Read an Excerpt
DESTINATION
OBJECTIVE
It was a blustery Saturday morning in late January, and Dashiell Mistery, an aspiring detective at the prestigious Eye International Detective Academy, was jumping out of his skin with excitement. He had just received an Evite from his friend Mallory, inviting him to her birthday party.
Dash was thrilled. He’d dragged himself out of bed to sit through an online seminar on Espionage and Counterespionage, and had been struggling to cover his yawns for two hours when Mallory’s message popped up on his screen. He managed to prop his eyes open till noon, said a polite good-bye to Professor DM31, and immediately opened Mallory’s invitation.
Her party would start at eight o’clock at Fashionista, an exclusive club in the center of London. The theme was the seventies, and guests were invited to “dress disco” in honor of that era’s most popular music. The Evite was covered with vintage graphics of people wearing bell-bottom pants, multicolored shirts with pointed collars, suffocatingly tight vests, and platform shoes with chunky, wedged heels.
Dash loved costumes and disguises, and he decided to pull out all the stops. He was starving, so he wolfed down a take-out container of fries that had been in the fridge for at least three days. Then he started rummaging through his closet, but all he could find were jeans, T-shirts, and a couple of sweaters and suits his mother had bought him for special occasions.
Nothing that said “seventies disco.” Not even close.
He opened several websites at once, trying to find the right look. After browsing for an hour or so, he streamed a video clip of John Travolta in the film Saturday Night Fever. The actor’s movements were graceful and hypnotic, and his formfitting white suit would be just the thing for the party.
There was a vintage clothing boutique a few blocks from Dash’s penthouse apartment. He dug out the last of his weekly allowance and got into the elevator. After combing through every sale rack and trying on several outrageous outfits, he hurried back home with a large shopping bag. He took a quick shower and began getting dressed. By seven o’clock he was standing in front of the full-length mirror in his mother’s room, checking the final details of his costume.
“No girl will be able to resist me tonight!” He smirked as he buttoned the vest of his three-piece suit. He emphasized his coolness by striking a pose, with one finger pointed at the ceiling and a hand on his hip, like John Travolta doing the Hustle. To his great surprise, he pulled off the dance moves quite well.
All Dash needed was a quick spritz of cologne, and he would be ready to dance up a storm. He grabbed hold of the bottle and pumped the squirter.
“Oww!” he shouted as the cologne shot straight into his eye. “That burns like crazy!”
He ran into the bathroom to wash his face. The hot water made him cry out again. He rubbed his face harder and let out a fresh scream of pain. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of torment, he dabbed a cool washcloth over his eye and managed to find some relief. Taking a deep breath, he opened his eye and looked at himself in the mirror. The eye looked like a fireball!
“I’m going to need a gallon of eyedrops! Where did Mom put them?” the young detective cried out in despair. Half-blinded, he wandered through the apartment, bumping into furniture and slipping on piles of magazines and comic books. “Maybe it’s in the first-aid kit . . .”
He opened a cupboard, digging through the emergency medical kit in a frenzy. It was stuffed full of bandages, gauze, and disinfectant, but there were no eyedrops.
Meanwhile, his eyelid had gotten puffy and swollen. “I can’t go to the party looking like this!” he moaned. “I have to do something!”
He paced back and forth for a few minutes. It was already well past eight o’clock, and the party would be in full swing by now. Suddenly he snapped his fingers. “I’m such an idiot!” he cried. “Why didn’t I think of that sooner?”
He had come up with a solution, and even if it looked a little ridiculous, it was the best he could do in an emergency.
Twenty minutes later Dash strolled into the party, whistling as if nothing had happened. He had used styling mousse to sculpt a tuft of hair over one side of his face so that none of his friends would notice the inflamed eye hiding beneath it.
After greeting everyone, Dash scooped up an armload of snacks and found a free chair in a dark corner. All the other guests were dancing under an enormous disco ball that sent sparkling bursts of colored light around the room, but he wasn’t sure if his improvised hairdo would stay in place if he started dancing.
“Aren’t you going to get on the dance floor?” Clark asked him, shaking his hips in time to the music. “That’s where all the girls are!”
Dash crossed his legs, tossing some popcorn into his mouth. “I’m saving my energy,” he said, adopting a sophisticated tone. “The best dance tunes always come at the end!”
Clark chuckled, swinging his hips as he disappeared into the crowd. The disco beat set the dance floor on fire. After a fast-paced song, Mallory danced over and pulled Dash’s hand. “This is my special night, Dash,” she giggled. “And if you don’t get up off that couch, you’re going to break all the girls’ hearts!”
Dash was about to reply with a sarcastic joke, but a couple of birthday well-wishers pulled Mallory to the middle of the room to cut a huge cake that had appeared out of nowhere.
In the middle of all the commotion, Dash tried to figure out his next move. This looks like the perfect time to cut and run, he said to himself. I can use my incredible diversionary tactics to slip out while no one is watching!
But as soon as he got to his feet, he felt a light tap on his shoulder. “Are you leaving already?” asked a girl’s voice. “Don’t you like to party?”
