Dirk Daring, Secret Agent

by Helaine Becker

I smoothed the newsprint and started reading.

  “The alley was narrow—dark and narrow. It stank like rotted vegetables and cat pee, the signature reek of demoralization and despair…”

  My eyes slid hungrily down the page.

  “There was nothing to see, nothing to fear. Not unless you counted the rats that squeaked behind the Nino’s Pizza dumpster…But nothing is as it seems in the shadow world. I knew the forces of darkness were on the move. Watching, waiting. And they were hunting for me.Dirk Daring, Secret Agent…mistakes are for corpses, not master spies like me.”

  “Heh,” I chuckled. “That’s pretty funny. ‘Mistakes are for corpses.’”

  “Yeah.” Opal nodded. She was sucking on a Tootsie Roll Pop as she read. “You really have a way with words.”

  I kept reading.

  “I slid my key silently into the doorknob and placed my hand on the sensor pad—it was cunningly disguised as a plain green shingle. Only once my unique handprint was read and identified would my key be enabled.

  “As I waited for clearance, I attuned my highly trained senses to the surroundings. I heard nothing but the wind whispering in the maple trees. The single woof! of a dog let out to do his business.

  “I heard the click that meant my clearance had been approved. I entered.

  “The next thing I knew, I was on the floor, my arm twisted behind my back. And my archenemy, Allegra Montefiore, was whispering in my ear. ‘Tell me where the disc is now, Dirk, or you die.’”

  I dropped the paper to my lap. “Hey…what the—!”

  “What the what?” Opal mumbled, absorbed in her reading.

  “This end bit! About another spy, Allegra something or other. I didn’t write that!”

  Opal stopped swinging.

  “What? Where?” she said.

  “The very end. The last line before ‘To Be Continued…’ I didn’t write that!”

  Her eyes skipped to the bottom of the page. Left, right, they flicked.

  “Oh. My. God.” Opal’s face was the color of chalk.

  “Opal? You okay?”

  When she looked back at me, her eyes were blazing. With anger. I thought I saw fear there too.

  “It’s Amber, of course. She’s the one who changed your story! Because it’s not enough for her to zing you. She’s going to zing me too.”

  Her face contorted into one of those mask of tragedy thingies.

  “That mystery character in your story? Allegra?

  Allegra Montefiore? That’s me! Amber’s not just stealing your story. She’s taking mine too.”

  “I’m not sure I’m getting this,” I said to Opal when we finally had the chance to talk again. “Who is this Allegra Whoever, and what does she have to do with you?”

  Opal gave me a look that could send butter right back up into a cow’s udders.

  “Don’t you get it, Darren? You’re not the only one who has a fantasy. A dream.”

  She walked a little ways away from me. I could see her shoulders shaking. Her hands opened and closed, opened and closed, at her sides.

  “You’re right. I don’t get it. Not one bit. Are you telling me you keep a mission journal like I do?”

  She shook her head. “But when we were kids, both Amber and I used to play spies. Kim Possible. Power-Puff Girls. You know, stuff like that. We’d dress up and run around and save the planet from evil Dr. Xes. We each had favorite characters we pretended to be. Hers was Candy Kane. I was Allegra Montefiore.” She paused, taking a breath.

  “Well, she kind of got bored with it. Claimed she’d ‘outgrown that stupid stuff.’ But I never thought it was stupid. I still like to imagine I’m Allegra every once in a while.”

  Opal’s voice had started to crack as she talked, but now she was crying full-out. “She’s doing this to hurt me. To embarrass me. I can’t believe she’d be so mean!” she sobbed.

  I didn’t know what to do. Here she was, the beautiful Opal Vega, her face in her hands, crying so hard it would make even an evil Dr. X’s heart break. It was unbearable.

  I had to do something. Anything.

  So, okay. It wasn’t pretty. I kind of even hit her in the chin by accident. But even so, I somehow managed to put my arms around her. I pulled her to me and murmured some nonsense words in her ear, the way my mom used to whisper to me when I’d hurt myself and had run to her for a hug. Opal didn’t push me away. In fact, she kinda leaned in closer to me and put her arms around my waist.

  “Shh, shh,” I said.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh!” she sobbed wetly against my shoulder.

  I patted her back, feeling foolish as all get-out. But good, too, somehow.

  Eventually her sobs turned to sniffles. And then she was turning her head, wiping her eyes and straightening up, leaving me standing apart from her, my arms hanging like shovels at my sides.

  She forced a crooked smile and glanced up at me, then away.

  Embarrassed.

  Well, good—that made two of us.

  “Thanks, Darren.” She sniffed again.

  “It’s not so bad,” I said. “First of all, no one knows who Allegra Montyhoozy is but you, me and Amber. Maybe Travis. Right?”

  “Right…”

  “And didn’t you just tell me this is a chance to turn ignominy into victory?”

  Her forehead crinkled. “Ignomi-hoo?”

  “Sorry,” I said, feeling dorkier than ever. “I mean humiliation, defeat. Whatever.”

  She shook her head. “This is different. It’s not about them.” She tipped her head toward the other kids racing around the schoolyard. “It’s about Amber ’n’ me.”

  “What’s up between you two anyway? This seems like more than the ordinary, sisterly type of fighting. I don’t remember you two ever going at it like this before.”

  “We never did,” she said, wiping her nose. “Not until…”

  Her shoulders slumped.

  “Not until what?”

  “I’m not supposed to tell…”

  “Yeah, well, she’s not supposed to print your secrets in the school paper, is she? I think you’re okay to tell me. I’m good at keeping secrets. Dirk Daring, right?” I pointed to my chest and struck a goofy, superhero stance.

  It worked: I got that crooked smile again. It nearly tore my heart in two.

  She took a deep breath. A decision-making breath.

  “It was when she got the stupid LD designation,” Opal finally said. “That’s when everything went south.”

  “LD? As in learning disability?”

  Opal nodded. “Yeah. She was having trouble with math. Geometry especially. You know how we have to make shapes on those geoboard things? With the rubber bands? She can’t do it. Not at all. Ms. Scribner told our mom she should get Amber tested, and she did, and it turns out that Amber has, like, a gynormous ‘deficit’ in spatial sense. And working memory too. Apparently she sucks at working memory.”

  “So what? Everybody sucks at something. Only some people get the paperwork to prove it.”

  “That’s what I thought too, but Amber got all down on herself. And then she got pissed at me. Like it was my fault she had this LD thing and I didn’t. And she started being really mean, to everyone really, but especially to me. She’s been like some kind of she-wolf since then.”

  “She-wolf,” I said with a chuckle. “Nice one.”

  The bell rang. We started heading into the building, me still trying to make sense of what Opal was telling me.

  “So she’s feeling like crap…and that’s why she’s gotten so mean. But it’s all so dumb! I mean, Amber is plenty smart and pretty and she can do lots of stuff! Who cares about geoboards or working whatever?”

  “Amber does, of course. And Travis too.”

  “Travis?”

  “They go to the same tutor now. On Tuesday afternoons.”

  I stopped in my tracks.

  “Travis goes to karate on Tuesday afternoons. He has for years.”

  Opal snorted. “Oh yeah? Would that b
e Bright Horizons Learning Center—Specializing in Math, English and Roundhouse Kicks? ’Cause trust me—he goes to Bright Horizons every week. I’ve seen him there when we pick up Amber. And they’re not doing much karate. That’s why he and Amber have gotten so tight. They both have a secret. The same secret.”

  Left, right. Left, right.

  No one is watching. I creep closer to my access point—the cat door.

  “You can really fit through that thing?” Agent Jewel inquired.

  “I think the parameters are acceptable. They were in August anyway.”

  “You’ve grown some,” said Agent Fury. “If you get stuck…”

  “I won’t get stuck. Getting stuck is for stickers.”

  We all laughed.

  Being on a mission with friends was fun. Even if it was the most serious mission of my life.

  It didn’t matter that Darren Dirkowitz had become a so-called Hero at school. His deepest, darkest secrets, even if no longer secret, were in the possession of the enemy.

  Dirk Daring had been assigned to repatriate them. To bring the binder home.

  “You’re absolutely sure Travis won’t be out of his tutor session until 4:45?” I asked Agent Jewel.

  “At the earliest,” she said with a curt nod.

  “That gives us 15 minutes clear. Plus driving-home time. I don’t want to dip into that safety margin. I’ll be out in less than 10. Fury, you watch at the front. Signal Jewel if you see the T-Bone mobile approaching. Copy that?”

  “Copy.” Agent Fury scooted around to the front of the house.

  “You got your phone on?” I asked Agent Jewel.

  She held it to her lips. “Can you hear me?” The reverb through my own phone nearly blew my eardrums out.

  “Okay, I’m going in,” I mouthed.

  She nodded and mouthed back, “Ten-four.”

  Travis and I had been using the cat door for getting in and out of his house for, like, ever. It was too small for a grown-up to fit through. But it was just right for Travis’s very fat cat, Nibs. And also for a boy with a bad habit of forgetting his house key.

  Sure enough, it was unlocked. I ran my finger under the edge and lifted the flap up easily. Now to squirm my way inside…

  Agent Jewel held the door open for me. She gave me a quick, bolstering pat on the back. And then I was shimmying through the opening and into Travis’s house.

  It was a tight squeeze—I had grown since the last time I’d done this—but it was still okay. I was in!

  I raced for the stairs. Up to Travis’s room.

  Where would he have stashed my binder?

  No problem—it was right there, front and center, in the middle of his desk.

  I picked it up and riffled through the pages to make sure they were complete.

  They were all there, all right.

  But—wait! What the heck was this!????

  Anger roared through me like a hot tsunami. Travis had written all over the pages! Drawn cartoons even! Why, that rotten, no-good…

  I turned the pages, reading what Travis had scribbled on each one.

  Then—a whistle. Agent Fury!

  No! He couldn’t be back yet!

  I checked my phone. It was 5:05. I must have lost track of time. So now I had to fly—this was real live breaking and entering. Okay, not breaking, but definitely entering.

  I tore down the stairs and pushed the cat door open with my foot. I shoved the binder through the opening, then got down on my belly to shimmy through.

  My head—through.

  My shoulders—through.

  My hips—

  Crappity Crap Crap! STUCK!

  “Opal!” I called out in a stage whisper.

  And then she was there, eyeball to eyeball with me, yanking on my arms, pulling so hard I thought my shoulders would be ripped right from their sockets.

  But then, POP! My hips cleared the door and I was out, lying in the f lower bed and panting hard, Opal lying half across me and breathing hard too.

  “Come on, let’s go!” I whispered. And again, the reverb through our phones screamed.

  “Shut that off!” My words echoed over and over again, bouncing back and forth from one phone to the other.

  I breathed a sigh of relief as Opal clambered off me and got to her feet. I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees and was ready to sprint away when a sharp blow between my shoulder blades knocked me flat.

  “Fancy meeting you here, Dirk.”

  I got to my feet and dusted my clothes off.

  “We were just leaving,” I said. “Now get out of my way.”

  “Not so fast,” Travis said. “I think my mom would like to hear about how you’ve been sneaking into our house when we’re gone.”

  “You have no proof,” Opal said.

  “You’re in my backyard. And you’ve got stuff from my room in your hands.”

  She clutched my binder even tighter to her chest. “This isn’t yours and you know it.”

  I held up my hand to get Opal to stop. “You tell your mom I went into your house, and I tell her you’ve been selling tests.”

  Lucinda came running into the yard, breathless. “Oh no! I tried to stop him, guys, really I did.”

  Travis gave Lucinda a derisive look. “I can’t believe you. So desperate you’d even bring Loser Lu in on your little games.”

  I glared at him. “Just shut your fat mouth, Travis! There’s nothing wrong with Lucinda. It’s you that’s the loser.”

  “Thanks, Darren,” Lucinda said. “I agree totally. Now that I know what you’re really like, Travis. You…you…”

  She kicked him then. Hard. In the shin.

  I couldn’t believe it. Lucinda had actually kicked Travis!

  Travis was hopping on one foot, clutching his other leg. Opal started to snicker. And then she was laughing out loud. The sound was so cheerful, so musical, so catching, that I started laughing too. And then Lu said, “Take that. And if you do one more thing to hurt one more person, I will make sure you hurt a lot worse than that.”

  “Okay! Okay!” Travis said, still hopping. “I never meant…”

  “Never meant what?”

  “To hurt anybody,” Travis said miserably.

  “Yeah right,” Opal said. “You probably never meant to steal tests either. Or humiliate Darren. Or pick on Lu. You just had a big oops.”

  “Kind of. Yeah,” he said.

  His eyes met mine. I got a glimpse of the old Travis in there. Or at least I thought I did.

  “Spill it,” I said.

  His whole body seemed to droop all at once.

  He nodded toward the door—the real one. “Come in, then.”

  “Yeah. Sure,” Opal said. “Two seconds ago you were, like, ‘I’m going to mess you up for breaking into my house.’ And now we’re going to sit down and have milk and cookies with you? Get real. Come on, Darren, Lu. Let’s go.”

  My eyes held Travis’s. “You guys go on without me. Travis and I have some stuff to talk about.”

  Lucinda’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t!”

  I glanced over at Opal, and she shrugged her shoulders.

  “Yeah. He can, Lu. And maybe he should. Let’s go.” She turned to me again and said, “We got your back, okay, Darren?”

  “I know,” I said.

  Opal got up on her tiptoes, my notebook still in hand, and kissed my cheek. Then she and Lu took off.

  I followed Travis around to the side door and into the house. I sat down at the kitchen table while he poured two glasses of milk. He got the box of Oreos out and passed me a stack.

  “So, you know how Conner is about his stuff,” he started.

  I knew. His older brother, Conner, was a beast about not letting Travis touch anything that was his. He practically made Travis sign disclaimers before breathing.

  “Well, I busted his iPad.”

  I whistled, long and low. “Those are really expensive, aren’t they?”

  “A fortune. And I have to
pay him every single penny back. By Christmas.”

  “Where you gonna get the mon—”

  I stopped and stared at him.

  Duh.

  “So that’s why you sold the tests.”

  “Yeah.” He couldn’t look at me—wouldn’t look at me—as he talked. “Conner suggested it. Said it was a quick way to make a buck. I didn’t have any better ideas.”

  “You could have said no.”

  “I could have. But I didn’t.”

  “You could have asked me for help! I would have loaned you some cash!”

  He coughed. “Like you have any? Come on, dude. What would you do, start up a bake sale for me? I thought it would be easy. But I only had a few buyers.”

  “Waldo…” I said.

  “And the guys from the Detention Gang.”

  My eyes snapped from my Oreos to his face.

  “But once they bought the tests, they owned me too. Waldo? He didn’t do anything. But the other guys… Well, turns out they didn’t use the tests. So I had no insurance. Nothing I could hold over them. But since they bought them from me…”

  “They owned you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the next thing you knew, they had you doing their dirty work. Like shaking down kids on the buses for lunch money,” I said, connecting the dots.

  “Uh-huh. They oh so generously let me keep a percentage of the take. To pay down my debt to Conner.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

  He snorted. “Yeah right—you’re agent Dirk Daring, a force for good in the world. A regular Bruce Wayne. I knew you’d get all sniffy at me.”

  I crossed my arms. “Well, you’re right. I would have. I would have told you not to do it.”

  Travis laughed, a sharp, dark laugh.

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. Turns out you’re not so squeaky clean after all. Are you? You were pretty quick to throw me to the wolves when Waldo threatened you.”

  “That’s not the same thing at all!” I cried.

  “Oh, isn’t it?”

  I sat there, staring at my cookie tower.

  “Why didn’t you tell me where you were really going every Tuesday? Why did you have to make up that karate story?”

  He swallowed. Hard.

  “I was…oh come on, Darren! You’re already so much smarter than me! I couldn’t stand you knowing I was…you know.”