Free Never Say Genius by Dan Gutman Page B

ball back and forth.
    It had been a good day, all in all. For the McDonald twins, any day in which nobody tried to kill them was a good day.
    In fact, it had been two days since there had been an attempt on their lives. Unless, of course, you were to count those angry Cubs fans who chased them out of Wrigley Field. But nobody had tried to kill them at Michael Jackson’s house. Nobody tried to kill them at the Lunkquarium, at the largest egg in the world, or at any of the places they had visited in Indiana. Maybe Bones and Mya had been right. They could relax a little until they got to Washington, D.C.
    “Maybe we finally lost them,” Pep said hopefully as she whacked the tetherball over Coke’s head.
    “I doubt it,” Coke replied, remembering the GPS chips that had been implanted in their skulls.
    Mrs. McDonald called everyone to dinner—some kind of anonymous beefy stew that came from a bag in the freezer. It wasn’t gourmet cuisine, but it was food. Afterward, the kids started a game of Scrabble while their parents relaxed on Adirondack chairs and read the newspaper. It was Pep who spotted the headline on the other side of the page her father was reading.
    HERMAN WARSAW, DEAD AT 39
     
    Prolific inventor and government researcher Dr. Herman Warsaw died yesterday at the age of 39. Dr. Warsaw, who made a fortune by inventing a GPS device to locate missing cats and dogs, went on to a second career consulting for the government and worked for one dollar per year at the Pentagon in Washington. He died from injuries sustained during a fall in Spring Green, Wisconsin, where he had been vacationing. The circumstances of the fall have not been disclosed. Dr. Warsaw had no known relatives.
     
    Coke and Pep read the obituary twice, just to make sure they didn’t miss a word.
    “What are you kids staring at?” Dr. McDonald said. “Get your own newspaper if you want to read.”
    Coke pulled Pep over to the empty basketball court, where they could talk privately.
    “So Dr. Warsaw is dead for sure,” Coke said.
    “And we killed him,” said Pep. “That makes us murderers.”
    Tears welled up in her eyes. She felt no sympathy for Dr. Warsaw, but the realization that they had actually caused another human being to die would be tough for anybody to handle.
    “It was self-defense,” Coke assured her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “We had to do it. He would have killed us if we didn’t fight back.”
    There was a seesaw nearby, and each twin went over and sat on one end of it. It was time to take stock of their situation.
    “What now?” Pep asked, not really expecting an answer.
    Dr. Warsaw was dead, which was a good thing, of course. They wouldn’t have to worry about that nut job anymore. But they would have to worry about Mrs. Higgins, who was very much alive. From her little performance at Wrigley Field, it seemed that she was crazier than ever. And if it was true that Dr. Warsaw was the love of her life, she would be all the more motivated to track Coke and Pep down and get revenge. She had said it herself—she was going to make their lives a living hell.
    “If Dr. Warsaw is dead,” Pep asked, “who do you think has been sending us those ciphers?”
    “Could be the bowler dudes,” Coke guessed.
    Pep had almost forgotten about the lunatics who wore bowler hats. They were the ones who’d chased them over the cliff, and they were the ones who had thrown them into the pit at Sand Mountain. The last time they showed their faces, it was at The House on the Rock, when they’d dressed up in suits of armor and dragged both twins to The Infinity Room. But the bowler dudes didn’t seem bright enough to create ciphers.
    “Mya or Bones could have sent the last one,” Pep said. “Maybe they’re trying to contact us.”
    “Or it could be Archie Clone,” Coke suggested, recalling the red-haired teenage maniac who’d tried to drown them in boiling oil at McDonald’s. “Remember, he wants all The Genius Files