Attack of the BULLIES

by Michael Buckley

Even though Miss Information had technically kidnapped Tessa, she still wanted to make a good impression. So when her goons brought the frightened, tired girl to meet her, she had a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies ready.

  “Have a cookie, sweetie. I made them myself,” she said.

  Tessa eyed the treats suspiciously. “You’re in big trouble, lady! My father won’t rest until I’m found. He’ll send the military, the Secret Service, the CIA, and the FBI. If he has to, he’ll even send the Boy Scouts!”

  “Oh, honey, you know that’s not true. Your daddy is far too concerned with his next election to make a big scene out of getting you back. How would it look to voters if he can’t protect his own daughter? No, I think what will most likely happen is, he’ll quietly do everything to find you, and then he’ll attempt to negotiate your return at a bargain price. He likes being president, and he’s not about to let you ruin it for him.”

  Miss Information watched Tessa’s face fall. She got no pleasure in hurting the girl’s feelings, but young Ms. Lipton needed to see the truth if she was going to be of any use.

  “I know how it must feel,” Ms. Holiday continued. “You’re not his top priority, and that’s heartbreaking. But he does have a long history of disappointing you, doesn’t he? When he was the mayor of Arlington, he missed your preschool graduation. When he was the governor of Virginia, he went to a campaign fund-raiser lunch instead of your ballet recital. He was a no-show at your soccer team’s championship and even a couple of Christmases. You’re a very forgiving person to let him get away with it, Tessa. You’re a much stronger person than me.”

  “You don’t understand. His job isn’t easy,” Tessa snapped.

  “That’s what your mother says to make you feel better, right? I’m sure she’s very worried about you, but she’ll keep quiet. She’s really not a wave-maker, is she? So sad. You’re just not on their list of priorities.”

  “How do you know that?” Tessa whispered.

  “I know lots of things, Tessa. After all, they do call me Miss Information. For instance, I know that your kidnapping has been completely covered up.”

  “Impossible! All my friends saw you take me!”

  Miss Information snatched a remote control off a nearby table and aimed it at a wall of television screens. Every major news channel was broadcasting live. Not one of them was talking about Tessa.

  “That’s kind of odd, don’t you think? The president’s daughter is taken against her will in front of her classmates and there’s not a peep on the news? What’s on CNN? Oh, a report about a squirrel that water-skis. Well, that’s huge international news, right? Watch this—he’s going to jump a ramp. Wow, that animal is fearless.”

  Tears began to well in Tessa’s eyes. Miss Information’s plan was working perfectly. Now it was time to be a friend. She got up from her chair and wrapped an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Now, now, there’s no need to cry.”

  Tessa pulled away from her angrily. “He’ll come for me and you’re going to go to jail forever.”

  Miss Information frowned. “I guess we’re going to find out, Tessa. In the meantime, you look like you could use some rest. Guards, take Ms. Lipton to her room—not the cell. Run a hot bath for her and then send in the massage therapist and the manicurist. Also, find out if there is anything she would like to eat. Ms. Lipton is our guest.”

  “So I’m not a hostage?”

  “No, you’re still a hostage. Did I say ‘guest’? I meant … well … what’s a nicer word than prisoner? Captive? Detainee? Oh, it doesn’t matter. Honey, the point is: Get comfortable. We’re going to be here awhile.”

  TOP SECRET DOSSIER

  CODE NAME: BELL BOTTOM

  REAL NAME: JEAN GREENE

  YEARS ACTIVE: 1979–84

  CURRENT OCCUPATION: FASHION DESIGNER

  HISTORY: JEAN GREENE WAS

  BROUGHT IN TO REPLACE AGENT

  GHOST WHEN GHOST LEFT THE

  TEAM AFTER HER PARENTS

  DISCOVERED HER SPY ACTIVITIES.

  JEAN’S EARLY LIFE WAS

  TUMULTUOUS. SHE WAS KNOWN FOR

  STEALING CARS AND GOING ON

  JOYRIDES—PRIMARILY IN

  TRANS AMS. THE PROBLEM WAS,

  SHE WAS ELEVEN YEARS OLD.

  UPGRADE: PRE-NANOBYTE

  TECHNOLOGY. JEAN’S GIGANTIC

  FLARING PANTS WERE EQUIPPED

  WITH HUNDREDS OF TOOLS AND

  WEAPONS SHE COULD ACCESS JUST

  BY SHAKING HER LEG.

  Heathcliff got no pleasure from being right, so when the team returned from Sugarland Academy, he didn’t meet them. It didn’t seem appropriate to rub salt in their wounds, especially since the principal was busy doing that himself.

  “It’s time to accept reality. You need help. I’m recruiting new members immediately.”

  “Agreed!” Duncan cried.

  “Forget new members. Just put Heathcliff in the upgrade chair and let him back on the team,” Jackson said.

  Heathcliff was stunned. Of all the people in the world, he never expected Jackson to be on his side.

  “Agreed,” Duncan said again.

  “No way,” Matilda said, though it sounded like she was yawning. “Not after what he’s done.”

  “Agreed,” Duncan said.

  “Huh?”

  “Sorry,” Duncan said. “I’m just so tired, I’m having trouble keeping track of this conversation.”

  “Put your head back on the table, Duncan,” Jackson said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Graagggghhhh,” Flinch said. “What if ‘nice-guy Heathcliff’ goes back to being ‘bad-guy Heathcliff’ after we’ve given him upgrades? I vote no.”

  “We’re not voting,” Ruby said. “We don’t need someone unstable on the team.”

  Bad-guy Heathcliff? Unstable? Heathcliff felt his heart break.

  “We have to do something, Pufferfish,” the principal said.

  “Who’s going to train these new recruits? And what happens if they wash out? Then we have to wipe their minds of all they’ve learned about us. The kids who can’t hack it are never the same. Most of them walk through the halls with crayons shoved up their noses, claiming to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Remember Bobby Rickle? He thinks he’s an electric eel. He runs up and pinches people on the butt.”

  “The Shocker?” Jackson says. “You guys did that to him? That’s hilarious.”

  “No, it’s sad!” Ruby replied.

  “And sad,” Jackson echoed, breaking into a giggling fit.

  “Then I’ll bring in the Troublemakers,” the principal said. “You’ve all worked with the Hyena, and Flinch has a good relationship with the others.”

  Ruby banged the table. “Those guys don’t fix problems; they make them. Absolutely not.”

  “Ruby, be reasonable,” Duncan said.

  “Nope. No way. No Troublemakers. No new members I can’t control. No Heathcliff and his unstable brain. If you add anyone to this team, I will quit. We can handle this ourselves.”

  Heathcliff crept back to his room and lay down on his cot.

  Unstable.

  What did that mean? He didn’t feel unstable. He felt like a normal twelve-year-old boy—albeit a very smart twelve-year-old boy. If he were unstable, wouldn’t he have symptoms? Wouldn’t he be yammering to himself about conspiracies and wearing a tinfoil hat so the aliens couldn’t read his thoughts?

  No! He was perfectly healthy. But … maybe he hadn’t always been. A break with reality or a sudden mental illness would explain the year and a half of missing days and why the others were so weird around him. But if he had been sick, how did he get over it? Mental illness wasn’t like a cold. You didn’t just get better by eating chicken soup and drinking OJ.

  He knew if he wanted answers, he had to get them on his own, so when the NERDS went home for the day, he padded down the empty hallways to the command center. Though he had never been on a mission in this particular Playground, it wa
sn’t much different from the one at the elementary school. The mission desk had a computer built into it that was activated by hand gestures. He waved his fingers over the circuitry. A moment later a television monitor lowered from the ceiling.

  “PLEASE ENTER THE PASSWORD,” a computer voice directed as the same words flashed across the screen.

  Heathcliff grimaced and said a silent prayer that his nerdy friends had not changed the nerdy password.

  “Doctor Who.”

  “DOCTOR WHO IS INCORRECT ACCESS DENIED PLEASE ENTER THE PASSWORD.”

  Heathcliff growled. They had changed the password! How would he figure out the new one? It was always some reference from science fiction or comic books, but the number of possibilities was staggering. It could be any one of the nine different captains of the Starship Enterprise. It could be the name of Luke Skywalker’s aunt. It could be the name of the current Green Lantern. Actually, Heathcliff wasn’t sure who the current Green Lantern was. He was going to have to catch up on his comics.

  Aaargh! He would have to guess. He knew he would only get three chances before the system locked him out—two, now that he’d blown it with “Doctor Who.”

  “ENTER THE PASSWORD,” the computer commanded again.

  Heathcliff closed his eyes tight. Who was the last person to sit at this computer? Matilda! He saw her working on it that morning. Could the password be one of her interests? What was it she liked? … Punching people in the face … No! Wrestling!

  “Rey Mysterio,” he said.

  “REY MYSTERIO IS INCORRECT ACCESS DENIED PLEASE ENTER THE PASSWORD.”

  Heathcliff slammed his head on the desk. “What is it? What is the stupid password?”

  “STUPID PASSWORD IS INCORRECT ACCESS DENIED YOU ARE LOCKED OUT OF THE MAINFRAME FOR THE NEXT TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.”

  The monitor rose toward the ceiling, but Heathcliff refused to let it go. He leaped onto his chair and clung to the screen like a baby chimpanzee nuzzling its mother. He couldn’t hold on forever, though, and he fell, cracking his head on the floor tiles. Two hours later, he awoke covered in his own drool and sporting a welt on his head as big as a clementine.

  Irritated and sore, he drifted amongst the tables of the Playground’s Science Hub, marveling at its inventions. Occasionally he found himself making subtle corrections to one of the scientists’ formulas or an engineering plan—it was one way of helping a team that didn’t want his help.

  He poked through project after project until he came across a desk covered in junk. Whoever worked here was clearly in over his or her head. Half-finished gizmos littered the workspace, and beneath it miles of tangled cable were tied in hopeless knots. In a cardboard box next to the trash can he found a small, silver orb broken in two like a cracked egg. Wires and gears spilled out of its insides. Abandoned projects could be found all over the Playground, but this one was not just a pile of junk. Heathcliff remembered this device very clearly.

  “Benjamin,” he said. “How did you get in this box?”

  Heathcliff gingerly turned over the robot and marveled at the circuitry inside. Benjamin was beyond extraordinary—a mechanical device with a distinct, almost human, personality. Whoever had created it was much smarter than Heathcliff. In fact, Benjamin was the first piece of technology Heathcliff could remember that truly baffled him. He had once asked about its origins and was told it was top secret. Benjamin was a mystery, just like Heathcliff.

  But unlike guessing the passcode, Benjamin wasn’t an impossible mystery. It would take time, but Heathcliff was sure he could get the little robot flying again. If the circuit board wasn’t too damaged, Benjamin might be able to tell him about the missing months of his life! He shoved Benjamin under his shirt and walked briskly through the science stations, smiling for what felt like the first time in months.

  General Savage’s face was waiting on the monitor when the principal returned to his office. He braced himself for his boss’s rage, but the general wasn’t mad. In fact, he looked uncomfortable.

  “He wants to talk to the kids.”

  The principal cocked a curious eyebrow. “Who is he?”

  “The ‘he.’ The commander in chief.”

  The principal frowned. “I can’t let that happen,” he said. “You know that.”

  The general’s thick unibrow swallowed his eyes. “Director, you can’t refuse the president of the United States.”

  “Sir, this organization was created to exist outside the petty politics of whoever is running this country, and for very good reasons. These agents are children. If they are at the command of the president, or the vice president, or Congress, or whomever, it is clear what will happen. They will be yanked out of this school and sent to war zones to fight. Their technology will be stripped and given to soldiers. They will be studied and experimented upon. It will also be disastrous to our mission, which is saving the world—the entire world. It’s why the team’s security clearance is higher than that of the president.”

  “This is about his daughter,” Savage said.

  “I am more than happy to talk to him. I can answer any questions he might have. There’s no reason for him to meet one of the agents.”

  “This is not a negotiation. This is an order,” Savage barked.

  Suddenly, the principal had to resist the incredible desire to grin. He was in a fight—a war of words, but a fight nonetheless—and fighting was what he did best, next to making cherries jubilee. It was the first time since he had become director of the agency that he felt like himself.

  “No, sir.”

  “I can replace you,” the general growled.

  “And, sir, I can have you arrested.”

  The general reared back in his chair. “You can what?”

  “You have violated the law by divulging sensitive materials to individuals who lack the proper clearance.”

  “I did nothing of the sort!”

  “What did you tell the president?”

  The general stammered, then growled to cover it up. “I—I told him we had a team of kid spies who were sent to protect his daughter. He doesn’t know about the upgrades.”

  “You have betrayed these children, General.”

  Savage stared back at him. His face was like a bonfire burning the principal’s eyes, but the principal had been in many fires. He would survive this one, too.

  “Sir, with all due respect, I encourage you to keep your mouth shut,” the principal said.

  Savage scowled and the screen went black.

  When Miss Information was feeling particularly good about one of her evil plans, she baked, so that night she whipped up three apple pies, a pineapple upside-down cake, and a batch of her signature blueberry muffins. The next morning she placed them on a tray and took them to Tessa Lipton, whom she found curled up on the bed, flipping through channels on her TV. Hundreds of tear-soaked tissues littered the room.

  “He’s not sending the military,” she sobbed. “He didn’t even call the IRS.”

  Miss Information sat down on the bed. “Muffin?”

  The girl eyed the snacks suspiciously and shook her head.

  Miss Information shrugged and set the tray on a nearby table. “Tessa, with the election coming up, your father has to show the world he’s strong. So he’s working behind the scenes to recover you without letting the press find out. If he gets you back, he’ll tell you not to say anything about it, and you and your family will have to act like it never happened. Right?”

  Tessa frowned but nodded.

  “No wonder you’re a bully.”

  Tessa’s face crinkled with indignation. “I am not a bully.”

  “Yes, you are, Tessa. You’re a certifiable, one hundred percent jerk. You don’t have any friends who aren’t bullies, and most people are terrified of you. That’s the definition of a bully. But it’s not your fault. You’re like that because you’re hurting. Most bullies abuse other people to call attention to their own pain. Sometimes a bully feels insecure about herself, some
times her victims intimidate her, and sometimes, as in your case, she just wants some love. You intentionally cause problems in the hope that your dad will become more involved in your life. Am I right?”

  Tessa sat up and rubbed her swollen eyes. “Yes.”

  Miss Information smiled beneath her mask. “So you’ve gotten meaner and meaner to your classmates and teachers but it hasn’t worked. I can help you get the attention you want.”

  “How?”

  “Oh, I know a lot about getting attention,” Miss Information bragged. “We can make your father regret his choices, and turn him into the daddy you’ve always wanted. In exchange, you can help me with some of my plans.”

  “How can I help you?”

  “Tessa, being a bully is a skill that requires years of practice to develop. Few bullies ever get past pushing kids on the playground. But you … you’ve taken it to a whole new level. Not only are you mean and nasty but you’ve also found ways to terrorize everyone you’ve ever met. That, my friend, is a talent I can use.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  Miss Information felt like a fisherman reeling in a trout. All she had to do now was get her catch into the boat.

  “You and I will cause a little trouble that will, in turn, cause a little trouble for your dad. Why, it might even cause him to lose the election.”

  “Lose the election? I can’t do that!”

  “But, honey, if he loses the election, he’ll be out of politics. You’ll have him all to yourself.”

  Tessa sat thinking for a long time.

  Miss Information wasn’t sure her little fish was still on the line. “I have a team of kids who, like you, need a little attention. All they need is a leader. Someone to boss them around.”

  A smile crept across Tessa’s face.

  Miss Information knew she had her now. “And you’ll get superpowers.”

  Tessa frowned. Her eyes went back to looking at the exit.

  “Did the Secretary of the Interior put you up to this? He’s still angry about the time I called him a tree-hugging hippie.”

  “You think this is a prank?” Miss Information asked.