I Think My Dad Is a Spy

by Sognia Vassallo

  “DNA samples!” I repeated horrified. I didn’t want to admit it but she was starting to freak me out. I mean this was MY DAD she was talking about, good old boring Joseph George. Janice has it all wrong he’s not an international spy, he just can’t be. I kept thinking that over and over in my head but it wasn’t making me feel any better.

  Rat-ta-tat-tat.

  Janice and I jumped with fright. Dad had banged hard on my door for a second time.

  “It’s okay girls! There’s no need for alarm, I’ve found it. It was safely tucked away in my jacket pocket all along.”

  “Oh…that’s g-good to hear, Dad,” I stammered feeling relieved I was off the hook.

  “Thank goodness too because I would’ve died if I had lost that,” Dad said murmuring to himself as he walked away.

  Janice and I shot a look of curiosity to one another.

  “Whatever that folded piece of paper was, it must be of utter importance; enough for someone to kill for it, perhaps?” Janice whispered to me. We knew we needed to come up with a cunning plan to get our hands on this important document, but how?

  We were soon ready and joined Dad in the kitchen. Our plan was a simple but difficult one: Janice was going to distract him, while I sneaked back into his bedroom and took another look in his briefcase.

  While Janice started a conversation about our new political leaders and the future of our economy, I picked at my soft fluffy eggs with my fork. It all sounded like mumbo jumbo to me but it obviously excited Dad because he was so occupied he didn’t notice me leave the table.

  Inside Dad’s bedroom I noticed the briefcase wasn’t there anymore. I began looking for it all over but without any luck. I checked in all the obvious places like behind his shower curtain, in his sock drawer and even under his bed, but still without any luck. It was strange; the briefcase had just disappeared into thin air.

  I snuck back into the kitchen and sat myself down at the table without Dad noticing. Luckily Dad was really into the conversation (which I thought was the most boring conversation in the world).

  “The younger generation are going to be the ones left cleaning up the mess of the generation before them,” said Janice.

  “Too true Janice, too true,” said Dad impressed. He stood up from the table and offered us both a second helping of eggs.

  Janice said ‘yes’ with an exaggerated smile.

  “Well did you see it?” Janice quickly whispered as Dad’s back was turned.

  “No, I couldn’t find the briefcase anywhere,” I answered softly. “Maybe it’s not in the briefcase at all, he could still have it in his jacket pocket,” Janice whispered.

  We turned our gaze to Dad and watched him closely as he piled another serving of eggs onto Janice’s plate.

  “Maybe, but how do you expect me to get a look at it, while he’s still wearing it?” I muttered.

  “I dunno, try hugging him,” said Janice quickly.

  “Here you go, another helping of eggs,” Dad said turning back towards the table.

  As he lent over me to serve Janice the eggs I threw my arms around him. “Oh Daddy, have I told you how much I love you?” I said as I began feeling the outside of the jacket and listening for any crinkly paper noises.

  “Oh that’s nice dear, but…but please can I at least put this plate down before we both end up wearing scrambled eggs?” he asked peeling my arms from around his waist.

  “Sorry, Daddy but aren’t you hot in that jacket? Would you like me to take it off and lay it on your bed for you?” I asked.

  “No need, but you’re right it is it getting a little warm in here, I’ll just put it here,” he said taking it off and laying it over the back of his chair.

  Oh pooh, now I had to come up with another plan to feel inside the jacket.

  “Brrrrrrrrr, it’s a little chilly this morning,” I said briskly rubbing my arms with my hands.

  “Really I just said it’s warming up and it’s going to be a lovely spring day today,” Dad disputed.

  “Um…well its cold now, don’t you think so Janice?” I said looking at her sideways and pulling a face. Janice had been my friend for so long now that sometimes we didn’t need words to communicate to each other.

  “Oh…ah yes Sophie now that you mention it, it is a little nippy,” she said rubbing her arms also.

  “Hmm maybe the both of you should go and put something warmer on; perhaps you are coming down with a cold,” he said holding the back of his hand against my forehead. “Actually you do feel a little clammy, dear.”

  “No I’m fine, just a little chilly that’s all. Maybe I can borrow your jacket just until I finish my breakfast, then I’m sure I’ll be much warmer,” I said smiling sweetly. “Oh actually Dad I can wait until your debate is finished, it sounds awfully interesting,” I said looking at Janice, pulling a ‘help me’ face as I sat back down between them. Janice understood me instantly because she asked if there was any more tea in the pot, knowing that Dad had drank the last cup just a few minutes earlier. He quickly sprung up from the table and offered to make another pot. Dad seemed to be in a really good mood this morning and I wondered why.

  Janice got out of her chair and offered to help him. This gave me the perfect opportunity. With my back facing them I used the jacket as a shield and started to unfold the piece of paper inside the hidden pocket. I carefully unfolded it once, twice, three times. That’s when I realised it wasn’t just a note but something about A4 size. There was no way I could hide something that big. If I just kept the paper folded in half maybe I could try reading it inside out and back to front.

  The first part was easy. Written in bold letters was the name of a woman, ‘Tiffany Co…’ something. The print was too faint to work out the rest of her last name. Under that, I could see ‘Law 37’ or was that two Ls? I squinted. I recognised the words ‘Princess’ and ‘New York City’ and then ‘Payment for’ and I couldn’t quite work out the name but I did see a ‘J’ and a ‘G’, which could be Dad’s initials but I wasn’t too sure. Underneath that, there was a number but looking at it back to front and upside down I couldn’t work out exactly what is was, but I did see a whole lot of zeros; six I think all together. Wow, that was a lot of money, I thought.

  Suddenly I felt a sharp jab in my back. I looked up to see Janice urging me to put it away. I fumbled as I folded the piece of paper as fast as I could and zipped it neatly away into the secret pocket.

  Once the paper was tucked safely away in the hidden pocket I took the jacket off. Janice and I thanked Dad for breakfast and the use of his jacket, and then we skipped down the hallway and quickly disappeared into my bedroom.

  As soon as I closed the door Janice blurted out, “WELL?”

  “Well what?” I said cheekily fanning myself with her notebook.

  “Stop it Sophie and tell me I just didn’t waste twenty minutes of my life talking about stupid politics,” she scolded.

  “Really, I thought you were enjoying it,” I jeered.

  Janice quickly snatched her notebook out of my hand. I told her what I had read on the paper and she wrote it all down in her notebook. We then stared down at the jumbled letters and numbers on the page.

  “It looks like a code,” she said, “are you sure this is all you could read?”

  “Yes!” I said defensively. “The note was so big I had to leave it folded in half. This was the best I could do.”

  So, the two of us set about trying to decode it…

  After two long hours had passed we weren’t any closer to cracking the stupid code!

  “Tomorrow’s a school day, can’t this wait until then?” I whined to Janice. “At least then I will have something to look forward to during Maths.”

  Janice looked up at me and sighed. She then picked up her phone up and texted:

  Theo meet us at the mall.

  “You’re right, we both need to give our brains a break from deciphering codes and thinking about spies for a while,” she said.

  I
t was a great afternoon but the more I tried to forget about the secret note, the more it bugged me.

  Journal entry:

  Monday, 6:17pm

  For a small community I can’t believe how much mail has to be delivered in Orchard Mead every day!

  I decided not to let this whole ‘spy thing’ get in the way of my parcel run this afternoon. I’m the youngest postal worker in the state, and maybe even the nation, so I take my job very seriously.

  Dad recently took a few streets off my route and gave them to Michael McClain! I wouldn’t have minded so much if Dad had left me some of the good streets and had given Michael the other ones, but he left me with Corella Court.

  Dad knew how much I hated that creepy street!

  Corella Court is a very strange little cul-de-sac and everyone who lives there is a WEIRDO! I don’t mind saying that because they are!

  Let’s start with number six, which reminds me of a fortress.

  The owners have a huge rock garden and a flagpole that flaunts a pale blue flag with a white cross.

  I often see the owner out in his pyjamas. He’s super-duper hairy just like a monkey, except he has a shiny bald spot on his head and wears a lot of gold chains. I think his name is Waldorf Ari-nio-cov…or something like that. It reminds me of a sneeze with ‘cov’ at the end.

  Then there is Darren Campbell, the guy who lives at number seven. Darren is a mail thief! He steals all the mail from the other houses of Corella Court and then he takes them back to the post office just so he can visit Chelsea working at the front counter! He’s got a major crush on her; it’s really creepy and quite disgusting! It’s also very annoying for me because I have to redeliver the mail the next day and Dad has to deal with all the complaints, especially from the crazy cat lady at number ten—Mrs Jenson.

  Mrs Jensen complains all the time that someone keeps stealing her mail but she is convinced it’s her son and daughter-in-law. She believes they are trying to prove she’s loony so they can put her in the nursing home down the road and take over her house. I don’t think she’s a psycho or anything but she does own at least twenty-five cats and yells at me if her mail is sticking out even by a smidgen. Lately Mrs Jenson is taking no chances and she has put two padlocks on her letter box. It’s all very INSANE if you ask me!

  The really old couple at number eight, Mr and Mrs Allen, are the worst complainers. They have a gigantic fence all the way around their property and a sign on their mail box that says, ‘NO ENTRY: BEWARE OF VICIOUS DOGS!’ Underneath the words it has a picture of two German Shepherds and a skull-and-cross-bone symbol. It’s such a stupid sign because Mr and Mrs Allen only own one dog and it’s a yappy Chihuahua that looks more like an oversized rat than a dog.

  The last house is number twelve. This ugly house is right on the corner of Corella Court but it faces onto Valencia Street. The owners are so obsessed with concrete statues; they have lots! Sitting on one side of their brick letterbox is a kangaroo and an emu and on the other side is an Aboriginal hunter aiming a spear at them. Further up the footpath are two white swan planter boxes filled with nothing but yellow sand. Then plonked either side of the driveway is a statue of a naked lady stretching and opposite is a small water feature of a cheeky boy weeing into a pot!

  I just don’t see the point. Why do people want to scatter statues and those ridiculous little garden gnomes all over their front lawns? It’s tacky and ugly if you ask me!

  After I shoved the last letter into the last house on my route I rode as fast as I could back to the post office, hoping I would beat Michael and get the better parking spot. I hurried in a zigzag pattern across the car park with my little trailer squeaking behind me and I flew into the depot at breakneck speed. My wheels let out a loud squeal on the shiny concrete floor as I pushed my foot hard onto the brakes.

  I was so happy I had beaten ‘Idiot-Boy’.

  Humming happily to myself I quickly began unpacking the leftover parcels out from my trailer. Today I had seven; it was a lot but not the most I could carry all in one go. Carefully I placed my clipboard and helmet on top of the wobbly pile and juggled the parcel stack carefully across the warehouse. Suddenly like some crazy maniac, Michael flew into the depot on his motorbike. As soon as he saw me he screeched on his brakes but his bike kept skidding toward me.

  SCREEEECH…

  I threw my hands up over my eyes and screamed, “Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  Everything went silent. It was a miracle I was still standing. Slowly I uncovered my eyes to see a very frightened and pale Michael McClain stooped over his handle bars. The front wheel of his bike had stopped just millimetres in front of me but had left a long black skid mark on the cement floor.

  “YOU SILLY MANIAC!” I shouted loudly.

  My legs were like jelly and I was lucky that I was still upright, but I couldn’t say that about my parcels which were everywhere.

  “Oh gosh, Soph I…I am so sorry,” Michael stuttered, looking ghostly white.

  “I…I didn’t see you until the last minute…”

  “I’M SURPRISED YOU COULD SEE ANYTHING AT ALL WITH THE SPEED YOU WERE GOING!” I hollered back as I began picking up the dented boxes.

  “I’m sorry, I really am. You’re not going to tell your dad on me are you?” he begged.

  I didn’t reply.

  “C’mon do me a favour…SIS.” He added the ‘sis’ part after clasping his hands together like a prayer.

  “WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?” I yelled.

  I dropped the packages on the floor again and stormed right up to him on his bike.

  “I AM NOT YOUR SISTER AND YOU WILL NEVER BE MY BROTHER, SO DON’T EVER CALL ME ‘SIS’ AGAIN. GOT IT!” I scowled jabbing my finger hard into his helmet.

  I then thundered back over to my pile of crumpled boxes and paper. I picked them up and stamped across the depot and in through the back door of the post office. I tried to slam the door behind me but it was one of those stupid self-closing doors. Instead of making a dramatic ‘BANG’ it only made a soft ‘swiiiiffft’ sound.

  I dumped my paperwork hard onto Dad’s desk, put my scanner on charge then wedged my helmet and my safety jacket into my locker and slammed that shut with a BANG!

  I was quite surprised with all the screeching, yelling and banging, Dad hadn’t come rushing out to see what all the commotion was about.

  Something didn’t feel quite right…it was too quiet in here.

  I went back into Dad’s office and noticed his desk was neat and tidy except for the pile of paperwork I had just dumped in the middle of it. I popped my head around the corner and looked around the post shop.

  Chelsea was serving Mrs Glynt at the counter but Dad was nowhere to be seen. This was strange, I thought, it was nearly closing time and he always closed the post office.

  I could tell Chelsea was not really listening to Mrs Glynt and could see that her eyes were red like she’d been crying. Mind you if I had to put up with a son like Michael I would be crying all day too. The moment Mrs Glynt left the building I asked Chelsea why she was so upset, but before she answered we were interrupted by the sound of clattering and banging from the locker room out back. Then Michael entered the shop, cautiously sauntering over to us, his eyes flitting between his mother and me. I knew what he was thinking; he wondered if I had dobbed on him already, and I would’ve if only I could find my dad.

  I looked around the shop again just in case he was restocking shelves or something…no, he wasn’t here, it was definitely just the three of us standing in a small circle. I felt uneasy.

  “Where’s Dad?” I asked carefully.

  “To tell you the truth Sophie I’m really not too sure where your father goes these days,” Chelsea said turning her back to us. Michael and I shot a concerned look at one another.

  “Mum, are you okay?” Michael asked putting his arm on her shoulder. I was shocked as I had never seen him act so human-like.

  “Joseph’s gone on a short trip and will be home in a few days,” she r
eplied wiping away a tear as she turned back to face me.

  “Where’s he gone?” I asked surprised.

  Chelsea shrugged her shoulders. “He left in a hurry and didn’t tell me much and then I received an anonymous phone call this afternoon telling me your father was seen at the international airport with another woman. I think she’s some sort of Russian model.” She then began to sob into her hands.

  Wait a minute, a Russian model? Grrrr that taxi driver, he had to be the anonymous caller. Oh I’m gonna give him what for when I see him next. I was so annoyed that people in small towns have nothing better to do than to gossip all day. Chelsea’s sobbing grew louder.

  “I have no idea who this woman is and where they’ve gone together,” she bawled louder.

  As she looked at me I could see her wet blue eyes glistening under the lights.

  “Do you know anything about her Sophie?”

  “Umm…no I know nothing,” I lied.

  Just as I went to lay my hand on her arm to comfort her Michael pushed me out of the way and hugged her tightly instead. I suppose I couldn’t blame him or even Chelsea for being mad at my dad. He had been acting really weird these past few weeks, but how did this Russian woman fit into all this mess? Maybe I had read the dates wrong on the tickets. I could’ve sworn they had next month’s date on them.

  It didn’t matter which way I looked at this, nothing made sense. As much as I didn’t believe the whole ‘spy’ thing, it was the only thing that sort of made sense. If my dad was a spy, then maybe his mission was to follow this Russian woman around the country to keep tabs on her, or maybe she was his prisoner and was taking her back to the CIA…

  That’s only if my dad was a CIA agent…

  My mind had run away with me, I snapped back to reality, where Michael was locking the front doors and Chelsea was cashing up the tills. But I was left standing in the middle of the room— abandoned.