foot to balance himself when he came to a stop. He looked, as always, impressively large, like a lumberjack or something, only more stylishly dressed.

And when he took off his helmet and squinted at me in the sunlight with those eyes—so pale blue, they were practically the same color gray as his bike's exhaust—and I drank in his sexily messed-up hair and his darkly tanned forearms, all I could think was that, bad as it had been, that whole thing with the lightning and Colonel Jenkins and all, it had actually been worth it, because it had brought me the hottest Hottie of them all, Rob.

Well, sort of, anyway.

"Hey, sailor," I said. "Give a girl a ride?"

Rob just gave me his trademark don't-mess-with-me frown, then popped open the box on the back of his bike where he keeps the spare helmet.

"Get on," was all he said, as he held the helmet out to me.

Like I needed an invitation. I snatched up the helmet, jammed it into place (trying not to think about my sweaty hair), then wrapped my arms around his waist and said, "Put the pedal to the metal, dude."

He gave me one last, half-disgusted, half-amused look, then put his own helmet back on.

And we were off.

Hey, it wasn't a big, wet one or anything, but "Get on" isn't bad. I mean, Rob may not be completely in love with me yet or anything, but he'd shown up, right? That had to count for something. I mean, I'd called him that morning, and said I needed him to drive for four hours, cross-country, to pick me up. And he'd shown up. He'd have had to find someone to cover for him at work, and explain to his uncle why he couldn't be there. He'd have had to buy gas, both for the trip to Chicago and then back again. He'd be spending a total of ten hours or so on the road. Tomorrow, he'd probably be exhausted.

But he'd shown up.

And I didn't think he was doing it because it was such a worthy cause, either. I mean, it was , and all, but he wasn't doing it for Keely.

At least … God, I hope not.

By two-thirty, we were cruising along Lake Shore Drive. The city looked bright and clean, the windows of the skyscrapers sparkling in the sunlight. The beaches were crowded. The songs playing from the car radios of the traffic we passed made it seem like we were a couple in a music video, or on a TV commercial or something. For Levi's, maybe. I mean, here we were, two total Hotties—well, okay, one total Hottie. I'm probably only Do-able—tooling around on the back of a completely cherried-out Indian on a sunny summer day. How much cooler could you get?

I guess if we'd noticed from the beginning we were being followed, that might have been cooler. But we didn't.

I didn't because I was busy experiencing one of those epiphanies they always talk about in English class.

Only my epiphany, instead of being some kind of spiritual enlightenment or whatever, was just this gush of total happiness because I had my arms around this totally buff guy I'd had a crush on since what seemed like forever, and he smelled really good, like Coast deodorant soap and whatever laundry detergent his mother uses on his T-shirts, and he had to think that I was at least somewhat cute, or he wouldn't have come all that way to pick me up. I was thinking, if only this was how I could spend the rest of my life: riding around the country on the back of Rob's bike, listening to music out of other people's car radios, and maybe stopping every once in a while for some nachos or whatever.

I don't know what was occupying Rob's thoughts so much that he didn't see the white van on our tail. Maybe he was having an epiphany of his own. Hey, it could happen.

But anyway, what happened was, eventually we had to pull off Lake Shore Drive in order to get where Keely was, and little by little, the traffic thinned out, and we still didn't notice the van purring along behind us. I don't know for sure, of course, because we weren't paying attention, but I like to think it stayed at least a couple car lengths away. Otherwise, well, there's no other explanation for it. We're just idiots. Or at least I am.

Anyway, finally we pulled onto this tree-lined street that was one hundred percent residential. I knew exactly which one Keely was in, of course, but I made Rob park about three houses away, just to be on the safe side. I mean, that much I knew. That much I was paying attention to.

We stood in front of the place where Keely was staying. It was just a house. A city house, so it was kind of narrow. On one side of it ran a skinny alley. The other side was attached to the house next door. Keely's house hadn't been painted as recently as the one next to it. What paint was left on it was kind of peeling off in a sad way. I would call the neighborhood sketchy, at best. The small yards had an untended look to them. Grass grows fast in a humid climate like the one in northern Illinois, and needs constant attention. No one on this street seemed to care, particularly, how high their grass grew, or what kind of garbage lay in their yards for that grass to swallow.

Maybe that was the purpose of the high grass. To hide the garbage.

Rob, standing next to me as I gazed up at the house, said, "Nice-looking crack den."

I winced. "It's not that bad," I said.

"Yeah, it is," he said.

"Well." I squared my shoulders. I wasn't sweaty anymore, after having so much wind blown on me, but I soon would be, if I stood on that hot sidewalk much longer. "Here goes nothing."

I opened the gate in the low chain-link fence that surrounded the house, and strode up the cement steps to the front door. I didn't realize Rob had followed me until I'd reached out to ring the bell.

"So what exactly," he said, as we listened to the hollow ringing deep inside the house, "is the plan here?"

I said, "There's no plan."

"Great." Rob's expression didn't change. "My favorite kind."

"Who is it?" demanded a woman's voice from behind the closed door. She didn't sound very happy about having been disturbed.

"Hello, ma'am?" I called. "Hi, my name is Ginger Silverman, and this is my friend, Nate. We're seniors at Chicago Central High School, and we're doing a research project on parental attitudes toward children's television programming. We were wondering if we could ask you a few questions about the kinds of television programs your children like to watch. It will only take a minute, and will be of invaluable help to us."

Rob looked at me like I was insane. "Ginger Silverman?"

I shrugged. "I like that name."

He shook his head. " Nate ?"

"I like that name, too."

Inside the house, locks were being undone. When the door was thrown back, I saw, through the screen door, a tall, skinny woman in cutoffs and a halter top. You could tell she'd once taken care to color her hair, but that that had sort of fallen by the wayside. Now the ends of her hair were blonde, but the two inches of it at the top were dark brown. On her forehead, not quite hidden by her two-tone hair, was a dark, crescent-moon-shaped scab, about an inch and a half long. Out of one corner of her mouth, which was as flat and skinny as the rest of her, dangled a cigarette.

She looked at Rob and me as if we had dropped down from another planet and asked her to join the Galaxian Federation, or something.

" What ?" she said.

I repeated my spiel about Chicago Central High School—who even knew if there was such a place?—and our thesis on children's television programming. As I spoke, a small child appeared from the shadows behind Mrs. Herzberg—if, indeed, this was Mrs. Herzberg, though I suspected it was—and, wrapping her arms around the woman's leg, blinked up at us with big brown eyes.

I recognized her instantly. Keely Herzberg.