"Pigs are so lucky," said the Gasman, as images of bacon danced in my head. "No one cares if they're dirty or live in a pigsty."
"That's because they're pigs," I pointed out. Just then, Total leaped out of my arms, scratching me.
"Hey!" I said, and then saw a large black-and-white shepherdy-looking dog bounding up. Total braced his front legs and barked loudly, and the other dog barked back.
"Total!" I called, clapping my hands. "Stop it! It's his yard. Angel!"
Angel was already trotting over, and she grabbed Total's collar.
"Since when does he have a collar?" I asked.
"Okay, Total, calm down," Angel said, stroking his head. Total stopped barking, then shook his head in disgust and said, "Putz."
I blinked in surprise and opened my mouth-and then saw Gazzy loping up, hands in his pockets, whistling. I absolutely refused to give Gazzy the satisfaction of freaking out over his latest voice-throwing trick and didn't say a thing.
"Come on, guys," I said. "Let's go chow."
24
"Okay, let's see what we have here," I muttered. The six of us were in "my" room. The notes we'd gotten from the Institute in New York were spread out on my bed. When we'd found the files in the computer and printed them out, some of the information had been readable. Now those pages were gone, leaving us with lines of numerical code. What had happened to the readable pages? Dunno. Was it another test?
So basically, we were looking at reams of numbers. Every once in a while a real word leaped out at us. Some of the real words were us, our names. Somewhere in these pages was info about our parents.
"How about we each take two pages and comb through them," I suggested. "Figure out what we can. See if anything about the numbers looks familiar or has a pattern."
"Sounds like a plan," said Iggy. "Except for me."
"I'll read you out some numbers," said Fang.
Iggy nodded, and I passed out the sheets. Fang started reading softly to Iggy, who concentrated hard, nodding every so often.
I took my two sheets and sat at the desk. For the next hour, we tried every basic code-breaking technique we knew. We looked for patterns, hexagons-and came up with nada, nothing.
Another hour later, I dropped my head into my hands. "This is impossible," I said, ready to scream in frustration. "This is probably a computerized code. If it is, we'll never break it."
"But isn't everything a test?" the Gasman asked, his small face tired. It was almost ten. I had to get these guys into bed. "Didn't Jeb tell you that everything is a test, back at the School, when we were rescuing Angel? So that would mean we're supposed to be able to break this somehow."
"I thought of that," I said. "That's what's so irritating. I've tried everything that would occur to me. So I guess I'm flunking this test."
A tap on my door interrupted us. The door opened a bit, and Anne poked her head around it.
"Hey, guys," she said with a smile. "Sleepy yet? Krystal? Want to get ready for bed?"
"Yep," said Nudge. "I'm beat."
Gazzy looked at me, and I nodded at him.
"Yeah," he told Anne. "We were just about to crash."
"Good," she said easily. "Anyone need anything? Before you crash?"
"No, we're fine," said Angel, following Anne out. They walked down the hall, and I heard Anne say, "Ariel, how about letting Total out one last time?"
"Okay," said Angel.
I stood in my room, feeling a little bad, feeling as if someone else was taking care of my flock.
25
Welcome to another day at Camp Agent!
To start, a hearty breakfast that Iggy and I made. That's because on our first morning here, we had discovered that single-woman Anne Walker considered a protein bar and an orange-flavored sports drink to be an acceptable breakfast.
Which, if we were Dumpster diving or stealing from a 7-Eleven, would be great. But since we were in a seven-freaking-bedroom country chateau with a Sub-Zero fridge and Viking range at our disposal, it didn't cut it.
So it was massive infusions of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, etc., for everyone.
Next, quaint housekeeping issues. Anne made each of us responsible for keeping our bedchambers tidy and worthy of a photo shoot. And here's what really ticked me off: The flock actually did it.
Had I asked them a thousand times to keep their rooms straight at home, when we had a home? Yes. Had they done it? No. However, they were all over the bed-making and shoe-lining-up situation here, for a stranger. Little buggers.
Then, rousing exercise in the country-fresh air. Flying, sparring, playing, swimming, horseback riding.
Lunch. Anne got the fine art of making sandwiches down to a science.
Post-lunch rest, play, etc. Anne occasionally took us aside one by one and interviewed us, had us show her what we could do. She loved to watch us fly-made us feel like marvels, swooping around in the sky.
She would watch us for hours, with binoculars, and the look of wonder and delight on her face could be seen from two thousand feet away.
Dinner. Anne really tried. But this was a woman whose main source of nutritional comfort came in single-serve microwavable packages. After the first day, she'd gone shopping and brought home fifteen bags of groceries and a cookbook. With mixed results.
But you know what? The food was hot and someone was fixing it for us, which made it fabulous in my book.
After that first day, I tried to start getting the flock ready for bed before Anne could do it. It bothered me, her doing it. Taking over my role. I was still the leader. Soon Anne and her comfy house would be just a memory. Just like Jeb. Just like Dr. Martinez and Ella. Just like everything in our temporary lives.
One night after we'd been there almost two weeks, I was lying in bed listening to my favorite, favorite singer, Liam Rooney. Liam, Liam, you are my inspiration. The younger kids were already asleep. There was an almost silent tap on my door.
"Yeah?"
Fang came in.
"What's up?"
"Look." He put some of the coded sheets from the Institute on my lap, then hauled a big spiral-bound book onto the bed. He opened it up across my knees.
"I was looking at this stuff, going nuts, you know? And suddenly it looked like map coordinates."
I drew in a breath. As soon as he said that, I could see the possibility.
"This is a book of detailed street maps of Washington DC," he said. "I got it out of Anne's car. Look-each page is numbered, each map is numbered, each grid of each map is numbered. And look at this clump of stuff here, by Gazzy's name. Twenty-seven, eight, G nine.
"So I go to page twenty-seven, and it's a section of town, see?"
"Yeah," I breathed.
"This section has twelve smaller maps. I go to map eight." He turned pages. "Which is a blowup of one section. Then I go to column G and trace it down to row nine." His finger slowly moved down the map. "And it's a pretty specific little chunk of streets."
I looked at him. "Oh, my God," I said. "Did you try any others?"
He nodded. "This one by Nudge's name. Same thing-I actually end up with a real place."
"You are so brilliant," I said, and he shrugged, looking almost embarrassed, except that Fang never gets embarrassed. "But I thought Nudge was pretty sure she'd found her parents in Arizona," I added.
He shrugged again. "I don't know. The woman we saw was black, but it wasn't like Nudge was a photocopy of her. You think this is worth checking out?"
"Absolutely," I said, swinging my legs out of bed. "Everyone else asleep?"
"Yeah. Including the Annemeister."
"Okay. Gimme a minute to get some jeans on."
26
"Hmm," I said.
Fang propped the map book on a fire hydrant and braced it with one knee. He took out the page of code, and I held the penlight so he could see. He double-checked the coordinates, showing them to me. I looked at the street signs at each end of the block.