Secret Weapons by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Read Free Book Online Page B

and stare at strangers. Like—” And Carlos did a big-eyed, open-mouthed number that made everybody laugh.
    Ari laughed too. That is, he was laughing until he happened to catch sight of Aurora’s face. She wasn’t laughing and the look on her face was just the same as it had been when she’d said that the people in the black van were evil . And suddenly he remembered his strong feeling when the guy was looking at his calendar—or pretending to.
    “He was lying,” Ari found himself saying right out loud. “He was lying about everything.”
    They turned around then, all of them including Bucky, and stared at him. They were all staring silently, and Ari was wishing he’d kept his mouth shut, when into the silence a soft, breathy voice whispered, “Yes. He was lying.” It was Aurora. It was the first time she’d said anything for a long time and now everyone was looking at her—and forgetting about Ari. Ari breathed a sigh of relief.
    “Yeah, Aurora’s right,” Kate said. “Absolutely. I absolutely knew he was lying.”
    “Right,” Carlos said. “I thought so too.”
    “Me too,” Susie squealed.
    Eddy was nodding. “I just now thought of it, but if he really was an old friend of Mr. A.’s, wouldn’t he have called him Henry, or at least Mr. A., like we all do, instead of Mr. Anderson?”
    “Yeah, I thought of that too,” Bucky said. “That’s a good clue. As soon as I thought of that clue I was sure he was lying.”
    While they were talking they’d continued to drift around the cul-de-sac circle. Past Prince Field, and from there right on up the driveway and then, following Carlos, right into the Garcias’ game room.
    Ari had heard about the Garcias’ game room before, but it was the first time he’d seen it. He’d heard about it from Susie. But not directly from Susie, because she usually didn’t talk to him all that much. Mostly he’d heard about it on the phone, listening in when Susie was talking to Aurora. Susie tended to tell Aurora a lot of interesting stuff, including all about the Garcias’ humongous game room. According to Susie the PROs always hung out there when it was too cold to hang out around the swimming pool.
    Inside the enormous room Carlos immediately headed for the fireplace. “Brrr,” he said while he was getting some logs in place and turning on the gas fire lighter, “I almost forgot I was freezing to death while those terrorists were staring at us. But as soon as they pulled out I remembered. Brrr. Did I ever.”
    While Carlos was getting the fire started the other PROs collapsed on a couch near the fireplace. Everyone else drifted around the room for a while before they joined the group. Then Kate and Aurora sat down on a big leather footstool, and Susie and Athena on the floor. But Ari stayed where he was, standing near the pool table. Making sure that he kept the distance to the door a little shorter than the distance between him and Bucky.
    When everyone had more or less settled down, Kate said in a loud “may I have your attention” type of voice, “Well. So that guy was lying. Which means he isn’t a friend of Mr. A.’s. Which probably means that, whether they’re really terrorists or not, they were probably planning to do something against the law, like—”
    “Yeah.” The even louder voice was Bucky’s. “Yeah. Like stealing Web’s secret weapon. That’s what we heard. That those guys were hanging around because they wanted to steal a secret weapon that Web invented.”
    “We heard that too,” Kate said. “But you couldn’t prove it by me. Carson knows but he isn’t talking.” She looked at Eddy. “How about you, Wong? Did Web tell you anything?”
    “Nothing. Nada. Not a word. I don’t know about weapon , but whatever those dudes are doing it’s secret , all right. A big secret. Web’s even been sleeping out on the couch so I won’t hear him if he talks in his sleep.”
    Suddenly Susie jumped to her feet. “Hey. What I want to know