Free Double Vision by F. T. Bradley Page A

paper, she’d scribbled her phone number. “Call me,” she’d said before I’d left the Princesse Hotel. “Agent Fullerton’s in the field and may be hard to reach.” But I wasn’t about to call her, not to report this failed mission. She would just send me home. Pandora couldn’t find the evil Mona Lisa without Jacques Mégère. And I needed him to get my family out of trouble.
    I took a left turn, and suddenly I saw a dragon painted on one of the windows of a bakery—a nice paint job in fine black brushstrokes. The dragon looked serious and a little sad. The rest of the building was painted a cheerful blue. The awning was red. There were baskets of French bread in the window and a really big pie on some kind of turntable. I’d found the Maison du Mégère—how ’bout that, Benjamin Green? I was about to go inside to spend some of those euro bills, when something hit me from behind.
    Thud!
    Some sort of stick (a baseball bat?) just missed my head, then hit me at the knees. I fell onto the cobblestoned street.
    The Tickstick!
    Trying to escape from whoever whacked me, I reached behind me but couldn’t grab my backpack. I crawled, too afraid to look over my shoulder. If only I could reach Henry’s weapon.
    I made it to an alleyway, off to the left of the bakery, when someone kicked me in the side.
    A very angry face hung over mine. Dark brown hair, a braid dangling with beads, making me dizzy.
    Françoise Mégère.
    â€œYou,” she said in a tone that told me I was in trouble. I know that tone well. She pushed a boot into my stomach, and before I could move she waved a stick.
    Then she clutched it in both hands, kneeled on my chest, and looked at me with a fire in her eyes that could only mean something bad was about to happen.
    â€œBenjamin Green,” she said in a very mean, mocking tone, “I’m going to kill you.”
    And she pushed the stick down on my throat.

15
TUESDAY, 1 P.M.
    ONE TIME IN KINDERGARTEN, I PUNCHED a girl in the shoulder. Her name was Nora Maloney, and she took my apple bites with caramel sauce, which were my favorite (this was before I discovered foods that did not belong on the food pyramid). When I tried to snatch them back from Nora Maloney, she flipped her hair in my face, and I punched her. Not that hard, and just in her shoulder, but I got into big, big trouble. It was my first of many more trips to the school principal’s office, and Dad made me promise never to hit a girl again.
    As my head was being rammed into the Parisian cobblestones, I decided this was one of those times it was all right to break the rules. So I kicked Françoise in the shin—which shifted her just long enough for me to slide away, out from under her stick of death.
    â€œHold up, now!” My voice was hoarse. I rubbed my throat, which felt … well, like a scary girl had just tried to kill me with a stick. “Don’t hurt me!”
    She crawled away and stood up, wielding her stick over her head. Now I knew why I needed a backpack full of gadgets: to protect me from this crazy girl. “You lied to me!” She bit her lip. “You took my father.”
    â€œI didn’t take your father,” I said, pulling at my shirt. “I’m trying to get him back for you, okay?”
    Françoise looked at my neck, then my face, then my neck again. She lowered her stick and stepped toward me.
    â€œStop!” I yelled in my most commanding Benjamin Green voice.
    â€œYou’re trying to get my father back?”
    I nodded.
    She gave me a mean stare but kept her stick low, so I figured I was sort of safe. Françoise gently pulled at the collar of my shirt. Looked into my eyes. Squinted. “You’re not Ben.” And she stepped back, giving me the once-over, like she was trying to figure all of it out.
    I knew that I was supposed to be Ben and that I was not to let my cover slip. But since