MAYBE IT WAS RUDE FOR Miles to invite himself over to Henry’s house after school, but he didn’t have much choice. He needed answers about the cape, and Henry was his best way of getting them. Even if Henry turned out not to be the walking Gilded-pedia he claimed to be, there was no doubt he knew more than Miles. Gilded’s costume didn’t have any stitching? Who noticed things like that? Miles had spent more time with the Gilded cape than anyone—well, anyone except the old man who gave it to him—and the thought of checking the stitching never crossed his mind. He just hoped Henry’s knowledge extended to more than tailoring.
As they walked to Henry’s, Miles kept looking around for the Jammer and his herd in case they wanted to finish their earlier conversation. If Henry worried about such things, it didn’t show.
“You don’t have any of that fabric left, do you?” he asked. “Where’d you buy it, anyway? I bet it was a special order. Ever notice how the real Gilded cape never shows any damage? I know. Right? Fires, gunfights, you name it. Can you imagine what fabric like that would mean for the poor? A single pair of pants would last forever!” Henry went on and on, lost in his one-man question-and-answer session.
When they turned the corner into Henry’s neighborhood, Miles stopped cold. He gazed up at the entrance monolith, a huge manmade waterfall cascading across a waterwheel. The wheel spun lazily in the sun, dipping in and out of a crystal-clear pool that was scattered with enough loose change to pay a month’s rent at the Taylor household. At the base of the monolith, wrought iron bent into cursive lettering spelled out the subdivision’s name: ESTATES AT OAK GLEN.
“You live here?” Miles gasped.
Henry walked a few more steps before noticing Miles was no longer beside him. He broke off his Gilded reverie and turned around. “You say something?”
“You live here?” Miles repeated. “This is the Christmas neighborhood.”
Henry arched an eyebrow. “Pardon?”
“This is where the houses go crazy with the lights and animatronic snowmen.” Everyone knew about this neighborhood. It was a regular December feature in the local news. While some people paid by the carload for the privilege of inching through a traffic jam to see the lights at parks or botanical gardens, local families knew they could get better holiday displays for free right here. “Didn’t one of the roofs have a life-sized Santa sleigh with all nine reindeer a couple of years ago?”
“Oh, that.” Henry shrugged. “Sure. Mr. Snollygoster had to file a permit to install the fog machine.”
Coming from anyone else, Henry’s nonchalance would’ve rang false, like he was trying to act humble when really he was bragging. Miles had hung around the mall enough—seen enough Southern belles with their big diamonds and cooing accents—to spot a phony. But Henry struck Miles as the type of kid who honestly didn’t realize how much money his parents had to earn to live in a neighborhood with the word “estates” in the title. Henry was an odd duck, but he was innocent. He didn’t seem pretentious or judgmental. Miles liked him.
Miles was a long way from Cedar Lake Apartments, but he didn’t realize how long until he saw the houses up close. Impressive as they were when lit up at night, they were even more impressive in the daytime. Some had white columns out front, others wraparound porches with fireplaces overlooking infinity pools. One had a barn-shaped garage topped with a copper roof and a rooster weathervane. As if there were any livestock inside. More like Porsches and Cadillacs.
Then there were the yards. Great green swaths separated the houses from one another by enough space to drop another house in between. Brick driveways stretched for fifty yards or more.
“How do you trick-or-treat in a place like this?” Miles wondered.
“Golf carts,” Henry replied matter-of-factly.
Tired of walking, Miles wanted to ask Henry to fetch one of those golf carts and come back for him.
At last they reached the Matte home. The massive structure’s three levels sat atop an exposed basement with its own parking area and side entry. Walking up the driveway, Miles admired the stacked stone facade and the two-tiered porch supported by thick, wooden beams. The front yard was large enough to include a pond—Miles had never known anyone who owned a body of water—complete with a paddleboat moored to a fishing dock. Everything was situated behind a copse of oak trees whose leaves were just beginning to fall. Miles wasn’t sure if the trees were intended to offer privacy, but a flagpole would’ve had an easier time trying to hide a hippopotamus.
Henry slid his key into the doorknob, pushed the door inward, and stepped aside. “After you,” he said, gesturing with a sweeping hand.
Miles crossed the threshold and caught his breath. He wouldn’t have believed it was possible, but the house actually looked bigger on the inside. A line of floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto the backyard, which sloped gently downward before disappearing into a forest of dogwoods and pines. Between the foyer and the windows was a great room decorated in leather furniture and floored with enough polished hardwood to scrimmage a roller derby team.
Everything was . . . immaculate. That was the word. Immaculate. There wasn’t a speck of dust or trace of dirt to be found, not even the red Georgia clay that was the bane of clean houses everywhere. And everything matched, too, the chairs and sofa complementing the lamps and wall hangings. It was like stepping into the cover of one of those interior design magazines his mom used to leave lying around the house. Miles thought he heard angels singing.
“What do your parents do?” he asked.
“Dad’s an engineer, which is a fancy way of saying he builds stuff. Mom does a bunch of volunteer work. I think she’s at the food bank today. What about yours?”
Miles shifted his feet. “My dad works in construction, too. My mom is . . .” He searched for the right word. “Gone.”
Henry’s face dropped. “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know.”
Miles could tell from the way Henry said it that he thought Miles’s mom had died. Miles didn’t see a need to correct him. It was better than explaining that she’d decided not to hang around.
Henry perked up suddenly. “So, you ready to see the Gilded Cage?” Henry’s hands shot up, and he wiggled his fingers as though he’d uttered some magic phrase. It wasn’t a question so much as an announcement.
“Is that where you keep your dogs?” Miles cringed. “You didn’t name your dog Gilded, did you?” Miles imagined a fluffy Pomeranian with a tiny golden cape.
“I would if I had a dog. I’d train it to fight crime, too.” Henry’s voice trailed off as he pondered the possibilities. Then he shook his head, snapping himself out of his daydream. “The Gilded Cage is what I call my bedroom. It’s my headquarters. My secret lair.”
“But I thought a gilded cage was a bad thing. A prison that you don’t realize is a prison.”
Henry huffed. “I’d like to see you come up with a cool hideout name that somehow incorporates ‘gilded.’ Do you want to see it, or not?”
“Sounds awesome. Lead the way.”
They climbed the curved staircase up to the third-story landing, where there stood a single closed door. A sign taped to the door read, PRIVATE.
Henry grinned. “When Dad helped the architect design the house, he planned for this to be his den. I convinced him it’d make a better . . . Fortress of Gilded-tude!” He punctuated the declaration with another bout of dancing fingers. Seeing the new name elicit no response from Miles, he dropped his hands and sighed. “You’re right. Too derivative. Just come on.”
If the immaculateness of the rest of the house was a cause for angels to sing, then the condition of Henry’s bedroom would surely make them weep. Newspaper clippings, computer printouts, and back issues of Gilded Age were strewn everywhere. The room was a mishmash of odds and ends—screwdrivers and other hand tools mixed in with swatches of gold fabric and knockoff Gilded merchandise. Dirty laundry covered the floor. Miles stood frozen in the room’s only clean spot, a half circle of carpet that had been swept bare by the opening of the door.
“You don’t have friends over very often, do you?” Miles asked.
“Friends are overrated. I have interests. If people aren’t as enthusiastic about them as I am, then so be it.”
Henry spoke without an ounce of resentment. While every other kid at Chapman—Miles included—judged themselves by their friend count, Henry didn’t seem to care. How someone who looked like the poster child for a teen makeover show could be so confident was beyond Miles’s comprehension. But he admired it.
“Have a seat,” Henry beckoned. “I’ll show you where I do all my work.”
Sit where? And what kind of work could he be doing in here—growing mold? Then Miles realized the room wasn’t full of just junk. It held a lot of equipment, too. A laptop was buried under the papers on the desk. The coatrack by the window was actually a telescope, and from the size of it, probably an expensive one. What appeared to be a trucker’s CB radio sat on the nightstand. Miles thought he spied a metal detector next to some doodad that looked like a toy gun, but with a mini satellite dish on the end of the barrel.
A map of the greater Atlanta area had been taped to the far wall, and hundreds of dots had been drawn on it with red marker. Miles stepped into the room for a closer look.
squish
Miles lifted his shoe to find the sole smeared with purple ooze. “Sorry,” he offered.
“My jelly doughnut!” Henry said cheerily. “I was looking for that!”
“Glad to help.” Miles picked up a paper towel from the floor and cleaned his shoe. He nodded at the map. “What’s that?”
Henry concentrated on the myriad red dots. “All the known Gilded sightings from the past two years. If I collect enough data on his response time to emergencies, I might be able to track him back to his hideout.” Henry furrowed his brow. “The calculations would be easier if I knew his maximum airspeed, but no one has been able to clock him.”
“So . . .” Miles acted innocent. “You said I could ask you anything about Gilded. That offer still good?”
“You bet! Just let me check something first.” Henry rifled through the papers on the desk until his hand came out holding a remote control. He pointed it at the flat-screen TV sitting on a stand and turned the set on. A local news anchorwoman filled the screen.
“—awaiting a statement from the president, which we’ll bring to you live as soon as it begins.” The anchorwoman’s makeup couldn’t hide how flustered she was, like the slightest sound would send her diving under the news desk. “Meanwhile, emergency teams continue to search the rubble at the Atlanta parking garage that was the site of what appears to be humanity’s first confirmed contact with extraterrestrial life.”
The picture changed to an aerial shot of Miles’s dad’s work site. The hole in the upper deck was larger than Miles had imagined, and with the camera looking down into it, he could see a camouflage tarp draped over the pile of rubble at the bottom. Soldiers formed a perimeter around the structure, holding the news vans and civilian gawkers at bay.
The anchorwoman’s voice continued over the video. “Authorities have been unable to identify the body of an elderly man found at the scene. Miraculously, he was the only casualty of yesterday’s events.”
Henry sat at the foot of the bed, watching the screen intently. “Crazy, right?”
“You could say that.” Miles tried playing it cool, but it was a good thing Henry was fixated on the TV.
Henry’s head snapped around. “Aliens!” he blurted. “You know how long I’ve been saying we aren’t alone in the universe? I’d like to see the haters deny it now. Did you notice how none of the teachers mentioned it? Bet they had an emergency staff meeting before school to make sure everyone knew not to talk about it. Like the whole world doesn’t already know. I mean, haven’t they heard of the Information Age?” Henry babbled excitedly, like the appearance of the alien somehow wasn’t utterly terrifying.
The anchorwoman reappeared. “We’ll be covering the . . . attack throughout the evening, but now let’s go to a developing story.” She looked grateful to have some garden-variety bad news to report. “Two armed suspects have robbed a gas station and fled in a vehicle belonging to one of the customers. Police believe the woman who owns the vehicle is being held hostage, and they’re now pursuing the suspects on Interstate 20. Steve Voyeur in our traffic chopper has a bird’s-eye view of the chase in progress. Steve, what do you see?”
“Here we go!” Henry checked his wristwatch. “Incident reported at four thirty-two and eighteen seconds.” He turned to Miles, grinning from ear to ear. “Live Gilded footage. This is going to be great!”