The Dangerous Days of Daniel X Read Online Free PDF

going to get more dangerous for me?”
    “That’s putting it very mildly,” she said. “You make the slightest mistake, the tiniest misstep, Number 6 isn’t going to give you a chance to make a second one. Look what happened to your father and me. You could
die
this time. Do you understand what that means?”
    I nodded slowly, remembering the worst night of my life, when I was three. The screams of my mom and dad, the gunfire blasting through our house. The fear as I crouched, cornered in the darkness as The Prayer came down the stairs.
    “Thanks for the wake-up call, Mom. I’ll be careful. And clever and resourceful, and devious if that’s what it takes. Number 6 is up to something . . .
world shaking.
I have to do this.”
    Then my mother did something that I think moms must have been invented for. She hugged me hard and kissed me on the forehead. She knew exactly what I needed somehow. Then she pinched my cheek, which she always does. I’ve never understood it, but I let her get away with it every time.
    Chapter 17
    “OKAY, GUYS,” I said with a yawn. “Thanks for all your help. And counsel. I’ve got a big day ahead. Murderous aliens to catch, you know.”
    “Daniel,” said my father. “You’re not ready for Number 6.
I
wouldn’t have been ready for Number 6. Even your mother and I working together would be no match for this fiend.”
    “Wait a second. No way!” Pork Chop said as my mom put her arm around her shoulder. “We can’t leave now! There’s still five minutes of my show left. I’ve never even seen this episode before. I want to see what happens to Sideshow Bob.
Mom!
”
    But then they were gone, and I clicked off the TV set.
    I stood for a moment, taking in all the peace and quiet. And loneliness, I thought, looking at the empty plates on the counter.
    And fear.
    And paranoia.
    After I finished cleaning up, I decided to crash right there on the couch.
    I closed my eyes—and almost instantly I saw The Prayer. “Ergent Seth will destroy you,” he said. “Go back to Portland. Join the circus. Get a girlfriend if you can. Get an identity, Daniel X. Have a life. For a little while. Until I come for you.”
    Great. Now my biggest enemies were parenting me. Guess that’s what can happen when you’re all alone in the world.
    Chapter 18
    I DIDN’T SLEEP very well that night, barely an hour. No big surprise there, I guess. Who needs sleep anyway?
    It was a quarter to eight the next morning when I reached Glendale High School. I wanted to try to blend into the community, and especially avoid a truant squad run-in like the one in Portland. So I decided I’d better at least sign up for school.
    Plus, I’m sure I didn’t want to admit it then, but maybe The Prayer’s words in my dream were starting to get to me.
Until I come for you.
    I stopped by the front steps, taking in the swirl of relatively carefree students unloading from the buses and minivans. I was a little skittish, but also excited at the thought of hanging out with people my own age.
    I hadn’t been to high school in, well,
ever,
actually.
    “Hi, I’m Daniel Hopper,” I said to the secretary behind the counter in the main office. “My mom said she faxed over my paperwork. Is it okay?”
    The middle-aged woman checked a clipboard on the desk behind her.
    “Oh, yes. Here you are, Daniel. Did you bring documentation from your last school?”
    Not likely.
“Right here,” I said, handing over a forged birth certificate and Social Security card. The previous records I’d invented were from a fictitious private school in Haneyville, Kentucky.
    “Welcome to Glendale High, Daniel,” she said, pointing at a door beside her. “Go inside and see Vice Principal Marshman. He’ll help you schedule your classes.”
    Chapter 19
    I THANKED THE SECRETARY and opened the vice principal’s door in a cautious, respectful way. Mr. Marshman was a wide, flabby, middle-aged fellow, and the school’s head football coach, I gathered from the