honors,â she said.
I dangled the line in the water.
Chomp
.
I wondered what Ethan would think if I brought Elizaâs coloring book with us the next time we went fishing. Nanny X didnât cut the fish open when I reeled it in, which made Eliza happy. Instead, our nanny poked the fish right in the eye. The tail stopped moving.
âI found an off switch!â she said. âThat was almost too easy. The fish just doesnât seem as smart as that squirrel.â
âFish have smaller brains,â I said.
Her eyebrows came together. âMaybe the fish were a prototype. An early version. Maybe they really arenât as smart.â
Nanny X stuck the fish in her diaper bag. While we waited for Ali to meet us, we walked across the garden to see her painting, which was on display with a bunch ofother artwork by fifth graders. Aliâs portrait of Yeti was set up on an easel. His paws were on a screen door. I thought he looked like he was waiting for us to get home from school. I also thought he looked hungry.
Wait a minute:
I thought
he looked hungry. I
thought
.
What about the squirrel? Was it thinking, too? Or was somebody else doing the thinking for it? Somebody who was programming it, or maybe even using a remote control, like with Nanny Xâs drone?
An image of the video-game-playing lady sneaked into my brain again. She hadnât looked up when Stinky was yelling at the art museum. She hadnât looked up when we went running to the Castle. Maybe she hadnât looked up because she was busy trying to make a squirrel destroy the world.
âI think I know where Ursula is,â I said.
We rushed back to the Mall, but the video-game lady had moved on. Nanny X grabbed her baby-powder spyglass. She looked both ways. Finally she focused on a giant building with a green dome on it: the National Museum of Natural Historyâmy dadâs museum.
âThere she is,â she said. She handed the glass to me and I peeked through it in time to see Ursulaâor the lady we thought was Ursulaâon the museum steps. The lens was so powerful, I could even make out a small beetle on the step beside her.
17. Alison
Nanny X Sets the Trap
We met Boris in the lobby and headed outside. Stinky held on to the fishing line with the squirrel dangling from the end of it. It swung back and forth when he walked. Its sad squirrel eyes looked even sadder. Anybody watching us would think it was dead.
Weâd just started walking across the Mall when a park ranger stopped us.
âWhat in the Sam Hill do you think youâre doing?â he said.
âGoing to the Castle,â said Stinky. He added a âsirâ for extra politeness.
âIâm not even going to ask if you have a hunting permit,â the ranger said. âEven with a permit, thereâs no hunting allowed.â
âHunting?â Stinkyâs mouth dropped open a little. The only thing he had ever hunted for was litter to pick up, and maybe some worms for compost. âWe werenât hunting.â
âNo trapping,â added the ranger. âNo fishing.â
Stinky held the squirrel right in front of the rangerâs face, which got all scrunched up, like he smelled something bad. I guess Iâd make a face like that, too, if I thought someone was waving a dead squirrel at me.
âItâs mechanical,â Stinky explained. âIt isnât real.â
The ranger reached out and flicked the squirrel. Even with the fur, it made a dull clanging sound. It swung back and forth, like a pendulum. I wanted to point out that the ranger could be getting fingerprints all over our evidence, but he took his fingers away.
He looked at Yeti for a minute, and then his eyes went to Howard. âDo you have a license for that?â he said.
âWe do,â Boris said. He pulled out his own badge. I hoped it would be enough, since Nanny X seemed to have everybody elseâs.
âWell,â said