by Sophie Bell
Iris took a deep breath, then raised her pinkie finger in a mini-salute of sorts. “Opal does, I guess.”
The Makeup Test
OPAL GOT IT. NO, SHE DID. SHE’D DONE SOME PRETTY bad things. Some crazy bad things. The Ultra Violets would have to be crazy themselves to just take her back with open arms, no questions asked, unconditionally. It made 100 percent sense for them to put her to a test first. To prove her loyalty. Opal understood that. No, she did.
But that didn’t mean it didn’t make her feel small and ashamed and a little bit sick.
It was Iris who’d come to her with the proposal, during recess on Wednesday. Since it was Iris she’d asked to take her back, that made 100 percent sense, too. But did Cher and Scar hate her so much that they couldn’t even stand talking to her? Opal could still hear Scarlet’s threat from Synchro de Mayo—“I’m watching you!”—ringing in her ears. She could still see her raised fist in gym class.
“Oh, not at all!” Iris had tried to downplay their absence. “They both just had a, um, a scheduling conflict! Scarlet is in the auditorium with Ms. von Smith, choreographing a routine she wants to perform at the Gazebra. And Mr. Grates asked Cheri to tutor an exchange student who’s having trouble with exponents. That’s why they’re not here.”
Iris had nodded a bit too eagerly, Opal thought. Giving her a dubious look, she’d replied, “Okay”—what else could she say?—before asking, “So what is it you want me to do?”
The more Opal brooded about it now, the darker charcoal-gray the clouds turned overhead. All except one, she noticed, which stayed surprisingly pale.
“Looks like rain!” Albert observed.
“Looks like.” Opal managed a wan smile. Striking an uneasy deal with the Ultra Violets was one thing. Making up with Albert Feinstein was a whole other kettle of Swedish Fish. Opal was still bewildered by how that had happened. Maybe she was on a spontaneous apology tour and once she got started she couldn’t stop? One minute she was answering a question in math about negative numbers; the next, Albert was blathering at her locker about how negative numbers were “assigned to black’s position in online chess” (um, okay . . .); and that just reminded her again of how he’d asked her on a chess date but she’d smoked his note with a lightning bolt. All of a sudden she was mumbling something about how she hadn’t really meant to briefly hijack his brain just before her birthday (even though at the time she really had) and . . .
And he’d laughed it off. He hadn’t even seemed that mad! Nervous, maybe, nerdy for sure, but not mad. He just made some weird, vague comment about how it wasn’t his brain she’d hijacked but “another vital organ.” What did that mean?
“No,” Opal had stammered, trying to stick to the facts. “It was definitely your brain!” And then, because talking to Albert was so unbearably awkward and other kids walking by in the hallway were giving them funny looks and snickering and whispering and she was worried she might lose control and go electrical, she put an end to the whole embarrassing encounter by asking him to join her on this outing—not mentioning, of course, the minor detail that she’d be on a mission for the Ultra Violets.
He’d said yes immediately. She’d immediately regretted it, slamming her locker shut and rushing off to her next class. But now there they were. Sitting at one of the outdoor chess tables behind the Gazebra by the riverside. The black-and-white squares of the gameboard matched the black-and-white stripes of the pavilion.
A strangely familiar scent tickled Opal’s nose, and she turned her head to sneeze into her shoulder.
“Gesundheit!” Albert declared with a geeky gusto that didn’t quite vibe with his cool haircut and clothes. “Pollen counts are at record highs this season.”
“Are they?” Opal echoed, distracted by the smell. It didn’t help her mindset knowing that Iris, Cheri, and Scarlet were somewhere nearby—“an undisclosed location” was all Iris would say—listening in on every word. Opal berated herself again for asking Albert along. Blinking across the chessboard in response to his curious glance, she couldn’t decide if the combo of his dorky interior and trendy exterior was interesting or annoying. Real or fake.
Then again, she mused, I’m not sure what’s real or fake about me these days, either.
The best she could do, she figured, was stay calm and not shock anyone. Not only would that be bad, but it would probably also fry the wireless microphone Candace had embedded in her barrette.
Albert went to move his white knight on the chessboard. He was winning the game easily. Opal wasn’t forfeiting on purpose, she just had a test to pass. She pretended to contemplate her next move, fingering one of her black pawns.
But really she was awaiting the arrival of the Black Swans.
I guess I’m a pawn, too, she thought, in this weird spy game.
Opal had known that her mother, the esteemed if high-strung Dr. Trudeau, scientist-slash-publicist extra-ordinaire, had signed two boys to an espionage contract back before she’d left BeauTek. But it was only when Iris had shown her satellite images that Opal realized she’d already met them.
“Agent Sidney Bristow,” she’d read off the e-file in the schoolyard. The obnoxious boy with the hot dog breath. “And Agent Jack Baxter.” The boy with the salt-and-pepper hair who’d pulled him away.
“Even though we know their names now, we call them Big Red and Lil’ Freckles. It bugs them.” Iris’s expression had been serious, but there was a twinkle of mischief in her pale blue eyes. “Scarlet won’t admit it, but the short one totally likes her,” she’d confessed.
Opal had nodded then, keeping her expression serious, too—not risking a giggle or a smirk. It was information Iris didn’t have to share—maybe she didn’t even mean to, maybe it just slipped out by accident. Opal held it close anyway, because it was the kind of secret one friend would tell another. So it made her feel like maybe, just maybe, she and Iris were becoming friends again. Scarlet had always been such a tough tomboy: The thought of an actual boy crushing on her . . . somehow it was sort of hilarious. That said boy was a spy for BeauTek would have been even more hilarious if it wasn’t so dangerous.
“And why are they the Black Swans?” Opal had asked Iris that afternoon in the schoolyard. “What’s that code for?”
“Well, it’s complicated.” Iris had tugged on one of her lovely purple ringlets, thinking. “But basically it has to do with a theory about unpredictable phenomena. And because they always wear black suits.”
“I met them,” Opal had shared back as she scanned the biographical data on Iris’s tablet. “In civilian clothes. The big one came up to me in the crowd at Synchro de Mayo, he asked me if I . . .” Opal had paused. Heat rushed to her cheeks, and suddenly her Peter Pan collar felt terribly tight around her throat, but she swallowed hard and looked Iris in the eye. “He asked me if I knew any mutants.”
Iris had recoiled then, taking a quick step back. Opal knew she was remembering the mutant battle in BeauTek’s Vi-Shush lab. But she held Opal’s gaze, too. “What did you tell him?” she asked coolly.
“I didn’t. I didn’t say anything, Iris, I swear. I just made a joke about how maybe he was a mutant.”
At that, Iris appeared to relax a little. Then her eyes lit up. “I bet that’s why they scoped you out at Synchro de Mayo!” she said with a snap of her fingers that set off little ultraviolet sparks. “They must know something about the mutants! And they already know who your mom is. Do they know that she left BeauTek?”
“Maybe not . . .” Opal had realized. “Maybe they think that she’s still on BeauTek’s side.”
“Meaning they think you are, too.”
“On Team BeauTek?”
“It’s perfect for our plan”—Iris had given her an intense look then, so intense Opal could feel the rays blazing from her eyes—“but you’d just better not be in real life!”
Across the chess table from her, Albert cl
eared his throat, breaking into her thoughts. “By my calculations, you have thirteen potential courses of action,” he analyzed, “all of which, ultimately, will still result in my checkmating your king.”
Opal left her pawn where it was and looked up from the chessboard, expecting Albert to be grinning at her in full-on nerd triumph. But no, his smile was hesitant. “You wouldn’t want me to lose on purpose, would you?” he asked. The way he said it, it sounded like he was sorry he hadn’t.
Opal’s stomach did a small flip-flop. Behind Albert’s trendy façade, there was still the dweeby mathlete. But behind both of those personas, maybe Albert was sincerely sweet. Maybe that was why she was drawn to him even before his makeover. A rush of affection ran through her. Impulsively, she reached across the table and gave him a playful poke in the chest. It crackled with static electricity where she touched him. “Lose on purpose?” she repeated. “Never! I’ve just got some stuff on my mind, that’s all. Otherwise I bet I could beat you blindfolded.” To make her point, she covered her eyes with her hands and peeked out at him through her fingers.
“It’s a bet,” Albert said, breaking into a broad grin. Then, with a quick tap, he knocked over his own white king. “Game over,” he declared. “Or as they say in chess-speak, I resign. Guess you win after all, Opaline.”
The gallant gesture so charmed Opal that for a moment she forgot all about all the horribleness that had happened, all the wrong she had done. Everything seemed new again. Everything seemed possible. She smiled back at Albert and leaned across the chess table. Who knows what she would have done next if she hadn’t caught sight of the boys in black suits over Albert’s shoulder.
There’s Sidney Bristow, she realized, sitting back again as Albert turned to see what had robbed him of her attention. And there’s Jack Baxter. The short agent squared his shoulders and straightened his dark sunglasses. But who’s the tall, skinny one trailing behind them on the hoverboard?
Who’s Your Momma?
{*Which Does Not Translate as “Kiss Me Violet”!}
“DO YOU KNOW THOSE GUYS?” ALBERT BLURTED OUT, the pitch of his voice shooting up an octave.
“Um, no, just from my mom’s job,” Opal answered, remembering the real reason she was there. Her old job, that is. She pushed her hair behind her ears—even though it was already pinned back in barrettes. It was a nervous habit she didn’t even know she had.
At least she’d aced the first part of her test: She’d gotten the Black Swans to show up. Bristow and Baxter must have recognized her immediately, but maybe they didn’t expect her to have company. They hung back just past the plaza, on the pathway that snaked alongside the river. Big Red propped one foot up on a bench and bent over to tie his sneaker. Little Freckles checked his prominent wristwatch. The skinny kid on the hoverboard skated wide circles around them.
The sight of three boys in somber black suits in the middle of the park in the middle of the day would have been absurd enough, but the sound of a tinkling melody suddenly made it more so.
“The Mister Mushee truck!” Opal recognized the loopy merry-go-round tune. She gave Albert a meaningful look.
Albert stared back at her quizzically.
Opal raised her eyebrows, tilting her head in the direction of the music.
“Oh!” Albert got her gist. “Do you want some soft serve?” he spluttered.
“Chocolate with crunchies,” Opal stated, her order at the ready.
“Okay, er, waffle cone?” Albert asked.
“Chocolate-dipped.”
“Right . . .” Albert drawled, reluctantly rising from his seat, then standing in place just as conspicuously as the three boys down by the water.
“You’re so sweet!” Opal chirped, but she wasn’t looking at him. “I’d better go say a quick hi.” She got up, too. “Be right back.”
Smart as Albert was, he didn’t know what he could have said to stop her anyway. He watched her leave, the hem of her mini-dress flouncing above the tops of her knee socks with every step. The ashen clouds from earlier had never delivered on their threat of rain, and he noticed the sky had cleared. Just one oblong puff floated overhead now, a pillow of white against a sheet of blue. Drifting on the wind above the river, it almost appeared to be following Opaline as she walked. Albert bit his lip, frustrated, before starting off in the direction of the ice-cream chimes.
I guess it’s not her fault if some other boys—THREE other boys!—just randomly show up at the Gazebra, Albert thought, debating the probability of it. But Dad says a date is supposed to be with just one person at a time!
Opal wouldn’t let herself look back at Albert. She was on a mission: She had a test to pass and not much time to complete it. It was only when she reached Freckles and Red that, arms folded, she swiftly glanced behind her to make sure her favorite mathlete was far out of earshot.
“Okay, boys,” she said in a brusque tone to the Black Swans, “I’ve only got a minute, so let’s cut to the chase.”
“Wait,” Big Sid demanded, holding up his plump hand like a stop sign. “Where are the pies?”
“There are. No pies.” It was Lil’ Freckles who said it, though his mouth was set in such a thin grim line that Opal never saw his lips move.
“No pies,” she seconded with a shake of her head.
“No way!” Big Red cried out in a combination of anger and woe. “The Smashface post said there’d be pies!”
“The pies. Were just a set-up,” Lil’ Freckles explained with impatience to his partner. “To get us here. Obviously.”
“Not that obviously!” Big Red disputed. He craned his neck, searching one chess table after another with the hungry hope that a pie would magically materialize.
“No pies!” Opal repeated in a terse voice. She could just imagine Scarlet, eavesdropping from the “undisclosed location,” laughing her head off at this ridiculousness. “That whole page on Smashface was just a front. I made it up! Who else but a ‘First Place Wiener’ would friend ‘Hot Dog Cobbler’?”
Big Red shrugged. “Lots of people like hot dogs,” he grumbled.
“But you didn’t realize something was up when yours were the only two requests I accepted?” Opal countered.
“I guess I was too preoccupied by the promise of Hot Dog Cobbler!” Big Red barked back, flecks of his spit hitting her forehead.
Opal took a deep breath to keep grounded. She could feel the volts sparking off her shoulders—the breeze from the river bent them sideways. Lil’ Freckles’ jaw dropped open at the sight, but before he could say a word Opal snapped, “Static electricity!” She sneezed again, then changed the subject. “Who’s Slim Shady?”
The boy on the hoverboard was now skating at the water’s edge. As Opal got a closer look, she was sure she’d seen him somewhere before.
“New recruit,” Big Red huffed at the same time that Lil’ Freckles muttered, “Rented suit.”
Opal looked from one spy to the other. “Take off those sunglasses,” she commanded. And they did.
“Don’t worry about the rookie,” Freckles said, squinting in the daylight. “He’s just observing in the field. He’s not privy. To classified info.”
“He’s got ties to the supergirl with the purple hair,” Big Red piped in. “Could be a valuable source.”
That’s who he is! Opal realized. She hadn’t recognized him at first, camouflaged by his baggy black clothes. But now that the spies mentioned it, Opal remembered the boy rushing to Iris’s side after she’d collapsed at her birthday party. “Iris’s BF,” she said, forgetting for a moment that she was mic’d. “What’s his name?”
“Fassbender. Sebastian Fassbender,” Agent Baxter replied briskly. “He won’t confirm. Or deny. The boyfriend label. But the evidence. Is indisputable.”
Just then Sebastian sneezed, causing him to swerve on his board. A less skilled skater would have crashed right into th
e volunteer in the acid-yellow grass skirt shaking a bucket of grellowy talc into the harbor, but he expertly avoided a collision. Opal shifted her focus from him to the Projekt BeauTekification worker. Although the collar of his tropical shirt was flipped up, it didn’t reach high enough to hide the fishy gills gulping on his neck. Instead of a mustache, rubbery barbels drooped down over his mouth.
The sight of the mutant gave her a chill. It also gave her an opening. She forced herself to smile.
“I didn’t realize when you approached me at Synchro de Mayo that you worked for my mother at BeauTek—”
“Technically, we work for Develon Louder.” Jack Baxter had put his black sunglasses back on. He slid a stick of gum between his stiff lips. “Your mom was just our handler. My mom is our boss.”
“Of course.” Opal said it as nonchalantly as possible, but her ears were burning. Did Lil’ Freckles just say that Develon Louder was his mother? Holy mackerel! Or holy catfish, she thought, peering again at the whiskered mutant. She hoped the Ultra Violets’ “undisclosed location” was earthquake-proof, because this revelation must have sent out some shockwaves. And that’s got to be a big enough scoop to get me a passing grade! Opal hoped. The spy boy must have just assumed that her own mother knew this bombshell intel and that she would, too. “She’s behind the Beautify Chrysalis Park campaign, right?” Opal asked, to keep the conversation going.
Sidney Bristow snorted but didn’t say anything further.
“BeauTekify Chrysalis Park, yes,” Jack Baxter bluntly corrected her.
“It doesn’t exactly smell pretty!” She tried to make it sound like a joke, but the strange, sour scent had returned, and it was an effort not to gag.
“You should know,” Big Sid said cryptically before scoffing again.
“A temporary environmental side effect. Till midnight Sunday, max.” Lil’ Jack’s comment didn’t make things any clearer.
