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was too afraid she might say no.
    Thinking about her made me think about the capsule in the tooth. I didn’t want to think about that either, because it seemed it might be a dangerous secret, and danger was not high on my list of things to enjoy. But as soon as I pictured the capsule, I also pictured Mr. Jewel hunched over it at his workbench. And I pictured the tiny sheet of paper he’d pulled from it. There had been some Russian symbols and a string of numbers. Nothing else.
    That made me think of Vlad and his reaction to the capsule and the broken tooth.Mr. Jewel had placed the tiny paper back inside the capsule and screwed it shut again. So I’d given Vlad the tooth and the capsule when I got back to the Moores’ house.
    Vlad had gone into a Russian shouting fit. Then he’d pulled his fingers across his lips as if he were zipping them shut. He’d pointed at me to make sure I understood he meant I had to keep my mouth shut. He’d said
nyet
about twenty times. Then the scary part. He had slid his finger across his throat as if it were a knife cutting his throat.
    Did that mean I would die if I talked about it? Did it mean he would die if he talked about it? Who would do the killing? And why? What did the Russian symbols mean? What could the string of numbers be?
    Whatever it was, it meant my guess to Amanda had been right. The capsule was important. Not only important enough to be hidden in a tooth, but, if I understood Vlad right, important enough to kill for.
    Or die for.
    Nope, didn’t like thinking about that.
    The tree branches made weird shadows on my bedroom wall. Like in the movie
Monsters, Inc
. That made me think about how, when I was a kid, I was afraid in the dark because I believed in monsters under the bed or in the closet.
    Boy, was I wrong about where the monster lived.
    The monster was the guy who would come in and spank me until I couldn’t breathe because he was mad that his son was chicken. Yeah, my dad. The tough guy.
    Didn’t want to think about that either. Because then I’d have to think about Coach Thomas. About getting suspended from the team if I didn’t play more physical.
    Of course, playing physical had just cost me part of a tooth. And the pain from it was the entire reason I was staring at scary shadows on the wall, trying not to think about the pain. Or Amanda. Or the capsule. Or dying. Or getting cut from the team.
    It was driving me crazy to be in bed with all those unwanted thoughts rattling through my mind.
    Solution?
    Get out of bed.
    I did. I moved to the window, hoping that looking out at the trees in the moonlight and the river beyond would take my mind off those thoughts.
    Instead I saw headlights of an approaching vehicle. About a block away, though, the headlights snapped off. It took a second for my eyes to adjust. Then I saw that it was still moving.
    Weird. Why shut the lights off?
    It slowed down as it neared the Moore house. Then it stopped. It was a cargo van. White. Like the kind of van that a plumber would use. But this one didn’t have any decals on the side. Just plain white. And waiting outside the Moore’s house.
    Very weird.
    It was too dark for me to see who was inside the van. All I could see was a dark outline of a person behind the steering wheel.
    Russian symbols and a set of numbers. Hidden inside the tooth of a Russian kid who hadn’t known it was there. But who hadfreaked out once he’d discovered it. Who thought his life was in danger.
    Was that a hit man in the van? Watching the house. Getting ready to sneak up with a silenced pistol?
    I shrank back from my window. I was having crazy thoughts. From the painkillers. That was it. Instead of getting loopy, like Vlad, I was going crazy.
    Who knew that I knew about the capsule? I ran through a list in my mind. Amanda. Mr. Jewel. Vlad. Surely they hadn’t told anyone.
    I gulped. There was one other person. A friend, Abe Madison. Computer geek.