“No, no,” I said. “It must have been a copycat prankster.”
They seemed to buy it because my denials were followed by heated speculation as to who actually might have pulled it off. The debate lasted until our algebra teacher, Mr. Kittson, strode into the room and silenced us by raising his hand.
“There will be no more talk of goats,” Mr. Kittson said. “I assure you that whoever instigated that mess is going to be severely punished. But beyond that, it seems we have an even more urgent matter on our hands.”
The classroom was so quiet you could practically hear all of our hearts pounding inside our chests as we waited anxiously to find out what could possibly be more urgent than herds of goats running free through the school hallways.
“As some of you may or may not already know,” Mr. Kittson continued, “it appears that Principal Gomez is involved in an ongoing investigation by the National Security Bureau. And they have reason to believe that a student broke into his office today and stole items related to this investigation.”
Many of the kids in my class gasped. I flung open my jaw and made scoffing noises at the audacity of some kids to think they could interfere with an official national security matter. I tried not to let my eyes betray me and show my panic. I tried not to think about my backpack sitting inside my locker, still stuffed with the stolen hard drive. I sat there and tried not to puke as Mr. Kittson kept spilling out even more bad news.
“Nobody is going into or out of the school building until the NSB agents have searched every last classroom, locker, and backpack.”
“But they can’t do that,” one of my classmates shouted. “What about, like, our human rights and stuff?”
As other kids made similar protests, I stared at the back of Danielle’s head, several rows in front of me. She did not turn around, which was smart. But I desperately wanted to ask her what we were going to do. Because as I thought of my backpack, sitting in my locker with the fugitive hard drive inside, I realized that I certainly had no idea. I’d almost broken down into tears by the time I decided that I had no choice but to act. I had to do something.
I stood up and started walking calmly toward the front of the classroom, passing Danielle without looking at her. I was afraid she’d try to stop me if I did.
“Carson, back in your seat,” Mr. Kittson said.
“I’m just getting a Kleenex,” I said, pointing at the box of tissue on top of the marker tray near the door.
Mr. Kittson hesitated and then turned his attention back to the questions still flying at him from the stunned, excited, and nervous students.
I reached the door and pulled a Kleenex from the box. I pretended to blow my nose and then dropped the tissue next to the trash can, missing on purpose. As I bent down to pick up the Kleenex with my left hand, my right hand reached up and grabbed the doorknob. I opened the door and tipped over the trash can in front of it, all in one motion. Then I ran from the room, leaving behind a stunned Mr. Kittson with a minor obstacle in his way. His few seconds of shock and a few more untangling the door from the trash can would hopefully be just enough time for me to get to my locker.
After that . . . I had no idea what I’d do. I obviously hadn’t had much time to lay this plan out in my head. But it didn’t matter either way.
I didn’t even get close to my locker.
CHAPTER 7
URINE—A SPY’S BEST KEPT SECRET WEAPON
AFTER RUNNING DOWN JUST ONE SHORT HALLWAY, I TURNED the corner and crashed right into Agent Chum Bucket’s stained and smelly white T-shirt. I bounced off his deceptively muscular gut and landed on the floor with a grunt.
He looked down at me in surprise and then threw a small slip of paper onto my lap right before two NSB agents tackled him from behind.
All three of them went sprawling to the floor beside me. I scooted back against the lockers, subtly closing my hand around the small message Agent Chum Bucket had passed along. I quickly slid it behind the tag on the underside of the tongue of my shoe and then planted a shocked and scared expression on my face.
A backpack Agent Chum Bucket had been carrying had flown off his shoulder during the takedown. The contents were now spilled out across the hallway floor as he struggled with the two agents detaining him. The backpack wasn’t mine, but among the contents was the hard drive I had just stolen from Principal Gomez’s office.
My stomach dropped. Agent Chum Bucket must have been trying to sneak it out of the school before the NSB could search my locker. Now his cover would be compromised and the mission would fail. My head fell onto my knees, and when I looked up, there was a large hand in front of my face.
I recognized the guy in the suit standing above me as NSB Special Agent Loften, one of the men who had arrested Mr. Gomez earlier that morning. He was tall and skinny, yet still looked like he could wrestle a grizzly bear and win. But at the same time, there was something strangely comforting about the concerned look on his face.
“Come on, up you go,” he said as I grabbed his hand and he helped me to my feet.
The two agents who had tackled Agent Chum Bucket were putting him in handcuffs now as two more collected everything that had fallen out of the backpack and placed it in a black duffel bag with the letters NSB stenciled onto the side.
“Do I know you?” Agent Loften asked me.
“Yeah, well, no,” I stammered nervously, trying my best to sound like a normal kid who was face-to-face with an NSB agent. “I mean, I was in Mr. Gomez’s office this morning when . . . you know, when you arrested him, or whatever.”
“That’s right,” he said, eyeing me from head to toe. “We meet again.”
I shrugged just as Mr. Kittson rounded the corner. He was about to start yelling at me when the scene before him diverted his attention. He looked at the school cafeteria worker in handcuffs and the presence of several NSB agents and then locked eyes with me.
“What . . . ?” is all he managed to say aloud, even though it looked like he wanted to say so much more.
“And you are?” Agent Loften asked him.
“I’m Mr. Kittson. A teacher.” He pointed at me. “His teacher. He just ran from my classroom.”
“Did he?” Agent Loften said, squinting at me. “Well, we’ll escort him back to your room after we’re finished asking him a few questions. If you don’t mind?”
Mr. Kittson blinked. It was pretty obvious that Agent Loften wasn’t really asking his permission.
“Umm . . . sure,” Mr. Kittson finally managed. “Room two fourteen.”
“Thank you,” Agent Loften said, placing his hand on my shoulder and steering me down the hall away from the action. He stopped halfway down, once we were out of earshot of the other agents and Chum Bucket.
“What did he say to you?” Agent Loften asked, nodding back down the hallway.
“Mr. Kittson?” I said. “Nothing . . . you were right there.”
“No, the cafeteria employee.”
“I don’t know . . . something about lettuce, I think,” I said. “He’s always seemed a little crazy. Loves lettuce. Is he, like, a terrorist or something?”
Agent Loften smiled. It didn’t seem to properly fit his face. Like sunglasses that were too small or a black toupee on a guy with a red beard.
The smile faded a second later.
“He didn’t give you anything?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“You’re sure?”
I nodded.
“So you would allow us to search your person to verify that?” he asked.
I nodded again. I was too busy working on an answer to a question I knew was coming eventually. Coming up with that answer was hard work—I hadn’t had much to eat or drink that day.
“How can you explain your sudden departure from class?” Agent Loften asked, as he gestured for me to empty my pockets.
I pointed down at my pants, having finally gotten my answer ready.
He looked down and then took a quick step back.
“I didn’t make it,” I said, probably looking as uncomfortable as I felt in my freshly peed pants.
“Go get yourself cleaned up,” Agent Loften said, trying to hide his disgust. “And then get back to class, okay? Here, take my card, call me anytime day or night if you remember anything more, okay?”
I nodded and then headed toward the locker room. This was now the second time I’d peed my pants on purpose to get out of a jam as a secret agent. Who knew that peeing your pants and fainting goats were such great secret weapons for a spy?
CHAPTER 8
THE SECRET SAUCE
ONCE I WAS SAFELY INSIDE THE BOYS’ LOCKER ROOM AND HAD changed into the spare pair of jeans I always kept in my gym locker, I sat on the bench and tried to wrap my head around what I’d just witnessed.
For one thing, the mission had been an utter failure. The NSB now had the hard drive. Whatever was on it was probably already on its way to Washington, DC.
Secondly, Agent Chum Bucket was now officially compromised. Or maybe he’d keep his cover and instead get pegged as a terrorist and sent to some secret prison on a deserted island out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. After all, rule number one as a secret agent was never, ever break your cover, not even to other government agencies. Either way, though, this was bad.
I stared down at the floor with my face in my hands and then my eyes passed over my shoes. I’d almost forgotten about the message! I quickly pulled out the slip of paper from behind the tongue of my shoe and unfolded it.
It looked the same as all the other messages he’d slip into my school lunches. Except those messages were usually pretty clear and straightforward. This one seemed like gibberish.
THE SCHOOL BURGER’S SECRET SAUCE IS REALLY JUST BARBECUE SAUCE AND KETCHUP MIXED.
What in the world did that mean? And why would he give it to me? Agent Chum Bucket couldn’t have just lost his mind in the last few hours. Which meant the message had to mean something. But what? And what was I supposed to do with it? I checked my phone; school was out in twenty-one minutes. Not only that, but I likely needed to get back to class soon before Mr. Kittson started wondering what happened to me.
So I needed to figure it out fast.
I thought back to every encounter I’d had with Agent Chum Bucket. The first time I’d met him was when he’d given me my spy gadgets for my first assignment at the beginning of the school year. We’d met in what he’d called his office, which was really just a pantry. He’d even blown a hole into a giant tub of mayo in order to demonstrate how to use the fruit roll-up explosive.
That’s it!
Now it seemed so obvious I was a little embarrassed I hadn’t figured it out right away. I jumped up from the locker room bench and ran out into the hallway, quickly making my way toward the school cafeteria pantry. I just hoped I would get there before the NSB decided to search it. Now that they thought Chum Bucket was involved in whatever sort of insanity Mr. Gomez was mixed up in, it likely wouldn’t be too long before they started confiscating his stuff.
I made a quick pit stop at my locker to get my backpack. The door was closed and locked; yet the hard drive I had taken from Mr. Gomez’s office was no longer inside my bag. Which meant that Agent Chum Bucket had indeed removed it somehow.
I slung the empty bag over my shoulder and continued on toward the cafeteria, passing a few other kids and a teacher. They didn’t pay any attention to me. The school must not have been on lockdown anymore now that the NSB had retrieved the stolen drive.
The door to Agent Chum Bucket’s pantry room was slightly ajar. Which meant he’d either left it open for me or I was going to find NSB agents already inside, searching through the school’s food supplies. I held my breath as I pushed the door open.
The pantry was chock-full of giant drums of salad dressings, sauces, and condiments, as well as fifty-pound boxes of crackers, bread, noodles, and other typical school lunch ingredients. About the only thing I didn’t see inside the huge pantry room were NSB agents or any fresh and healthy lunch ingredients.
It didn’t take as long as I expected to find a couple massive drums of secret sauce. I considered for a moment how gross it was that all of the condiments we ate in school lunches came from giant plastic barrels.
After pushing the thought aside, I unscrewed the lid on the closest barrel. The strong odor of vinegar and sugar and tomatoes quickly filled the confined pantry. I looked around and spotted a box of plastic gloves on a nearby shelf. I pulled on a pair and then slowly dipped my hand into the reddish-brown sludge.
Even at room temperature, it felt surprisingly cold through the glove. I swished my hand around for a few seconds, feeling nothing. Sauce sloshed over the sides of the jug onto the floor and my pants. I was ready to give up, but decided to plunge my arm in a little bit deeper. That’s when my fingers grazed something solid. Either there were rat carcasses inside our secret sauce, or I had been right about what the message from Agent Chum Bucket meant.
I grabbed the object and pulled it from the drum. It was a freezer bag dripping with red goop. Inside was a computer hard drive.
This had to be the one from my locker! The drive Agent Chum Bucket got caught with must have been a decoy. I had to admit it was pretty ingenious that the Agency had such a contingency plan ready to go. Although it was also a little annoying they hadn’t told me about Chum Bucket’s assignment. So much could have gone wrong.
So much still could.
If the stuff he’d been caught with weren’t the real files and hard drive, it meant the NSB was going to figure that out eventually. Which meant that I needed to get the real one out of the school as soon as possible. I couldn’t even waste time cleaning the condiments off the freezer bag.
I made a face as I shoved the secret sauce–covered freezer bag into my backpack. It was probably going to smell like McDonald’s for the rest of its existence. But that didn’t matter—getting this stuff to Director Isadoris was way more important than how my backpack smelled.
Before I left, I checked the other tubs of secret sauce. I didn’t find more material from Gomez’s office, but I did find several sealed packages of spy gadgets that Chum Bucket must have kept hidden there for emergencies. I recognized some of the equipment, but other items looked completely new. I stuffed all of it into my bag as well, then zipped it up, pulled off the plastic gloves, and exited the pantry faced with a significant decision. I had two options:
Take a right: exit the school, risking expulsion, and head directly toward Agency HQ with the hard drive.
Take a left: head back to seventh-period class, risking another run-in with Agent Loften and his NSB goons and the reconfiscation of the hard drive, as well as the task of explaining to Mr. Kittson why I was covered in greasy red gunk.
I turned right, pushed open the door underneath the glowing green exit sign, and was out of the building about fifteen minutes before the end of seventh period.
CHAPTER 9
A TICKER TAPE PARADE IN GHOSTOWN
TO AN OUTSIDE OBSERVER, I WOULD HAVE LOOKED LIKE A CRAZY person. Just some kid, half covered in gloopy condiments, jumping around in a snowbank without a coat like a lunatic. But what a passerby wouldn’t have known, of course, was that there were secret cameras hidden inside the swallows’ nests adjacent to the small snowbank I was frolicking in.
Hidden cameras planted there by a government agency so secret that its very name was classified and unknown by its own employees.
But I knew the cameras were there and so I jumped up and down in front of the swallows’ nests, waving my arms like a madman. All I wanted was to get the evidence in my bag down to Agency personnel before the school bell rang and the odds of getting caught with the stolen hard drive would increase exponentially. After all, everybody, NSB agent or otherwise, would take a second and third look at a kid dripping with greasy barbecue sauce. Besides, it really was freezing without a coat—I was right in the middle of an infamous North Dakota winter, after all.
Luckily,
I didn’t have to wait very long before I heard the maintenance shed door open behind me.
Agent Smiley poked her head out and motioned for me to join her. I ran inside, where the secret elevator was already waiting. We stepped onto the platform.
“You have the hard drive?” she asked before pressing any buttons.
“Yep.”
Then we were shooting down into the earth, leaving our stomachs up at the surface. During the ride down into Agency headquarters, Agent Smiley held a hand over her normally unflinching face and tried to hide her crinkled nose.
“Sorry,” I said, looking down at the secret sauce stains on my pants and shirt. “Things got a bit, uh, messy.”
She didn’t say anything back. Then we hit the bottom and the elevator doors opened. I’d been down to Agency HQ before, and each time it looked completely different. Sometimes it was bustling with activity, people in suits everywhere working hard to thwart whatever rogue threats faced the country. A few of the times I’d been greeted by armed guards pointing huge machine guns at my face. This time, however, I was stunned to find a virtual ghost town.
The place was empty. Deserted. The normally busy atrium was quiet and still. Half the lights were off, the dimness giving it an even darker vibe, as if it had been converted into an evil lair in my absence.
“Where is everyone?” I asked, suddenly worried that perhaps the base had been compromised and everyone I knew was dead or captured.
“Director Isadoris will explain,” Agent Smiley said. “Come on, follow me.”
I trailed her up the glass staircase and along the secret hallway at the end of the balcony that led to the director’s office. He was seated behind his desk. Two other agents I didn’t recognize were working on laptops at a small folding table behind him. His hair was frazzled as if he hadn’t showered in days, and his face was covered in dark stubble. It made the massive man look even more like a giant grizzly bear than he usually did.
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