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Elvin pressed his ear to the wall. He could hear two men Elvin pressed his ear to the wall. He could hear two men talking. "How could you have made so many mistakes?" a new voice boomed, deep and stern. "How could you have let that kid discover the painting? The garden was on the list. That should have been us. And then the old man gave you nothing." "I didn't let anyone do anything," the whiny voice complained. "And besides, if it wasn't for that kid, we wouldn't have even known about the painting." At that moment, Jin and Alex were sizing up a pile of damp lumber. Jin tucked the notebook she'd been carrying beneath her armpit, and the two of them bent to pick up the wood. Once they lifted it, Jin saw hundreds of black spots, one on top the other. "Ants!" she panted, trying her best to swallow the scream that was mounting in her throat. "Ants!" When Alex saw the squirming black spots, she threw the wood down with a loud thunk! and started hopping around wildly, shaking out her long black jacket. Next door, the men stopped talking. "What was that?" one of them asked. Elvin scrambled down the pile of lumber. "They're coming! We have to hide," he said, and ran toward the kitchen sink and pantry in the corner with Jin and Alex right behind him. Once they were safely hidden, Jin realized that in her haste, she'd made a terrible mistake. "My notebook, it's out there," she whispered hoarsely as blood rushed to her ears and her neck got hot with panic. She peered around the edge of the sink. Her pale pink notebook lay, exposed and vulnerable, on the floor in the middle of the room. And now, as the two men from next door came charging into the room, it was too late to rescue it.
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