9 Welcome to the Family

Chapter 9 Welcome to the Family "Congratulations," Bones said as he shook hands with each twin enthusiastically. "Welcome to the GF family." Pep wrinkled her nose. She had enough problems with her own family. She didn't need another one, and she wasn't at all sure she wanted to be part of this one. Bones pulled aside a large piece of cardboard on the floor of the garage. There was a wooden door underneath. He yanked it open, revealing stairs that went down. Bones climbed into the hole and beckoned the twins to follow. "So this is where you keep the real spy stuff, eh?" Coke said, looking around. There were cameras, tools, and all kinds of equipment lining

the shelves of the walls in the cramped room. "You might say that." Coke picked up two staple guns. "What do these shoot," he asked, "laser beams?" "Put those down!" Bones said sternly. "They shoot staples, you idiot!" Pep told her brother. "Okay, okay, relax." "We have a very short, uh... initiation ceremony that all new recruits have to go through," Bones told them. "I hope you don't mind. It's no big deal." "It doesn't involve jumping off a cliff or setting our school on fire, does it?" Pep asked nervously. "No, no! Nothing like that," said Bones. "All you have to do is turn around to face the wall and make the sound of the letter Z with your throats." "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz," the twins said.

While they were making the sound, Bones picked up the two staple guns Coke had been fooling with. He placed them gently against the back of the children's heads and pulled the triggers. "Owwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Are you crazy?" Coke said after spinning around to see Bones holding both staple guns. "What is your problem, man?" "You stapled my head!" Pep shouted. "I can't believe you would do that!" "I did not staple your head," Bones explained calmly. "I implanted tiny GPS devices in your scalps. They're harmless. Now we can track you more easily." "Why do you need to track us?" Pep asked. "It's for your safety," Bones explained. "If you're in trouble anywhere in the world, we'll be able to find you. This GPS is accurate within three feet. Dr. Warsaw designed it personally. Someday everyone will have one." "Great," Coke said glumly, rubbing the back

of his head. "Isn't that an invasion of privacy?" Pep asked. "Strictly speaking, I suppose it is," Bones admitted. "But we feel the advantages outweigh the dis-advantages." "Hey, why did you tell us to make the Z sound?" Coke asked. "So you wouldn't notice the staple guns," Bones said. "Listen, before I send you home, I want to give you something. A small token of our appreciation." "You already implanted a small token of your appreciation in each of our heads," Pep said. Bones went over to a shelf and came back with a shopping bag. "What is it?" Coke asked. "Some kind of a gun that's hidden inside a candy bar or something?" "Goodness no," Bones said. "We can't be handing out guns to children, now can we?" He pulled a Frisbee out of the bag. It said TGF FLYING HIGH on it. "You're giving us a Frisbee?" Pep asked,

puzzled. "We had some left over from the company picnic," Bones explained. "You have company picnics!?" Pep asked. "I thought this was a top secret organization?" "It was a top secret picnic," said Bones. "It's not a Frisbee, you dope!" said Coke. "That lady Mya had one of these up on the cliff. Remember? It's a Frisbee grenade! We can throw this sucker at bad guys and totally waste them." "Mya's Frisbee grenade was a prototype," Bones told them. "They cost fifty thousand dollars each. We could never afford to hand them out casually. Budget cuts, you know. And they're very dangerous, too. You haven't been trained to use them." "Then I'll bet the Frisbee shoots lasers, huh?" Coke said. "Like, you throw it and it zaps everything within fifty feet. That is cool! Where's the on-off switch?" "It doesn't shoot lasers," Bones said. "It doesn't

turn on or off." "Then it must give off a magnetic force field or something, right?" Coke asked. "Or when you throw it, it sprays some vile stuff like a skunk does." "It doesn't give off a force field," Bones said. "It doesn't spray anything. You just fling it." "I get it," Coke guessed. "After you chuck it, razor blades pop out of the sides. When it reaches the victim, it can slice a man's head off like a knife going through a hunk of cheese. That is awesome!" "No, no! It's nothing like that," Bones told Coke. "It's a toy. You throw it to somebody and they catch it. Then they throw it back to you. Something fun for you to play with in your travels. The only thing you can kill with it is time."