The Agent’s Daughter
Ron Corriveau
~~~~~
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the imagination of the author or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events, businesses, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The Agent’s Daughter
All rights reserved.
Published by Geek Parade Books at Smashwords
Copyright 2013 Ron Corriveau
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
First Edition: May 2013
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 1
Melina stared out the window of her classroom and thought of a million things that she would rather be doing. Her language arts teacher, Mrs. Frerking, gave lectures that could be used to induce hypnosis, so Melina often found herself daydreaming of things far more exciting than class.
“Miss Roberts. Eyes to the front, my dear,” Mrs. Frerking said from the front of the classroom. Known for being the strictest teacher in tenth grade, Mrs. Frerking had a pet peeve about students that did not pay attention in class.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Melina said as she quickly sat up straight in her chair and fixed her gaze to the front of the room.
“Now then, we have a few minutes left so let’s spend some time going over the reading assignment for this week,” Mrs. Frerking said, addressing the whole class. “Remember, there is a test on it tomorrow.”
Mrs. Frerking liked to teach right up to the bell. She took immense pleasure in making the students that had put all their things away in anticipation of the end of the class have to get them back out again.
“Okay,” she continued. “Our book selection for this week was the historical non-fiction book, Great Women Spies of the Civil War.”
Ordinarily, Melina would have read this book as soon as she got it. She loves historical non-fiction and this book in particular features strong, courageous women living exciting lives. There was one problem. She had lost the book. She can remember bringing it home, and then it was gone. Afterward, she tried to borrow a copy but the classmate that was going to lend Melina her copy didn’t because she had never finished reading the book herself. Another student in her class was going to lend her their copy, but she forgot to bring it to school.
“I trust everyone has done the assigned reading?” Mrs. Frerking said with an expression of rhetorical doubt on her face. “Is there anyone that would like to answer a few questions for the class?”
There was the usual assortment of hands raised with enthusiasm and hands half-raised as if to say do NOT call on me.
“Hmm,” she said as she scanned the room, increasing the drama.
A voice whispered in Melina’s direction. “I hope she doesn’t call on me.”
The voice belonged to Alex Winfield, the boy that sat in the seat next to her. He was new to the school having just moved from Seattle a few weeks after the start of classes. All of the girls in the class thought he was extremely cute with long, straight shoulder length blonde hair and deep turquoise colored eyes. He also dressed in a way that was different from all of the other boys that was a mix of old Seattle grunge and new skater boy. As luck would have it, when it came time to find the new student a seat, he ended up at the only available desk next to Melina. While he said hello to her every day and they had engaged in numerous conversations, shyness on her part prevented the conversations from being anything but awkward and all business. Most of the time they were discussions of school assignments and such.
“I hope she doesn’t call on me either,” Melina whispered back, trying to flash her best smile.
That went well Melina thought, but she had to get back to the matter at hand. Mrs. Frerking most often called on the half-raised hands, so Melina raised her hand quick and high.
It didn’t work.
Mrs. Frerking turned and stared at Melina. “You read the entire selection, Miss Roberts?”
“Uh, yes ma’am,” Melina stammered.
“All right, then,” Mrs. Frerking began, still standing at the front of the class, “what can you tell me about Sarah Emma Edmonds?”
Melina thought for a moment, stalling, before offering, “She was a spy?”
That brought scattered giggles from the students. Mrs. Frerking was now slowly walking toward Melina.
“That is most intriguing,” Mrs. Frerking said as she continued her stroll toward Melina. “I would not have guessed that from the title of the book.”
Mrs. Frerking smelled fear and was now closing in for the kill. She now stood right in front of Melina’s desk. “Miss Roberts, can you tell me how Sarah Emma Edmonds was revealed as a spy?”
There are times when people have been known to come up with brilliant answers under extreme pressure. This was not one of those times.
“The government tapped her phone?” Melina said with a meek voice.
With that, the class erupted in laughter. Shrinking in her seat, Melina did not yet realize what she had said that everyone thought was funny.
“My dear,” Mrs. Frerking said, “I suppose it would be news to historians that Sarah Emma Edmonds had a telephone ten years before it was invented.”
Now she understood. All she could muster at that point was a blank stare.
“Umm,” Melina said, finally.
“You did not read the book, did you Miss Roberts,” said Mrs. Frerking.
“No ma’am, I lost it,” Melina said, trying to sound as contrite as possible.
Mrs. Frerking sensed that her young student had suffered enough. “Okay, Miss Roberts. You have a twenty-four hour reprieve. Find it and read it by tomorrow.”
“Okay ma’am. Thank you,” Melina said, her voice barely audible.
Mrs. Frerking now addressed the whole class. “Let’s try this again, is there anyone in class that did read the book?”
A girl sitting a few seats in front of Melina raised her hand. “I did.”
It was Ellen Barrow. Tall as a runway model and dressed almost as well, she was part of a group of people that were considered the popular crowd. Popular having the usual meaning that you were pretty and wore the latest trendy clothes. Although Melina could qualify under those rules, she preferred to dress in her own style of jeans and retro tennis shoes, so she steered clear of them. She had extra motivation to stay away from Ellen in particular. One day at lunch, early in her freshman year, Melina suggested to Ellen that perhaps she should not cut in front of everyone in the cafeteria line. Every day since, she’s greeted Melina with a stink-eye hello.
“Okay, Miss Barrow,” said Mrs. Frerking. “Can you tell me how Sarah Emma Edmonds was revealed as a spy?”
“Sarah Emma Edmonds disguised herself as a man throughout the Civil War, so she could be more effective as a spy,” Ellen began. “When she contracted malaria, she was forced to give up the stunt. Although Sarah was never found out, during her bout with malaria, the fake male soldier that she concocted was put on the military rolls as a deserter, so she just stopped
spying.”
“Excellent answer, Miss Barrow,” Mrs. Frerking said. “I hope everyone has studied as hard for the test tomorrow.”
With that, Ellen turned around and gave Melina a bonus I’m-smarter-than-you stink-eye. Mercifully, the bell rang at that point, and Melina made a beeline for the door. Once outside the classroom, she began to make her way with the throng down the hall toward her locker.
Melina heard a voice behind her. “Hey lady, wait up.”
She stopped and turned around. It was her best friend, Jean.
“Hey,” Melina said with a small wave.
Melina had known Jean since kindergarten. On the first day of class, Jean grabbed a game that Melina was playing with right out of her hands, and a small fight broke out between them. In order to help the two strong willed girls get along, the school principal made them spend the rest of the week at recess playing together. By the end of the week, they were best friends. Jean knew her friend well, and could tell by Melina’s voice and her manner that something was wrong.
“You sound terrible,” Jean said. “What is the matter?”
“Come on,” Melina said. “Walk with me to my locker and I’ll fill you in on all of the details of the great language arts class meltdown.”
“Oh no! Did you say something stupid to that cute new guy?” Jean asked.
Melina smiled. “No. I wish it were only that awful. I said something stupid to the whole class. I hadn’t read the reading assignment, and Mrs. Frerking called on me to answer questions about it. Then, I said in front of everybody that I thought a Civil War era spy was busted because of a phone tap.”
“And …?” Jean asked, thinking there was going to be further details to the story.
“The Civil War had ended ten years before the phone was invented,” Melina said with a dismissive tone.
“Well, I can see how that would be embarrassing in that egghead language arts class. Us folks in bonehead English, we barely can use phones,” Jean said with a note of sarcasm.
“I’m sorry, Jean,” Melina said. “That is not what I meant.”
“Why are you even in that advanced English class?” Jean said, “You obviously hate it. You are such a genius in science and math. You should-”
Melina held up a hand toward Jean. “Don’t say it.”
“You should junk the difficult English stuff and focus on your strength in the hard sciences,” Jean said. “There. I said it.”
Melina sighed, unhappy about having this conversation again. “I am taking that class because it will help prepare me for what I ultimately want to do as a career.”
Jean rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. You want to be some foreign diplomat or something. You want to get out of the suburbs and see the world.”
“I want to do something exciting with my life,” Melina explained. “If I take science and math classes, I will end up in some boring career as some boring scientist or engineer.”
“Like your dad,” Jean said with a smug tone.
“Listen, Jean,” Melina said, “I love my dad. He is apparently a brilliant engineer and the software code that he writes is mind numbingly difficult, but that’s not for me. I see my dad put on a tie and go to work at the same place every day. When he comes home, and I ask him how his day went, he says that he sat at his desk all day typing on a keyboard and moving a mouse. My dad never complains, and he does seem happy, but that is not the life that I want. I want a career that has some excitement to it. When my family asks me how my day at work went, I want my description of it to sound just like a novel.”
“Doesn’t your dad get to do some traveling?” Jean asked.
“Every two or three weeks he goes on a two or three day trip to the corporate headquarters in Washington D.C. He described these trips to me once. He does the same thing he does here, but he does it in another city. Instead of typing on a keyboard in his office here, he gets together with a bunch of other engineers to talk about what they type on their keyboards. Elaborate discussions of software tasks and function calls.”
“All I know is that you should pursue what you have a talent for and-” Jean started, but stopped suddenly, turning her attention to behind Melina.
“And what?” Melina asked.
Jean gave Melina a quick head nod that indicated that she should look behind her. Melina turned around and there standing in front of her was Alex Winfield.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Alex said, looking alternately at both Melina and Jean.
“No problem,” Melina said, flustered and now standing up a little straighter.
“Who’s your friend, Melina?” Jean said, not flustered.
Alex held out his hand to Jean. “My name is Alex.”
“I’m Jean,” Jean countered, shaking his hand.
Melina then regained her composure. “My friend Jean was just trying to convince me that I should give up the hard language arts class.”
“If you are thinking about what happened in class today, that’s kinda why I’m here,” Alex said. “You told Mrs. Frerking that you had lost your copy of the book from the reading assignment. I’m done with mine. Would you like to borrow it?”
There was a noticeable pause as Melina tried to process the turn of events. The cutest guy in language arts class was offering to solve her problem of finding a book before tomorrow. Sensing that she was taking too long, Melina answered abruptly.
“Sure... uh… are you sure? I mean are you sure that you are done with it?” Melina stammered.
“I’m positive,” Alex said, as he took the book out of his backpack and handed it to Melina. “I’ve read it twice already. I’m a big fan of historical non-fiction.”
Melina took the book from him and slid it into her backpack. “Thank you, Alex.”
“I still think you should drop the language arts and concentrate on physics and math,” Jean said, trying to be a part of the conversation. “You do awesome in those classes.”
“Physics is my favorite subject,” Alex said. “When I was in seventh grade, my science teacher made us do a biography paper on a famous scientist. In order to prevent the entire class from doing their papers on Albert Einstein, the teacher assigned us the names of the scientists. I did my report on Ernest Lawrence. What he accomplished was so fascinating that I have been hooked ever since.”
“Ernest ...?” Jean asked.
“Ernest Lawrence,” Melina said, with a tone that implied that his name was common knowledge. “Nobel Prize winner… inventor of the cyclotron.”
“Cyclotron?” Jean said as she looked at Melina with her eyes squinted. “You just made that up.”
“No,” said Melina, laughing. “The cyclotron is the scientific name for an atom smasher. It accelerates elementary particles such as protons up to near the speed of light. Then the particles are forced to smash into one another. The collisions can be observed for new particles in the collision debris.”
“Lawrence’s invention was so revered by the scientific community that he has an element in the periodic table named for him, Lawrencium,” added Alex.
“This conversation has crossed way over the line into geekdom. I am starting to learn things,” Jean said, rolling her eyes.
“Wow,” Alex said as he turned to Melina. “It sounds as if you know your stuff.”
“Physics comes easy for me,” Melina said. “I haven’t missed a single question on any of the quizzes this year. But the real physics gearhead in the family is my little brother Travis. He has always been a little small for his age and has never been that interested in outdoor activities, so he spends a lot of time inside reading. Most of the time about science.”
“Sounds as if he might turn out to be a scientist when he gets older,” Alex said.
“Maybe,” Melina said. “He just received a Castle Grant.”
“I heard about that,” Alex said, his face with the look of recognition. “That is the grant that is given to the top five middle school physics students in the c
ountry. It is supposed to allow them to do independent research of a physics topic of their choosing.”
Melina pointed at Alex. “That’s the one. He hasn’t chosen his area to study, but he said something last week about investigating his theory of the possible existence of a seventh quark. A gentleman from the grant committee said Travis’s theory has a lot of potential. He said Travis has an unusually natural grasp of the subject.”
“I like physics a lot, but it is not natural for me,” Alex said. “I have to study pretty hard. It helps that my dad is an engineer. He can help me with the tougher problems.”
“Melina’s dad is an engineer too,” Jean said.
“Yeah, he’s a software engineer. He works in downtown Dallas at Hadron Systems,” Melina said.
“Hey!” Alex replied. “That’s where my dad works! He just transferred from the Seattle office. That’s why we moved.”
“Wow,” Melina said, “What a small world.”
Bzzzzz …...Bzzzz.
Alex looked around. “What was that noise?”
“That would be my watch,” Melina said as she held up her arm and pointed at her wristwatch. “It apparently thinks it is the top of the hour.”
“You know, I’m no watch connoisseur, but that is the ugliest watch I have ever seen,” Alex said, clearly joking with Melina.
“You’re telling me,” Melina shot back, “Its face is twice the normal size. And do not get me started on the fluorescent orange color.”
“It was a gift, I presume?” Alex asked. “From someone you cannot offend. Like a mob boss.”
“No,” Melina said, laughing. “I lost my watch about a month ago, and I borrowed one of my mom’s watches.”
Jean was thinking ahead. She could sense ‘the question’ coming, and she had to get her friend out of there.
“You know, Melina, we should get going to our next class,” Jean said as she tugged on Melina’s arm.
Melina gave Jean a strange look. It was unlike her to want to rush to class. “I’ve got plenty of time,” Melina said as she turned back to Alex. She was clearly enjoying her conversation.
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