Maryland, USA

Nick snuck to his front door, hoping that no one would hear him open it. Yes! He was out. Next step: get past the dog. All he had to do was throw the slice of ham and bolt. Easy, right? Wrong.

Nick tossed the meat and darted past Goliath, the two hundred pound mastiff. Unfortunately for Nick Goliath didn't happen to be very hungry. Or was that fortunate? If Goliath wasn't hungry then he wouldn't eat Nick.

With Nick's luck it was hard to tell. How could he be part fairy and still be so unlucky? Maybe being part sprite wasn't enough; maybe you had to be a full blooded fairy to be lucky.

Goliath ran for Nick, who had just reached the front gate. Nick struggled with the chain until he just pulled so hard it broke. Maybe he was part troll too. Nick slammed the gate on Goliath and ran for the end of the drive way. He might just make it before that pesky sprinkler went off. He didn't make it.

Water squirted fast and hard at the thirteen year old boy.

"Argh!" Nick gurgled.

The boy sprinted for the road and just made it before Goliath broke the fence. The dog ran for Nick but couldn't catch him before he crossed the invisible fence. Goliath got a painful shock as he too tried to cross the invisible fence.

Nick smiled and ran for the bike he had his best friend hide in a bush. Nick checked to make sure he had everything: Sandwich, soda, water, money, blanket, map, compass, and mirrored sunglasses.

The boy hopped on the bike and pedaled hard. He was two miles away from his house in about ten minutes. No one could stop him now.

Nick heard sirens. No one could stop him except the police.

The police cruisers forced Nick to pull over and get off the bike. The officers inside the car threw him into the back seat and dialed his parents. The cops probably had his mom and dad on speed dial by now.

Ten minutes later Nick's parent had him in an interrogation room at the police station.

"Why do you keep sneaking out Nicholas? It just causes problems for people!" His mom yelled at him.

"Nicky, if you want to have your freedom then we can walk to the park and you can hang with Ted." Nick's dad said.

"His name isn't 'Ted', its Fred!" Nick mumbled.

"Whatever. You won't have the privilege to see Fred anymore!" His mom said angrily.

Great, they must be grounding me again. Nick thought glumly.

"We aren't grounding you this time Nicky boy. Your father and I are fed up with your behavior. You my friend are going to reform school." Nick's mom said.

"What?! That's not fair! You can't do this to me!" Nick ran for the door and pulled hard. It wouldn't budge.

"No more running for you, son." Nick's dad spat.

Nick sat at the table and looked down. "What do you want?"

"We'll tell you at home, and then you can choose if you want the school or the job." His mom whispered.

Nick was shoved in the front door of his house and roughly thrown into a chair. Nick's parents weren't exactly what you would call loving.

"We want you to get us into the new museum on Main Street." Nick's mom, whose name was Bonnie, growled.

"Yeah Nicky boy, the museum. And we want you to do this so we can get that ancient vase that belonged to Alexander the Green." Nick's dad, whose name was Clyde, frowned, "I mean Alex the Great."

"And why should I do that?" Nick answered rudely.

"Because if you don't then you'll be off to Millard's Home for Wayward Boys, so there." Bonnie said just as rudely.

"You wouldn't do that to me. I'm your only way into that place!" Nick said, hoping it was true.

"Not anymore! We found this guy named Bobb Ragby and he'll be just as good as you at getting into places. He's a fairy too. A fairy dwarf." Clyde said, trying to make Nick jealous.

"Well if you have him why do you need me?" Nick retorted.

"Because you're our son and we thought that we'd offer you the job first." Bonnie said "sweetly".

"Well then," Nick paused to get his parents hopes up, "Since I'm you're son, you won't mind if I don't take the job." And with that Nick left the room to go pack his bag for Millard's.

Clyde and Bonnie were furious that Nick was going to force them to pay Ragby's outrageous price. Nick was their son for goodness sake! Well not really…

Some family history might be helpful at this point. When Nick was five years old he found wings popping out of his back. If you looked at Nick in the right kind of light then you could tell that he was tinted green. That was because his mother had been a sprite. She was all green and had wings. Nick had loved her very much. When his father and mother died in a shuttle accident Nick had been sent to live with his human grandparents. Who died soon after Nick's arrival.

That's when Clyde and Bonnie had come into Nick's life. They thought it was very useful for the burglary business to have a son who could fly. So they told him that he was their son. They taught him how to pick locks and useful burglary tricks like that. Nick became the ultimate cat burglar.

Part way through his crime career Nick started to feel bad about robbing people. This was when he was ten. Ever since he had tried to escape Clyde and Bonnie. But the two "parents" had gotten used to Nick obeying them and were quite angry when he ran away the first time.

So they moved to the country and bought a large house with a guard dog and a huge fence going all the way around the property. Nick still tried to escape.

Fowl Manor, Ireland

Artemis had been scheming lately. Everyone in his family knew to stay away from the child prodigy when he was scheming. His parents hoped that he was scheming to do something good. Artemis Fowl the second rarely schemed for something good.

Artemis had been thinking about how useful it would be to have someone to some of his dirty work, not to mention chores. Butler was one of Artemis' best friends; he would do anything Artemis asked, unless it was illegal. Mr. and Mrs. Fowl had instructed Butler not to help with any of Artemis' illegal schemes, knowing Artemis wouldn't try to pull the heist without Butler by his side.

So Artemis was searching the internet for good reform schools. Not for himself by any means. He was looking for someone like himself. A young person who had a criminal background. The person couldn't be a murderer. They had to be smart and willing to help.

Artemis found a website for an American reform school and started searching through the list of boys. Three looked promising. One was in for plotting to steal a soda. Artemis looked at the case file and found the plan for stealing that one soda was very elaborate.

The other two had been the first's minions. They looked very useful. Artemis notice that the list had grown in two minutes. There was a new name on the list of wayward boys.

"Hmm…" Artemis thought for a second before bringing this boy's page up. This boy might be a waste of time; he was probably just another shop lifter. But Artemis knew it would haunt him if he didn't look over every possibility.

"Nicholas Johnson. With a name as common as that I probably won't find much of him on Google." Artemis said opening the file.

Millard's Home for Wayward Boys

Nick's parents had driven him to the school early in the morning. Nick was not a morning person so this made him grumpy.

When they had gotten there Nick had been told to put on a bright pink jumpsuit.

"Here at Millard's we believe that humiliation will lead to a more humble boy." Said the warden as he showed the family around.

The warden left them at the sign-up desk.

"What is your reason for leaving the boy here?" The receptionist asked.

"Have you heard about those recent robberies? Well he's responsible. He hid the loot somewhere." Clyde claimed.

"I wish our darling Nick wasn't like this!" Bonnie said, giving Nick a hug.

"Is that his name?" The receptionist asked.

"Nicholas Johnson. Oh, please tell me, will you fix him here? Will you fix our darling?" Bonnie wailed, it sounded very fake.

"Yes ma'am we'll fix this boy right up." The receptionist said with a roll of her eyes.

Some guards pulled Nick away and left him in a dormitory.

Fowl Manor

Artemis was surprised when he pulled up the boy's page. This scraggily looking teenager (the files had pictures) was responsible for all those robberies in Maryland? Artemis noticed the boy's complexion was light green. Was this a trick of the light or did the boy actually have green skin?

Artemis looked at some mug shots. This was odd. The boy had two lumps near his shoulder blades.

"Does he have wings?" Artemis asked no one.

Artemis decided he needed to get a closer look at this strange boy. Perhaps he should bring him back to Ireland. The LEP might be needed if the boy was actually a sprite.

"Butler! Get the plane ready! We're going to Maryland!" Artemis called.

Millard's Home for Wayward Boys

Nick looked around his dorm. It smelled terrible. Really terrible. Nick held his nose and found his bunk. The bunk, Nick found, was the cause of the awful smell. Somebody had placed a dead rat on the pillow.

"Oh! Argh!" Nick said, barfing on his pillow, adding to the stench. The smell made Nick barf more. The remains of his stomach groaned.

Nick would have lain down, but his pillow was covered in barf and dead rat. So he just stood there looking stupid. The front of his pink jumpsuit was cover in throw-up.

Half an hour later a guard came in to take Nick to lunch. The guard barfed as soon as he smelled Nick's barf. The janitor would not be happy. The guard took Nick by the shoulder and tossed him in the detention room.

"No lunch for you newbie." The guard said, trying to hold back the rest of his breakfast.

Nick sighed and sat down in the lone chair, this was going to be a long stay.

A few days later the warden came to find Nick.

"Nicholas Johnson! You've got a visitor!" The warden barked.

Nick scurried away from a game of checkers he was playing with another boy and stood in front of the warden.

"If it's my parents could you please tell them that I would prefer not to see them ever? Thanks." Nick said sarcastically.

"Are you giving me attitude Johnson?" The warden yelled.

"No sir. I would never." Nick smirked.

"Hmm, we'll deal with that later. The visitor is not your mommy it's some kid. Looks your age, he also looks like a vampire. So let's get out there so you can talk to Dracula Jr." The warden huffed.

"Whatever, uh, sir." Nick grinned. In the three days he had been at this place Nick had turned into a real bad boy, he had never been sassy before, but now…

The warden led Nick to the visitor's center and sat him down at a table. There was only one other person in the room; a large man sat at one of the tables, supposedly working on a visitor's form.

"I'll go find Dracula Jr. He was here a minute ago." The warden said, scratching his hairless head.

"It's actually 'Artemis Jr.' but I do get 'Dracula' quite a bit." Said a pale boy in the corner of the room, "You must be Nicholas. I'm guessing you prefer Nick."

"Do I know you? Did you go to my school? If you came for a laugh you won't get one." Nick said distrustfully.

"No, I'm not from your school. I'll explain who I am once we get some privacy." Artemis said, glancing at the warden.

"Right, I'll give you some time alone." The warden said.

After the warden left Nick was a little worried. Just because this Artemis fellow was scrawny didn't mean he wasn't dangerous. Maybe he should call the warden back in here for some protection.

"So what do you want? If you have anything to do with my parents I'm out of here." Nick said warily.

"Your parents? I'm guessing you're still angry with them for leaving you here, am I right?" Artemis inquired dully.

"A little. The real reason I'm angry with them is that they forced me to break into all those places. What jerks, right? They're not even my real parents." Nick snorted.

"Really? That's interesting." Artemis pulled his phone out of his pocket and typed in a memo, "So what kind of places did they have you break into?"

"You know, museums, banks, anyplace that Mom and Dad couldn't break into. I also break out of my house almost daily." Nick knew he probably shouldn't tell this strange boy this but he was curious.

"How much money did you make doing this?" Artemis asked, knowing the answer was probably not going to be high.

"Zip. My parents kept it all for themselves." Nick said sourly.

"How would you like to get paid for breaking into a few places? My guy who does that normally is in jail for a century." Artemis said, referring to Mulch Diggums, hoping the part about "being in jail for a century" just sounded like and exaderation.

"I don't know. The whole reason I quit is because I didn't like taking things from people, I don't think I could do that again." Nick sighed.

"I'll split whatever we steal with you in even halves. Whatever I get you get." Artemis knew he might have to offer more if he wanted this strange boy to come back to Ireland with him.

"That sounds good to me! So I'll see you in four years and then we can get started." Nick agreed quickly, being a good guy was okay, but the money sounded much better.

"Why wait until you get out legally? Give me a day and I'll be back with a plan to get you out." Artemis whispered.

"Oh really? How do I know I can trust you?" Nick asked suspiciously.

"Here," Artemis said, handing Nick his gold coin that Holly had given him, "I'll be back for this. Just promise me you won't lose it."

Nick stared at the Gnommish written on the coin. "Where did you get this?"

"A friend gave it to me." Artemis said. He noticed Nick had read the Gnommish. Perfect, he had taken the bait. "Do we have a deal?" Artemis said, rising from his seat. .

"Deal, see you tomorrow." Nick said, shaking the other boy's hand.

Artemis left the room and was followed by the large man from the other table.

Nick frowned at the big man . Who were these people? What did they want with him? How did the pale boy have a Gnommish coin? Nick had so many questions, none of which he could get answers to. Or could he?