Page 48 of Secret Squirrel

“Yeah? And who was the guy staring at us?”

His lips formed a thin line as he stared at me. “Are you saying without a shadow of a doubt that you know it was FNG on the plane?”

I hated that he was as uncertain as me. If it was only me, I could say it was my brain not wanting to admit reality. But with him just as unsure, it only opened it up for further questions.

“Let’s say for the sake of argument that I wasn’t certain. If it wasn’t him, who was it, and why did that man stare at us as if it was totally normal to see a bunch of armed men surrounding a plane?”

His brows furrowed in thought. “That’s an interesting point.”

“See?”

“One I’m going to ignore,” he continued. “I was actually thinking, what if no one was on that plane?”

“You mean, it was flying itself, and all those heads we saw in the windows were actually mannequins?”

He snorted in laughter. “Rae, don’t be so silly.”

Thank God he actually thought that was silly.

“There’s no way they could be mannequins. With that much plastic on board, it wouldn’t take a genius to find out what was really going on. And unless someone had a severe mannequin fetish, I’m not sure how to explain that.”

Yes, the mannequin fetish was what made that implausible.

“No, what I was thinking was that there were these posters taped to the windows,” he said, stretching his arms wide. “And they had faces on them, which would explain why we thought it was FNG, but his eyes weren’t moving. It makes sense, right?”

That was it. For the first time in my life, I was actually struck speechless by stupidity. There wasn’t even a good way to answer his question, because it was so fucking stupid.

I turned on my heel and started walking away. I couldn’t deal with him today. It just wasn’t possible.

“Rae?”

“Nope,” I said, and kept walking.

“Hey, I’m not done talking to you!”

“I’m done talking to you,” I retorted.

“But…what about FNG? Don’t you want to know where he is?”

“Yes, but I’m not going to find him with you.”

“That’s not true! I have some great ideas!” he shouted. “We could do a wanted poster, or a tip line! 877-FIND-FNG!”

I ignored him and kept walking.

“How about a milk carton?”

I turned the corner and just kept walking. There was no point in arguing with crazy. But as soon as I turned the corner, I nearly ran into someone else I had no desire to speak with. I immediately spun and headed the other way down the hall.

“Why are you running from me?” Thumper asked.

“I’m not. I forgot I have someplace else to be.”

“Like the kitchen?” he said with a grin in his voice.

I looked up and realized where I was. Damn, that didn’t work out so well for me. I spun around and crossed my arms. “What exactly do you need?”

He looked at me funny. “Um…I didn’t say anything.Youran fromme.”