I walked through the front door and immediately could tell that something out of the ordinary had happened. I could hear Sydney singing, faintly, from up in her room, and her school books were scattered all over the table. A minute later, she thundered down the stairs, stopping short when she saw me. “T.J. I thought you were going to be gone all afternoon.”

  “I ran out of things to say. And i got tired of listening to them.” I looked at her. She started pacing circles around the table, humming a little bit. I stared at her, trying to get her to stop just with my eyes. Finally I couldn't take it. “What’s going on?”

  She stopped short and looked at me warily. Slowly, as if she was a little sorry, and a little scared, she started to pick up her books. “Stenway called just a few minutes ago.” I just looked at her. “He…” She stopped, flushing. “He asked if he could take me to dinner on Friday night.”

  “And you said yes?”

  “Of course I did, T.J.”

  “You didn’t even ask Mom and Dad?”

  “They aren’t here for me to ask them, and anyway I don’t think it will be a problem, really.” Sydney sighed. “Look, T.J., both of us are growing up. Making our own decisions is a part of that.” She looked at me from the corner of her eyes. "I don't see you telling them every time you run off to the drug store or park."

  I fired back. “But I think they would like to know where you are, especially if it’s with a boy.”

  “I’ll tell them. I just don’t want them to say no. I really like him, Tyler.”

  “I’ve noticed. You get all stupid when he comes around.”

  “And you get all aggressive, T.J. Why don’t you like him?”

  “It’s just weird, you getting all fuzzy over a guy. He’s not super nice to me, either. He’s a… a schmooze.”

  Sydney went red in the face, but before she could shout out her defense of Stenway, I raced up the stairs and into my room. Honestly, I hated fighting with her. And it made me angry that she was going to go on a date with Stenway. If it had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have been as mad. She'd been on a date or two before, but I hadn't really ever... been a part of it? I guess just because she wouldn't have met Stenway if it wasn't for my job at the mansion.

  I crawled under my bed and ripped a sheet out of my dictionary of Supers. Starting from the first time I met him, I started making a list of all the strange things that Stenway had done. Ripping the paper in half with a pencil line so harsh it broke the tip of the lead, I began a new list of all the favors that he owed me.

  That done, I felt a little better. It felt good to have things written down. Also, it made me realize that I needed to update my entry on Mr. Left, so I did that too. I didn’t get much homework done before dinner, but I felt a lot better. Sydney and I ate dinner mostly in silence, but it wasn’t an angry silence. We both understood to avoid the topic entirely, which we did for the rest of the week until Thursday night.

  I fed the cats that afternoon; the fellows hadn’t come up with a suitable or realistic method of testing the ‘link’ that Mr. Left and I supposedly had, and anyways I felt like time had probably run out on that. Ms. Higley offered me tea and we sat in the kitchen, chatting about her time off and how she felt and how her son was doing. I technically had seen Stenway: he had come to the kitchen while I was on my way out, then pulled back out of sight until I left. I know this because I waited to see if he would come back into the kitchen once I left. He did. He and Sydney must be communicating somehow, because I’d never known Stenway to see me and not ask for a favor.

  I was pretty upset, thinking about that as I walked home. Sydney was at the kitchen table as I came inside, and the minute I saw her, I felt ready for a fight.

  “Have you been talking to Stenway?”

  She looked up at me. “He called Wednesday night to confirm our date!” Her cheeks flushed. “He’s so nice, T.J. He’s very good about asking me about problems and helping me with them.”

  “I suppose you told him about our fight the other night and he gave you advice on how to handle it?”

  “Well…” Sydney broke off, looking up into my eyes.

  “Why can’t you keep this to yourself. You always do this.” I was off, furious. She’d broken my trust again and I wasn’t going to stand for it. “I tell you things and you just think you can turn around and blab them to other people. Well maybe I’ll just stop talking to you.”

  Sydney slapped a hand on the table. “What is your damage, Tyler? You barely even know Stenway, you just happen to work for the same person. It’s not a big deal, he was being a dear and helping me out.”

  “You don’t… know that!” I glared at Sydney, hands on hips. “I do know him, I see him every day, Sydney. I…” I pressed my hands against my eyes and groaned.

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  Sydney was quiet for a while. She cleared her throat. "What, T.J.? What’s actually wrong?”

  I groaned and pushed my chair back. “You know the fellows that I’ve been meeting at the drugstore?” Sydney nodded silently. “They think that Mr. Left is a Super, and Stenway is his sidekick.” Sydney stared at me. “I’m kind of like a spy in the house…” The whole story poured out. Sydney sat quietly the whole time, staring at me. I left out a few useless snippets, but told her the rest, from the stakeouts of the house, to the box, and even how Mr. Left reacted to me on the day of Stenway’s interview.

  “Are you serious?” Sydney rolled her eyes. “There’s no way you can actually think that Mr. Left is a Super, T.J. There’s so little evidence. You’re just so excited about the thought of it that…”

  “No, I’m not! I mean, I am, but don’t you think I’ve thought about all of that? I’m making them convince me, Syd, and they’re kind of doing it. Something is definitely off at that house.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re being a child. Tyler, I really like Stenway, and he really likes me. I just don’t want you to ruin anything, or your little friends either. Besides, you work for them. They trust you. Don’t ruin that.”

  “We’re just trying to find out the truth, Syd.”

  “But what if it ruins things, what if Mr. Left doesn’t want to be found out, what if people get hurt, what if… Tyler, there are so many things that could go wrong. I wonder if you all had thought of that?”

  I kicked at the furnace grate on the floor. “No. Not really.”

  “You might want to think about that.”

  I went up to my room, took my bath, and finished my homework for the day. Sydney knew she had made her point, and she didn’t talk to me for the rest of the evening. In fact, I didn’t talk to her until she came back from her date the next night. There was a Superman marathon on the television that night, and I watched until it ended at 11. Mom and Dad had come home and eaten dinner, then went to straight to bed. They had had a long week, it sounded like, but Dad made it sound like they were close to a breakthrough. I felt bad for them sometimes. I mean, all adults have to work, but they were really so busy.

  As the marathon ended, I gathered my things and ran up the stairs to get ready for bed. I left my door open, waiting for Sydney. As I changed into my pajamas, I heard the front door open. Smoothing out the wrinkles of my shirt, I pounded down the steps. Even as confused as I was about Sydney and Stenway and Mr. Left, I was curious about how the date had gone.

  I skidded across the wooden kitchen floor in my socks, looking around for my sister. Voices came from the living room, so I poked my head around the corner. Sydney and Stenway were sitting on the couch, heads close together, talking quietly. I decided that I didn’t want to know what they were saying. I waited on the bottom stair for a while, but they just sat there and talked. Finally, I got bored and walked up the stairs to bed, but not before I left a note on Syd’s door, telling her that I would be at the park the next morning.

  I didn’t know if the fellows would be there, but I hadn’t gone in a long time and apparently there had been a lot of renovations to the park already. In fact, the first thing that I saw when I hopped off of the bus was a huge statue, bright white against the sky, of a man. I figured it was Mr. Left: in fact, I thought I recalled seeing a statue on the blueprint for the new park, right next to the gazebo, in the little opening in the center of the park.

  I walked down the path to the middle of the park, past our old meeting spot. The branches and brambles had been cleared away and now it looked like the ground had been patched over with fresh grass. I went up to the gazebo, passed through it, and headed to the statue. It was indeed Mr. Left, Jr. I stared up at it. It didn’t really look like him. There was a plaque about the statue, over in front, and I went to read it. It talked about the donation Mr. Left had made, sang his praises, then thanked the construction company. I looked up at the face. The eyes were off, definitely. I guess it’s impossible to get anything to look like his real eyes, though, especially out of stone. Have you seen that David statue somewhere? Those eyes are scary.

  This statue was not that fancy, but it was still pretty. Small streaks and spots of grey ran down the sides, glittering a bit in the sun. As I walked away from the statue, I gave it a quick pat, right at the knee. I stopped, backed up, and patted it again.

  At this point, I was pretty used to strange things happening, so I was afraid that I was seeing them everywhere. I patted the statue again, this time moving around it to touch it from different angles. I stopped, looking over my shoulder, making sure no one was watching me. This was definitely one of the weirder things I’d done recently, and I didn’t want anyone to see it, but the statue definitely didn't sound or feel solid. It didn't feel... hollow, exactly. But it didn't feel right.

  I sighed, heavily. Sydney’s words were still stuck in my head, so I tried to think of a reason why the statue should be hollow. I didn’t know enough about building things or sculpture, though, so it looked like I was going to have to find the fellows. I wrote down the name of the construction company that made or installed the statue, then rode the bus to the drugstore, hoping to run into at least one of the fellows.

  I poked around in the drugstore, finally making it back to the shelves where the comic books were kept. No-one was there, but I picked up a Batman comic book, to wait. I could read for a while, the counter boy didn’t really care. That was the nice thing. I had a feeling one of the fellows would come in soon, anyways. There should be a chair back here; adults didn’t take kindly to kids just sitting down in a corner to read. I leaned up against the shelf and dove into the comic; it was an old one, one I’d read before, but somehow that made it easier to pay attention to.

  A small cough made me look up. “Hello, Peach.”

  Peach slid past me to pick over the collection of comics. “We aren’t meeting here today. Do you need something?”

  “Where are we meeting?”

  He put emphasis on the first word of his sentence. “We are meeting at the park.”

  “Am I not invited?”

  “Since I’ve run into you, suppose you it would be rude to not invite you. Do you need something?” He slid a comic back onto the shelf. “We were all pretty mad that you just walked off the other night.”

  “Actually, this is perfect.” I had one thing and one thing only on my mind. “I need to show you something at the park. When are we meeting?”

  “This afternoon. Around 2.”

  I nodded. “Thanks, Peach. I’ll meet you there.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “You’ll see, at the park.” I left the store, hopped the bus, and rode back home.