Spy-in-Training

by Jonathan Bernstein

  “Go, Bridget,” says Casey. “Do you, girl.”

  She goes to give me a high five. I’m not going to deny it, I love the fact that everyone can see this. People who don’t know me. People who generally ignore me. People who push past me. People who can’t remember my name. People named Dale Tookey. They all see me slap hands with Casey and then Nola and Kelly. But, as aware as I am that the rest of the school is watching me interact with these slim, pretty girls and struggling to make sense of the scenario, I really only care that Dale Tookey has seen me and that he is now thinking about me.

  “Do you like that guy?” screeches Kelly. How did she know that? I barely registered his presence. I was being subtle like a spy. I make a mental note not to underestimate Kelly Beach.

  Three pairs of eyes swivel in Dale Tookey’s direction. I die a little.

  “I think he’s . . . ,” Kelly starts. Casey steamrolls right over her. “He’s the road less traveled. Not my kind of cute, but maybe Bridget likes a little dirt in her sandwich. Good for you.”

  My glasses register Kelly’s teeth grinding away and her blood pressure rising. Casey is unwittingly sowing the seeds of discontent. I don’t know exactly what to do with that information—other than leak it to the Conquest Report, which I don’t see happening—but I will bear it in mind.

  “What’s wrong with this picture?” cackles Brendan Chew as I walk into A117 with my three new companions. “How did that midget get in with Kelly? Did you think she was a piece of gum stuck to your shoe?” Hilarity ensues. Joanna chuckles loudly, making sure I can hear how delightful she finds Chew’s every utterance. Even my new best friends put their hands up to their faces, a sure sign that Chew is killing them. Sitting on his desk, a smug look on his face, he continues. “Or maybe you’re doing charity work, is that it? Adopt-a-Midget?”

  Chew hits A117’s collective funny bone with this one. He sticks with the winning formula. “How do I sign up for this Adopt-a-Midg—”

  He doesn’t get to finish the routine because Dale Tookey walks up to Chew’s desk and shoves him.

  Dale shoves Chew hard enough to send him flying backward off his desk and onto the ground, where he flops around, shocked and embarrassed. There is stunned silence for a moment. From Chew. From the rest of A117. From me.

  “Dale Tookey. Principal’s office. Now.”

  No one saw the teacher enter the room. His face is grim. Dale nods, picks up his backpack and walks out of the classroom. I watch him go. I say nothing. I stand there. My face burning. My mind filled with a two-part question: Did he do that because he can’t stand Brendan Chew or did he do that because he likes me?

  “Didn’t hurt,” says Chew, clambering to his feet. “I’m indestructible. Like a cockroach.”

  No one laughs.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Assignment

  If there was ever a day I wanted to be eating lunch by myself at the fro-yo emporium, today would be that day. But the universe is not working that way. Today, the universe is giving me the thing I might have wanted a few months ago. It’s giving me an invitation to sit and eat lunch at Casey, Kelly, and Nola’s table in the cafeteria. Today, C, K & N think I’m the most interesting person they’ve ever met.

  “You’re the most interesting person we’ve ever met,” says Casey. “We want to know everything.”

  “Do you have a dog?” asks Kelly.

  Casey and Nola openly laugh at that. “Who cares if she’s got a dog?” says Nola.

  “Do you, though?” Kelly persists. “I’ve got a schnauzer called Stamp. He won’t go anywhere near my stepdad. It’s funny how dogs just know . . .”

  “Ignore her,” says Casey. “Let’s go back to you.”

  “Yesterday you didn’t exist. Today you have two dudes fighting over you. How does that even happen?” asks Nola. She looks genuinely perplexed.

  “Walk us through the whole timeline of this scandalous saga,” says Casey.

  “Leave nothing out,” commands Nola.

  I would love to do that—the Dale Tookey part anyway—but not with C, K & N. I would prefer to be at my little red corner table at the fro-yo place immersing myself in memories of every look and gesture I ever shared with Dale Tookey, really examining our whole history for clues leading to his unexpected assault on Brendan Chew. But instead I’m stuck at the most desirable spot in Reindeer Crescent Middle School: the C, K & N table. My phone rings. I have never been so happy to see Spool’s pink face.

  C, K & N register my pleasure.

  Their eyebrows raise in unison.

  “Who that?” Casey wants to know.

  “That your boo?” giggles Nola.

  “My poo, more like,” I say. Which is kind of a Brendan Chew–like comeback but, at this stage, it just adds to the whole Mystery Of Bridget thing I seem to have going for me.

  I jump up from my chair and point to the phone and then the cafeteria exit, the universally accepted signal for I have to take this important call but I will talk to you later.

  As I leave, I feel C, K & N’s eyes boring into my back. No one leaves our table, I can almost hear them thinking. How important can this call be? Who is Bridget Wilder, anyway? Someone called her. Is calling a thing again?

  “Great job,” says Spool. “You went from being under the radar to being the whole radar.”

  “Wait, what?” I whisper. I’m lurking under the aluminum bleachers at the football field. This is not a conversation I want anyone to overhear.

  “A spy stays in the shadows. He doesn’t become the subject of intense public scrutiny.”

  “One, I’m not a he. Two, it’s not my fault. I can’t help it if people are drawn to me and find me fascinating and fight over me.” Even as I’m saying this, I realize how ridiculous it sounds.

  Spool doesn’t grab the chance to mock me. He nibbles on his lower lip and then says, “Your new status may not be a total disaster for the agency. In fact, it may grant us access into areas we’d previously found problematic.”

  “Great,” I say. “What does that mean?”

  “Remember how Agent Strike defined your position within Section 23? He said your mission would be to identify, profile, and surveil individuals with the potential to become future security problems?”

  “Cruise.” I nod. “Minority Report.” (Still haven’t seen it. No dancing.)

  “We have a candidate,” says Spool.

  His face disappears from my phone. A new face appears. Tanned skin, dark glasses, thinning dark hair.

  “Nick Deck,” says the voice of Spool over the picture. “One-time software millionaire. Now being left in the dust by newer, younger, smarter rivals.”

  “Boo hoo,” I say. A little heartless, but it felt like something a real agent would say.

  “We suspect Nick Deck might be selling government secrets to keep his company from going under,” says Spool.

  “Okay. I’ll be sure to boycott his software,” I say.

  “Or you could get us the files on his computer,” says Spool.

  “How would I do that?”

  No sooner have I spoken those fateful words than the picture on my phone changes. It now shows Nick Deck with a young woman.

  “His stepdaughter,” says Spool. “Kelly Beach.”

  I suddenly remember Joanna’s vicious dig from the Conquest Report. Keep bragging about your stepdaddy’s software empire, Kel. Don’t stop just because he’s seconds away from bankruptcy.

  The stepfather-stepdaughter image vanishes. Spool returns to the screen.

  “Too big? Too complicated? Too scary?”

  “What, your face?” My best comeback ever.

  “The assignment,” says Spool. “You’re in his stepdaughter’s social circle.”

  “Temporarily. Till they get bored with me. And anyway, I’ve known her for a minute, and she likes me the least of any of them.”

  But, even as I’m trying to talk my way out of this assignment, I find myself thinking about how I could worm my way into
Kelly’s good graces and, subsequently, her stepfather’s secret files.

  “You’ve got rock-solid intel that he’s in cahoots with the enemy?” I ask. Intel. Cahoots. Listen to me.

  “I had rock-solid intel that you were part of Kelly Beach’s social circle even though you’d only known her for, like, a minute,” Spool fires back.

  He tries to give me his version of a sympathetic look. It’s worrying.

  “Look, Spool. I know you keep tabs on me. You know what I’ve been doing. You know I found out my brother isn’t the devil I thought he was. My sister isn’t the angel I thought she was. You know I’m up to the challenge.”

  Spool smiles. “You’re your father’s daughter.”

  “That’s usually how it works.”

  “We need to run through every permutation of this assignment. We need an exit strategy. We need to time the mission from inception to completion . . .”

  “Yeah, we’ll do that, but right now I gotta go . . .”

  Spool looks incredulous. “You have something more important to do?”

  “I have to come up with an idea of how to bump into Dale Tookey when he gets out of detention without it looking like I was waiting for him. Unless you want to help me run through the permutations of that, I’m out.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Bridget’s Stupid Plan

  The guy who sets things on fire is there. The boy who swears he’s being assaulted by an invisible bully who keeps knocking him over is there. The girl who used to eat her hair and has now moved on to other people’s hair is there. And Dale Tookey is there. Stranded in detention with this stomach-churning cast of characters. I do not know if I am directly responsible for putting him there. Maybe Brendan Chew singling me out for mocking attention was the straw that broke the camel’s back, whatever that means.

  But he’s in there.

  I walk slowly past the detention classroom door, just like I have the past four or five times, acting unconcerned and disinterested, pretending not to peek inside. But I do look, and what I see makes me sad. The way Dale is sitting, the way he stares down at his desk, the way he holds on to the sides. He has that If I don’t acknowledge I’m in here I’m not actually in here mind-set. I know that mind-set. I’ve been in that mind-set many, many times. With Joanna. With family members when they’re gushing about what a miracle Natalie is. With the same family members when they realize I’m also in the room and they then fall over themselves trying to find a way to make me feel like I’m more than just a consolation prize. That mind-set takes a lot of effort and it does not feel great. So I’m going to bust Dale Tookey out of detention.

  I don’t really have a plan. What I do have is a stupid idea. Each time I pass the classroom door, I see Nate Spar, winner of the detention room short straw, with a pile of test papers stacked up on his desk. That stack is there to create the illusion that he is a busy and dedicated teacher. But each time I pass, the stack stays the same size and Nate Spar is directing all his attention to the game on his phone. My plan—and, let’s not forget, I was the first to label it stupid—is to fire my laser lip balm through the detention classroom keyhole and vaporize the leg of Nate Spar’s desk. It will cause an uproar. Spar will go running for the custodian. Detention will be canceled and I’ll just happen to be leaving school at the same time as Dale Tookey. I’m aware my stupid plan has potential pitfalls but if I stop and think about them, I’ll talk myself out of it. So I take out my lip balm and give the bottom of the tube a twist. I steady my hand. I close one eye and take aim at the keyhole, making sure to get Spar’s desk leg in my sights. I twist the bottom of the tube and . . . one twist was the Taser, two twists was the laser . . . wait, how many times did I just twist it?

  Smoke belches out. Thick, dirty clouds of smoke. I feel it in my eyes and the back of my throat. I go to rub my eyes and drop the lip balm. I think I feel it underfoot but I’m too busy rubbing at my streaming eyes to grope for it. So much for my stupid plan.

  The smoke fills the hallway. Within seconds, alarm bells begin to ring. The detention classroom door opens. Nate Spar comes running out, waving his stack of test papers to clear the smoke. The rest of the detentionees hurry after him. I feel a hand touch my elbow.

  “Don’t just stand there like a pile of old clothes,” says Dale Tookey as he guides me away from the smoke.

  “So what were you doing?” he asks when we’re out in the school yard, waiting for the fire bells to stop clanging.

  “When, exactly?”

  “In there.” He nods at the school. “When I was in detention and I saw you walking back and forth and peering inside.”

  “I think you’re mistaken,” I say. I was subtle like a spy!

  “Whatever.” He shrugs. “What’s the deal with the smoke?”

  I say nothing. But I’m starting to think about the potential repercussions of my stupid plan. What if someone finds my lip balm? What if they dust it for prints? What if they take it to the guys in forensics and the finger points straight in my direction? What’s the procedure here? Does Section 23 step in to protect its best and brightest or do they abandon us once our cover’s blown and we’re nothing but liabilities? What would Carter Strike do?

  “So now we’re even,” Dale suddenly says.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I didn’t ask you to do that thing you did for me, but you seemed to think I wanted you to do it. And I did something for you. So we’re even.”

  On the one hand. Yessss, he did it for me! On the other hand . . . even? Really?

  “Even? Really? That’s what you think? There’s no difference in your mind between the way I swooped in and saved the day and the way you shoved an idiot off a desk? I mean, I showed incredible courage facing a gang of intimidating thugs using only my amazing acrobatic skill and you . . .”

  I mime shoving Brendan Chew off his desk. Even pushing my palms against the air brings a smile to my face.

  “So we’re not even?” frowns Dale. “I have to do something even more courageous and acrobatic and save you from an even more intimidating group of thugs?”

  “We’re even,” I say. “’Cause, obviously, that’s never going to happen.”

  And with that, I walk away.

  I wish Spool had supplied me with some gadget that lets me know if people are staring after me because of the unforgettable impression I make on them. But until such a thing exists, I’m going to tell myself Dale Tookey is doing just that.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Tiny Dancer

  “What do you mean, you lost the lip balm?” “It didn’t work, who cares?”

  “It’s in beta.”

  “Can’t you make another one?”

  “You need to retrieve the original. What if it falls into the wrong hands?”

  “Relax, I bet it’s been dumped in the trash and recycled by now.”

  “But what if . . . ?”

  There’s a knock on my door. I make Spool’s pink face vanish.

  “Come in,” I say.

  The door opens and my father enters, accompanied by his serious face.

  “We need to talk, Bridget,” he says.

  First thought: What did I do wrong? Second thought: What does he know?

  Dad looks at the lights around my door and windows.

  “Have these been on since last Christmas? Or are they early for next Christmas?”

  He knows nothing.

  “What’s up, señor?”

  Dad sighs and sits down on the end of my bed. “I feel bad, Bridget.”

  “I feel bad you feel bad,” I offer.

  “About your birthday. I feel bad about your birthday. Missing it. Forgetting about it.”

  “It’s fine,” I say.

  “It’s not. We threw something together at the last minute. Mom couldn’t make it. I slept through the movie. Joanna was excavating for bits of popcorn in her teeth and we had to spring Ryan from the pen. It was a poor excuse for a birthday. I don’t want that to be what you have
to look back on.”

  He gives me a long sad look, then adds, “I had lunch with Harmon today.”

  “The guy with the back?”

  Dad nods. I can see he’s surprised. That’s right, buddy, Christmas lights and a flawless memory.

  “He sees his kids every other weekend. They do the exact same thing every time. Chuck E. Cheese and then a movie. I don’t want us to be like that.”

  I feel my stomach clench. “Are you and Mom . . . is everything okay?”

  “Oh, no. No, no, no. Everything’s good. We’re fine.”

  No green scroll in my glasses. I sigh with relief.

  “I just don’t want us to ever get to a place where we’ve got nothing in common and have nothing to say to each other. Bridget, I don’t want you to ever think I’m taking you for granted.”

  “I don’t think that.” I totally think that. Or I did. B.C.S. (Before Carter Strike.) Now I want to be invisible and unknowable. The unseen observer who lurks in the shadows and knows everyone’s darkest secrets.

  “I’d like a do-over,” Dad says. “I want another shot at giving you a be-all end-all birthday.”

  He’s full of surprises today. Dad reaches into the back pocket of the gray sweatpants that seem to materialize around him as he enters the house. He pulls out a white envelope and passes it to me. I tear open the envelope and pull out two tickets to the next original performance by the American Contemporary Ballet company.

  “It’s Saturday night at eight,” he says. “I hope you’re free.”

  When I was young, like five or six, I went through a little bit of a ballet phase. It could have been that even then I had a yearning to express myself and broaden my horizons. It could also be that I was hungry for the discipline and the etiquette of the art form. It could even be that I got inexplicably insanely, irrationally obsessed with Barbie in The Nutcracker—don’t laugh!—to the point I’d throw a shrieking tantrum if anyone even dared breathe when it was on. Whatever the reason, I was possessed by the notion that I belonged in a tutu and ballet shoes. That I would be weightless and airborne and graceful. To give Mom and Dad their due, they signed little Bridget up for a series of Saturday morning lessons and, as a special treat, they bought tickets to a performance by the American Contemporary Ballet company. I was beyond excited. Nothing could convince me I wasn’t about to blossom into a young ballet phenomenon.