Well, the only thing missing was Henry literally saying "I am Kid Danger."
There, thought Piper as she sat on her bed, is no flipping way I misinterpreted that.
Piper had fled to her room as her parents came in, so she didn't see her brother and his friends awkwardly lie to their parents about what they've been up too. Mrs. Hart drove Jasper and Charlotte home, and Henry went up to his room. He had told their parents that Piper was already asleep, so no one came up and bugged her.
Piper looked at her phone. It was past midnight; she hadn't been able to sleep, and, let's face it, she was not going to bed without seeing if Henry gave anything else away tonight.
Slowly, Piper climbed out of bed and tiptoed out of her room. Henry's door, for some reason, chose that night to squeak, but it didn't wake him up. Piper sat down, leaning up against the closet door, and waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
It took almost an hour (at this rate, Piper was going to need some coffee to function properly), but Piper finally heard Henry say something. She inched toward him and listened.
"Piper, what are you doing here… you shouldn't have done that. She may not necessarily been up to something bad. You shouldn't spy on people… don't stalk a villain who knows who you are. That's kinda… how do I put this, stupid."
Piper grimaced a little. Henry was dreaming of today, when he caught her in the park. She continued listening as he started saying things she didn't recognize.
"... way too close. It's a good thing Cohort didn't see her… can't 'hurry' unless we run, and that might look weird… think we lost 'em, guys… Charlotte's right, that stuff… Nurse Cohort…."
At that point, Henry kind of smiled a little and lightly laughed in his sleep. Piper decided she had heard enough and left the room.
She turned out her light but didn't fall asleep; she was thinking. She only recognized the first section of the dialogue, but after what she overheard earlier it seemed like enough.
Henry is Kid Danger. Piper was sure of that.
What she wasn't sure about, though, was what to do next. Tell him? Pretend not to know? Tell Captain Man?
Obviously, she didn't know that last one was a horrible idea if she wanted to keep her memories.
Piper told herself to not worry about it until morning (well, once the sun was up, anyway), but that was easier said than done. Basically getting confirmation- almost from the best source- that her brother was a superhero sidekick? Who else would be able to just fall asleep?
Piper lay awake for a while, just thinking, until her body finally went into sleep mode.
"We could try using the Man Copter to go on patrol."
"Maybe. Just don't leave me on the ground again."
"Sorry."
It was the next morning. Charlotte had come over, and now she and Henry were trying to think of ways to catch Dr. Minyak. His parents would have been there, but Mrs. Hart's dad's friend's cousin's dog's neighbor just had a baby, so they rushed off for a visit. The two teens were left alone.
Except for Piper. In spite of not getting much shut-eye the last two nights, Piper still woke up at her usual time and started for downstairs in her pajamas, but stopped to eavesdrop when she heard Henry talking to Charlotte.
Anyway, back to their conversation. "I don't know, Henry." Charlotte slumped over a little bit. "We're running out of ideas, and it's not like we installed a dog tracker on him."
At the top of the stairs, Piper raised her eyebrows. A tracker.
Piper quietly ran to her room. Of course. She could try tracking Henry. (No, not with a dog tracker.) There's all kinds of ways to track a phone, and Henry always has his phone on him.
Piper ran up to her room, and, after a brief struggle, managed to figure out how to track Henry's phone- it was almost scary how easy it was.
Meanwhile, Henry and Charlotte were continuing their conversation downstairs.
"Could we find him the same way we located the Time Jerker?"
"I don't think so, Hen. We found the Time Jerker because he used that large amount of electricity."
"Okay, what about how you tracked him down with the fish flakes?"
"Probably not, because, as far as we know, he hasn't acquired any Jolly Beetles recently."
"Yeah. What about chemicals?"
Charlotte thought about that for a moment. "Maybe. But didn't Nurse Cohort say the whole reason they were robbing the school was so they wouldn't have to pay for stuff?"
Henry nodded. "True."
There was a brief silence, during which Piper came back. She sat at the top of the stairs, peering down at her phone. Sure enough, it had pinpointed Henry's location as "in or near" their house. Piper double checked that the sound was off just as Charlotte spoke up again.
"I don't know, Hen. The best idea I can think of is patrolling in the Man Copter, and that might scare him off. Assuming he actually comes out of his hiding place."
"Wherever that is."
More silence. They probably would have sat there for a solid minute, except forty nine seconds in Jasper appeared, flinging open the door and speed-walking toward his friends.
"Guys, I've got an idea!"
The perked up with interest. "What? What is it?" Charlotte stood up. So did Henry.
"We could use the Man Copter to fly around and find Minyak! And, really, I think I could learn how to fly that thing really easily-"
Henry and Charlotte groaned, sitting down. Upstairs, Piper was rolling her eyes.
"Jasper," said Charlotte in response to his confused look, "we already thought of that, and a helicopter might scare him away."
"Assuming he actually comes out of his hiding place," said Henry, echoing Charlotte. Jasper frowned and stat in an empty chair.
Up the stairs, Piper wondered if she should try tracking Charlotte and Jasper, too, since they were obviously in in this. She decided to add them to her app later.
Because for some reason, she was getting the urge to go downstairs and talk to them.
Okay, I don't know how many of you (if any) actually like reading the author's notes, so I'll try to keep this brief.
The next two weekends are show weekends (theatre geek in the house!), and, if anyone recalls, the last time I had one of those I didn't get the new chapter posted until almost midnight (but technically still Sunday!). This is just to let you know that might happen again, and I will do my best to get the new chapters posted as early on the Sundays as I can. (Also, I think I've figured out where the story is going from here, and I am fairly sure it won't be as long as my last one.) Apologies in advance.
Ciao, and Happy Reading!
P.S. I hid an Easter Egg in this chapter! If no one gets it I'll give y'all a hint next week.
P.P.S. I did a really bad job at keeping this brief, didn't I!