Two from the Heart(50)

I straddle the seat from the back, inching my way forward, trying my best to give Daisy some room up front. But the seat was not exactly built for two. No matter how I maneuver, my crotch is crowding her rear end and my knees are pressing up against her thighs. I try gripping the sides of the seat for support as she takes off, but that lasts for about two seconds. My survival instinct takes over and I lock my hands around her middle, my chin pressed against her back. At this point, we’re melded into one crazy rolling Kama Sutra position.

“Hold tighter,” she yells over the engine noise, “I promise I won’t press charges.”

I clench my hands together and tuck my arms in close, just under her rib cage—the no-man’s-land between her belly button and her breasts.

“Is this thing safe?” I shout into her ear.

“Beats walking!” she shouts back.

Where have I heard that before?





Chapter 38


PRINCIPAL DELGADO is looking out his office window when the angels of doom arrive. The plain gray sedan with government plates pulls into a visitor parking spot behind the school.

This is it.

Two State Department of Education administrators emerge from the car, with expressions as sober as their suits. Eric Baynes is the lead—a DOE lifer. Ellie Cabot, the one carrying the thick binder, is a trainee. She’s here to observe. To learn the procedure. To see exactly what notifications and documents are required to shut down a school for good.

The minute they walk into the building, there’s a disturbance in the hive. By the time Delgado’s office door shuts behind them, secretaries are whispering to teachers and teachers are whispering to other teachers—and kids are picking up the vibrations. The rumors are true. The executioners are here.

A few eighth-grade boys volunteer to let the air out of their tires.

But one kid has a better idea…





Chapter 39


GONZALO PLANTS himself strategically in an alcove near Delgado’s reception area—the area where you sit when you get called to the principal’s office. He checks his pocket to make sure everything is ready. He’s worked on this for a long time, thinking it through, just waiting for the day to come.

Kids pass back and forth—but with a different energy than usual. A lot of glances toward the office and murmurs behind cupped hands. Only the youngest kids are oblivious, zipping along with overloaded backpacks at their usual Road Runner pace.

Gonzalo has a bead on Delgado’s door. When he sees it open, he makes his move. In one glance he sizes up the situation and chooses his target.

“Send those reports along as soon as they’re finalized and we’ll be in touch.”

Baynes is talking to Delgado, who has his tie loosened and his sleeves rolled up.

“No problem,” says Delgado, eyes down.

Baynes brushes past Gonzalo, but Ellie Cabot runs right into him. Gonzalo makes sure of it. He connects with her hip, almost causing her to drop her binder. Now she’s even more flustered than before. She looks down as Gonzalo stumbles backward, selling it hard.

“Oh, no! I’m so sorry—are you all right?” she says.

Delgado is on his way back into his office. He turns around.

“No problem, Se?ora,” Gonzalo says, recovering nicely, “but since you’re here…” He reaches into his pocket and whips out a folded piece of paper—hand-lettered and illustrated.

“I’d like to invite you to our school science demonstration,” he says. He thrusts the paper up at her, giving her no choice. She takes it, keeping her other hand tight around the binder.

“Time and coordinates are right there at the bottom.”

Baynes turns around to see what’s going on. What’s this kid doing—trying to sell raffle tickets?

“Cabot—let’s go!” says Baynes.

Ellie reads the invitation as she walks. Gonzalo matches her step for step, looking right up into her face.

“Please,” he says, “you won’t be sorry. It will be spectacular.”

She stops. “Thank you…?” She waits for a name.

“Gonzalo. Gonzalo Martino Alvarez.”

“Thank you, Gonzalo. I… we… will try. We will.” She catches Delgado’s eye. He gives her a thin smile.

Ellie tucks the paper into the side pocket of her suit jacket and hurries out the door to catch up with her supervisor.

In his heart, Gonzalo knows he chose his target well. Just from her expression, he can tell that Ellie Cabot is a woman who really, really hates her job.





Chapter 40


IF YOU asked Tyler Bron to say what he missed the most about home, it wouldn’t be central air-conditioning or fresh fruit or even his boxed set of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.

It would be this: He’s standing in a construction hangar the size of two football fields. He owns it.

Like everybody else in sight, he’s wearing a unisex 3M cleanroom suit.

Scattered around the massive space are huge platforms supporting several works in progress. Technicians swarm over an assortment of gleaming space-bound devices. A chorus of electronic beeps blends with light metallic tapping and the vvrrip-vvrrip of precision torque wrenches.

Standing in the center of it all, Bron is looking up at a nearly completed six-ton communications satellite. Parts of the device are still shrouded in protective foil or shrink-wrapped in plastic.