called into her phone. âMeegs?â
Nothing. There was a dead silence on the other end.
Well,
she thought, slamming her phone back down on the recharger. Her throat tightened. Her eyes began to sting.
Could my life possibly get any worse? My family is screwed. My friends hate me. Ed is . . .
Maybe heâd e-mailed?
Heather hopped into her desk chair and jabbed the power button on her computer, holding her breath as it whirred to life.
Come on, come on . . .
grabbing her mouse, she clicked into her e-mail. She made a decision, fighting back tears: If there was no mail from Ed, she would have to start planning her life as a runaway right now....
But there it was: the little e-mail icon with [email protected] in the sender column.
Joy washed over herâa thirty-foot-high, hurricane-style wave of joy.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: Return of the Mack
Time: 7:42 P.M.
Ed,
You have no
idea
how happy I am that youâre back. You have no idea how much Iâve missed you.
I canât wait to see you. I mean, I
really
canât wait to see you. And I canât wait to hear your news!
What Iâm trying to say here is
yes
, I would be most honored to accompany you to any number of trendy overpriced restaurants (although I do have a particular one in mind).
Iâll tell you when and where.
And just in case you donât remember what I look like, Iâll be the stunning brunette in black velvet.
I canât wait. Did I say that already?
Love,  Â
Heather
P.S. I know how silly this looks, and I know how stupid I sound. Please forgive me. Iâm just really, really psyched to see you.
GAIA
Okay.
So, about my being fortuneâs hamster . . .
I may have been a little extreme.
That is to say: I may not have considered, as weâre trained to do in many disciplines ranging from physics to the martial arts, the potential for unforeseen circumstances.
That is to say: It seems that by some twist of bizarro unexplainable planetary misalignment or something, there seems to be this little . . . windowâthis little heretofore never-seen escape hatch whereby I seem to have landed in a sort of twilight zone where thereâs, like, this alternate universe, containing in it some sort of matter-antimatter reversal, causing a certain unexplainable, unidentifiable phenomenon that can only be defined asâ
Iâll stop.
I canât explain it away. I just have to say it. Iâm just going to say it. But I donât wantto say it. If I say it, it dies, and I donât want it to die.
These last three days with my father, Iâve been . . . happy.
Yes, Iâve been confused. And enraged. And sad. And hurt. And thinking a lot about my mother. And thinking a lot about Uncle Oliver, of course. Or Loki. Or whoever. But what matters most is that Iâve looked into my fatherâs eyes. Iâve seen the truth. And I know we have to be very careful right now. Weâve got to stay inconspicuous until my dad gets a confirmation that the FBI ambush was successful and Oliver is securely behind bars. Apparently prison isnât much of a problem for Oliver. Thatâs part of the reason we went straight from Germany to Paris, via the train.
Paris is even more beautiful than I imagined.
Not that weâve been getting out much. Mostly weâve just been trying to catch up on five years of missing out and trying to forget five years of hell.
shiny black metal
She felt a burst of adrenalineâ that old familiar sensation she hadnât felt since sheâd left New York . . . the one that came instead of fear.
Â
Constantly Reinventing Itself
GAIA HAD LEARNED A GREAT MANY life-altering facts in the last seventy-two hours. Sheâd quickly realized that it was best just to prioritizeâto shuffle the nonessential information to the bottom of the pile. So at the moment she was only concentrating on three points:
1. She still had a
Nothing. There was a dead silence on the other end.
Well,
she thought, slamming her phone back down on the recharger. Her throat tightened. Her eyes began to sting.
Could my life possibly get any worse? My family is screwed. My friends hate me. Ed is . . .
Maybe heâd e-mailed?
Heather hopped into her desk chair and jabbed the power button on her computer, holding her breath as it whirred to life.
Come on, come on . . .
grabbing her mouse, she clicked into her e-mail. She made a decision, fighting back tears: If there was no mail from Ed, she would have to start planning her life as a runaway right now....
But there it was: the little e-mail icon with [email protected] in the sender column.
Joy washed over herâa thirty-foot-high, hurricane-style wave of joy.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: Return of the Mack
Time: 7:42 P.M.
Ed,
You have no
idea
how happy I am that youâre back. You have no idea how much Iâve missed you.
I canât wait to see you. I mean, I
really
canât wait to see you. And I canât wait to hear your news!
What Iâm trying to say here is
yes
, I would be most honored to accompany you to any number of trendy overpriced restaurants (although I do have a particular one in mind).
Iâll tell you when and where.
And just in case you donât remember what I look like, Iâll be the stunning brunette in black velvet.
I canât wait. Did I say that already?
Love,  Â
Heather
P.S. I know how silly this looks, and I know how stupid I sound. Please forgive me. Iâm just really, really psyched to see you.
GAIA
Okay.
So, about my being fortuneâs hamster . . .
I may have been a little extreme.
That is to say: I may not have considered, as weâre trained to do in many disciplines ranging from physics to the martial arts, the potential for unforeseen circumstances.
That is to say: It seems that by some twist of bizarro unexplainable planetary misalignment or something, there seems to be this little . . . windowâthis little heretofore never-seen escape hatch whereby I seem to have landed in a sort of twilight zone where thereâs, like, this alternate universe, containing in it some sort of matter-antimatter reversal, causing a certain unexplainable, unidentifiable phenomenon that can only be defined asâ
Iâll stop.
I canât explain it away. I just have to say it. Iâm just going to say it. But I donât wantto say it. If I say it, it dies, and I donât want it to die.
These last three days with my father, Iâve been . . . happy.
Yes, Iâve been confused. And enraged. And sad. And hurt. And thinking a lot about my mother. And thinking a lot about Uncle Oliver, of course. Or Loki. Or whoever. But what matters most is that Iâve looked into my fatherâs eyes. Iâve seen the truth. And I know we have to be very careful right now. Weâve got to stay inconspicuous until my dad gets a confirmation that the FBI ambush was successful and Oliver is securely behind bars. Apparently prison isnât much of a problem for Oliver. Thatâs part of the reason we went straight from Germany to Paris, via the train.
Paris is even more beautiful than I imagined.
Not that weâve been getting out much. Mostly weâve just been trying to catch up on five years of missing out and trying to forget five years of hell.
shiny black metal
She felt a burst of adrenalineâ that old familiar sensation she hadnât felt since sheâd left New York . . . the one that came instead of fear.
Â
Constantly Reinventing Itself
GAIA HAD LEARNED A GREAT MANY life-altering facts in the last seventy-two hours. Sheâd quickly realized that it was best just to prioritizeâto shuffle the nonessential information to the bottom of the pile. So at the moment she was only concentrating on three points:
1. She still had a
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