This Book Is Not Good For You by Pseudonymous Bosch

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    Cassandra—
    If you value your mother’s life, bring me the Tuning Fork in two days’ time. Tell no one—not even those two boys with you. If I learn that you have shared this note with anyone, the deal is off and you will never see your mother again.
    H.



By the time Cass got home, it was very late.
    After bidding a hasty good night to her friends, she lingered on her doorstep, reluctant to face her empty house. If she never entered, she could maintain hope that her mother was inside.
    You’re not my real mom anyway.
    Those were virtually the last words she’d said to her mother. What if she never had a chance to unsay them?
    What if she never saw her mother again?
    Quietly, she started to cry, shedding the tears she’d had to hold back in front of Max-Ernest and Yo-Yoji.
    Stop that! she chided herself. Crying isn’t going to help anything. You are not a little kid. You are a survivalist. You are trained to tackle emergencies. Treat this situation as you would any other disaster. A kidnapping is nothing compared to a tsunami or a tornado.
    With tremendous effort, she wiped her eyes and made herself focus on the task at hand: finding the Tuning Fork.
    She knew what her first step should be: reading the Tuning Fork file in the Terces Society archives. But should she go now or wait for daylight?
    She held her key in the door lock, debating the question.
    On the one hand, she had very little time to save her mother. What had the note said? Two days?
    On the other hand, Cass had to admit, she was very sleepy. And she knew from all of her survivalist training that she would not be very effective in her mission without sufficient rest. Serious sleep deprivation could impair her mental functions as well as her ability to handle stress. It could also affect her emotions and her immune system. If she went for too many days without sleep, she might even start to hallucinate.
    Not to mention: if she got caught by Pietro or Mr. Wallace, how would she explain being in the archives in the middle of the night?
    Perhaps she should go to bed after all, she thought, turning the key.
    It was the first time Cass had spent the entire night alone in an empty house, and she checked and rechecked every room, making sure all her alarm systems were in place:

the glass vase situated so it would crash to the floor if the front door opened
the crunchy pile of cereal in the hallway leading to her bedroom so she would hear footsteps before they reached her
the rubber bands wrapped around her bedroom window locks so they would snap if the windows opened
and a few other smaller and more secretive security measures.
    Unfortunately, under the circumstances, she still did not feel very secure.
    She lay on her bed with her shoes on, afraid even to get under the covers; her blankets might slow her jumping out of bed. Unable to sleep, her mind racing, she counted the minutes until—finally—it was morning.
    Cass was almost out the door and on the way to the Terces Society archives before she realized that she hadn’t brushed her teeth and that she was wearing her T-shirt inside out. Her teeth could wait. But she decided she had to put on her shirt properly. If Mr. Wallace or Pietro saw her looking so untidy they might wonder whether something was wrong.
    By the time she was ready to leave again, there was a knock on the front door.
    She got a lump in her throat: could it be her mother? Had Senor Hugo had a change of heart? Or was the evil chef here to collect the Tuning Fork ahead of schedule?
    As she tried to decide whether or not to open the door, the knocking grew louder and more insistent:
    “Cass, open up!” “Time for homework, yo.”
    Max-Ernest and Yo-Yoji. She’d forgotten that they’d rescheduled their “homework” session for that morning.
    For a second, Cass’s heart lifted. Her friends were here! They would help her through this awful time. Together, the three of them would save her mother just as they’d accomplished so