“The youth of Ninjastoria—anyone still in high school and younger—should report to the school soccer field on day five. There, Sensei Chow and an entire battle squad of four hundred ninjas will establish a protected zone. As in previous wars, students twelve and up may volunteer for certain non-combat jobs.
“We will not surrender and we will not be defeated. We will stand together and we will remind the mecha-moles that Ninjastoria is a symbol of goodness and hope and righteousness.”
Then, the Ninjastoria national anthem, “Independent Ninjas” by Shinobi-Onsay, played.
Ninja Gertie turned off the television. Morris was silent, as usual. Darcy felt empty. The moles had really done it. They had beaten the Bureau of Sneakery’s female campus. Her old home.
“Marcy, you can take the next five minutes to feel sad and lost,” said Gertie. “After that, it’s time to get you a baseball bat and get back to walking on the walls.”
Darcy stood up. “I don’t need five minutes. Let’s get back to work.”
STEVE
Steve’s dad turned off the television after President Ninja’s war speech. Nora and Mom sat on the sofa. Steve was sitting on the floor, trying to make sense of what he had witnessed.
Last night, the house had been full of happiness. Minutes after Steve had walked in the door, Nora had arrived home from jail, and the whole family was reunited.
Nora had told her parents that she loved them and that she was sorry for disappointing them. She gave Steve the biggest hug she had ever given him.
After that, she had quickly changed out of her red uniform and joined them in the kitchen for dinner prep.
They’d made pasta with a spicy tomato sauce and fresh basil, and Nora had baked her almost-famous garlic bread: crispy and crusty on the outside, yet pillowy-soft in the center.
For the entire evening, everything had felt good and right. But this morning’s speech from President Ninja flattened the mood.
Gather weapons. Prepare for war. Mecha-moles attacking anywhere, any time.
“I thought war was supposed to…you know…have more order to it. Like, the sides would agree where to battle and how many soldiers to bring,” Steve said.
His mom shook her head. “It’s mostly chaos, Steve.”
Steve stood up and began to pace. What if the mecha-moles were tunneling beneath their house at this very moment? Or what if they had already dug tunnels under all of Ninjastoria and would make it collapse? How was anyone going to get anything done over the next few days?
His mom tried again. “Steve, there are thousands and thousands of ninjas here. We have weapons and techniques and training for defending our homeland. You’ve had training, too. This will be over quickly and the moles will run away.”
All of that seemed believable. It helped a little bit.
“Now, do you know where your baseball bat is?” his dad asked. “Or do you prefer your bo staff?”
“Bat,” Steve muttered. “But first…”
If war was coming, then he needed to do something scary, like Sensei Raheem had recommended.
Thirty minutes later, he stood on the door step to Ninja Gertie’s. He stared at the door. He was sweating. He tried to knock and couldn’t.
“Oh, man,” he said. “This is tough. Fine, I’ll knock on the count of four. One, two—”
The door swung open. Ninja Gertie was standing there with her arms crossed.
“State your business,” she said.
“I…um…I’m here to…” Steve started. He was regretting his decision to face one of his fears. He hadn’t considered that he would have to face Ninja Gertie, too.
Gertie shook her head. “I don’t know why I even bother. Marcy!”
Steve watched as Darcy came running. She had on a blue apron and there was a light dusting of flour on it. There was also a light dusting of flour on her freckled cheeks.
“Yes, sensei?” she asked.
Gertie gestured at Steve. “This young man is here and he won’t tell me why. When you’ve finished talking, let’s get those pies in the oven. It’s almost noon, so Morris and I have to go meet our battle squads soon.”
With that, Gertie walked away. Steve was silent for a moment, until he was sure that she was gone.
“Wow, she’s intimidating,” said Steve.
“You don’t know the half of it,” said Darcy. “What brings you here?”
Steve swallowed. “Well, I was thinking…so, if there’s going to be a war and lots of fighting and stuff…I…I was wondering if you’d want to hang out and get ice cream at Fro-Zen tomorrow night.”
There. He had said it. The words had left his mouth and he couldn’t take them back.
“Sure!” she said. “I’ll be done with dinner and training tomorrow at 7. Can I meet you there at 7:45?”
“Yeah,” said Steve.
Ninja Gertie called from far away. “Marcy! It’s time to get back to baking.”
“Gotta run,” Darcy said.
“See you later,” said Steve.
She shut the door and then it was done. Steve walked away. Then, he ran. He ran straight to Samurai Sam’s house.
Sam and his family lived in a house specifically made for the ambassador from Bushido Gardens. It was designed to look like a samurai temple, with wide, tall doors and a roof that curved upward at the corners, so that it kind of looked like it was smiling. They even had a statue in the front yard of a flying armadillo—the revered, armored animal that carried samurai into battle.
Sam and his dad, Karl, were fixing armored plates over the windows on the main level. Sam was holding one in place while his dad was using a drill to secure it to the window frame. Neither of Sam’s parents had a battle squad meeting to attend, because they weren’t citizens of Ninjastoria.
“The mecha-moles eat metal,” said Steve, barely louder than the drill. “Is this worth it?”
Sam’s dad frowned. “Mecha-moles have stomachs, Ninja Steve. Eventually, stomachs get full. These armored plates will be perfect.”
Sam asked his dad if he could take a break to talk to Steve. He was granted two minutes.
“You look happy, Steve. Suspiciously happy. Everything okay?”
Steve told Sam what had happened. Sam gave him a high-five. Then, Sam had to go back to helping his dad with the windows.
Steve texted Arjun to see if he was home.
“Sorry, Steve. At the arcade with my sister while our parents are at the battle meeting.”
That made sense. Arjun’s little sister was a pro gamer. Although she was only seven years old, she was seriously skilled in Colossal Crashers: Turbo Edition and had won the Ninjastoria tournament for two years in a row. Steve had played against her once and she had defeated him in under thirty seconds. He imagined that Arjun was probably getting beaten just as badly.
Steve passed the rest of the afternoon helping out around the house. His parents left a note asking him and Nora to put two tennis ball launchers on the roof of the house. Instead of filling the ammo chambers with regular tennis balls, though, they cut slits in the tennis balls and filled them with itching powder and sneezing powder. Getting hit with a tennis ball was annoying, sure, but getting covered in itching powder and sneezing powder made fighting practically impossible.
Nora and Steve handled dinner so that it would be ready when their parents got home. They decided on breakfast foods, so Nora pulled the ingredients to whip up a big batch of cinnamon-honey waffle batter and Steve started cracking a dozen eggs.
“How was jail for you?” Steve asked.
“Way too boring,” said Nora. “I did a lot of working out. I’m developing a new technique, too. It’s going to be something worth unveiling at the Unlimited Power Tournament in Bushido Gardens.”
“If it doesn’t get cancelled by mecha-mole war,” Steve said. It was a dark thought.
The Unlimited Power Tournament happened every five years in a different country, except for the years when a war kept them apart. Ordinarily, r
epresentatives from many different countries would show up for a non-lethal battle tournament that was meant to celebrate the variety of fighting styles that came from all over.
Steve let a moment of silence go by.
“Nora, did Three show up on the day that the moles first appeared?” Steve asked.
“Nope,” she said. “Where’d that question come from?”
Steve started scrambling the eggs. “He came to my cell, helped me fight off some moles, and then said he was going to find you.”
Nora shook her head. “I never saw him.”
After that, Steve let the matter drop. Nora took the lead in the conversation, asking all about his days in his cell.
Their parents got back at six, looking serious. Steve’s dad didn’t laugh at all during dinner, not even when Steve said, “Dad, isn’t dinner egg-celent?”
Steve tried not to take it personally.
While he was doing the dishes, he was thinking of what he should say to Darcy. First, he wanted to know what kind of training Ninja Gertie was putting her through. Then, he wanted to know what kinds of pies they had been baking.
Tomorrow night was going to be great.
“Well,” Steve thought, “as long as the mecha-moles don’t find a way to ruin everything.”
DARCY
A day later—day three of five—and still she couldn’t manage to stand on a wall or the ceiling for more than a second. Hours of falling. Hours of failing.
“This is ridiculous!” Darcy shouted as she fell once again. She was getting worse with each attempt.
“Control that temper,” Gertie commanded. “How were you ever an agent?”
Darcy looked right back at her. “I’m an exchange student from the Valley of Fallen Stars.”
“Sure, and I’m from the dinosaur assassin army. Who do you think you’re fooling, Marcy?”
She stared at her fingers. “My temper’s been getting out of hand ever since…”
At this, Gertie raised her eyebrows. “Ever since what?”
Darcy sighed and rolled up her sleeve, revealing her tiger stripes. “Ever since I got this ghost curse.”
Gertie sighed. “That’s a tattoo, meant to build up your backstory so that you don’t seem like an agent. If it was a true ghost curse, Marcy, you’d be a ghost by now. Take a break and clear your mind.”
Darcy was left alone in the training room. She sat down and slumped back against the wall. What if it took months to connect to the energy in Ninjastoria? That wasn’t an option. She needed to get there now. She needed to be able to get it done so that she could make Steph and Kelly leave her alone.
Also, it was six o’clock, which meant that there wasn’t much time until she was supposed to meet Steve for ice cream. That was bringing about its own kind of stress. A lot of the time they’d spent together was while they were dealing with big problems. Then, the moment she’d been welcomed back into Ninjastoria, Ninja Steve had been put in jail.
Something told her that, “What was jail like?” wasn’t going to lead to a good conversation with Steve. Plus, what could he ask her about? She couldn’t talk about agent stuff, since that was all top-secret.
This did not seem like it was going to go well.
Darcy wished that she could call Matilda and ask her for advice. Then she realized that she’d never see Matilda again. Or, if she did, Matilda would deny it in order to keep her cover.
“That was the past,” Darcy whispered. “The past is gone and this is your life now.”
Gertie came back at six thirty, before Darcy could settle her thoughts. If anything, she was even more stressed out after her break than before it.
“Let’s try standing on the ceiling once more. It’s only a matter of time before you can feel the energy flowing through Ninjastoria, I swear,” said Gertie. “Picture the energy in your imagination and lock onto that image.”
The only energy Darcy felt was the bubbling anger that she knew was coming from Toran’s ghost curse. Maybe that was the issue: she was so tuned-in to the ghost part of herself that she couldn’t possibly sense the magic that allowed the ninjas to stand on the ceiling or perform their techniques.
Darcy faced the wall. She planted her left foot against it. In her head, she pictured bolts of blue energy forking down from her heart and into her ankles, spreading out through her toes.
The sole of her foot felt toasty, then, like she was standing barefoot on sun-warmed sand. Not at all like the heat from her ghost fire.
Now, for the other foot. Her heartrate spiked.
Darcy felt her both of her feet humming with energy. When she lifted her right foot off of the ground, she didn’t fall. Inch by inch, she moved it toward the wall.
The wall exploded.
Darcy was shot back like a bullet, but Gertie caught her and set her on her feet.
Two brute mecha-moles walked through the destruction. These ones were each six feet tall and wore green and black armor. They had green goggles on and their metal claws were different from any she had seen before. These ones had seven fingers instead of five and they had glowing lines running from palm to fingertips.
“Prince Eldin said we’d have five days,” said Darcy. “This is day three, isn’t it?”
“Yes, well, it appears that the prince is a liar,” said Gertie, who looked the moles over from head to foot. “Since you two moles have come knocking, you’ve reminded me of a classic joke: Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there, old crone?” said one of the mecha-moles.
Darcy didn’t know all of the ninja techniques by name just yet. But if she had to put a name to what Gertie did, she would have called it, “the spell of immediate need for medical attention.”
The floor beneath that mecha-mole suddenly acted like a trampoline and it flung him into the air. Gertie became a blur, reappearing only when she was in the air right in front of that very surprised mecha-mole. She drove a palm deep into its belly, then picked it up over her head and threw it down into the ground. The mecha-mole landed on its back and the impact left a crater in the ground.
It lay there and said, “I surrender.”
The other mole looked at Gertie. He pointed a clawed finger at her.
Darcy realized that she had an opening. If she could activate her bolt-boots, then she…but, no, she didn’t have those anymore. All she had was…
She snapped her fingers and the lava-hot flash of ghost fire rippled across her palm. The giant mecha-mole stopped looking at Gertie.
Darcy bent her knees, gave a power shout like Gertie had taught her, and ran straight at her enemy. The mecha-mole blocked her fire punch, but its metal claw melted on contact, revealing a much smaller black claw beneath it.
Gertie hit the mecha-mole with a leg-sweep and it landed flat on its back. Before it could do anything, Gertie grabbed it by the ankles, swung it in a circle, and hurled it into the other mecha-mole, who was just starting to get to his feet.
They collided, rolled around, and then the two moles started digging through the floor. Wood splintered, dirt fountained up, and both of them were gone.
Gertie’s husband, Ninja Morris, appeared a moment later, holding a pie in each hand. He looked at Gertie and Darcy, then at the wrecked room. Darcy noticed how calm he was, like this sort of thing happened all the time.
“Perhaps,” Darcy thought, “it does happen all the time.”
“It’s okay, honey, the mecha-moles broke their word and attacked us early,” Gertie said. “Thankfully, Marcy was here to help me fight off the two bullies that showed up. Can you bring me the phone, dear? I need to make an important call.”
Morris nodded. He left and returned a minute later with the one cell phone that the two of them shared. Gertie took it from him.
“Hello,” she said. “Sensei Raheem, this is Ninja Gertie. The mecha-moles have just attacked my house. Oh? What’s that? Yes. I understand. I’ll do that and I’ll bring the pies.”
Darcy was staring at the hole where the mecha-mo
les had first come in. It was now a wide, ragged window to the outside world. Through it, Darcy saw smoke rising throughout Ninjastoria.
“Marcy,” said Gertie. “Before we leave, I want to say that I’ve seen a lot of things in my life. I’ve never seen a person use ghost fire. I apologize for not believing you.”
Darcy gulped. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
Gertie tsked. “Hide whatever you want about your personal life or where you’re from, Marcy. But if I can only teach you one thing, I want to teach you to be proud of everything that makes you strong.”
There was relief, mixed with shame.
“Marcy, we’re at war, and I have a very specific responsibility. I need you to get yourself a baseball bat from the garage, some shuriken, and the big backpack that I use for delivering pies to my friends.”
“Absolutely. Are you sure I can come long?”
Gertie smiled. “Oh, I’m quite sure. You definitely belong with us at our gathering. I’m sure they’ll make you a member in no time.”
“A member? Of what?” Darcy asked.
“The Sisterhood of Butt-Kicking.”
STEVE
The next day was more war prep for the adult battle squads. Steve did his best to remain calm. Nora even helped him with an hour-long meditation session.
After dinner, Steve told his parents that he was going to Sam’s. He didn’t want anyone—especially Nora—knowing that he was actually going into town for ice cream with Darcy.
He thought about what he was going to order. Fro-Zen was known for its ice cream rolls that looked like sushi rolls. The Triple Trio was vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream sculpted so that each piece looked like a cut of tuna roll. Of course, there was also the Mango Tango, which used vanilla and mango ice cream to look like pieces of tamago sushi.
Agent Darcy and Ninja Steve in...Mecha-Mole Mayhem! Page 3
