The Winning Element

by Shannon Greenland

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  [1]

  [2]

  [3]

  [4]

  [5]

  [6]

  [7]

  [8]

  [9]

  [10]

  [11]

  [12]

  [13]

  [14]

  [15]

  On The Trail . . .

  Twenty minutes later, I made it to the other side of the island. I stopped and checked my cell phone. The blue dot was beginning to fade, indicating the thirty-minute tracker was dissolving, but from what I could tell, Eduardo was to my right.

  I rode into a deserted parking lot of the state park. Behind me stretched a half mile of beach highway leading back into town. In front of me spanned the dark ocean lit only by the half moon. To the left stood a small concrete visitor’s station.

  With the DNA glasses still on, I scanned the area. A red trail led from the parking lot, where the car must have dropped him and drove off, and onto the beach.

  Leaving the bike, I followed the red trail across the beach and down the length of a long pier. The red trail stopped at the end of the pier, where a boat had probably picked him up.

  There was no telling how far out he’d gone.

  I unsnapped my pocket and pulled out the cell phone. I activated the audio recording/eavesdropping software Chapling had coded in.

  Here went nothing.

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  Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2008

  Copyright © Shannon Greenland, 2008

  All rights reserved

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Greenland, Shannon.

  The specialists : the winning element / by Shannon Greenland.

  p. cm.

  Summary: GiGi, the teenaged computer genius, gets to lead her first mission, trying to catch a

  notorious chemical smuggler who years ago was responsible for the deaths of her mother and

  father.

  [1. Spies—Fiction. 2. Orphans—Fiction. 3. Genius—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Winning

  element.

  PZ7.G8458

  [Fic]—dc22 2007020206

  eISBN : 978-1-436-23011-7

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Acknowledgments

  A shout out goes to Sandra Giles and the West Nassau Warriors! Thanks for letting me hang with you for the day and learn what exactly a scorpion is. Ouch!

  [prologue]

  SISISSY. SISISSY. di-did yooouuu hear wh-what I aaassskkked yo-you?

  Sissy pried open her heavy eyelids and focused on the fuzzy image of Ms. Gabrier. The teacher’s lips were moving, but Sissy couldn’t make out her words.

  Ms. Gabrier stopped talking and stood still.

  From across the classroom Sissy squinted, bringing her teacher into focus. She was looking right at Sissy.

  Ms. Gabrier’s lips started moving again. Her words filtered into Sissy’s ears, slowly swirling through her head, echoing off her skull in distorted vowels and syllables.

  Sissy dragged her dry tongue around her mouth, trying to moisten it, and smacked her lips. She needed a soda.

  Faintly, she heard some giggles, and in her blurry peripheral she saw other students laughing at her.

  So what? She could care less. Let them and their perfect little selves laugh.

  “Sisissy?”

  Dragging her head from the top of her desk, Sissy slouched, sliding her butt down in her chair. She propped her boots on the desk in front of her and let her eyelids fall back down. Sleep. Beautiful, much needed sleep.

  “Sisissy?”

  “What,” she grumbled. Couldn’t they see she wanted to sleep?

  “Priscilla,” Ms. Gabrier snapped.

  Sissy’s eyes shot open. “What?” she snapped back. Nobody called her Priscilla.

  Her teacher’s eyes narrowed. “Do you realize you’re failing this class?”

  Sissy shrugged. Of course she realized she was failing. She never turned in any homework or studied for tests. Her mom didn’t care. No one cared. Sissy’s life wasn’t going anywhere, anyway. And why did teachers always ask stupid questions that they knew you knew the answer to?

  “All right.” Ms. Gabrier jabbed the off button on the overhead projector. “You know what?” She pointed her pen at Sissy. “I’ve had enough of you. I don’t care if you do have the highest test scores in the school. I don’t want you in here. If you don’t care, I don’t care. Look around you. Look!” her teacher shouted.

  Sissy jumped, took her feet off of the desk, and sat up straight. She’d never heard her teacher raise her voice.

  Ms. Gabrier’s jaw tightened. “I said look.”

  Suddenly very awake, Sissy dragged her gaze over the thirty or so other students in Advanced Chemistry. Mostly preps and nerds. Everyone was college bound. Some with scholarships, others with Daddy’s and Mommy’s money. All of them were staring back at her with mixed expressions. Haughty, disgusted, amused, pitying, scared.

  Scared of what? Scared of her?

  Ms. Gabrier tapped her nail to the podium. “Do you see any of them sleeping through this class?”

  Sissy swallowed.

  “Do you?”

  She barely shook her head.

  “That’s right. Because they know what an honor, what a privilege, it is to be in here.” Ms. Gabrier placed her pen on the podium. “There are exactly seventy-one students on the waiting list to be in this junior class. Do you know how many students are on the waiting list to be in this high school?”

  Sissy shook her head.

  “One thousand eight hundred and twenty-three.”

  Silence.

  She’d had no idea that many kids were on the waiting list.

  “You were placed in the Jacksonville Academic Magnet School because of your brilliance. This school made the top ten list in the nation. Do you know how incredible that is for a public school?” Ms. Gabrier closed the teacher’s edition lying on her podium. “What a waste. I’m tired of trying. This is what it’s like day in and day out with you . . . when you’re here.”

  Ms. Gabrier pressed her fingertips to her temple. “I’m done. You’re out of here.” She closed her eyes. “Go fry your brain on drugs in someone else’s classroom.”

  The blond girl beside Sissy snickered.

  She turned and snarled back at her. Why did eve
ryone assume Sissy did drugs? She was just tired. Exhausted. Working the night shift at the Laundromat to make enough money so she wouldn’t have to rely on her mom would do that to you.

  Her teacher punched the projector back on. “Jami, please escort Sissy to the office. And Sissy, take all your stuff. You’re not coming back.”

  Thirty minutes later, SISSY climbed in her friend Courtney’s open window. She snatched a piece of gum from the pack on the dresser and caught sight of her reflection in the dingy mirror.

  She looked wasted. No wonder everybody always thought she was.

  Heavy black eyeliner smeared her puffy bottom lids. Day-old black lipstick crusted her dry lips. Her dyed black hair stuck out in short, gelled clumps. And the bruise from last week’s fight with her mom still colored her chin.

  Ms. Gabrier was the only teacher who had asked about the bruise. Sissy had told her she got in a fight with a friend. It was a better excuse than “I ran into a wall.” Who actually believed that anyway?

  The other teachers had seen the bruise. How could they not? But none had asked. If you asked, then you had to follow up. Paperwork, reporting to authorities, blah, blah, blah. Who had time for all that junk? None of the teachers cared. Or at least none cared when it came to Sissy. Now if it had been cute little Kirstie or peppy, athletic Lisa . . .

  Whatever. Everyone expected this from Sissy. Bruises, drugs, zeros.

  Outside, a train bumped by, rattling the apartment walls. Sissy plopped down across the unmade bed and popped the gum in her mouth.

  She should’ve botched the stupid state test that put her in the academic magnet. That way she’d still be in her old school with Courtney. At least there Sissy hadn’t stuck out like a freak.

  But she hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to see, just to see, how she would do on the test.

  Sissy knew she was smart, even though she’d made D’s and F’s her whole life. No one else had thought she was smart. In fact, she’d been recommended to attend a “special” school once.

  She snorted. “Puh-lease.” A “special” school?

  Showed how much they knew.

  Sissy blew everyone away when she aced the state test. Thinking back on it brought a smirk to her face.

  She toasted the air with her middle finger. Here’s to everyone who ever thought I was a loser.

  The bedroom door creaked open. Pam, Courtney’s mom, peeked in. “Oh, hey, Sissy. Thought you were Courtney.”

  Sissy didn’t bother reminding Pam that it was eleven in the morning and Courtney was in school. Pam wouldn’t care one way or the other anyway.

  Dressed in a long T-shirt and boxers, Pam shuffled across the worn carpet to the dresser. She opened the top drawer, pulled out a pair of socks, and slipped them on. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

  Sissy shrugged. “Got kicked out.” Story of her life.

  Tucking her wet brown hair behind her ear, Pam leaned back against the dresser. “Me and Courtney are moving back in with her daddy.”

  Sissy got really still, knowing what came next.

  Pam took a deep breath and then blew it out slow. “You can’t come with us. I know your momma booted you out again, and I’m sorry. But me and Courtney’s daddy, we got enough to work on without you tagging along.”

  Why me? What did I ever do to anybody to deserve this reject of a life? Sissy pushed the irritating voice in her head aside. It did no good to give in to the depression. “When do you want me out?”

  “End of the day.” Pam glanced over to the black garbage bag that held Sissy’s clothes. “I got an old suitcase if you want.”

  “It’s all right,” Sissy mumbled, rolling onto her side to face the window. She’d lived with Courtney and Pam on and off over the years. A week here, a month there. They let Sissy come and go as she needed, whenever her mom brought another guy home, whenever they fought, whenever her mom drank, whenever she got violent . . .

  Behind her, Pam left the room.

  Outside, another train approached, sounding its horn.

  Sissy chomped down on her gum. What am I supposed to do now?

  That evening SISSY squatted under the bleachers of Jacksonville Magnet, surveying the school’s gym. The night janitor locked up, crossed the parking lot to her truck, and drove off.

  Sissy waited in the grass, smacking at Florida’s enormous mosquitoes, watching the school for any more activity. Humid air hung heavy around her, making her baggy clothes stick to her skin. She spit her gum into a wrapper, put a new piece in her mouth, and continued to wait.

  Thirty minutes passed, and the coast stayed clear. Sissy picked up her bag of clothes and jogged across the football field to the gym. She rounded the side to the boy’s locker room, popped open the vent leading into the showers, and crawled through.

  The smell of bleach overpowered her senses, and Sissy murmured a quick thank-you to the janitor gods. Two nights ago when she’d come, the janitor had been sick and the place had been a disgusting mess.

  She tiptoed through the dark locker room, out the door, and down the hall to the windowless boiler room. She didn’t know why it was called the boiler room when all it held was old classroom junk. Tons of it. Broken copy machines; old wood desks; books, books, and more books; rolling chalkboards; bulletin-board paper; storage bins; old gym mats.

  And chemistry supplies.

  Sissy walked in and flicked on the desk lamp.

  She’d come across the place by accident. At the end of last school year she’d seen the janitor unloading desks off a cart. Sissy had stopped to help. After all, the janitor was old.

  But the janitor had left without securing the door, so Sissy was able to rig it not to lock—easy to do with a gum wrapper— and went back that night.

  And again the next night.

  And the next.

  All summer long she’d gone, slowly making it into her space and escaping life. Many nights when she didn’t work, she slept over, using the girl’s locker room to shower.

  She’d be here tonight. No way she was crawling back to her mom.

  Sissy wound her way through the dusty desks to the big wood chemistry cabinet. Hidden beneath it, she pulled out her notebook.

  Her spirit lightened as it did every time she lost herself in her experiments, her solutions, her chemicals. Years ago she’d found a kid’s chemistry set in the garbage and pulled it out. She’d cleaned it up and followed the instruction manual carefully as she’d composed her first basic experiments. And her life had never been the same since.

  She smiled at the memory. Being here in this makeshift lab was the only time she was in a good mood. The only time things felt right. She felt right. Her life didn’t suck.

  Flipping through the notebook, she scanned the handwritten pages, searching for the metcium formula . . . ah, there it was. Something about it wasn’t right, and she’d puzzled over it for a week straight. Then it hit her last night as she was folding clothes at the Laundromat.

  Beside the chemistry cabinet stood a stack of poster boards propped up against the wall. Hidden behind them was her box of supplies.

  Sissy moved the poster boards aside and slid out her box. Any spare money she had she spent on chemistry supplies. Some legal, some not. A good majority of her powders and liquids were her own derivatives of marine life. Easy enough to obtain when you lived in Jacksonville, Florida.

  She opened the box and carefully pulled out flasks of ciumdroxide, coloride, and trosesineo—all highly flammable liquids. From the cabinet she got two rubber mats, a burner, two beakers, and some stirring rods.