39 Clues _ Cahills vs. Vespers [03] The Dead of Night Read Online Free Page A

one that said EASTERN STANDARD TIME , US , which read 7:02 A.M.
    “This is Boston time, set precisely by the atomic clock,” she said. “All your little friends are waking up and getting ready for school. In a half hour, at seven thirty-two, they will be running for the school bus. And you, halfway across the world, will have decrypted your flash drive and given us all your supposed information.”
    Atticus was shaking too hard to agree.
    A half hour?
    Even if he could make contact — with anyone — a half hour was not enough time. “I — I — m-m —”
    “Chill out,” Cheyenne said. “You’re among friends.”
    “
I may need more time
,” Atticus blurted out. “I need to . . . write code.”
    “It’s a fast computer,” Cheyenne drawled.
    “But I’m a human,” Atticus said. “Not even Mark Zuckerberg can code that fast!”
    Cheyenne walked to the table where the knife was lodged. She yanked it out and held it toward the light. “Well, then . . . epic fail.”

“I don’t care about pecs, lats, or smelts,” said Natalie Kabra. “I am boycotting push-ups.”
    “Smelts are fish,” said Reagan Holt, who was conducting a workout with Ted Starling, Phoenix Wizard, Alistair Oh, and Fiske Cahill in a dank cell. “What you meant to say was —
I want GOOD push-ups, people . . . thirteen . . . fourteen
— what you meant was
delts
. As in
deltoid muscles
.
Seventeen . . . eighteen.
”
    “I
adore
fish,” Natalie said with a dreamy sigh. She turned and banged on the cell door. “Excuse me! Hello — wherever you wretched people are? A little sushi down here? I’m wasting away.
Look at me!
”
    Nellie Gomez closed her eyes and counted to ten. She had been looking at Natalie way too much. All of the rest of them, too. It was no fun to be stuck in these tiny cement rooms with one kid who couldn’t see, another who barely talked, a fitness nut, a former burrito maker, and the winner of this year’s Ichabod Crane look-alike contest. They were getting sick, too. All it took was one cold, and they were all infected.
    Only germs could thrive in a place like this.
    “Yo, Nat, ask for tempura,” Nellie said. “With wasabi on the side. To clear the sinuses.”
    She shuddered with a sudden wave of pain. Joking wasn’t so easy anymore, either. Everything above the neck hurt whenever she spoke. Being shot in the shoulder was the Number One worst event in her entire twenty-two years. Followed close by Numbers Two through Four: being away from gourmet cooking, giving up her iPod cold turkey, and enduring Natalie Kabra.
    Natalie glared at her. “Were you trying to make a joke?” she said with a flip of her black hair. “Warn me next time, and I’ll pretend to laugh. Even though mockery is awfully inconsiderate toward someone who saved your life. Oh, and by the way, you’re welcome.”
    Nellie didn’t have the energy to answer. Yes, Natalie had pulled the bullet from her shoulder — but only after she’d been forced into action. Her precisely plucked eyebrows made her the hostage with the most tweezer expertise.
    And Natalie had been been fishing for compliments ever since.
    “Come on, Alistair, sixty is the new thirty — give it to me!”
Reagan shouted.
“Twenty-six . . . twenty-seven . . .”
    “Argghhh . . .” Alistair Oh collapsed, his once-green prison uniform now a grimy gray. Next to him, a thin, silver-haired Fiske Cahill also hit the floor. “I’m afraid our delts aren’t what they used to be,” Alistair said.
    “Actually, mine rather
are
like smelts,” Fiske added. “Small and floppy.”
    Ted’s arms were also wobbling, and Phoenix let out a loud sneeze. “Reagad?” he said, his voice nasal and clogged. “Baybe that’s eduff for today. We’re gettigg codes. We deed rest.”
    “We’ll rest when we’re dead, Wizard!” In a whirlwind, Reagan quickly knocked off fifty more push-ups, flipped, and did thirty crunches, then turned and landed a kick that dented the metal door.