Dangerous Days of Daniel X

you do not wish to meet with me, little boy-for I am death its very self. Nothing that has ever encountered me has lived to tell the tale.”

Seth was more like a gasbag than a gas, I thought. He sure seemed to love the sound of his own voice. Too bad I didn’t.

“Okay. That’s interesting. But my name’s not Daniel, and I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, still playing dumb. “You have a good day.”

I hung up on him.

Then I nearly jumped out of my skin as the phone rang again.

I bent down immediately and ripped the cord out of the wall.

But as I stood there, something happened that shook my confidence a little. The phone, with its tattered cord dangling beside it, rang again.

Cold beads of sweat were rolling down my spinal column. My heart was pounding.

The answering machine beside the phone picked up after the second ring. Was that even possible?

“Dan? Hello? I do believe we’ve become disconnected,” the clipped British voice said from the speaker. “Never say I didn’t give you a chance, dear boy. The kid gloves are now officially off. You are now Dead Boy Walking.”

Seth began to chuckle softly. The chuckle morphed into a bloodcurdling kind of clicking sound. Like a cricket, a thousand-pound one.

All of a sudden, my lungs and face were burning. Then I started gagging. I opened my mouth to tell my friends that I was choking, but nothing came out. I fell to my knees.

That’s when Willy dove to the floor. He lifted the answering machine by its cord and smashed it to pieces.

My breath returned in a sweet, life-preserving rush.

“Seth isn’t your regular, garden-variety slimer, is he?” Willy said.

“I’m beginning to think,” I said between greedy gulps of air, “maybe not.”

At this I heard a horrifying noise outside. Cats! Hundreds of them, shrieking in the night, calling out my name.

They knew who I was too.

Chapter 30

I GOT TO SCHOOL EARLY the next day. Why school? Maybe because I’d learned my lesson in Portland. Or maybe it was because Phoebe Cook would be there. Honestly? I’d say five percent the lesson in Portland, ninety- five percent Phoebe.

My first class was history with Mr. Marshman, and he was right on time, looking sappier and happier than I’d ever seen him. Why was he so giddy and joyful?

“Pop quiz time!” he announced.

I noticed how I was the only one in the class who didn’t groan like it was the end of the world. Look on the bright side, I wanted to tell them as I took the handout. At least we’re not all on the floor sucking alien nerve gas and incapable of breathing.

Yet.

And fortunately, the quiz wasn’t all that hard.

What are the names of the two oldest, most complete hominid skeletons? Duh, Lucy and Little Foot, maybe. What was the first known great civilization? Depends on your point of view, I thought, mentally flipping through the origin dates of thousands of major alien tribes, some who made it to Earth long before anything in our history textbook. But I wrote the answer Marshman wanted: The Sumerians. These people had no idea…

I was breezing along okay when I suddenly dropped my pen. Hold up! It wasn’t too smart for me to show off, was it? I erased what I’d written so far and started scribbling wrong answers one after the other.

I handed my test in first, and Marshman graded it in about half a minute flat.

“Wow!” he exclaimed. “Just to let everyone know, Linus and Cujo were not the oldest hominid skeletons. Las Vegas is not the first known great civilization, and Sauron was not the Babylonian king who kept the Jews in captivity. Daniel, I really want to thank you. You’ve provided a perfect example of what not to do in my class.”

I felt my face flush as everyone in the room laughed at me. I kept my head down as I walked up and got my test. A big red 0 was written across the top, which actually kind of hurt my feelings.

Ground control to Daniel, I thought. Maybe you’re playing this dumb game a little too well.

Chapter 31

“STEP BACK, EVERYBODY. Give him room. Here comes Albert Daniel Einstein,” some wise guy said as I came out of history class.

One of the school tough guys was talking to his buddies in the hall. I was trying to walk around him when he grabbed my shirt and shoved me hard against a locker.

“Guys, feast your eyes on Daniel Hopper, the mindless new kid. Stand back! I speak brain-dead.”

“Me Jake,” another kid said, patting his Abercrombie amp; Fitch polo shirt. He poked me hard in the chest with his finger. “You halfwit.”

My instinct was to deal with bullies the way all pathetic, attention-seeking, disturbed individuals need to be dealt with-by ignoring them. But I was on edge that morning, and he was picking at a nerve.

I stared at his index finger, debating whether I should snap it at the first knuckle or the second.

A janitor’s mop bucket across the hall solved my dilemma. At a speed approximating that of sound, I shot my left leg behind Jake’s and shoved the six-foot, two-hundred-something-pounder with my right palm. He actually went airborne before he landed, butt down, in the slop bucket.

“Watch those wet floors, and have a super day,” I said before I disappeared around the corner.

Only to barely avoid a head-on collision with Phoebe Cook coming out the door of the bio lab. She looked incredible again today.

“I was hoping to bump into you, Daniel,” Phoebe said. “Well, not literally, I guess, but do you have a free period now? I was wondering if we could talk. Please?”

I actually had geometry class, but why bring up pesky details? “Of course,” I said. “I finally figured out where the library is.”

Which made her laugh.

Which made me kind of goofily happy.

Chapter 32

PHOEBE AND I SAT on a couple of footstools in a far corner of the library stacks. Our knees were almost touching, and mine were knocking a little. No one else was anywhere around.

For about a minute, she stayed there staring at me while she gnawed on her lower lip. Then her eyes welled up with tears.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“I can’t fake it anymore,” Phoebe said in a shaky voice. “I lied to you about my dad moving us because of his