Mrs. Smith's Spy School for Girls

by Beth McMullen

  Suddenly, Toby sits bolt upright on the couch. “What’s that smell?”

  “Huh?”

  “Something burning,” he says, sniffing the air. “You guys don’t smell it?”

  “Like plastic maybe?” Charlotte asks.

  Toby leaps up. “Oh no!” He darts toward the small table on the other side of the living room where I put the camcorder with the videotape still inside. It’s a smoldering pile of goo throwing off tendrils of smoke. Toby grabs a vase full of wilted flowers and dumps the water on the camcorder. It sizzles and pops. What’s left behind is a big, disgusting mess.

  “That did not just happen,” Toby moans. “The find of the century, ruined.”

  “Really ruined,” I say, standing beside him.

  He kicks the table with his foot and sends the whole melted muddle flying across the room. “And that’s why those camcorders don’t exist today!” he yells. “They stink! The worst!”

  “We can still tell Mrs. Smith what we saw,” I say. “It’s not a complete disaster.”

  Toby gets right up in my face. “This would have been enough to get me into the strategy school. This would have been enough to write my own ticket. But now we have nothing. Nothing!”

  “Maybe the tape was meant to do that?” Izumi interrupts.

  This stops Toby’s rant in its footsteps. “What do you mean?”

  “Like self-destruct. It happens in the movies.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “I thought a spy school for girls was insane,” I point out.

  “No way,” Toby says. But he walks over and picks up the hunk of plastic, examining it from all angles. And he doesn’t put it down when he leaves to call for a car to take us back to Smith.

  We spend the half hour waiting for the car in the enormous kitchen, eating gelato imported from Rome and chocolate truffles with actual gold flakes on them or something, which greatly improves our collective mood. When Brad buzzes to tell us the car has arrived, we’re in relatively high spirits. There will be consequences (toilet cleaning, tutoring stupid hockey players) for going AWOL from Smith, but we’re ready, come what may. As Toby said, we have made the find of the century. Sort of, anyway.

  Chapter 32

  Where I Realize the Importance of Lesson Number One.

  A GIANT SHINY BLACK EMBARRASSMENT waits for us at the curb. Brad holds the door as we pile into the Hummer limo.

  “Really, Toby?” Izumi says. “This is the car you picked?”

  Toby shrugs. “I used my dad’s account. This is what he likes.” At least the windows are tinted so we can’t be seen from the outside. The driver sits behind a smoky glass partition. All we see of him is a faint outline.

  “You kids all set?” Brad asks. He reaches in, gives Toby another high five, and off we go. We’re quiet, each spinning private scenarios of how things will go down back at Smith. My hope (delusion) is that when we tell Mrs. Smith about the videotape, she’ll be so distracted she’ll forget about punishing us, at least for a little while.

  Clearly, everyone is lost in their own thoughts, because we’ve been driving a good twenty minutes before Izumi realizes we’re not headed north toward Connecticut but have veered east toward Queens. Izumi grips my thigh.

  “Look out the window,” she whispers. I do but see only the gray blur of New York City in winter.

  “Yeah?”

  “Queens,” she hisses. It takes me a moment to register. Queens? Oh no. Queens! I lean forward and whisper this news to Toby, who passes it along to Charlotte, a life-and-death game of telephone.

  “Maybe it’s a shortcut?” Charlotte says quietly.

  “Um, no,” Toby says. “It’s the wrong direction entirely.”

  “I really don’t want to do this,” I mutter. I crawl on my knees toward the partition separating us from the driver and rap on the glass gently with my knuckles. This close-up, I can see the man is dressed in a black suit and wears a cap.

  “Excuse me?” I say. “We’re headed to Watertown, Connecticut? To the Smith School?”

  The driver tightens his grip on the wheel but otherwise doesn’t appear to have heard me. Maybe the glass is soundproof. I knock harder. The driver twitches. I think I’m coming in loud and clear, but maybe he doesn’t speak English?

  “Watertown, Connecticut?” I say slowly, overemphasizing each syllable.

  The driver pushes a button and the partition slides down. And then the driver rotates toward me. And then I wish that she hadn’t. The man in the suit and cap is none other than my old pal Fake Bronwyn.

  “You!” I shout. “You drowned in that lake!” My friends jump.

  “I’m tougher than any little frozen puddle, Abigail,” she says with a nasty grin.

  “You know this person?” Charlotte asks.

  “Yes! And she’s not nice!”

  “Oh, come on,” Fake Bronwyn protests. “I’m plenty nice. It’s just that you aren’t paying me. Please pass your backpacks into the front seat.”

  Instead, I lunge across Toby for the door. So what that we’re traveling at sixty miles an hour in traffic? But of course it’s locked and there is no obvious way to unlock it from back here. I should have seen that right away! When will I learn?

  “Good try,” Fake Bronwyn says, grinning again. “Backpacks, please.”

  “Hey,” I say. “I tried to help you in that lake!”

  “Probably the wrong choice, in hindsight.”

  “You saved her?” Charlotte asks, indignant.

  I shrug. “A little.” I don’t bother explaining that I’d thought by letting her drown I’d be as bad as the bad guys. In light of current circumstances, that thinking is flawed.

  “Where are you taking us?” Toby demands.

  “The boy wonder.” Fake Bronwyn smirks.

  “Is your real name Suzie?” I interrupt.

  “Huh?”

  “Tom called you Suzie,” I say. “Is that your name?”

  “I have lots of names,” she says.

  “Where are we going?” Toby asks again.

  “Queens,” Bronwyn says. “JFK.”

  The airport? This is bad. This is very bad. They’re going to whisk us away to a horrible prison in Bulgaria, never to be heard from again.

  Just as I am about to lose it, I remember all is not lost! In my jacket is the fancy pink leopard-print iPhone, turned off as Toby insisted. The hot water is gone, but I still have the rubber bullet and the whistle. I work through the problem. If I pull out the phone and shoot Bronwyn with the rubber bullet, she’ll probably crash the car. If I do the whistle, it will incapacitate us all, and she’ll probably crash the car. And I’m not certain we can escape from this car. So maybe I wait until we stop and get out? But then what if they discover I have the iPhone? Or handcuff us or something? This on-the-fly spy scheming is difficult work. I decide to wait. I place my hand in my pocket and nudge Toby, revealing just the edge of the phone case. He grins.

  Fifteen minutes later we roll into a hangar on the outskirts of the enormous John F. Kennedy Airport. We drive straight past a small passenger jet to the back of the hangar, where the entire Hummer limo pulls into a freight elevator. The doors slide shut and we begin a quick descent. I start to regret not using the whistle or the bullet and taking our chances in the daylight. We will meet our end like the rats living under the city.

  “I don’t like this,” Charlotte says quietly.

  “Me either,” I say. Finally, we stop. The elevator opens to reveal a dimly lit concrete basement. A tomb, and that’s being kind. Several dark tunnels lead away in different directions. The car doors unlock with a click. We climb out, greeted by two armed men dressed in commando black, who apparently don’t like kids because they don’t smile or say hello. Instead, one zip-ties our hands behind our backs while the other looks menacing. Fake Bronwyn sets off down on
e of the tunnels, and the guards shove us after her. One of them scoops up our backpacks. I seriously miscalculated. Now our hands are tied. Literally.

  “Let’s have a chat, shall we?” Fake Bronwyn says, tossing her black cap aside.

  We continue down the hallway, passing three closed doors until stopping in front of a fourth. A guard steps forward and unlocks the door while the other stands to Toby’s left, distracted by his cuticles. It’s enough. I take advantage of this micro-opportunity to turn the phone on and tuck it in the back of my pants, where it will be less obvious. This is no easy thing with my zip-tied hands, but I manage without giving myself away. The phone is so pleased to be back in business it gives out a digital yelp of delight. I cough violently to cover the sound, but Fake Bronwyn wheels around.

  “What was that?” she demands.

  “What was what?” I ask innocently.

  “There was a noise,” she says. The guards shrug, noncommittal. They just lock and unlock doors and look threatening. They have no opinion otherwise.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Toby says.

  Fake Bronwyn pokes him in the sternum. “You be quiet,” she says.

  The door swings in to reveal a classic interrogation room, right out of the Law & Order reruns we can’t get enough of at McKinsey House. The guards push us inside, into four metal seats opposite a sturdy metal table. Fake Bronwyn sits at the table and daintily crosses her legs. I notice she has big feet for her size. Our backs face the wall, which gives me an opportunity to slide the iPhone up under my too-tight tank top using the inner edge of my elbow. If I don’t sweat too much, it should stay mostly in place and out of view.

  The guard with the mustache rolls a tray into the room. It contains a hammer, a screwdriver, a small saw, and a few shiny silver implements straight from the dentist’s office. I avert my eyes because staring at the tray makes me sweat, and the more I sweat the more likely it is the iPhone will slide down my back and onto the floor. The guards retreat to the corners, where they stand stock-still like they’re auditioning for the Queen’s Guard. Fake Bronwyn opens our backpacks and dumps the contents out on the table. Our belongings scatter right to the edges. My hairbrush and Chinese History book. A scarf and pair of gloves. Three tubes of ChapStick. Eyeliner. Eyeliner? Where did Charlotte think we were going, anyway? There’s my Smith School water bottle and a bunch of cables that must belong to Toby. Granola bars. A can of Coke. The pencil sketch of Persephone. The melted hunk of camcorder.

  Fake Bronwyn picks through the pile, examining our stuff, breezing right over the camcorder. She picks up a battery similar to the one Toby gave me before I went to California.

  “What’s this?” she asks, shoving it up under Toby’s nose.

  “It’s a battery. For a phone.” Fake Bronwyn raises an eyebrow, takes the hammer off the tray, and smashes the rectangle. But the hammer bounces off the battery, so she does it again and again and the thing just jumps furiously around the table. Frustrated, she turns the hammer on Toby’s iPhone. Bits of plastic and glass fly everywhere. Toby gasps. Fake Bronwyn grins. She smashes the Coke can, which explodes, and the eyeliner, which turns to mush. In a frenzy now, she even gives the Chinese History book a whack. Charlotte winces with each blow. Izumi squeezes her eyes shut and makes a very unpleasant face. I’m sure they’re regretting coming along with me, because I’m certainly regretting bringing them. I concentrate on the leopard-print iPhone slowly sliding down my back. I can’t stop sweating. In a minute, our last chance at survival will slip to the floor.

  Satisfied she’s destroyed everything that needs destroying, Bronwyn sweeps the debris aside with her arm and leans over the table, right in my face. “Tell me where it is,” she says. “Or else.”

  Chapter 33

  Where Things Get Loud.

  IF I LIVE, I SWEAR I’ll reform. I’ll watch Charlie’s Angels reruns without rolling my eyes. I’ll go back to calling Jennifer “Mom.” I’ll make my bed. Clean my room. Get straight As. I’ll never make another sassy remark again, ever, about anything. Well, at least I’ll try really hard not to. There are things I want to do in life! I want to master a backflip off the high dive and climb Mount Everest. I’m not prepared to have everything come to an end in this room.

  “Where is it?” Fake Bronwyn asks again.

  “Where’s what?” I try very hard not to cast my eyes in the direction of the melted camcorder now on the floor.

  Fake Bronwyn gets up and circles behind us. I don’t like her behind me. If she spots the iPhone shoved up my shirt, we’re in trouble. Not that we aren’t already. She picks a razor off the tray and passes it under my nose. “I’m really sick of you making me look bad,” she whispers.

  The phone drops another centimeter. I wiggle in my seat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The videotape!” She smashes the table with both fists. I jump. Izumi’s still making that awful face, but now I realize she’s been working the zip-tie handcuffs the whole time. And she’s got her hands free! Without missing a beat, Izumi leaps from her chair and hits Fake Bronwyn in the ribs with her shoulder. Classic rugby move. Fake Bronwyn goes flying and hits the far wall hard. She comes down in a heap.

  There’s a lot of screaming. Izumi spins gracefully and launches a metal chair at one of the guards, nailing him right in the head. He goes down too.

  “That’s enough of that!” shrieks the second guard. “Nobody move!” He waves his gun around at us and we freeze. And this is the moment the iPhone slides from my shirt. I manage to catch it in my bound hands just before it falls. “Toby is cool!” I yell. “Whistle!”

  To describe the sound emanating from the phone as “deafening” doesn’t quite do it justice. Deafening would be a pleasure. Mix a howling cat with nails on a chalkboard. Throw in a side of screaming baby and a dash of the 4 train screeching into Astor Place station. Now turn it up loud, real loud, loud enough to shatter glass, and maybe you’re halfway to understanding what we have going on.

  The guard drops his gun and falls to his knees, hands over ears. I can’t tell if he screams, but his mouth is open. I think I might vomit. The noise is so loud I see stars. Charlotte doubles over. Toby turns a funny color. I fight through the stars.

  Squinting helps.

  Izumi grabs Toby’s Swiss Army Knife off the ground, throws open the door, and herds us out. The stars multiply in my head, a virtual milky way of noise-induced hallucinations.

  Wait! Toby mouths. He snatches the unbreakable plastic rectangle, along with the screaming iPhone.

  “What are you doing?” I yell.

  “I haven’t gotten the patents on this yet! I can’t just leave it here!”

  Our lives are on the line, and Toby’s worried about intellectual property? Izumi gives us a final shove and we lurch out of the room. She throws the lock on the door behind us.

  “Tell it to shut off, Abby!” Toby yells. How is it ever going to hear me?

  “Toby is cool!” I howl. “iPhone off!” Instant silence.

  “Cut us loose,” I say to Izumi. Or I think I say that. I can’t actually hear my own voice. Quickly, Izumi frees us from the plastic handcuffs, and we stumble down the tunnel, careening off the walls like drunk people.

  “I. Am. A. Genius,” Toby declares. “I feel really bad right now, but that was brilliant, right? The noise thing? Totally incapacitating!”

  Once Jennifer brought me to a Rolling Stones concert. The guys were like fossils and I didn’t like the music and by the end of the show, I felt like my head was stuffed with cotton. This is much, much worse. It’s a noise concussion.

  “Save your self-congratulations for daylight,” I mumble. Our equilibrium is off, and we keep bumping into one another.

  “Why did you keep yelling Toby is cool?” Charlotte asks, wiggling her jaw around as if to pop her ears.

  “Ask him,” I say, gesturing in the gener
al direction of Toby. I am not sure which way is which at the moment.

  “Maybe later,” she says. Toby has both fingers jammed in his ears and is making a weird face.

  Finally, we stagger into the room where the Hummer is parked.

  “I think I’m ready to go home now,” Izumi says quietly.

  I can’t agree more. “Let’s get out of here,” I say. But maybe not as fast as all that. Two new guards appear from the dark tunnel, armed and ready.

  “Freeze!” one of them yells. “Hands up!” This makes me giggle. It’s stress, but I can’t help it. Hands up is way too cliché.

  “Stop laughing!” says Izumi, elbowing me hard.

  “I don’t know if I can,” I say, laughing.

  “You,” one of the guards shouts, “quit doing that.”

  “I can’t,” I say. Meanwhile, Toby waves his arms in the air like he’s under attack by a swarm of bees. This makes me laugh harder. I’m totally losing it.

  “Freeze and don’t move,” the guard says. “Put your arms down. Stop talking. Stop laughing!”

  “But you just said Hands up,” I say.

  “Listen, kid,” he snarls. “Don’t think I won’t shoot you, ’cause I will.”

  “I totally believe you,” Toby says. I realize while flailing, he’s managed to remove the battery from his pocket.

  “Hey, what’s that?” a guard asks, coming closer. “Put that down!”

  “Get behind me!” Toby yells. We leap back. He aims the rectangle at the charging guards and presses a button not visible to the untrained eye. The device explodes with such force Toby is thrown back into us. We hit the wall hard and land in a twisted heap, but the guards are stopped dead in their tracks, completely covered in sticky yellow webbing. The more they struggle, the more entangled they become.