Spy-in-Training

by Jonathan Bernstein

  Natalie glances at me, waiting for signs that I know what she’s talking about. I do not.

  “Alec McGrory,” she singsongs. “Big square head. Used to bring snakes to school. He was all anybody could talk about. Until Ryan started pulling bigger, stupider stunts, and then all anyone could talk about was Ryan and what he was going to do next, and McGrory and his snakes were yesterday’s news. But Ryan has always been worried that someone new would come along and out-stunt him like he out-stunted McGrory.”

  “He has?” I have never heard this before.

  “God, Bridget, it’s like no one else exists. Yes. Of course he has. So I invented that someone.”

  “You did? How?”

  Natalie takes out her phone, starts scrolling. “Social media just passed you by, didn’t it, Grandma? I set up a bunch of accounts for Johnny Bluff and kids from his old school. Made him seem like the wildest, most terrifying out-of-control stunt-pulling maniac in the world. And then made it seem like he was relocating here.” She passes me the phone. It shows Johnny Bluff’s Twitter account. There’s a picture of a bomb site followed by a tweet reading, That’s what’s left of my old school. Get ready, Reindeer Crescent!

  She snatches the phone back, pages through some screens, and returns it to me. I look at Johnny Bluff’s Instagram account. It shows a scrap of paper with To-Do List scrawled at the top.

  Underneath is the sentence, Establish dominance over Ryan Wilder and Doom Patrol.

  “So it wasn’t too much of a stretch to figure Ryan and Doom Patrol would join forces to take on Johnny Bluff.”

  I look around Natalie’s room, with its stuffed toys, trophies, ballet flats, and knit hats. Who, I wonder, recited the spell to invoke the demon who is currently possessing my sugar-sweet little sister?

  In a bored voice, Natalie continues her tale of lies and manipulation. “Once that happened, I put another To-Do entry on Johnny Bluff’s Instagram.”

  “‘Make my mark on Reindeer Crescent Middle School’?” I venture.

  “Something like that,” says Natalie. “Something smarter than that.”

  “Something that would convince Ryan and those yam sacks from Doom Patrol to beat him to it?”

  She rolls over on her side to face me. “So now you know everything.”

  I don’t know you, I think. I don’t know you at all. I don’t know my sister. I don’t know my brother. But then, they don’t know me, either. They don’t know I’m really the daughter of an internationally notorious spy.

  Natalie rolls onto her stomach, sinks her chin into her hands, and gives me a hard stare. “So, are you going to hold it over my head forever?”

  I might. But I wouldn’t be a good spy if I told her. And she’s already a better spy than me, so I better play my cards close to my chest. I get up and head for the door.

  “Hey,” she says. “How do you know about any of this?”

  “C’mon,” I say, “let’s go paint the school white.”

  Which is what we do. Me in my slobbiest paint-spattered pants and most raggedy T-shirt, Natalie in her oldest, shabbiest clothes that somehow look cleaner and smell fresher than they did when she first wore them. My social studies teacher, Miss Hartsock, is already outside Reindeer Crescent Middle School, paintbrush in hand.

  “Do-gooder,” hisses Natalie, annoyed at having any of her thunder stolen.

  “Be nice,” I caution her.

  I begin slapping white paint over big red grinning skulls. Moments later, Ford Focuses and Honda Odysseys start pulling up. Concerned parents and their small squealing offspring make their way toward the defaced walls. Natalie rounds up the kids, handing them paintbrushes and pointing to Doom Patrol graffiti that needs to be expunged.

  “Mackenzie, clean that up!” she barks. “Meadow, those steps aren’t going to clean themselves. McCakelyn, grab a brush, girl!” (I think she said McCakelyn. There was a lot of screaming.)

  Finally, the faculty shows up. None of them look like they want to be anywhere near the school any earlier than they have to. Nate Spar hangs back and acts like he’s supervising the cleanup until Natalie busts him with a shrill, “Come on, Mr. Spar. There’s plenty for you to do.”

  And then one of Natalie’s little minions—McCakelyn, maybe?—screams. All heads turn toward the frightened girl. She extends a trembling finger and I see the source of her terror.

  Doom Patrol.

  All of them. Ryan included. Hoods up, hands shoved deep in pockets, slouching toward the scene of the crime.

  Tension crackles around me. It crackles in me, also. I’m out of uniform. I didn’t want to get paint on my tracksuit or my spy sneakers. I can’t do what I did last night. Luckily, they don’t know that.

  They keep slouching closer and closer to the school. They walk up the steps. They pick up brushes! They start painting over their graffiti! (Except for the DEER SCENT sign. No one’s in any hurry to change that.) Doom Patrol’s incredible redemption was probably due to Ryan. My spy senses have a feeling he told them cleaning up the school rather than defacing it shows Johnny Bluff they’re not intimidated by him and his scary reputation. It was almost like the Wilder siblings worked together to achieve a goal. I feel close to them despite all the lies and threats. I have a sudden thought. It’s more of a mind blurt. What if I told them? What if I shared my secret, my huge unshareable secret, with Natalie and Ryan? I’m seriously considering my mind blurt and all its implications when I get a text.

  Black Mini Cooper. I’ll flash the headlights twice. I look around. There’s the car. The lights flash twice. Everyone’s painting. No one sees me slip away. I open the car door. I’m immediately blinded by the dazzling whiteness of Xan’s teeth and the incredible . . . well, everything about her is incredible.

  “Hello, darling,” she says.

  The power of . . . that thing where you form words and they string together in a sentence that can be understood . . . whatever you call it, it has deserted me.

  “I wanted to be the one to congratulate you in person both for yesterday’s amazing success with the machine and the vice principal, and the way you took charge of . . . whatever happened here. I was against you even having to take part in a pre-mission. I hate these labels. But you performed. You exceeded even my expectations and they were already high.”

  That voice. How do you get a voice like that? It’s like a warm bath except it’s coming out of her mouth.

  “We’re very impressed, Bridget.” She touches my hand to emphasize her point. It feels like the softest glove in the world. With the sharpest, reddest nails I’ve ever seen.

  “And I know your father is very, very proud of you.”

  Suddenly I find the power to form words. A lot of them. “Have you talked to him? What’s he like? When can I meet him? Can I meet him now?”

  Xan laughs her tinkling little laugh. “Soon” is all she says.

  The car door opens. “We’ll be in touch.” She smiles. My cue to go.

  Impulsively, she leans across and gives me a quick hug. Her perfume swims over me. I find myself back on the sidewalk. There was something I was thinking about doing before Xan showed up but now I can’t remember what it was.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  In

  The next morning, there’s a cake with my face on it sitting at the foot of my bed. At least I think it’s meant to be my face. The hastily assembled arrangement of raisins and sprinkles dumped on top of what looks like a dented chocolate hatbox barely resembles human features. But the words Happy (Late) B-Day, Sis are written right there in a creamy scrawl. Ryan wants to get on my good side.

  Over breakfast, he keeps shooting me cryptic little glances and nods. As if to say, We good? We okay? We’re on the same page, right? What you saw, what you know, it stays our little secret, right? I give him nothing. I keep my face blank and expressionless like the Sphinx. Let him sweat.

  Natalie skips, literally skips, into the kitchen. “Good morning, good morning,” she chirrups. “Look at my lovely f
amily all together, starting the day. We’re so lucky, so blessed.” She’s overdoing it, even by her standards. But I can tell this show is for me. I can see my dad getting ready to grumble about the nagging pain in his lower back. My mom silences him with a Don’t break the mood glare.

  “We are lucky,” Dad agrees meekly.

  “And there’s my smart, cute, funny big sister.” Natalie follows the compliment with an affectionate hug. “Now we’re even,” she whispers, the honey draining from her voice.

  I hold the hug. “Not quite,” I whisper back. “Kill Johnny Bluff. Drop him off a cliff. Have him bitten by a howler monkey, I don’t care.”

  Natalie gives me a quick appraising look. Her nod indicates she’s decided to take me seriously.

  “Hey, bozo,” I call over to Ryan. He looks ready to pee his pants. “Walk with me,” I say.

  We step out of the doorway together. I can almost taste his nerves. They don’t taste good.

  I take his arm and look directly into his eyes. “People already like you. You’re funny when you want to be and you can be cool sometimes. You don’t have to try to be anything else.”

  I let him go and we walk in silence for a moment.

  “That’s it,” I say.

  He almost sags with relief. He reaches out a hand to muss up my hair. I go to grab it and he squeezes my nose instead.

  “Honk honk,” he says.

  “That wasn’t one of the times when you were funny,” I yell after him as he runs back into the house.

  I have many thoughts jockeying for position as I walk to school. Obviously, I’m still going to exploit what I know about Ryan, but how and when to do it to my greatest benefit? And what did Natalie mean when she said I’m always in my Bridget world? I wonder about Xan and Carter Strike . . . I wonder how well they know each other. I wonder if they ever . . . I suddenly get lost in the fantasy that these objects of beauty might be my parents. I let out an involuntary “Yeek!” when Joanna appears alongside me and launches into conversation, as she does every morning.

  “I didn’t sell you out,” she says.

  “What?”

  “Last night. When you said you were studying with me. Your mom called Big Log.” This is Joanna’s charming nickname for the grandmother she lives with. “I said you were with me. No way B.L. was hauling that ancient wreck of a body upstairs to check.”

  “Thanks,” I say, anticipating what’s coming next.

  “So where were you? What was hot enough to make you betray Jeff and Nancy’s trust? What were you doing? Who were you with? Do I know them? I know everyone you know. So.”

  “I was . . .” My mind, previously racing, is now frozen. Stiff. Completely stalled. Nothing there. I went to sleep last night secure in the knowledge that I was an awesome spy: sharp, intuitive, adaptable, unreadable. And now: there’s a voice in my head going um um um um.

  “Whew, it’s hot” is the best I can manage. “It’s in the eighties already. Aren’t you sweltering in that smock?”

  It’s a pretty good deflection, but not good enough for Joanna, who trains her tiny eyes on me.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Is that a tough question? I lied for you. You should be able to tell me why. Where were you?”

  Um um um um.

  I could just run. I’ve got the superpowered sneakers. I could just leave her choking in my dust.

  “Bridget, I asked you a question.”

  I recognize this is a moment where I can make it up to Joanna for uncovering her secret best friend list. Should I just tell her, Hi, I’m a spy? Or should I stammer my way through a fabricated response about visiting a fictional relative? Luckily, I don’t have to make the choice right now because a white SUV slows to a crawl alongside us. Casey Breakbush’s mom—my old running buddy!—is at the wheel. Behind her sit her slim, pretty daughter and her slim, pretty daughter’s slim, pretty friends.

  “Look at them, they’re peeing their pants,” hisses Joanna. “They know they’re going in the Report.”

  The SUV windows roll down. Casey leans out. She’s drinking an iced coffee. After a second she removes the straw from her mouth.

  “Hey,” she trills. “Wanna ride?”

  I glance at Joanna. Neither of us were expecting that.

  “I knew this would happen,” smirks Joanna. “They’re trying to buy my friendship. Not for sale!”

  “C’mon,” says Casey. “It’s sticky hot out there. We’ve got the air condish blasting, and we’re taping our podcast, What Do You Bring to the Table?”

  “Maybe the girls want to walk to school by themselves,” says Mrs. Breakbush.

  “Volume down, Mom,” grimaces Casey.

  Casey opens the door and I consider what’s on offer here. A white SUV. Slim, pretty girls. Air condish. My sneakers have a mind of their own. They start to walk toward the car. Why am I blaming my sneakers? I—Bridget Wilder, the Young Gazelle—walk toward the car. I squeeze into the back. Joanna lifts one foot to follow.

  “We sort of don’t have room. Sorry,” says Casey, before closing the door in Joanna’s face.

  If I was a real friend, I’d march back out and show my solidarity. Instead, I slump down in the seat so I don’t have to see Joanna dwindle away in the background as the SUV picks up speed.

  I tell myself I’m actually doing Joanna a big favor here because this is a perfect opportunity for me to act as her advocate. I can totally help her standing in this school by telling these slim, pretty girls how awesome she is and getting them all to follow her Tumblr.

  (But I know I won’t. And she’ll be grudge-carryingly mad for a few days, which means I’ll be walking to and from school alone. Or not, now that this unexpected new situation has arisen.)

  “My little sister loves you,” says Casey.

  “Mine, too,” says Casey’s friend Nola Milligan.

  “Is her name McCakelyn?” I ask. The question goes unanswered.

  “Mine posted that Instagram of you cleaning the graffiti off the front of the school yesterday,” says Casey’s other friend, Kelly Beach. “The one that said hashtag natalieandherbigsisterrock.”

  “You’re a smash with the little-sister network,” says Casey. “And I was like, How do we not know this girl?” She gestures excitedly to Nola and Kelly. “Did I not say that?”

  They nod excitedly. “She said it,” they assure me.

  I would be justified in replying, “You do not know me because I am not in your insular little circle of slim and pretty people with perfect lives. Therefore I am invisible.” That’s what Joanna would do. But why make them feel bad for trying to be nice? And, more to the point, why throw Natalie’s little-sisterly gift back in her face? Because, make no mistake, she is responsible for this. Natalie caused Bridget Wilder to trend among the little sisters of the slim and pretty, which is why I’m riding in the white SUV, where hair is shiny, teeth gleam, and everyone has her own iced coffee. It’s a foreign land and I am an eager tourist. (But not much of an advocate for the Conquest Report.)

  So I smile back at my fellow passengers and don’t even flinch when Nola Milligan sticks her phone inches from my face and presses a recording app.

  “Bridget Wilder,” she says, “what do you bring to the table?”

  “She brings those ridiculoso spectacules,” says Kelly Beach, reaching out to remove my glasses from my face.

  “Hey!” I squawk, and bat her hand away.

  A moment’s chill descends on the already chilly interior of Mrs. Breakbush’s white SUV. I feel a twinge of terror. What rule did I just break? I was only In for half a second and now I’m going to be Out again.

  “Well done, Bridget,” says Casey. “Kelly, respect boundaries. We’ve talked about this.”

  “I’m thorry,” says Kelly in a little baby voice. She gives herself a tiny slap on the wrist.

  Kelly waits for Casey to register her approval. As she waits, I study Kelly’s pretty, porcelain face. My ridiculoso spectacules start scrolling. Increased blood pressure. Teeth g
rinding. She’s making an effort not to show it, but inside Kelly’s angry. Which makes me think, maybe this insular group of slim, pretty girls isn’t quite as perfect as it seemed from the outside. Which is interesting.

  “So,” says Nola. “What else does Bridget Wilder bring to the table?”

  “I heard she broke Big Green,” says Casey.

  I pretend to lock my lips and throw away the key.

  “Love you so much right now!” my three new friends trill in unison.

  “What else?” demands Nola. “Something no one else knows.”

  I’m aware I’m a new toy to be played with and probably discarded when my novelty wears off. But I feel like I’ll learn a lot from observing Casey, Kelly, and Nola. So I do the thing I swore I would never do if I ever appeared on a TV talent show. I play the sympathy card.

  “I’m adopted,” I tell Nola’s app.

  “Awww,” chorus the three girls.

  “It’s fine,” I assure them.

  “Pardon me if I’m being intrusive,” says Mrs. Breakbush, “but have you made any attempts to contact your birth parents, because . . .”

  Casey points her phone at her mother. She makes a kind of dvvvvv noise.

  “The imaginary partition just went up,” says Casey. “We can’t hear you.” She pretends to shudder. “I wish I was adopted.”

  Mrs. Breakbush stares straight ahead.

  As we walk into school, my trio of new semifriends continue to pepper me with questions. Have I considered Lasik? What’s the significance of the black-and-gold color scheme of my tracksuit? Would I be open to letting Casey, Kelly, and Nola take me shopping and completely reboot my appearance?

  “No,” I respond. And not just because taking away my glasses, my black-and-gold tracksuit, and my superfast sneakers would render me powerless and ordinary. If I allow my slim, pretty companions to style me and I become their little clone, what value am I to them? But if they’re seen hanging out with someone as radically different as me, it defies expectations. It makes people rethink their narrow definition of Casey, Kelly, and Nola. I can see by their faces, they get it. Well, Casey does, Nola does because Casey does, and Kelly’s a little bit confused.