Unexpected dangers

I gasped. Naturally, I knew right away that I’d made no such promise. I might be a little scatterbrained at times, but I’d never forget something like that.

“Wait,” I said. “You mean you thought I was showing up to the professor’s speech tonight to, um, babysit?”

“Of course! We exchanged several e-mails about it,” Mrs. Mahoney said. “The latest one just this morning! You said you’d be here by six thirty with three or four friends.” She sounded more irritated than ever now. “It was all your idea! You said we could raise additional money for the Peace Week charity by offering babysitting services to parents at a bargain price. And let me tell you, the parents out there are eager to take advantage of it! There must be twenty kids out there already, with more arriving all the time and nobody at all available to watch them!”

My heart sank. I was already certain that UrNewReality was behind this. He or she must have hacked into my account again and convinced Mrs. Mahoney it was me on the other end of those e-mails, the same way s/he’d convinced the pizza place it was me placing that order.

Unfortunately, this prank wasn’t going to be as easy to resolve as that one. “I’m so sorry,” I said into the phone. “Um, I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”

When I hung up, Bess and George were staring at me in confusion. “What was that all about?”

“No time to explain.” I was already peeling off my dress and reaching for the jeans and T-shirt I’d dropped on the floor. “But the good news is, you guys don’t have to wonder anymore about what you’re doing tonight.”

“Huh?” George said at the same time Bess cried, “Nancy! Why are you changing? And watch the hair!”

Also at the same moment, the doorbell rang downstairs. I groaned. “Oh, man,” I muttered. “I am so not looking forward to explaining this to Ned….”

Less than twenty minutes later, all four of us were at the university library in full babysitting mode. Ned had agreed to pitch in without complaint, just as I’d known he would. Still, I could tell he wasn’t thrilled about having our date put off yet again. I knew just how he felt.

Luckily Bess likes kids and babysitting, so she was okay with the sudden change of plans, though George had been grumbling from the start. Our charges ranged in age from infants to middle schoolers. Keeping them from totally destroying the library kept us pretty busy, but even while kid-wrangling I was able to ponder the case a little. It was obvious that UrNewReality wasn’t letting up on me. What was he or she after, anyway?

“Heads up!” Ned called from across the area where we were attempting to keep the kids contained, which lay between the librarian’s desk and the open space scattered with study tables at the front of the library. “We’ve got a runaway!”

“I’m on it,” I called back, spotting four-year-old Owen Zucker careening toward the copy machine at the edge of the seating area. Owen lived a few blocks from me, and I knew he could be a handful. I raced after him, catching him just before he crashed into the glass expanse of one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the front wall of the library. “Gotcha!” I cried, grabbing him around the waist and tickling him.

As he shrieked and giggled, I glanced out the window. The college green was well-lit, offering a clear view of the picketers gathered outside the hall where the speech was taking place. Most of the protesters were marching in sort of a ragged circle, waving their signs and presumably chanting, though I couldn’t hear them from inside the library. Their numbers had swelled since I’d passed them on the way in, and I was surprised to see a familiar figure among the newcomers.

Letting Owen wriggle loose and run back toward the others, I stepped closer to the window. Is that Agnes Fitzgerald? I wondered, peering at the heavyset, dark-haired figure standing at the edge of the marchers. It was hard to tell whether she was participating in the protest or just watching, perhaps on her way to or from her job at the dining hall.

Before I could figure it out, I heard a crash and a shriek. Wincing, I turned and saw a tipped-over chair and a red-faced little girl standing beside it, bawling. Bess was already comforting the girl and I headed that way to help. Halfway there, George intercepted me.

“Nancy, check it out,” she said, holding up her cell phone. “I just got this e- mail.”

“If this is some lame fake excuse to get out of babysitting, like saying your house is on fire or something, don’t even bother,” I joked, most of my attention still on the crying girl.

“No, listen.” George grabbed me by the arm. “This is important.”

When I glanced at her, I saw that her face was pale. “What is it?” I asked.

By way of answer, she shoved the phone toward me. I saw that it was in e-mail mode. A message was open, with the return address UrNewReality at the top. I quickly scanned the text: TELL UR FRIEND NANCY DREW SHE’S NOT THE ONLY I WHO KNOWS HOW 2 SPY ON PEEPS. THERE R LOTS OF WINDOWS IN THE LIBRARY….

I gasped, instantly flashing back to that creepy laser mark that Agnes had spotted on Arij’s face. “Oh, my gosh,” I exclaimed, my gaze shooting back to those front windows, which suddenly looked enormous and hopelessly fragile. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Are you thinking this e-mail sounds like a threat?” George asked grimly. “If so, then yeah.”

“I can’t let my crazy stalker put these kids in danger.” I took a deep breath. “How do you make an outgoing call on this thing? Because I think we’d better call in the experts before things get out of control.”

I figured Chief McGinnis would be attending the speech, and I was right. At first he wasn’t thrilled about being interrupted, but he agreed to come and check things out. After hearing the whole story he still seemed dubious, but ordered a couple of his men to stand guard outside and advised us to keep the kids away from the windows.

“Keep them away from the windows?” George said, eyeing the floor-to-ceiling glass as the chief hurried out. “What are we supposed to do, make them lie on the floor for the next hour?”

“Fat chance,” Ned put in breathlessly, trying to hang on to a pair of toddlers who were trying to pummel each other.

“I’ve got an idea,” Bess said. Switching into her “kid voice,” she singsonged, “Who wants to play hide-and-seek?”

For the rest of the evening, we played back in the stacks, which started behind the desk, well out of range of the big front windows. The kids loved it, and hiding and chasing kept them busy enough that only a few books got pulled off the shelves and/or drooled on. Still, I couldn’t relax until the speech and reception were over and every last kid was safely back with his or her parents.

“Whew,” I said, collapsing against a table as I watched Owen Zucker’s parents drag him, still wriggling, out the door. “Glad that’s over.”

Ned wandered over. “Yeah, you sure know how to show a guy a good time,” he joked, giving me a squeeze around the shoulders. “Want to try to salvage the rest of this so-called date? Maybe a late-night ice-cream run or something?”

I hated to put him off yet again. But I knew I’d never be able to focus on reconnecting now. I needed some time alone to process everything that had happened that evening and figure out what to do about it.

“Can I take a rain check on that?” I said reluctantly. “I’m beat.”

“Sure.” He dropped his arm and checked his watch. “You’re right, it was probably a bad idea — it’s getting pretty late.”

Bess’s car was still at my house from earlier, so Ned dropped all three of us there. “Come on, George,” Bess said, digging into her purse for her keys. “This train’s leaving the station in thirty seconds whether you’re on board or not.”

“Okay, coming.” George reached into her pocket as her phone let out a beep. She glanced at it, then gasped. “Hey, look — it’s UrNewReality again!”

“Oh, man,” I moaned. “Doesn’t this person ever sleep?”

“Maybe it really is an avatar,” George said. “Computer-generated two-dimensional humanoids don’t require sleep.”

“Stop talking like that; you’re making my head hurt,” Bess complained. “What does the message say?”

George stepped over beneath the front porch light with Bess and me on either side. I squinted at the tiny letters on the phone’s screen.

SHOULDN’T U CHECK ON UR BETTER HALF? UNR SAW HIM WATCHING U.

“Ned!” I blurted out, instantly flashing to a variety of horrible scenarios. UrNewReality seemed to like messing with cars; what if s/he had done something to Ned’s while we were all in the library?

George was already dialing the phone. “Ned?” she said when he picked up. “Hey, there’s been a new development….” She handed the phone off to me so I could explain.

“I’m almost home, and everything’s okay,” he said. “I’ll let you know if anything happens.”

“Be careful,” I told him, then hung up.

Bess was biting her lip. “I just had a thought,” she said. “What if that message doesn’t mean Ned after all? Real Ned, I mean.”

I caught her drift immediately. “NedNick02,” I said, hoping she was right. “You could be onto something — let’s check it out.”

My father was still at the office, and Hannah was in her room watching TV, so we hurried straight upstairs and logged on to BetterLife. It took only seconds to find NedNick02. He was lurking around outside VirtualNancy’s home.

“Don’t let him see you,” Bess whispered, as if the avatar might hear her through the computer screen.

I nodded, keeping VirtualNancy out of sight behind some shrubbery. It was nighttime in Virtual River Heights, just like in the real one, and there were only a few people on the street — a group of chattering partiers, a couple of vampires, a boy walking his giraffe. Okay, so maybe Virtual River Heights wasn’t just like the real thing….

“Now what?” George mumbled, stifling a yawn. “Are we just going to sit around watching this dork stand there all night, or what?”

“Look, there he goes!” Bess cried.

Indeed, NedNick02 had just turned abruptly and walked off down the street. “Let’s follow him,” I said.

“Want me to take over?” George asked, sounding slightly more awake. “I know you’re the expert at this sort of thing in real life, Nancy, but on the computer…”

“That’s okay, I’ve got it.” I was already directing VirtualNancy down the street after the other avatar. “Looks like he’s heading downtown.”

Soon we were in the virtual business district of the virtual town, which had a much livelier and more varied nightlife than the real thing. For instance, there was a traveling circus parked on the edge of the university campus that was doing a booming business. Several nightclubs were pulsing with loud dance music. There were also private parties at some of the homes in this part of town, including the enormous four-story ultramodern blue-and-purple turreted mansion that someone had built in the middle of State Avenue.

“Check it out — looks like he’s looking to party,” George said as NedNick02 turned up the jewel-encrusted front walk of the virtual mansion, paused to speak to the beefy avatar guarding the door, and then disappeared inside. “We might not be able to follow him any farther if we’re not invited.”

“All we can do is try,” I said, marching VirtualNancy up to the bouncer.

R U ON THE LIST? the bouncer asked.

I JUST NEED TO GO INSIDE FOR A MINUTE, I responded. I HAVE TO TALK TO SOMEONE.

“Make her smile,” Bess advised.

“What?”

“Smile,” she repeated. “VirtualNancy’s cute. That might make a difference with this guy.”

I was skeptical, but did as she said. Before I could stop her, Bess leaned over and typed in UR CUTE. WANT 2 DANCE L8R?

“Hey!” I protested as Bess smirked.

SURE, the bouncer replied. GO ON IN. CATCH U L8R, QT!

“See?” Bess said proudly as VirtualNancy headed into the mansion. “Now do you two agree that all those hair and wardrobe upgrades weren’t a waste of time?”

George rolled her eyes. “Whatever. How are we ever going to find that NedNick guy again in this huge place?”

“There he is,” I said, spying him standing at the foot of an elaborate curved marble staircase. “Looks like he’s heading up.”

I sent VirtualNancy after him, dodging the hundreds of others who were at the party. We made our way up one flight of stairs, down a hall, and then up another story.

“This place is nuts,” George commented as we passed yet another room of partiers. The mansion seemed to have a different theme for every room, from ancient Rome to jungle safari to North Pole Christmas to Arabian Nights to American frontier. It really was nuts. But NedNick02 wasn’t paying much attention to any of it, and neither was I.

We went up two more floors and finally wound up in a sort of greenhouse area with a spiral staircase leading up to the roof. NedNick02 headed straight for the staircase.

“Follow him!” George urged, leaning forward.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” I sent VirtualNancy up the stairs. She emerged a moment later onto the mansion’s large, flat rooftop. There were a few partygoers up there, but it was easy to spot NedNick02. He was standing by himself at the edge of the roof a short distance away, staring out over the flickering lights of Virtual River Heights.

I marched VirtualNancy over to him and tapped him on the shoulder. “Careful, Nancy,” Bess said. “What are you —”

WHO ARE YOU? I demanded.

George groaned. “Don’t you ever learn?” she cried. “Are you trying to get yourself blocked?”

“No. But I’m tired of playing games,” I said. “If UrNewReality wanted us to check this guy out, he could be…”

My voice trailed off as words began appearing in NedNick02’s text box. DIDN’T ANY1 EVER TELL U 2 MYOB?

“What’s that supposed to —” George began.

I gasped, hardly hearing her. NedNick02 had just stepped behind VirtualNancy and given her a hard shove. “No!” I cried as she went flying — right over the edge of the roof!

The screen suddenly went black. A moment later a skull and crossbones floated into view:

WE’RE SORRY. GAME OVER.

Дата добавления: 2017-01-14