Soon the disk was in and we were sitting in front of the screen. Our ATAC boss, Q, greeted us in his usual super-serious way. Then the picture switched to a panoramic view of some gorgeous mountains surrounded by heavily wooded foot-hills.
“Where’s that?” Joe murmured. “Think we’ll get to ski on this mission? That’d be cool.”
“Shh!” I warned him. Our mission disks are rigged to play only once. After that, they revert to ordinary music or movie disks. That means we have only one chance to take in the info we need.
On the screen, the shot was panning over the woods. Soon the camera focused in on a cluster of buildings in a big, grassy, open area. As it pulled in closer, we saw manicured grass and shrubs and neatly tended playing fields. A bunch of buildings, mostly Federal-style brick, were clustered around a tree-lined expanse of lawn. At one end stood an imposing-looking four-story building.
“Welcome to the Willis Firth Academy,” a voice-over began. “One of the most exclusive boys’ prep schools in New England, a center of intensive learning in an idyllic setting. But lately, life at Firth has been less than idyllic. . . .”
The voice-over went on to explain that this Firth place had been experiencing a bunch of problems since the beginning of the current semester. At first it was just small stuff—blown fuses, minor vandalism, that sort of thing.
But then the trouble started to escalate.
“There have been injuries to students and staff that cannot be considered accidental,” Voice-Over Dude continued. “The students at Firth have wealthy and influential parents who are no longer willing to ignore the issue. That’s where ATAC comes in.”
“A mission at some school for rich dudes?” Joe sounded dubious. “Um, okay . . .”
“Shh!” I said again as the picture of Firth’s campus cut out and Q came back on-screen.
“One of you will pose as a new student at the school,” Q said. “That undercover persona should allow you many advantages in our inquiry. However, we are concerned that living a regimented student life might make it difficult to investigate all aspects of this mission. Therefore, the second member of your team will have a different cover story. He will pose as the handler for the school’s canine mascot, a German shepherd. You may decide between yourselves which of you would prefer to play which part.”
“Dibs on the dog guy!” Joe blurted out.
But Q wasn’t finished. “However, I should warn you that said mascot also happens to be a highly trained and very sensitive former police dog. Handling him will not be like dealing with an ordinary pet. He is still a working dog at heart and needs to be treated as such.” He paused, staring into the camera. “Good luck, boys.”
After giving a few more important details—the wheres and the whens and such—Q disappeared and the tape cut out. I sat back and glanced at Joe.
“Wow,” I said. “I guess HQ’s really starting to trust us. They don’t usually let us choose our own roles on missions.”
“Yeah. But not enough to trust us at a school with actual girls.” Joe shook his head. “If we had to have a mission at some fancy-schmancy school, why couldn’t it at least involve cute rich girls?”
I grinned. Joe lives for girls, rich or otherwise. “Think you can handle it?” I joked.
“I’m not sure. I might go into withdrawal.” Then he got serious. “But listen. We’re not going to, like, flip a coin to decide who gets which undercover role, right? I really think I should be the dog handler.”
“Oh? And why’s that?”
You can’t blame me for being suspicious. Joe does pretty well in school. But that doesn’t mean he likes it. I had a feeling he was seeing this mission as a way to get a break from studying for a while. After all, whichever one of us posed as a student would presumably have to, you know, actually attend classes and stuff.
“Face it. I’ll definitely be better as the dog dude,” Joe said. “I love dogs!”
“This isn’t just a dog,” I reminded him. “You heard Q. It’s a highly trained police dog.”
Joe shrugged. “A retired police dog. I’m sure I can handle it.”
Part of me wanted to keep arguing, just to mess with him. But Q wanted us to leave for Firth pretty much right away.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll probably have an easier time blending in as a prep school student anyway.”
“True,” Joe agreed, looking relieved. “At last, your nerdiness comes in handy.”
I decided to let that one pass. Like I said, we didn’t have much time. And there was still one more obstacle blocking us from hitting the road for Firth Academy. A big obstacle. Actually, two of them.
“Okay,” I said. “So what are we going to tell Mom and Aunt Trudy?”
First Impressions
Wow,” Frank said. “This place is really nice.”
We were in a rental car on our way up the long drive leading to Firth Academy. The long, long drive. Seriously, it was at least six times as long as the street we lived on back home.
We’d traded in our motorcycles for the car in a little town called Sugarview. Somehow, cruising onto campus on a pair of tricked-out bikes didn’t seem like the best way to blend in.
“Check it out.” I glanced out the car window at the patches of white here and there. “Looks like they’ve already had snow up here.”
Frank nodded. “I hope you packed enough warm clothes, cuz.”
“No worries, cuz,” I replied with a grin.
Part of our cover story was that Frank and I were cousins. The idea was that Frank decided to transfer to Firth from some other prep school in another state. And when his parents heard that there was an opening for a dog handler/handyman on campus, they recommended his slacker cousin, Joe. That was me, obviously.
“Hope I don’t embarrass you, Cousin Frank,” I joked as the car climbed a hill. “You know—being a high school dropout and all.”
“If you don’t embarrass me in real life, I think I can live with you here.” Frank smirked at me. “Seriously, though, this should make our job easier. We won’t have to sneak around if we want to talk to each other. It would look weird for a student to spend much time with an employee. But nobody will think twice about cousins hanging out.”
“Yeah. Although I have a feeling this isn’t going to be one of our tougher assignments.” I leaned my elbow on the armrest. “How hard can it be to figure out what’s going on in an isolated little place like this? I’m guessing we’re looking for a disgruntled student causing trouble or looking for attention or whatever.”
“You’re probably right,” Frank agreed. “But we shouldn’t jump to conclusions before we talk to the headmaster. ATAC didn’t give us much solid info.”
“As usual.” I shrugged. “Anyway, we’d better hope things are as simple as they seem. That story Dad came up with to cover for us leaving was a little weak.”
Frank grimaced. “I know. What kind of school exchange program would need us to leave immediately, with no prior notice to our families?”
“Duh—a fake one, obviously.” I snorted. “Anyway, you heard what Dad told us—we’d better do what we can to wrap up this case pronto.”
“Right. Otherwise Mom and Aunt Trudy are going to get antsy and start asking questions.”
I grinned. “True again, but who cares? That’s Dad’s problem, not ours.”
Frank shot me a look but didn’t respond. That was because we’d just crested the hill and now had a great view of the entire sprawling campus. It looked just as scenic as it had on the video.
We drove down there, aiming for the big grassy rectangle at the center of campus—the Green, we’d learned it was called during some quick Internet research. After parking the car in the visitors’ lot, we headed straight for that large old building at the head of the Green. Firth Hall. We’d been told the headmaster would be waiting for us there. He was the only guy on campus who knew who we really were and why we were there.
Soon we were being ushered into a cushy, wood-pan
eled office with tons of bookshelves. A man rose from behind a huge desk to greet us. He was tall and slim, wearing little round glasses and one of those tweedy jackets with the patches on the elbows.
“Hello,” he said, hurrying around to shake our hands. “You must be the agents from ATAC. I’m the headmaster here, Dr. Robert Darity.”
We introduced ourselves and sat down. “So, Dr. Darity,” Frank said. “What can you tell us about the problems you’ve been having here?”
Headmaster Darity sank back into his chair and sighed. “Where should I start? I suppose the first incident was the fire.”
“Fire?” I echoed.
“Well, almost. A fuse blew out during a big fraternity rush function.”
Frank looked puzzled. “Fraternity?” he said. “Like the frats in colleges?”
“Yes, we have several fraternities here—it’s not uncommon in the preparatory schools in our league.” Darity looked at a framed photo hanging among the bookshelves. It showed a group of students standing in front of a house with big Greek letters on the front. “They’re meant to be service organizations, but of course you know how that goes. . . .” He shook his head, then cleared his throat and continued. “In any case, the problem was caught almost immediately, and the fire was nothing but a few sparks, really. It could have been much worse. At the time we all wrote it off as an accident.”
I nodded, glancing around the dusty old room. It certainly wouldn’t be a stretch to believe the wiring in a place like this might go on the fritz.
“All right,” said Frank. “What else?”
“Well, there was some minor vandalism here and there,” Darity said. “A little graffiti, a broken window.” He shrugged. “Most of those incidents also seemed to center around the fraternity rush, and we assumed some overenthusiastic pledges might be trying to impress the brothers or something of that sort. Then there were a few threats and such. . . .”
“What kind of threats?” I asked.
“Just vague stuff. ‘Beware, or you’ll be sorry,’ that sort of thing. Again, we figured it was just the frat guys goofing around.” Darity took a deep breath. “But we couldn’t explain away what happened next.”
Frank leaned forward. “What was that?”
“First, our swimming coach was injured when he slipped and hit his head.”
That didn’t sound too ominous to me. “Okay,” I said. “Um, did he slip on the wet concrete by the pool or what?”
“Not exactly. He was walking into the soccer coach’s office at the time. The office was empty—Coach Sims was planning to leave a note for him. But he wound up unconscious.”
“Ouch,” Frank said. “I take it you don’t think that was another accident?”
Darity shook his head grimly. “Believe me, it was no accident. There was thick grease smeared all over the floor. Fortunately, Coach Sims is going to be okay, but it was a close call.”
“Interesting.” Frank looked thoughtful. I could almost see him taking mental notes. “Is that all?”
“Unfortunately, no.” Darity adjusted his glasses. “The other recent incident involved a student named Ellery Marks. He was attacked last week by the school’s mascot.”
“Mascot?” said Frank. “You mean the dog Joe is supposed to take care of?”
The headmaster nodded. “But don’t worry,” he said. “Killer is perfectly safe.”
“Hang on.” I sat up straight. “The dog’s name is Killer?”
Darity chuckled. “It’s not what you think,” he assured us. “He came to us with that name from his previous life as a police dog. They told us it was because he used to utterly destroy his toys as a puppy—wouldn’t stop until he’d shredded them into tiny pieces.”
Somehow, that didn’t make me feel much better. I looked over at Frank, wondering if it was too late to switch roles.
But he wasn’t looking back at me. “So this dog bit a student?”
“Not just any student.” Darity suddenly looked weary. “Ellery Marks comes from a rather, er, influential family. Even by Firth standards.” He smiled ruefully. “Luckily, his father was a Firth man himself and knows all about the school’s long tradition with these dogs, so he agreed to give us a chance to fix the situation quietly. Hence the new dog handler.”
He nodded toward me. I smiled weakly. Great—no pressure or anything . . .
“What is that tradition, anyway?” Frank asked. “All we heard is that the dog is the mascot of the sports teams here.”
“Oh, he’s much more than that,” Darity replied. “The tradition dates back to the days of the school’s founder, who adored German shepherds and kept a series of them during his tenure here. Ever since, a shepherd has lived on campus—normally with the headmaster’s family.” He shrugged. “As it happens I’m allergic to dogs, so ever since I took over the headmaster’s position from Dr. Montgomery a few years ago, the dog has lived with its handler in one of the staff cottages.”
“Got it.” I was less interested in age-old traditions than in the here and now. And some of what I was hearing was giving me serious tiger flash-backs. “Okay, so I take it this particular dog is kind of psycho?”
“Not at all!” Darity looked horrified by the very suggestion. “In fact, Killer is extremely well trained, intelligent, and dignified—a true professional, really. Until this incident, he’d never bitten in his life except when under orders to do so. He’s our greatest ambassador and a very popular fellow during Parents’ Weekend and similar events. Believe me, everyone on campus loves Killer.”
I winced every time he said the name Killer. But I had to admit, the way he described the beast, it sounded more like a puppy dog than a student-eating monster. Whew.
“So what happened with this Ellery guy?” asked Frank.
“We’re still not sure.” A worried crease appeared on Darity’s brow. “Both Ellery and a witness, a member of the cafeteria staff who happened to be passing by, claimed that Killer’s former handler muttered something to him right before the attack.” He shook his head. “Many people assumed that Hunt must have trained him with some secret attack word.”
“Oh?” Frank sounded dubious.
Darity smiled ruefully. “Believe me, it’s possible,” he said. “We’re talking about a very talented dog trainer here.” His voice took on a sad note. “In any case, Hunt has been let go, and that seemed to satisfy Mr. Marks and everyone else.” He turned toward me. “But you’ll need to be very careful not to allow another incident involving Killer. Considering the importance of that particular school tradition, the publicity could be very bad. Not to mention what Dr. Montgomery would say . . .”
Yeah. Like I said—no pressure.
SLAM! The door crashed open at that moment, making all three of us jump. I looked over, and my eyes widened. Standing there in the doorway was a girl. And not just any girl. The hottest girl I’d ever seen.
“Destiny!” Darity exclaimed. “I’m in the middle of something here.”
The girl ignored him. “I need to talk to you, Dad!” she yelled, her blue eyes flashing fury. Somehow that made her look even hotter. “Did you hear what the coach did?”
Darity raised both hands in a soothing motion. “Take it easy, sweetheart,” he said. “Can we discuss this over dinner? Because—”
She put both hands on her hips. “He banished me from practice!” she declared. “Can you believe that? I mean, the Benevolence Weekend game is coming up in, like, five seconds, and if I can’t play—”
“I understand, Destiny. But did you talk to the coach? I’m sure he has his reasons.”
“Yeah.” She tossed her thick, wavy brown hair over her shoulder. “The reason is, he’s a jerk!”
“Now, now,” said Darity mildly. “What’s the real reason?”
She rolled her eyes. “Stupid English quiz,” she muttered.
Darity sighed. “You know there’s a grades rule here, Destiny. If that quiz brought your average down, Coach is right to bench you until you bring it
up again.”
“That’s stupid,” Destiny snapped. “Anyway, how am I supposed to get up to speed with the team if I can’t practice with them? It’s not fair!”
I traded a glance with Frank. He looked puzzled.
Meanwhile Destiny was still whining and haranguing her father about her problem. Not usually my favorite behavior in a girl. But somehow it worked on her.
Finally Darity held up both hands again. “Fine. Maybe you’re right,” he told Destiny. “This really is a bit of a special situation. I’ll speak to the coach—and to Mr. Westerley, too. Perhaps he can give you a makeup quiz.”
“Whatever.” Destiny was still frowning. But she didn’t sound as furious. “Just make sure you take care of it soon. Our next practice is this afternoon.”
Then, with one last toss of her hair, she rushed out like a tornado moving on to the next trailer park. She barely spared Frank and me a glance on her way out. Kind of a bummer, considering her hotness. But probably just as well. We were supposed to be undercover, and I wasn’t sure new students and staff members normally had an audience with the headmaster. At least not at the same time.
As the door slammed behind her, Darity sighed and shook his head. “Sorry about that. As you might have gathered, that’s my daughter. She’s—er—a bit of a handful. I’ve been doing my best to raise her on my own since her mother died and, well . . .” He let his voice trail off, looking kind of uncomfortable.
“Does she go to school here?” I asked. “We thought Firth was a boys’ school.”
“It is. She was attending a coed boarding school nearby until this semester.” He still looked uncomfortable. “She had, ah, some academic trouble, and well . . . the upshot is, I received special dispensation from our board of directors to allow her to finish out her senior year here at Firth.”
Interesting. The only girl in a sea of boys. Sounded like a dream situation for Destiny. At least that was how I’d feel if things were reversed.
Darity seemed eager to change the subject. He was already giving Frank his room assignment, telling him he’d be living somewhere called Chittenden House.
Killer Mission Page 2
