15 I’ll Be Watching You

Chapter 15 I'll Be Watching You As the McDonalds drove back on Lovelock Highway up to I-80, the twins sat without saying a word. Suddenly they realized how naive they had been. They had thought that once they'd gotten on the road with their parents, their troubles would be over. They had thought they would be safe in the RV. Who could bother them in the deserts of Nevada? Their parents would protect them. Right. Coke felt the back of his head. There was a GPS chip buried in there somewhere, he remembered. Bones had staple gunned it into his scalp. But who knew where Bones was now? He didn't show up at the sand dune to help them.

That bowler dude guy had said that Mrs. Higgins had "taken care of" their friends. Maybe Bones and Mya weren't even alive anymore. Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/). Click Get Directions. In the A box, type Toulon NV. In the B box, type Wendover UT. Click Get Directions. Coke looked out the window at the big sky. Mrs. Higgins was working with those bowler dudes to kill him and Pep. That much he knew. Maybe satellites were tracking their position, following their every move, listening in on every conversation. What had they gotten themselves into? He fiddled with his deck of cards as these thoughts were running through his brain. The cards had become his security blanket in a way. Just holding them calmed him. Pep sat with her eyes closed. She was shaken, traumatized by the incident at the top of Sand Mountain.

Dr. McDonald pulled on to I-80 and announced that his goal was to make it across Nevada by the end of the day. It would be about 320 miles. "How about a travel game to pass the time?" Mrs. McDonald piped up cheerfully. "I'll name a place, and you guys have to think of a different place that starts with the last letter of my place. Got it? I'll start. Vietnam." "Miami," said Dr. McDonald. "Islip," said Mrs. McDonald. "It's a city in New York State." "Punjab," said Dr. McDonald. "It's a region in India." "What about you kids?" Mrs. McDonald hollered behind her. "Don't you want to play? Get into the spirit of it! Can you think of a place that starts with the letter B?"

"Boring," said Coke. He was right, too. There actually is a town in Oregon called Boring. Go ahead and look it up. "We don't want to play right now, Mom," Pep said quietly. "We're tired." "You kids are no fun at all," Mrs. McDonald said. She gave up the idea of playing a travel game and slipped a CD out of the visor in front of her —The Best of Police. The first song began to play. A guy was singing about how he would always be watching somebody—every breath they take, every move they make. The song sent a shiver down Pep's spine. Somebody was watching them. She took out her cell phone and punched in a text to her brothe.... PEP: U think that bowler dude on sand mountain is dead? COKE: Don't no. Don't wanna no. Probly not. PEP: We couldve killed him. The sword was just

lying there. COKE: Coulda shoulda woulda. PEP: If hes still alive he could bother us again. COKE: I no. Pep pulled out her pad and pencil to resume work on the unsolvable cipher they had found on the windshield that morning. JNTET FFHNO LCDNB LTYUL VSEED NTHTU EWNYI TOECO KOTEA EORIEDPNOITOR She tried reading every second letter to see if it made any sense that way. Then she tried reading every third letter, and then every fourth letter. Then she tried them all backward. It was just gibberish. She closed her eyes again. People who have never been to Nevada tend to think it's just a barren desert with two big cities: Las Vegas and Reno. In fact, it's the most mountainous state in the nation and is filled

with jagged canyons, lush valleys, gorgeous fields of alfalfa hay, sheep ranches, and cactus. Lots of cactus. And yes, the occasional rattlesnake, Gila monster, and kangaroo rat. There are also a lot of cool places in Nevada, especially for people who gravitate toward the offbeat. Like Coke and Pep's mom. Mrs. McDonald reached into her tote bag full of guidebooks and pulled out one titled Eccentric America. "Hey, in Middlegate they have this thing called the Nevada Shoe Tree," she announced. "It says here that some couple was about to get married and the groom was afraid his bride was going to run away, so he threw her shoes up into the tree. Lots of other people threw their shoes up there too, and today that tree is filled with shoes. We should go there." "Middlegate is a hundred miles south of here," Dr. McDonald said. "I'm not driving that far out of our way to see a tree with shoes on it."