“Not to mention crazy,” she said.

“Yeah, and probably crazy,” I agreed. “Look, if you don't want to be a part of this, it's okay. I understand.”

She shut her eyes and rolled back her head. “Uh-oh, here comes the guilt.” She pressed her knuckles to her ears. “Enough already, Noah. This poor blond head's about to explode.”

Shelly stretched out on the sofa. Abbey got some ice cubes from the refrigerator and wrapped them in a dish towel, which Shelly gingerly positioned across her brow.

After a minute or two of muffled moaning she said, “Guess I wasn't feelin' so brave when I got up this mornin', but hey, a promise is a promise. Count me in.”

Abbey and I looked at each other with happy relief.

“So what's the big plan?” Shelly asked. “And how does your daddy fit in?”

“He doesn't fit in. We're not telling him about it,” Abbey replied.

Shelly opened one bloodshot eye and studied us. “That's probably a darn good idea,” she said.

“But he'll still get blamed for everything-if we get caught,” I pointed out. “That's why we need you.”

Shelly sighed. “So let's hear it.”

When we told her our plan, she didn't laugh or make fun. She just lay there, thinking.

“Well?” Abbey said impatiently.

Shelly levered herself upright, balancing the ice pack on her forehead. “This idea of yours is so whacked,” she said, “it just might work.”

“Does that mean you'll help us?”

“And all I gotta do is flush?” she asked. “That's it?”

“That's all you've got to do,” I said. “Flush, and flush often.”

The next thing that happened was all my fault. I wasn't paying attention.

Abbey and I were riding home slowly along the Old Highway, talking about the Coral Queen, when somebody rushed up on us from behind. Before I could wheel around, Jasper Muleman Jr. grabbed my bike and Bull grabbed Abbey's, and together they dragged us backward into a stand of Australian pines.

Not again, I thought in a panic. It wasn't me I was frightened for-it was my sister.

No sooner had Jasper Jr. knocked me to the ground than I heard Bull cut loose with a spine-chilling wail. Instantly I knew what had happened: He'd been too careless with Abbey.

“Make her let go!” Jasper Jr. hollered at me.

“I can't.”

Jasper Jr. jerked me to my feet. “Underwood, you don't make her let go of Bull, I'll snap you like a twig.”

Bull kept on wailing. Abbey had sunk her teeth into his left earlobe and was hanging on like a starved alligator. Bull was at least a foot taller than her, so he had to be careful not to pull away or else he might lose the entire ear. Whenever he moved even a little bit, his wailing got louder. The boy was in serious pain.

“Make her stop!” Jasper Jr. demanded. “He's bleeding, man, can't you see?”

“Abbey, is Bull really bleeding?” I asked.

She nodded, causing Bull to crank up the volume. It was pitiful to hear.

Jasper Jr. started throttling me by the shoulders. “Make her quit, Underwood, make her stop!”

“One condition,” I said. “You guys let her go free.”

Jasper Jr. sneered his famous sneer. “How 'bout this for a condition, dorkbrain? Your sister quits chewin' on Bull, else I start poundin' your head with a ripe coconut.”

Bull managed to calm himself long enough to offer his own opinion. “The girl takes her teeth outta my ear, she walks. You got my promise, Underwood.”

“Hey, no way-” Jasper Jr. began to protest.

“You shut up,” Bull snapped. He was looking at us with his thick neck bent toward the ground and his head positioned sideways, to give Abbey as much slack as possible. Considering the delicate situation, she seemed incredibly calm.

I didn't see a single drop of blood, but there was no reason to inform Bull that he wasn't really bleeding to death. “So, guys, do we have a deal or not?” I asked.

“Deal,” Bull grunted.

“Yeah, whatever,” said Jasper Jr., spearing me with a bony elbow.

“All right then,” I said. “Abbey, you can let go now.”

“Nhh-ugh,” she said through a mouthful of crinkled ear.

“Come on. Let go of Bull.”

“Nhh-ugh.”

“You want to catch some gross disease? He probably hasn't had a bath since Christmas,” I said.

Even that didn't make her quit. I knew why, too. She didn't want to leave me out there alone with the two of them.

“Honest, I'll be okay,” I said, which must have sounded incredibly lame. She knew I wasn't going to be okay. She knew they were going to stomp me into hamburger meat.

“Nhh-ugh,” my sister said emphatically.

“Abbey, come on!”

There was no way I could let her stay there in the woods. Jasper Jr. was a vicious punk who wouldn't think twice about beating up a girl half his size.

Bull said, “I think I'm gonna hurl.”

Abbey chomped down harder, and the noise that came out of Bull didn't sound human.

Jasper jumped me again and put me in a headlock. “Now listen, you little brat,” he snapped at my sister. “We're gonna do this my way. I'll break your brother's neck, you don't spit out Bull's ear by the count of three.”

There was no response from Abbey, but now I saw true fear in her eyes. My face must have looked like a tomato about to explode, as hard as Jasper Jr. was clinching down on me. I couldn't tell my sister what to do next because I couldn't squeak out a word.

“One,” said Jasper Jr.

Abbey hung on.

“Two…”

Abbey wasn't budging.

“Two!” Jasper Jr. barked again.

I tried to wriggle free, but it was no use. Jasper Jr.'s forearm was locked tight against my throat, and it hurt to breathe. Everything in front of me started getting fuzzy and dark, and I figured I was about to pass out.

The next words I heard were: “Try two and a half, shorty.”

The voice sounded too old and gravelly to be Jasper Jr., but I just assumed that my hearing was messed up because he'd squeezed all the oxygen out of my brain.

“Let him go!” the voice said again, and it clearly wasn't speaking to Abbey. It was speaking to Jasper Jr.

Who, to my complete surprise, immediately let me go. I fell to the ground and stayed on all fours until I caught my breath.

“You all right, Noah?”

I lifted my eyes in bewilderment. The voice belonged to a lanky, long-armed man with woolly, silvery hair. A gleaming gold coin hung from a tarnished chain around his neck. His craggy face looked like a mahogany stump, and on one tanned cheek was a scar in the shape of an M.

Anybody could see that the guy was old-and tough. Shirtless and barefoot, he leaned casually against the trunk of a tall pine. His weather-beaten cutoffs had been bleached gray by the sun, and a dirty red bandanna was knotted around his right wrist. The curly hair on his bare chest was as shiny as the hair on his head.

Jasper Jr. wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he knew that the stranger meant business.

“We was only jokin' around,” he said timidly.

“That right?” The old pirate smiled in a way that caused Jasper Jr. to go pale. Bull whimpered like a puppy but said nothing.

The stranger turned to my sister. “Now it's your turn, Abbey. How 'bout you let loose of that boy?”

My sister's eyes got wide at the sound of her name. She released her grip on Bull's ear, stepped back, and began spitting vigorously into the bushes. Bull straightened up and pressed a fist to his throbbing ear, trying to stanch the invisible bleeding.

“Who are you?” I asked the old man. “How'd you know our names?”

He brushed past me and went up to Jasper Jr., who looked like he desperately needed a bathroom.

“You ever bother these two kids again,” the old man warned him, “and you'll dearly regret it. Comprende?”

Jasper Jr. nodded shakily.