“Please make sure you tell your father everything I’ve told you.”
The police force was corrupt. No news there. Captious was an informant. I could deal with that. But the Knights are backing Mason! How did Captious know about them? He even knew they called themselves The Walpurgi. I wasn’t prepared for that. The Knights were as covert as we were. Munificent was the only non Psi Fighter with that knowledge. The Kilodan trusted him. Did he tell Captious? Did he also tell him about the Psi Fighters?
This was way beyond curiouser and curiouser. This was terribler and terribler. And that isn’t even a word, which was how bad the situation had become in my tired little brain.
Chapter Sixteen
The Class Project
I woke up tired. Mostly because I couldn’t stop dreaming about Walpurgis Knights sneaking through my house, capturing my family, and making us eat egg drop soup. Don’t ask. Exhaustion makes my brain malfunction. Fortunately, I had chemistry the next morning, and that particular class didn’t require a functioning brain. We were getting our introduction to the Class Project.
I have to say, chem lab always disappointed me. I kept wanting it to look like a mad scientist’s laboratory. But alas, there were no flasks spewing green smoke. No body parts in jars. No brains labeled Abnormal. Nothing freakish at all. Instead, sparkling glassware neatly lined the polished shelves, and petri dishes, stacked and dusted like fine china, rested on the bench tops. Major yawn. If linen tablecloths and candles had covered the lab benches, we could have been learning chemistry in Rachael Ray’s kitchen. Okay, that was freakish.
Kathryn and I had strategically placed ourselves at the smallest bench in the lab, off to the side, where we could discuss life without being overheard.
“Let me get this straight,” Kathryn whispered as she plopped her chemistry book open on the bench. “Short-Fat-and-Squatty-All-Butt-and-No-Body saved Christie Jasmine? The man is not exactly a poster boy for fitness. I thought cops had to be in better shape.”
“Kathryn! If you say a word, I’ll never tell you anything again.”
“Dude, open the dictionary to the word ‘clandestine’ and there’s my picture. By the way, you look like poodle poo. Why don’t you nap through class? Miliron’ll never notice. I sleep in Math Club all the time.”
“Not a bad idea.”
Just as I was about to lay my head on a test tube, the lab door opened and Dr. Miliron, resident mad scientist, promenaded in. He stopped at the front of the room, grinning as though he had won a prize.
“For those of you who may be a tad curious,” he said, bouncing on his toes and making his fingers do pushups against each other, “today we’ll get a taste of the chemistry Class Project. I know you’ve all been waiting for it. I haven’t mentioned it to you yet, but I hear about it all over the school. I must say, the excitement is contagious!”
I sighed. Dr. Miliron was one of the most likable teachers in the school. And one of the most clueless.
“The Project includes many captivating experiments, but today you are especially lucky! We’re making an absolutely fascinating sixteen-carbon structure of fashionable hexagons. Technically, it’s 6-Methyl-9,10-didehydro-ergoline-8-carboxylic acid, with a molecular mass 268.31 grams per mole.” Dr. Miliron laughed quietly and shook his head as he passed around a lab handout. “Of course, in everyday language, it’s simply C16H16N2O2. So, slap on your goggliers and let’s get cooking, gang!”
Dr. Miliron held the title for spewing the incomprehensible. He spoke in long, chemically abundant phrases that apparently excited him, but completely confazzled those of us who only spoke English. I put on goggles and measured out some odd-colored powder labeled Ergot.
“Okay, so about Egon,” Kathryn whispered. She shot a sly glance at me. “Did he ask you to the Spring Fling yet?”
“How did that come up?” I felt my face getting warm.
“Well, he did offer to be your bodyguard, and the Spring Fling is next week. It’s the perfect place for guarding.” She did a finger quote around “guarding.” “Two and two, Rinster.”
The Spring Fling. Biggest event of the school year. And Kathryn’s area of expertise, not mine. She’d been on a gajillion dates. I had a grand total of one under my belt, and it was technically a fact-finding mission. “Must have slipped his mind. You should probably check your math. You going?”
“Not sure.” Kathryn blushed. “Mark and John and Matt and Luke and Hank and Jeremy asked. But, you know, I’m not sure I’m right for them. They’re such sweethearts, but I told them I probably wouldn’t be able to go.”
“All four Gospels and the captains of the football and track teams? Amazing. Holding out for Bobby, are we?”
“Could be. However, Ms. Noelle, it seems to me that you have two major hitters at the moment.”
“What are you talking about?”