Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware by M.T. Anderson Page A

this something I should see? Is it in your guidebook?”
She rummaged in her big bag and pulled out her
There and Back Again
™
Guide to Greater Delaware
and began flipping through its index wildly.
    The van rattled down the rutted street. Chickens scurried out of its way. Women with baskets on their heads leaped onto stoops.
    The three friends charged after it. They followed it around a corner—and found themselves in a little cobbled square where a work crew ofspavined centaurs was dragging stone blocks. The square was crowded with the half-human, half-horse construction workers; the kids couldn’t see the van at all in the crowd of horse legs and granite. But they heard the van’s engine rev.
    â€œThere!” shouted Katie, and began dodging her way through the centaurs.
    Jasper watched her with wide eyes. He saw something she didn’t see. “NO, KATIE!” he screamed. “NOOOO!”
    But Katie didn’t hear him.

22
    â€œNO, KATIE!”
    This time, Katie heard his yell—stopped in her tracks—and looked back, tottering. Jasper was racing toward her.
    â€œYou almost jaywalked!” he called. “Don’t worry! I see a designated crosswalk just ahead of you!”
    â€œJasper!” she snarled, and took off again.
    He puffed up along beside her. “If we become like our enemies, then we have lost!”
    She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. And if we lose our enemies, what then?” They barreled down a street and leaped over a stream.
    The van disappeared around a bend near a lopsided old brick building with ancient heroes carved on its doorway. By the time Jasper andKatie got there, they couldn’t tell which way it had gone.
    â€œGreat,” said Katie. “Thanks.”
    â€œI’ll go this way; you and Lily go that,” said Jasper, hurtling off down the road.
    Katie waved back to Lily and took off in the other direction.
    She ran out into a square with some kind of lumpy monument in the center surrounded by sick grass. The van was on the other side, trundling away down the street. Katie looked back quickly to make sure that Lily had seen her. Lily, puffing along behind, was waving her hands and looked like she was trying to say something. Lily wasn’t a very fast runner. Katie didn’t have time to stop; the van was already a couple of blocks away. She plunged onward.
    They were passing down a row of cloth shops with samples in bright colors hung up for sale on the street. Merchants sat on wide beds and drank tea. When the van roared past, the cloth samples rose up and flapped as if scolding.
    Katie slipped in a mud hole and fell—hit her knee—got back up and kept running. The van was just a little farther away now. She could see one of the kids from the team looking out of the back window at her.
    â€œKatie!” Lily’s voice came from far behind her. Katie barreled forward.
    The van slid along the row of shops—turned to the left—leaving behind clouds of gray smoke.
    Katie followed.
    The van turned right—passed over a bridge. Katie, her breath heaving, her heart pounding, followed—just in time to see the van screech to a halt at a crossroad. A procession of the city’s Investment Bankers’ Guild was marching to their temple with money-green banners and

    fanfares from bugle and drum.
    There were a lot of them.
    Ha
, thought Katie. The van couldn’t move an inch.
    She walked up slowly toward it. She felt triumphant. They weren’t going to escape now. She crossed her arms, smiled an arch smile, and strolled right behind the Stare-Eyes team.
    But now something occurred to her. Maybe it was the thing Lily had been shouting about.
    She didn’t really know what to do, now that she had caught the van. She realized suddenly that she was supposed to follow it
secretly.
Instead of walking right up behind it. And watching its door slide open. And having about eight heads poke out and look