A Whole Nother Story (16 page)

ADVICE ON THE DANGERS OF TECHNOLOGY

W
hy is it that we can put a man on the moon yet we can’t seem to devise a more efficient, cleaner-burning engine than the one that put a man on the moon? The internal combustion engine, one of the greatest technological advancements in history, has an unfortunate downside, namely air pollution so thick that, very soon, sixty-four-packs of crayons will include the color Sky Brown.

With each technological breakthrough, it seems, we are the beneficiaries of untold advantages as well as the victims of considerable drawbacks. And no breakthrough provides us with more of both than a handy little device known as the telephone.

Before the arrival of the telephone, we had only the ability to speak to people who were actually there. For centuries, people had been searching for a means of communicating with people who were somewhere else. Early on, these people were called witches and were promptly set on fire. Later, they would be known as scientists.

The most noteworthy of these scientists was Alexander Graham Bell, who is credited with inventing the telephone in 1876. In the early morning hours of March 10, he spoke those famous first words ever transmitted by telephone.

“Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.”

To which Watson replied, “I’ll have to call you back, I’m on the other line.”

That day, the telephone became a reality. The jubilant Mr. Bell immediately rushed off to the patent office to patent what would prove to be the most lucrative invention since some guy invented the patent.

Soon, Mr. Bell’s phone was ringing off the hook with orders for this fabulous new invention, which provides us with the ability to pass on information in the blink of an eye. And, as Mr. Cheeseman would soon find out, this speedy delivery of information can also be a terrible, terrible drawback.

CHAPTER 22

S
unday came and managed to completely disregard its own name, choosing instead to be anything but a day of sun. In fact, it was very cloudy and unseasonably cool and looked as though it might very well rain. Still, Jough went off to his first baseball practice. Mr. Cheeseman began an attempt to hack into the computer’s mainframe and write a new code for the LVR.

Gerard went to the secret spy fort in hopes that there might be intruders at whom he could throw a few dirt clods and Maggie took her bow and arrows and met Aurora out at the archery range for her very first lesson.

“Now this time try and aim at the target as you draw,” said Maggie to her new student as Aurora locked her left arm, concentrated on the target, and drew the bow back.

“Good,” said Maggie. “Now release.”

Aurora released the string and, with a whisper, the arrow shot through the air.

“Yes,” said Maggie. “You did it. Bull’s-eye.”

“I really did do it, didn’t I?” said Aurora, her face beaming as she looked across the range at that arrow buried smack dab in the middle of those goat horns on Dean Greenfield’s head. She and Maggie had affixed the painting to the target and Aurora’s shot had managed to slice directly through Dean’s newly painted unibrow.

“Wow,” she said. “That felt really good.”

“I told you it would,” said Maggie.

“I’m so glad we met,” said Aurora as she and Maggie walked toward the target to recover the arrows. “I think we’re going to be very good friends.”

“Yes,” agreed Maggie. “I just hope we don’t have to move away any time soon.”

“Why would you move away? Don’t you like this town?”

“Oh no,” said Maggie. “I like it a lot. The people here are all very nice. Though I can’t say much for their dogs. Mrs. Frampton’s Chihuahua, for instance.”

“Who’s Mrs. Frampton?” asked Aurora.

“I thought you knew everyone in the neighborhood.”

“I do,” Aurora insisted.

“Well, apparently not, because Mrs. Frampton lives just down the street. She’s head of the neighborhood welcome committee.”

“I don’t think so,” said Aurora with a slight scoff that comes from knowing something someone else does not. “I should know because my mother is head of the neighborhood welcome committee. The only reason she hasn’t been by to see you is because she’s in Oregon visiting her sister.”

“So if there’s no one in the neighborhood named Mrs. Frampton,” began Maggie slowly, “then who was that woman who came to our house yesterday?’

“Who knows?”

Then suddenly something hit Maggie that nearly knocked the breath out of her.

“Oh my goodness,” she gasped. “Fraud, fraud, it’s not the dog.”

“What? Not the dog? What are you talking about?”

“The ghost. She was trying to tell me something.”

“Ghost? What ghost?”

“The ghost at the bed-and-breakfast. She said it over and over again. ‘Fraud, fraud, it’s not the dog.’ Pinky wasn’t growling at the Chihuahua, she was growling at the woman. The woman who calls herself Mrs. Frampton.”

Maggie turned to Aurora and took the much taller girl by the shoulders and looked her directly in the eye.

“I don’t have time to explain but I need you to do something very important. I need you to go to the baseball practice field and get my brother. Tell him he needs to come home right away.”

For a brief moment, Maggie thought of asking Aurora to bring her police captain father as well but quickly thought better of it. In a situation like this, no one could be trusted. Not even the police.

Maggie watched Aurora turn and run toward the baseball field as fast as her very long legs could carry her. She then turned and ran with her bow in hand toward the little pink rental house.

But, as it turns out, she would be too late.

Just thirty minutes earlier, Mr. Cheeseman had been hard at work, attempting to hack into the computer’s mainframe, when the doorbell rang. He dropped what he was doing and answered the door to find the friendly faced Mrs. Frampton and her shivering Chihuahua on the front stoop. She was holding the dog in one arm and, in the other arm, a very decorative fruit basket.

“Sorry to bother you,” she said. “But I just wanted to drop off this lovely welcome-to-the-neighborhood basket.”

“Grrrrrr.”

“Sorry,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “I’ll put her out back. Please come in and sit down.”

Mr. Cheeseman scooped Pinky up abruptly and carried her off to the backyard. When he returned, he found the woman who called herself Mrs. Frampton standing in the living room, no longer holding her shivering Chihuahua, which had invited itself up onto the couch. The woman was now holding only the fruit basket. She was still smiling except that now the smile looked somewhat forced.

“Okay,” said Mr. Cheeseman, failing to notice the difference in her countenance. “Would you like some iced tea or lemonade?”

“No thank you,” replied Mrs. Frampton rather stiffly.“There is something else I would like instead.”

“Oh. Okay. And what would that be?” asked Mr. Cheese-man as Pinky continued her barking and growling in the backyard.

The woman calling herself Mrs. Frampton reached into the fruit basket, past the passion fruit and beneath the pomegranate and pulled out . . . a banana. She pointed it in Mr. Cheeseman’s direction.

“I would like you to freeze and stay right where you are,” she said, her smile altogether gone by now.

Mr. Cheeseman looked confused.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t understand. Is this some kind of joke?”

“This is not a joke, I’m afraid. And this is not a banana.”

As if to prove her point, the woman cocked the bananashaped gun with a menacing click, which caused Mr. Cheeseman to immediately lift his hands into the air.

“Now, now, Mrs. Frampton. I don’t know what this is all about but I think you should put the banana down and leave peacefully before you get yourself into any more trouble than you already are.”

“I will leave only when I have the LVR.”

Mr. Cheeseman suddenly realized he had made a terrible mistake.

“So it wasn’t your dog Pinky was barking at,” he said.“It was you all along.”

“Perhaps it was,” said the woman, a smile returning to her face. She then reached up, grabbed her puffy white hair and yanked it from her head. She tossed the wig onto the couch next to her shivering Chihuahua, then shook out her shoulder-length blond hair. She removed her glasses and straightened her posture. She took hold of her long blue “old lady dress” with one hand and, with one quick motion, tore it away, revealing beneath it a short red “young lady dress.”

She was, as it turns out, not an old woman at all but a rather attractive young woman with a rather unattractive— one might even say evil— smile.

Just then, the front door burst open and in walked Pavel and Leon, Pavel with his gun drawn.

“Aha! You have done well, Agent Kisa. Very well,” said Pavel, circling the room slowly. “Pavel and Leon now will take over. When we are finished, I will tell headquarters of your excellent service to country.”

“Thank you,” said the woman in a low husky voice as she uncocked the bright yellow gun and put it back into the fruit basket. “It is an honor to meet the great Agent Dushenko.”

“Please, call me Pavel,” said the international superspy, trying hard to suck in his gut. “And this is Agent Leon.”

Leon performed his highly elegant curtsy.

“And this is Agent Noodles,” said Agent Kisa, pointing toward the Chihuahua, who had crawled beneath the white wig to try and get warm.

“They will write songs about you and your Agent Noodles,” said Pavel.

“This is absurd,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “You can take the LVR, but you’ll never get it to work. Not without the code.”

“Then you will give us code, too,” said Pavel. “Or you will be shot.”

“Well, I don’t have the code, so I guess you’ll have to shoot me.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” said Pavel, jabbing the gun in Mr. Cheeseman’s direction as if it were a pointy stick.

Leon took no notice of this. He was busy wishing for something altogether different. Something nestled in the fruit basket on the table. He hadn’t seen a banana of such a brilliant yellow since the outdoor markets of Khartoum. Hungrily, he reached for the banana and immediately attempted to peel it. By the time Pavel looked over at Leon, it was too late. Before he could yell or even open his mouth in preparation for yelling, the banana went off with a loud
crack
. The bullet sliced through the air and through Pavel’s left thigh, causing him to drop his gun and fall to the ground.

“Ahhhhh!” he screamed, like someone who has just been shot with a gun shaped like a banana.

Leon looked at the smoking banana in his hand and realized what he had done. He dropped the gun and ran to Pavel’s side.

“You idiot,” said Agent Kisa, pushing Leon aside. “Look what you’ve done!”

As he watched his partner writhing on the ground, Leon suddenly forgot all about the fact that Pavel had been so willing to sacrifice his precious fish.

While Kisa and Leon tended to their fallen friend, Mr. Cheeseman eyed Pavel’s gun lying on the floor just a few feet away.

“I can’t believe I am shot by my own minkey,” moaned Pavel as Agent Kisa began tearing her old lady dress into strips to use as a bandage.

Mr. Cheeseman took a step toward the gun, but his movement caught Leon’s eye and the clever chimp reached out and tripped Mr. Cheeseman, who fell face-first to the floor. As Leon moved toward the gun, Mr. Cheeseman grabbed the only thing within his reach: the wig-covered Chihuahua named Noodles. He hurled the hairy blob at Leon, striking him in the chest and knocking him backward as Noodles tumbled across the room, still wrapped in the frost-white wig.

Mr. Cheeseman dove across the coffee table, landing next to Pavel’s gun. He quickly grabbed the weapon and scrambled to his feet as Leon raised his hands above his head and Noodles stumbled out of the wig, quite dizzy and still shivering.

“All right,” said Ethan. “Nobody move.”

Nobody did move except for Pavel, who was still quivering with pain, and Noodles, who was still shivering involuntarily. Ethan backed slowly toward the phone and picked it up.

“What are you doing?” Kisa purred.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m calling the police. And an ambulance for your friend.”

But when Ethan put his ear to the phone, he was surprised to find that there was no dial tone. He hit the button again, but the phone was still dead.

“I don’t think you’ll be calling anyone,” came a voice from behind him. Ethan spun around as four strange men in black suits emerged from his kitchen. The man who spoke had remarkably hollow cheeks and a bald head that glistened with cold, clammy sweat. Ethan recognized another of the men, the one with a ring on each finger of his right hand, as the same man he and Olivia had found sitting in their living room two years ago, petting their dog and holding a suitcase containing two million dollars. This time, the man’s massive hands held a coil of rope.

“Drop the gun, Mr. Cheeseman,” said Mr. 5 as he and his three friends walked slowly into the living room.

“No,” said Mr. Cheeseman, much to the surprise of the sweaty-headed Mr. 5.

“No? What do you mean, no?”

“I mean if you want the LVR, you’re going to have to shoot me,” said Ethan, practically daring them to do it.

As Mr. 5 looked quizzically at Ethan and wiped his sweaty forehead with his jacket sleeve, Gerard was just leaving the secret spy fort because, for the second day in a row, there were absolutely no intruders at whom to throw dirt clods and the boys decided to call it a day.

He walked across the field and noticed, parked in the driveway, a large white moving van, backed up to the garage. The vehicle didn’t look too out of place, considering the number of times just such a van had pulled up to their various houses to deliver new furnishings. But what did look out of place was the long black car parked at the curb. Just the sight of that car almost caused Gerard to swallow the giant wad of flavorless bubble gum he’d been chewing for the past six weeks.

He broke into a run, down the street toward the house. He pulled two dirt clods from the pocket of his shorts and burst in through the front door, ready to fire upon any intruders who might be inside. Before he had a chance, however, he was grabbed by the enormous Mr. 29, who handled him so roughly that the dirt clods fell from his hands and the wad of gum popped from his mouth and hit the living room floor.

“Let me go,” shouted Gerard. “Dad, what’s going on?”

“It’s okay, Gerard. Everything will be okay.”

“That depends entirely on you, Mr. Cheeseman,” said Mr. 5 as Pinky continued her barking from the backyard.“Maybe now you’d like to drop that gun.”

Ethan relented and dropped his arm to his side and let the gun fall to the floor.

“Tie them up,” said Mr. 5 to Mr. 29. “Then let’s get that machine into the truck and off to the factory. And you,” he said to Mr. 88, “do something about that barking dog.”

“Got it,” said Mr. 88 as he slid a cold black gun from beneath his jacket and walked toward the back door.

“No!” shouted Gerard. “Run, Pinky! Run and hide!”

Unfortunately, however, Pinky did not understand English and, as a result, kept barking every bit as loudly as before. Pinky did, however, understand fox terrier and it just so happened that Leon could speak it perfectly. He cupped his hairy hands around his big, wide monkey mouth and shouted in perfect fox terrier, “Run, Pinky. Run and hide. You’re in great danger.”

“Shut that monkey up this instant,” snarled Mr. 5 as Mr. 88 walked out to the backyard, which was suddenly quiet. There was absolutely no sign of Pinky anywhere. Mr. 88 shrugged and walked back into the house. He had failed to see Pinky and her very pink skin standing perfectly still in front of the pink lilacs that grew up against the fence.

“Must have run away,” said Mr. 88 as Mr. 207 had almost finished tying Ethan’s and Gerard’s hands behind their backs.

“Fine,” said Mr. 5. “Now let’s get that machine into the van.”

As they struggled to load the oblong, mirror-covered LVR into the large white van, the sun was finally starting to come out over the baseball diamond where Chief Codgill and his Police Pals were taking batting practice with Jough on the pitcher’s mound.