Conan wore a tight blue muscle shirt and baggy faded denim jeans with enormous holes at the knees. Biggie had wavy brown hair down to his shoulders. He wore a sleeveless white T-shirt and tight-fitting black denims.

They look like a couple of tag-team wrestlers! Evan thought as he stepped between them.

“Hey, look—it’s Air Evan!” Conan joked. “King of the slam dunk!”

He and Biggie guffawed loudly. Conan gave Evan a slap on the back that sent him sprawling into Biggie.

“Uh … Conan? Did you find something in the park?” Evan asked, struggling to regain his balance.

Conan narrowed his eyes at Evan and didn’t reply.

“Did you find something that belongs to Andy and me?” Evan repeated.

“You mean like your brains?” Conan exclaimed. He and his tag-team partner roared with laughter over that gem.

“Why don’t we dribble him to class?” Biggie asked Conan. “Coach Murphy would like to see us get in some extra practice.”

Conan laughed gleefully at that idea.

“Ha-ha. Very funny,” Evan said sarcastically. “Look, Conan—that stuff you took. It’s really dangerous. You have to give it back.”

Conan opened his eyes in wide-eyed innocence. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Evan. Did you lose something?”

“You know I lost something,” Evan replied sharply. “And I want it back.”

Conan flashed a sly grin at Biggie. Then he turned back to Evan, his expression hardening. “I don’t know what you mean, Evan,” he said. “Really. I don’t know what you and that girl lost. But tell you what. I’m a nice guy. I’ll help you look for it.”

He grabbed Evan around the waist with both hands. Biggie pulled Evan’s locker door open.

“I’ll help you look for it in your locker,” Conan said.

He shoved Evan inside the locker and slammed the door shut.

Evan started pounding on the metal door, shouting for help.

But the bell had rung. Evan knew the hall was empty. There was no one to hear his cries.

He decided to try fiddling with the latch. But it was too dark to see anything. And he was so jammed in, he couldn’t raise his arms.

Finally, two girls happened to walk by, and they pulled open the locker door.

Evan came bursting out, red-faced, gasping for air.

The girls’ laughter followed him all the way to Mr. Murphy’s class. “You’re late,” the teacher said sternly, glancing up at the wall clock as Evan staggered in.

Evan tried to explain why. But all that escaped his lips was a whistling wheeze.

“I’m really tired of you disrupting my class, Evan,” Mr. Murphy said, rubbing his nearly bald head. “I’m afraid I’ll be seeing you after school again. You can give Cuddles’s cage a double cleaning. And while you’re at it, you can scrub the chalkboards and clean out all the test tubes, too.”

*  *  *

“It’s so dark,” Evan whispered.

“It usually gets dark at night,” Andy replied, rolling her eyes.

“The streetlight is out,” Evan said, pointing. “And there’s no moon tonight. That’s why it’s so dark.”

“Hide!” Andy whispered.

They ducked behind the hedge as a car rolled slowly past. Evan shut his eyes as the white headlights moved over him. When the car turned the corner, they climbed to their feet.

It was a little after eight o’clock. They were standing in the street in front of Conan’s house. Leaning against the low hedge, they stared across the sloping front lawn into the large picture window in the front of the house.

The lamp in the living room was lit, casting a dim rectangle of orange light that spilled onto the front yard. The old trees at the sides of the small brick house whispered in a hot breeze.

“Are we really doing this?” Evan asked, huddling close to Andy. “Are we really going to break into Conan’s house?”

“We’re not going to break in,” Andy whispered. “We’re going to sneak in.”

“But what if the Monster Blood isn’t there?” Evan asked, hoping she couldn’t see his knees trembling.

“We have to look, don’t we?” Andy shot back. She turned to study his face. He saw that she was frightened, too. “The Monster Blood will be there,” she told him. “It’s got to be.”

Bending low, she started to creep across the dark yard to the house.

Evan hung back. “You checked it out?” he called to her. “Everyone is really gone?”

“His parents left right after dinner,” Andy told him. “Then I saw Conan go out about ten minutes ago.”

“Where?” Evan demanded.

“How should I know?” she asked sharply, putting her hands on her waist. “He left. The house is empty.” She came back and tugged Evan’s arm. “Come on. Let’s sneak into Conan’s room, get the Monster Blood, and get out of here!”

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Evan said, sighing. “We—we could be arrested!”

“It was your idea!” Andy reminded him.

“Oh. Yeah. Right.” He took a deep breath and held it, hoping it would help calm him down. “If we don’t find it right away, we get out of there—right?”

“Right,” Andy agreed. “Now come on.” She gave him a little shove toward the house.

They took a few steps over the dew-wet grass.

They both stopped when they heard the low barking.

Andy grabbed Evan’s arm.

The barking grew louder. They could hear the dog’s heavy paws pounding the ground, approaching fast.