Secret Weapons Read Online Free PDF Page B

pointed face. “I saw them, Kate. I saw those men too.”
    Kate knew then. She’d seen Aurora look like that before and it always meant she was having one of her mysterious feelings. And Kate had always believed in Aurora’s feelings. “Well, who … I mean, what …,” she stammered. And then something else occurred to her. Something very important. “What about Carson and Web then?” she demanded. “What are those guys, or terrorists, or whatever, going to do to Carson, Aurora?”
    Aurora shook her head. “I don’t know. I just … don’t … know.” She turned away and absentmindedly, like someone in a dream, began to scoop rotten fish out of the garbage pail and start down the row of plants on one side of the studio. Kate watched her for a minute before she opened the bag of fertilizer and started down the other side.
    Kate and Aurora’s science-fair project had been Kate’s idea, but Aurora had liked it right away. Aurora had said that since she wasn’t a very scientific type person, it was all right for Kate to choose what they should do. And right after that a couple of coincidences helped Kate come to a quick decision.
    First of all, Mrs. Davis began talking about the science fair on the same day that the social studies assignment was to read about Squanto. Kate wasn’t too crazy about social studies as a rule but she kind of enjoyed reading about how Squanto saved the Pilgrims by teaching them how to use rotten fish as fertilizer.
    The other coincidence was that when she got home that very same night she found out that the big freezer in the Nicelys’ garage had self-destructed. The one where her dad kept all the things he caught when he went deep-sea fishing.
    Actually, Kate’s mom had told Tiffany to clean out the freezer, but Tiffany, who had lots of baby-sitting money, bribed Kate to take her place. It had been a fairly disgusting job but right in the middle of it Kate had come up with a great idea.
    So Kate and Aurora had chosen as their hypothesis Squanto knew what he was doing , and their experiments were to find out if it was true. If rotten fish really did make plants grow as well as modern commercial fertilizers. So far Squanto was ahead, but not by much.
    For the next few minutes Kate and Aurora went through their regular routine automatically. They scooped and watered and measured, and even took a few notes, but their minds weren’t on what they were doing. At least Kate’s wasn’t and she was sure that Aurora’s wasn’t either. As soon as the last plant was watered they turned toward each other and, almost in the same breath, said, “Let’s go to Web’s.”
    No more than a minute later, as Kate and Aurora were on their way down the driveway, the back door of the Pappases’ house opened a little bit, and a pointy face under a mop of brown curls appeared in the crack. Then very cautiously, the rest of a skinny eight-year-old boy slid out into the open.
    Peeking around the corner of the house, Ari watched as his sister and Kate Nicely started up the sidewalk at a run before he began to run too. Out across the backyard toward the old studio.
    Ari Pappas was feeling very hopeful. He’d just happened to have been looking out a window when Kate and Aurora dashed out of the old studio, and he’d noticed immediately that they were leaving in a big hurry. In too much of a hurry, maybe, to remember to put the lock back on the latch and spin the combination dial. It was just a guess, but before he’d gotten halfway across the yard he could tell that he’d guessed right.

Chapter 8
    O N MONDAY EVENING CARLOS had been sure that the terrorist scare was pretty much over, but on Tuesday it started up again, bigger than ever. For one thing, at school that day, Eddy told Carlos, and Bucky, too, that he’d tried and tried to get something out of Web last night, but that Web wasn’t talking. He just kept saying that his science-fair project was his and Carson’s secret, and nobody else was