Double Cross

by Beth McMullen

  Wait a minute. Izumi is the one usually talking us back from the cliff’s edge. It must be sleep deprivation muddling her brain. But her reasoning is sound.

  “Look at it this way,” she says as we lounge on the dock, hoping for a breeze. “Jennifer is still on the ocean. Even she can’t move at the speed of light, so it will be at least a day or two until she gets here.”

  “Where are you going with this?” Toby asks, eyebrows furrowing with suspicion.

  “Hear me out,” she says. “Our mission is to keep an eye on Team OP and make sure the Ghost doesn’t get what he wants from them. Right?”

  Charlotte glances at me, as shocked as I am at this interpretation of our mission. It’s the kind of stretch I usually go for. But Izumi? No way.

  “Go on,” I say.

  “So isn’t it our responsibility, our duty, to figure out what the Ghost wants?”

  Toby’s jaw drops. “Izumi! What is wrong with you?”

  She grins. “I have no idea! Maybe I’m exhausted? I feel a little weird.”

  “Or maybe,” says Charlotte, “you’re exactly right. It’s our duty as temporary Center agents to get the goods.”

  “That is not what Jennifer said,” Toby says, shaking his head, resigned.

  “So what’s the plan?” Charlotte asks. They all look at me. Why do they look at me?

  “We need to get into Poppy’s room,” I say, because that seems a logical first step. “And her computer.”

  “Why don’t we just ask her?” Toby suggests.

  “Because she will just run to Mrs. Smith,” I say. “And we’re not supposed to tell her.”

  “We’re not supposed to be looking for the thing the Ghost is looking for, either,” Toby says hotly.

  “We’re just doing a little poking around, that’s all,” I say, hoping to ease his mind.

  “Famous last words,” Toby groans. “This is how it always starts with you guys.”

  After some debate, which includes lots of eye-rolling from Toby, we decide that Poppy’s idea book is the place to start our not-quite-sanctioned investigation. I’m dispatched to the game room to see if I can find Poppy and somehow steal her notebook without her noticing. Poppy is not there, but Owen Elliott is, glassy-eyed and muttering at the Asteroids machine, fingers frantic on the big white buttons.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Go away,” he says sharply. “I’m concentrating.”

  I take a step back, surprised by his tone. “You’re almost at high score,” I say.

  “I know. And if you go away, I might get it.”

  “How long have you been playing?” I ask.

  “Since after lunch,” Owen Elliott says. No wonder he looks insane. That’s almost five hours. Does he take bathroom breaks? “When you were supposed to meet me.”

  Oh, no. I do a mental facepalm. I was stalking Baldy when I was supposed to be getting my Asteroids tutorial. “I’m really sorry,” I say quickly. “I just . . . um . . . something came up.”

  “Sure it did.”

  I’ve hurt his feelings. What am I supposed to do now? “Can we play later?” I ask. He gives me a half-hearted shrug that I take as an invitation to please get lost. “Where’s Poppy?” I can’t steal her notebook if I don’t know where she is. Feeling bad for blowing off Owen Elliott will have to wait.

  “At the pool,” he says.

  “Swimming?”

  “No,” he replies with a withering look. “Playing tennis.”

  Okay. I deserved that. But you can’t take a notebook in the water with you! “Gotta go!” I say quickly.

  My friends meet me at the aquatics center, on the far side of campus. By the time I get there, I have the backbone of a plan. Izumi will hop in the pool and challenge Poppy to a race. Poppy, being competitive, will not be able to resist. Meanwhile, Charlotte and I will sneak into the locker room and photograph the notebook with Toby’s new red spy phone. Does he just conjure these phones out of the air? I mean, how many does he have? He didn’t say what will happen to me if I damage it because he did not have to. Begrudgingly, he takes up his station outside the locker room entrance, ready to alert us if Poppy gets out of the pool. As plans go, it’s pretty good. I wonder if Jane Ann has already looked at the notebook and didn’t find the thing she was looking for. Either that, or she doesn’t know it exists. I hope we don’t bump into each other.

  But the pool locker room is empty and just about as steamy as it is outdoors.

  “Which one?” asks Charlotte, staring at the rows and rows of brightly painted lockers.

  Good question. Our plan did not include that level of detail. It never does. “She wears those white Keds,” I say. “The ones with the stripes.” As we get down low to peer under the benches, searching for Poppy’s footwear, the red spy phone falls from my pocket and into a puddle.

  “No!” Oh, please let Toby have waterproofed it! I grab it up and wipe it on my shorts, just in time for Charlotte to call me over. She points to white Keds nestled under locker number forty-seven.

  “Check it out,” she says.

  “Perfect. Now how do we get in the locker?”

  Charlotte gives me an arched eyebrow and, without a word, hip-checks the long, slim locker so hard I think I hear a crack. But she just grins as the door pops open. “These lockers are lame,” she says.

  “Nice,” I say with admiration. We dig through Poppy’s stuff, careful not to let anything fall on the wet floor. At the bottom, under her Smith-issued uniform shirt is the notebook. Quickly, I pull out the slightly damp, cracked phone and begin madly flipping pages and photographing the contents. Her handwriting is disgustingly perfect, and her little illustrations could be in a real book. Maybe Poppy should think about leaving something for the rest of us to do well?

  I’m about halfway through when we hear Toby outside the door. “Hack. Cough. Sneeze. She’s coming! Sneeze. Hack.”

  “Hurry,” whispers. Charlotte. “I’ll run defense.”

  Sure enough, here comes Poppy, fresh off a crushing defeat at the hands of Izumi and plenty annoyed by it. “Her strokes are not even good,” she mutters to herself. “And all that splashing! She might be a rugby star, but she has a few things to learn about swimming.”

  “She beat you,” says another girl.

  “She was fresh,” Poppy counters. “I’d been swimming for at least a half hour already.”

  “Whatever,” says the girl, peeling off into another section of locker room. I’m almost done. A few more pages.

  “Poppy,” I hear Charlotte say, her voice dripping honey. “I love your suit. Where did you get it?”

  “It’s the Smith school uniform,” Poppy says. “Why are you in here?”

  “Oh, just, you know, waiting for Izumi.”

  “She’s got about five girls lined up to race her,” snarls Poppy. “She’s going to be a while.”

  “Did you lose?” asks Charlotte sweetly. I flip to the last page and snap a photo. “By a lot? By entire seconds? I’m dying to know!”

  “Get out of my way,” Poppy responds. “Please.”

  “Be careful!” Charlotte warns. “The floor is wet.”

  I hear a loud thud. “Ouch!”

  “I told you to watch out for that puddle,” Charlotte chides.

  “You did that on purpose!” complains Poppy.

  Uh-oh. Quickly, I stuff everything back in the locker and jam it shut with my shoulder. As it slams, a flash of shimmery blue and yellow, butterfly colors, catches the corner of my eye. But when I look again, there’s nothing. Now I’m hallucinating insects.

  “Let me help you up,” offers Charlotte.

  “No! Stay away from me.”

  “Okay. Have it your way.”

  I come around the corner with a grin plastered to my face, my heart racing. “What are you doing on the floor, Poppy? Oh, there you are, Charlotte. We better get back out there so we can cheer on Izumi. Poppy, you want to join us?”

  She doesn’t answer, just glares at me. T
he phone is warm in my back pocket. Toby has got to do something about how his new spy phones heat up before someone burns herself. I grab Charlotte by the arm. “Let’s go.”

  We dash out of the locker room, leaving a disgruntled Poppy in our wake.

  Chapter 19

  Wits.

  AN HOUR LATER, we cram into the auditorium for the announcement of Challenge task number two. Izumi’s hair is still wet. The smell of nervous sweat permeates the air. The Briar team surfs in on the wave of their first win. Statistically, the rest of us are in an uphill battle.

  We sit five rows back from the stage. Toby’s head is bent over the red phone, patiently uploading the photographs of the notebook to his personal network, where his software will analyze them. Does it look for phrases like world ending or likely to cause Armageddon? I know better than to ask. Instead, I wring my damp hands together in my lap and stare at him. Every few seconds he throws me a dirty look, meaning I should cut it out, but I can’t help it. I want to know what is in those photographs.

  Jane Ann is in her usual seat, twirling a length of shiny hair around her finger. She seems relaxed, but Baldy has big sweaty half-moons under his armpits. As he steps up to the microphone, anxiety comes off him in waves. I get it. Angering the Ghost is not the recipe for a long and healthy life. He gives us a weak smile and clears his throat.

  “Resourcefulness,” he begins, eyes flicking around like a disco ball. “Inventiveness. Gumption. Cleverness. The Glass sisters did not believe simply being smart in the classroom was enough. They wanted Challengers to prove they could navigate the real world. Find resources. Make connections. Succeed without being led. And that is why the second Challenge task is all about using your wits.”

  A few dozen students start a low chant of “smarts, wits, pressure, smarts, wits, pressure.” Baldy holds up his hand for silence. “Our theme is water. So far, each team has produced a device to provide clean water to people who don’t have any. Now it’s time to take it to the next level. Each team will be given an envelope containing a clue, the name of a destination, and the means to get there. Once you arrive, it is up to you to decipher the clue and find the person, place, or thing that will help your team maximize the benefit of your invention. Find a place willing to manufacture it for cheap. Discover a way to distribute your invention globally. Get a few minutes with an expert who can help you improve your invention. Do all of the above. The choice is yours. Make it wisely.”

  Murmurs ripple through the crowd. For a wits task, this is not bad. Veronica’s year, the theme was global warming. All the teams were dumped in a random Canadian forest with an orange and a pencil and told to find their way out. I guess the judges wanted them to have intimate knowledge of nature. Of course, thinking something is going to be simple is what happens right before everything becomes super complicated.

  “The wits task kicks off at seven o’clock tomorrow morning in the auditorium,” Baldy says. “I recommend a good night’s sleep and a protein-heavy breakfast. Gemma and Emma Glass were fond of saying, ‘You have wits, now use them.’ I will leave you with that.” Baldy hurries off the stage, using the rear exit to avoid being cornered by stressed-out teams hoping for a morsel of information that will put them ahead.

  Outside, the sun sinks lower in the sky but the heat persists. The air is still, and little flies circle our heads incessantly. But they are way too small to be drones. At least I think they are? All flying bugs and insects are now suspicious. Suddenly, a wave of fatigue threatens to drown me. This has been the longest day of my life. I can’t even remember when it started.

  “Are the photos done?” I ask.

  Toby glances at his phone. “Two hours,” Toby replies. “After dinner. In the meantime, I want to show you guys something.” He slings his bulging backpack up over his shoulder. “Come on.”

  He heads down the path to the lake and out to a dense crop of trees that reach right to the shoreline. The crickets begin to hum. My stomach growls.

  “What’s with the nature walk?” Charlotte asks after a while.

  Toby stops and faces us. “Things have changed,” he says.

  “You mean because of the Ghost?” Izumi whispers, as if saying the name too loudly will conjure the man himself.

  “Yes. Last time we weren’t prepared. I don’t want that to happen again.” From his pack, he pulls a bag of individually wrapped caramels, rainbow shoelaces, and Smith School baseball hats.

  “Are you running away?” I ask.

  “No,” he says shortly. “I’m helping to save you, as usual.” I resent the implication. Sometimes I save myself. And others.

  Charlotte digs into the pile. Toby swats her hand away and suddenly I get it. Mrs. Smith might have kicked him off spy-gadget duty, but that has not stopped him from creating them anyway.

  “You did not,” I say.

  He grins. “I did.”

  “Show us.”

  “What’s going on?” Izumi interrupts.

  “Spy gadgets,” I say.

  “Oh, wow,” she says. “For us?”

  “Now, they aren’t, like, Angus level,” Toby explains, referring to the gadget and gear master at the spy college. “There are some quirks. But none that are deadly. I don’t think so, anyway. Beta testing is difficult when you can’t exactly tell anyone what you’re doing.”

  The rainbow laces are accelerant for the candy, which explodes. Toby pinches off a piece of shoelace, wraps it around a caramel, and throws it at a tree. It takes all four of us jumping around like lunatics to put out the sparks. The tree, black with soot, will never forgive us. My ears ring.

  “What do the hats do?” Charlotte asks, perching one on her head just so.

  “They provide protection for when you use these.” From his backpack, he pulls three sleek silver smartphones. Spy phones.

  Izumi gasps. “Are those what I think they are?” she asks.

  Toby nods solemnly. “But don’t get too excited,” he says. “They only have a few defensive apps.” Charlotte grabs one and immediately starts tapping.

  “Stop!” Toby yelps. “You’re going to hurt someone!”

  “Isn’t that the point?”

  “No,” we say.

  “Then why are you giving me exploding shoelaces?”

  “The point of all of this stuff is to buy time,” Toby says. “Abby knows.” Do I ever. Extra seconds can make the difference between escape and failure. Charlotte looks disappointed.

  “Now, I’ve improved the functionality in these devices,” Toby says, cradling a silver baby in his hands. “They are calibrated to your voices and faces.”

  “Can we play solitaire?” Izumi asks with a sly smile.

  Toby glares at her. “Not funny. Demo time. Put on your hats.” We don the Smith caps and wait while Toby taps the phone. “This one is the best. Blaring horn. I love it!” We wait. Nothing happens. We wait some more. Toby grins.

  “Um, does it actually do anything?” I ask, just as a bird falls out of the sky and lands on my head. Naturally, I scream.

  “You can’t kill birds!” Izumi howls.

  Toby scrambles to explain. “It’s not dead, just dazed. The hats protect you from the high-pitched frequency. Don’t use it without the hat or you will knock yourself out.” After thirty seconds, the bird hops to its feet, gives us a dirty look, and launches into the sky. I wait for it to poop on Toby’s head, but it doesn’t.

  “What else?” Charlotte asks, eyes bright. “What about the bees?”

  The bees spray a flurry of hard glass beads, simulating what it feels like being attacked by a swarm.

  “How about the lightning?” I ask.

  “It can shatter glass. Just hold the phone against it and it breaks apart. I like that one too. And you already know about the snarling dog.”

  “Why is the Cookie app on here?” I ask. Unlike on the gold phone, here it is blurred out.

  “It’s just an image,” he says. “I didn’t have time to remove it, but don’t worry, it do
esn’t work. There is nothing behind it.”

  “Anything else we should know?” I ask. I love this phone. True, I love them all, but this one is especially awesome.

  “Battery life is a problem,” he says. “I’m working on a fix, but who has time? School is really getting in the way of my progress.”

  Izumi says what we are all thinking. “Are you kidding me? Toby, you’re a genius.” He blushes and stares at his feet.

  “No big deal,” he says. “Please don’t wreck them. Abby. Okay?”

  Toby would like an oath sworn in blood, but he will have to make due with our promises. We load up our new gear, reverently, carefully. Toby has gone beyond the call of duty.

  On the walk back to the dorms, everyone is quiet. It’s like we’ve taken our relationship to the next level by exchanging spy gear. Whatever happens next, we are in this together.

  Chapter 20

  Owen Elliott Forgives Me.

  OWEN ELLIOTT TEXTS ME to see if I will meet him at the docks. I am zombie-level tired and want nothing more than to eat and sleep and wait for Toby to say the photos analysis is done. But maybe Owen Elliott wants to forgive me for blowing him off? That possibility feels surprisingly good, enough so I pull my shoes back on and traipse out the door.

  The campus is dotted with kids playing Frisbee and hacky sack, lounging under shade trees and listening to music. The really smart kids, it seems, are the ones who didn’t enter the Challenge. They’re just hanging out and having fun. I crest a small rise and head down to the docks.

  But he’s not there. I sit on the dock to wait. Ten minutes later, still no Owen Elliott. Is he getting back at me for leaving him stranded in the game room? That’s cheap.

  I wait a little longer just in case he was held hostage by Poppy for some reason, but he doesn’t show up. Well, forget it. I’m out of here. A crescendo of cricket song rises as the sun drops. The pathway lights flicker on. I indulge in a fantasy of my head on a soft, cool pillow, eyes closed, dreaming of victory. The mere idea of bed makes me sigh with pleasure.