Stella Marston crossed the concourse of the airport. Everywhere she looked, people

told her about themselves. Some of the things weren’t what she considered nice.

She spotted her babysitters. Uncle Marty stood in his beat up old tan jacket with an

hourglass on the sleeve and waved at her. She could see the holes in it from where she

walked.

His wife, Finch, stood at his side. She wore a green and gold shirt-dress over green

pants. Her face and mind were empty.

Stella paused. She had never met someone who kept their thoughts that much in

check.

The three children with them had flightier minds, scattered thoughts flying around as

they focused on one thing, or the other.

“Hey, Stella,” said Uncle Marty. He waved at her. “Have you got your bag?”

“Yes, sir,” said Stella. Her dad had told her to pack light, so she had packed two

changes of clothing in an overnight bag.

“All right,” said Marty. “Let’s head to the van and start our trip.”

Stella fell in with the kids, carrying her backpack in her hand. Mark and Melinda

practiced mock punches behind her. She could read the vectors even if she couldn’t

hope to match their speed. Bond followed at a distance. He had a book in hand,

scanning it as he walked. She got the impression of him reading it as an echo in her

mind.

“What are you reading?,” asked Stella. She walked beside Bond, keeping her distance

from the siblings.

“The Adventure of Three Coffins,” said Bond. He looked up. “My dad wants me to

solve the mystery before I reach the end of the book.”

“Why?,” asked Stella.

“Because he’s a detective and he wants me to follow in his footsteps,” said Bond.

“I’m not sure if I am cut out to be a detective.”

“My dad is a detective too,” said Stella. “He doesn’t solve crimes anymore. Mostly

he makes sure that one person isn’t doing anything wrong.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” said Bond. “My dad just wants to solve mysteries

and catch villains because that was what he was trained to do. My mom likes

helping.”

Stella thought about it. Bond’s parents weren’t there. She knew them as Ren and

Corona Tamagochi. Ren’s mind was full of formulae and explanations for things that

she didn’t understand. Corona looked like a star.

“I don’t see your parents,” Stella said. She knew that was the wrong thing to say a

moment later.

“Dad had a case he had to work on at the last minute,” said Bond. “He doesn’t like

the outdoors that much anyway.”

“Do you want to go?,” asked Stella.

“Not really, but Dad doesn’t want me to stay at home while he’s working on this,”

said Bond.

“He didn’t want you to get hurt, dipstick,” said Mark.

“Yeah, dipstick,” said Melinda.

“That gets old,” said Bond.

Stella looked at the Morgan siblings. They looked more like their mother than dad

with straight hair, and oriental features. They already had calluses on their hands from

practicing to follow in their mom’s footsteps.

Bond was taller than the three of them, blond hair burning the light, dark eyes

squinting at everything. He wore a suit jacket and slacks for their camping trip.

“There’s the van,” said Uncle Marty. “Let’s load up and get this show on the road.”

The family dog sat in the shotgun seat. He barked at the kids as they ran up to the van.

The tail wagged.

“Back seat, Ruff,” said Uncle Marty. He gestured with a thumb.

The wrinkled face vanished from the window and reappeared in the side door

window. The dog grinned at them.

Uncle Marty opened the side door for the kids to climb in. Ruff danced around to

make that harder than necessary. His tongue left slobber everywhere he attacked.

“Down, Ruff,” said Mark. “We’re camping.”

The dog climbed into the back of the van and lay down. His tail still wagged. They

could hear it beating against the seat.

Finch placed the boys in the middle seats, and the girls in the back. She gave her

children a look. Then she closed the van door. Camping could be traded for work

around the Scouts’ home, and helping Barry with his inventions.

Something exploding was not all that fun when it set your hair on fire.

Stella looked over the seat at Ruff. The dog looked up at her. She didn’t sense

anything from it. She turned to face front before she got another face licking.

Marty got behind the wheel. Finch took the front passenger seat. She nodded at them.

Stella felt a little ping of something from her then. She didn’t have time to examine

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

it before it was gone.

Bond turned to the last page of the book. He looked down. Then he shook his head.

He pulled out a pen and wrote something down on the last page of the book. He put

the pen and book away.

“What’s wrong?,” Stella asked.

“I am in training to be a detective,” said Bond. “Part of that is figuring out these

mysteries. My dad tears out the last few pages and makes me write down who I think

did the deed.”

“Sounds boring,” said Melinda.

“You have to train to be something,” said Bond. “This is Dad’s way of training me.

Look at you two. Your mom makes you run in front of a pitching machine to get

fast.”

“And we’re fast,” said Mark.

“Same principle,” said Bond. “Dad wants me to figure out what happened in the story.

He calls it evaluating things. Once I get that down, I can move on to other parts of

things.”

“Why don’t you look up the endings at the library?,” said Stella.

“That’s cheating,” said Bond. “And Dad always knows when I do that.”

“Really?,” said Stella.

“Yep,” said Bond. “He always knows.”

“He’s got eyes in the back of his head,” said Mark. “Bond is right. You can’t get away

with anything when he’s around.”

“He’s constantly evaluating things,” said Bond.

“I thought my dad was bad,” said Stella.

“Eventually I hope to join a sports team and get out of all this training,” said Bond.

“I’m not quite sure if being a detective is something I want to do.”

“Sports takes just as much training as detecting,” said Mark. “Only you have to be

good at running and catching and a hundred other things.”

“And you’re not that good at any of them,” said Melinda.

“I could be a great football player,” said Bond. “I have grace according to my mom.”

The siblings sniggered at that. Melinda covered her mouth so she couldn’t howl with

laughter.

“You two are being mean,” said Stella. She frowned at the two. “Fighting is not that

great a skill either if it doesn’t get you a job to pay your rent.”

“It’s a great skill,” said Mark. “It has a lot of uses.”

“Name one other than fighting,” said Stella.

“Breaking things,” said Mark.

“Physical fitness,” said Melinda.

“Taking a punch to the face,” said Bond.

“The last is covered by fighting,” said Stella.

“All right, kids,” said Marty. “I need to make a call. Try to keep things down to a dull

roar.”

Ruff barked from the back of the van.

“That includes you too,” said Marty.

He pulled on a headset and plugged it into the dashboard. He waited for someone to

answer before he started talking. He nodded at something said. Then he disconnected

the headset, and put it away again.

“All right, guys,” said Marty. “We’re getting off at the next exit and then start up

toward the forest. There’s a small place to shop for groceries. That will be the place

for whatever supplies you think we’ll need. Think about it.”

“How much can we get?,” asked Mark.

“Five dollars worth,” said Marty. “I think that should be enough for the four of you.”

“Five dollars apiece, or together?,” asked Mark.

“Together,” said Marty.

“That won’t even buy soda pop for the four of us,” said Mark.

“It should,” said Marty. He looked at Finch. She held up two fingers. “All right, I will

give you two dollars apiece for your personal use.”

“Three dollars?,” asked Mark.

“Two fifty,” said Marty. “That’s my final offer.”

Mark looked at the other three kids. He nodded at the looks he got back.

“We’ll take it,” he said.

“He gets this haggling thing from your side of the family,” Marty said, smiling at his

wife. Finch shook her head. She pointed at him. “Me? I don’t think so. I never

haggled a day in my life.”

Stella wondered what she could get for two dollars. She planned to keep the fifty

cents for later when she got home.

“All right, here’s the exit, kids,” said Marty. “We’re looking for signs heading to

Redwood. The camping area is north of that.”

“We could have camped around the old place,” said Mark. “We didn’t have to drive

out this far from home.”

“Barry is doing experiments at home,” said Marty. “I figured that camping away from

that would prevent him trying to con us into helping him move machinery around

while he got things the way he wanted.”

“Good call,” said Mark. He settled back in his chair.

“I’m so glad you approve of my decision making skills,” said Marty.

“Who’s Barry?,” asked Stella. She saw an image of a human looking machine in a

Scout coat, waving what looked like a flamethrower in one hand.

“He’s one of the Scouts,” said Bond. “He’s big on doing experiments to find out

things.”

“He’ll work us like dogs,” said Mark.

“He says it builds character,” said Melinda. She stuck out her tongue at that idea.

“Don’t listen to them,” said Marty. “Barry is my adoptive father, and Mark and

Melinda’s adoptive grandfather. He gets a little enthusiastic when he decides to do

things. This weekend is all about taking things slow and enjoying the time outside.”

“Which we wouldn’t be able to do dodging lightning and some of the stuff he’s

testing,” said Mark.

“Killer frogs with two foot long tongues,” said Melinda. She shook at the thought.

Ruff added his own sentiment to the description from his spot at the back of the van.

“You kids are exaggerating,” said Marty. “Those frogs weren’t nearly that big.”

Stella saw an image in the Morgan siblings’ minds. The frogs looked big to her. The

size of a greyhound sprang to mind. Mark held his hands out to show how big the

frogs were. Melinda nodded in agreement.

“Humongous,” said Finch.

“They were a little outsized, but we handled it,” said Marty. “You guys act like

you’ve never seen strange wildlife before.”

“Mr. Morgan,” said Bond. “Those frogs were the single most dangerous things I have

ever seen in my life. I think that you are just used to that kind of thing and they

looked small to you.”

“You haven’t really seen anything that dangerous, have you?,” asked Marty.

“Not like that, no,” said Bond. He turned to Stella. “They chased us all over the

building, trying to eat us. Mr. Nicklaus found an old flamethrower and lit them up.

They exploded and covered us with goo. I spent a week showering to get the smell

out.”

“That was the worst part,” said Mark. “The slimy skin and the tongues weren’t as bad

as the smell when they blew up. We had to clean that up too. It was awful.”

“It was horrible,” said Melinda. She made a face at the memory of the odor.

“Indescribable,” said Finch.

“Et tu, Brute,” said Marty. He glanced at his wife. Her placid mask almost smiled

back at him.

The van pulled into the gravel lot of the small store Marty had told them about. He

counted out two fives and handed them to the four kids. They looked down at the two

bills.

“How are we supposed to split this?,” asked Mark.

“I suggest that one of you pick one item and pay for it to get change, then split it like

that,” said Marty. “Or one of you can buy their two bucks worth of stuff and give the

change to the other.”

“Boys together, then girls,” said Finch. “No fighting, no arguing.”

“Come on, Bond,” said Mark. “Let’s see what we can do with our five dollars.”

The boys went in first, talking about how to maximize their buying power. A giant

pool of things to split would be the way to go as far as they could see. And they

wouldn’t have to give any to the girls.

“Could you help me pick stuff out?,” asked Melinda. “I’m not good with numbers

yet.”

“Okay,” said Stella. “You hold the money.”

“I can do that,” said Melinda. “No one will take our money as long as I have it in my

hand.”

Stella saw a show of violence rushing through Melinda’s mind at the determination

of stopping a thief before he got away with their five dollar bill.

“If you girls hurry, maybe you can convince the boys to share their five so you have

ten dollars altogether,” said Marty. He smiled as they rushed into the store to talk to

the boys.