March and I parked our bikes in the middle of Summer Glen Drive, studying the view of Geezer’s house. It hadn’t been hard to convince Mom that March was nervous about making his first paper route run in the dark and wanted to practice in the daylight, but she had made me keep Genki home.
Summer Glen was long and straight, intersected on each end by my street, Honeysuckle, on the bottom, and March’s street, Colonial, at the top. My route covered both sides of four blocks, and when I delivered papers, I did half of my block before cutting over to March’s on Morningside. All the streets on my route were lined with tall trees whose leaves had already turned orange and red. In the light of dusk it looked like they were on fire, shuddering in the breeze.
“You can’t see his driveway from here,” March said.
Not only was Geezer’s house surrounded by trees, but the house across the street from his had a curve of shrubbery outlining the yard, which also blocked the view.
I whispered back. “If he doesn’t put his garbage can at the end of his driveway—like if he rolls it closer to the stop sign—she might be able to see us, especially if she parks closer to his house.”
March nodded. Unlike me, he was relieved my mother would be close enough to wave down should we run into danger. I’m sure he also hoped her presence might prevent us from braving the mission at all, making us both too nervous to act.
I folded my arms across my chest. Summer Glen Drive was the only road on my route with streetlamps, and the first lamp was a couple houses away from Colonial. I always complained about how dark my route was. As long as there wasn’t a full moon, Geezer’s house would be a black hole.
“Okay. We’ll be fine,” I concluded. I tried not to think about the note Geezer had left with my tip, or the fact that I was keeping it from March. He would worry—no, be paralyzed with fear—if he thought the old guy was onto us. And if I shared that story about Loralee Sanders, March would probably lose his lunch and run back home, leaving his bike in a heap on the side of Summer Glen Drive. Nope. I’d have to die with my secrets, a thought that had left my stomach in a jumble since Friday afternoon.
We rode through the first loop of the route, stopping again on Summer Glen Drive. From my basket, I pulled two small backpacks: one for March and one for me. I had gotten them from my years volunteering for the Zoo Crew. They were both yellow and had HIGHLAND ZOO printed on them in blocky white letters. “Inside your pack,” I said, “is a ski mask, a headlamp, and a utility belt.”
“Who am I, Batman?”
I ignored him. “We’ll pretend we’re carrying extra rubber bands, the route map, and our cell phones. And we’re not really pretending, because that stuff’s in there with the spy gear.”
“What’s on the utility belt?”
I opened the pack and held it within view, not wanting to draw the belts into the open and make passersby nervous. Each belt was a canvas number I’d found in Dad’s old Boy Scout supplies. To each I had attached a flashlight, a pocketknife, mini binoculars, and a kazoo, in case we really did have to get Mom’s attention.
I whispered, pointing at each item, “Flashlight, pocketknife, binoculars, kazoo.”
“Why do we need a pocketknife?” March’s voice was high and shrill.
“Shhhh!” I zipped the pack shut. “For protection. Just in case.”
March nodded solemnly, taking the pack from me and slinging it over his shoulders.
I continued, “We need to wear black and keep the headlamps on our heads, but only turn them on when we’re looking through his trash. Otherwise, Mom might see the beams and come check things out.”
“Are you sure about this, Kazu?”
“Listen,” I said. “If we don’t find anything tomorrow, I’ll drop it. We’ll forget about the note and the weird stuff on Geezer’s computer. Operation over.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
March climbed onto his rickety ten-speed—his dad’s old bike—and rode toward Colonial, where Geezer’s house perched on the corner. He wobbled as he went.
“We’ll see you tomorrow at six fifteen!” I yelled after him, and he waved back, keeping his face forward.