The Never War by D.J. MacHale Page A

the nasty gangster showed his revolver. Dewey got the message. He leaped at the door and helped us close it.
    â€œGet us out of here!” I yelled.
    Dewey grabbed the control lever and surprisingly enough, we started down. Dewey was better under pressure than I would have guessed. But he looked wild-eyed and scared.
    â€œWho was that?” he screamed. “He had a pistol!”
    â€œWhere’s Gunny?” Spader demanded, ignoring Dewey’s question.
    â€œI just saw him in the lobby, headed outside. What’s going on?”
    â€œNothing Gunny can’t handle,” I said. “Forget about what you saw.”
    â€œBut I gotta tell my father about this,” Dewey complained.
    â€œDon’t do that!” I shouted. I think I scared the little guy because he backed up against the side of the elevator. I got my head back together and said calmly, “It was just a joke. Like a prank, you know?”
    â€œBut, but that guy had a gun,” Dewey whimpered.
    â€œGun?” I faked a laugh. “That wasn’t a real gun. Thatwas…that was…a costume. For the costume party. You know the clothes we had on before? Those were costumes too. You thought it was a real gun?”
    I faked another laugh, looking sideways at Spader. Spader got the idea and he faked a laugh too.
    â€œYeah,” Spader said. “It was a toy.”
    Dewey wasn’t sure we were telling the truth, but I think it was easier for him to accept it than to think there were guys running around his father’s hotel flashing guns. That was good. If Dewey called the police, they’d have to question us, and I’m not so sure they’d like the answers we had to give. No, it was better this way. But we had to find Gunny and let him know what was going on. Finally we got to the lobby, and Dewey opened the door.
    â€œThanks, Dewey. We’ll let you know when the next costume party is, okay?” I said.
    â€œGreat, thanks!”
    Dewey was a simple kind of dude.
    We ran from the elevator and went looking for Gunny. We hurried to the front doors of the hotel and booked outside. Night had fallen and the garden was lit up like Christmas, with lights hidden among the greenery.
    â€œThere!” shouted Spader, pointing to the sidewalk in front.
    Gunny was there talking to a man. We ran down the front stairs of the hotel, through the garden and out onto the street. Gunny saw us. He shook the hand of the man and the guy walked off just as we ran up to him. We were both out of breath and excited.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” he said, sounding a little angry. “I told you boys to stay put.”
    â€œWe had visitors,” I said.
    â€œThe guys from the flume,” Spader panted. “They came looking for us.”
    I didn’t like the look on Gunny’s face. It was a cross between shock and fear. Bad combination.
    â€œWho is Winn Farrow?” I asked.
    For a second I thought Gunny was going to faint. He actually looked unsteady on his feet. Whoever Winn Farrow was, his name made a strong guy like Gunny very scared. This was getting worse by the second.
    â€œI can’t believe he sent people here,” Gunny said. “That’s crossing a very dangerous line.”
    â€œWhy? Who is he?” I asked.
    Gunny looked down at us and was about to answer when we heard a scream.
    It was a horrifying, tortured scream that came from far away. Actually, it didn’t come from far away, it came from far up. The three of us spun quickly to look up at the hotel. What we saw made my knees go weak.
    Somebody had jumped out of a window!
    The whole building was lit up by floodlights, so the dark figure was easy to see, though I wished I couldn’t. The fall took only a few seconds, but those few seconds will stay with me forever. It was horrible. The figure screamed all the way down. Luckily for us, the tall trees in front of the hotel blocked us from seeing the final second. We