Furious Jones and the Assassin’s Secret (15 page)

“So, where are you from?” Mike asked.

“All over,” I said. “Mostly the East Coast, I guess.”

“Cool. I've never been out of the Midwest. I'd love to see New York someday.”

“Yeah, it's cool.”

Mike gave me a tour of the school.

“So the office said you just moved to Galena too,” I said, as we walked down a hallway toward the gym.

“Yeah, my mom, sister, and I moved up here from Chicago,” Mike said.

Mike opened a door and we walked into
the weight room. It was huge. It had rows of weights and equipment and heavy bags and huge dudes.

“Man, this is nicer than most health clubs,” I said.

“Yeah,” Mike agreed. “This school is serious about their football. It's kind of annoying, actually. Two of the coaches are former Bears. They've got Super Bowl rings and everything.”

“Great.”

“Come on, we better get to first period. You don't want to be late for Nonnemacher.”

“What class is Nonnemacher?” I asked, as we ran down the hall.

“Spanish.”

“Great. I've only studied French and Italian.”

“Sucks to be you,” Mike said as we entered the classroom.

“
Hola, Señor Nonnemacher
,” Mike said as we walked in the room.

“
Hola, Miguel. ¿Quién es tu amigo?
” Mr. Nonnemacher asked.

“Ah, what?” Mike asked as he walked toward the back of the room.

“I think he wants to know who I am,” I said.

“Ah . . .
¿Habla usted español?
” Mr. Nonnemacher asked.

“No,” I said, “but I do speak a little Italian and French.”

“Oh,
si parla italiano!
” Nonnemacher said.

“
Sí
.”

I handed Nonnemacher the piece of paper the office had given me. I looked around the room. There were six or seven girls. Four of them were blond and three of them had darkish hair. One of the three had long hair and light eyes. Maybe she was the witness.

Nonnemacher handed me back the paper and said, “
Seguir adelante y tomar asiento en cualquier lugar
.”

“Sorry, I didn't get any of that.”

“Have a seat anywhere you like, Mr. Jennings.”

I took a seat in the last row next to Mike. I opened my notebook and tried to look like I was actually paying attention.

Nonnemacher started rambling in Spanish. I couldn't understand a word he said. Every few minutes, the entire class would all say a word out loud. And it went on like that for nearly twenty minutes. No one spoke a word of English the entire time, until class was just about over.

That's when my phone started ringing. That's when Nonnemacher brought out the English.

“Who is that?” he demanded. “Who is disturbing my class?”

The entire class was now looking at me as I tried to fish my phone out of my pocket. It was Emma calling.

“Bring me that phone, Mr. Jennings.”

I pushed cancel and handed him my phone.

“Sorry about that,” I said. Everyone was still looking at me.

“I don't know what kind of ill-mannered behavior your last school tolerated, but we do not allow cell phones here.”

“Sorry, sir,” I said again.

Nonnemacher put my phone in one of his desk drawers and started rambling in Spanish again until the bell rang.

I waited for the room to clear out, and then I approached him wearing the most apologetic look I could manage.

“I'm sorry about the phone thing,” I said.

“I do not tolerate distractions in my class, Mr. Jennings.”

“I understand. It won't happen again,” I said.

“Good.”

I stood still for several moments. Nonnemacher ignored me.

“Can I please have it back, sir?” I asked as politely as I could.

“At the end of the year.”

“At the end of the year?” I asked. “You're kidding, right?”

Nonnemacher stopped what he was doing and looked up at me. He wasn't kidding.

“I don't kid,” he said.

“My parents are still overseas. That phone is their only way of communicating with me,” I lied.

“You should have thought of that before you brought it into my classroom.”

I stood and stared at him. He just stared back. I could tell he wasn't going to budge. Should I just
take
the phone back?
What could he do, kick me out of a school I didn't actually attend? But I decided it was best not to push it too far. I needed to find the girl in the witness protection program, and getting kicked out would make that much harder.

I walked out into the hall. Mike was waiting for me.

“You're off to a good start. Can't wait to see who you'll piss off next.” He laughed. “Man, I thought Nonnemacher was going to lose it when your phone went off. Did you see the look on his face?”

“He's a jerk,” I said.

“Hanging with you is gonna be fun, Finbar.” Mike punched me on the arm.

T
he rest of the morning
was better. Not great, but better. Mike had a nutrition class, a business class, and geometry. I kept my mouth shut and stared down at my notebook during geometry.

We sat with a couple of Mike's friends at lunch. Some kid named Ben Hoyt, who seemed pretty cool. And a guy named Scott Cummings, who wouldn't stop talking about NASCAR. I ate a cheeseburger with fries and pudding. It was a little over six bucks. I was down to way under two hundred dollars now.

Maybe it was because I hadn't eaten a hot meal in days, but the cheeseburger tasted incredible.

“Whoa, slow down there, Fin, you're going to choke,” Ben said.

“Dude, this is a good burger,” I said.

“Where did you say you were from again?” Mike asked.

“The East Coast,” I said.

“Didn't they have cheeseburgers on the East Coast?” Scott asked.

“Not this good,” I said as I shoved the last piece of burger into my mouth.

“Oh, man! You guys should have seen Fin here with old man Nonnemacher.”

“What happened?” Ben asked.

“It was no big deal,” I said.

“Fin's phone goes off in the middle of class and I swear I could see that vein in Nonnemacher's forehead damn near pop.”

“Sweet,” Scott said.

“Yeah, but he took my phone.”

“Oh, harsh. Was it a nice one?” Ben asked.

“No. It was a piece of junk,” I said. “But now I've got to go buy another piece of junk. That'll be, like, my third phone in a week.”

“Well, don't bring the new one into Watson's class. She took my iPhone last year, and I never got it back,” Scott said.

“Dude, I don't think she can do that. That's stealing,” Mike said.

“Well, she gave it back, but not to me,” Scott added.

“What are you talking about?” Mike asked.

“The old bag gave it to my old man and he kept it. He still uses it. And I paid for it!”

Mike and Ben practically fell off the bench laughing. I guess I didn't find idiot fathers quite as funny.

“Hey, it's Famous Amos!” a female voice said. “Move over, dork.”

The girl from the Piggly Wiggly was pushing Mike aside. Mike slid over and made room.

“What's with you?” Mike asked.

“Hey, how are you doing?” I asked Trish.

Mike looked shocked. “Do you two know each other?”

“Sure do.” She didn't offer Mike any further explanation.

“Trish, right?” I asked. But I didn't need to ask; I could still see her name tag in my head.

“You've got a good memory, Amos.”

She didn't know the half of it.

“How do you know my sister?” Mike asked.

“Your sister?”

“Yup. We're twins. Can't you see the resemblance?” Trish asked.

They looked nothing alike. Trish was gorgeous, in a dark and twisty kinda way, while Mike was, well, not dark and gorgeous.

“How do you know Finbar?” Mike asked again.

“What the heck is a Finbar?” Trish asked.

Before I realized what I was saying, I replied, “
I'm
a Finbar.”

Trish lifted her eyebrows and made some sort of noise.

“We met at the Piggly Wiggly yesterday,” I said.

“Oh.” Mike went back to eating his tater tots.

“Trish was telling me how much she loves the cheerleaders here in Galena,” I added.

“God. Don't get her started,” Ben warned.

“What?” Trish asked innocently. “Look at them.” She pointed to a table full of platinum blondes. “They're perfect. What's not to love?”

I was still looking at the cheerleaders. Not a bad-looking one in the bunch. All but two had blond hair.

“You like them cheerleader types, Amos?” Trish asked.

“No,” I lied. “I'm just looking over at the table of football players. Do they always sit together?”

A group of huge guys were sitting at the table next to the cheerleaders. Their massive bodies dwarfed the lunch table.

“They do everything together,” Ben said. “The coach thinks it builds some sort of bond.”

“So what brings you to Galena, Amos?” Trish asked.

“My parents are in the military. They're overseas, so I'm staying here with my aunt for the next year.”

“That's cool,” Trish said. “I'd give anything to be overseas. Anywhere but this sewer.”

“
Not a fan of Galena?” I asked.

“How could you be a fan of this pathetic place? That's like asking if I'm a fan of pus-filled blisters. No one likes them, but sometimes you're forced to tolerate them.”

T
he afternoon classes were much
easier. Mike had a desktop publishing class and the 3-D Computer Animation class. Computer animation was clearly his thing.

“How did you get that spear in his hands?” I said, looking over Mike's shoulder at the scene he was creating.

“It just needs to sit farther down the z-axis than the outside of his hand.”

“Right,” I said as I looked at the bluish-black blob on my screen. Then I glanced back at Mike's. “Shut up, man! Now your guy is walking?”

“Well, Fin, it
is
an animation class,” Mike said.

“For you, maybe.” I couldn't draw a stick figure to save my life, and forget about making it walk.

I dragged my blob around the screen for the next fifty minutes while Mike's character was hunting woolly mammoth. The bell finally rang, putting me out of my misery.

“You're really good at that stuff,” I said as we walked out of the computer lab.

“Thanks,” Mike said. “Say, what are you doing tonight?”

“Nothing. I don't know a soul in this town.”

“Do you want to come out to The Territories and hang out?”

“The Territories?”

“Yeah, it's where we live. It's a resort community thing just south of here. We've got horses and pools and stuff.”

“Cool,” I said. “How do I get there?”

Mike asked if I had a car. Now that my father was dead, I supposed I had technically inherited his many cars—including his red Ferrari. But it would be another four years before I would be old enough to drive it. Legally, anyway.

“No. Not here,” I replied.

“I'll pick you up, then. You said your aunt runs Betty's Bluff Inn, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool. How about six thirty?” Mike asked.

“Sounds good.”

“Awesome. Bring your swimsuit and maybe we'll go up to the clubhouse. You never know, we might luck out and find Amanda and company up there.”

“Who's Amanda and company?” I asked.

“The cheerleaders, silly.”

“Okay.” It looked like I had to shop for a swimsuit as well as a new phone.

I opened my notebook as I walked back toward the Pig. I had made a list of girls with long dark hair and light eyes who looked to be sixteen years old. There was the one girl in Nonnemacher's Spanish class. There were three girls in Mike's publishing class, two in his nutrition class, four in his math class, and four in his business ethics class. Not to mention the two brunettes at the cheerleader's table. That was a total of about sixteen girls who fit the description of the girl in my dad's book.

I managed to get most of their first names. But that was just for the girls I saw today. Essentially, just the girls in Mike's classes. How many other girls might fit the bill who weren't in his classes? And how was I going to check for green eyes? I was pretty sure I had freaked a couple of them out today with some extra-long stares. This wasn't going to be as easy as I'd thought.

I headed back to the Pig and bought the exact same phone I had purchased on Saturday. But this time I would make sure to shut it off before I walked into Nonnemacher's class. I also picked out a cheap red swimsuit, a box of crackers, a tub of spreadable port wine cheese, and two Mountain Dews. The bill was $62.43. That left me with only
$120.59.

I
got back to Betty's
around a quarter to five and was shocked to see a police officer sitting with her at the table in the middle of the living room.

“Oh, there you are,” Betty said as I walked through the door. She seemed a little nervous.

I wondered if somehow they had figured out who I was. Should I turn around and run? The cop was older and definitely overweight. I could easily outrun him.

“Are you enjoying Galena, Finbar?” Betty asked, still wearing a nervous look.

“I guess so,” I said as I started to back up. The cop looked at me. He was in his late sixties. He had his hand stretched
out across the table, and Betty was examining his palm with a magnifying glass.

“Fantastic,” Betty said, and then they both looked back down at his palms.