Eddie told her quickly, without going into all of the background.
“You think it has something to do with the stolen radioisotope?” his mother asked in disbelief, when he had finished.
“I don’t know, Mom,” Eddie said. “But why would it be radioactive?”
“You haven’t opened it, have you?”
“No. It’s sealed tight,” Eddie said. “I—I thought Dad should do that.”
“You’re right. You run it over to school and find your father.”
Teena spoke up for the first time. “Eddie, if that tube really belongs out there and we took it, we—we might get in trouble.”
“Belongs out there?” Eddie asked.
“Maybe the Coast Guard is using it for some kind of a test or something,” Teena said.
That was a possibility which hadn’t occurred to Eddie, yet he quickly dismissed it from his mind. The two men who had planted it out on the sand bar certainly had nothing to do with the Coast Guard or anything like that. Nor would it have been in the shack yesterday evening.