Mojo by Tim Tharp Read Free Book Online Page B

kid talking about—a disguise?”
    The uniform shook his head.
    But I didn’t think I should give up that easy. “Have you seen that show
Andromeda Man
?”
    Captain Lewis looked at me again, this time like he couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t disappeared yet. “Everybody, stand back,” he shouted. And the next thing you know, he was on the walkie-talkie, and a few minutes later our search party got replaced by the first team.
    Audrey’s like, “Really?
Andromeda Man?
Are you kidding me?”
    “Hey, at least I found the shoe. What’d you do?”
    Trix stepped over and goes, “That really was pretty cool. You’re quite the detective.”
    “Yeah, right,” said Audrey, but I was thinking,
Hmmm, maybe I should be the one flirting with Trix
.
    Then, after about a half hour of watching the police and their dogs scour our sector without finding anything else, Trix came up with a superb suggestion: “You know what? Since they took over our job, why don’t we head back to the tent and see if they’ve started on those burgers.”
    Yes, all of a sudden I had a whole new outlook on her.

CHAPTER 11
    Only one other search party had returned to the tent by the time we got there, so we nabbed some good seats. Green plastic chairs and tables with white tablecloths had been set up while we were gone. It was weirdly festive considering the circumstances. As for the burgers, all I can say is they were a revelation.
    First we filed past a long table where all the fixings were: warm whole-wheat buns, cheeses I’d never heard of, crisp leaves of rich green lettuce, deep red tomatoes, crunchy onion circles, three kinds of pickles, five kinds of mustard, four kinds of mayonnaise, and gourmet barbecue sauce.
    I admit I put one kind of mustard on the top bun and another on the bottom. Then, along with the Camembert cheese, lettuce, tomato, and onion, I went with all three kinds of pickles. And of course,
zero
mayonnaise. I won’t go into all the side dishes, except to point out they had no French fries, so I chose the fancy macaroni and cheese, which, by the way, was white, not yellow, and had jalapeños in it.
    Now, I’m not going to declare the meat was grilled better than anyplace else, but I can guarantee this—the ingredients were mind-blowing. The freshness of the produce, the textureof the Kobe beef, everything was amazing. It dawned on me that this must be how it was for rich people every day—the best of everything. I could just imagine what Topper’s could do with ingredients like this.
    Sitting at our table, I guess I must have been going on about all this a little too much because Trix’s like: “What’s with him? Hasn’t he ever had a hamburger before?”
    “Oh yeah,” Audrey said. “He’s had a few in his time.”
    Trix turned to me and goes, “God, I thought you were going to have an orgasm.”
    I was just thinking how sexy it was, the way she said the word
orgasm
, when this tall blond guy—obviously a Hollister student—stopped next to our table. “Hey, Trix,” he said with a smile like the white cliffs of Dover. “Mind if we sit with you guys?”
    With him was a fine looker who also sported an orthodontic miracle for a smile. Actually, she was absolutely striking—black hair and blue eyes, a completely killer combination.
    “Why?” Trix said. The tone of her voice switched to bored.
    “Just wanted to get to know the man who found the big clue,” he said, setting his tray of food on the table. He clapped me on the back and then sat next to me while Blue Eyes sat on the other side next to Audrey. He reached over to shake my hand. “I’m Nash Pierce,” he said. “This is Brett Seagreaves.”
    Brett. A girl named Brett. So here I was at the table with Beatrix, Nash, and Brett, thinking,
Don’t rich people ever have regular names?
It was like their names were fancy brand names, you know? Like brands of clothes I couldn’t afford.
    I introduced myself and Audrey, and Nash asked the inevitable