The Impossible Fortress(21)
“Other window,” Clark explained. “The left window.”
I shifted the binoculars an inch. The left window had the same red-and-gold drapes, but squatting between them was a tiny black-and-white dog with a silky coat and a serious overbite. He was glowering at me, like we were making direct eye contact. Even from fifty feet away, the dog seemed to recognize me as a threat.
“That’s Arnold Schwarzenegger?” I asked.
“The General’s pet,” Alf explained. “He’s a Shit Zoo. It means little lion in Chinese.”
The little lion barked a warning—a series of short high-pitched chirps. He sounded less like a dog and more like a smoke detector. The sound was so piercing, it traveled two stories and across the parking lot, reaching us loud and clear. Schwarzenegger didn’t stop barking until I lowered the binoculars.
“So last night we’re climbing up the ladder,” Clark explained. “Total stealth mode. Super quiet. We’re not making a sound. But as soon as we reached those windows, the dog flips out. Yap-yap-yapping his head off.”
“The guard dog from hell,” Alf said.
I looked through the binoculars again. Schwarzenegger was standing in a tiny pillowed bed, growling and anxiously pacing in circles. As if he remembered Alf and Clark from the previous evening.
We walked around the block, studying the architecture, looking for another way to access the roof. There were no other fire escapes or ladders on the bike shop or the travel agency; the only way to access Zelinsky’s was the way Tyler had shown us. After viewing the building from every possible angle, Clark reached in his pocket for a pencil sketch of the downtown shopping district. He knelt on the sidewalk and drew a dog in the second-floor window of General Tso’s restaurant:
“I guess there’s only one option,” Clark said.
“Kidnap the dog?” Alf said.
“No,” I told him. “No one’s kidnapping anything.”
Clark nodded. “We have to distract the dog. Get his attention on something else.”
“Perfect,” I said. “How do we do that?”
“Leave that to us,” he said. “You keep playing with Mary’s software, and we’ll take care of the rest.”
900 REM *** CONTROL HERO ***
910 JS=PEEK(56321) AND 15
920 IF JS=7 THEN HX=HX+2
930 IF HX>255 THEN HX=255
940 IF JS=11 THEN HX=HX-2
950 IF HX<24 THEN HX=24
960 IF JS=13 THEN HY=HY+2
970 IF HY>229 THEN HY=229
980 IF JS=14 THEN HY=HY-2
990 IF HY<50 THEN HY=50
995 RETURN
THE NEXT MORNING I biked three miles to the nearest mall with a B. Dalton and bought my own copy of How to Learn Machine Language in 30 Days so I could study it during class. I didn’t get to school until eleven o’clock, so I headed to the office to pick up a late slip. Over the years I’d become an expert at forging excuse notes from my mother. Normally the school secretary barely looked at them; she’d just check my name off the attendance grid and send me on my way.
But this day, something was different.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said, pushing my note across the counter. “Doctor’s visit.”
The secretary raised her eyebrows. “Wait here.”
She left her desk, tapped on the door of the principal’s office, and ducked inside. A moment later, she returned. “Mr. Hibble wants to see you.”
“It was a doctor’s visit,” I repeated.
She nodded. “You can go right in.”
I hadn’t spoken to Hibble since the beginning of the school year, when my mother dragged me into his office to protest my class schedule. I found him seated behind his desk, rereading my note with a bemused grin. He was short, barely five four, and my classmates nicknamed him “the Duke” because he wore jacked-up cowboy boots and spoke with a southern-fried twang. His walls were decorated with numerous diplomas and a framed photograph of Hibble standing beside Kenny Rogers.
“Don’t just stand there,” he called. “Come in and sit, Billy. We’ve been waiting for you.”
I stepped inside. Sitting across from Mr. Hibble was my mother. Her eyes were puffy and she was clutching a balled-up Kleenex. In the middle of Hibble’s desk was a brown paper bag with my name scrawled on the side. All at once I realized what had gone wrong: in my haste to get to the mall, I’d left the house without my lunch.
The only available chair in the office was beside my mother. I sat without looking at her. Hibble put on his glasses and read aloud from my note: “?‘Please forgive Billy’s tardiness. He had an appointment with our physician to discuss an ongoing medical debilitation.’?” Then he sat back in his chair and nodded. “Very impressive note, Billy. Lots of big words.”
I didn’t say anything. One thing I’d learned is that no answer will ever satisfy an angry adult. Anything you say is bound to make them angrier, so the best response was always no response.
“School started three hours ago,” Hibble said. “Where were you?”
“At the mall.”
He nodded like this made total sense.
“Why were you at the mall? What’s so important that you had to skip school and go to the mall?”