Agent Angus (7 page)

Shahid looks at me until I finally look back.

“Now,” he says. “Now will you tell Ella the truth?”

Chapter Thirteen

There is no doubt that I have to tell Ella who I really am. Or rather, I have to tell her who I'm not. The only part I have to figure out is how. I'm so disturbed by this I can barely eat dinner.

“You need to get more exercise, Angus,” Mom says. “Then you'll have an appetite.”

Exercise, she says. I got plenty of exercise today. I don't tell her about that. I simply nod and return to worrying.

By early evening, I decide that my best option is to send Ella an email. That seems cowardly, but since it's been our contact method, it makes sense. I log into my email with the idea that I'll compose my message very carefully. I expect it will be as challenging as writing an essay about something mysterious like poetry.

It's startling when my email shows two new messages from Ella. I open the first to find she replied to the one I sent yesterday. The one where I bragged about knowing who the culprit is. She wrote:

Hey Angus,

U r amazing! You already know who
took my book? Wow! Can you give me
any hints?

With admiration,

Ella

My stomach starts doing gymnastics. I don't know the proper names for all the moves it's making, and I don't care. She thinks I'm amazing? She admires me? Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

Oh, girl. You have been misled. That's what I should write to her. I should click the Reply button and type those very words. But I can't. I can only sit and stare at the wonderful words she wrote to me.

Eventually, I rouse from my stupor, draw a deep breath and open her second message.

Angus, u won't believe this! The culprit
sent me an email! All it said was,
Catch me if you can.
And then below that,
there was a photo of one of my drawings.
I'm including the picture here in
case it has some clues for u. I hope this
helps u figure it out.

Ella

My hand shakes as I scroll down and find the picture. It's an incredible drawing of an animated robot. It's so fantastic, it almost brings tears to my eyes. And someone stole this from Ella! What sort of sadistic creep would do such a thing?

I'd give almost anything to figure that out. But the only things I've figured out are that I'm the crummiest person-reader on the planet, and I'm clueless about clues. I wouldn't recognize a clue if it jumped up and down and yelled, “Hey! I'm a clue!”

I gaze at her beautiful drawing and realize that at least I can save this. I right-click on it and run my eye down the list of items in the pop-up box. I'm looking for
Save
until I notice the item at the bottom of the list:
Properties
.

Is it possible? Could the thief actually have been dumb enough to leave the properties attached to the photo? There's only one way to find out. I open the properties box, and there's the date the picture was taken. Today. Then I slide the cursor over to the Details tab and…

It's all there. I see the number of pixels and the brand of smart phone used to take the picture. The gps coordinates pinpoint where the picture was taken. I swipe the cursor over the gps numbers for longitude and latitude and copy them. I paste them into an online street map program. In less than a minute, I'm looking at the street view of the house where the photo was taken.

And I recognize that house. It's Ella's.

Chapter Fourteen

The picture was taken at Ella's house? What does this mean? My brain seizes for a moment. This does not compute. But then my brain starts up again, and my body freezes. Goose bumps spring up willy-nilly, all over my skin. I can't breathe. And then I can breathe, and I'm almost hyperventilating.

Because if this picture was taken at Ella's house, then she's in danger. Big-time. The creepy, sadistic thief sent it to her from her very yard. Or worse yet, from within her home.

I leap to my feet. Then I fall back into my chair and type a frantic reply to her email.
Leave house at once!!!!!!!!!!!

I scrabble my fingers over the keyboard to bring up a telephone directory. I find the Eckles, but there's no number listed. Once again I leap to my feet, and this time I order them to run.

And run. I run out my back door, around the house and down the street. I make a sharp turn at the corner and run down the next street. I round the final corner that takes me onto Ella's street and I keep running all the way to her front yard.

At that point, I collapse under a shrub. This is okay, because even though it's possible I'll puke, I can still use my eyes to scan the area. I may be crumpled on my hands and knees, gasping for air, but I remain on high alert.

Eventually my breathing returns to something like normal. I see no sign of a stalker, psycho or thief. Not that this is a good thing. In fact, it's bad, because it means the lunatic may be inside the house. I manage to stand, even though my legs feel strangely bendy. I try them out for walking, and they work—more or less. I wobble to the front door and ring the bell.

Footsteps approach from the inside, and then the door swings open to reveal Ella.

“Angus!” she says. Her face turns a rosy shade of pink. “You're here.”

“Yes,” I say. I lean toward her and lower my voice. “Don't panic. I want you to gather your family and get them out of the house. And then we'll call the police.”

Ella's eyes dart about. She licks her lips. Clearly, she's frightened. She tucks a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. “Uh,” she says. “Why?”

“Because,” I hiss, “I think the guy who stole your sketchbook may be in your house.”

Her brown eyes widen. Her mouth forms a circle. The pinkness of her skin deepens, especially on the tip of her nose. And then she starts giggling. She claps a hand over her mouth to stop the nervous giggles, but seconds later, they burst through.

“Ella!” I attempt to sound stern. “You must remain calm. Please, go and get your—”

“Angus,” she cuts in. “It was me.
I
took the picture.”

“You?” I squeak out the word. “What? No. You
drew
the picture, but…”

“Shhh.” She reaches out and places her hand on my mouth. It's as if she found my Off switch. Or maybe it's more like she zapped me with a stun gun. I start tingling all over, and I can't speak.

Ella looks over her shoulder into the house and calls, “I'm going out on the porch.” And then she closes the door behind her and points toward a bench. “Can we sit down for a minute?”

I nod. I sit. Ella sits on the opposite end of the bench. She looks down at her shoe toeing the bench leg and then says, “I have a confession to make.”

And does she ever. It turns out her sketchbook was never stolen. She made the whole thing up so that she could spend time with me.

“Seriously?” I ask.

She bites her lower lip and nods. “I'm really sorry. It's just that I
like
you, Angus. And I thought you might like me too. I tried for months to get a chance to talk to you. But every time I saw you, you were going the other way. When I finally did talk to you, that day the school got evacuated? I thought it went well. But then you had to take off and…” She shrugs.

I'm speechless. All I can do is stare at her.

Ella's lower lip quivers in that fascinating way. “I don't know what got into me. But when you said you were a mentalist and you wanted to solve crimes, I got this crazy idea.” She finally looks straight at me. “I'm sorry I lied to you. You probably despise liars.”

I emit a sound. “Gack.”

“Pardon me?”

I look down at my foot toeing the bench leg. I have an impulse to run away, but I've had enough running—in more ways than one. It's time to confess. I start with, “Erm.” I progress to, “Uh,” and finish in a rush. “I'm a liar too.”

Ella asks, “What do you mean?”

“I mean I'm no mentalist. I can't read people. I don't have a clue what people are thinking. I don't even know what
I'm
thinking sometimes.”

Ella is quiet, and I risk a quick glance to see how she's taking this. Her head is tilted to one side and, strangely enough, she's wearing that little smile. “Go on,” she says.

I find this encouraging. I draw a deep breath and basically barf up my next words. “I lied. I was trying to impress you because I like you too. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it wasn't.”

There. I did it. I told the truth. I don't dare look at her now.

“That's so sweet,” Ella says.

I gape at her. “It is?”

“Yeah. Not the lying, of course.” She shrugs and smiles bigger. “But… you like me too?”

I nod.

And then her smile fades. “But there's something I don't understand.”

Uh-oh. I swallow and ask, “What?”

“You identified the stink bomber. I mean, that was totally impressive, the way you picked him out of the crowd.”

I suddenly feel short of breath. I grab at the collar of my T-shirt and tug, but it doesn't help. “Oh,” I choke. “That. Ha ha. Funny thing, you see. I see—I mean, I saw—him do it.”

Behind her glasses, Ella's brown eyes narrow. “Reeaaally?” The way she draws the word out must indicate something. The question is, what?

I simply nod again.

And she keeps watching me, as if she's waiting for more.

There isn't any more. At least, not any more lies. Should I tell her that? I think I should. “That's it,” I say.

“That's it?” she echoes. And her eyebrows go up.

I tug at my collar again. Something about this isn't going well. What am I missing here? “I wish I'd never done that,” I mutter aloud. “I'm really sorry.”

Her smile breaks out again, the one that reminds me of the gaseous outer layers of star glow. “Oh, Angus,” says Ella. “Me too. Do you think we can just forget all these silly glitches and start over?”

I blink at her. “You mean like a hominid version of a reboot?”

She blinks back. “Yeah. I guess I do mean that.”

Shahid's mouth hangs slightly open. We're in our lab, and he's looking over the sketches Ella drew of Gordon. Not Gordon as he is, but the Gordon we always dreamed he could be.

“Amazing,” Shahid says. “Who'd have thought a frivolous thing like art could be so useful?”

“Not me,” I reply. “But, Shahid? Don't say that in front of Ella, okay?”

Shahid squints at me. “What do you mean?”

“Don't you remember what happened the time I said art was a great hobby?”

His eyes widen. “Oh yeah. Didn't that set off her speech about art being essential for the soul?”

“I think so,” I say. “Or was that when she told us life imitates art?”

“Maybe. Did you understand that Ella-ism?” Shahid asks.

I shake my head. “Ella-isms are challenging. Some of them remind me of the mentalists.”

“In what way?” he asks.

“You know,” I shrug. “All that stuff about reality being what we think it is.”

We're silent for a moment, considering this. Finally, Shahid sighs and says, “Thinking about that makes me dizzy.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Luckily, talking about mentalists has reminded me of a more entertaining time from the past. “Hey, do you remember when you muscled in between me and Rolf? When we were fighting?”

The stories of our spy days have been retold between us many times. Shahid no longer corrects me when I describe my activity with Rolf as fighting. Already the details are shifting. Some part of my brain knows this, but it doesn't seem to mind.

“I remember,” Shahid says. He flexes one of his skinny arms, and sure enough, there's a hint of the bicep he's been building. Then he places the drawing of Gordon in front of me. “And I'm glad you haven't forgotten Gordon.”

Maybe Shahid is one person I can read. I know he was worried about me ignoring more than Gordon. Life isn't quite the same with Ella around. My friendship with Shahid was put through another strainer. But once again, it survived.

“Gordon will never be forgotten,” I say. I pick up Ella's sketch of the imaginary Gordon. Making
this
a reality is going to be very cool. I look at Shahid. “What do you think we should use to attach the sunglasses? Duct tape or elastic?”

Shahid's eyes gleam, and he pulls something out of his backpack. “Neither.” With a flourish worthy of Gaga Girl, he brandishes a package. “I think we should advance to Velcro.”

Acknowledgments

Thank you to authors Diane Tullson and Shelley Hrdlitschka for continuing to share all the imaginations we make real on the page. To Galen and Bela Tweedale, for reading and commenting on an early draft, many thanks, guys. The notion expressed in the story by Ella, that “Life imitates art,” must be attributed to Oscar Wilde. Finally, my gratitude to Melanie Jeffs, Orca editor, and all the team at Orca Book Publishers for their excellent work in bringing stories to readers.