Читать книгу Casaday Girls, Book 2: The Creature Returns - Michael Markey - Страница 4

“No, no, no! You are not going to drag your silly old grandfather into another one of your crazy adventures,” said Martin Maguire over the phone to his younger granddaughter, Rachael Casaday.

“Grandpa...”

“Rachael, I am not budging one inch this time. I just settled in to watch the news and wait until your grandmother gets home from work. Then, we will have a quiet dinner, a little beef entree I began earlier today. I know she will be ready to kick up her feet and relax, too.”

“Please.”

“Hey, I am totally sold on crock pots.” Grandpa ignored her appeal. “They do a great job with little work. Say, did I mention the fact that I am still saying no?”

She thought a moment. “Would you rather talk to Alexa? Being older, she can convince you.”

Grandpa sighed. “Do not play that game with me. After that last escapade, I would be an idiot to take you back to that abandoned factory building. We nearly got ourselves killed that day.”

“It turned out fine in the end. Because of our magnificent superpowers, and the fact that you were with us...”

In “Book 1: Super Kids,” sisters Alexa and Rachael Casaday starred as two young superheroes possessed with a multitude of special gifts passed down from previous generations. Twelve-year-old Alexa communicated with animals and directed four-legged creatures to do her bidding, powers transferred from their mother, Victoria. She manipulated objects (Again, like her mom.) a feat she magnified with various external touches, such as the grip of her fiery red hair braid. Sometimes she applied special cosmetics to assist, like enchanted nail polish. Alexa also possessed the gift of invisibility, a strength new to the Casaday family.

Rachael, ten years old, possessed vastly different superpowers. At will, she could summon incredible speed and reasoning, uncanny physical strength, not to mention the ability (like her sister) to move physical objects with intense concentration.

The result of their heroic exploits? Between the two, they managed to save the lives of each other, and their grandfather, in this first Casaday Girls story. They faced forces of evil and drove them from their neighborhood.

Their first adventure began when the girls’ discovered an injured old man, Isaac Fromme, lying in the brush near Stanford Lake that foggy October night, a few blocks from their home. He later mysteriously disappeared. Authorities, and the general neighborhood, accused Rachael and Alexa of a Halloween prank to scare neighbors with this unnerving report. Through investigation on their own, they found there was another family of superpowered youths planted in their development, Dunbar Lakes. However, these super kids were destined to perform acts of evil, not good. The mastermind of this wicked plot was a scary old gentleman named Dunbro Lasnikov. He controlled their enemies, two older twin boys named Jeremy and Jeffrey. These kids possessed the powers of pyrokinesis, energy blasts, and shapeshifting skills. They were the ones who kidnapped Mr. Fromme, leaving him weakened in a dismal cavern beneath an abandoned factory not far from Grandpa Maguire’s home.

The climax of their adventure of good versus evil took them to a lonely building for a fight to the finish against Lasnikov and the evil young brothers. The Casaday girls escaped in victory, but they never discovered the whereabouts of poor Isaac Fromme until Lasnikov revealed his location by email in his departing scene.

“Yeah, you try explaining this absurd scheme to your mother. Not to mention your grandmother, too.”

“I am serious, Grandpa. The bad guys are all gone because we made them go away. What could go wrong this time?”

“Wrong? Let me begin the list, kids. First, if I drove you back there, and anything bad happened--again--your dear sweet mother would totally kill me. Then, when she is done killing me, your grandmother would kill me again! Do you now understand why I am a tad hesitant?”

Rachael looked at her sister and shook her head. He’s not buying it, Lex, she thought.

Alexa understood the body language from Rachael. She threw up her hands. Obviously they could not deceive their grandfather again.

“What else can we tell him?” Alexa whispered.

Rachael’s eyes lit with a devious idea as she continued, “Well, if that is the way you feel, Grandpa, Lex and I will figure out another way.”

“Well, good luck with that, kid.”

“We know of one mom who will take us out there, once we explain the situation. She is really cool about these kinds of things.”

“She is. Well, let me know how it turns out, Rachael. After the adventure is over, naturally.”

“Did you hear about this one time we got in big trouble? It was a party in another development. Something got broken in the basement. One of the parents--Pam--covered for us, though, and everything was okay. Mom never realized a thing because the truth never came out.” Rachael stopped, and there was a long pause from the other end.

“She lied to your mother?”

“Well, not exactly a lie. Pam overlooked a few parts of the story when she told it to Mom. You do that all the time too. Right, Grandpa?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should try it. It worked with us and Mrs. Delong.”

“This Pamela person.”

“Yep,” Rachael said. “She is just so cool with us kids on stuff parents do not need to know.”

At first it was quiet at the other end. Then their grandfather muttered to himself, something Rachael could not quite understand, but it probably included some swear words. “What did you say, Grandpa?”

“I said, do you have a copy of that email Mr. Lasnikov sent you?”

“Yes, we printed one and then deleted the message from Mom’s laptop. Why?” Rachael grinned at Alexa as they high-fived.

Mission accomplished!

“How about if I stop over in a few minutes. I want to take a look at this mysterious email for myself.”

“Will you tell Grandma?”

“I told you. She is working late at the store tonight. The big push to wrap up Halloween, you know. Tomorrow will be the same, even though it is Saturday.”

“Cool,” Rachael said. “I mean, I am sorry she must work but it will give us time to get together and talk about our plan.”

“You two Super Kids will be the death of me yet. See you in a few minutes.”

Rachael hung up the phone and looked at her sister. “How did I do, Lex?”

“Rache, you are awful. Why did you tell Grandpa such a story?”

“To get him to help us. That is what we wanted all along.”

“Mrs. Delong, though. It was not the way you told it.”

“I know, but it got the job done.”

“It was just a stupid vase that got broken at Pam’s--Mrs. Delong’s--house. She hated that vase, the whole thing was an accident, so she never told Mom.”

“Do NOT tell Grandpa.”

“Rache, how could you?”

Rachael merely smiled. “Take a lesson from the story master, Lex. You want results, just call me.”