“Consider us warned,” Miss Information said. “Now, let’s give my new toy a spin. Benjy, have you compiled that list I asked you for?”

“I have,” the robot said as it zipped into the room. “On August 16, 1987, Edgar Escala—Julio Escala’s grandfather—visited Washington, D.C., on vacation from Mexico City and made a stop at an immigration office to get information on becoming a United States citizen. Public records show that Edgar signed in at the visitors’ center at 8:05 A.M. on the date in question. There is a ninety-seven percent chance that this experience directly lead to Mr. Escala moving his family to the United States.”

“Well, we’re going to have to find a way to change his mind,” Miss Information said as she stepped onto the time machine’s platform.

“I’m downloading the information, time, and coordinates into your machine as well as all the information I collected about the other NERDS and their families,” Benjy chirped.

Dr. Rajkumar blanched. “This is your plan? Making sure those kids were never born?”

“You got it! Kids, let’s go,” Miss Information said, dismissing the scientist and ushering Tessa and the others onto the Sit ’n Spin platform. Tessa didn’t like the idea of erasing someone, but she couldn’t leave her father in jail. She and the others turned the big wheel at the center of the machine, and it started to spin.

“I don’t feel so good,” Snot Rocket said as the wheel spun faster and faster.

“Yeah, I’m not sure about this,” Tammy cried as the air grew very cold and crackled with electricity.

Tessa felt very nauseous herself, and it wasn’t just from the spinning. The machine was making her insides feel like a bottle of soda shaken by a mischievous child. She was sure she was going to pop.

“I want to get off,” Funk whined. “We have to stop this!”

But Miss Information ignored his plea and the wheel turned even faster. The underground lair vanished and a series of images of people and places appeared: a woman slapped a man in a nightclub, a teenager danced at a rock concert, a little boy played kickball, a dog pulled his owner down the street, a soldier hurried across a war-torn lanscape, a man and a woman got married with a little white dog at their feet. They seemed to come from all different time periods. Could the rest of the team see them, too?

And then Tessa saw her father creeping into her bedroom at the White House, sitting down next to her, and watching her sleep.

“Dad?”

There was a final flash and he vanished along with the other visions, and Tessa was startled to find that she and her team were no longer in Miss Information’s secret lair. Somehow they were in the middle of a busy Washington, D.C., street, and there was a bus barreling right at them.

TOP SECRET DOSSIER

CODE NAME: PIZZA FACE

REAL NAME: DENISE BERNAKE

YEARS ACTIVE: 1984–88

CURRENT OCCUPATION: ROCKET SCIENTIST

HISTORY: DENISE WAS ONE OF

THOSE POOR CHILDREN WHO SUFFER

FROM EARLY-ONSET PUBERTY. ONE

DAY SHE WAS A SMILING, SWEET

LITTLE GIRL AND THE NEXT SHE

HAD A FACE FULL OF ZITS. NO

AMOUNT OF ACNE MEDICINE SEEMED

TO HAVE ANY EFFECT, BUT HER SAD

AFFLICTION WAS TURNED INTO A

TREMENDOUS ASSET WITH THE HELP

OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY.

UPGRADE: USE YOUR IMAGINATION,

KID. WHAT COULD A GIRL WITH A

FACE FULL OF ERUPTING PIMPLES

DO? JUST THINKING ABOUT WRITING

IT DOWN MAKES ME GAG.

Heathcliff needed to take his mind off his parents and his heartbreak, so he decided to turn his attention to the other dilemma—namely, filling in the holes of his Swiss cheese memory. He was convinced that Benjamin was the key to unlocking the mystery, so he worked with a feverish passion, replacing each tiny chip and wire while the rest of the team had one of their stupid secret meetings in a booth at Marty Mozzarella’s.

He sat in a dark corner of the restaurant and tested circuits and installed a new cooling system. Then he worked on Benjamin’s gyroscopic flight simulator, which gave the robot its ability to fly. Finally, he snapped the ball shut. There were still functions to reconnect and tests to administer, but surely none of them were vital to Benjamin’s operation. He pushed the button on the side of the orb and listened as it hummed to life. A bright red light glowed inside, a signal that there was a serious internal error, but then the light changed to Benjamin’s familiar blue, followed by some loud clicking and beeping and then finally …

“Heathcliff?”

“Benjamin! Boy, am I glad to hear your voice. You were damaged, but I repaired you, and I’ve got a million questions.”

“Ms. Holiday is—”

Benjamin’s blue light turned red and there was a loud POP! Black smoke seeped through the casing, and the ball fell to the floor.

Heathcliff cried out. How could he have been so stupid? His eagerness to know the truth had gotten the best of him, and now he’d probably made Benjamin worse. He picked up the robot and gingerly opened the cover. Much of the circuitry he had installed was melted.

“Any luck?” Jackson asked. The boy stood a few feet away, watching Heathcliff curiously.

Heathcliff grunted. He might have been lonely, but he wasn’t about to get chummy with his archenemy. A million atomic wedgies flashed in his memory.

“That’s great. We could use Benjamin’s help. And we could use yours, too,” Jackson said.

Heathcliff wanted to tell him to jump off a bridge. He wanted to laugh in his face. He wanted to spit at him. How dare Jackson come to him for help when he and the others shunned him every day? Oh, the indignity! He felt the rage coursing through every vein, and in that anger was something familiar, something comfortable—like a pair of fluffy socks or his stuffed penguin. That anger would protect him from heartbreak and humiliation.

“Unless you still need a little time on your own,” Jackson said.

Heathcliff blinked. “You think I want to be alone?”

Jackson shrugged. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure how you felt. I know how I would feel if my dad didn’t remember me and the only thing that would fix him was buried in cement. I’d want to be alone for a while. And then I’d want a friend.”

“You want to be my friend?” Heathcliff asked.

Jackson nodded. “When you’re ready. I know I have a lot to make up for.”

Heathcliff felt the anger drain out of him like water in a spaghetti strainer. He wasn’t ready to throw his arms around Jackson and forgive him, but his armor of hate felt claustrophobic.

“Listen, I know you’re bummed about that formula, but the scientist who was working on it wasn’t buried in the Playground. He’s here somewhere, probably making breadsticks or cleaning the grease traps. He can start over. That’s the cool thing about life. If you want, you can start all over. So, can you give us a hand or should I call you a whaa-mbulance?”