Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12 Mrs. Gomez turned and smiled as Michael, Merle, Justin, and Sadie came bursting through Michael's bedroom door. She had been assembling Merle and Pearl's new house all afternoon and had just finished. The final result was a complicated network of plastic tubes, running wheels, and compartments of different sizes that took up almost half the room. Mrs. Gomez loved homemaking— even for squirrels. "Well? What do you—?" "Mom! Someone kidnapped Pearl!" Michael shouted, interrupting her. "I think the correct term would be squirrelnapped," Justin pointed out. "That's not a thing," Sadie said. "Well, she's not a kid." "You don't have to be a kid to be kidna—" "What happened?!" Mrs. Gomez asked, looking worried. "This place is AMAZING!!!" Merle exclaimed, temporarily forgetting the matter at hand as he gazed upon the Taj Mahal of hamster/squirrel cages.

"Isn't it fun?" Mrs. Gomez replied, pleased by Merle's reaction. "MOM!!! MERLE!!! EVERYONE!!! This is serious!" Michael yelled. "We need to find Pearl! The guy. In the park. It's the same guy we saw on the plane and in the airport and at the roller rink. He must have been following us for a while." "You saw him on the plane?" Mrs. Gomez frowned. "If he followed you over from Israel, we're going to need to let your father know right away."

"But he won't be home until later tonight!" Michael cried. "We'll go tell him now," Mrs. Gomez replied. "If that man has ties to Israel, your dad needs to know right away. He may be a government agent." "I thought I was grounded?" Jane asked as her mom strapped her into her car seat. Justin and Sadie piled into the back on either side of her while Michael buckled up in front, with Merle tucked away in Michael's backpack at his feet. "We're going to visit Daddy at work," Mrs. Gomez said. Jane grinned. "Being grounded is fun!" Justin and Sadie laughed. "Why are you grounded?" Sadie asked Jane. "I broke the elephant with a cupcake," Jane responded. Had Michael bothered to turn around, he would have seen Justin and Sadie trade suspicious looks.

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