“Yes, yes, yes,” Nudge breathed, almost jumping up and down. The incredible smell of pizza filled the room.

Mom put the boxes on the table and opened one. “Who got the extra pepperoni and mushrooms?”

“Me, me!” I said, feeling my stomach rumble.

My mom reached into the box, and Gazzy grabbed her arm and said, “Wait!”

“Get away from that pizza!” I ordered Gazzy, moving closer. “Yours is probably next.”

“No,” said Gazzy, a stricken look on his face. “Look!” He pointed into the pizza box, and when I looked closely, I could see a tiny bit of green wire sticking out from under the thick Sicilian crust.

“Take cover!” I yelled, and then we all dove.

Everything flashed brilliant white, and then a huge kaboom! practically punctured my eardrums. I was lying on the floor behind the couch, and Fang was behind me, his arms around me, one hand covering my face. There was a bit of crackling, and then the weird post-explosion silence that sounds much louder than ordinary silence. Slight fluttering sounds told me that bits of stuff were floating to the ground.

“You okay?” Fang said, but my ears were blown and muffled, and it sounded as though he was speaking through a pillow. I nodded and scrambled up.

“Report!” I said, then instantly choked on the fine dust that filled the air. I started coughing hard, tears streaming down my face, and every time I took a breath, I sucked in more dust and coughed more.

“I’m okay,” said Nudge, crawling out from the hallway where she had dived.

“I’m okay,” said Iggy, though I couldn’t see him. Then a pile of dust and debris moved on the floor, and he stood up, looking as if he’d been flocked. Like a Christmas tree.

“Okay here,” said Gazzy, and he started coughing too.

“What was that?” my mom asked, sounding shocked.

“Everyone all right?” Jeb asked, brushing stuff off his shoulders.

Amazingly, we were all fine, except for minor scrapes, cuts, and bruises. Total looked as if he’d been breaded in preparation for frying. If Gazzy hadn’t seen that wire, we all would have resembled pizzas ourselves: flat and messy.

“But what was that?” my mom asked again. She looked totally freaked out and kept patting everyone down for broken bones.

“A welcome wagon?” I said, already gathering our meager belongings. “Okay, everyone. Let’s scram before the cops show.”

Chapter 12

12

WE SPLIT UP from Mom and Jeb, then met them fifteen minutes later at an inconspicuous motel out on the highway. They drove, and we flew overhead, looking for anyone tailing them. We didn’t see anyone, and I guessed that whoever set up the bomb assumed it had worked and that we had all been eliminated. No one had tried to blow us up in a while, and we were all a little shaken. It was a reminder that danger could come from anywhere, anyone.