Meg Cabot - Code Name Cassandra

"All right," I said, interrupting the cries of "Jess, where have you been?" and "Didja hear about Shane?"

"Yes, I heard about Shane," I said. "Now I want to hear your version of what happened."

The boys looked at one another blankly, then shrugged, more or less in unity.

"He was with us on the way to the lake," Sam volunteered.

Lionel's accent worsened, I realized, when he was stressed. It took me a minute to figure out his next words: "But I think he did not go in the water."

"Really, Lionel?" I peered down at the little boy. "Why do you think that?"

"If Shane had gone into the water," Lionel said thoughtfully, "he would have tried to push my head under. But he did not."

"So he didn't actually make it into the lake?" I asked.

The boys shrugged again. Only Lionel nodded with anything like assurance.

"I think," Lionel said, "that Shane ran away. He was very angry with you, Jess, for not giving me the strike."

As usual, he pronounced my name Jace. And, as usual, Lionel was right. At least I thought so. I think Shane had been angry with me … angry enough that maybe—just maybe—he wanted to teach me a lesson.

Shane, I thought to myself. Where are you? And what are you up to?

Suddenly, the lights came back on. Special Agent Smith came out of the kitchen, then nodded toward my room. "Are those your belongings in there?"

I nodded.

"I'll pack them for you," she said, and disappeared into my room, while her partner leaned against the front doorjamb and looked at his watch again.

"Who's that guy?" Tony wanted to know.

"Is that your boyfriend? " Doo Sun asked.

"Is that Rob? " Arthur started to ask, but I slapped a hand over his mouth … probably as much to my own surprise as his.

"Shhh," I said. "That's not Rob. That's just a, um, friend of mine."

"Oh," Arthur said, when I'd removed my hand. "Have you been eating McDonald's?"

I picked up Shane's pillow and lowered my face into it. Oh, Lord, I prayed. Give me the strength not to kill any more little boys today. One is really enough, I think.

Special Agent Smith came out of my room, holding a duffel bag.

"I think I've got everything," she said. "Are these Gogurts yours, or should I leave them for the children?"

Arthur, his eyes very bright, swiveled his head toward me.

"Hey," he said. "What is she doing? Is that your stuff?"

"Are you leaving?" Lionel's chin began to tremble. "Are you going, Jace?"

Exasperated—this was not how I'd wanted to break the news to the boys that I was leaving—I said to Special Agent Smith, "The Gogurts and the cookies and the chips and stuff aren't mine. Don't pack them."

Special Agent Smith looked confused. "There are no cookies, Jess. Just these Gogurt things."

"No cookies?" I stared at her. "There should be. There should be cookies and chips and Fiddle Faddle."

"Fiddle what ?" Special Agent Smith looked more confused than ever.

"Fiddle Faddle," the boys shouted at her.

"No." Special Agent Smith blinked. "None of that. Just these Gogurts."

Still clutching Shane's pillow, I stood up and looked down at the boys.

"Did you guys eat all that candy and stuff I confiscated from you the other day?"

They looked at one another. I could have sworn they had no idea what I was talking about.

"No," they said, shaking their heads.

"I tried," Arthur confessed. "But I couldn't reach it. You put it up too high."

Too high for Arthur.

But not, I realized, for the largest resident of Birch Tree Cottage … besides me, of course.

I became aware of several things all at once. One, that Ruth and Scott—followed by Dave—were stepping up onto the front porch … come to say goodbye, I guessed.

Two, the rain outside had suddenly stopped. There was only the most distant rumbling from the sky now, as the storm moved out toward Lake Michigan.

And three, the smell from Shane's pillow, which I still clutched, had become overwhelming.

And that was because all at once, I knew where he was.

And it wasn't at the bottom of Lake Wawasee.

C H A P T E R

15

Look, what do you want me to say? I don't understand this psychic stuff any more than you do. Back when I'd been a special guest at Crane Military Base, they'd run a bunch of tests on me, and basically what they'd found out was that when I slip into REM-stage sleep, something happens to me. It's like the webmaster of my brain suddenly downloads some information that wasn't there before. That's how, when I wake up, I know stuff.

Only this time, it had happened while I was awake. Really. Right while I was standing there clutching Shane's stinky pillow.

And I hadn't felt a thing. In the comic books my brother Douglas is always reading, whenever one of the characters gets a psychic vision—and they do, frequently—he scrunches up his face and goes, " Uhnnnn …"

Seriously. Uhnnn . Like it hurts.

But I am telling you, downloading a psychic vision—or however they come—doesn't hurt. It's like one second the information is not there, and a second later, it is.

Like an e-mail.

Which was why, when I looked up from that pillow, it was really hard to contain myself. I mean, I didn't want to shout out what I knew for Special Agents Johnson and Smith to hear. I wasn't exactly anxious to let them in on this new development, considering all the time and effort I'd spent, assuring them I'd lost all psychic power entirely.

Still, when I finally did get a chance to impart what seemed, to me, like some pretty miraculous stuff, no one was very impressed.

"A cave ?" Ruth's voice rose to a panic-stricken pitch. "You want me to go into a cave to look for that miserable kid? No, thanks."

I shushed her. I mean, it wasn't like the Feds weren't in the next room, or anything.

"Not you," I said. "I'll do the actual, um, cave entering." I didn't want to offend her by telling her the truth, which was that Ruth was the last person I'd ever pick to go spelunking with.

"But a cave ?" Ruth still looked skeptical. "Why would he run off and hide in a cave?"

"Two words," I said. "Paul Huck."

"Who," Ruth whispered, "or should I say, what is a Paul Huck?"

"He's a guy who ran away to a cave," I explained quietly, "when he felt he was being persecuted."

We had to talk in whispers, because we were sequestered in my tiny cubicle of a bedroom, while outside, Special Agents Johnson and Smith sat guarding the perimeter. I was supposed to be saying good-bye to the boys and my friends. The Feds had very generously allotted me ten minutes to do this. I suppose their line of thinking was, Well, she can't get up to much trouble in that tiny room, now can she?

What they did not know, however, was that (a) the window in my tiny room actually opened wide enough for just about any size body to slip through, (b) two bodies had already slipped through it, in order to perform a small favor for me, and (c) instead of saying good-bye, like I was supposed to be doing, to Ruth and Scott and Dave, I was waiting for an opportunity to sneak out and find Shane, whom I knew now was not only not dead, but still on Camp Wawasee property.

"Remember," I whispered to Ruth, "at the first Pit, when they read off the rules and regulations? One of them was that Wolf Cave was off-limits. What kid, hearing about Paul Huck and feeling persecuted himself, isn't going to make a beeline for that cave? Plus he took all the junk food, and my flashlight is missing."

Ruth went, in this very meaningful tone, "Do you have any other reason to suspect he might be there, Jess?"

The surprising answer was, "Yes."

Ruth raised her eyebrows. "Really? What about all that stuff about how you need to enter REM-stage sleep in order to achieve … you know?"