Excerpt:

If you thought trying to ask for money to go on a date was tough, you try explaining to your parents that you were just kidnapped because a secret organization thought you were some type of awesome leader type and you needed to stay at said secret organization's headquarters until you could finish your assigned mission and save the world. A conversation of that magnitude goes something like this: "Hello, mum? Can you put dad on the line too?" And then a prolonged series of screeching in which you can decipher some words such as 'Pascal', 'Allen', 'phone', and 'not dead'. A second or two of waiting and the click of the other reciever being picked up. With the three-way Merriweather triangle successfully completed, the freak out and interrogation can begin. "Where are you? Are you all right? Did they hurt you?" "We called the police, Pascal! What is going on?" "You come home! Right now!" This goes on for approximately one point two minutes, until they realize I'm not babbling about how scared I am and how I want my mommy. In fact, I'm perfectly silent, waiting for them to pause for breath. Then I pop in, cutting straight to the point because I know I have a small window of oppurtunity in which, if I word it right, I can appeal to my father's logic and make this work. (I'm not a bad kid, I don't often try to work the system, but when you're a quiet kid you tend to do a lot of people watching—I know what I'm doing.)