Project Jackalope by Emily Ecton Read Free Book Online

say we make our move anyway. Check out the office.”
    Agatha didn’t wait for me to answer. She had a hairpin out and was picking the lock on the door before I even had a chance to protest. And once someone is picking a lock, there’s not a lot you can do except stand in front of them to block them from view and whistle. (Well, that’s what I do. Whistling is probably optional.)
    “Got it!” Agatha said, scooting inside and dragging me along behind her. Those fourth-grade criminal habits were really paying off.
    Inside it was what you’d call your basic lab. You know: It smelled funny, had Bunsen burners, lots of Pyrex, and sciencey junk. Beats me what we were looking for,but Agatha was going to town looking through papers and cabinets and stuff. I fiddled with a nasty-looking petri dish and waited for her to get done.
    Agatha slammed down a pile of papers she’d been shuffling through and snorted in disgust. “Nothing here. Nothing interesting anyway, unless you’re tracking hippo cholesterol levels.”
    Which, obviously, I wasn’t.
    Agatha eyed the petri dish I was holding. “That’s bubonic plague, you know. Did you get it on your hand? Because if you did, you’re going to break out in huge black boils and die.”
    I dropped the petri dish as Agatha burst out laughing. “It’s not the plague, you dork,” she gasped between very unattractive snorty laughs.
    “I know,” I said, pushing the petri dish away quickly and wiping my hands on my jeans. “What is it?”
    Agatha wiped her eyes. “Like I know.” She tested the inner door of the lab and then whipped out her hairpin again. “We’d better hurry and check out Twitchett’s office before Bob comes back.”
    She messed with the lock for a few minutes before it clicked and she swung the door open. Then she stared in shock.
    I didn’t blame her. I think I’ve mentioned Twitchett’s not exactly the most tidy person on the planet. His apartment has a lot in common with a nuclear waste dump. So when that door opened, I never would’ve believed it was Twitchett’s office. It wasn’t just that it was tidy. It was more than tidy. It had been cleaned out.

7.
Good Housekeeping Ruins Our Day
    Agatha looked into the room and went into shock. “Nooo!” she wailed, rushing into the office. “Where are the papers? Where are the notes?”
    She pulled file folders out of the racks that lined the walls, but they were all empty, except for a few stray paper clips here and there. “This doesn’t make sense! Professor Twitchett kept notes on everything!”
    “Maybe he took them with him?”
    “Well, yeah, but…I mean…” Agatha looked around in desperation.
    “Maybe he didn’t want anyone to find them?” Seemed logical to me. I hadn’t really expected to find afile with “Top Secret Jackalope Project” written across the front.
    “Yes, I realize that, brainiac,” Agatha said. “But look around. This wasn’t a rush situation. Was he planning to leave? Because this took time, taking all of these papers out.”
    She had a point. The pens were lined up neatly beside the desk blotter. The file cabinets were all shut. Believe me, that kind of thing doesn’t just happen.
    Agatha stared around the room helplessly. “I thought there would be something, some clue about where he’d gone. A notepad or a file on the desk or something.”
    The jackalope squirmed in my backpack. He’d been getting kind of restless back there since we left the school, and I was starting to get worried. All that wailing was getting to him. And deep, gaping flesh wounds are hard to cover up.
    “Maybe it wasn’t him.” I hated to say it flat out like that, but come on, Twitchett would never line up pens.
    “Maybe it wasn’t him.” Agatha echoed sadly. She must’ve noticed the pens too.
    “So, what now?” I slipped the backpack off of my back slowly. Just to get it a little farther away from my jugular.
    Agatha nodded at the backpack. “He left the animal hybrid. He