Spy to the Rescue

by Jonathan Bernstein

I open my palm. Red jumps out of her mouth and into my hand. Ugh. Warm and wet. I drop him in my pocket and go over to the sink, where I squirt the contents of a little plastic soap dispenser onto my hand.

  “Aaaaa . . . ,” Zamira starts to scream. I clamp my soapy hand over her mouth.

  The ladies’ room door opens. I shove Zamira into the nearest toilet stall and kick the door shut behind me.

  I touch my finger to her lips and nod at her. She nods back. I very slowly pull my hand away.

  “Who are you?” she croaks.

  “I’m a friend,” I say. “Not a great friend, obviously. But I’m here to help stop a war between your country and Savlostavia.”

  “Those Savlostavian pigs,” she says.

  “Someone far, far worse is behind it,” I tell her.

  In a stall in the bathroom of the cathedral, I explain, in rapid whispers, to the daughter of Trezekhastan’s junior minister of agriculture, that Vanessa Dominion is planning to shoot the secretary of state’s son to impress her father.

  “I understand if you don’t believe me,” I say at the end of my hurried explanation. “But I’m telling you the truth.”

  Zamira gives me a long stare filled with dislike. Once again, I don’t blame her in the slightest.

  “I’m the bad guy here,” I tell her. “You want to scream, you want to have me arrested and thrown in jail, you have every right. I would if I were you. But there’s something else you could do. You could let me be you. Tell the cops you’re my stalker. Apologize and slip away.”

  “Then what I do?” she says.

  “This is New York,” I say. “Your trip had a bad start, but it doesn’t have to carry on like that. I can help you have a better time, if you’d like.”

  “You get me ticket to Spider-Man?” she says.

  “Spider-Man closed years ago,” I say, and I empathize as her face clouds over with disappointment. “But if you want to see a show or get into a club or get a fake passport or have the best day in New York you’ve ever had, I can make that happen.”

  Her expression softens. I take out the phone and hit ten digits.

  “Sam,” I say. “I need another favor. I’m putting my friend Zamira Kamirov on the phone. Whatever she asks, you say yes.”

  I hand her the phone. “Ask for the moon,” I tell her. “He’ll get it.”

  “And what about you?” Zamira says. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ll tell you next time I see you,” I say.

  “We will meet again?” she says.

  I shake my head. “No. Now go.”

  She nods and pushes past me. I watch the toilet stall door close as she leaves.

  “This Sam?” I hear her voice start to fade. “I want to see sweaty men fight in a cage.”

  I take a moment to try and undo some of the damage crawling across the cathedral floor did to my fancy outfit. I smooth, tuck, and rebutton until I’m ready to return to my mission. I push open the stall door but I can’t seem to get out. I feel something push back at me, but I don’t see anything. I realize what it is—who it is—but I’m too late. I feel a sharp jab at the side of my neck. My vision blurs. My legs give way.

  Vanessa stole more than a few teaspoons of the invisibility juice.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Raging Waters

  It could have been a lot worse. I mean, my situation is not great. But I could have woken up to find myself buried alive in a coffin ten feet under the earth. I could be in a trunk in the back of a speeding car. I could be at the top of a bonfire with flames licking my feet. Compared to any of those situations, returning to consciousness and finding myself still in a bathroom stall and tied to the toilet is almost a relief. Almost. Thick, knotted ropes pull my arms back and tie them around the tank of the toilet. My legs are fastened against the bowl. I start to struggle and pull but it makes no difference. From outside, I hear the faint sound of swelling organ music and I understand why Vanessa didn’t bury me, shove me in a trunk, or sit me at the top of a bonfire. She wants me to know I failed.

  I try to call for help. That’s when I realize there’s tape over my mouth. I feel faint stirrings of panic. I can’t move my arms and legs. I can’t speak. There’s nothing on the ground that might help me free myself. The ceiling is bare except for a light bulb hanging from a wire. Even though the stall is tiny, there’s not enough room for me to bang my head off the walls. I’m out of options.

  Except Red.

  If I still have him. If she hasn’t taken him. We’ve been together long enough for him to respond to my moods. If you’re still here, Red, I think, if you can understand what’s happened to me, help me, get me out of this.

  I strain against the ropes and make the same sort of mmmm noises that came out of Zamira’s mouth in this very same stall. It’s not much, but it’s the only way I know to communicate my need to be rescued. I strain and mmmm a little more.

  Nothing.

  The disappointment crushes me. I’m alone.

  And then I feel a soft shuffling movement against my waist. I’m not alone.

  Red bounces out of my jacket pocket and shoots into the air.

  “Red!” I try to shout, but it comes out “Mmmmnnnggg.”

  The little red marble disappears over the top of the next stall. I hear a loud splash and then I hear nothing. This didn’t have to happen. I didn’t have to end up like this. I had options. Why did I have to be so stubborn? Why did I forbid Ryan, Joanna, and Sam from helping me? Why did I send Zamira away? Why didn’t I listen to Dale and leave this in the hands of the cops? Why did I put all my trust in an unpredictable red marble? If I ever get out of this toilet stall, I will be more of a team player, I tell myself.

  When did the rumbling start? Was it happening while I was bemoaning my lack of faith in others? I feel something moving. It’s coming from directly underneath me. I feel the toilet seat start to vibrate. I hear a loud whistling noise. The toilet bowl is starting to shake. The whistling sound has altered in pitch and ferocity, sounding more like an endless hysterical scream. The toilet seat beneath me feels like a washing machine barely containing a full load. My own mmmmmnnnnnggggggs match the noise from the bowl.

  Oh my God.

  I think I know what’s happening down there.

  I think Red’s doing the same thing Ryan did a few years ago during his blowing-up-toilets phase, when he’d go to the house of a friend-slash-victim, unscrew the valve beneath the toilet bowl, and insert a golf ball into the water pipe. The pressure would make the bowl explode into a thousand pieces. Hilarious!

  Except that I’m the one currently sitting on a toilet that is primed to explode.

  The shaking is getting more violent. The screaming from the blocked pipe verges on the hysterical as my own mmmmmnnnnnggggging grows louder. I squeeze my eyes shut and start counting backward. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One . . . Zero. Zero minus one. Zero minus two. Zero minus . . .

  BOOM!

  A jet of water blasts the toilet up in the air. It’s like being on a rollercoaster in that I feel like I’m about to be violently sick and I’m too terrified to scream. I look up and see the ceiling get closer. I hurl myself forward. The movement turns the toilet upside down so my head is now pointed toward the floor. The porcelain base smashes against the ceiling. The ropes fall from my arms and ankles. I am blasted full in the face by an explosion of dirty water that causes me to gasp and choke. I start to fall, but before I do, I wrap my ankles around the wire that holds a single light bulb.

  For a second, I dangle, like a gasping, choking human bulb; then, as I feel the wire start to tear away from the roof, I swing myself from side to side until I’ve gathered enough momentum to let go. I fly through the door of the nearest stall, flailing wildly as I try to grab the door and make some kind of graceful landing. That doesn’t happen. I hit the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of me and then I slide down the toilet bowl and land upside down on the wet ground. I lie in a breathless, tr
embling, sodden heap. Out of my one open eye, I see Red roll toward me. He stops a few inches from my face.

  “Thanks,” I try to say, but my mouth is still covered. I rip the tape off and reach to wrap my hand around the marble who broke me out of my prison.

  “New York’s kicked our butt since we got here,” I say to him in a hoarse whisper. “Time we kicked back.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Growing Pains

  From inside the cathedral, I hear a boy’s high-pitched, trembling voice. I knock and kick at the doors. One door creaks open. An usher stares at me. When I first appeared at the ceremony, I was more than presentable in my all-black ensemble. Now I’m soaked in dirty toilet water and dripping all over the floor. Bits of porcelain cling to my hair. My face is smeared with dirt. I don’t have any shoes on. I look like the drenched, mud-spattered family dog no one wants in their nice clean house. From the horrified look on his face, the usher certainly doesn’t want me anywhere near his nice clean cathedral. He tries to bar my way. I don’t have time to plead my case. I duck under his outstretched arm and scamper inside.

  Up on the altar, a boy with a huge mop of frizzy hair, wearing an ill-fitting purple suit, holds a piece of paper in a trembling hand. In the other, he clutches a stuffed giraffe.

  “And so good-bye, my old friend,” reads the boy. “Our journey is at an end. But I will always think of your strong back and sturdy legs.”

  The boy drops the giraffe on the ground and stomps on him until the stuffing bursts and an eye pops out. The assembled guests cheer and applaud. Some of them weep. This, I’m guessing, is Atom Tubaldina’s coming-of-age ritual. The poor kid has to destroy his favorite toys to show that he’s a man. Two men carry a Lego city onto the altar. They carefully lower it to the ground. Atom looks down at it. I follow his gaze. From what I can see, it’s an intricately constructed cityscape, complete with lines of cars sitting in traffic, bridges, towers, shops, and a public park. A lot of love, care, planning, and most of all time was clearly put into the building of this colorful city. And because of the requirements of his coming-of-age ceremony, Atom is about to stomp all over his young life’s work. He looks at his sheet of paper and then down at his Lego city. He totally doesn’t want to destroy it.

  There’s a loud cough from the congregation. Atom looks up. A man, presumably his father, the secretary of state, gives him an impatient hurry up hand gesture. Atom has this look on his face that I completely recognize. I am on the verge of being a grown-up, it says. I know that I am expected to act like an adult and to make everyone watching me proud. But I feel like crying.

  “These are not real streets,” he starts to read. “These are not real people. They do not live in real houses. . . .” Atom takes big gulps of air between lines. His face is starting to redden. I feel bad for him. Not just because I know, somewhere in this church, Vanessa Dominion is gearing up to shoot him, but because he is about to destroy something he holds dear. And for what? So he can mark what someone decided was the passage from childhood to adulthood? So a tradition can survive? Not all traditions deserve to survive.

  “Good-bye, Lego city,” whispers Atom. “It is time to leave you behind and live in the real world.”

  He looks down at the streets he built. He lifts up his foot. I can feel him willing himself not to break down and sob.

  I pull back an arm and throw Red at the nearest stained-glass window.

  As it shatters, I yell, “Gun!”

  Atom freezes mid-stomp. Heads turn my way. I point dramatically at the broken window. The usher rushes toward me.

  “She did it,” he starts to say, but Red bounces back from the window and hits him in the forehead before he can get out another word. The usher keels over and drops to the ground.

  Murmurs of fear turn to screams of terror as I hear the word gun repeated over and over. The occupants of both sides of the cathedral are on their feet. Trezekhastanis and Savlostavians yell and shake fists at one another. The cops start grabbing guests and pushing them toward the door.

  “We need to clear the cathedral right now,” they shout.

  Scared guests stampede toward the door. I pretend I’m running along with them but I make a quick turn to the left before I’m swallowed up by the crowd and head up an empty row.

  At the altar, Atom stares, confused and horrified at the frantic exodus from his Festival of Impending Manhood. His parents hurry to the altar to protect him. His mother grabs him and enfolds him in her arms. Atom’s father, the secretary of state, looks down at the Lego city, shakes his head, and starts to lift his foot.

  Bad dad!

  I hurl Red. He hits Atom’s father on the kneecap. He howls in pain and collapses on the ground. Atom and his mother scream in horror. It occurs to me that I might be a little too zealous in protecting Atom’s Lego city.

  I reach the end of the row and start running toward the altar. I keep my head down and stay in the shadows under the stained-glass windows.

  One of the cops suddenly tumbles backward and falls down the stone steps. The second cop pulls his gun and puts himself in front of Atom and his mother. This guy I feel bad for because I know his impending fate. Ouch! His head jerks to one side, as if an invisible foot has struck it with great force. Ouch again! The cop doubles up and then falls to the ground. Atom stands defiantly in front of his mother and wounded—by me!—father.

  “You want me,” he shouts, “come and get me!”

  Without having to destroy his Lego city, Atom has come of age!

  Unfortunately for me, what Atom Tubaldina sees when he makes this defiant statement is me, charging toward the steps, reaching a hand inside my soaked jacket and pulling out what he probably thinks is a gun.

  “It’s not a gun!” I yell as I hurl the plastic soap dispenser from the cathedral’s ladies’ room straight at him.

  Atom does not know this. He drops to the ground and throws his hands over his face. He hears the gunshot but he does not see the soap dispenser explode in midair. He does not see the liquid soap inside the dispenser spurt out and start to take shape as it dribbles and slides downward. He does not see the girl inside the soapy shape.

  “It’s in my mouth,” splutters a disgusted English accent.

  And then I see her. Vanessa: hair, face, black dress, and fancy shoes with perilously high heels all covered in liquid soap. She makes a nauseated throat-clearing sound and spits soap from her mouth. Her gun dangles from one hand as she rubs her eyes and slicks back her hair with the other one.

  “Go!” I yell at Atom as I charge up the steps. Atom’s mother helps lift his father from the ground. Atom rushes to assist her.

  “Never mind him,” I shout. “Get the Lego city to safety!”

  Atom gives me a who are you? stare.

  “I love Lego!” I shout back. I’m trying to express solidarity and empathy, but from the freaked-out look on his face, it absolutely fails to register with him.

  Atom looks away from me and gathers up the Lego city as best he can while his parents hobble their way to the exit at the back of the church. Vanessa whirls on him and aims her gun. I run forward, snatch up the priest’s thick prayer book, and use it to hit Vanessa under her elbow. The gun goes off, sending a bullet through the cathedral roof. Vanessa moves toward Atom, but I throw myself forward and wrap my arms around her ankles, bringing her crashing down to the ground.

  “Ow ow ow ow!” she yelps.

  I’ve got her! I won!

  Her ankles shoot forward and slip straight out of my arms. She has both palms pressed onto the ground and seems to be doing some kind of reverse squat thrust. Maybe I haven’t won? Her feet come flying back at me—nope, definitely haven’t won—catching me in the stomach, lifting me off my feet, and sending me rolling down the steps. I land on top of the two cops.

  “This has been fun, peanut,” Vanessa says as she walks toward me, gun pointed at my head. “You’re a feisty little critter. I’ll miss you. I mean, I’ll hit you. But after that, I’ll m
iss you.”

  I drag myself off the cop who broke my fall. I hear him wince with pain as my hand pushes into his ribs.

  “Sorry,” I whisper.

  Vanessa reaches the bottom step. “How about I give you a head start?” She smiles. “A sporting chance. Count of three. You run and hide. After that, bang bang.”

  “That’s what you want your daddy to hear about?” I say. “That you were all talk? That you failed? You’re no Irina O. You’re Vanessa Ewww.” (Even with a gun inches from my face, I’m still funny.)

  “I know what you’re doing,” Vanessa says, but her smile looks strained. “You’re trying to buy yourself a little time. Won’t work.”

  She’s right. I am. I keep going. “You couldn’t kill Atom and his Lego city. So what’s your consolation prize? A painfully average middle school student? That’s the only job Edward Dominion thought you were capable of completing. And he was right. You showed him nothing. You showed me nothing.”

  Now she’s angry. “Shut up, peanut,” she snarls.

  I don’t. “We had tea, you know, Edward and I, tea and cakes. He liked me; he confided in me. He addressed me by my name. You know, the name my parents gave me. I’ve got a lot of people who care about me, Vanessa. What’ve you got?”

  Splashes of red appear on Vanessa’s cheeks.

  “A gun,” she says. But we both see her hand tremble. She changes to a two-handed grip.

  “I promised you a count of three,” she says. “Three. Two. One.”

  She pulls the trigger. I hurl myself to the floor. As I do, I see the gun fly over my head and embed itself in the ground halfway down the aisle. I also see the piece of pink half-chewed magnetic gum lying a few inches away from it. I gasp in shock. Irina.

  Vanessa lets out a shriek of frustration and runs up the aisle. I spring to my feet and scramble after her. She spins around and kicks me. Her leg connects with my head and I see actual cartoon stars. I stumble into the nearest row, fall over a seat, and hit the ground.

  “Irina,” I mutter. “If you’re here, now would be a good time to show yourself.”