Spy-in-Training

by Jonathan Bernstein

  Shower over, remaining Big Green debris removed from my person, I open the bathroom door to find my sister, Natalie, sauntering inside. We both jump and smile at each other. I notice a little streak of white in her hair. I hope she’s not dyeing it. Not because it wouldn’t suit her: history has proven that everything suits her. But it would mean a tidal wave of Reindeer Crescent students with white hair. As I pass her, I sniff the air.

  “Is it me? Do I smell?” she says.

  “Only of vanilla and the morning dew,” I assure her.

  But I’m lying. She smells of something else. An aroma that is very familiar to me but not enough that I know why.

  Back in my bedroom, I immediately check my phone. Nothing from Spool! Nothing from Carter Strike. I saved a fake traitor! Where’s my applause and standing ovation?

  I hurry over to my laptop. Maybe there’s an email from Section 23?

  Nope. I occupy myself with other important matters. Should I email Joanna about the thing that happened earlier today? Should I tell her not to be embarrassed about the best friend list? That I don’t even feel slighted I placed next to last on a list of people she wished were her friends? That her carrying around the notebook means that deep down she wanted me to see it? Or do I act like the whole incident never occurred? I showed no fear confronting a haywire vending machine but I dread the notion of facing Joanna, so guess which option I’m picking? (The non-Joanna one.)

  I go back to checking my phone. Nothing from Spool. I do, however, notice that the feed from my Tic Tac camera in the teachers’ lounge is still active. It’s after school so there’s nothing going on. I need to find another excuse, possibly carrot cake related, to get back in there and remove the camera.

  Wait.

  Something is happening in the teachers’ lounge. Someone has entered the room. Someone who should not be there. Someone clad in a black hoodie, face obscured, with a white D and P on his sleeve. He pulls out a spray can. I feel my blood run cold while at the exact same time, my face burns bright red. The Doom Patrol guy selects the perfect target. The fridge door. Rotten to the core he may be, but this Doom Patrol guy knows his audience. The teachers’ entire existence revolves around that fridge. Now, it’ll remind them every day that an intruder violated their inner sanctum. Just before the fridge is defaced, another hoodie-clad intruder barges into the lounge. He sees the first guy, shakes his head, grabs him roughly by the shoulder, and tries to drag him away. The first guy resists and they have this moment where they both get up in each other’s face like they want to fight, but neither of them actually do anything about it so they obviously don’t really want to fight. No sooner has this big angry confrontation started than it’s over. Both boys shove each other as they leave the lounge.

  So what do I do? My initial inclination is to do nothing. But that’s the inclination of Bridget Wilder, Invisible Girl. Not Bridget Wilder, operative of Section 23, daughter of Special Agent Carter Strike. This Bridget Wilder is ready to run headfirst into trouble and say, “Look out, trouble, you’re about to be gored by a Young Gazelle!” (Are gazelles actually capable of goring their foes? I don’t know but I like the imagery.)

  “I’m going to Joanna’s to study,” I lie as I head out the door. I walk gingerly to the end of the driveway, take a few more steps, and then—

  It’s a twenty-minute walk to school. I get there in seven. I bound across the streets like a leopard. Dogs break free of their owners’ leashes and scamper after me, madly barking at my heels for a few seconds before I leave them panting in the dust. Runners squeezing in a couple of miles before dusk try to keep pace with me. Only one comes anywhere close. Casey Breakbush’s mom. I usually see her behind the wheel of her white SUV when she’s carpooling Casey’s friends to school. I used to think she was one of Casey’s friends. Now that she’s sweating and straining to keep up with me I see the effort needed to create that impression. I can tell she’s a little bit impressed, a little bit intimidated, and a little bit annoyed by this speedy stranger in the black-and-gold tracksuit. I could totally make her feel better about herself by telling her she’s in knockout shape whereas I have to rely on scientifically enhanced shoes to do all the work. But I’m on a mission. Instead, I say nothing and shoot past her so fast I bet I look like a blur. I’m about half a block away from school when I see a big bright-red skull grinning right at me.

  The Doom Patrol guy who tried to tag the teachers’ lounge is compensating by spraying big bright-red grinning skulls on the walls and windows of the school. A second DP guy works his artistic magic on the front doors. A third is spraying his crew’s name on the ground. Another one has unfurled the school flag. He adds the name DOOM PATROL to the school insignia. And one final genius is defacing the school sign so it reads DEER SCENT MIDDLE SCHOOL, which, okay, is sort of funny. They work quickly and quietly.

  I do not.

  “Stop right now,” I command.

  A couple of Doom Patrol guys look my way. They don’t recognize me at first. Then the recollection sets in. The Dale Tookey Incident. They swap Her again? looks. The head honcho, the one who called me cute, albeit in the form of a threat, takes the lead again.

  “You . . . ,” he begins.

  I don’t have time for this. I point a finger in his direction.

  “You, I’m going to make cry.” I pull out my phone. “And it will be captured on video and sent worldwide. Think of the implications.”

  Before he can reply, I point at the guy who was adding his spray-paint signature to the ground. “You, I’m going to leave without teeth. Maybe you’ll end up with implants. Maybe you’ll have to get your jaw wired. Either way, it’s going to be uncomfortable.”

  I turn my attention to the next guy. “You . . .”

  These are empty threats, by the way; I don’t know if I’m capable of meting out the punishments I’m promising. However, I have the element of surprise and the memory of the Dale Tookey Incident in my favor.

  “I broke Big Green and I can break you,” I say, mainly because it sounds cool.

  The three Doom Patrol guys wordlessly confer.

  “She’s not worth it,” snarls the main dude. Music to my ears.

  “This?” he says. “Not over. Not close to being over.” By which he means it’s over. He knows it, I know it, the other Doom Patrol guys know it. Only one guy doesn’t know it. The Doom Patrol representative who took down the school flag and is painstakingly transforming it into something that looks like a centaur that has devil horns and breathes fire. This guy has headphones plugged in and he’s so into his art he can’t see his crew members slinking away.

  “Hey!” I yell.

  Nothing.

  This guy I actually might make cry. I run up to him and grab his arm. He whirls on me, holding the can out like a weapon. He freezes to the spot, mouth hanging open. So I kick it. Not his mouth. The can. I kick it out of his hand and catch it. Pretty cool. He rushes after his friends, his arms and legs flailing. I have another What would Carter Strike do? moment. I decide Carter Strike would establish absolute dominance over the situation. So I throw the spray can I just kicked out of the last Doom Patrol guy’s hands. I’m sure Spool has a deadly boring nanotechnology-based explanation as to why my throwing arm is suddenly so powerful and so deadly accurate; all I know is I just threw the heck out of that can.

  It sails over my intended target’s head and lands exactly where I want. An inch away from his next footstep. So that he stands on it, loses his footing, and collapses face-first on the ground.

  I watch him go down. I hear the shocked “Oof!” And then nothing. The fallen body doesn’t move. Carter Strike would not feel remorse and growing panic but, right at this minute, I do. I wasn’t planning on actually injuring anyone. Can Section 23 cover this up? Can they make this go away? I think about calling Spool. But no. This is my mess. I walk, very slowly, very cautiously, over to the school entrance, where the fallen Doom Patrol guy lies facedown and motionless, a pair of broken dark glasses by his
side.

  I hear him grunt.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Go away.”

  I exhale in relief. Still alive. Bridget Wilder has no kills to her name.

  “Let me help you,” I say generously.

  The Doom Patrol guy rolls over, wincing. He sits up and, as he does, his hood falls backward, revealing his face.

  “What the hell, Bridget?” says Ryan.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Big Brother

  Ryan has a cut on his chin and a smudge of blood under his right nostril. He clambers shakily to his feet. I want to reach out to steady him. I feel really bad about hurting him. But whatever sympathy I may have for him pales in comparison to how mad I am right now.

  “This is what you do? That’s who you hang out with? Those losers?”

  Ryan can’t meet my eyes. He shifts from foot to foot.

  “I can’t believe I ever thought you were cool. I actually envied the way you did what you wanted and never cared about what anyone else thought.”

  Ryan gives me a hopeful smile. “You thought I was cool?”

  “Not anymore. If this is really who you are, there’s nothing cool about you. You’re so desperate to be accepted by a bunch of jerks that you’ll dress like them and act like them and do any dumb thing they do just so you can say you belong.”

  He looks at me, suddenly angry. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I gesture toward the big red grinning skulls sprayed across the outside of the school. I point to the flag that now has Ryan’s spray-painted centaur thing on it.

  “You’re proud of this? Do you and your buddies walk a little taller because of it? You gonna go back to the Doom Patrol clubhouse and high-five over what an amazing job you did?”

  “There is no Doom Patrol clubhouse.”

  “Maybe there is and they never told you about it. Because they’ve got another big job lined up for you. Maybe they’ll make you loot the supermarket next time to prove you’re worthy of wearing the Doom Patrol hoodie. You up for that, Ryan?”

  “I don’t want to be part of them. I’m not part of them,” he says, moving closer to me. My lie-identifying glasses are in my tracksuit pocket so they didn’t get splattered as I ran. I slip them on but I don’t really need them. The pain and embarrassment I see in Ryan’s eyes right now convince me he’s telling the truth.

  “So what are you doing here?” I demand. “Why are you dressed like them? Why did you spray that stuff all over the school?”

  Ryan starts to fumble for a reply. Then he stares at me. “What are you doing here, Bridget? Why are you dressed like that? How did you even do that thing . . .”

  Ryan gives me a long, searching stare. Even though I have no reason to feel uncomfortable, I start to feel a little awkward. Then he does a clumsy mime of my cool can kick.

  He grins. “What’s the story, Bridget?”

  Ryan is finally showing an interest in me. For a second, I even consider telling him the truth. Hi, I’m a spy! If anyone would be instantly accepting and not in any way freaked out by my secret, that person would be Ryan. But I also fear that, as a direct consequence of me trusting him with this information, he would blow up the world.

  “Never mind about me,” I snap. “What you did is going to turn into a thing. There’s going to be police, there’s going to be questions . . .”

  “That’s what we want,” he says.

  “Right, you and your awesome friends.”

  “They’re not my friends,” he says, and then he shuts up, looking a little nervous.

  “Who are they, then?” I ask. “Who, Ryan? Who? Who? Who?”

  “Shut up, you owl.”

  I concentrate on his face. Flickering green data appears in front of my eyes.

  Excessive swallowing. Blink rate increased.

  Chin tucked inward.

  Ryan’s lying. Which, okay, is not that different from saying Ryan’s breathing. But he doesn’t usually lie like this. Ryan lies right to your face and he likes doing it. It’s fun for him. This right here? He’s not having any fun.

  “You don’t know what it’s like,” he finally says. “The kid’s . . . my reputation is all I have.”

  I’m lost.

  “I’m the troublemaker,” he says. “I’m the rule-breaker. I’m the loudmouth. But when someone causes more trouble, breaks more rules, has a louder mouth . . .”

  Ryan lapses into unhappy silence.

  The clouds begin to part. “Are you saying there’s a new bad boy in your school?”

  “Johnny Bluff,” he spits.

  “And because you’re scared this Johnny Bluff is a bigger idiot than you, you joined up with Doom Patrol?”

  My Glasses of Truth are blank. I’ve never wanted to be less correct about anything. Ryan looks down at the ground, unable to meet my outraged stare. Then I have a sudden thought.

  “Why do this, though? Why here? Why not vandalize your own school?”

  He keeps his gaze fixed on the ground, scraping his feet. I can see how uncomfortable this is making him. I don’t want that. I move toward him.

  “Look, Ryan . . .”

  And then I sniff the air.

  “Do I smell?” he asks.

  Yes, he does. Of something very familiar.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Devil Inside

  Natalie’s alarm comes to life. Katy Perry asks if you ever feel like a plastic bag. Natalie’s eyes flutter open. She lets out a little sigh, yawns, and pushes the covers off her bed.

  That’s when she sees me sitting on her desk chair.

  “Bridget?”

  “Good morning,” I say.

  She looks confused. “What are you . . . how long have you been here?”

  “Long enough to set your alarm back an hour.”

  Natalie’s eyes fly to her clock. It’s six thirty in the morning. She puts her arms around a pillow and clutches it tight.

  “Why would you do that?” Her voice isn’t much more than a scared whisper.

  “So that we can get to school early and everyone will see us cleaning the graffiti when they show up. That was the plan, wasn’t it?”

  Natalie gives me a searching stare, concern shining in her eyes. “Bridget, are you sleepwalking again? Is that what’s happening right now? Is this like that time we went to Puerto Vallarta and you fell in the hotel pool?” She jumps out of bed. “I’ll get Mom. She’ll know what to do.”

  I let her walk as far as the bedroom door before I ask, “Who’s Johnny Bluff?”

  Natalie’s fingers pause in midair. Her bedroom doorknob just out of reach. She doesn’t move or speak. After a moment, she walks back to her bed, sits on top of the covers, reaches for her favorite pillow, and buries her face in it.

  I say nothing. I barely breathe. She’s a young girl, a young, sweet, innocent girl. I didn’t mean to break her. I pushed too hard. Being a spy has turned me into a monster!

  Natalie looks up from her pillow. Her face is different. Hard. Defensive. Her eyes cold and challenging. I’m flustered by this sudden display of attitude, but I want her to be impressed by my bold deductive leap, so I show my hand.

  “When I came out of the bathroom yesterday? You smelled of old wood, rust, and paint. Like our garden shed. The shed that no one ever goes into. Except Ryan, when he’s stealing something or hiding something. But you smelled of it yesterday and you had white in your hair. It could have been a fashion statement but I think it was paint. I think you were looking for white paint that you could use to clean up graffiti. Graffiti you somehow forced Ryan to spray all over the school.”

  I pause. Impressed by the way I stitched together this story and also scared because I really don’t want to be right. Natalie remains silent. Her expression remains icy. I curl a hand around my Glasses of Truth in my pocket. I’m hoping she doesn’t force me to use them.

  “Why, Natalie?” I blurt. “Why would you use Ryan like this?”

  “Why, Natalie?” she sne
ers, doing an inaccurate impression of me. Then she lies back on her bed and throws her pillow up in the air.

  After a moment or two of catching the pillow and tossing it back up in the air, she says, “Nobody bought tickets to the dance charity marathon. It was canceled due to lack of interest.”

  Before I even have time to formulate a response, she sighs. “The dance I organized? That I asked you to be part of? That you ignored because you’re always in your Bridget world and you don’t care about anything that doesn’t directly concern you.”

  “That’s not true,” I say, my voice high and squeaky.

  “It wasn’t just you this time,” she says. “Every time I’ve ever asked anyone to come to the other charities I’ve been involved with or the plays that I’ve been in or the concerts, they’ve always come. But not this time. And I thought and thought about it. And I think I just do too much. I think I’m overexposed. I’m good at too many things.”

  “Wow” is all I can think of to say.

  “I know,” says Natalie, choosing to interpret my Wow in a different way than I intended it. “It’s like I’m my own worst enemy. But I can’t let it happen again. So, I thought, what’s the problem here? The problem is me. So what if I make people think it’s not all about me? What if I put the spotlight on someone else? And then I saw those Doom Patrol morons hanging around outside the school and I thought, they’re trying to be like Ryan. And then I remembered. Ryan wasn’t always Ryan. Alec McGrory used to be Ryan.”