Free Omega City by Diana Peterfreund Page A

find, though.”
    That was a relief.
    â€œThe road doesn’t even exist anymore.”
    Nonexistent road, check. Good thing we had the exact coordinates.
    â€œDid she, um, have any idea how to find it?” Eric asked.
    â€œNo. Seemed pretty frustrated, too.” Dad shrugged. “Maybe we’ll go look for his cabin next summer.”
    Or maybe we’d find it a lot sooner than that.

8
THE MISSING MOON
    WHEN NATE’S RED PICKUP PULLED IN TO OUR DRIVEWAY ON SATURDAY morning, the General Tso’s Pizza sign was nowhere to be seen. I almost missed it. Savannah was already waiting with us on the porch, adjusting the zipper of her pink velour jacket and smoothing her hair. I think she’d even put on mascara. I was just wearing jeans and a long-sleeve top. Eric had found a bit of rope and was practicing his sailing knots, which was something I hadn’t seen him do since Dad sold off his dinghy and made us live in a tent.
    Savannah, Eric, and I approached the truck as Howard got out of the passenger side and pulled the seat forward so we could all climb in back. “I read the Underberg book lastnight,” he said instead of greeting us. “All of it—even the parts that aren’t about the space program.”
    â€œYay?” I climbed in the backseat.
    â€œYou know, Howard,” Savannah said sweetly, “if you want to talk to Gillian about the book, I’d be happy to sit shotgun and let you have my seat.”
    No! I mouthed at her. I could already imagine thirty miles of space talk.
    â€œForget it,” said Nate. He was sitting up front, his hands draped casually over the steering wheel. “Howard sits up here. I need him to navigate.”
    Savannah pouted, then hopped on the bench next to me. Eric shook his head and climbed in last.
    On the road, Savannah leaned forward between the two bucket seats and tried to talk to Nate, who mostly grunted one-word replies. Meanwhile, Howard peppered me with questions about Dr. Underberg, and what, precisely, we were looking for.
    â€œBut the author of the book”—no matter how many times I reminded Howard that the author was my dad, it didn’t seem to sink in—“didn’t discover why the government buried all the information about Underberg and his battery. The story has no ending.”
    â€œThat stuff is classified,” I said.
    â€œYou can still make an educated guess.”
    I wasn’t so sure about that. Everything Dad wrote wasfact, and he’d still gotten in plenty of trouble.
    Eric stared out the window as the fields flashed by. “Great. So the publisher didn’t pull Dad’s book because of a conspiracy. It was just that it sucked.”
    â€œDid not!” I snapped.
    â€œIt doesn’t make sense,” Howard said. “If the battery was going to save all this energy and money and help the environment and everything else, why didn’t the government get behind it?”
    â€œDad says people in power sometimes work against the public’s best interests,” I said.
    â€œThat doesn’t make sense,” Howard insisted.
    â€œBut that’s how it works anyway,” Nate broke in. “In history class we learned how Henry Ford and other car manufacturers convinced President Eisenhower back in the fifties that highways were the best way to escape a nuclear attack.”
    â€œProbably better than hiding under your desk,” said Eric.
    Nuclear attack again? Was every decision made by the government in the twentieth century because people were afraid of getting nuked? I looked out at the pale blue sky. I couldn’t imagine living under such a shadow.
    â€œWhether it actually would work is beside the point,” said Nate. “It got the government to build highways instead of public transportation systems. Trains and subwaysmight save energy and money, just like that battery, but it didn’t help Ford sell cars.”
    â€œSo