Carter sagged against the door frame and quickly swallowed I got a text from Uncle Dan He needs me Can I do the lawn when I get back Will Isabelle be there Carter groaned His parents adored his brainy cousin Yeah I’m sure she will Good his mom called back See if she has some time to help you with that algebra that stumped your dad Another groan Okay Can I go Yes go go But don’t forget the lawn Thanks Mom Carter had the door closed by the time he said Mom He would have to do the lawn but he believed in putting off any hot sweaty tasks as long as possible When he turned up the drive to his uncle’s house he could see Isabelle’s bike peeking out from behind the trash can corral Though they lived about the same distance away Izzy always beat Carter to the house Either that or she sat outside Uncle Dan’s just waiting for a call 8
Carter wouldn’t put anything past her Uncle Dan answered the door in a purple party hat He plunked a matching one on Carter’s head and blew a roll-out noisemaker at him We’re celebrating he said You got a place to demonstrate the suits Carter asked as soon as he slipped the goofy hat off his head Yes a children’s bookstore in the city Uncle Dan said It’s called Alice’s Wonders They have a special room for author presentations that will work perfectly We’re on for next weekend Uncle Dan had led the way to the kitchen where Isabelle leaned against the counter She wore two of the kids hats giving her the look of horns Do you think you can avoid being grounded for a week Izzy asked You don’t want to leave Uncle Dan shorthanded I can manage Carter grumbled He turned to his uncle What exactly will you need us 9
to do He imagined climbing into one of the virtual reality suits to take kids on a magical tour of some kids book He wasn’t crazy about little kids but he’d grown to love the book adventures even when they tried to kill him He thought of it as extreme reading Mostly tote and fetch Uncle Dan said We need to get all of my equipment into the room and set up I only have the two fully functional suits and I’m going to put kids in both of them I’m taking a backup just in case but I don’t plan to use it It’s one of the prototypes One that made you throw up Carter said Um yes Uncle Dan clapped his hands and rubbed them together This is so exciting Once a few kids find out what an amazing way this is to experience a book every bookstore in the country will want this setup Isabelle giggled and Carter turned to stare at her His cousin never giggled She snarked She scoffed On a good day she smiled but she never giggled He’d never seen Izzy or Uncle 10
Dan so wired Carter leaned close to his cousin and whispered Why are you so excited Aren’t you She stared at him surprise clear on her face We worked so hard to deal with that hacker This proves we won Storm wanted to ruin everything but we won Carter nodded That was great but somehow he just didn’t feel all giggly about it Mostly he was disappointed that his job was going to be schlepping equipment and watching strange kids get into the suits instead of him So are you just going to be carrying equipment too he asked Izzy She shrugged Mostly But I’ll be on the computers too in case Uncle Dan needs more than one set of hands That made sense As usual Isabelle was the one Uncle Dan couldn’t do without Carter knew it was a little childish to be jealous of Isabelle It’s not like Carter wanted to be a 11
