“We’ll all have a piece and thank you so much.”
I back out of the lounge, my head down. I don’t have to see the teachers’ faces to know that they will guiltily gnaw their way through a brutal mouthful of my awful carrot cake. And that none of them saw me sneakily place a Tic Tac camera in a position where I will able to monitor everything they say and do. But it’s for their own good. If a teacher is about to be set up as a traitor, I will see it and put a stop to it.
I leave Teacherville and hurry to my next port of call. Suddenly, I’m intercepted. Joanna is waiting for me and she has questions.
“What were you doing in the teachers’ lounge? Where did you disappear to? What aren’t you telling me?”
These lips, however, stay sealed. I try to fob her off with a shrug and a mumble. She is not to be fobbed off. “I tell you everything,” she says. Like that’s a plus.
“I gotta go,” I say, and scuttle away I can feel those tiny eyes boring into my back. I know she’s mad I’m hiding something tiny and insignificant from her. I should feel bad. But:
A)I don’t.
B)My plan has a second step that needs to be executed perfectly. And for that, I need a boy.
I head toward the main hallway, hoping to bump into Dale Tookey. Instead, I see the flustered substitute, Mr. D-or-B.
I plaster on an expression of deep concern and trot toward him. The look on his face is like I’m contagious or I’m about to mug him for his lunch money.
“Mister . . . um . . . I think there’s going to be a fight in the boys’ room. I heard word that something’s going down.”
“A . . . uh . . . fight . . . Are you . . . uh . . . sure?” He stares at me.
“I’m more than sure. You need to get in there and squash the beef!”
As soon as I say that, I find myself thinking, He looks like he’s squashed more than his share of beef. Which makes it very hard to keep the grin off my face.
“Please, Mister . . . um, violence is tearing our school apart.”
The sub looks like wading into the boys’ room carnage is the very last thing he would ever want to do. But I make my eyes really wide and I’m working on squeezing out a tear. So the sub does my bidding. He opens the boys’ room door. The aroma wafts out and everyone in the hallway immediately drops dead. I’m exaggerating—but not by much.
The sub holds the door open. “Whatever’s going on, it needs to stop right now,” he says into the echoey space. His speech is greeted with a moment of silence, and then he’s attacked with a hail of wadded-up toilet paper and sneakers. He backs away from the door. The expression on his face suggests that he’s just seen something he will never be able to unsee. I do not know exactly what goes on inside those stalls but I’ve heard noises coming from the boys’ room: screams of pain, sobs of despair, demented laughter. Sounds terrifying enough to turn any normal, well-adjusted boy into a fake traitor. I give Mr. D-or-B a friendly pat on the arm. “Great job,” I tell him. And I mean it. Mr. D-or-B created the perfect diversion for me to roll a Tic Tac camera inside the boys’ room.
CHAPTER TEN
The Fake Traitor
Somebody picked the Tic Tac off the floor in the boys’ toilet and swallowed it.
Spool has left me ten messages, looking for updates on the progress of the pre-mission, each showing increased agitation. I am not going to reply. I do not want him to know about the awful fate of his expensive surveillance technology. I want to spare his pink-faced feelings and also I cannot bear to think about it without feeling like I will never stop puking. And now I’m thinking about puking, which makes me want to puke even more.
“Bridget. Dinner’s on the table,” yells my dad, displaying the worst timing in the world.
“Coming,” I yell back but, guess what, I’m not coming, I’m holing up in my room and studying the hours of surveillance the teachers’ lounge Tic Tac captured. Luckily nobody ate that one.
You know how you’d go on family outings to the zoo and you’d get all excited to be so close to wildlife and then you’d get there and spend ten minutes staring at a monkey sitting on a rock or a tree frog that may or may not be dead and you’d wonder, How long am I supposed to keep staring at this until something happens? Now you know what surveilling the teachers’ lounge was like. Sure, there was the controversial moment when it looked like Nate Spar had eaten the Spanish teacher’s salmon wrap, but it turned out to be obscured by someone’s bean curd soup, so that international crisis was narrowly averted.
But as mind-numbingly, eye-crossingly tedious as monitoring the teachers’ lounge is, I do not stint from my task. I do not fast-forward. I pause the footage every time I take a snack or bathroom break, and I force myself to stay awake until the bitter end. Why? Because this is my pre-mission. This is where my spy worthiness stands or falls, and I do not want to disappoint Carter Strike or—and it pains me to admit his opinion matters to me—Spool. I want them to know they didn’t make a mistake with Bridget Wilder. I am the right girl for the job.
What if Joanna’s the fake traitor? It hits me suddenly as we’re walking to school the next day and I’m half listening to her new list of rumors and outright lies. As soon as the thought pops into my head, I can’t shake it. She’d be easy to frame. (She’s got a motive: Joanna hates everybody.) I feel the need to protect her from the enemy agency that—in my mind—wants to frame her for a crime she didn’t commit. But could!
As she’s yammering about some supposed offense for which she’ll never forgive the Belgian exchange student, I take a step back. I pull out my lip balm and squeeze. . . . Wait, was it once for laser, two for smoke, three for Taser?
I squeeze once. A beam shoots out and slices through the straps of Joanna’s black backpack. It falls to the ground and the contents spill everywhere. I rush forward, making “Oh my goodness, let me help” noises.
Joanna crouches down a second or two after me and grabs at the bag of almonds, the rolled-up socks, and the semi-chewed Sharpies rolling onto the concrete. I snatch up various erasers, loose buttons, and shoelaces, all the while looking out for . . . something, some incriminating item that might have been planted on her, something no bigger than a postage stamp. I don’t see anything fitting that description. I let out a sigh of relief. My pre-mission has just begun and I’ve already saved Joanna from a lengthy and painful interrogation. I gather up the last of her stuff and return it to the damaged backpack. There’s an old notebook lying a few feet away. I go to pick it up. Joanna makes a sudden, wild grab at it.
“Give me that,” she shouts.
My spy suspicions are aroused.
My sneakers kick up some dust as they shoot me a few yards ahead of her. I look down at the notebook in my hands. I see the words My Best Friends in Joanna’s faded scrawl. There are ten names written on the page, girls who were in our third-grade class. Girls she hoped might befriend her. Girls she decided to hurt before they hurt her. Girls she now slanders on a regular basis on her Tumblr. My name is second to last on the list. Joanna pulls the notebook from my hands and throws it in her backpack. I want to say something about what I just saw but the glare of doom she’s shooting my way renders me speechless.
We walk the rest of the distance to school in painful silence, Joanna dragging her backpack along the ground by the severed straps, me pondering the fact that I’m the only one of Joanna’s friends who turned out not to be imaginary. She may be a fake hater but the good news is she’s not a fake traitor.
The tension between me and Joanna has not faded now that we’ve reached Reindeer Crescent. Rather than endure any more discomfort, I mumble something about how I’m dying of thirst and scuttle off in search of refreshment. I speed toward the gym and then groan out loud. I’d forgotten the friendly red vending machine, cheerful dispenser of pretzels, chocolate, gum, and soda, is now the Big Green Machine, home of vegetable snacks, protein bars, and mineral water. A student gives Big Green a loud kick as he passes. He is not the only one. Students chomping chips
and guzzling cola go out of their way to register their hatred of Big Green and its displacement of Friendly Red. Loud metallic clanks echo around the hallway after each kick. I stand and watch my fellow students leave dents and scratches in the helpless chunk of metal.
“Stop that!” bawls Vice Principal Tom Scattering, rushing to Big Green’s aid. The students scatter as he approaches. “The next student who abuses the vending machine is looking at a suspension!” His words stay with me later while I’m supposed to be paying close attention to my science teacher Willy Cyprus’s PowerPoint presentation on Earth and the solar system. Vice Principal Scattering thought he was doing a good thing when he installed the Big Green Machine, I think. Instead of thanking him for filling the school with healthy nutritious treats, the students kick his machine and their parents protest it because it makes them look like they don’t care about what their kids are shoving down their throats. And then I find myself further thinking that he totally matches the criteria for someone who’d be super easy to set up. Everyone already thinks Vice Principal Scattering’s a fake traitor!
Now maybe this is a case of me putting two and two together and making five, but my spy senses—which completely failed me with Joanna—are once again aroused. When lunch break rolls around, I do not head for the fro-yo place. Instead, I go to the gym, where I find the vice principal rubbing a white handkerchief across the scratched surface of the Big Green Machine. I’m standing a few feet away so I can’t quite hear what he’s saying but he seems to be making sympathetic, cooing noises to the machine, like a pet owner would to an old, slow dog approaching its final days. I want to laugh but I also don’t. Veep Scat is a tall, skinny, balding guy who doesn’t look like he gets a lot of wins out of life. He tried to do a good thing with the Big Green Machine and the student body repaid his efforts by symbolically kicking him in the face. Friendly Red was empty every day. Students lost their minds if it hadn’t been refilled at the start of the next school day. Big Green has never been refilled. It’s been kicked and scratched and slammed around but I have never seen a single human being press its selection buttons and slide a dollar bill into its slot.
Until now.
Veep Scat is doing just that. He’s tapping in a combination of numbers, smoothing out a crumpled dollar bill, and pushing it into Big Green. A granola bar tumbles down into the delivery compartment. My spy senses are fully engaged. I run toward the machine and snatch the granola bar from Veep Scat’s hand.
“Hey! What are you doing? That’s my bar!” I hear him spluttering with outrage but I don’t have time to explain. I need to unwrap this log of pressed brown flakes and prove to myself that my spy senses aren’t just a figment of my overstimulated imagination. They’re not!!!!
Embedded into the brown flakes is a postage-stamp-size piece of clear plastic with various dots and squiggles on the surface. I start to peel it off when a hand clamps down on my shoulder.
“My office. Now.”
I feel fingers digging in. I look up at Veep Scat’s bright red face. How do I explain this? I saved you from being framed as a fake traitor by an enemy agency? Would he buy that?
I flick the plastic square from the surface of the bar and cram a big chunk of granola into my mouth.
Bleh. I can’t believe he replaced Friendly Red’s tasty treats with this chunk of gravel.
“I really love healthy food,” I say, spitting out bits of granola as I talk. “I can’t get enough of it.”
I see a tiny little seed of doubt grow in Veep Scat’s eyes. Maybe I’m not one of the anti–Big Green masses. Maybe I actually appreciate what he’s tried to do for the students of this school. I feel the pressure on my shoulder decrease. He wants to believe I’m a convert to the Big Green Machine and I’m happy to let him think that because it means my pre-mission is a success. I saved an innocent man.
“Tastes good, doesn’t it?” smiles Veep Scat. I nod enthusiastically even though I so want to spit this cardboard granola thing out of my mouth.
“I think the other students will come around to the benefits of the Big Green Machine,” he says. “It’s just a matter of time.”
I nod enthusiastically again. This guy has no clue.
And then I hear a rumbling sound. Is it coming from under the school? Is it coming from inside the gym?
No. It’s coming from the vending machine. Big Green is vibrating.
Veep Scat cautiously approaches the machine, his white handkerchief clutched in his hand.
The machine vibrates louder as he gets closer. It’s like there’s someone inside trying to get out. The machine is shaking and tipping back and forward.
“Go get Nash Nixon,” he tells me. Instead of running to fetch the custodian, I stand rooted to the spot, watching fascinated as the vice principal starts making those cooing noises to a machine that sounds like it’s about to explode.
“Good boy,” he singsongs. “You’re doing fine. I’m here.”
He goes to give one of Big Green’s many dents and scratches a rub with his handkerchief and a bottle of water shoots out of the machine and smashes Veep Scat full in the face. He staggers backward until he hits the wall and his legs give way. He slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the ground, which is when he tips over on his side.
The machine doesn’t stop. It blasts a yogurt carton at him. The carton hits the wall just over his head. Yogurt—rhubarb flavor, I think—dribbles down onto the shoulders of his dark jacket.
For a second I don’t move. I just stand there staring as the Big Green Machine blasts healthy treats into the face and body of its biggest champion. I could watch this all day. But I don’t. The enemy agency has control of the Big Green Machine. An innocent man is in harm’s way.
Get in the game, Young Gazelle!
I rush in front of the fallen vice principal. A bottle of mineral water is shot from what I now see is a compartment just above the cash slot.
The bottle flies straight at me. I jump in the air. My sneaker-clad right foot kicks out hard. I slam the can back at Big Green, causing a spider web of splinters to appear in its glass screen. Another yogurt pot is propelled at me. Once again, I take flight and repel the attack. Fruity drinks. PowerBars. Kale chips. I kick them all back in Big Green’s broken face.
As suddenly as the assault started, it ends. The vending machine stops vibrating. No more food flies out. I lean forward, hands on thighs, breathing hard, not quite ready to trust this cease-fire. But the gym corridor is silent. I tiptoe toward the wreckage of Big Green—and it is a wreck; there’s glass and bits of food everywhere—and take a peek around the back. With one yank, I pull the plug from the wall.
And then I feel the hand on my shoulder.
“You’re suspended,” says the vice principal.
I’m what?
I squeeze out of his grip and turn to face him.
“How could you do this?” he says, his eyes filled with sorrow. “I thought you liked granola.”
“What?” I yelp. “Didn’t you see what happened? The machine went crazy!”
But as I look at his face, I can tell he either blacked out when the water bottle hit him or he refuses to believe what he saw actually happened. He shakes his head. “My office. We’re calling your parents.”
At that moment, a phone rings. The vice principal’s phone. He takes it from his pocket and stares at the screen.
I hear a tinny voice from the phone. Veep Scat’s voice. It says, “Good boy. You’re doing fine. I’m here.”
More tinny sounds follow. I stand next to the vice principal and we both watch footage of me kicking snacks back at the out-of-control machine. For a second, I wonder how that film made its way into Veep Scat’s phone, and then I remember Spool playing with the traffic lights on my street.
“Oh,” says the vice principal when the clip ends. “I guess someone’s been tampering with the machine. I’ll have the custodian take a look at it.”
He stands for another moment gazing at Big Green’s shattere
d front and then he walks away, swaying slightly from side to side like he’s on a boat and the water is a little choppy. I watch him go and I feel a tiny burst of sympathy. But I also feel a big burst of pride in myself because I just saved an innocent man from being framed as a fake traitor, which is to say, my pre-mission can be classed as a success.
I hear the sudden clamor of voices both high and screechy and low and rumbling. A group of girls from the volleyball squad and a group of guys from the football team are returning equipment to the gym. Or at least they were. They stop a few feet away from me. One guy drops his ball. Eyes bore into mine. These aren’t the dopes from Doom Patrol. These are the cream of Reindeer Crescent’s athletically adept. And there are a lot of them. If they decide to rumble, this could be a challenge for the Young Gazelle. Finally, someone breaks the silence.
“That girl broke Big Green!” yells one of the football team.
The members of both groups break into applause and cheers.
A five-foot-ten girl who looks like she’s carved out of granite walks toward me, her face set in a scary scowl. Even though I take approximately zero interest in school sports, I’m not completely oblivious. This is Pru Quarles, track star and athletic all-rounder. Pru Quarles gets in my face. Or rather, she looks down from a great height at me.
“That machine was a constant reminder to me to stick to my special diet,” says Pru Quarles.
She grins and holds out a huge hand to be high-fived. The impact of my little hand meeting her massive shovel nearly knocks me off my feet.
I know I’m supposed to blend into the shadows so I mumble something about having to go to class to work on an important project and quickly rush away, hand throbbing. But I’m not going to lie. Hearing that reaction, even if it was from people who don’t know my name, feels fantastic.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Pre-Mission Post-Show
I look at myself in the mirror of our pale-green family bathroom. These yogurt stains and little bits of granola flakes I keep finding stuck to my hair and inside my sneakers are my battle scars. My souvenirs of a successful mission. I give my reflection a proud salute and then I step into the shower. When I come out, I hope to find my phone filled with congratulatory emails from Spool and, perhaps, from Carter Strike. I’ve spent most of the afternoon following my destruction of Big Green anticipating one or both of them telling me how I surpassed their expectations, how no agent, certainly not one of my tender years, has ever shown so much potential straight out of the gate, how they’re already talking about nominating me for Section 23 Employee of the Month, if such a thing exists. Instead I got nothing. Not even a thumbs-up emoji.
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