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video on my phone explaining how to remove a hard drive from an old tower desktop. After quietly removing the housing, it was easy to spot the drive and slide it out. I quickly shoved it into my backpack.
    I glanced at my phone, which was still displaying the scene from the other side of the hallway. The two NSB agents continued to watch the goats, completely transfixed. Danielle had been right: the two out-of-town agents had no idea what to make of herds of fainting goats running through a school.
    Still, the goats would only distract them for so long. And so I zipped up my bag, quickly pivoted, and dived back out the window.
    As I walked calmly around the side of the school toward the east entrance, a thought occurred to me: Who was going to help round up all the goats? And wasn’t Brad going to be pissed at us when he found out Gomez wasn’t even at school anymore? And with Gomez gone, who would be laying down any sort of punishment for this one? Could they even tie it back to me?
    Reentering the building through the east door, though, I shook off those questions. In the grand scheme of global terrorism and the threat Medlock posed, all of those things were as insignificant as an old game show rerun. One so old that the corny TV host was now dead and so were all of the contestants, and any of the money that had been won was long gone, and nobody even remembered what lame jokes were told or what prizes were won and lost.
    All of those questions that had flooded my brain were nothing but ghosts.

CHAPTER 6
KLEEN(EX) GETAWAYS
    T HE SCHOOL SEEMED SOMEWHAT CALM BY THE MIDDLE OF SEVENTH period. I still wasn’t sure how they’d eventually gotten everyone to go back to class, or what they’d done with all of the goats, but by the time the seventh-period bell rang, it was almost as if nothing unusual at all had happened.
    Almost .
    There was still the matter of the goat poop stinking up the main hallway, of course. Someone had cleaned it all out, but the smell wouldn’t be gone for days. Butbesides that, everyone was back in class, ready to learn. Or, more accurately, back in class buzzing wildly about the goat incident and how it might be related to the wild and insane rumors surrounding Mr. Gomez’s sudden absence. Several of my classmates tried to give me credit for both incidents, but I deflected them emphatically.
    â€œNo, no,” I said. “It must have been a copycat prankster.”
    They seemed to buy it because my denials were followed by heated speculation as to who actually might have pulled it off. The debate lasted until our algebra teacher, Mr. Kittson, strode into the room and silenced us by raising his hand.
    â€œThere will be no more talk of goats,” Mr. Kittson said. “I assure you that whoever instigated that mess is going to be severely punished. But beyond that, it seems we have an even more urgent matter on our hands.”
    The classroom was so quiet you could practically hear all of our hearts pounding inside our chests as we waited anxiously to find out what could possibly be more urgent than herds of goats running free through the school hallways.
    â€œAs some of you may or may not already know,” Mr. Kittson continued, “it appears that Principal Gomez isinvolved in an ongoing investigation by the National Security Bureau. And they have reason to believe that a student broke into his office today and stole items related to this investigation.”
    Many of the kids in my class gasped. I flung open my jaw and made scoffing noises at the audacity of some kids to think they could interfere with an official national security matter. I tried not to let my eyes betray me and show my panic. I tried not to think about my backpack sitting inside my locker, still stuffed with the stolen hard drive. I sat there and tried not to puke as Mr. Kittson kept spilling out even more bad news.
    â€œNobody is going into or out of the school building until the NSB