Double Cross

by Beth McMullen

  “Hi,” I say brightly. “We’re here at the museum working on a school project about evolution and early man. Everyone knows you have the premier proprietary collection on the subject, and we’d very much like to take a look at it.”

  “We sure do,” Purple says, running her fingers through her hair. It barely moves. “However, you can only access it with an appointment.”

  Not good. What would Charlotte do? How would she convince this woman to let us in? Every second that passes my friends are further out of reach. My eyes drift to the plaques to the left of the door, engraved with the names of donors who helped finance this library. I go for the one in big letters on the very top.

  “I hate to bring this up,” I say casually, “but Elfreda Kurtz is my grandmother.” I nod at the plaque, feeling Poppy’s eyes burn into me. Purple glances up at the name. She mostly doesn’t believe me, but there is a flicker of doubt.

  “Where does she live?” Purple shoots back.

  “Palm Springs,” I blurt. “But she used to live here until the weather became too much for her. She made her fortune in shoes. And, um, shoelaces.” Where is this coming from? Purple narrows her gaze. She’s considering her answer carefully.

  “How much trouble can two kids cause?” she mutters.

  “None,” I say quickly.

  “That was a rhetorical question,” she says. “Twenty minutes. Don’t break anything.”

  We’re in! Poppy’s impressed. It’s not like she says so, but I can tell. We choose a workstation out of Purple’s line of sight, and I walk Poppy through the one hundred steps required to contact Iceman. By number twenty, she’s convinced I’m lying. When the secret communication interface finally pops up, her jaw drops. “For real. How do you know Iceman?”

  “It’s a long story,” I say.

  “Another long story?”

  “I’ll tell you later.” Or never. I instruct Poppy to include the gold spy phone number and the subject heading Versailles, the French palace where we first met Iceman last year. That should get her attention. Or I hope it does. We check the smart fabric app again. Owen Elliott is over the middle of the country now, barreling west at five hundred miles per hour. Come on, Iceman. Don’t let me down.

  We say good-bye to Purple, who tells me to say hello to Elfreda. With nothing to do but wait for Iceman, we stroll around the museum, half-heartedly checking out the exhibits. Poppy asks me about ten times to explain the Iceman connection and gets aggravated when I refuse. At one point she storms off, leaving me alone in the Hall of Minerals. I catch up to her in the Hall of Gems. She stares blankly into a case of multicolored quartz.

  “We’re going to lose the Challenge,” she says glumly. “I never lose. This might be the first time.”

  I lose all the time. I could give her some tips. I stand silently by as she absorbs her new reality. When she woke up this morning, she was on one path, and now she’s on another, stranded with me. I’m just about to launch into a pep talk on how to stay strong in the face of adversity and all that nonsense when my phone crackles and groans like it’s being killed.

  Everyone in the Hall of Gems turns in my direction.

  “Malfunction,” I say meekly, grabbing Poppy by the arm and dragging her past the meteorites and into the Spitzer Hall of Human Origins, which is empty because apparently no one cares about human origins today.

  Huddled in a corner, I pull out the phone. An androgynous cartoon avatar with long hair in a rainbow of colors rides on a pink unicorn with a sparkling crystal horn. Pink. Iceman’s favorite color. Yes! I almost fumble the phone trying to connect. Can excitement and terror exist side by side?

  Iceman wastes no time with formalities. “What do you want?” she asks, voice-altering software turning her into an evil robot.

  “I need your help,” I say bluntly.

  “That’s the way all my conversations begin,” she says. But she doesn’t disconnect, which I take as a good sign.

  “It’s about a plane,” I say.

  Chapter 26

  The Iceman Express.

  POPPY HOPS AROUND behind me trying for a better view. “Is that him? What’s with the unicorn? Will he help? What are we asking for anyway?”

  “There’s nothing to see,” I bark. “It’s a phone call!” Poppy’s face collapses into a pout.

  “Who are you talking to?” demands Iceman.

  “No one. Poppy. Forget about her.”

  “You say there is a situation with a plane?” Iceman asks, already bored of me from the sound of it.

  “Charlotte and Izumi and some other friends have been . . . well, kidnapped, and they’re on a plane heading west and I need to know where they are going and then I need to go there. Does that make sense?”

  “Abby,” the robot voice echoes. “Your friends are always disappearing. You are bad luck.” Bad luck. Something about those two little words slices to the heart of everything. I’m not careful enough. We never should have split up in the museum. My head swirls. “Abby? Are you still there? You know my price. Fifty thousand euros deposited into a Swiss numbered bank account.”

  ‘’What?” Poppy barks, breaking out of her sulk. “That’s crazy!”

  “I don’t have euros,” I say. “Or dollars.”

  “That sounds familiar,” Iceman says with a snicker. “What do you have?”

  The last time we bargained for her services, I offered her glory, which was cheap and available. This time I barter Toby’s Cookie app. She gets very quiet when I describe it. Of course, I leave out the bit about how it poisoned him. And how it doesn’t work.

  “I need to meet this Toby person one of these days,” she says finally. “He sounds infinitely more interesting than you are. I will accept your offer.”

  I pump a fist skyward. Progress! “When will we hear back from you?” I ask.

  “You caught me at a good time,” she says. “It’s a slow day. Although the Argentinian government keeps calling. They’re super needy. Making them wait might be a good lesson in patience.”

  I give her all the information I have, and Poppy explains how the smart fabric is tracking Owen Elliott. When Iceman is unimpressed by the smart fabric, Poppy returns to pouting. I miss my team. They don’t pout.

  “Give me ten minutes,” Iceman says and abruptly hangs up.

  “Ten minutes?” asks Poppy indignantly. “To hack air traffic control?”

  “This is Iceman we’re talking about,” I remind her.

  “Still,” she huffs. I can almost see the wheels turning in her head. How does she one-up a person such as Iceman? Rather than tell her to forget it, I leave her to stew because that way I don’t have to talk to her. I wander around the hall, stopping to admire Lucy, one of our early hominid ancestors, who looks pretty good for being four million years old. There’s the life-size Neanderthals exhibit. They remind me of Tucker Harrington III, although that’s insulting to the Neanderthals.

  When Iceman calls back, her avatar has changed to a skeleton that looks a great deal like Lucy, except she has rainbow hair. Is this her way of telling me that I can’t hide even if I want to? Creepiness aside, I’m glad she didn’t just abandon me for the Argentinian government, and I dearly hope Toby doesn’t kill me for trading his malfunctioning Cookie app for help.

  “Your plane is en route to the Big Island,” she says. The electronic voice has changed too—less robot, more artificial intelligence, like the GPS lady. “That’s in Hawaii.”

  “I know that,” I say. “Why are they going to the Big Island?”

  “That is not a question I can answer, nor do I have much interest in it.” Iceman has many abilities, but empathy is not among them. “Before you get all strung out,” she continues, “I booked you and your Poppy on a flight out of JFK airport leaving in one hour.” My phone pings. “And there are your tickets. You’re cleared straight through, so you will be fine traveling as unaccompanied minors.”

  Poppy’s jaw hangs open. I act like this is no big deal.

&n
bsp; “You’re the best, Ice,” I say.

  “I know that,” she says. “And don’t call me Ice.”

  “Got it.”

  “I will expect payment when your mission is complete.”

  She makes it sound so tidy and organized when in reality it is a giant mess. Once again, I am flying by the seat of my pants, hoping for the best. But this is not something to share with Iceman.

  “Absolutely,” I say. “I won’t forget.”

  She hangs up without so much as an au revoir. I pull up the tickets. They look legit, and they include Poppy’s full name. I cannot even begin to guess how she did this. Poppy can’t either. She’s freaking out as we hustle to the museum exit. An hour from Manhattan to JFK will require a miracle, but Poppy is more concerned that we’re running away to Hawaii without telling anyone.

  “Sometimes you have to break the rules,” I explain. I don’t mention that the last time I broke the rules, I ended up spending August deadheading rosebushes.

  “I don’t know,” Poppy says. I dig a granola bar out of my backpack and hand it to her. Calories often make a bleak situation manageable. And we’re going to Hawaii! Sure, it’s not a vacation, and we won’t get any beach time, but it’s better than rainy old London or freezing-cold Paris. But this might just be me looking on the bright side.

  “You don’t have to come,” I say. “You can head back to Briar and tell them you lost track of Owen Elliott. Play dumb.”

  “What I really want to do,” she says, her accent crisp, “is go home and pretend I never heard of Smith or any of you. I didn’t want to come to the United States in the first place! I was happy at my old school. I was happy in my old life! But no. My parents are never satisfied. It’s always push, push, push. Do more, Poppy. Be better, Poppy.”

  “You could do that, too,” I say. “Go home, I mean.” Although I’m not keen on calling Iceman back and asking her to rebook Poppy to London rather than Hawaii.

  “Oh, forget that,” she says. “Quitting equals failure in their book. And they never let me forget a failure. When I was in third grade, I didn’t get the lead in the class play, and they still talk about it. I was eight.”

  Standing before me on a sidewalk rippling with heat, with the clock ticking, I suddenly understand her friendship with Owen Elliott. They both see everything in life, good and bad, through a lens of parental judgment. They are motivated by pressure from the outside, not by what they feel on the inside.

  And how am I any different, trying my hardest to prove to Mrs. Smith that I’m worthy of spy school? Do I even remember why I want it so badly? But the minute Izumi, Charlotte, and Toby disappeared, everything changed. This is no longer about proving myself or saving the world. It’s about saving my friends. That is the only thing that matters. I watch as Poppy struggles with the pros and cons of coming or going. The push and pull plays out on her face. Finally, she gives me a half smile, half grimace.

  “I owe Owen Elliott,” she says. “He’s the only one at school who’s nice to me. I’m coming.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask. “Because once you’re in, you’re in. It’s not like you can change your mind later.”

  She waves me off. “I know! Quit lecturing me. We only have an hour. Why are we wasting time?”

  Seriously. I don’t like this temporary partnership. It’s hard work.

  We leap in a cab and every time it slows down, my heartbeat speeds up. What happened to New York City cabbies driving like complete maniacs? Doesn’t this guy know the fate of the world might be at stake? We pull to the curb with twenty-five minutes until departure. There is no way. In the best of times, this airport is a crush of confused people all moving in different directions, speaking seven hundred different languages. We throw some elbows to get to the security line and look sad and pathetic to cut the security line. Charlotte would be proud.

  As promised, no one raises an eyebrow as we make our way through the various checkpoints to our gate. No one asks how come we’re alone or who is picking us up on the other side. Iceman’s magic makes them believe all is okay, even if appearances suggest otherwise.

  The first-class seats are a nice touch. I wonder how much more it adds to my debt. She must think the Cookie app is cooler than it is. It doesn’t even work! Poppy wraps herself in a thin blue blanket and immediately demands two glasses of cranberry juice from the flight attendant. We check the smart fabric tracker one last time before stowing our small backpacks under the seats in front of us. Charlotte, Izumi, Toby, and Owen Elliott are about two and a half hours ahead of us. Do they even know where they are going? Are they scared?

  I stare out the window as the world flies by below. Poppy nudges me. “I never attacked you down at the docks,” she says. “Just so you know. I have no idea what you meant.”

  And the truth is, I believe her. That flash of blue and yellow in the locker room, just out of the corner of my eye, that was Jane Ann’s butterfly boys watching me copy Poppy’s idea book. They thought getting my phone could solve all their problems. They didn’t count on it being the wrong phone. Or me smashing it to bits.

  I take advantage of the downtime to rehearse the speech I will give Toby to explain why I bartered away the Cookie app. But no matter how I present it, I just don’t see him being all that excited by the idea.

  Chapter 27

  A Lovely, Tropical, Evil Lair.

  THE BIG ISLAND IS FAR. Come on, Ghost! Why not a New York evil lair, preferably one within walking distance of the museum? But that would be simple, and simple and I have never met. I watch three movies and ask for multiple rounds of warm chocolate chip cookies because the flight attendant seems to have an endless supply.

  Finally, the pilot announces that we are beginning our descent. I check the tracker. Owen Elliott’s T-shirt appears to be at an old coffee plantation on the southeastern side of the island, very close to the Pacific Ocean.

  I’ve been a lot of places—weird places—but I’ve never been to Hawaii. I guess Jennifer never had any contacts here. I nudge Poppy and show her the tracker. “We should be able to get a bus,” I say.

  “Why not Uber?”

  “Because Uber is not anonymous.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “You think they think we’re coming after them? Us? Enough to check Uber records?”

  “They might,” I respond.

  “No bus,” she says.

  “Have you ever even been on a bus?” I ask.

  “I live in London,” she shoots back. As if that answers my question. Poppy seems like the chauffeur-driven type.

  “And?”

  She flushes red. “No.”

  I snicker. “It’s fun. You’ll love it.” Another reason why Poppy will make an awful spy. She’s never ridden on a bus! So why does Mrs. Smith want her so badly?

  We arrive in the late afternoon, having traveled back in time six hours, tripping lightly across five time zones. As we have no luggage other than our small backpacks, we are out at the curb in record time. The air smells sweet, like tropical flowers and pineapple. Thinking about Toby and his Cookie app, I wonder if they pump in the smell so when visitors encounter fragrant flowers or pineapple in regular life, their memory brings them right back to lovely Hawaii. It’s a nice idea. I see why it appealed to him.

  The tropical flowers are not having the intended effect on Poppy, however. She grumbles about the poor working conditions of being a spy on the run, as in buses and no built-in beach time. I ignore her. The bus is late. Island time. I try to go with it, but my eyebrow twitches. I try my mother, but she still doesn’t answer. I hope she knows we’re not at Briar anymore.

  Twenty minutes later, when I’m almost ready to start walking, the bus pulls into the stop. People with suitcases get off, and people with suitcases get on. I check the route map inside the bus to make sure we’re going in the right direction. The stop will get us close, but I suspect there will be trekking through some dense Hawaiian jungle. If we’re lucky, there will be plants with thorns and maybe
ants or biting spiders. Big ones.

  I wonder how Poppy will like that?

  Chapter 28

  Now I Get It.

  OF COURSE, IT STARTS TO rain the minute we step off the bus. This happens in the tropics. Thick gray clouds move swiftly across the sky, position themselves directly above us, and dump buckets. Water drips off the brim of my Smith School baseball hat. On the bright side, our luggage doesn’t get wet because we don’t have any.

  The bus driver asked several times if we were sure we wanted to get off at this stop. This is probably because there is nothing here but plant life. He was right to be concerned.

  “Where are we?” Poppy demands, rain flattening her red hair.

  “The plantation is that way,” I say pointing in a vague direction because I’m not entirely sure where the plantation is. Since about five miles back, Owen Elliott’s tracker went wonky. We might be in a dead zone, or maybe it’s natural interference.

  Caused by a giant thunderstorm, for instance.

  Lightning zigzags to the ground, followed by a loud crack. The air hums with electricity. Poppy literally jumps into my arms. We tumble over into the mud.

  “Thunder!” she howls, burying her head in my shoulder. Water seeps through my shorts and fills my sneakers.

  “Get off me!”

  “I hate thunder!” Curling up in a tight ball, she presses her palms to her ears and squeezes her eyes shut. She’s not kidding she hates thunder. I half cajole, half drag her to the shoulder to avoid death by passing vehicle. She remains in her defensive hedgehog position in the middle of a dirty puddle.

  In five minutes, the storm blows over. The air is scrubbed clean. I poke Poppy in the shoulder. “Hey. You can come out now. It’s over.”

  “Are you sure?” she asks, unmoving in her puddle.

  “Pretty sure.”

  “You need to be totally sure.”

  “The sky is blue!” I yell. One eyeball peeks out from behind her hand to verify I’m telling the truth.

  “That was my worst nightmare,” she says, shaking loose her arms and legs.