“I know they say there’s no honor among thieves, but we’re in this together, aren’t we? I’ve always got your back. Oh, and checkmate.” I glanced down to find several of my chess pieces missing from the table.
“Hey! You cheated!”
Gray grinned and waved my queen at me. “Cheating is encouraged here, remember?”
“He’s right,” said Antonio as he held up a handful of cards he had taken from Jean-Paul’s deck.
Jean-Paul snatched them back with a grin. “I was looking for those!”
Sheena watched us, her hands firmly on her hips. “So you’re all okay with being punished for something that was her fault?” she cried as she pointed at me. “I don’t like being treated like a kindergartener, and I definitely don’t like taking the fall for something a little brat organized.” Sheena approached my desk, her face red with rage. “Gray might have your back, but I’m going to have your hide, little girl.”
Sheena was nothing more than a spoiled bully, and I was getting tired of her attitude. I stood up angrily. As soon as I opened my mouth to fire off a retort, I felt that hand on my shoulder again. It was Gray. “Hey, guys?” he asked, trying to calm us down by changing the subject. “What if we use detention to come up with our code names?”
We all nodded at this suggestion and began pulling our chairs into a circle.
As we all knew, code names were important—they had to capture who we were as criminals while still sounding flashy and intimidating.
Antonio suddenly snapped his fingers and turned to Gray. “I have one for you! How about . . . Shocker?”
Gray just shook his head in response.
“The Shocksmith?” offered Jean-Paul.
I jumped up from my seat. “I’ve got one!” I made a marquee gesture with my hands as if unveiling a grand title. “Power Failure,” I said, and I looked expectantly at Gray.
“Failure? I don’t think so.” Gray was unimpressed. “Sorry, mates. Nothing has that crackle that I’m looking for.” Suddenly his eyes widened and he leaped up. “That’s it! Ready? My code name is . . . Graham Crackle.”
I burst into laughter, and Jean-Paul soon joined in. “Dude, really?” I asked Gray.
“No one’s going to take us seriously as criminals if we have puns for names,” Jean-Paul said.
“Yeah, and he’ll sound like an after-school snack,” I added, wiping tears from my eyes as I collected myself.
“I could do with a snack myself,” said Sheena, who was eyeing a vending machine full of candy bars and bags of chips. She flexed her fingers, and we all stared at her. Her nails were unlike anything I had seen before. They were long and sharp—dangerously sharp. They looked almost claw-like as she ran them along the glass exterior of the vending machine.
“Like my new nail extensions?” she asked, noticing our stares. “They’re très chic . . . and très sharp.”
Sheena ran her index finger in a circle along the glass, cutting out a perfect hole. She reached inside and began taking out snacks one by one as the rest of us looked on, impressed. I did not want to admit that Sheena was becoming a talented criminal, but I was starting to realize that maybe she had potential.
“I live to shop, but I take what I want.” Sheena spun on her heel to turn to us with a dramatic flourish. “You can call me . . . Miss Take.”
Now all four of us burst out laughing. I snickered loudly as Sheena stomped her foot angrily in front of me. “What?” she said.
“Seriously? Say it again. That code name would be a big mistake.”
Everyone laughed even louder, and Sheena growled angrily. Her eyes flashed with anger, and everyone quickly went silent—except for me.
I was still giggling when Sheena lunged at me, her nails extended.
I jumped back as Jean-Paul and Antonio managed to stop her before she reached me. They each grabbed one of her arms. “Easy, Sheena! You’ll get us all expelled!” cried Gray as he stepped in between us.
A smile slowly spread across my face as something occurred to me. I had an idea for how to deal with Sheena . . . something VILE Academy would actually encourage.
“Maybe we should settle this thief to thief,” I said.
“A competition?” Sheena was intrigued, just as I knew she would be.
“If I win, you get off my back for good. If you win, I’ll be your personal slave for a week.”
“Month,” she countered.
I shrugged. “Make it a year. I don’t plan on losing.”
I turned to the others. “Empty out your pockets. We need coins.” As they did so, I explained the rules to Sheena. “Lucky dozen. We each get six coins, and the first to snatch all of the other person’s coins from their pockets wins the game.”
Gray handed out the sets of coins. “May the slickest fingers win.”
Sheena and I circled each other like boxers in a fighting ring. This was not your typical pickpocketing challenge. Even though I was sure I was the better thief, I knew that Sheena was not to be taken lightly.
Sheena leaped toward me, and I quickly sidestepped her, using the opportunity to slide my hand into her pocket. My hand came away with a coin. “That’s one for Black Sheep!” said Gray, who was keeping score.
Sheena wasted no time in coming in for a second attack. She was quick on her feet, but, for once, my smaller size worked to my advantage. I dodged the attack as her claws sliced toward my pocket, coming away with a second coin from hers. “Two for Black Sheep.”
She was getting frustrated, and I knew it. Her frantic lunges were becoming sloppier. Sheena took a few steps back and then vaulted into a series of handsprings, hurling herself toward me like an enraged gymnast. I had to suppress a smile as she approached. Her movements were careless and disorganized. It was just the opportunity I needed.
As Sheena moved past me, she held up her hand with a triumphant cry. Then she opened her palm to reveal—not a coin, but a ball of lint. “Lint? Help yourself!” I told her as I opened my own hand to show her another three coins I had taken from her pocket.
“Five to zero, Black Sheep. One more point and Black Sheep wins.” Gray sounded impressed.
Sheena ran at me with everything she had. I knew I could dodge the attack, but I didn’t take into account the razor-sharp nails she extended in front of her, glistening like knives. I tried to evade her just a moment too late.
I felt a sharp pain sear across my leg as her nails dug into me. Sheena stepped away, laughing as all my coins tumbled from the pocket she had ripped. I clutched my leg and hazily heard Gray asking if I was okay. I ignored him. Rage was beginning to bubble up inside me.
“FOUL!” I yelled at Sheena. My face had turned bright red with fury. Now it was my turn to lose control, and I jumped toward her.
I slammed into Sheena, blood pulsing in my ears. I was no longer thinking rationally. All I knew was that I was angry—very angry.
The two of us tumbled across the floor. We were a jumbled mess of kicking and scratching limbs as we each tried to get the best of the other. Though Sheena was older and bigger than me, I didn’t let that scare me. I fought back as hard and fast as I could.
Suddenly, I felt a strong set of arms on my shoulders, pulling me back. Jean-Paul was easing me off Sheena, while Antonio was doing the same to her.
But Sheena was not about to let the fight end that easily. “I’m going to put you out to pasture, little lamb!” she snarled as she struggled against the hold of her classmates.
“Easy there, tigress,” Gray said between clenched teeth as he helped drag Sheena off.
Sheena suddenly went silent and tilted her head toward him with a grin.
“What?” asked Gray, confused.
“That’s it. That’s my code name. From now on, I’m . . . Tigress.” We all went silent then . . . It was a good code name for her.
* * *
Sheena had found her perfect code name, and after that, it didn’t take long for everyone else to find their own.
&nb
sp; Gray dropped Graham and became Crackle, the operative who exceled at the manipulation of electricity.
Jean-Paul wanted to be Le Chèvre. It was a perfect fit, as it was French for “The Goat,” and he was a criminal able to climb any heights with ease, just like a mountain goat.
And Jean-Paul’s best friend, Antonio, became El Topo, which meant “The Mole” in Spanish. While Le Chèvre was master of the high ground, El Topo mastered the low. If you needed a criminal who could dig a network of tunnels in no time at all, El Topo was your guy.
The quiet student who had fought Sheena in Coach Brunt’s class came up with not just a code name but a whole new look as well. He began wearing the face paint and outfit of a mime, complete with a striped shirt and French beret. We all thought it was strange, but then again, he was a strange guy.
To get us to start calling him by his code name, one afternoon he pointed repeatedly to himself, then mimed a huge explosion going off. “Mime . . . Bomb?” I guessed. He nodded enthusiastically, and I laughed. “Okay. Mime Bomb it is.” None of us was sure what Mime Bomb’s criminal specialty was, but he seemed confident and happy with his new-and-improved identity. Besides, we all thought he was such an oddball that none of us thought to ask.
After everyone in our class had settled on their new names, they turned to me. “And what about you, Black Sheep?” Le Chèvre asked. The thought of being called something else had never once crossed my mind. I was Black Sheep. So I told them what I had told Gray earlier in the school year. “I am Black Sheep. Always have been. Always will be.”
Chapter 6
In the blink of an eye, the school year was almost over. Time had flown by, and we formed bonds in that year that I thought would never be broken. Jean-Paul and Antonio, who now went exclusively by Le Chèvre and El Topo, were rarely ever seen without each other. Gray was like a big brother to me. He never missed an opportunity to study with me and would often come to me for sleight-of-hand tips.
As the weeks went by, I watched my classmates develop and improve their techniques. They weren’t just goofy wannabe criminals anymore. VILE Academy was successfully molding us into something else—something greater. Each of us was shaping up to be an expert criminal in our own right.
After we had chosen our code names, we started acquiring our own caper outfits—clothes that we would wear during missions out in the field. I had gotten my very own stealth suit. It was a pitch-black jumpsuit that felt cool and slick against my skin. Brunt told me that it would allow me to slip into even the highest-security places with ease, a perfect camouflage against the night sky. I felt incredible in it, like I could steal the Mona Lisa at a moment’s notice. I didn’t yet know what the others had chosen for their caper outfits, but I had a feeling I would soon find out.
And then there was Player, my friend throughout all of it. I called him from my rooftop hideout whenever I could, very careful not to be spotted or overheard. I would excitedly tell him about what had happened that week . . . though I always kept the details of my lessons and classes a secret. I still hadn’t told him that I went to a school for criminals. After all, I had no idea how he would react to hearing news like that—what with his white-hat hackers’ code to do only good and all that.
Instead, I would try to get him to tell me about the outside world as much as I could. He’d described his life in Canada in great detail, from the friendly people to the bitter cold that would arrive in the wintertime. His family didn’t have a lot of money to travel, but in his room with all his computers, he could see the entire world in his own unique way.
“Of course I want to see the world!” Player said enthusiastically when I asked him about it one day. “I totally want to travel all over, just like you do.”
“Really?” I asked, excited that someone else shared my interest. “Where in the world do you want to go?”
“Well . . . there are these totally awesome gaming cafés in Japan. Or I’d go to the video-game tournaments in South Korea! Or the arcades in—”
“I’m sensing a theme here, Player,” I told him with a smile.
“Okay, so I like gaming,” he admitted. “But I still want to fill up my passport with stamps one day.”
I was hiding on the rooftop, my makeshift grappling hook by my side. It was a beautiful spring night. A light breeze rippled through the palm trees as stars lit up the sky over the water.
“All I have to do,” I told Player, “is pass my final exams tomorrow. And then, boom! Graduation day.”
“I know you can do it!”
“I appreciate your faith in me,” I said, still smiling at his enthusiasm. “But these exams aren’t going to be easy. They’re going to test us like never before.”
“I know exactly what you mean. My mom once came up with the craziest algebra test. I wasn’t even allowed to use a calculator!”
“Yeah . . . this is something like that.”
I’m ready, I told myself that night as I tried to sleep. I was the best thief on the island. Whatever tests the faculty had cooked up for us, I could handle them.
* * *
The first exam was Dr. Bellum’s. I walked into class to see a familiar sight—a massive laser grid spanning the entirety of the room. Murmurs swept through the class as we took in the red lasers that crisscrossed in every direction imaginable. Some of them were even rotating.
Gray looked proud as he surveyed the scene.
“Looks like Bellum is putting your invention to good use,” I told him. He grinned sheepishly.
“When you are in the field,” said Dr. Bellum, “you may encounter a laser security grid, just like this one. For your final exam, you’ll have to get through this laser course without touching any of them. Get through the grid, and pick up one of the satchels at the end of the room without being detected by the security alarms. Remember, science and smart thinking are your true friends. Now . . . go!”
Le Chèvre was up first. He looked out at the grid of lasers with a bored expression on his face. He then leaped up and across to the walls, narrowly avoiding the lasers in his path, before springing up toward the ceiling vent. He removed the metal vent from its frame, then crawled up into the air shaft.
“Is he allowed to do that?” Gray asked, amused.
Le Chèvre disappeared completely from view, but we all heard him making his way above the room, the ceiling shaking as he went. Moments later, a ceiling tile at the far end of the room was lifted out of place, and Le Chèvre very calmly dropped down from above. He dusted himself off and claimed his satchel.
Sheena was next. It’s Tigress now, I reminded myself with an eye roll as I looked over at her. Tigress decided to do things differently and put her gymnastics skills to good use. For once her handsprings weren’t just for show—she leaped through the lasers, doing a rolling fall in between two, then a series of somersaults through others. While it was quite a ridiculous sight to see, she made it through the course with ease and avoided every laser.
“Black Sheep! You’re up!” Bellum barked. I stepped forward, lightly brushing past Tigress as she returned to her seat. My hand came away with a small compact mirror that I knew she always carried in her pocket. I flipped it open. “Hey! That’s mine!” Tigress cried angrily as she saw what was in my hand.
“Don’t worry, you can have it back in a minute. It’s not really my style,” I told her.
I moved straight toward the first set of lasers. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bellum lean forward, watching closely to see what I would do next.
I carefully held the mirror out and directly into the path of the first laser. The compact mirror reflected the laser away from me, confusing the alarm sensors. I made my way forward through the grid, quickly moving the mirror around me to redirect each of the lasers as I went. This sure beats an algebra test, I thought.
In a flash, I was through the grid and grabbed one of the waiting satchels. “Black Sheep passes, and gets extra credit for a successful theft,” Bellum announced. T
igress scowled angrily as I tossed the compact back to her, but I heard Gray clapping from across the room and couldn’t hide my grin. Gray was next. He looked at the lasers blocking his path. Instead of taking a step forward into the grid, he took out a pen from his pocket and flung it in the direction of a control panel on the side of the wall. It buried itself into the electric wiring. The panel sparked and smoked and burst into flames. The lasers powered down and disappeared completely. Vlad and Boris spotted the fire from the hallway and quickly rushed to grab a fire extinguisher.
Gray walked casually across the room and picked up a satchel. Dr. Bellum, of course, was thrilled with this result. “Excellent!” she cried. “Most excellent!”
One down, four to go. So far, the exams were off to a great start.
* * *
An hour later, we were gathered in Coach Brunt’s gymnasium. “Well, mates, this ought to be good,” Gray said as we entered the gym. I nodded in agreement.
Before us was what looked like a boxing ring. It was positioned in the center of the gymnasium, with thick ropes strung across the sides and padded poles in each corner.
Coach Brunt walked out to the front of the gym with big, booming footsteps. “Today we’ll see how much you’ve learned this year. So get ready to impress me.” I heard someone gulp loudly behind me. “When you’re out in the field, you’ll have to evade all sorts of authorities, from your everyday police officers to international crime-fighting organizations like Interpol.” Coach Brunt’s expression darkened. “Remember, VILE operatives do not, under any circumstances, get caught. We are a shadow organization, and we aim to keep it that way. Do I make myself clear?”
We all nodded. Coach Brunt seemed satisfied by this. “Playing the role of the authorities today will be a few friends of mine. They are brought to you by Dr. Bellum.”
Coach Brunt pulled a remote control out of her pocket and punched a few buttons with her large fingers. Seconds later, a whirring noise began to sound from behind us. Sheena yelped in surprise, and I followed her line of sight.
Who in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Page 6
