After a few, Cadet Do-Gooder came over. “Kate, would you mind popping the hood?”
Imagining it to be a trigger, I pulled the lever. He propped up the hood like a professional grease monkey, thereby blocking the nasty curl to my lip. Then the quartet of males peered under there like a team of surgeons about to perform a lobotomy on my poor abused car. That is until Mikey offered a suggestion, and Daddy batted his head away. Mikey ran back to my arms while Team IEA decided to try jump-starting the battery first.
Cadet Davenport did the honors, hooking up the matching cables to the appropriate nodules on the battery while Daddy rearranged his Bronco in front of my car. I snorted and crossed my arms. Shoot—I could do that. Cadet Davenport gave him the thumbs up, and Daddy fired up the Bronco.
“Okay, Kate, try to start it up now,” he commanded.
I rolled my eyes but complied. Sure enough . . . bupkis. Not the battery then. I knew it—he’d messed with my car! I vowed to lock my doors from now on then decided that would be a wasted effort . . . he could just as easily have slipped a nail under my tire. After a minute of conferring, he informed my father he knew a little bit about cars. Evidently, “The Academy” required two semesters of mechanics for all cadets.
“Well, now. How ‘bout that? Bet you won’t get that kinda schoolin’ at Harvard!” my father said to an equally enthusiastic Andrew.
I rolled my eyes as he continued with his razzle-dazzle routine. I can tell you one thing: with each clever joke and every tinker and turn of the wrench he made, my father and brother were buying up whatever Cadet Davenport was selling like it was a hot stock tip from Bill Gates himself. As he worked, he threw in a lot of “yes sirs” and male banter disguised as shoptalk. They were eating out of his greased-stained palms by the time the engine turned over and sputtered to life a quick handful of minutes later. Apparently, Pete-the-Elite-Cadet had single-handedly resuscitated my car from the dead. Shocker.
A chorus of “yeahs!” from the boys, and a back slap and reciprocal handshake from Cadet Davenport, and we were all good to go. He glanced my way, and I reciprocated with a car slam. Daddy drifted over to pow-wow with him, so I started up the car and rolled up the window against the BS, but unfortunately, my wall of glass couldn’t muffle it.
“No thanks necessary, sir. I’m glad I could put my skills to use. They get pretty rusty without practice. But you may not want to wait any longer on that transmission though. It’s about ready to go any day now. Since it’s an older model, you’ll most likely have to order parts. Could take a couple of weeks to get here . . . I’m surprised it’s lasted this long.” He met my father’s eyes directly seeing as how they were about the same height. “I know you don’t want your daughter, four-year-old, and future cadet to be out stranded on a highway somewhere.”
Was that an edge I heard creep in? I saw my father’s face blister and found the silver lining of the day: Cadet Davenport might’ve just shamed my father into buying me a new transmission.
“Oh sure,” Daddy spluttered. “I was just waitin’ to see whether to keep her or trade her in. You know . . . this was Katie’s mama’s car, so she ain’t in no hurry for a new one.”
If there were any justice in the world, my father’s nose would be a couple of inches longer right about now. Turned to check—nope, no justice.
Daddy quickly threw the heat of the spotlight back on me. “Katie girl!” he yelled so aggressively you’d think I was encased in a bomb shelter. “You gonna thank Cadet Davenport for fixin’ yer car for ya?”
I fiercely rolled down the window. “Of course, Daddy!” I said, giving them a smile so saccharine you’d have to be a fool not to know it was fake. I removed my sunglasses and turned to the poser in navy. “Thank you so much, Cadet Davenport for all the mechanical things you did to my car today! The many hidden talents you’ve acquired up at that fancy boardin’ school sure are impressive! I just feel so blessed”—my eyes blazed—“to have someone like you lookin’ out for our best interests.”
The upward tilt to his lips straightened. “I was looking out for you, Kate.” He also removed his own sunglasses, presumably so I could see the sincerity in his eyes. But I wasn’t so easily sold. Boy, he was good though, he really was. He should head straight out for Hollywood right after his little “mission” here was over.
Daddy looked from the plastered smile on my face to the cadet’s intense focus on me and rearranged some phlegm. “Well that was mighty nice of you, Cadet Davenport.”
He tore his eyes away from mine to shake my father’s hand again. “Pete, please. I’d better get going so I can finish filling out the reports from our meeting. And since you agreed to the terms we discussed today, I’ll go ahead and submit them.”
I could tell Cadet Davenport was trying hard to duck the particularly lethal glare I was shooting him because he slipped his shades back on. “Don’t forget Andy still needs a physical. You can use a local doctor if you prefer for the preliminary screening. However, The Academy will need a more thorough examination done on premises. You may, of course, be present for that. That is one of the items still missing from your checklist. The final date for that is September 29. It’s highlighted in the paperwork.”
“Sure-sure, Pete. I’ll get right on it.” My father was being Mister Congenial now. I was worried—my father was never Mr. Congenial.
After another round of farewells from my backseat, I was finally headed home for my afternoon of chores. I tried prying some insider info out of Andrew, but he was especially tight-lipped today being on the inside of the circle. “Good” was about the only adjective I was getting. Not very creative coming from a genius. I could almost see our cemented bond forming a crack right before my very eyes, and felt an equal one in my heart for it. I let it go for now. Any more arguments against that academy and its ambassador would only alienate Andrew further from me. I still needed proof they were up to no good. It would be next to impossible to prove that an organization so little was known about, and what was known was so impressive, was sinister.
So I would have to refocus on exposing their ambassador for the fraud that he was. If I had a chance of convincing a scientific person like Andrew, I would need to focus on the facts. And the fact was: Pete was a liar. I did receive one golden nugget today from the unwittingly helpful Mrs. Woodward. She’d confirmed my suspicion about the first meeting between Andrew and his mentor being all business. If she’d been present the whole time, then no way he would’ve pumped my brother for his big sister’s culinary favorites. How very unprofessional. Lie numero uno, Cadet Davenport—busted!
I had to bide my time for the right moment to confront Andrew with the news. Right now, he was still riding high from the afternoon’s secret meeting and rescue mission. But when the timing was right, I’d drop my newfound currency in the vault that was my brother’s mind.
23
AN IDIOT’S IDIOMS
While I was out in the pasture waiting on the pump to fill the cow tank, I had a long time to cool down and really think things through. A big part of the reason I was going nowhere but backwards was on account of my temper. Like Cadet Davenport—it was still getting the best of me. I’d been using vinegar when I shoulda been using honey, or what Mama referred to as “my feminine charms.” I just hated to stoop to that level; it reminded me of Ashley-Leigh and made me feel phony as those chicken cutlets she insisted we stuff into our training-bars in sixth-grade.