It was important not to waste any more time, they said, if they were going to try to figure out a way to help Dewey and his mom and dad—which they were committed to doing, right? (At this point they had looked very seriously into each other’s eyes and their hands had shot out almost by magic and clasped at the center of the table, like a really dramatic scene in a movie, one performed quite effectively, Dewey had to admit.) When they said these things it was like they were making a secret pact that no one else in the diner (three people, including the teenage cook) could know about, which was really confusing and frustrating and not very confidence-inspiring, because even a ten-year-old kid knew that this type of situation, one that involved disappearing persons and violation of the laws of the entire physical universe, if Hugh was to be believed, didn’t require secrecy so much as it required a buttload of scientists and federal law enforcement officials and search dogs and possibly a SWAT team.
