Lucy is safe and sound for the moment, and though you can’t take your mind off the idea that someone is passing off as her, and has stolen her family, her friends, and her life, you know that Scott is right: The book is bad, and you have to get it—or them, if there's more than one—away from Professor Blackwell, who is turning out to be even worse than you could have imagined. You are filled with dread as you and Scott approach his villa, and that dread is not relieved when you see a car parked beside the villa, where there had been no car before. Scott slows rather than stops as you drift by the front gate, and you stare at the house behind it. Then, he speeds up again. Another raid on Blackwell's, he says, will have to wait for tomorrow.
It's coming up on dinnertime, and though you dread seeing your dad—if he is your dad—almost as much as you dread Blackwell's villa, you tell Scott that you have to get home. He swings by Westside to drop you off by your truck—now sitting alone in the student parking lot—and from there you drive back to Acheson. You stop by the elementary school briefly to wish Lucy a good night's sleep, and to give her your address in case she needs to come find you.
Dinner is mostly uneventful, and silent, as you concentrate on gobbling down the pork chops and mashed potatoes, and you cast your father only a few uneasy glances. After helping to clean up the kitchen and taking out the garbage, you rush upstairs to do your homework. After all, Walberg’s paper won’t be done on its own, and you could use the distraction. You are interrupted only once, by a text from Scott, telling you that he also stopped by the basement.
But your mind can’t get off the revelations of the past week. You had a book of real, actual magic, and your dad forced you to sell it, to a kidnapper or worse, who probably has another copy. You are now acquainted with one of his victims, and with another schoolmate who has issues with the book.
Maybe your dad was right; maybe it was dangerous. But the danger is fully upon you now, all about you, and you are committed to helping others endangered by it.
So after twenty fretful minutes of false starts on your homework, you tramp downstairs to the garage, to have a look at the tools and supplies left over from your one and only experiment with the book.
But it's gone. All of it.
Back in the house, you stop by your dad's office. He looks up from his desk—and smiles—when you call to him.
"Uh, do you know what happened to that stuff we bought? You know, the stuff for that project?"
"Oh, that." He chuckles. "I threw it away. You won’t be needing it anymore, after all. Why?"
"Uh ... no reason." You chew on your lip: you don't want to excite any suspicions in him. "Thought it’d make a nice memento. You know, something we did together."
"Something dangerous we did together." His patronizing tone gives you a chill. "There’ll be more opportunities to do things together, son," he continues. "This doesn’t have to be our only project. Anyways ..." He gives you a quick look up and down. "Done your homework?"
"Working on it."
"Back to it, then. Don't forget to set your alarm for tomorrow."
--
Upstairs, you try to return to that paper, the one explaining that Twinkies and Ding-Dongs are part of America’s culinary heritage and how they’ll survive for years and years while still remaining fresh. But still the fate of that project preys upon you. On an impulse, you shovel through the books and papers that cover your desk, looking for the notebook you jotted down notes in. With mounting worry and fear you search, for you cannot find it.
Your door is open, and when you glimpse your brother padding by, you call to him. "Hey, have you been snooping around in my room, you little dipwad?"
"What?" Robert leans in through your doorway, his feet safely planted in the hallway. He's shorter than you were at thirteen, and more filled out. His hair is a dark reddish-gold, and his flat nose is freckled. You've comforted yourself over the years with the fantasy that he's adopted—which would justify you in abusing him—but you've no actual evidence of it.
"I said, have you been snooping around in here, going through my stuff?"
"Your shit, you mean?" He grins insolently.
"Yeah, my shit. I had a notebook and now it's gone."
His eyes light up. "Oh, you mean for your stink bombs?"
"Yeah. Hey, wait a minute—!"
You leap for him as he jumps back into the hallway. He dives for his bedroom, but you kick the door back as he tries slamming it in your face. He falls back with a grin and a snicker as you barge in after him. "You were going through my stuff," you bark at him. "Weren't you, you little—"
"N'yah, dad was throwing it out anyway," he jeers. "It was down by the trash with all that other stuff." He sniggers. "Will's weird arts and crafts project!"
"So Dad went through my stuff? In my bedroom?" You gape. If your dad made a search of your room, that's a much bigger deal than if he was just getting rid of stuff he was keeping in the garage for you. It's like he was trying to get rid of anything and everything connected to that book, cutting you off completely from it.
"Guess so. Wasn't me." Robert cackles some more. "You got into some big trouble with it, right?"
You have no idea, you little semen stain. "Is it still curbside, with the garbage?" You turn for the door.
Robert gives you a sidelong look. "Why, what's in it for me?"
"What do you mean, what's in it for you? If it's curbside—"
You break off when a shit-eating grin spreads across Robert's face. "The fuck?" you exclaim. "Did you move it or something?"
"You think I’d waste a chance to do anything with those stink bombs? Got it in my closet."
"What, all of it?" You step for his closet door, but he jumps in front of you.
"What, you want it back?"
"Yes!" But Robert blocks you again as you grasp at the closet door.
"Come on, man, I saved it out for you," he says. "Partners, fifty-fifty on it. Or I'll tell Dad you're experimenting with it again."
"And I'll tell Dad you hid it up in your room!"
You try staring him down. He stares you down. Finally, you relent.
"Okay, listen, we have to get it out of the house," you tell him. "We don't neither of us want Dad finding it. Tomorrow, after school, we'll move it."
"But we're partners on it," he insists. "You show me how to make some of those stink bombs with it."
"It's not for making stink bombs! But okay. We'll work on it together."
"Cool!" Robert hops on the balls of his feet.
That ends things for the night. Will you keep that promise to Robert? Things are already too dangerous and complicated, and even if he is a little shit the last thing you want is to for anything happen to him. It would be best to keep him out of it all entirely. But that might not be possible.
At any rate, you decide as you sink back onto your bed with your homework, that'll be something to figure out tomorrow.
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