I WAS WORKING IN THE LAB LATE ONE NIGHT…

Hi,” Ellie said when she opened the door. “I’m here,” I announced, smiling.

“I can see that, Einstein,” Ellie said. “And stop smiling like that. It makes you look like a nut.” She turned and walked back into the house. “Follow me. My dad’s still at work.”

I almost asked where her mom was, when I remembered Nico mentioning that Ellie’s mom died when she was little. That would’ve been great, Khatchadorian, I said to myself. Real tactful. I reached up and adjusted my imaginary halo.

Ellie’s house seemed normal—not too tidy, with a TV, kitchen, furniture. A bit boring. But downstairs, things were different. Very different.

“My dad put in walls between the stilts to make this into a basement,” Ellie explained. “It might be a problem if the place ever gets flooded again, but we’ll deal with that when it happens. Until then, this is my workshop!”

I couldn’t speak. Ellie’s workshop was the coolest place I’d ever seen. The walls were lined with shelves of paint, tools, bits of models, plastic horror masks, electronics, lights, rolls of canvas, paper, pieces of wood, coils of wire, spray cans, cleaning fluids, remote-controlled devices, mirrors—anything that looked like it might be useful for making an animatronic bunyip was there.

A massive, paint-spattered table stretched the length of Ellie’s workshop. Lying in the center was something under a white sheet. A spaghetti mess of wires snaked out from under the sheet onto the floor of the basement. A vise on a nearby table held what looked like an alien arm.