Wood Sprites

Every thirty days, the Chinese turned off the hyperphase gate (invented by their male genetic donor) and Pittsburgh returned to Earth. Initially Shutdown had been the first of the month. While the thirty-day cycle had worked for September, April, June, and November, all the other months and a half dozen leap years pushed Shutdown to some illogical date currently falling in the middle of the month.

They maintained a website for their production company, Lemon-Lime JEl-Lo. Since their parents forbid them from using the website for any true advertising or promotion, they simply had a counter counting down to the next Shutdown. They used it for an interesting, self-imposed deadline for their videos. Louise sighed at the ticking numbers. While it would only be a few days until they could contact Alexander, it seemed like forever.

And there was the niggling problem that they didn’t have a phone number for Alexander. Apparently at some point Tim Bell had changed his phone number, and April had taken it as a sign that she was not to call his house. Trying to find any information out about Pittsburgh was much like being a jewel thief. Even the most mundane of information was locked away. They had to routinely hack into secure databases to get what they needed for their videos. They usually copied anything they could get away with, but up to this point they hadn’t needed a telephone list.

Louise glanced at her alarm clock. She had ten minutes until their mother expected them to be eating breakfast. She might have time to find a copy, especially if she got lucky and it was on one of their favorite sites. A band of anonymous hackers ran a data haven, posting information on Pittsburgh they’d “found” in undisclosed locations. As always, she made sure that she couldn’t be traced before dropping into the forum.

The first post made her heart jump. The heading was “Looking for Lemon-Lime JEl-Lo.” She sat staring at it with fear. Should she read the post? Who in the world even knew that they visited this forum?

Taking a breath, she opened the post. It was breezy in tone, meandering in points, and signed with a name that made her squeak in surprise.

“What?” Jillian called from their bathroom.

“Nigel Reid wants to talk to us.”

“Nigel Reid? You mean ‘I just love Nigel’ Nigel Reid?”

“I never said that!” She respected the filmmaker. He was her favorite naturalist. “But yes, that one.”

Jillian squeaked, too. “Seriously? Talk to us?”

“Yes. Well. Lemon-Lime JEl-Lo. He’s seen The Queen’s Pantaloons and wants to know if the gossamer call is real. He’s coming to New York to do the Today Show, and he wants to know if he can meet us.”

“Meet him? Like in person?”

“Generally that’s what ‘meet’ means.”

“Are you nuts? You know that Mom and Dad would just freak if they found out that we were going to meet some old guy from the Internet. They’ll get him arrested as a pedophile!”

“He wants to meet with a film-production company!” Louise cried in defense. “He doesn’t know Lemon-Lime is just two kids. If he did think we were kids, he probably thinks we’re in high school or college.”

“Pfft, high school is just as bad. Besides, we don’t know if this is really Nigel Reid posting this. It could be anyone. We list him as one of our influences. By posing as him, anyone could hope to lure us out.”

“It would be so cool if it was.” Louise went to Nigel Reid’s official personal site. How could they tell if he was actually the person contacting them and not a pervert using his name? “Nigel is going to be on the Today Show in like three weeks. We could go see the show.” Although “seeing the show” would really be standing on the sidewalk at the corner of 49th and Rockefeller Center with the crowd that gathered daily at the break of dawn.

Jillian considered it. “I don’t know. Feels like a trap to me. How is he going to know we’re really us? A big sign that says ‘Nigel, we’re Lemon-Lime’? And if it’s not him that posted that? Whoever is trying to lure us out would have us cornered.”

Jillian was right. They’d be out in the open for hours, with Nigel probably camping out in a green room. If someone was just using his name to lure them out, they could be in lots of danger. Although, no one knew they were two nine-year-olds. Lemon-Lime could be the group name for fifteen muscle-bound men — who liked Barbie dolls.