Vanishing Acts Read Online Free PDF Page A

trippy.”
    â€œWell, what did he look like?” I asked.
    â€œLike someone I wanted to pummel for egging my dog!” Milton replied, not very helpfully.
    It was already five o’clock by the time we finished talking—dangerously close to my weeknight curfew. And I still had one more dog to walk. I found boy-Milo and told him I had to go. “Did you find any other victims?” I asked.
    â€œYup,” he said. “You?”
    â€œYeah—a couple.”
    Milo handed me a piece of paper.
    â€œWhat’s this?” I asked.
    â€œAn incident report,” he said. “I’m not quite done, but here’s what I have so far.”
    â€œThanks,” I said.
    â€œYou’re welcome. It’s no biggie,” he replied with a shrug.
    Then he turned around and jogged off without even saying good-bye. Which is strange, because usually he walks me home.
    I looked down at the page. Milo’s writing started out neat and boxy; then halfway through his report it morphed into sloppy cursive, like he had to struggle to keep up with the interviewees.
    I squinted at the note, really wanting to make sure I made out those final words properly. Because it looked like Milo had not merely collected evidence—he’d also asked me on a date.

Chapter 5

    Dog-Milo and I ran home as fast as his little puggle legs would carry him. After checking his water bowl and locking up at Parminder’s place, I took my landlady’s dog, Preston, for a quick spin around the block. Then I headed straight upstairs to my apartment.
    At my desk in my room I studied my notes, looking for patterns or connections or clues, or, ideally, all three.
    Except my eyes kept narrowing in on the bottom of Milo’s note, making it hard to focus on the eggings. I wondered if maybe this would finally happen. Milo and me, I mean. I pictured us strolling through the park, holding hands. Slipping notes into each other’s lockers. Sharing one bucket of popcorn at the movies. Sledding in the park after the first snowstorm, and later that night sipping hot cocoa by the fire. (Not that either of ushas a fireplace. But let’s not get too caught up on the details.)
    How perfect and romantic and spontaneous to finally ask me out on one of my doggie deets!
    At least that’s what I thought before the doubt crept in.
    Maybe when Milo said, “Want to hang out?” he meant it in a completely non-romantic, strictly “we’re just friends” kind of way.
    Hanging out doesn’t have to be a date. I hang out with my friends all the time.
    I put Milo’s note aside, because I didn’t want to spend all night analyzing its true meaning. Not when I had a mystery to solve. I needed to focus on the egg attacks. And since my notes weren’t getting me very far, I needed a new place to look.
    One thing about Brooklyn is, a lot of writers live here. And where there are a lot of writers, there are lots and lots of blogs. I figured someone must be documenting the egg attacks. And a quick Google search told me a few people were.
    I found a whole blog devoted to the attacks.
    I read up on Paco, the Great Dane who was egged on Saturday afternoon at four o’clock. His owner, Jed, reported three eggs fired. The first one missed; the second Jed managed to deflect with his hand; the third theytried to dodge, but in the end, Paco got hit in the back. Like the attacks I already knew about, the eggs seemed to come from nowhere, with no warning.
    Then there was Hemingway, a big white husky, egged at seven thirty on Thursday morning. “Just a single egg seemed to drop from the sky,” the owner reported. “No one got hurt, but I got egg all over my new wingtips.”
    Pretty’s spiked leather collar was now encrusted in egg, thanks to an attack on Friday at 7:14 a.m. His owner, Harry, spotted someone leaping out of a tree and running for the woods. He chased this person, but lost him or her.
    I