CHAPTER THREE
Elliot and Uchenna sat at the far end of one of the long tables in the school cafeteria, waiting for the morning bell to ring. Kids were streaming in the double doors, finding their friends, laughing, clowning, discussing whatever they’d seen on television or online the night before.
Not Elliot and Uchenna, though. Elliot was telling Uchenna about the mysterious book on his doorstep. “I haven’t read much of it yet. Just the first five chapters.”
“You read the first five chapters between your house and the corner where we knocked into each other? That’s one block!”
“They’re short chapters. And I read pretty fast.”
“So, what did you learn?”
“Well, I learned about the Basque people, the Euskaldunak.”
“The AY-oo-SKAL-doo-nak?”
“Yeah. They’re kinda amazing. They’re these fierce mountain people, who’ve lived nestled between Spain and France and the sea, for thousands of years. Pretty much every great empire of Europe has tried to conquer them, but no one could.”
“They sound awesome.”
“Definitely.”
“Any idea why you’re reading this book? Or who gave it to you?”
“I have two guesses. Both frighten me.”
Uchenna shrugged. “You are easily frightened.”
“One possibility is the Schmoke brothers.”
“Okay,” Uchenna said, “that would frighten me, too. But why would the Schmoke brothers leave you a book?”
“No idea. A warning? The other person who could have left it for me is—”
At that very moment, the cafeteria doors crashed open, and in strode a tall, wiry man with a black-and-white beard and a shock of hair exploding from his skull. He wore an old tweed suit and shoes that had probably been expensive forty years ago. From under his shaggy eyebrows, his eyes roved the faces of the nearby students—who cowered before him.
Which was not surprising, because he looked like he might attack someone.
The man’s name was Professor Mito Fauna.
“The other possibility,” Elliot continued, subtly gesturing at the man, who was now peering around the cafeteria as if he were looking for his next victim, “is him.”