Darnell Slant went on: “We can honor those who helped shape the history of the city by creating our own tech, new and better tech. And by building new and better buildings with modern conveniences for modern people. Nobody wants to live in a museum. And who knows what those machines are up to. Doesn’t anyone wonder?”
A reporter stuck a microphone under Slant’s nose. “So, does that mean you’ll be knocking down all the Morningstarr buildings?”
A slight smile tugged at the corner of Slant’s slanty mouth. “Let’s just say that in a few short weeks, you’ll be amazed.”
“Amazed,” said Tess. “That’s one word for it.” She made a noise not unlike a growl.
“Are you growling?” said their mom.
“No,” said Tess. “That was Theo.”
“I do not growl,” Theo growled.
“See?” said Tess.
“All right, you two,” said their mom. “Don’t you have somewhere to go? Something to do?”
“Now that you mention it,” said Tess, “we were thinking about seeing a movie.”
“Sounds fun,” said their mom. As they were getting ready to leave, their mom called at their backs: “Don’t eat too much popcorn!”
“We will!” said Tess, and shut the door behind them. She marched from the house so quickly that Theo had to run to keep up. He did not enjoy running unnecessarily.
“Slow down,” he said.
“Speed up!” said Tess. “You heard what Slant said. We only have ‘a few short weeks’ before he does whatever the heck he’s planning to do, which will be awful no matter what it is!”
“I don’t know how a week can be any shorter. A week is a week,” Theo said.
“Faster, Theo!”
But no one was speeding anywhere. It took a few trains and a whole hour to get to Hoboken.
“I’m not sure about this,” said Theo, once they had emerged from Hoboken Terminal.
“I am,” Tess said.
“He doesn’t want to talk to us.”
“That’s only because he doesn’t understand that picture.”
“Yes, but we don’t understand that picture.”
“Right. That’s my point.”
“What?” said Theo.
“He’s angry because he thinks we know what the picture means, that we kept something from him. Except we didn’t. We’re as confused as he is.”
“I don’t think that argument is convincing,” said Theo. “It wouldn’t convince me.”
Tess stopped marching and snapped, “Well, Jaime isn’t you.”
“I . . . ,” Theo began. But what could he say? It was true. Jaime wasn’t him and he wasn’t Jaime. That had never seemed like a bad thing before, but now it felt like a bad thing. Like, if Tess had a choice, she’d pick her friend over her brother.
“Can I walk Nine?” Theo said.
Tess’s brows bunched in puzzlement, but she handed over Nine’s leash.
That many people on the street seemed to think Nine was some kind of panther and shrank away from them made him feel a little better. A little. But it was a good thing that the black dye that hid Nine’s spots still hadn’t faded. The viral video that seemed to show Nine biting a woman bloody was still making the rounds on social media, despite the fact that the “injured” woman couldn’t be found and the charges had been dropped. For the gazillionth time, Theo wondered what had happened to that blond woman, where she had disappeared to, and whether she posed more danger to Tess and Theo and Jaime than Darnell Slant did. And then he wondered why he was thinking in nonsense words like gazillionth. Which was totally not a number.
“Mrrow?” said Nine, glancing back at him.
“I’m okay,” he told the cat. He wasn’t, but there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it. He couldn’t do anything about the blond woman who had followed them around, he couldn’t do anything about the trunk they had found in the cemetery, he couldn’t do anything to explain the things they had found in it or the picture that implied that he and Tess were anything more than just a couple of almost–eighth graders.
But that was all they were.
As much as he hated to admit it.
They reached Jaime’s building. In the bright sunshine, it looked impossibly new, impossibly clean, the river behind it blue enough to hurt. Tess put her hand on the door, then hesitated.
“What?” said Theo.
“He doesn’t want to see us,” Tess said.
“That’s what I . . . ,” Theo began. Then he said, “I know.”
“The security guard won’t let us upstairs unless he checks with Jaime or his grandmother first.”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you dragged us all the way out here,” said Theo.
“Maybe you should have thought of it,” Tess said, without much heat. Her face got that sad puppy expression that Theo hated. He’d rather shave his head and spend the rest of his life trying to spin gold from his hair than see his sister make that face.
“I have an idea,” said Theo. He opened the door and walked up to the security guard, and after a moment, Tess followed. Today’s guard was a white woman with a moon face and large biceps that bulged in the sleeves of her uniform.
“Hello,” Theo said. “We’re here to see Ms. Cricket Moran.”
But the guard wasn’t listening, or even looking at him. She said, “Is that a mountain lion?”
“No,” said Theo.
“A jaguar?”
“No, this is a—”
The guard snapped her fingers. “A puma!”
“No,” said Theo. “She’s a—”
“A puma-jaguar!”
Theo said, “I don’t think they made puma-jaguars.”
“They made all kinds of hybrids,” the guard said. “Ferrets and otters, ferrets and rabbits, hedgehogs and hamsters, mice and foxes.”
“Mice and foxes?” said Theo. “No, that’s not—”
“Yes!” the guard said. “Teeny-tiny little fox-mice. But I heard they were way too smart and escaped all the time. Anyway, they were working on some doozies before the larger hybrids were outlawed.”
“Doozies,” said Theo, remembering the giraffe-owary—giraffe plus cassowary—that had menaced them on North Brother Island. “Yep.”
“Can we see Cricket, please?” Tess said. “It’s kind of an emergency.”
“Everything with Cricket is an emergency,” said the guard.
“You know her?”
“Everyone in this building knows her. She’s ‘investigated’ every tenant on every floor, looking for her raccoon,” the guard said, putting air-quotes around the word investigated. “We’ve had to talk to her parents three times. But that hasn’t stopped her.”
“Someone stole her pet,” Tess said. “Can you blame her?”
“She has a new pet,” said the guard.
“She does not,” said Tess.
“Have it your way,” said the guard. “What are your names?”