Code Name Cassandra by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online Page A

broke through the crowd that had gathered around us.
    “What—” she demanded, bewilderedly, “is going on here?”
    Lionel, free at last, hurled himself at me, flinging his arms around my waist and burying his face in my stomach so the dogs couldn’t get at his tears.
    “They try to kill me!” he was screaming. “Jess, Jess, those dogs are try to kill me.”
    Shane, meanwhile, was massaging his funny bone. “Whaddidja have to go and do that for?” he demanded. “You know, if it turns out I can’t play anymore on account of you, my dad’s going to sue you—”
    “Shane.” I put one hand on Lionel’s shaking shoulders and, with the envelope, pointed toward the Pit. “You’ve got one strike. Now go.”
    “A strike?” Shane looked up at me incredulously. “A
strike
? What’s a
strike
? What’d I get a
strike
for?”
    “You know what you got it for,” I said, answering his last question first. The truth was, I hadn’t figured out the answer to his first question. But one thing I did know: “Two more, and you’re out, buddy. Now go sit with the others at the campfire and keep your hands to yourself.”
    Shane stamped a sneakered foot. “Out? You can’t do that. You can’t throw me out.”
    “Watch me.”
    Shane turned his accusing stare toward Pamela. Unlike when he was looking at me, he actually had to tilt his chin a little to see her eyes.
    “Can she do that?” he demanded.
    Pamela, to my relief, said, “Of course she can. Now all of you, go to the Pit.”
    Nobody moved. Pamela said, “I said,
go
.”
    Something in her voice made them do what she said. Now
that’s
an ability I wouldn’t mind having: making people do what I told them, without having to resort to doing them bodily harm.
    Lionel continued to cling to me, still sobbing. The dogs had not gone away. In the usual manner of animals, they had realized that Lionel wanted nothing to do with them, and so they remained stubbornly at his side, looking at him with great interest, their tongues ready and waiting for him to turn around so they could continue lapping up his tears.
    “Lionel,” I said, giving the little boy’s shoulder a shake. “The dogs really won’t hurt you. They’re good dogs. I mean, if any of them had ever hurt anyone, do you think they would be allowed to stay? No way. It would open the camp up to all sorts of lawsuits. You know how litigious the parents of gifted children can be.” Shane being example numero uno.
    Pamela raised her eyebrows at this but said nothing, letting me handle the situation in my own way. Eventually, Lionel took his head out of my midriff and blinked up at me tearfully. The dogs, though they stirred eagerly at this motion, stayed where they were.
    “I don’t know what this means, this ‘litigious,’” Lionel said. “But I thank you for helping me, Jess.”
    I reached out and patted his springy hair. “Don’t mention it. Now, watch.”
    I stuck my hand out. The dogs, recognizing some sort of weird human/dog signal, rushed forward and began licking my fingers.
    “See?” I said as Lionel watched, wide-eyed. “They’re just interested in making friends.” Or in the smell of all the Fiddle Faddle I’d handled earlier, but whatever.
    “I see.” Lionel regarded the dogs with wide dark eyes. “I will not be afraid, then. But … is it permissible for me not to touch them?”
    “Sure,” I said. I withdrew my hand, which felt as if I’d just dipped it into a vat of hot mayonnaise. I wiped it off on my shorts. “Why don’t you go join the rest of the Birch Trees?”
    Lionel gave me a tremulous smile, then hurried toward the Pit, with many furtive glances over his shoulder at the dogs. I don’t think he noticed that Pamela and I had as many by the collar as we could hold.
    “Well,” Pamela said when Lionel was out of earshot. “You certainly handled that … interestingly.”
    “That Shane,” I said. “He’s a pill.”
    “He is a challenge,” Pamela corrected me.