Free Van Bender and the Burning Emblems (The Van Bender Archives #1) by S. James Nelson

mouthed something we couldn’t hear. From his lips, it looked like pumpkin pie is the best , but I figured that probably wasn’t really it. Mom looked ready to go into shock.
    “Can we let him in?” I asked.
    “You can slide the door open,” the pilot said. Just make sure you’re both buckled in, first.”
    We both were, so I reached over and grabbed the handle.
    “Wait!” Mom said. “I don’t know if we want to let him in.”
    I raised my eyebrows. “Why not? Are you worried about stranger danger?”
    “Given what I found you doing tonight,” she said, “I’m a worried about much more than that.”
    Agent Maynerd knocked again, this time with more force. He frowned, held up his badge, and widened his eyes.
    I yanked the handle. The door slid open. Wind rushed in and the volume of the chopper blades increased. I’d half expected to see Agent Maynerd sitting on a Pegasus or standing on some funky flying surfboard, but he didn’t. He stood in thin air.
    As calmly as if he stepped onto a boat from shore, he ducked his head and came into the copter. He kept his extended hand outside for a moment, until he opened his fist.
    A dazzling array of red light blossomed from his hand, accompanied by the sound of spinning fireworks. The crimson lines shot out and away, fading in an instant.
    “What the heck was that?” I said.
    He sat down next to me and pushed the door shut. The wind cut off, and the propeller blade volume became muffled. My stomach still churned. I reached for the barf bags we’d prepared.
    Mom watched with a tight mouth. The copter pilot kept looking back, eyes wide. Agent Maynerd grabbed a headset hanging behind him and put it on. Then he lifted his badge again, showing it to Mom.
    “Stop that,” she said. She smacked his hand down. “I know who you are.” Then to me, “ What, exactly, have you been doing?”
    I shrugged. “I tried to talk with you about it back at the stadium.”
    “Pilot,” Agent Maynerd said. “Please remove your headset so I can talk in private with your passengers?”
    “I, uh, don’t know... .”
    “Do it!” Mom said. “Just do it!”
    The pilot tore his headset off, but continued to glance backward every few seconds.
    “It’s such a pleasure to see you again,” I said to Agent Maynerd. “Aren’t you going to brandish your badge, again?”
    His hand twitched, but didn’t otherwise move. He gave me a level look and reached over to pull my headset off. I tried to object, but he moved too quickly. Before I knew it, he’d tucked my headset inside his coat. I could only hear the chopper blades cutting through the air in their rhythmic thumping.
    I had to continue to focus on the ground outside as Agent Maynerd spoke to Mom, but I frequently glanced at them. His lips moved fast while the rest of his face looked like stone. At first, her eyes grew wide and she slouched deeper in her seat as if suffering an extreme moral defeat, but soon she became more animated. Angry, even. She sat up in her chair and began to motion with her hands. Several times she looked at me and ran her hand in a horizontal wiping motion, as if she were clearing condensation off a window.
    I felt like I watched one of those old silent movies, except I didn’t get any captions. Every now then her eyes would flit to me, or she would shake her head with fast, short movements. I tried to lean in close to listen, and thought I heard her say something like “wipe his mind,” but Agent Maynerd put a hand on my face and pushed me away, and I could only hear the thumping of the blades and the rush of wind.
    After about a minute, my motion sickness became too strong. My stomach clenched involuntarily, my mouth gaped, and I puked into the bag. As far as barf bags go, it was a pretty good one. Probably industrial strength. I tied it off, set it aside, and grabbed another.
    As I raised the next bag to my mouth, Agent Maynerd gave me a concerned look. He pointed at me and said something to Mom. She