Max paused as she tried to think of a way to sign off. She decided to keep it simple.
From Max
She logged off and shut down the computer. She missed Linden. He was the only one who could make her laugh. Even if his jokes were dumb. Before she met him she was happy not having any friends. She’d made heaps before but just when she was happy, her mum and dad would decide to move again and she had to say goodbye to them, so it was easier not to make any in the first place. But with Linden, it was different. She didn’t have to see him all the time to know they were good friends.
She leant into the cactus on her desk.
‘Think yourself lucky you’re not a human and you don’t have a mother making your life a misery.’
Max stood up and opened the door onto the landing at the top of the stairs. She stopped when she heard voices coming from the kitchen. There was her mother’s voice talking at a million miles an hour like she normally did, and someone else. A man. Her mum never mentioned anyone coming to dinner and she hadn’t heard the doorbell ring either. He must have come home with her. Why didn’t her mother get that she liked to be warned when someone else was going to be here? Was that too much to ask?
She tiptoed down the stairs, listening hard and trying to work out who the man was. She crouched low and put her ear against the kitchen door. Her mum was going on about some new show that was starting on TV and how it was going to stop the world, blah blah blah, and whoever the mystery man was, was agreeing with her like she was telling him the secret of life no one had ever stumbled on before.
This was going to be too much. If Max had to sit in a room listening to this all night she was sure she was going to explode. She wouldn’t be able to stop it. Her whole insides would splatter across the walls and floor and down the front of their designer clothes and overdone expressions.
Then, just as Max was turning around to creep back up the stairs, the kitchen door swung open and her mother only just stopped herself from tripping over Max’s crouching body. What she didn’t stop was her glass of red wine from spilling all over Max.
‘What on earth are you doing on the floor? Didn’t you hear me call you for dinner? And look at your new shirt. How am I ever going to get that stain out?’
Now this scenario could have run a few ways. Some mothers, distraught that they had almost trampled their only beloved child, would have bent down and kissed them repeatedly as they became overwhelmed by the near fatal tragedy. Others may have swept their precious daughter snugly into their arms while they apologised for ruining a brand new shirt that had been given to them as a present. And others may have just felt really bad as they offered a simple and quiet apology.
None of these ever happened in Max’s house.
She looked down at her shirt and only just managed to hold back a blood-curdling scream when she saw it was totally ruined.
Then Max’s mother remembered she had a guest and forgot all about the new shirt.
‘There’s someone in the kitchen I’d like you to meet,’ she said, suddenly sounding all bright.
‘Now?’ Max was horrified. How could her mother even think of her meeting anyone when she was dripping with wine?
A head then appeared from behind the door.
‘Hi. I’m Aidan. I’ve heard heaps about you, Maxine.’
Anyone clever enough would see there were a few problems here. First, no one, but no one, ever called her Maxine. That is one of those really important laws of nature you must never forget, like, ‘remember to breathe or you will die’.
Also, as he made this monumental error against nature, he held out his hand. Max lowered her eyelids to give him a half-eye stare. She’d never heard about this Maxine-calling nobody before and she certainly wasn’t about to make physical contact with him. He looked away awkwardly as his hand slowly made its way to a pocket for safety.
Aidan? I’ve never heard of any Aidan, she thought. And how come he knows about me? Because from his bad clothes and the fact that he’s about thirty years younger than my mother, I know all I want to know about him.
There was an uncomfortable pause as nobody knew what to say. A trickle of red wine dribbled from Max’s head down her face, adding another stain to her shirt.
‘I’m going to get changed,’ she said.
‘Well don’t be long, sweetheart,’ Max’s mum said with a nervous giggle. ‘Dinner’s getting cold.’
If Max had been given a choice of being banished to the coldest regions of Siberia or facing a dinner with her mother and whoever this Aidan was, she’d have known what would have been worse. But since Siberia was out of the question, she changed her clothes and made her way back downstairs.
‘Aah, there you are,’ said her mum in a sickly sweet voice that was like having your head dunked in a barrel of honey. ‘I’ve kept your dinner warm for you.’
Sweet voice, nice gestures. Max wanted to know where her real mother was.
There was another awkward pause as her dinner was placed in front of her.
‘So how was school today?’
Now she really knew this wasn’t her mother. She never asked about school.
‘Fine,’ she said, trying to eat as fast as possible so she could escape to somewhere saner.
Awkward pause number three. This meal was going to be worse than Max thought. The ticking of the clock above the fridge got louder and louder.
‘Well,’ said her mother, which never meant good news for Max. ‘I thought it was about time you and Aidan got to meet.’
Her mother looked at her like it was Max’s turn to speak but she didn’t know what to say, so she kept eating instead.
‘Aidan is my boyfriend.’
Max dropped her fork sending bits of spaghetti worming all over her lap. Boyfriend? What boyfriend, she thought. I’ve never heard Mum mention a boyfriend before. When did all this happen? People her age don’t have boyfriends. They’re too old for that kind of thing.
Max was picking spaghetti strands from her lap and wondering why the world just got so crazy. Her mum continued talking.
‘So I thought it would be good if you two got to know each other.’
You know those times when everything seems to stand still and every second passes like it’s an hour? When you want to jump up and get out of where you are but you’re stuck and it seems like you’ll be there forever? This was one of those times.
‘I’ve got homework to do,’ said Max as she wiped her mouth on her napkin and stood up.
As she closed the kitchen door behind her, she heard her mother say, ‘I think that went quite well, don’t you?’
That’s how it was with her mother. Everything was measured as having gone well or bad. She thought most of what Max did was bad and if things went her way, then everything was going well. It was at times like this when Max missed her dad more than anything.
Upstairs, Max closed her bedroom door, changed into her pyjamas and prepared to stay there all night. Emailing Linden or writing another Alex Crane adventure would make her feel better. She turned on her computer and discovered she’d received an unusual email. It was marked Top Secret and came with a list of instructions and questions before she could open it.
Secure file
The following email is to be opened by M. Remy. Any person other than M. Remy found to have accessed this file will be subject to the full force of the Protection of Privacy Laws Act of 1926.
Please answer the following security questions before the attached email can be opened:
Name?
Date of Birth?
Address?
First names of only uncle and aunt?
If the questions are answered correctly, you will receive the accompanying mail. Failure to answer the questions correctly or within two minutes will lead to the neutralisation of this message.
Linden, thought Max. He was always joking and mostly this annoyed her but after what had happened downstairs, she needed all the cheering up she could get. Max answered the
questions and hit send. She waited eagerly for his reply, but instead, something strange happened to her computer. A series of numbers and letters hurtled up the screen like bugs caught in a wind tunnel. Finally the bugs stopped and the screen went blank.
Max stared at her computer not knowing what to do next when the following words appeared:
Security clearance granted. Email to follow.
Max knew Linden was clever with computers, but she’d never seen him do anything like this before. After two minutes exactly, the email alert appeared before her. Max moved the mouse across the pad and opened it.
From:
R. L. Steinberger
To:
[email protected]
Subject:
Meeting
Dear Max,
This is a top secret email that will be deleted completely from your system within one minute of its arrival. We request your company at Spyforce Headquarters on 20 April of this year. Further details will be forwarded to you once we have received your acceptance.
Regards
R.L. Steinberger
Administration Manager,
Spyforce
Clever, thought Max. She was impressed but was going to let Linden know she was onto his games. She hit reply to his new phoney email address.
From:
Max Remy
To:
[email protected]
Subject:
Too funny
Very funny! You must be exhausted now from being so witty.
Fond regards
Not Easily Amused
She waited to hear back from Linden.
From:
R. L. Steinberger
To:
[email protected]
Subject:
Meeting
Dear Max,
Confused about your previous email. Are you able to attend the meeting?
Regards
R.L. Steinberger
Administration Manager,
Spyforce
Max frowned as she read the email again. Maybe it wasn’t from Linden. He knew not to stretch a joke too far with her. But could it really be from Spyforce?
She wrote an email to him using his usual address just to be sure.
From:
Max Remy
To:
[email protected]
Subject:
Mr Funnyman
You might be clever. Security clearance? Meetings at Spyforce? I thought the Administration Manager of a major intelligence agency would be based somewhere a little classier than Mindawarra?
Max waited a few moments until a reply came back.
From:
Linden Franklin
To:
[email protected]
Subject:
What Funnyman?
Max,
I think maybe you’ve been sitting too close to your computer and it’s starting to fry your brain. What’s this about a Spyforce meeting?
Max sat back and tried to think of a witty reply, but before she had a chance, another email came through.
From:
Linden Franklin
To:
[email protected]
Subject:
Spyforce email
I got one too! It just arrived. A secure file. Is it really about a Spyforce meeting? What do you think they want to talk to us about? Do you think they want to send us on a mission? What are we going to tell them? How are we going to get there? This is going to be the wildest thing ever!
Max read Linden’s reply three times and each time her eyes got wider and wider as the truth sank in. The first email was from Spyforce! What did they want? Max and Linden hadn’t heard from them since the end of last summer when they received a telegram thanking them for their help in uncovering Blue’s crooked scheme. Maybe they wanted help with a secret mission. Maybe the world was in great danger and only they, Linden and Max, could save it. Whatever it was, Max was ready. And no matter what it took, she’d get to that meeting on 20 April.
Her heart beat against her chest like it suddenly didn’t have enough room to keep beating. She thought about what to say in her reply. About how she was poised on the brink of possibly the most important meeting she’d ever have in her life. About how she’d probably offended a member of Spyforce. About how if only she could keep her big mouth shut …
‘Ha ha ha.’
The laughter from downstairs cackled around her room like a squawking crow had been let loose near Max’s head. It was full of coy, girlish giggling and macho try-hard bellowing that sunk into Max’s shoulders like quick-drying glue, cementing them into what felt like hardened armour. She looked towards the door, wishing the laugh back downstairs and out of her life. She didn’t care how much her mother was trying to impress fashion boy, she wasn’t fooled one bit by his smarmy ways. He was as interesting as dry grass on a hot day and if her mother couldn’t see it then she was in desperate need of a major spring clean of her senses.
Max put on her headphones and wrote back to Spyforce.
From:
Max Remy
To:
[email protected]
Subject:
Meeting
Dear Mr Steinberger,
Sorry about my previous email. I thought you were someone else. Linden and I would be happy to accept your invitation to Spyforce. We await further instructions and details.
From Max Remy
She then emailed Linden and said she’d accepted the invitation for both of them and would get in touch when she heard more.
And this time she knew how to sign off.
From Max Remy, Superspy.
Sometimes life has an annoying way of trying to be as difficult as possible and Max was just about to be landed in the middle of one of those times. Hoping for a quiet, painless day at school with as little to do with the other students as possible, she arrived the next day as the fire siren was screeching around the schoolyard like a sick rooster gone mad.
‘Brrurrp! Brrurrp! Brrurrp!’
‘Great. A fire drill,’ she mumbled to herself as she walked through the school gate. She saw two teachers race out of the staffroom with bright yellow fire hats that kept falling down over their eyes. One teacher was looking through the fire manual trying to work out which exit she was supposed to direct the students through to escape the imaginary fire that was engulfing their school. If it was up to Max, she’d let the whole place go up in a huge technicolour bonfire that all the fire manuals in the world wouldn’t be able to stop.
‘Just what we need,’ she said under her breath. ‘To be herded around like cattle while the fire wardens, who just five minutes ago were ordinary teachers, direct us to who knows where as the sun beats down making sure we get a good dose of UV rays and my life flashes before my eyes in one giant wasted blur.’
‘Talking to yourself, Max? You know that’s one of the first signs of madness. Any day now you’ll start seeing your very own imaginary friend.’
Toby Jennings. Of course. When days started badly, you could pretty much guarantee he’d be there to make sure it got even worse. Max was never in the mood for Toby and today was no different.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, determined not to let him get away with being a jerk. ‘You must have mistaken me for someone who actually cares about what you have to say.’
‘Now, Max. I’m just worried about your welfare,’ said Toby in his best fake sympathetic voice. ‘That’s why I’ve organised this little outing, so you and I can share some quality time together.’
So Toby had set off the fire alarm. She should have guessed it was him. Being in school was bad enough, but at least in class she could be distracted from the world of losers she was surrounded by with her books and computers. Why couldn’t Toby find someone else whose life he could make miserable?
‘My welfare would be a whole lot better if I didn’t have to share this planet with you.’ Max flicked her he
ad back and walked towards the fire warden who was directing students across the street. Why, she wondered, did her life at Hollingdale seem like some terrible and mysterious punishment for a crime she never committed?
Despite doing her best to get rid of him, Toby followed closely behind Max, eager to get in another jab of his brain-dead wit. But he didn’t have to. As Max reached the fire safety area, she tripped up the curb and fell face forward onto the grass in front of the entire school. She covered her head as the contents of her bag flew into the air before raining down on top of her. Now this alone would have been embarrassing enough, but Max had fallen near a leaking hose which had turned the surrounding grass into a kind of lumpy, green and brown milkshake. Max lay in the oozing mess with her eyes closed, knowing no matter how she looked, it wasn’t going to be pretty.
As the first peels of laughter drowned out the fire siren, she opened her eyes and things instantly got worse. Worse than she ever could have imagined.
Toby had found her Spyforce book and was getting ready to read it out loud.
‘Well, well, well. What have we got here?’ he announced to the audience of laughing faces that were gathering around him.
Max wiped mud from her face and said in as threatening a voice as she could, ‘Give me that book now.’
‘Now Max,’ Toby said in a sarcastic voice that made her want to scream. ‘You and I both know that’s not going to happen. Remember? I’m the bad guy and you’re the one who I have to pick on. That’s the beauty of our relationship — it’s so simple.’
Max could feel the anger inside her heating up like a stick of dynamite about to explode. She imagined herself on the end of a giant plunger, loading Toby headfirst into a cannon that would send him all the way to the other side of Australia in one soaring blast.
Spyforce Revealed Page 2