Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18 Michael yelled, sprinting down the street while attempting to follow her flight path. "He's got Merle!" Pearl shouted. "And he's controlling my drone!" Michael climbed over their neighbor, Mr. Phillips's, fence, running through his backyard to keep track of Pearl. "Who's got Merle!?" he asked, though he feared he already knew the answer. "The man in the suit and sunglasses!" Pearl screamed as she disappeared over the rooftops.

By the time Michael had hopped enough fences and run through enough yards to make it to where the white Toyota had been parked, the man in the suit and sunglasses, along with Merle and Pearl, was long gone. "I told you to not go outside!" Pearl complained in the darkness. "Hey, you know what's funny? The last time we were trapped in the pitch-black was after you warned me to not go inside!" Merle joked, referring to the time nearly 2,000 years before when Pearl had warned him to not venture into the cave by the Dead Sea. "I actually don't think that's funny at all," Pearl replied sternly. "I know, I know." Merle patted around in the dark until he found Pearl's paw. "I'm so sorry, Pearl. I couldn't control myself." Pearl sniffed. "You mean you didn't control yourself." "I was remote-controlling myself," Merle quipped sheepishly.

"Also not funny." The white Toyota, driven by the man in the suit and sunglasses, with two 2,000-year-old talking squirrels in the trunk, made its way down the interstate toward the airport.