What should Louise say if Tristan asked how they knew that the bomber was Mr. Kessler? Should she admit she contacted the FBI? Did he think that she knew where Mr. Kessler went? Why was he still following them? What did he want?
They rode in strained silence to their station and got off.
As they walked down the steps to the street level, Louise realized there was nothing keeping Tristan from following them the whole way home. That they couldn’t go into their house and keep him out. It scared her, and that made her angry. If he wanted to pretend he was nine years old, she’d act like he was nine years old.
She spun to face him. “Listen, you stupid booger head! You’re making me mad! Are you some kind of pervert?”
“Booger head?” He took a step back, surprised by the attack. “What? I’m not a pervert!”
“Liar, liar, pants on fire!” She gave him a hard push. “You know what they call nasty old men who follow little girls around? Perverts! Just because you’re a little boy doesn’t mean it’s any different when you do it, too! You’re a sick little booger head!”
Jillian gazed at them both in wide-eyed amazement.
“I’m not a pedophile!” Tristan cried.
“Neener, neener, boo, boo, stick your head in doo-doo!” Louise gave him a hard push. “Just go away. Cootie breath! Didn’t your mother teach you not to be mean to little girls? Your mother would be ashamed of you.”
Judging by the way he flinched, Anna would have been upset. Which meant that Anna didn’t know that he was there.
“I’m trying to protect you!” Tristan snapped.
“From what?” Louise cried.
Tristan pointed toward Manhattan and their school. “If you didn’t notice, there was a bomb at school!”
“And you were going to protect us how?” she shouted. “Poop on it?”
“I would have taken care of it!” Did that mean he hadn’t been the one who warned Mr. Kessler?
“By pooping and peeing on it?” Jillian realized what Louise was doing and joined in.
“Don’t be so stupid.” Tristan sounded his forty-some years. “I know you’re smarter than that. How did you know it was Kessler?”
Louise clamped shut her mouth, not sure how to answer.
Luckily, Jillian had something prepared. “Mr. Kessler hates us because we keep blowing his curve; he used to tease us during class. When we started working on the play, we had to go through him to use the printer in the annex.”
“Through?” Tristan mimed a ramming motion. “Like a plow through a snowbank?”
“Somewhat,” Jillian admitted. “He slipped once or twice and ranted in class about how much he hated elves. Once the FBI released the news about the trigger, Mr. Kessler was the first person we thought of.”
All mostly the truth. Convincing Tristan that they were still just normal fifth-graders was probably the wisest thing to do. Louise took up the thread and started to weave out a more elaborate fabrication. “I was in the annex on the morning of the bombing. I saw him come in and trigger the bomb; I just didn’t realize it until later. After the bombing, he was really nice to us. Super nice. It made us suspicious.”
Jillian tied off the loose ends. “Then we found out he’d scrubbed the memory of the printer.”
“So you told the FBI.”
“No, that wasn’t us,” Jillian lied. “We think it was Mr. Howe. We’ve been dropping hints to all our teachers over the last week and a half, but we didn’t think any of them took us seriously.”
Louise wrapped up the story in a neat bow. “That’s what we were debating this morning: what to do since no one seemed to believe us.”
And he believed it. Tristan’s eyes widened as he calculated the vectors of their made-up activities. Homeroom. Art. Music. Library. French. Math. In the course of a week, they had over a dozen teachers. Any of them knew Mr. Kessler well enough to make the leap that Tristan had failed to make.
Of course that left the question of how Mr. Kessler had known that he had to flee.
30: Curtain Opens
“Are they here yet?” Jillian whispered as Louise checked her video screens.
“No.” Louise could see the two empty seats beside Nikola. Aunt Kitty hadn’t been able to change her business meeting in California when the date of the play had been moved. The babies desperately wanted to see the play, so the twins used Aunt Kitty’s ticket for Nikola. Louise had settled him into the seat next to Zahara’s little brother and explained to Zahara’s mother that their nanny-bot was going to film everything for their aunt. They’d spent dinner break stuffing Joy with tuna fish sandwiches. Last Louise checked, the baby dragon was deep asleep in Nikola’s storage chamber.
The babies seemed fine, but where were Mom and Dad?
Louise scanned the crowd filtering in through the doors at the back of the theater. Their parents were driving in to the city so that they wouldn’t have to brave the subway after the play and the celebratory dinner. Their mother hadn’t been able to get off work early but promised to be there well before the curtain went up. Anything could be holding them up, from their mother’s boss wanting “one more minute” of her time to them running into a talkative parent in the lobby.
The sense that everything was about to go horribly wrong echoed through Louise, making her focus tightly on the control board. Between the large sets needing to be lowered from the ceiling, four of the cast members on flying wires, and a sword fight, there was so much that could go wrong. The FBI still hadn’t found Mr. Kessler, but Louise wasn’t sure that he was still alive.
The clock on Louise’s console indicated that it was nearly time to cue the overture music. She scanned her sound levels, and made sure everything was reset back to base. She moved her finger to the play button and waited for the time to change.
“I wish they had gotten front seats.” Jillian bit her bottom lip to keep it from quivering. “I hope they don’t come in so late that they end up standing in the back.”
Louise glanced at Jillian, surprised. Jillian had never cared before where their parents sat. She supposed it was because this was the first time that Jillian was playing the hero instead of the villain. “They’ll be able to see more of the stage. If they’re right up front, they might miss something you do because they’re looking at Elle or Iggy.”
Jillian gave her the little frown that said she knew full well that Louise was trying to cheer her up.
The clock hit start time, and Louise tapped the play button and clicked her first timer to start the countdown. The overture started with the upbeat “To Neverland” song that Louise had written for the production. The rustle of people finding their seats grew louder. Louise started to slowly dim the house lights and bringing up the curtain lights. There was a gasp from all the other kids as they realized it was time.
“Jillian!” Mr. Howe whispered loudly and waved at Jillian to come get into the flying harness.
Jillian flung her arms around Louise.
The fear that had been echoing faintly leapt forward, and Louise clung hard to her twin, suddenly afraid. “Be careful.”
Jillian laughed nervously. “What could possibly happen? It’s not like I’m going to be flying around twenty feet above — ow!”
Louise had pulled Jillian’s hair hard enough to hurt. “I’m serious.” She considered adding that she had a bad feeling but decided that Jillian was already nervous enough. “Just be careful.”
“Jillian!” Mr. Howe hissed louder.
Jillian squeezed her once and then darted away.
The seats beside Nikola stayed empty. The rustle from the audience died to an expectant hush. The overture ran five minutes and three seconds. At a minute and a half, Louise killed the house lights completely. Where were their parents?