“So this electronic table — would you call it a control panel?” Uncle Ben asked me.
“Maybe,” I shrugged. “I couldn’t see much.”
“Hmmmmm.”
Uncle Ben scratched his chin the way TV detectives do when they’ve just uncovered a clue. He was wearing his usual business clothes, which meant an untucked plaid shirt, torn jeans, and white high-top sneakers. His black hair hadn’t been combed maybe ever, and his beard was just scruffy enough to look cool.
“I see,” he said, looking back and forth between me and Reynolds.
I knew he’d still be in his shop. Uncle Ben’s a night owl. Most days, he’s up there until midnight or later because, well, when a place is this awesome, why would you go anywhere else? He owns Ben’s Electro-A-Go-Go, a used-electronics store that sits in a mini-mall between a Vietnamese donut shop and a place that sells old records.
“Did you notice anything else?” he said.
“No,” I said. “Except that he was wearing headphones. Is that important?”
“Well, when you say headphones,” Uncle Ben said, “are you talking about those little earbud things, like on an iPod? Or are you talking about the big boys?”
He went to a shelf and grabbed a dusty pair of oversized headphones. They looked like two green turtle shells connected by a curved stick.
“Kind of like those, I guess,” I said. “Is that important?”
He scratched his chin again.
“Maybe. Maybe not. This set here is military-grade. They’d be used by someone doing battlefield communications or surveillance.”
“Surveillance!” I said. “You mean like spying?”
Uncle Ben waved his hands in the air.
“Whoa, whoa! Nobody said anything about spies. All we really know is that somebody is listening to something in an abandoned building at night. And this happens to be the same individual who may or may not have set off a fire alarm to create a diversion so that he could signal an unidentified accomplice outside your school.”
“And he knows karate. Or kung fu. Or something. Anyway, he flipped Ernie Wilkins in the cafeteria,” I told him. “Does that mean anything?”
Uncle Ben raised an eyebrow.
“No,” he said. “It’s just . . .”
“Suspicious,” Reynolds said.
They both stood there scratching their chins and nodding at each other.
If there’s one thing my uncle loves, it’s a good conspiracy theory. But if there’s another thing he loves, it’s a good joke. Which is why I wondered if he was messing with us. You never knew with Uncle Ben. He might seriously believe that Trevor could be a spy. Then again, he might just believe it would be seriously funny if we did.
“Come on!” I said. “He’s just a kid. Do you really think a twelve-year-old could be a spy for another country?”
“Another country? No, no,” Uncle Ben said, straightening the stuff on his counter. “Another planet.”
All right, now I knew he was joking. Wasn’t he? Uncle Ben goes to a lot of these sci-fi conventions, and he’s seen just about every alien invasion movie there is, so he’s kind of an expert on this stuff. But he didn’t really think Trevor was an alien. Did he?
Reynolds reached for his inhaler.
“Relax,” Uncle Ben said, breaking into a wide grin. “This guy’s not an alien. You’ve seen the movies, Howard. If he were an alien, he’d be green and squishy, right? Does he look green and squishy?”
I shook my head.
“Well, there you go. Proof positive, he’s not an alien spy reporting back to his intergalactic overlords. We can all rest easy tonight.”
As much as I hated to admit it, I felt relieved. Reynolds was still sweating, but at least he was smiling now. Good. This was going to make the trip home in the dark a lot less creepy.
“Unless he’s an android,” Uncle Ben said.
Reynolds gasped.