8
" Finders keepers!" Ian shouted, scooping up the overlay and hopping onto a rock outcropping.
"You cheater!" Amy was furious. No way was he going to get away with that. She climbed the rock, matching him step for step until she reached the top. There he turned to her, panting for breath. "Not bad for a Cahill," he said, grinning.
"You --y-y-you--" The words caught in her throat, the way they always did. He was staring at her, his eyes dancing with laughter, making her so knotted up with anger and hatred that she thought she would explode. "C-c-can't--"
But in that moment, something totally weird happened. Maybe it was a flip of his head, a movement in his eyebrow, she couldn't tell. But it was as if someone had suddenly held a painting at a different angle, and what appeared to be a stormy sea transformed into a bright bouquet -- a trick of the eye that proved everything was just a matter of perspective. His eyes were not mocking at all. They were inviting her, asking her to laugh along. Suddenly, her rage billowed up and blew off in wisps, like a cloud. "You're ... a Cahill, too," she replied.
"Touche."
His eyes didn't move a millimeter from hers.
This time she met his gaze. Solidly. This time she didn't feel like apologizing or attacking or running away. She wouldn't have minded if he just stared like that all day. "
― Peter Lerangis , The Sword Thief (The 39 Clues, #3)
17
" When the guy turned around, Amy began stuttering. Silently. It was a feat only Amy could manage, and only Dan could notice.
And it only happened in front of boys who looked like this one. He had brown hair and caramel-colored eyes, like Dan's friend Nick Santos, who
made all the sixth-grade girls turn into blithering idiots when he looked their way--in fact, would even say Watch, lean make them turn into blithering
idiots, and then he'd do it. Only older.
"He. Is. Hot," Nellie said under her breath.
"You too?" Dan hissed. "
― Peter Lerangis , The Viper's Nest (The 39 Clues, #7)
20
" Okay, listen up, dudes. We have to book. Yesterday, when I find you guys are, like, AWOL? I, like, freak. Yelling at everybody–where are they, why did you let them leave–the hotel people are, like, whaaaa? Anyway, I pack up all your stuff, figuring I may never see the place again, and down in the lobby I find my man Arif. I'm, like, help me, and he takes all of our stuff to this launch–and then we're halfway across the sea when Arif gets this radio message, and he's all excited, but I don't know what he's saying until he's, like, 'POLICE!' in English. And we see these cop cars and somebody's getting a big old boat, so we're, like, sayonara, only in Indonesian, and we tool out into this boat-traffic jam to try to loose them, and I'm hearing these radio reports that are half English–there's been a fire and somebody's dead, yada yada, and I'm totally wigging out–Why did you do that? Why did you and your sister leave me in a hotel without even a note? "
― Peter Lerangis , The Viper's Nest (The 39 Clues, #7)