14 Fearless Fourteen Read Online Free PDF Page B

food.
Bob was also the poster dog for canine graffiti art. I looked more
closely and realized the pink and green swirls outlined in black on
his back spelled out Zook.
    “Pretty cool, hunh?” Zook said.
    Morelli cut his eyes to Zook. “It's not cool. You painted my
dog.”
    “Yeah, dude. He's awesome. And totally arcane.”
    “What's arcane mean?” I asked.
    “Magical.”
    I thought I saw some steam starting to wisp out of Morelli's
ears and off the top of his head.
    “Why don't you grab a doughnut and some coffee on the way to
work,” I said to Morelli. “I'll take care of everything
here.”
    Morelli blew out a sigh and felt his pockets for Rolaids. “I
have to run anyway. Early morning meeting. See you tonight.” He
gave me a quick kiss and left the house.
    When I heard the door close, I turned on Zook. “What the heck
were you thinking? You don't go around painting a man's dog without
his permission. You don't even do it with his permission. It's rude
and insensitive and... wrong!”
    I was yelling and waving my arms, and Zook was calmly pouring
milk on his cereal.
    I leaned palms on the table and got into his face. “Are you
listening?”
    Zook looked up at me. “What?”
    “I'm yelling at you.”
    “I didn't notice. It sounded like dinner at my grandma's
house.”
    Okay, I could relate to that. “Did you paint anything other than
Bob?”
    “I sort of painted the garage.”
    I went to the back door and stared out at the garage. It looked
a lot like Bob. Zook in bright pink and green, outlined in black.
Magical designs swirled around the name. It was glowing in the
semi-dark.
    “Has Morelli seen this?”
    “I don't think so. He didn't say anything.”
    “You need to lose the paint before he gets home.”
    “But it represents the power of Zook! It's my
portal.”
    “What do you mean it's your portal?”
    “Okay, so it's not a portal, but it could be
someday.”
    “You're not serious.”
    “That's the way it happens in the game.”
    “This isn't the game.”
    “Yeah, but Zook likes to keep in the zone.”
    I squelched a major mental head slap. It could be worse, I told
myself. He could be spending his day surfing porn
sites.
    I was still at the back door, and it occurred to me that I
wasn't seeing any sign of forced entry from last night. I went to
the front door and checked out the lock and the doorjamb. No forced
entry there, either. I went window to window. All locked and
intact. Hard to believe Morelli hadn't locked the back door. That
meant either someone let the intruder in, the intruder was good
with locks, or he had a key.
    “Did you let anyone into the house yesterday?” I asked
Zook.
    “The pizza delivery guy.”
    “He didn't go into the cellar and stay there, did
he?”
    “No. He left in his pizza car.”
    I sat at the little kitchen table with Zook and ate a bowl of
cereal and drank my coffee. I had a bad feeling about the guy in
the cellar. And I didn't know what to do about Zook. He was pushing
his cereal around in his bowl, letting it get sogged up with milk.
He was frowning and chewing on his lip.
    “What?” I asked him.
    “Nothing.”
    “It's something. What is it?”
    “It's my stupid mother, sitting in that stupid
jail.”
    “You're worried about her,” I said.
    “It's all her own stupid fault. She robbed a stupid liquor
store. I mean, it wasn't even a bank. A bank, I could see. That
could be lots of money. My uncle robbed a bank and they never found
the money, and now he's out and he's gonna be on easy street. But
my dumb mother robbed a liquor store, and all she took was a bottle
of gin! And now my stupid relatives won't even bail her
out.”
    “Connies working on it. Hopefully, we'll find a way to get your
mom out today. In the meantime, Morelli will look in on her and
make sure she's okay.”
    “I don't ever want to grow up. Growing up sucks. People do
stupid things.”
    “Growing up isn't so bad,” I told him. “What do you want to do
when you get out of