Angel

34

I TOOK A big step back and found myself against a wall. “Whoa!” I said, holding up my hand like a traffic cop. Pod-Ig and Pod-El stopped. I smiled. “Give me a little space here. Please. I need room to read this stuff.” I turned the flyer over, and they edged away.

“We’re going outside again for a sec. Maybe you guys should go tell Gazzy about saving the world,” I suggested. “He didn’t look totally convinced.” Ella nodded eagerly. I felt kinda bad for sicking her on the Gasman, but if he’d been immune to her brainwashing up till now, I figured he was safe.

I watched through the window as they drifted toward the kitchen. My knees were shaking, and I could feel my heart racing.

“So, we’re all agreed that the lovebirds are totally, like, programmed, right?” I huffed.

“Affirmative,” Total said, nodding.

I sighed, annoyed. “So basically, in the middle of all this other crap, we’ve gotta go take out Ella’s flyer-wielding ‘friend.’ I have a can of whoop-butt at the ready for the cool kid who sucked out my family’s brains,” I said.

“Agreed,” said Dylan.

“So, we should go to the school tomorrow, right?” asked Angel. “Ella said everyone was going to meet these guys.”

“Yep,” I said glumly. I mean, I don’t go to school voluntarily as it is. So to go so I could track down the people who had sucked out my family’s brains made school even less appealing, if that’s possible.

“And Max,” said Angel, ever the bearer of bad news. “There’s something else.”

“Something else besides this?” I didn’t know how much more I could take.

“Are you talking about that video?” Total asked. Angel whirled around and glared at him.

“What video?” I asked.

“Fang’s… blog,” Total whispered, licking a paw casually, the way he did when he was embarrassed.

My jaw dropped. “Someone had better start talking!”