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Chapter 13 - Q SQUAD!

“Okay Q Squad, the first of the fathers is due to arrive in T-Minus-Forty-Five minutes so let’s review the plan,” Quinne ordered.

She was standing at the front of the twenty-five or so students they’d assembled in the computer lab, which was the only semi-private room big enough to accommodate their secret society. By Quinne’s side was her sister and flanking the girls were their two deputies, Stella and Christa. The kids sitting in the chairs facing them were the selection of camp kids that the girls thought would be the most useful and - hopefully - most discreet. Now all they had to do was do one last review of their plan then deploy their troops and hope for the best.

“Those of you on this half of the room,” Quinne pointed to her left, “are on Team Brian. Christa is going to be your captain. If you have any questions at all, find Christa. You’ve also all been given access to the private TinyChat discussion room we’ve set up for this operation, so if you can’t physically find your Captain, you can communicate directly through that means. Captains have access to each other and to us, so there can be cross-communication as needed. Better make sure your phones are all fully charged now.”

“And those of you on my half of the room,” Qianna continued the briefing, “are on Team Justin. Stella is your Captain for today.”

Quinne, who thought Qianna was smiling too much to be a good leader, took over the briefing again at that point. “You’ve all been given your starting assignments, but keep in mind this is going to be a fluid situation so things might change fast. You have to be on your toes and work together. The main goal - the ONLY goal that matters - it to keep the fathers separated for the entire afternoon. That means no visual contact at all. You are authorized to do whatever it takes to accomplish that mission.”

“Well, within reason, of course,” Qianna spoke up to mitigate her sister’s too-harsh directives. “I’d like to think that actual assault or kidnapping or anything like that won’t be necessary.”

“Excuse me,” Chase, who was sitting on the Team Justin side of the room, raised his hand. “I’m still not completely clear on exactly WHY we have to keep your fathers separated here. I mean, you said that they didn’t get along, but I’m still confused. You two ARE twins, so how is it that your dads don’t know you’re here together?”

“That information is classified,” Stella stepped forward to intercept this question. “All you need to know is that the Qs have a really, really, REALLY good reason for what they’ve asked us to do. Anything else is ‘Need To Know’ only and YOU don’t need to know at this time, Chase.”

“As long as you’re not getting us involved in anything illegal, right?” Max commented from the Team Brian side of the room. When neither of the Qs nor their Captains immediately spoke up to reassure her, Max started to look a little worried. “It’s not, is it?”

“How would keeping two adults separate at a Camp Awards Ceremony be illegal?” Christa interrupted, shooting Max with a withering look. “It IS super important though, and just so you know, if you break your word to keep this project secret or if you fail in your assigned tasks, Quinne and I WILL hack into your social media accounts and post embarrassing pictures of you drooling while asleep or videos of you saying stupid shit. So don’t double cross us. You’ve been warned.”

Quinne leaned over and whispered in her sister’s ear, “have I mentioned how hot that girl is when she gets all butch like that?”

Qianna snorted a laugh against her will and then blushed to the roots of her hair when everyone looked at her. She quickly waved them off while Stella continued outlining the game plan for the day. The plan which seemed impossibly complicated.

“Team Justin, we’ll be up first,” Stella informed them then tapped at her phone to send a picture to the secret group chat. “I just sent you a picture of Qianna’s dad - make sure you know your target! He’s expected to arrive by no later than 11:30am, so be ready.” Stella turned to her team hacker. “Max, what’s the latest on the flight status?”

“The commuter flight down from Denver is still listed as being on time, which means he should be on the ground any minute now, and should soon be on his way to pick up the rental car. Since he’s a preferred member the car should be waiting and he won’t need to check in or anything. Q2 says Justin never checks a bag if he can avoid it, meaning that there won’t be any additional delay for baggage claim. So, assuming he doesn’t get lost on the drive here from the airport he might actually be arriving a little early,” Max informed the waiting campers.

“You heard her, Team,” Stella recapped. “As soon as we’ve finished here, the vanguard team needs to take up their recon positions at the guest parking lot.” She nodded to Chase and Jonathan who mock-saluted to let their leader know they were ready. “After the target has been intercepted our Q will join him for a little tour around the dorms, which means we should have a pretty easy time of it for the next hour or so. We don’t need to be on high alert until we get word from Team Brian that their target has arrived as well. Then we’ll really need to go into action.”

“Team Brian will be on standby until approximately 12:30pm,” Christa took over the briefing at that point. “Oliver says that Brian’s connecting flight out of JFK was delayed a half hour, so he’ll be cutting it close to even make it to the Awards Ceremony on time.”

“If we could only BE so lucky,” Quinne mumbled, but then smiled an apology to her Captain for the interruption.

“Our Team’s Q will be waiting along with the Brian recon contingent, ready to meet him the minute he arrives,” Christa continued without missing a beat. “The rest of Team Brian will be waiting outside the auditorium prepared for Operation Human Shield. As soon as the recon team gives me notice of target acquisition, I’ll be notifying both teams, so everyone should be online and waiting for word from 12:30 on. Assuming the Brian Target arrives when we think he will, we’re just going to take him straight from the parking lot to the auditorium. Timing at that stage will be critical, so DON’T MESS UP!”

“Don’t forget,” Quinne warned, even though she knew they’d all been briefed on that part of the plan before, “Team Justin will be stationed on the North side of the auditorium bleachers - that’s on the right if you’re facing the bleachers with your back to the stage. Team Justin will already be seated when Team Brian ushers in their target. Team Brian needs to remain on the South side of the auditorium, or to the left side of the bleachers when facing away from the stage. Both teams need to be on full Human Shield Mode from that point on.”

“NO VISUAL CONTACT is the goal. Do whatever it takes,” Qianna repeated. “Quinne and I will do what we can to keep the targets distracted with chatter but we’ll need you guys to provide a more physical barrier just in case the targets’ attention wanders.”

Stella and Christa were both nodding along with the Q-Twins, backing their friends up with the weight of their most imposing glares.

“Max and Oliver already hacked Pooh Bear’s computer, so we’ve got a copy of her agenda and speech. Which means we’re pretty sure of the order of the ceremony. You should have already received copies of the agenda and hopefully memorized it,” Stella took over again. “Hopefully there won’t be any deviations from the written agenda, but if there are, just be ready with your distraction techniques. Team Justin will be up first, ready with their Blockade Action on the fourth Award Announcement, and Team Brian will follow with their Blockade Action on the sixth Award Announcement. This will be the MOST critical moment of the entire plan so anything you have to do to distract and block your target while the other Q gets her award is fair game. Scream, shout, fall down, hell, dump a bottle of water over the target’s head if needed, just make sure that your target doesn’t hear the other Team’s Award being announced or look up at that point. Got it?”

The entire room full of campers nodded and muttered in a synchrony of acknowledgement.

“Great!” Christa continued. “After the awards, the Qs are going to lead their targets in separate directions and hopefully all will be well for the rest of the night, but there should probably be at least a couple of us with each Q at all times - one to maintain a communication link with the other team and the other to remain on emergency lookout. We can spell each other, though, so nobody gets too overwhelmed. Your team will only be fully dismissed when that team’s target leaves campus for the night to head to his respective hotel. Then we can all crash and, hopefully, celebrate.”

“Thank you all, again, for helping us with this,” Qianna piped up as soon as everyone had their marching orders. “I know we haven’t completely explained things to all of you, but it’s hugely important to us both and we just couldn’t do today without each and every one of you. You have no idea how much this means to us.”

“Ditto what my sister just said,” Quinne seconded her twin. “Now, let’s do this thing!”

“Q SQUAD!” Stella and Max yelled together.

The entire room of helpers immediately echoed the cheer with a roof-raising “Q SQUAD!” in response, before breaking into laughter and chatter all around.

“Well, we’re as ready as we’ll ever be, I guess,” Qianna said, speaking for all of them as she looked around at the motley band of conspirators.

“If this actually works, it’ll be a fucking miracle,” Quinne whispered, as she clapped her sister on the shoulder.

Then the two girls pulled their matching School of Mines beanies down low enough to cover their hair, gave each other a final once over to ensure that they looked as identical as possible, and moved off. Quinne and Stella headed towards Team Justin and Qianna went with Christa towards Team Brian. Now it was just up to thorough planning and a little bit of luck to see if this scheme of theirs would have any chance to work.

///~///~///~

“Peanut? Is that you under there?” Justin asked as Quinne approached him, running down the sidewalk to greet him before he’d made it more than ten meters from the parking lot.

“Dad! It’s so good to see you finally!” Quinne stated, overcome despite herself at seeing Justin in person for the first time.

“I missed you too, Sweetheart!” Justin agreed, holding out his arms so his daughter could come in for a hug. “Why did I agree to let you out of my sight for a whole summer?”

“Because you love me and want to encourage my love of all things science?” Quinne offered, hugging him back as hard as she could, all the while winking over Justin’s shoulder to Chase and Jon, the recon team, to thank them for alerting her when Justin had arrived. “Dad, I want to introduce you to a couple of my friends.” She waved the boys over. “This is Chase and this is Jon. Chase is seriously looking at Stanford for college so I’ve been telling him all about the campus and California in general. He told me he’s going to be asking you lots of questions, so be prepared.”

“Nice to meet you both,” Justin nodded to the boys but almost immediately turned back to his ‘daughter’, not that easily distracted. “So, what is this . . . this look . . . you have going here, Honey? It’s ninety degrees out here, is that hat really necessary? And what . . . what did you do to your ears!”

“I had them pierced. Surprise?” Quinne announced. “Look, Dad, I know you said I had to wait till I was fourteen but I was, like, the ONLY girl here without pierced ears and I just didn’t think it was logical for me to have to wait any longer. Please don’t be too mad, okay?”

Justin huffed a deep, paternally judgmental breath, but seemed to capitulate as soon as he blew out the lungful of air. “Well, if you’re going to cite logic against me, how can I argue?” They both chuckled a little. “I guess I was being a little silly making you wait. But I’m still miffed that you didn’t run it by me first.”

“You know I would have talked you into it in the end anyway, so stop pretending to be all fatherly,” Quinne ordered, forgetting for a minute that Qianna wouldn’t have been quite so forceful with her father, but catching herself before he had a chance to comment. “Sorry. I just . . . You’re not actually mad are you?”

“No, Honey. I’m not,” Justin reassured her, then took a step back to give his daughter another look. “There’s something else different though . . . Hmmm . . .  I can’t quite put my finger on it but . . .”

Quinne felt like a bug under the microscope of an Entomologist as Justin’s eyes ran all over her from head to toe. She couldn’t help fidgeting a little, wondering if their ruse was over already. She tried to think herself into Qianna’s body, if that were possible, while she waited for ‘her’ father’s final judgment. When he shook his head, brow furrowed in confusion, and a quizzical smile on his lips, she thought the jig was up.

“I think you’ve grown at least a half an inch this summer, Peanut,” he declared approvingly. “And here I thought you were doomed to be a shrimp like your old man, but I think you’re almost taller than me at this point! It looks good on you. Although it makes you seem way too skinny. Haven’t you been eating all summer?”

Quinne breathed a sigh of relief, smiling to herself that Qianna had anticipated her father’s reaction so perfectly. “Trust me, Dad, I haven’t been starving myself or anything. I’ve just been getting a lot of exercise and doing a lot of swimming this summer - it’s been great to have the rec center pool available to us all the time.”

“You finally discovered that a pool is good for something other than sunbathing?” Justin laughed at his daughter. “Sheesh, Peanut, in all the years we’ve lived in places with pools, you’ve never once swum a single lap. Now, THIS, I’ve got to see.”

Quinne nervously bit at her thumbnail, embarrassed at her slip up - of course Qianna wouldn’t have bragged about swimming all summer. The girl seemed almost allergic to exercise. She also wouldn’t have been excited to have such easy access to a pool, after growing up in California where it seemed like a pool was a necessary addition to every single living space and the weather was great all year long - unlike Pittsburgh where swimming in the winter entailed a trip to the YMCA and an hour on the bus. Luckily, Quinne’s Q Squad team saw her discomfiture and immediately stepped up to cover for her.

“Hey, Q, didn’t you say you wanted to show your dad around the dorms before the Awards thing started?” Chase asked, diverting Justin’s attention right as he was beginning to wonder about ‘his’ daughter’s odd reaction. Chase gestured as if to lead the way down the sidewalk towards the dorm building, which could be seen just down the path. “And maybe, while we walk, I can pick your brain about Stanford, Sir?”

“Great idea, Chase. Thanks for reminding me,” Quinne eagerly took the out she was handed. “Come on, Dad. I want to show you around.”

Luckily, Justin let himself be towed around the dorms and some of the campus for the next hour or so, with Chase and Jon doing their best to keep his attention diverted by questions about California, thus giving Quinne some desperately needed breathing room.

///~///~///~

Meanwhile, Team Brian was getting antsy. 12:30 came and went without a sign of their intended target. Oliver had been checking his phone for updates on the flight every two minutes - the flight hadn’t actually arrived until 12:15 and Brian still had to wait for his bags and pick up his rental car, so it was questionable if he would even make it to the ceremony. Which meant Team Brian didn’t know what to do with themselves. They couldn’t stay in the parking lot waiting for him forever - the camp staff was already trying to herd them into the auditorium with the rest of the group - but then how were they going to know when Brian arrived so they could intercept him and keep him away from Team Justin?

Finally, at ten till, a sleek, dark grey Tesla came screaming around the bend and into the parking lot, gliding to a halt at an angle that took up two parking spaces, and the tall, elegant man unfolded himself from the vehicle. With a sigh of relief, Christa and the bulk of Team Brian scurried away, ready to take up their positions at the doors to the auditorium. Qianna, with her deputies, Max and Trevor, trotted over to welcome the tardy father.

“Shit, it’s about time, Pops,” Qianna welcomed the man with her best Quinne impression. “You almost missed the damn ceremony you insisted you HAD to be here for.”

“You know I prefer to make an entrance,” Brian countered, with his signature smirk, as he bent to hug ‘his’ daughter. “What good is showing up at an event if nobody notices you’re there. This way I get to walk in when everyone’s already seated and they can all get a better look at the magnificence that is ME.”

Qianna shook her head and chuckled. She had been looking forward to meeting this man in person for a long time and he definitely didn’t disappoint. He was just as arrogant as she’d expected. But in an endearing way, of course. She hugged him back as hard as her arms could squeeze.

“Nice shoes, Spark,” Brian commented, noticing that she was wearing the Prada platform pumps he’d bought her despite her protests. “I’m glad you talked me into the black ones - especially if you’re going to wear them with that fucking awful hat on your head.”

“You’re just jealous because you’re not as hip as me, Pops,” Qianna replied, trying to be as snarky as she knew her sister would have been in the circumstances. “Too bad you refuse to wear hats for fear they’d mess up your precious hair. Luckily the rest of the world doesn’t have to worry about such things.”

“You’re not too old to spank, you know,” Brian teased her right back.

“You guys can argue later, Q,” Christa interjected, grabbing Qianna’s arm and tugging at her. “If we don’t get a move on, you’re gonna miss your award altogether.”

“Fine with me,” Qianna tried one last time. “You wanna just blow this popsicle stand and go get a cup of coffee, Pops?”

“Awards first. Coffee later,” Brian demanded and then turned to lead the way down the path from the parking lot towards the auditorium, with his ‘daughter’ and the camp kids scrambling to catch up to him.

As they neared the auditorium, Qianna was relieved to see her team milling around by the doorways, trying their best to delay the staff who were attempting to get the kids inside so the event could finally get underway. They were already almost five minutes late. As soon as Max, who’d stationed herself right in front of the doors, saw the trio surrounding Brian, she’d texted to Team Justin to be on the ready. Max then stepped up to greet Qianna, thus blocking Brian’s entrance for the few additional seconds it took for Trevor - the biggest kid at the camp, who was not only over six feet despite being only fourteen, but also nearing two hundred pounds - to get into position in front of Brian. Max then hit send on the text she’d already typed, signalling the rest of Q Squad that Operation Human Shield was a go!

Trevor, who was not only a good visual block but also one of the sweetest and smartest kids at the camp, positioned himself directly in front of Brian, walking as slowly as he could so that Qianna and ‘her’ Pops were forced to shorten their steps as they entered the auditorium. Brian found himself having to look down to make sure he wasn’t going to trip over the large boy’s shuffling feet, so he didn’t get much of a look at the auditorium as he entered. If he had been able to look up, he would have noticed the ‘stage’ set up on the floor of the space to his right, complete with a podium surrounded by chairs for the camp staff and other notables to sit facing the audience, all of whom were assembled in the three sections of bleachers that had been rolled out for this fairly small assembly. There was even a large empty area waiting for Brian’s group in the center of the first group of bleachers, right up front, which Trevor and Christa led their group towards.

Almost everyone in the small assembly stopped what they were doing to watch the late arrival. Everyone, that was, except for the group on the farthest bleachers surrounding Team Justin. Justin was circled by a group of about ten students, most of whom took that moment to all stand en masse, providing a human wall between their father and the arriving group. The chatter at that end of the bleachers also ramped up right then, creating a susurrous of noise that cocooned Justin and Quinne, preventing them from even noticing the disturbance of the group that noisily seated themselves at the opposite end of the bleachers. Once Brian and Qianna were seated, with their human shield in the form of Trevor taking perch to Brian’s left and providing a fleshy barrier between the two men, Team Justin again assumed their own seats. Chase and Jon, who were both fairly tall for their ages, if not quite as bulky as Trevor, served as the counterpart human screen by taking up seats on Justin’s right.

And so the scene was set, with the two men seated only a dozen meters apart but shielded almost completely from each other, and their respective Teams diligently monitoring the situation to make sure they remained oblivious.

As soon as the noise died down, Pooh Bear stepped up to the podium and started her speech. Stella monitored the agenda of the ceremony, making sure that everything was following the plan, so they would be ready. There were little speeches by some of the other staff and the professors running things, thanking the parents for attending and commending the kids for their collective brilliance. Then the awards themselves began. The camp was offering awards for the best students in each of the units that they’d covered that summer. The individual awards were presented by the professors or grad students that had run those units, each of whom offered a short explanation as to why they chose their awardee and giving praise to the students selected. There was a large video screen set up behind the podium where pictures of all the summer’s activities were displayed. That was a bit of a surprise to the Q Squad, and not a happy one either, as the girls figured prominently in a lot of the pictures.

“Distraction Mode!” Stella frantically texted to the entire Squad. “Try to keep the dads from looking at the pics too closely!”

Twenty-five phones simultaneously pinged and started to vibrate. Twenty-five students looked down at their phones. Then twenty-five campers started to chatter and goof off in a valiant attempt to distract their two targets from looking up at the lovely picture of the two Q’s proudly standing next to their winning robot from that first week at camp.

“So, Mr. Taylor, tell me about Stanford,” Chase asked, right as the video screen lit up. “I really want to go there but my parents are worried about it being so far away. I’ve heard it’s really a nice campus though . . .”

Justin tried to politely brush off the poorly timed question, and leaned over so he see around Jon’s tall shoulders. Max unhelpfully pushed Jon to the left so Justin’s view was still blocked. At the same time Quinne leaned across Justin’s body, pretending to pick up an imaginary something that had dropped at Chase’s feet, handing the pretend item off to Chase just as the picture of the twins was replaced by another of the second place team, whose leader was the recipient of that unit’s award.

Meanwhile, over on the Team Brian side, Christa quickly brought up the picture of her team’s robot on her phone and shoved the device in front of Brian’s face, complaining about how she’d thought her team’s bot was better designed overall than the one that the award winner’s team had created. Qianna took the opportunity to debate the matter with Christa, providing enough of a distraction to keep Brian from looking up again until after the kid who was getting that award, Ling Tran, was already sauntering up to the podium to accept his lucite trophy.

And so it continued through the awards for the Geology Unit and the Genetics Unit. Every time the video screen would light up with pictures that might show either of the girls, Brian and Justin would be immediately engaged by one or more of the students surrounding them, usurping all their attention until the coast was again clear. Justin was trying to politely get the kids around him to settle down, admonishing them for keeping the rest of the students - not to mention himself - from being able to pay attention when their friends were getting awards. Brian, on the other hand, was neither as patient nor as politic and was getting noticeably annoyed by his Team’s distractions.  

“What the hell is with your friends, Q?” Brian asked, not bothering to modulate his voice so that his comments would be kept between the two of them. “Did they feed you guys too much sugar at breakfast or something? Why can’t you all sit still and let me hear about all the crap I paid for you to learn about? I didn’t shell out hundreds of dollars of good money to listen to your friends complain about how THEIR robots didn’t work or shove their phones in my faces, Spark.”

Unfortunately, Brian’s last comment was growled loudly enough that it almost downed out the smattering of polite applause that accompanied the announcement of Tobin Jeffries winning the Genetics award. Justin’s head immediately popped up from amid his protective circle of campers as he looked around him, as if searching for the speaker. Even though he hadn’t heard that particular voice for more than a decade, it was still familiar enough that it caught his attention despite the cacophony of noise around him. In response, at least five of the students sitting to Justin’s right, stood up, creating a virtual wall with their bodies as they over-exuberantly clapped and cheered on Tobin, a boy who was pleasantly surprised to discover he was so admired by the others at the camp. When Justin didn’t seem to find whatever or whomever he was looking for though, he let ‘his’ daughter pull him aside so she could whisper some story about how she thought Tobin was a bit of a bossy cow who really didn’t deserve the award, especially since he’d copied most of his final Epigenetics presentation off Stella.

And then it was crunch time for the Q Squad, who was already on notice that the next award was for one of the Qs. As Pooh Bear started to announce the Coding Unit award, the video screen showed a picture of the smiling Quinne, sitting in the Computer Lab with at least five other laptops and tablets cabled together around her, her headphones on as she DJ’ed a set using the Music Library compilation she’d created via a Python Database she’d created. Brian smugly leaned over to bump shoulders with ‘his’ daughter, the computer genius. The camp staff actually broadcast a brief music sampling that their coding group had recorded for the presentation depicting what they’d accomplished, and Qianna played her sister's part well as she beamed self-confidently around herself. She even managed at bit of a ‘Kinney’ strut as she made her way to the podium to accept her award after her name was called.

At the same time, Team Justin was in all out Blockade Mode. Stella, who’d pretended to have just then discovered that Justin was a famous movie animator, loudly announced the fact to her buddy Chelsie, and the two of them squealed and gushed and fan-girled over the poor man so shamelessly that Justin was cringing. He was far too distracted trying to prevent the two girls from groping him while they all three posed for a selfie together, to pay any attention to whatever was going on up at the podium. After a set of three pics - a serious one they could show their parents, a goofy one they could post to social media, and one where the girls tried to cajole Justin into kissing them which they said they wanted so they could make their girlfriends at home jealous - they finally subsided. Justin looked like he wanted to crawl under a rock and hide. Quinne had a seriously hard time not laughing out loud at the way her ‘Dad’ scooted closer to her, as if seeking protection from his rabid fans. But, if nothing else, the ruse had worked and kept Justin oblivious to the proceedings as ‘Quinne’ received her award.

Both Teams got a rest for the duration of the Chemistry Unit award, which went to a timid and non-descript girl - she was so shy and had kept to herself so much throughout the camp that most of the other students didn’t even know her name - who’d supposedly done something miraculous with her experiment in the Chem Lab.

Next up, though, was the second Q award so, as soon as both teams had caught their breath, they were up again and ready to do their Blockade thing. This award was for the week where they’d been allowed to choose an Independent Study project of their own choosing. Most of the projects had been along the same lines as you’d see at any science fair, and while they were all somewhat interesting, only one had truly stood out. Hence, the award being given to Qianna, who’d created some truly original artwork depicting heroes and sheroes of the STEM world along with their contributions.

As her name was announced, the video screen behind the podium began to show the series of six different mixed media paintings that Qianna had produced, each of which was truly quite beautiful. Justin was rightfully ecstatic and proud of his daughter’s artistic talents, and stood up along with the rest of the group around him to applaud the girl. Quinne blushed - something not common for her - as she gratefully accepted her sister’s award, feeling a little guilty that her twin wasn’t accepting for herself since the work was so personal and so amazing. But the parent switch plan had always been more for Qianna than herself, so Quinne figured she was doing all of this for her sister in the end. On top of everything else, Qianna’s outgoing and bubbly personality had made her a lot of friends that summer, so her personal fan club was huge. The crowd went wild, hooting and cheering at the tops of their lungs, as the girl they thought was Qianna began to walk back towards the bleachers.

It was almost loud enough to cover up the commotion that erupted at the south end of the bleachers, which resulted in a large part of the audience from that area also getting up to their feet. Only these folks weren’t cheering, they were trying to get out of the way. And the roar of noise was from the angry, and now dripping wet visitor, who lurched to his feet with a growl after the hapless Trevor had dumped his entire sports bottle of ice water over Brian’s head in an attempt to distract him from watching the presentation for Quinne. Brian, needless to say, was NOT amused. If looks could kill, the nasty glare he sent Trevor’s way would have castrated the boy with a rusty spoon and then fed him his own testicles to choke on until the poor kid died in an embarrassed heap of mortification. But, to the extent that it did, in fact, distract Brian, it was a complete success.

Luckily, by the time Quinne had made her way back to her seat in the bleachers next to Justin, and the crowd at that end of the auditorium had settled back down, Brian had already stomped out of the room, heading for the men’s room so he could try to dry himself off and fix his melted hair. Trevor was still shaking, worried that Brian was going to come back and murder him. And Qianna and Christa were trying, unsuccessfully, to stifle their giggling.

“You SAID, if all else failed, to dump a bottle of water over his head,” Trevor complained, a little miffed at the girls’ reaction.

“Yeah, but I was thinking about Justin when I said it. I never dreamed anyone would be brave enough to take on Brian Kinney like that,” Qianna replied amid more giggling. “OMG! Did you see his face? He was sooooo angry. You’re totally hard core, Trevor. Nobody else would have even dared something like that.” And then they all started laughing again. “Sheesh, it was like looking at a wet cat. If he could have gotten away with hissing at you, he would have. That was the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen.”

They were laughing away so hard that they didn’t even hear the award presentation for the Earth Sciences Unit. But the following, and last, award of the presentation did get their attention. It was the award for the Engineering Unit and the students’ Rube Goldberg Machines, which had been saved for last since it was destined to be a real crowd pleaser. It was too bad, really, because the winning team happened to be the one the girls were on but since they couldn’t possibly be seen together by the fathers, Qianna opted to leave before the end of the video presentation showing the machine at work. She figured she probably should go find out what had happened to Brian, anyway, and Quinne could collect the award for the both of them. At least she knew Justin would be happy for her win. And if this crazy plan of theirs actually worked, it would be worth missing out on the award.

And at least it seemed they’d managed to get through the Award Ceremony without being found out.

///~///~///~