Poached by Stuart Gibbs

Author:Stuart Gibbs
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

UNDERCOVER WORK

I managed to avoid Vance for the rest of the day. He’d apparently ditched school after I saw him by the cafeteria. Even bullies could be embarrassed, and Vance’s plunge into the Toilet of Doom was the primary topic of conversation at school that afternoon.

Still, I doubted Vance had gone far. Several times I had the eerie feeling he was watching me. Once, as I was boarding the bus after school, I even thought I caught a glimpse of him inside a store across the street, glaring balefully at me through the window. But when I looked again, he was gone, leaving me to wonder if it had really been Vance, or if my skittish mind was playing tricks on me.

On the ride home, however, I received two texts that made me forget all about the bully.

The first was from Summer:

Heads up. Large Marge is meeting with Daddy tomorrow at FJ to make her case against you. Don’t think LM has any new evidence, but still, I thought you’d want to know.

Have you learned anything new?

The next was from my father:

Bad news. I’ve gone through all the security footage from the night of Kazoo’s disappearance. I didn’t find anything on it. No one went in or out of the koala exhibit except you.

I have to photograph a surgery for Doc this afternoon but should be done by 5. Mom is at her office. Check in with us when you get home from school.

I pocketed my phone, feeling frustrated. How could anyone have possibly swiped Kazoo without showing up on the security tapes? It didn’t seem possible. Meanwhile, Large Marge was briefing J.J. McCracken the next morning, and all the evidence still pointed directly at me. If I didn’t figure out who Kazoo’s kidnapper was before then, J.J. might not have any choice but to order my arrest.

It was time to put Summer’s plan into action.

Once the bus dropped me off at FunJungle, I returned home just long enough to ditch my backpack, then headed right into the park. Darlene, the guard, paid far more attention to me than usual. She actually stopped watching her movie for once when I walked in.

“Where you headed today, Teddy?” she asked suspiciously.

“Mom’s office,” I said.

Darlene wrote that down.

As I passed through the metal detector, my ankle bracelet set the alarm off.

“Hold it,” Darlene said. “I need to pat you down.”

“It’s only my monitor,” I said, hiking my pants leg.

“I gotta make sure,” Darlene told me. “Marge’s orders.”

So I spread my arms and legs and let her wave the security wand over me. It crackled like crazy around my ankle, but nowhere else.

“You’re clean,” Darlene said. “Stay out of trouble, now.”

I called Mom as I passed into the park.

“Are you home?” she asked.

“Just got back.”

“How was school today? Anything interesting happen?”

“Not really,” I lied. I planned to tell her and Dad the whole story about Vance, but it made more sense to wait until dinner. The moment Mom heard, she’d want every detail, and I didn’t have the time for all that.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.