Model Spy

by Shannon Greenland

  “What is it? Are you sick? Dude, this is like the worst time ever for you to be sick. You guys leave for Ushbania tomorrow.” Bruiser picked up the phone between our beds and punched some numbers. “I’m calling TL. He needs to know you’re sick.”

  I slid my right arm from beneath me and plopped it over the phone, knocking it to the floor. “I don’t want TL knowing I got my period.”

  “Oh.” Bruiser picked it up. “That sucks.”

  Miserably I nodded. I was leaving tomorrow for the most important event in my life, and Mother Nature had decided to give me a farewell party. Perfect. I loved being a girl. Beside me I heard Bruiser opening and closing drawers.

  She touched my shoulder a few seconds later. “Here. Some muscle relaxers from when I sprained my neck.”

  Bruiser always had some sort of injury going on.

  Gritting against the cramps, I rolled onto my side. Her KICK SOME BOOTY T-shirt greeted me. In her small, outstretched hand lay two horse pills.

  “Those prescription?”

  She nodded.

  “You’re not supposed to take other people’s prescriptions.” Jeez, did I sound like a nerd or what?

  Bruiser rolled her green eyes. “You’re such a goody-goody. Take ’em already. Not like it’s gonna kill you.”

  I did feel like a goody-goody, always following the rules. Even I sometimes annoyed myself. That couldn’t be good. “What’s the brand name?” I had to at least show some caution.

  Bringing them close to her freckled face, she inspected them. “Huh. Whaddaya know? Motrin.”

  Motrin? A recognizable over-the-counter name. Not canpifretrin, asmopowprin, tyquilnoleny, or some other crazy long word no one ever heard of. “I’ll take one. If I need the other, I’ll ask you for it.” Better to be on the safe side.

  “You’re so cautious,” she teased.

  I stuck out my tongue, and we both laughed.

  “Hey.” David peeked into our open doorway, and my stomach whoopdy-whooped. I saw him every day, but the unexpected sightings did it to me every time. “TL wants to see everyone in the common area.”

  Tossing the pill in my mouth, I washed it down with hours-old, warm soda.

  David walked in. “What are you taking? What’s wrong? Is that a pill? Are you sick?”

  His concern turned my insides all mushy. It’d been two weeks since my apology to him, and we’d managed to return to a stable friendship. Nothing like before, though. His emotions surrounding his dad made him more serious and focused.

  Bruiser held out her hand. “Calm down. No big deal. She got her p—”

  “Points taken off my last exam and it, um, gave me a headache. That’s right, I have a headache, and Bruiser gave me some pills.” I smiled, even though my heart thundered, and I silently prayed that David would immediately drop the subject.

  His lips curved up knowingly. Oooh.

  “Be quick about it. TL doesn’t like waiting.”

  As soon as David left, I slung my pillow at Bruiser. “I’m going to kill you,” I hissed. “I can’t believe you almost told him I’m on the big P.”

  She laughed. “So what? Not like it’s a national secret that women have them.”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Come on.”

  I followed Bruiser down the carpeted hall to the common area, where the double doors sat closed. Strange, these doors were never shut. Bruiser and I exchanged curious looks, then she raised her fist and knocked.

  “Enter,” TL commanded.

  She grasped the knob on the right, I took the one on the left, and we both pushed . . .

  “Surprise!”

  Balloons. Everywhere. Red, white, blue, pink, purple. With multicolored ribbons streaming in curls from each one. And people. Standing and grinning, holding glasses of champagne. Staring at me. All the members of Team One. Jonathan, TL, Chapling, and David. Wirenut, Mystic, Parrot, and the newly dyed, yellow-haired Beaker, who wore her usual smirk.

  Bruiser smiled at me as she went to join the crowd. Twerp. She knew about this.

  TL brought me a glass. “It’s your send-off party. We do one for all first missions.”

  No one had ever, ever, thrown me a party. With a grin I knew split my face in two, I took the glass.

  “To GiGi’s first mission.” TL lifted his champagne. “May her flight over and back and everything in between be successful.”

  I joined everyone in taking a sip. Wow. Real champagne. Not some sparkling white grape juice. Of course all of us minors had the equivalent of one sip. Hey, one sip’s better than nothing.

  Wait a minute. Did he say flight over? Of course he said flight over. How did you think you would get there? Sail across the Atlantic? But I didn’t fly. TL knew that. I couldn’t fly. I absolutely couldn’t get on a plane.

  I glanced around the room to see if anyone else had noticed the mistake. But they were all talking. Someone cranked on the stereo. Mystic and Wirenut walked toward me, smiling. Wirenut’s lips moved, but I didn’t hear a word.

  The walls narrowed in, and I swallowed the sickness in my mouth. Champagne, even a sip, on an empty stomach with a muscle relaxer. Not a good combination with FLYING.

  Heat flashed through my body, then icy dampness. I swayed. “Somesome thingthing’s wrongwrong withwith GiGiGiGi.” Parrot’s voice echoed through my ears.

  Mystic doubled into twin thick-necked clairvoyants. They both grabbed me. I squeezed my eyes shut, and it made the dizziness worse.

  “Lay her down on the carpet,” TL instructed.

  My whole world tilted. I pried my eyelids open. Fuzzy doubles of everyone’s faces crowded my space. I tried to push back.

  TL and his duplicate put their hands on my shoulder. “Lie still.”

  I swallowed another wave of nausea.

  “She’s gonna hurl,” both Beakers announced a little too enthusiastically.

  The TLs unsnapped my jeans and pulled my T-shirt out. “Give her some breathing room.” The blurry doubles took a step back. “Has she eaten today?”

  “I saw her sucking on a lollipop earlier.” Bruiser and her twin placed a wet rag on my forehead. The coolness made me moan. The TLs fanned me with a magazine. “Champagne on an empty stomach.”

  Bruiser put all four hands over her two mouths. “With a prescription muscle relaxer.”

  The TLs continued to fan me. “What’s she taking muscle relaxers for?”

  Nooo. I shook my head, and all the fuzzy doubles bounced around.

  “Her period.”

  [8]

  Closing my eyes, I gingerly reclined my first-class seat. The sedative TL gave me hours ago was long gone. Gone before it had had a chance to kick in. I’d never thrown up so much in my life. Two times at the ranch, once in the limo on the way to the airport, two times in the terminal, and once just now in the plane’s bathroom. And we hadn’t even taken off yet.

  If I hadn’t been so nervously sick, I might have enjoyed my first time in a limo. If I didn’t need to dry-heave again, I might be embarrassed that TL, Jonathan, and David saw me hurling, as Beaker so enthusiastically put it yesterday.

  And Bruiser had announced to everyone that I got the big P. Oooh. She definitely had it coming when I returned from Ushbania.

  If I got back. Bad guys, national security, bombs, a kidnapping. Big-time stuff. Things might not go right. I could really screw up.

  Not to worry, Audrey, my modeling instructor, had reassured me when she came by the ranch to see me off. Hives had been her main concern. Hives. I was facing the biggest fear of my life, and she was worried about some little red rashy dots.

  “Miss January, are you sure I can’t get you something?”

  Miss January? Oh, yeah, that’s me. My modeling name. I forced my eyelids open. The flight attendant looked more nervous than I felt. Probably thought I’d throw up all over her first-class area, and she’d have to clean it up. At least in the fancy seats they call you by your name. Even if it was a fake one.

  “M
iss January?”

  “Ginger ale after we take off,” David answered for me.

  With a nod, the attendant headed toward the back of the plane.

  “How’s she doing?” Jonathan whispered from across the aisle.

  “She’ll make it.” David retrieved a blanket from the overhead bin. He tucked it in around me, then sat back down.

  Funny how a tucked-in blanket can make a person feel better. Like armor protecting against the bad stuff. The bogeyman in a dark orphanage, shadows in an unknown foster home, or plain emptiness in my first dormitory . . .

  Shaking off my momentary walk into the past, I concentrated on the here and now.

  Jonathan, David, TL, and I were dressed and acting our roles for the mission. TL gave us fake passports with matching false IDs. We each had memorized our made-up backgrounds. That made twice for me in the past few months. Once when the IPNC recruited me and I became Kelly Spree/GiGi, and again for this mission.

  My new modeling name? Jade January. Ridiculous or what? The IPNC actually employed a person who made up false IDs. What a job. Guess there’re a lot of secret agents on missions if someone works all day creating their fake backgrounds.

  In between worrying over hives and posture, Audrey picked out clothes and packed for me. She dressed me in knee-length, brown suede boots and a thigh-length, crème sweater dress. At the last second, a stylist snipped layers into my shoulder-length blond hair and made me promise not to pull it back in a ponytail. What he didn’t know wouldn’t kill him.

  They’d also worked on David, TL, and Jonathan. David, my personal photographer, wore faded jeans, a white T-shirt, black leather jacket, and boots. He’d grown stubble and carried his camera equipment on the plane. His yum factor hit twenty on a scale of one to ten.

  TL, my bodyguard, wore a black suit and matching shades. He hadn’t taken the sunglasses off once. Very mysterious, serious demeanor. Other than in the limo, he hadn’t spoken or showed any emotion.

  Jonathan, my modeling agent, wore a white suit. A purple eye patch replaced his usual black one and matched his purple silk shirt and shoes. His bald head gleamed from where the hair stylist had buffed it. As soon as we stepped from the limo into public view, Jonathan and his cell phone had been inseparable. Part of his modeling-agent role.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Steve Brusher speaking. Welcome aboard Air Transport commercial flight ten-eleven. Flying nonstop from San Belden, California, to Prost, Ushbania . . .”

  Beneath the blanket, I dug my fingernails into my palms. I could do this. I knew I could. Just because my parents died in a plane crash didn’t mean I would die in one.

  “. . . It’s going to be a beautiful flight today. Clear skies. Current temperatures in Prost are five above zero. We’ll be reaching an altitude of thirty thousand feet . . .”

  Thirty thousand feet. Really high up. Over the ocean. Something goes wrong. No place to land. Only the water. I squeezed my eyes shut and concentrated on calming breaths. In. Then out. In. Then out. Like TL had taught me.

  “. . . flotation device beneath the seat. Should the cabin lose pressure, an oxygen mask will fall from the overhead bin. Reach up and pull the mask taut and put it over your nose and mouth. Oxygen will be flowing even though the bag does not inflate. Please place your own mask on before attending to children . . .”

  I caught my breath as the memory flooded back. Six years old. Dangling oxygen masks. My dad had put his over me first. Because of him, I survived the crash. He pushed me free. I swam to the surface knowing he and Mom would be right behind.

  Gripping my seat flotation. Dark. Wet. Debris popping up around me. Curling my legs up as tight as I could in the water. Searching . . . searching . . . everyone surfaced but them. Daaadddyyy! Mooommmyyy! Why didn’t they surface?

  “Shhh,” David said softly. He smoothed a tissue over my cheeks, and I realized I was crying. He slipped his arm beneath the blanket and covered my clenched fist with his hand.

  In. Then out. In. Then out. I paced my breathing, blocking everything else.

  The plane slowly moved, backing away from the terminal. David ran his thumb across my fist, back and forth, in a soft caress. I gradually stopped concentrating on my breaths and focused all my energy on his tender touch. His thumb worked its way inside my fist, circling my palm and stroking the underside of my fingers.

  I sighed with the release of tension and stress. He linked fingers with me and brought our hands palm to palm.

  The engines roared and the plane sped down the runway. I opened my eyes and gazed out the window as the jet lifted off. The buildings and trees got smaller and smaller. Sometime later, clouds filled my view . . . and I smiled. I made it. I actually made it.

  “Here’s your ginger ale.”

  I turned my attention to the flight attendant, who placed the glass in the armrest’s cup holder.

  “Thank you.”

  David squeezed my hand as she strode off. “Better?”

  I nodded.

  “Good.” He slipped a rolled-up magazine from his jacket pocket with his free hand, spread it across his lap, flipped a few pages, then began reading.

  Idly I studied the clouds outside my window, and one by one my brain cells zeroed in on our clasped hands. The warm, slightly roughened texture of his. Our linked fingers. His thumb skimming back and forth in a subconscious action. Normal. Like we had held hands hundreds of times before. Amazing how his touch provided the comfort I needed.

  Was he thinking about my hand in his? He seemed preoccupied with his magazine. Maybe it was an act. Maybe he was just as focused on our hands as I was.

  Then again, probably not. David was eighteen. He’d probably held hands with plenty of girls. He’d probably kissed lots, too. He’d probably even done more than that . . .

  With the last thought, my palm immediately went clammy. I didn’t want to stop holding hands, but I didn’t want to gross him out, either.

  Stupidstupidstupid.

  He saw me as a little sister. He’d said so before. He held my hand like a big brother would hold a little sister’s. Although his caressing thumb didn’t feel very brotherly-sisterly.

  Pulling his hand free from mine, he unclipped his seat belt. “Bathroom break.” He took a lollipop from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. “It’s grape.”

  How unbelievably sweet. “Thanks.”

  Jonathan stepped across the aisle and took David’s seat. “You’re looking better. Let’s talk about . . .”

  Grudgingly, I focused on his words, but my mind screamed, YOU’RE IN DAVID’S SEAT, YOU BIG EYE-PATCH GALOOT!

  Turned out I spent most of the sixteen-hour flight beside everyone but David. Jonathan had carried on a brief agent/model conversation with me, more for show than anything. When he got done, TL and David were engaged in a deep conversation. It went on for so long, Jonathan fell asleep. Hours later he woke up, but David had fallen asleep. Hours after that I woke up, didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep, and noticed that TL was sitting beside me. Apparently Jonathan had challenged David to a rousing game of tic-tac-toe.

  Then a late-night dinner came and a movie, and everyone stayed in their shuffled-around spots. By the time the flight ended, David was back beside me, but so engrossed in his magazine that every chance of holding hands fizzled away.

  Now, as we stood outside our hotel suite, I rolled my eyes at my immaturity. We were on a top secret national mission, and my biggest worry was holding hands. Jeez.

  Our bellboy swiped a key card through the electronic lock, and we all filed into the suite. Romanov owned this hotel. All the models were staying at it.

  Jonathan gave the young bellboy some money, and he left. TL rubbed his chin, then brushed imaginary lint from his shoulder. Our signal to get into character.

  “I swear that boy stank.” I flounced over to the blue velvet couch and plopped down. The perfect, spoiled-rotten model. “Haven’t they heard of soap in this country?”

  TL and David unsna
pped the buckles from their belts, leaving two black leather straps dangling in place. Starting at the door, they worked in opposite directions, scanning every lamp, door frame, decoration, piece of furniture, light switch, and whatever else they could find. The tips of the belt buckles glowed steady green. It would blink red if it detected a bug. A brilliant device that Chapling had created years ago.

  Jonathan meandered over to the marble bar. “Now, honey, you’re just tired from the long trip.” He took a crystal glass from a silver tray, some ice from the freezer, and poured in seltzer water. “Little bit of this, a good nap, and you’ll be all better.”

  His light still glowing steady green, David disappeared into one of the bedrooms.

  “Yuck.” I plunked my high-heeled boots onto the dark wood coffee table. “If you don’t have lime, I’m not drinking it. I’d rather have a regular soda.”

  “Regular soda?” Jonathan gasped, and I almost laughed. “Wash your mouth out. Do you know how many calories that has?”

  David came out of a bedroom at the same time as TL stepped from a bathroom, both their buckle tips still glowing green. David strode across the red-carpeted living room toward me, focused intently on his buckle detection device.

  “But all I’ve eaten today is yogurt,” I whined. “One little soda won’t hurt me.” Amazing that people worried about stuff like calories. What a waste of valuable brain time.

  “Tsk, tsk.” Jonathan shook his finger at me. “Every calorie becomes a cheese dimple on your thigh.”

  David ran the detection device over, around, and beneath the coffee table where my feet sat propped. He scanned the couch, leaning around me and stepping over me. He squatted and inspected the underside. With every movement his cologne drifted around me, hazing my focus. Then he stopped and glanced up at me with his cheek mere inches from my thigh. He raised his dark brows in question. I furrowed mine in response. He widened his eyes and tightened his lips.

  What . . . ?

  Oh! Quickly I recalled the last thing Jonathan had said. “Cheese dimple,” I replied. “Don’t be so gross.”

  David went back to scanning, and I focused all 191 IQ points on Jonathan. I wouldn’t have gotten distracted in the first place if David hadn’t been kneeling and crawling around me.