Free Deprivation House by Franklin W. Dixon Page B

people with death was pretty much anti-nice.
    Although getting a death threat might get you some sympathy. It definitely worried her parents enough to go to the police, who went to ATAC. Maybe Ripley sent the threat to herself to soften her parents up. She could have sent everyone else threats to confuse things.
    I was definitely confused.
    â€œYou’re still trying to think of the opposite of a pufferfish, aren’t you?” Brynn knocked her shoulder against mine.
    I realized I’d been spacing. A bunch of people had already left the great room.
    â€œNah,” I told her. “I figured that out last night. It’s a salad.”
    She raised her eyebrows, making the pointy parts more pointy. Would she get mad if I told her she looked sort of like an elf? “A salad,” she repeated as we walked out to the balcony. It was starting to become our spot.
    â€œIn Japan cooks have to have a license to prepare pufferfish. One little mistake, and you can kill someone,” I started to explain. “With salad—”
    â€œNo matter how you make it, you’re almost never going to kill anybody. Unless maybe you don’t wash the spinach well enough.” Brynn smiled. “That’s a very good opposite. You might have a real talent for this.”
    â€œIt’s something I’m going to explore with my guidance counselor,” I answered.
    Brynn laughed, then braced her hands on the balcony rail and looked down at the grounds. “The fountain is my favorite thing in the whole place,” she said.
    â€œI don’t think I’ve even seen the whole place yet,” I admitted.
    â€œI’m sure I haven’t either. I just make snap judgments,” she told me. “Do you think you’d be a different person if you had a completely different past?”
    â€œYou want to talk about something random again?” I asked.
    â€œI like random,” she admitted. “I like conversations where you have no idea what the other person is going to say. Instead of ‘where do you go to school?’ kind of things.”
    â€œOkay.” I thought about her question for a moment. “I think I’d be somewhat different, but not completely different,” I said.
    â€œSo if you had been adopted by Frank’s family and he’d been adopted by yours, you’d have the same personality?” Brynn turned to face me.
    â€œYeah. I definitely don’t think I’d have Frank’s personality, if that’s what you mean,” I answered. “I don’t think I’d eat pizza with a knife and fork. I wouldn’t have a kitten if somebody put a CD back in the wrong case.”
    â€œFrank eats pizza with a knife and fork?” Brynn asked.
    Oops. I’d gotten so into talking to Brynn I’dmessed up on the cover story. She made me forget my ATAC training for a second.
    â€œHe definitely looks like the kind of guy who would, right? I mean, look at his jeans. I think he irons them. And they’re jeans,” I said. “But back to your first question, I wouldn’t be a guy who ironed, well, anything. But I guess every experience you have changes you somehow. Gives you knowledge. Or memories that are good or bad. Or skills. For example, because I met you, I’m now an opposites master.”
    I figured I’d given a long enough answer to make her forget my slipup. “What do you think? Would you be totally different if you lived in a different place or had a different family or whatever?”
    She shrugged. “Who knows?”
    â€œFine. You make me give a big, long essay-question answer and you get off with ‘who knows,’” I complained.
    â€œYou could have said ‘who knows,’” Brynn told me. “You could have . . .”
    As she continued speaking, a flash of light from among the trees below caught my eye. I tried to pretend I was listening to Brynn as I watched for it to come