Strange Boy in a Strange Land

Sarah Prachett and Mandy Straussberg leave Odyssey for a quiet camping weekend near Sarah's uncle's house. They want a break from schoolwork and other responsibilities, but their peaceful plans change when Sarah notices a boy watching from the trees. He wears a blue windbreaker, runs with a familiar lurch, and looks remarkably like their former classmate Jared DeWhite.

The boy returns wearing night-vision goggles in the middle of the afternoon. Sarah and Mandy chase him until he finally draws them into a cave filled with spy equipment and an emergency bed. He is indeed Jared, taller and faster than they remember but every bit as suspicious. Before letting them enter, he asks whether anyone followed them and warns them not to touch anything that might be radioactive.

Jared refuses to explain why his family suddenly left Odyssey or why he now lives near the woods. Every question receives an answer about secrecy, classified information, or unnamed government departments. When the girls become frustrated and refuse to tell him any news from Odyssey, he lets them leave without revealing anything.

Early the next morning, Jared appears outside their tent and offers to guide them to a ravine, hiking trails, a fossil quarry, a deep swimming place, and a tree swing. The girls accept because they want to see the sights, but Jared remains beside them all day. Though he scarcely seemed to like them in Odyssey, he now clings to their company.

Sarah and Mandy try to escape by claiming they want to return to camp and braid each other's hair. Jared offers to join them because he has always been interested in hair art. Even after they clearly request time alone, he secretly listens to their conversation and returns as soon as they stop braiding.

To keep them from leaving, Jared finally shares his secret. He says that his family is living in the Federal Witness Protection Program. His father worked as an accountant for a company called Andromeda and discovered evidence of illegal activity. The FBI asked him to investigate from within, but he later found a spy camera hidden in a book in his office. Believing that Andromeda had exposed him, the FBI quickly moved the whole family to a guarded safe house so he could eventually testify.

Jared's explanation mixes disturbing details with the wild theories his classmates remember. He claims Andromeda intends to attack people in Odyssey, overthrow governments, make entire cities disappear, and perhaps replace political leaders with engineered cockroaches. He admits the last prediction is only a theory. Sarah dismisses the entire account as another paranoid fantasy, while Mandy is less certain.

That evening, Jared arrives uninvited at their campfire and asks whether they have spent enough time away from him. Sarah finally loses patience and orders him to find someone else to annoy. His answer changes the mood: there is no one else. The authorities require him to remain isolated, and he has only wanted a little time with two old friends.

An unfamiliar man interrupts and calls Jared by the name Jim. Jared describes the girls merely as people he happened to meet, and the man says the boy is known to tell enormous lies. Jared leaves obediently but whispers that Sarah and Mandy should meet him at the cave at eight the next morning.

The girls debate whether he has staged the whole encounter. Sarah remembers his history of fantastic conspiracies, but Mandy notices that loneliness has made him seem more human than before. Jared called them friends even though he once appeared to have none. If the guarded house is real, his eagerness for company suddenly makes sense.

At the appointed time, the cave is empty. All the equipment has vanished, and adult footprints remain on the ground. Following Jared's directions, the girls find a high fence topped with razor wire and a hole large enough for someone to crawl through. Beyond it stands the safe house, now empty despite having been occupied the night before.

Inside a loose floorboard in the northwest bedroom, they find a coded message. Mandy remembers the secret code Jared once distributed during one of his earlier conspiracy scares. Back in Odyssey, she deciphers the note: his family has moved again, and they must beware Andromeda.

Sarah and Mandy tell Whit about Jared's claims. The name Andromeda means little to him at first, but the detail about a tiny camera concealed in a book captures his attention. An almost identical device has recently appeared in his own office. Whit does not tell the girls whether he believes Jared. He excuses himself, calls a contact, and urgently asks for information about Andromeda, leaving Jared's strangest warning poised between an old habit of imagining conspiracies and a danger that may finally be real.