by Amanda Hosch
Talk about a golden opportunity to observe the enemy at close range (Rule Number 34). Frankenstella’s luggage was right there, wide open on top of my parents’ bed. I poked around and found a file folder full of printouts from the museum’s website. Last summer, I convinced Mom that having a website for Le Petit Musée of Antique Silver Spoons would add to her cover story’s authenticity. That, and it was a whole lot more fun to build a website than to polish spoons.
I didn’t have enough time to read the complete dossier (another spy word, which means file folder), so I liberated a few pages from the bottom of the pile and stuffed them into my back pocket for later.
Unfortunately, the sunflower cipher didn’t have a clear answer this time. Three different petals were bent upward. After quickly glancing around the room one last time, I liberated the bouquet into my bedroom. I placed it on my dresser, beside my Halloweened-out baby pumpkin, so it just looked like I was decorating.
Using the world map as a guide, I decoded the sunflower cipher. The second petal on the light red (eighth) flower corresponded to Liechtenstein, a tiny, teeny country in the middle of Europe with more registered corporations than actual people. Next was New Zealand, light orange (ninth) flower, twelfth petal, which has way more sheep than people. Last was Suriname, light blue (twelfth) flower, thirteenth petal, the smallest South American country.
This was odder than odd! If my parents were really going to all of these countries, just the flight time alone of traveling from the U.S. to Europe to Oceania to South America would be several days — way too long for a simple Clean.
Someone had to have been messing with the petals, but there was no time to think about it. Total time spent upstairs covering for my parents: one minute, twenty seconds.
I marched downstairs and into the kitchen, determined to find out exactly what was going on. The shock of seeing Frank stuffed into Dad’s favorite chair stopped me. Stella was in Mom’s place. Victoria had taken over my seat. And suddenly I knew how the three little bears would have felt if Goldilocks had brought her whole family.
Frankenstella were using Mom’s best china, the white plates with roses and gold rims, which had to be hand-washed. On their plates were cinnamon buns — the last three buns in the house. Pity buns baked by Aunt Gertie just for me.
“Where is Aunt Gertie?” I blurted out.
“‘Good morning’ is the proper greeting,” Stella said. “Frank, darling, I see we’re going to have a lot of work teaching this one how to behave.”
“Is she at the Spoon or the Star?” I asked as I glanced at the key hooks next to the back door. Four keys — my house, Gertie’s house, Spoon, and Star — were missing. Only Mom’s car key hung there.
Frank grunted — at me or the food, I couldn’t tell. “Sit.” He pointed to the guest place at the kitchen table and I reluctantly slid into the chair.
The most nauseating stench rose up from my plate. On our very best china lay a row of tiny fish, their little mouths all frozen in silent screams. Two pieces of burnt toast completed my meal.
Sardines. For. Breakfast. They had stolen my delicious cinnamon buns — made just for me — and left me smelly fish.
“Eat.” Frank scooped up his sardines and smashed their oily bodies over the buttered toast. The oil-butter mixture dripped over his hand and onto the white cream cheese frosting of the cinnamon bun. He didn’t seem to notice. “Are you waiting for me to thank you for gracing us with your presence?”
Chunks of fish and toast churned in his mouth as he talked. My gag reflex jumped into overdrive, so I tore my eyes away. Victoria sat quietly. She picked at what should have been my cinnamon bun. I didn’t see any dead fish or their oily residue on her plate.
Maybe I should explain more about why I wasn’t exactly overjoyed to see my cousin and her parents. It all started during the first-ever Baies Family Visit, which had occurred just a few months before, during the last week of June. It had started off normal enough… for the first ten minutes.
Once we were alone, Victoria teased me about my hair (too curly), my height (too short), my name (too old-fashioned), and anything else she could think of. On the second day, I escaped to the mountains with Stanley. On the third day, Mom caught Frank going through paperwork at the museum. On the fourth day, Frank had a massive meltdown, screaming that Mom had stolen his inheritance, and said we were no longer family (which was why I didn’t think of them as uncle and aunt — not that I had before). On the fifth day, Frank and Stella threatened to sue my parents. That afternoon, my father kicked them out of our house. Aunt Gertie took them in, but she discovered Stella trying to enter Le Petit Musée after it was closed for the night. On the sixth day, Frank and Stella apologized to my parents, but demanded money for Frank’s share of the museum or, at the very least, the return of his old red suitcase. Mom refused to pay, and we couldn’t give him his missing suitcase because we didn’t have it. Frank had another tantrum and Stella asked Gertie to make a judgment.
Aunt Gertie sided with Mom. She practically drove Frankenstella out of town and back to Alaska. They didn’t even stick around long enough for the Fourth of July fireworks. After they left, I told my parents that I thought Frankenstella’s actions were suspicious. Dad agreed, saying their behavior made his spy sense go all tingly. Therefore, I have Frankenstella’s snooping and incessant demands about the old red suitcase to thank for making my parents take me into their confidence about the Great Reverse Heist. While Mom and Dad had been returning stolen American memorabilia on their own for a while, I was the one who gave their operation a cool name.
Stella ripped the outer coil from her cinnamon bun and stuffed it into her month. Smudges of white icing dotted the tip of her nose and her cheeks. After licking her lips like a satisfied cat, she said, “You’re late. Next time, no food.”
“No way. I got dressed in seconds.” I hadn’t even bothered to brush my hair, just ran my fingers through it. That’s the one good thing about having short, curly hair — even if it is a “mousy” brown, as Victoria once said. It looked the same if I spent no time on it or twenty minutes carefully combing it.
Stella snatched the toast off of my plate. “Don’t be rude to me, young lady.”
“Sorry, but the laws of physics prove that I got dressed and down here in less than three minutes,” I said. One minute, forty-three seconds to be exact.
My house is not large. Originally built by my great-great grandparents in the 1890s as a split-log cabin, my grandparents had added the second story, the basement, electricity, and indoor plumbing in the late 1960s. They’d also insulated the walls to keep snow, rain, and small critters out. I’ve walked from my bedroom to the kitchen countless times, timing it over and over until my internal sense could tell exactly how long it took me — all part of Dad’s spy training program to teach me to be able to judge time and distance. The trip was forty seconds at a normal pace. Today, I’d sprinted downstairs in twenty-three seconds.
Stella flung the burnt toast into the garbage pail. “If I say you’re late, you are late.”
“Hey. I was going to eat that.” But I sure wasn’t going to liberate the toast now.
“I will not abide contrariness in my home.” Stella wagged her bony finger in my face. “Apologize now.”
“This house belongs to my parents,” I said, resisting the urge to point my finger in her face. She’d bite it off, the way my morning was going. “You’re the guests here.”
“Right now, we are your guardians.”
“Says who?” I knew for a fact that Aunt Gertie had parental rights when my parents were out of town. She always signed my school permission forms. We were not following protocol this morning, and I didn’t like it. I had to find a way to get back on track.
Stella peered at me with utter contempt. “We have the right to discipline you by any means we see fit.” Frank grunted in agreement.
I needed
to find Aunt Gertie. She’d make everything all right again. “Uncle Frank, where is Aunt Gertie?”
“You owe my wife an apology.”
I looked down at the six sardines, which seemed to stare back at me in disapproval. What did Mom say about being captured behind enemy lines? Survival is paramount.
I had to be nice, no matter how horrible the situation. Lying was OK if it kept you alive. Breathing out through my nose, I crossed my fingers under the table and said, “I’m sorry for being rude, Aunt Stella.”
“Apology accepted.” Stella smiled at me again in that freaky way.
“Oh, Momma, I’m so glad you and Daddy would never leave me like Mabel’s parents did.” Victoria gave me a pitying look. “I’ll try to watch over my cousin. Mabel must be hurting inside something bad, knowing her parents don’t really care about her.”
Ugh. Victoria was doing an awful imitation of a Southern accent, yet her parents ate it up.
“You are a true little princess.” Frank patted Victoria on the cheek. “Mabel is blessed to have you in her life. Now it’s time for you girls to go wait for the bus.”
“What?” I blurted out. Even though my stomach was empty, I felt like I was going to be sick. “Victoria doesn’t go to my school. I thought you were just here for a few days, while my parents are in Mon—”
“Don’t worry,” Stella interrupted. “I talked to the principal, and he arranged it so that my darling Vicky-girl has the same schedule as you.”
Of course we’d have the same schedule. Bluewater-Silverton United Elementary School only had one class per grade level. I’d been stuck with the same twenty-five kids (ten girls and fifteen boys) for years.
“Cousin Mabel, we’re gonna have the bestest day together.” Victoria grabbed my arm. “I can’t wait to meet all your friends. I’m sure I’m gonna love them,” she continued in her fake Southern drawl.
Could this day get any worse? I needed help. “Uncle Frank.” I clenched my fists and held my arms stiffly at my sides so I wouldn’t hit Victoria. “Please tell me where Aunt Gertie is.”
Frank took his time chewing the last bite of his mash of fish, bun, and toast. He wiped his mouth, missing a glob of food on his cheek, then placed the napkin on the table. Clearing his throat, he said, “Jail.”
6
Never trust anyone who works hard to befriend you. Watch carefully for anyone who does special, unasked favors. Try to figure out what they might want from you.
— Rule Number 11 from Rules for a Successful Life as an Undercover Secret Agent
The honking of the school bus saved me from having a complete breakdown in front of Frankenstella. Before I could even think about whether Gertie could really be in jail, Victoria had yanked me out of the house, across the lawn, and into the waiting bus, carrying my book bag along with her own. Gripping my arm as tightly as possible, Victoria dragged me past the unabashed stares of the little kids, past Stanley who had saved my usual seat in the middle of the bus, past Emma G. and Emma H. in the next row and Grace K. and Grace L. in the row across — heads connected by a set of earphones as always, and into the very last seat of the nearly empty bus.
I took my backpack from Victoria. “Uh, thanks.” My arm tingled when she finally released her hold on me. Stanley and Emma G. turned around and waved. Their heads bobbed up and down as the school bus sped over potholes in the gravel road.
Aunt Gertie in jail? I couldn’t believe it. I’d just seen her the day before, around 11:30, when I’d popped into the Star for lunch before my afternoon shift at the Spoon. Frank had to be lying. He had lied this summer about Le Petit Musée and about Mom stealing some old red suitcase of his. I couldn’t trust Frank’s word.
Bus Driver Mark sped through a yellow light, one of only two stoplights in town. Once we crossed the four-way intersection, the bus screeched to a halt to let in the rest of the Silverton kids before we began our jolting journey to Bluewater-Silverton Unified Elementary School. It was only ten miles away, but Mark drove each switchback like he was in a race car.
I usually enjoyed this part of my morning, chatting with Stanley while watching the mountain scenery. Today, all I could think of was how many family secrets I had and how many more I didn’t yet know about. Mom was sure that Frank’s obsession with the mysterious red suitcase was tied to their parents’ criminal record. Thirty years is a long time to suddenly remember having misplaced your luggage, after all. That’s why my parents had invited Frankenstella to our house for Thanksgiving — to trick them into revealing what they knew. Pretty spy-tacular, right? Since Turkey Day was a month away, my parents hadn’t finalized the plan yet. Whatever that plan was, it was out the window now.
Victoria poked me in the ribs. “Now look, Cousin Mabel, I don’t like you and you don’t like me.” Whiffs of cinnamon rolled out of Victoria’s mouth.
“So you can tell the truth,” I said. My head hurt from keeping up with Victoria’s personality changes. “What about it?”
She took off the fluffy pink and purple sweater and shoved it into her book bag. Underneath she was wearing a pretty cool ninja-girl T-shirt. “We’re stuck with each other. The only way for us to survive is to form an alliance.”
“Alliance?” I repeated.
“Don’t you know any big vocabulary words? Alliance means we work together.”
“I know that. But who are you and what have you done with my cousin, the lovely princess Vicky-girl?”
“Don’t ever call me that.” Her hand balled into a fist. “What is wrong with you?” Victoria’s expression had lost all its usual sass. She now looked earnest and concerned, like a kid whose puppy has run away. “Don’t you see that something big is going on?”
Big? She had no idea. My parents were on a Cleaners’ job, which typically involved some type of world-saving, and Aunt Gertie appeared to be in trouble.
“Pay attention, Moppet. Something really big is going on in your little world.”
“Aunt Gertie is in jail.” It couldn’t get much worse than that in my little world. I wasn’t going to think about the big world. My parents were Cleaners, the best of the Agency’s spies. They could take care of themselves.
“And what else?”
Hunger made me snap. “Why do you care?”
“Because my father put her there.” Victoria leaned in close to me, even though no one could hear us over the noise of the bus. “Don’t you find it suspicious that your parents were invited to an exclusive estate sale for spoons in Europe at the same time Gertie got arrested?”
“My mom is well known in the world of collectible spoons.” I couldn’t very well say that whatever my parents were doing, they were definitely not spoon shopping in Monaco. The fact that my parents were gone was the least unusual thing about this situation. At least eight times since I’d learned the truth about Dad and Mom’s work, they had flown somewhere to fix something. Usually no one noticed, or if they did, no one said anything. They probably assumed Dad was rewiring old phone lines on the other side of the mountain, and Mom was just keeping him company. No one ever thought to ask, Did your parents solve that dangerous diplomatic incident that was in the news last week that suddenly went away?
“Mabel,” Victoria said, looking me straight in the eyes. “Are you sure it was a real work trip?”
“Yeah,” I said, but another feeling of unease washed over me. “I am surprised that Mom called your parents, considering what happened last time.”
“That’s not important.” Victoria studied the blur of red and gold autumn leaves outside the bus window. “Have you taken a good hard look at me and my parents?”
There was no polite way to say that I’d sort of fixated on them after the fiasco that was their last visit — especially after Dad suggested Frankenstella might be trying to restart the criminal enterprise element of the family. But to Victoria, I just shook my head in denial.
&n
bsp; “We’re nothing alike. Mom’s a total control freak. She has to have every little thing done exactly her way or it’s wrong. Dad always has these big, life-changing plans, but they never go anywhere. He’s not a details guy,” Victoria said, looking angry. “I’m different. I’m gonna be a star, and if I have to run zigzag backward up a mountain and swim through a sea of crocodiles to get there, get out of my way because those crocs won’t know what hit them.”
I kept myself from pointing out the fact that alligators lived in North America and crocodiles in South America, and from informing her that neither reptile was known for its mountain climbing ability. I didn’t need a head bonking.
“Silverton, Washington, is the last place on Earth I want to live,” Victoria continued. “Except for Nome. I am never going back there.”
I wanted to turn the conversation back to Aunt Gertie, but Mom always said, “Let the source talk,” so I did. “Oh?” I said, then buttoned my lips and listened.
“If I had my way, we’d be in Los Angeles right now.” Victoria shook her head, her long straight hair falling gracefully over her shoulders. “I’m going to be a famous actress.” She activated her phone’s camera, smiled, and took a selfie. Then another. And another. Satisfied with the last result, she put her phone back in her pocket.