Special Agent Johnson held up a hand and said, "No, sir. Don't misunderstand me. I believe Miss Mastriani's story wholeheartedly. I'm only saying that, if it's true, well, then she's a very special young lady, and deserves some very special treatment."

I thought he might be talking about a ticker-tape parade in New York City, like the one they had for the Yankees that time they won the World Series. I wouldn't mind riding on a float, if it didn't go too slow.

But my dad right away suspected he was talking about something else.

"Like what kind of treatment?" he said, suspiciously.

"Well, usually, in cases like these—and I will have you know that we at the FBI respect those with extrasensory perception like Miss Mastriani's very highly. In fact, we often seek out advice from psychics when we find ourselves at a dead end in an investigation."

"I bet. What does that have to do with Jess?" My dad still sounded suspicious.

"Well, we'd like to invite Miss Mastriani—with your permission, of course, sir—to one of our research facilities, so that we can learn more about this astonishing ability of hers."

I immediately flashed back on one of my favorite videos when I'd been a kid, Escape to Witch Mountain. If you've seen that movie, you will recall that the kids in it, who have ESP—or extrasensory perception, as Special Agent Johnson called it—get sent to a special "research facility," where, even though they get their own soda fountain in their room—by which I'd been particularly impressed, since my mother wouldn't even let me have an E-Z Bake Oven for fear I'd burn down the house—they were still, basically, held prisoner.

"Um," I said loudly. Since no one had really been talking to me, everyone turned their heads to look at me. "No, thank you."

Mr. Goodhart, who obviously hadn't seen Escape to Witch Mountain, said, "Now, hold on a second, Jess. Let's hear Special Agent Johnson out. It isn't every day that someone with your special ability comes along. It's important that we try to learn as much as possible about what's happened to you, so that we can better understand the extraordinary ways in which the human mind works."

I glared at Mr. Goodhart. What a traitor! I couldn't believe it.

"I am not," I said, in a voice that was still too loud for Mr. Feeney's conference room, "going to any special research facility in Washington, D.C."

Special Agent Johnson said, "Oh, but this one is right here in Indiana. Only an hour away, at Crane Military Base, as a matter of fact. There we can adequately study Miss Mastriani's extraordinary talent. Maybe she could even help us find more missing people. When you were calling the Missing Children's Organization this morning, Miss Mastriani, it was because you had the location of yet another missing child, was it not?"

I scowled at him. "Yes," I said. "Not like I ever got the chance to tell them that, though. You two guys made me completely forget the addresses."

This was a complete and utter lie, but I was feeling grumpy. I didn't want to go to Crane Military Base. I didn't want to go anywhere. I wanted to stay where I was. I wanted to go to detention after school today and sit by Rob. When else was I ever going to get to see him?

And what about Karen Sue Hanky? She had challenged me again. I had to kick her butt one more time. I needed to kick her butt one more time. That was my special ability. Not this freaky thing that had been happening lately.  .  .  .

"There are many, many more people missing in the world, Miss Mastriani," Special Agent Johnson said, "than are pictured on the back of milk cartons. With your help, we could find missing prisoners of war, for whose safe return their families have been praying for twenty, even thirty years. We could locate deadbeat dads, and make them pay back the money their children so badly need. We could track down vicious serial killers, catch them before they can kill again. The FBI does offer significant cash rewards for information leading to the arrest of individuals for whom it has issued warrants of arrest."

I could tell my dad was totally falling for this. I even caught myself falling for it, a little. I mean, it would be totally cool to reunite families with their missing loved ones, or to catch bad guys, and see that they got what they deserved.

But why did I have to go and do it from an army base?

So I asked him that. And I added, "I mean, it might not even work. What if I can only find these people from my own bed, in my own house? Why would I have to do it from Crane Military Base? Why couldn't you just let me do it from Lumley Lane?"

Special Agent Johnson and Special Agent Davies looked at one another. Everyone else looked at them, too, with Yeah, why couldn't she? expressions on their faces.

Finally, Special Agent Johnson said, "Well, you could, Jessica." I noticed he wasn't calling me Miss Mastriani anymore. "Of course you could. But our researchers would dearly love to run some tests. And the fact that all of this seems to have stemmed from being struck by lightning—well, I don't want to sound like an alarmist, but I would think you would welcome those tests. Because we have found in the past that, in cases like yours, there has sometimes been damage to vital internal organs that goes undetected for months, and then …"

My dad leaned forward. "And then what?"

"Well, often the individual simply drops dead, Mr. Mastriani, from a heart attack—being struck by lightning puts an incredible strain on the heart. Or of an embolism, aneurism—any number of complications can and often do arise. A thorough medical exam—"

"Which I could have right here," I said, not liking the sound of this. "In Dr. Hinkle's office." Dr. Hinkle had been our family doctor my whole life. He had, of course, misdiagnosed Douglas's schizophrenia as ADD, but hey, we can't all be perfect.

"Certainly," Special Agent Johnson said. "Certainly. Although the general practitioner is not often trained to detect the subtle changes that occur in a system that has been violated in the manner yours has."

"About these cash rewards," Mr. Feeney said suddenly.

I glared at him. What an asshole. I could tell he was totally trying to think up some angle whereby he could get his hands on the reward money, and design a new trophy cabinet for the main hallway, so he could display all of our stupid state championship cups, or whatever. God, I hated school.

That was it. I had had enough. I stood up, pushing back my chair—which was way nicer than any chair in any of the classrooms: it had wheels on it, and was made of some plush, squishy material that surely couldn't have been real leather, or Mr. Feeney would have gotten in trouble with the school board for overspending—and said, "Well, okay, if you're not going to arrest me, I think I'd like to go home now."

Special Agent Johnson said, "We're not through here, Jess."

Then an extraordinary thing happened. My lower lip started to jut out a little—I think I was still feeling a little emotional from that whole they're-gonna-arrest-me scare—and my dad, who noticed, stood up and said, "No."

No. Just like that. No.

"You've intimidated my daughter enough for one day. I'm taking her home to her mother."

Special Agents Johnson and Davies exchanged glances. They did not want to let me go. But my dad was already walking over to me, picking up my backpack and flute, and laying a hand on my shoulder.

"Come on, Jess," he said. "We're going."

Ruth's dad, meanwhile, was reaching into his pocket. He took out some business cards and dropped them on Mr. Feeney's conference table.

"If you gentlemen need to contact the Mastrianis," he said to the agents, "you can do so through my offices. Have a nice day."

Special Agent Johnson looked disappointed, but all he said was that I should call him the minute I changed my mind about Crane Military Base. Then he gave me his card. Special Agent Davies, as he was leaving the conference room, made a gun out of his index finger and thumb and shot me. I thought this was a little alarming, considering the fact that his nostrils were all crusted over with blood, and a purply bruise was starting to show across the bridge of his nose.  .  .  .

Mr. Feeney was pretty nice about giving me the rest of the day off from class. He never even mentioned a thing about me making up detention, and then I realized that was because he didn't even know I had detention from now until the end of school in May. Mr. Feeney doesn't pay a whole lot of attention to the students.

But Mr. Goodhart, who does, didn't mention making up the detention day either. That's because I had begged him a long time ago not to pester my parents about anything, what with Douglas and all. He'stuck to his word, though he did say he wished I would rethink the Crane Military Base thing. I said I would, even though I hadn't the slightest intention of doing so.

My dad drove me home. On the way home, we stopped at a Wendy's, and he bought me a Frosty. This was sort of a joke, because he used to buy me a Frosty every day on our way home from the county hospital, back when I'd had out-patient treatments for a third-degree burn I'd gotten on my calf from the exhaust pipe of our neighbor's Harley. Dr. Feingold, the neurologist, had bought a completely cherried-out mint-green Harley-Davidson for his fiftieth birthday, and when I was a little kid, I used to beg him for rides, and he'd take me, more often than not, probably just to shut me up. He warned me about the exhaust pipe a million times, but I forgot one day, and wham! Third-degree burn the size of a fist. I still had the scar, though the burn ward had worked diligently, every day for three months, to remove all the infected skin.