“What kind of club?” Nate asked.
Pigeon squinted uncertainly at Trevor. “We’re still working on that,” Trevor said.
“We started as a detective agency,” Summer explained. “We sent out flyers, but nobody wanted to hire us, except for Pigeon’s mom who sent us to buy groceries. So we became a treasure-hunting society. We didn’t have much success with that either. Now we’re mainly a trespassing club.”
“Trespassing club?”
“We sneak into places,” Summer said.
“Like where?”
“We broke into a water-processing plant,” Trevor said.
“And a rich guy’s barn,” Pigeon added.
“Do you take stuff?” Nate asked.
“No way!” Summer said. “We don’t harm anything. We just sneak in, check things out, and take off.”
“And keep an eye out for treasure,” Pigeon added.
“That sounds really cool,” Nate said. “How do I join?”
“I don’t know,” Summer said. “We’re pretty selective.”
“Let me guess,” Nate said. “Nobody has ever tried to join.”
“Something like that,” Summer admitted. “We need to figure out the specifics. We can’t just let any random kid become a member. Why don’t you go back to your house for a while and let us talk things over.”
“For how long?” Nate asked.
Summer shrugged. “Come back in fifteen minutes.”
“Okay.”
*****
“Back so soon?” his mom asked when Nate entered the kitchen from the garage. She was loading dishes from a box into the dishwasher.
“Yeah.”
“Did you talk to those kids?”
“They have some club, but they’re not sure if I can join.”
His mom put her hands on her hips. “Do you want me to go talk with them?”
“No!” Nate exclaimed, feeling a surge of genuine alarm. Then he saw that his mom was grinning. She was teasing. “I think they’re trying to make up an initiation.”
“Don’t eat anything unsanitary. What sort of club is it?”
“Mainly bike riding,” Nate said, plopping down in a chair at the kitchen table. He pushed aside a box and began flicking a quarter to spin it, periodically checking the digital clock on the microwave.
“Are the kids nice?” his mom asked, closing the dishwasher.
“I guess. One is called Pigeon. He seems like a wuss. There’s also a kid named Trevor who seems all right, and a girl named Summer who’s a real comedian.”
“Don’t tell me she was giving you competition.” His mom pressed a couple of buttons and started the dishwasher. “So why are you in here?”