“I’ll find you!” James M. bellowed. Fi spun around to see him still descending on his side of the escalator. He was holding her soccer ball in his hands.
And he looked furious.
“Go, go, go!” Fi shouted to her little pack of nerds, urging them forward. She started taking the escalator up two steps at a time, belatedly apologizing to the other con-goers she had to inelegantly shove out of the way in the process. They were going to make this. They were.
“’Scuse us; coming through. Thanks so much!”
22
Cat
Cat wheezed, pumping her arms hard as she bolted through the con. After Fi had launched her soccer ball at James M.’s head (very awesome!!) and Alex had essentially hurdled over the famous GeekiCon escalators (extremely double awesome, what the heck!!!), Cat had felt Fi’s hand shove into the small of her back and knew it was time to get moving. Cat took the moving steps as fast as she could—though normally she would never walk up an escalator, just on principle. (Its literal whole job is to do the walking for you; what is even the point?) When she reached the second floor, Cat just kept running, trusting that the rest of her family—and Rowan—would be with her.
Cat’s lungs were about to burst out of her chest like the alien in that one scary movie with the buff space lady that she definitely was not allowed to watch but had streamed online anyway one time and had nightmares for weeks because of it. Fi was the soccer player; she was the runner in the family. Cat wasn’t exactly Alex—she liked to go to the climbing gym with her parents sometimes and really enjoyed dodgeball day in PE—but, and she was being completely, totally honest with herself here, she was not made for distance activities.
But escaping James M., it turned out, was the exact motivation Cat needed to become a runner.
But run to where?! Cat thought in a panic, her breath coming in short puffs as she raced down the emptiest corridor she could find. If James M. got off at the bottom of the escalator and hopped right back on again, he’d be on their trail at any moment. They had to find a place to hide.
Cat made a sharp turn down another hallway, this one even less populated than the last. Without even slowing down, she grabbed the nearest panel-room door she could find and swung it open, rushing through. The panel must have been something pretty small-time—there were a few speakers up front and only about fifteen audience members in the room. Cat skidded down the empty back row of seats and threw herself into the very last one. A couple of people had turned around to look at her funny, but mostly she was being ignored. She’d done it!
… That is, until Fi, Rowan, and Alex blasted through the door behind her, causing such a ruckus that the panelists actually stopped talking for a second to figure out what was going on.
“Sorry!” Cat gasped out, waving one of her arms from her seat and still struggling to catch her breath. “So sorry! We just realized we were late and didn’t want to miss the rest of the panel. We so totally, absolutely love you guys,” she added, hoping they would fall for a little flattery. It was Cat’s favorite get-out-of-trouble trick. Cat had no clue who they were, but they seemed nice, so it was probably fine.
Alex dropped into the seat next to her, wheezing. Rowan just sat right down on the floor in front of the chairs, her purple bangs sticking to her sweaty forehead. Fi, of course, was just lightly glowing. Her breathing was totally fine.
Show-off.
“What are we—?” Fi started to talk, but Rowan held up a hand to stop her. Fi shut up for a second while everyone else just breathed heavily for a couple of seconds and collected themselves. Cat tossed her hair into a quick ponytail to get it off the back of her neck and gave her sister a nod.
“What are we going to do?” Fi hissed, trying to keep her voice down so as not to disturb the panelists at the front of the room.
“‘We’?” Cat whispered back. “What do you mean ‘we’?”
“Fi’s been collecting Quest items for you!” Rowan said, her voice muted but proud. “Didn’t you wonder who was crossing things off your list?”
Alex just nodded. Cat could see the gears in his head turning as he put it all together. “You’re our GeekiCon angel. That’s how you knew what item eighteen was.”
“Playing sports on the escalators,” Fi whispered back with a grin. “Twice in one day!”
“Shh!” One of the other audience members turned around to hush them. Cat put up her hands in an apologetic gesture until the person turned around again. They had a really tall hat on that had to be part of a costume, but Cat had no idea for what. There were a lot of fandoms out there; it was hard, sometimes, to keep up.
“You don’t have many items left,” Rowan said, lowering her voice even further so as not to risk disturbing the panel again. “I think, if we split up, you could get it done.”
“And we’ll be harder for James M. to catch if we’re apart,” Fi added.
Cat shook her head. “First of all, it’s totally weird that you’re into this all of a sudden,” she whispered to Fi, who just shrugged. “But also, it’s supercool and so I can’t blame you and I’m just glad that you’re finally admitting that being a nerd is awesome—no take backs, I said what I said.”
Fi pursed her lips but didn’t argue. For once!
“But we can’t get into Hall M,” Alex added, keeping his voice low, too. “We lost our passes.”
“I gave away our passes,” Cat corrected. It was time to be a big kid and take responsibility for her goof-up. She turned to Alex and looked him in the eye, even though she knew he would probably look away in a couple of seconds. “I’m sorry, Alex. I totally—”
“Shhhhh!”
“Sorry!” Cat and her crew all leaned their heads closer together. “Seriously, Alex, I totally screwed up. I should have been a better listener. Some of the best parts of the day today were the unplanned things you stumbled into.” Cat bit her lip. “I really did just want to win for both of us.”