by Luke Sharpe
A moment later he walks over to the pizza machine. “Want a slice?” he asks me, and I suddenly feel a thousand times better. It’s not that bad if Manny wants pizza.
“Yeah, a slice with banana and walnuts,” I say, grinning.
I walk over to where Manny is standing and watch him press buttons on the pizza maker. “Thanks for not freaking out,” I tell him. “I know I messed up, and I’m sorry.”
The pizza maker dings and a perfect slice of banana walnut pizza slides out. Manny slips a paper plate under the slice and hands it to me. “This isn’t your fault, Billy,” he says, and then he presses buttons on the pizza maker to create his own slice. Pepperoni-mushroom-sausage. “Let’s eat and then we can figure this out,” Manny adds just as his slice comes out. “We both think better on full stomachs.”
Real Mom
AFTER WE FINISH OUR PIZZA, Manny motions to the door leading into his house. I start to ask him why we’re leaving the garage, when Manny raises a finger to his lips to SHUSH me. I raise my hands and eyebrows and make the universal sign and expression for “What?”
Manny grabs a pad and pen and scrawls a note that he holds up for me to see:
BEWARE OF BUGS!
Bugs? I quickly look around the garage but don’t see any bugs.
Once inside the house, Manny drags me into the kitchen. I’m starting to think he wasn’t talking about the CREEPY-CRAWLY kind of bugs.
“Hi, Billy!” Manny’s mom says as soon as she sees us. “How are things out in the office? You two need anything?”
“No, thanks, Mrs. Reyes,” I say. “We’re fine.” I give Manny a pointed look. “Unless you want to ask your mom about bug spray?” I ask him.
Manny shakes his head and quickly reassures his mom that they don’t have a bug problem in the garage. “What I meant is that we need to make sure the garage isn’t bugged. You know, by the spies?” Manny’s voice dips down to a whisper for the word “spies,” as if maybe there are some hiding in the pantry and he doesn’t want them to hear him talking about them.
Manny’s mom watches our exchange and seems to decide she has nothing to worry about as long there’s not an insect infestation in her garage. “You don’t have to call me ‘Mrs. Reyes,’ Billy,” she says. “You can call me DR.REYES!” She laughs. This is her favorite joke.
Manny’s parents are always really nice to me. Emily says of course they’re nice—their son is super rich because of my inventions. But she’s wrong about that. First of all, I’ve known Manny since first grade, and his parents have always been nice to me. One time I threw up all over the fancy blue rug in their living room after Manny and I pigged out on Halloween candy, and Mrs. Reyes—sorry, Dr. Reyes—didn’t get mad at all. And second, neither of us is super rich yet. I mean, maybe on paper. But most of the money goes right back into Sure Things, Inc. That’s how it is with a new company. Our parents handle the money that comes to us, putting most of it in the bank for college. And then there’s the fact that none of my inventions would have ever amounted to anything without Manny. There would be no Sure Things, Inc. without my CFO. So, as usual, Emily has no idea what she’s talking about.
After chatting with Manny’s mom, we head up to his bedroom. There are three chessboards with the pieces set up on them. Manny loves chess. He says chess is a lot like the business world—strategy and tactics and moves and countermoves. And he’s really good at it. I don’t know if he’s like a grandmaster, but I do know he beats me every time, usually in about five minutes. I don’t play chess with Manny anymore.
The nightstand by his bed is covered with a stack of business journals. I don’t know how he reads that stuff. I flipped through one of them once and got so bored I actually preferred talking to Emily.
He opens his closet. It’s nothing like mine. His is neat and organized, with everything carefully placed on shelves and in bins. Mine is like a pile of clothes and junk with a door to keep it from EXPLODING into my room.
Manny reaches into the closet and pulls out an old beige computer. “The power cord should be here somewhere,” he says, opening a plastic box with neatly coiled cords. Each one is labeled to show which device it goes with. I wasn’t kidding when I said he was organized.
“Are you sure there’s a power cord?” I say. “Maybe we’re supposed to crank it. Or maybe it runs on steam.”
“You’re joking, but a hand-crank computer for people without electricity is actually a pretty good idea,” he says, making a quick note on a pad of paper. Manny is always jotting down ideas and then bringing them up to me later. It’s a good thing he does that, because I forget half that stuff I say two seconds after the words come out of my mouth.
He plugs the computer in and turns it on.
“So that antique actually works,” I say. “But will it even connect to the Internet?”
“It’s not that old!” Manny insists. “And most importantly, it’s perfect for a secure conversation. It’s old enough that the new malware programs probably won’t even work on it. But video chat should.”
Manny sits at his desk. I sit next to him in a chair I’ve pulled up. We watch the screen slowly light up. “Do you know which research facility your mom is stationed at?” he asks as he drums his fingers next to the keyboard, waiting for the screen to fully come up.
“Um, no, she’s never mentioned the name of the facility,” I tell him. “Maybe it’s a secret.”
Manny turns and looks at me. “So your mother travels the world doing research for the government, and her exact location might be a secret. Has it ever occurred to you that she might be a SPY?”
I laugh. “My mom? A spy?”
Manny clicks the mouse and types on the keys, setting up the computer for video chat. “Yeah! Does she ever tell you any of the details of what she’s researching?”
I think about it. Sometimes Mom brings me souvenirs from the countries she visits, but I can’t really remember her ever telling me anything specific about the work she does. Unless she’s told me, and I forgot? It’s not that I don’t listen to my mom, but sometimes I tune out boring stuff. It’s very possible she told me and it was boring grown-up stuff and I can’t remember any of it.
Could Manny be right? Is my mom a spy?
“No,” I say. “But maybe that’s just normal. Does your mom tell you about the specifics of her work?”
Manny laughs. “My mom’s a podiatrist! Dad and I don’t let her talk about the specifics of her work, especially at dinner! Do you have any idea how many GROSS FOOT DISEASES there are?”
I think about that for a moment and immediately see his point. “I’m guessing all foot diseases are gross.”
“Exactly.”
Manny slides over, and I use the keyboard to e-mail my mom, telling her we need to video chat about something important. I make sure I send this to her real e-mail address, not the fake address Impostor Mom told me to send my e-mails to.
Now we just have to wait for her reply.
“So,” Manny says, “while we’re waiting, I wanted to talk to you about a suggestion we got for expanding the Sibling Silencer line.”
“What is it?”
“A few parents have requested that we make a Son Silencer. You know, a device that parents could use on their sons.”
“We can’t do that!”
“I agree.”
“I guess maybe a Daughter Silencer might be all right . . . ,” I say, imagining what it would be like to give each of my parents a Daughter Silencer for Christmas. Best. Gift. Ever.
“Yeah,” Manny agrees. “But then if we didn’t make a SON SILENCER, people would say we’re being unfair.”
I think about that for a moment. As usual, Manny is right. “Well, there’s no way we’re making a Son Silencer!”
“Right,” Manny says. “So I guess we’ll just leave the Sibling Silencer the way it is, and not expand that line. It’s too bad, because the product’s doing great.”
PING BONG BING! An electronic song plays on the old com
puter. My mom’s calling on video chat! I click on “Answer With Video” and suddenly there she is.
“Hi, honey,” she says. “Everything all right?”
“Hi, Mom! Everything’s fine. Sort of. I’m here with Manny.” I don’t want her to say anything too mushy in front of my friend.
“Hi, Carol,” Manny says, leaning in so the camera can pick him up. My parents have encouraged Manny to call them by their first names. At first I could tell he felt awkward doing it, but now he seems to have gotten used to it. It still sounds kind of weird to me.
I notice that Mom’s dressed all in black, and that she’s got some kind of harness attached to her. “Are you . . . busy?” I ask. “Doing something? That requires a harness?”
She glances at the harness and shrugs. “What I was doing can wait,” she says. “I want to know what’s going on with you.”
I start to tell her about Impostor Mom, but Manny interrupts. “Before we start, is this line secure on your end?”
Mom raises her eyebrows and then smiles. “Oh, yes. Very secure.”
“For your spy work?” Manny blurts out.
Mom’s smile falters for a moment, and then she laughs. “For my research,” she says firmly.
See? I knew my mom wasn’t a spy!
I bring Mom up to date on what happened with my e-mail. I tell her all about Impostor Mom, and how Manny and I are worried that our office might be bugged. “So that’s why I didn’t get more e-mails from you,” she says. “When the Wi-Fi came back on, I thought I’d find all these e-mails from you. But I didn’t.”
I feel bad about that, even though it wasn’t my fault. “I’m sorry, Mom. I was writing e-mails to you. But I was sending them to the wrong address.”
She nods. “I understand. Don’t worry about that. I just wanted you to know how much I look forward to your e-mails.” She smiles a big, warm smile, and I feel better right away.
“Now,” she says, getting down to business, “about these e-mails you sent to this Impostor Mom. Did the impostor ask you anything about my work?”
I shake my head. “No, because the impostor was pretending to be you, so he or she wouldn’t ask about you.”
“I know,” she says. “I just have to make sure. Did the impostor ask about OPERATION TIGER TOOTH?”
Operation Tiger Tooth? I try to ignore the look Manny is shooting me. The one that says, Why is your mom asking you about Operation Tiger Tooth if she’s not a spy?
“No,” I say, trying to act as if this were a perfectly normal thing to talk about with your mom. “They didn’t mention Operation Tiger Tooth.”
“Or PROJECT CENTAURI?”
I just shake my head. I catch another glimpse of Manny, and his eyes have gotten really big behind his glasses.
Mom looks reassured. “Okay,” she says. “Take me through what they did ask about.”
I tell her about how Impostor Mom asked about my inventions in pretty much every single e-mail.
Mom sighs. “I’m afraid it’s clear what’s going on here.”
“Corporate espionage?” Manny asks.
“Yes,” Mom confirms. “A spy from a rival business is definitely trying to learn your secrets. The good news is, I don’t think you have to worry about your office being bugged—I think your spy has used e-mail infiltration. The bad news is, I think your spy has used e-mail infiltration!”
WORST-CASE SCENARIO: CONFIRMED!
“I knew it!” Manny says. He actually sounds happy. He loves being right. But this is not a happy piece of news. I’ve definitely been trading e-mails with a spy. This is so not good.
“So what do we do now?” I ask.
My mom knits her eyebrows together the way she does when she’s thinking really hard. “I have some resources at my disposal that might be helpful,” she says.
“What kind of resources does a ‘researcher’ in Antarctica have?” Manny asks.
“You don’t need to know the details,” my mom replies. She’s sounding more like a spy by the minute. “In the meantime, you should keep writing e-mails to the corporate spy.”
“What? I don’t want to ever write to that fake again! I was planning to delete the impostor from my contacts list and block all communications from that e-mail address.”
Mom shakes her head. “That’s no way to catch a spy. You have to keep the lines of communication going. You can’t let the spy know that you know he or she is a spy.”
“That makes sense,” Manny says, nodding his head. “If you stop writing to spies, they’ll know you’re onto them.”
“So what?” I ask. “Isn’t the whole point to stop communicating so the spy can’t learn our secrets?”
“Yeah,” Manny says. “You want to be sure you don’t reveal any secrets. But we also want to find out who the spy is.”
“Exactly,” Mom says. “You two need to launch your own investigation.”
Manny and I look at each other nervously. He knows business, and I know invention, but we’re not spies. How do you spy on a spy?
Mom sees our nervous looks. She tries to reassure us. “You can do this, Billy. I’m going to e-mail you a special software program that will provide you with the identity of anyone who e-mails you—their real identity, not their fake one!”
“So we’ll know the spy’s real name?” Manny asks, excited.
“Not just the name,” Mom says, leaning forward as if she’s getting really into this. “With this program, you get a picture of the person who sent you the e-mail.”
“That’s amazing!” I cry. “How does it work?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” Mom says. “It’s top secret.”
Manny shoots me another look. I know what he’s thinking: Top secret?! That’s spy talk!
“In fact,” Mom continues, “the copy of the software program I’m sending you will only work for five days. Then it will self-destruct.”
Another quick look from Manny. Self-destruct?! That’s DEFINITELY spy talk!
“Got it,” I say. “So we’ve got to get the spy to write back to me within five days.”
“Basically, we need to set a trap,” Manny says. “An e-mail trap!”
“Exactly!” Mom exclaims, grinning happily that Manny caught on so quickly.
A trap? Well, that does sound interesting. . . .
To Catch a Spy
AFTER I SAY GOOD-BYE TO mom, Manny shuts down his antique computer. “Let’s go back to the office now that we know we don’t have to worry about bugs,” he says. “I think better there. Plus, there’s pizza.”
Back in the office, Manny heads straight to the pizza machine and starts picking his toppings for his second slice of pizza that morning: green pepper, olive, red onion, basil. He actually likes vegetables—it’s weird.
When his slice is ready, he takes a bite, but then sets it back down on the paper plate and picks up the large All Ball. It’s still in basketball mode. He walks over to the free throw line, bounces the ball a couple of times, and pushes the ball from his chest. SWISH!
“One,” he counts. “So, we’ve got the secret software from your mom, the spy. . . .”
“She’s not a spy!”
“Oh, she’s a spy all right.”
“We don’t actually know that. Don’t jump to conclusions. Research scientists have to keep their work secret too.”
He gets the ball out of the trash can, walks back to the free throw line, and shoots again. SWISH!
“Two. Why would a research scientist need software that secretly takes a picture of whoever’s sending them e-mails?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe sometimes scientists try to steal ideas, so they use software to learn who the thieves are.”
Manny raises his eyebrows skeptically. I know he’s sticking with this spy business because he thinks it’s cool, but it’s kind of freaking me out. I mean, it’s weird to think that your mom might have a secret job. A secret dangerous job.
“Look, can we deal with the real spy, Imp
ostor Mom, first?” I say finally. “One spy in my life is enough right now.”
And just like that, Manny drops it. “You’re right. Let’s think about Impostor Mom and the trap we’re going to set.” SWISH! “Three,” he adds a moment later.
Do I have a great best friend or what?
I walk over to the air hockey table and slide a puck across it. “Okay, so let’s focus. How are we going to trap this corporate spy?”
Manny tosses up another free throw. SWISH! “Well, your mom said you should get Impostor Mom to write back so we can use the spy software to identify him or her.”
I nod. “But what should I write?”
“Something that’ll definitely get Impostor Mom to write you back.”
“How about: Help! I just accidentally fell into a hole and I don’t know what to do! E-mail me back ASAP with advice to save me!”
Manny makes a confused face. “You fell in a hole with your computer?”
“I could be writing on my phone. Impostor Mom would have to write back—I mean, what mom wouldn’t want to help her kid if he fell into a hole?”
I’m really liking this plan. Until Manny points out the obvious.
“If you have a phone, why don’t you just call your dad? Or nine-one-one?”
Reason #478 why I chose Manny to be my CFO: He has a lot of common sense.
Manny takes another free throw. This one bounces just off the rim. He doesn’t seem to notice. “Impostor Mom is a corporate spy, right?” he asks, getting up from his chair.
“Right,” I say.
“So what the spy wants to know about is your latest invention.”
“Yeah, exactly. But I can’t give away our company secrets. That’ll ruin everything!”
Manny shoots another basket from behind the air hockey table. It’s a shot I’ve seen him make a million times. CLUNK! The ball bounces off the rim again. It almost hits the soda machine, but Manny manages to catch it in time. “But what if you tell Impostor Mom about an invention we’re not doing? That could be the bait in our trap!”