Meg Cabot - Code Name Cassandra

It seemed to surprise Rob, too, since he froze, and stood there for a second or two. Now that I was upside down, I began to realize that my previous assumption—you know, that I was soaked—had actually been erroneous. I was not soaked. There had been no rainwater, for instance, on my stomach.

But now that I was upside down, there certainly was.

And might I add that this was not a pleasant sensation?

"You," Rob said to Special Agent Johnson, "are not going to shoot me. What if you hit her?"

"It would be unfortunate," Special Agent Johnson said, "but since she has been a thorn in my side since the day we met, it wouldn't upset me too much."

"Allan!" I was shocked. "What would Mrs. Johnson say if she could hear you now?"

"Put her down, son."

Rob flipped me over, and put me back on my feet. While this was happening, Special Agent Johnson came up and took my arm. He still had his gun out, to my surprise. But he was pointing it into the air.

"Now get on your motorcycle, Mr. Wilkins," he said to Rob, "and go home."

"Hey." Now that some of the blood was receding from my head, I could think straight. "How did you know his last name? I never told you that."

Special Agent Johnson looked bored. "License plate."

"Oh," I said.

I glanced back at Rob, standing in the rain, with his T-shirt all sticking to him. You could see his abs through the drenched material. It occurred to me that this, too, was like a scene from a music video. You know, the totally hot guy standing in the rain after his girlfriend dumps him?

Except that I so totally was not dumping him. I was just trying to find a kid. That was all.

Only nobody was letting me.

Then something else occurred to me: If Rob's T-shirt was that wet, then what about mine?

I looked down, and promptly folded my arms across my chest.

It was better this way, I thought. I mean, not about our wet T-shirts, but the fact that they were making him go away. Because I knew it would be a lot easier to ditch the Wonder Twins than it would Rob. FBI agents I didn't mind head-butting. But when it came down to it, I think hurting Rob would have been hard.

"I'll call you," I said to Rob over my shoulder, as Special Agent Johnson started to pull me back toward the center of the camp.

"Do me a favor, Mastriani," Rob said.

"Sure," I said. It was hard to walk backward through the rain, but Special Agent Johnson was pulling so hard on me, I didn't have much choice. "What?"

"Don't."

And then Rob turned and started walking away. It didn't take long for the rain and mist to swallow him up. A minute later, I heard the engine of his Indian rev up.

And then he was gone.

I looked up at Special Agent Johnson, who, unlike Rob, did not look sexy drenched in rainwater.

"I hope you're happy now," I said to him. "That guy might have been my boyfriend someday, if you hadn't come along and ruined it."

Special Agent Johnson was busy dialing some numbers on his cell phone. He said, "Do your parents know about you and Mr. Wilkins, Jess?"

"Of course they do," I said very indignantly. "Though I have my own life, you know. My parents do not dictate whom I see or do not see socially."

This was such an outrageous string of lies, I'm surprised my tongue didn't shrivel up and fall off.

Special Agent Johnson didn't look like he believed any of them, either.

"Do your parents know," he went on, as if our conversation hadn't been interrupted, "that Mr. Wilkins has an arrest record? And is currently on probation?"

"Yes," I said, as sassily as I could. Then, because I couldn't resist, I went, "Although they aren't too clear on just what he's on probation for. . . ."

Special Agent Johnson just looked down at me, frowning a little. He went, "That information is, of course, confidential. If Mr. Wilkins has not chosen to share it with … your parents, I don't see that I can."

Jeez! Shot down again! How was I ever going to find out what Rob had done to land him in the cinderblock jungle? Rob wouldn't tell me, and, not surprisingly, I couldn't get a straight answer out of the Feds, either. It couldn't have been that bad, or he'd have served time and not just gotten probation. But what was it?

It didn't look like I'd ever find out now. No, I'd managed to ruin that little relationship, hadn't I?

But what was I supposed to do? I mean, really?

Whoever was on the other end of Special Agent Johnson's cell phone must have picked up, since he said into it, "Cassie secured. Repeat, Cassie secured."

Then he hung up.

"Who," I demanded, "is Cassie?"

"I beg your pardon," Special Agent Johnson said, putting his phone away. "I ought to have said Cassandra."

"And who's Cassandra?"

"No one you need to worry about."

I glared at him. Now that I'd been out in the rain so long, I didn't even care how wet I was. I mean, it wasn't like I couldn't get any wetter.

Or more miserable.

"Wait a minute," I said. "I remember now. Seventh grade. We did mythology. Cassandra was like a psychic, or something."

"She had a talent," Special Agent Johnson admitted, "for prophecy."

"Yeah," I said. "Only she was under this curse, and—" I shook my head in disbelief. " That's my code name? Cassandra ?"

"You'd have preferred something else?"

"Yeah," I said. "How about no code name?"

I was having, I decided, a pretty bad day. First a psycho wife-beater tries to kill me, then my boyfriend walks out on me. Now I find out I have a code name with the FBI. What next?

Special Agent Smith appeared from the shadows, sheltered under a big black umbrella.

"Look at you two," she said when she saw us. "You're soaked." She moved until the umbrella was covering all three of us. Well, more or less.

"I managed to secure some rooms," she said, "at a Holiday Inn a few miles away. I don't think Mr. Larsson will think to look for Jess there."

"Do I get my own room?" I asked hopefully.

"Of course not." Special Agent Smith smiled at me. "We're roomies."

Great. "I'm a remote hog," I informed her.

"I'll live," she said.

This was horrible. This was terrible. I couldn't go stay in a cushy Holiday Inn while Shane was out in the wilderness somewhere … or worse, dead. I had to find him.

Only how was I going to do that? How was I going to find him, and not let Allan and Jill know what I was up to?

"I have to," I said, my throat dry, "get my stuff."

"Of course." Special Agent Johnson looked at his watch. It was one of those ones that light up. "We'll escort you back to your cabin to gather your belongings."

Jeez!

Still, I think Special Agents Johnson and Smith began to regret their assignment to Project Cassandra more than ever when we stepped into Birch Tree Cottage and observed the level of chaos there. The kids were off the wall. When we walked in, we narrowly escaped being hit by a flying chunk of bow rosin. Arthur was playing his tuba, in spite of the no-practicing-outside-of-the-music-building rule; Lionel was screaming for silence at the top of his lungs; Doo Sun and Tony were sword-fighting with a pair of violin bows …

And in the middle of it all, a lady police officer was standing with her hands over her ears, pleading ineffectively with her charges: "Please! Please listen to me, we're going to find your friend—"

I strode into the kitchen, opened the fuse box, and threw the switches.

Plunged into semi-darkness, the boys froze. All noise ceased.

Then I stepped out from the kitchen—

—and instantly became part of a Jessica sandwich as all of the boys surrounded me, clinging to various parts of my body and crying my name.

"All right," I yelled, after a while. "Simmer down. Simmer down!"

I disentangled myself from their embrace, then sank down onto a bed—Shane's empty bed, I saw, when lightning again lit the now darkened room. The bed was haphazardly made, with musical note sheets. Shane would have preferred, I was fairly certain, bedding emblazoned with football paraphernalia. Nevertheless, the sheets gave off a Shane-like odor that, for once, I found comforting.