“Don’t worry, Hale,” Clatterbuck told me as we drove back toward SRS. I was in the backseat of a beat-up Chevy, hunched down under a blanket just in case someone from SRS happened to glance into the car. “Oleander and I will figure something out. I’ve just got to get back into the agent mindset, you know? Make my mind all steely again.” He thumped his temple as he said that. “I tell you, Hale, I was one of the elite back in the day. Where should I drop you?”
“The dry cleaning place, if you don’t mind—have to get Agent Otter’s jackets. Do you have five dollars? I spent the money they gave me for dry cleaning on train fare.”
“I’m sure I’ve got something. The train isn’t going to work forever though—what if you need to come to see us and there’s not a train leaving anytime soon?”
“True,” I said. “Plus, that sort of regularity is risky. We need to mix it up. Maybe you could drive a different car and come get me, next time?”
Clatterbuck’s face lit up, and I couldn’t exactly figure out why. “Yes! Yes, I can do that. You know, I was just about to start doing international field work, but then, well . . . then I sorta had to take in Beatrix and Ben, which meant retiring . . .”
I frowned. “Why’d you take them in? Where are their parents?”
Clatterbuck sort of shifted in his seat. “They were field agents too. Beatrix and Ben were only three. They don’t remember much, fortunately.”
I lay very still, though my stomach was flipping over and over in my gut. I wanted to know how, when, why, but all the questions in my head sounded prying. I was grateful when Clatterbuck finally eased the car to a stop and turned around to face me. I pulled the blanket off my head but stayed down low.
Clatterbuck smiled, shaking off at least the most obvious bits of sadness over Ben and Beatrix’s parents. “Right, here you go—four dollars and sixty-seven cents is all the cash I have on me. But I do have this for you,” he said, and extended his closed fist with a grin. He stuck his hand right under my nose and then opened his palm dramatically, revealing a thick gold bangle with a large ruby in the center.
“You got me a pretty bracelet?”
“It’s a communication unit!” Clatterbuck said brightly.
“Is it?” I didn’t mean to sound doubtful. It was just that the thing was massive compared to the coms we used at SRS. Plus? It was all . . . sparkly.
“Oh, come on, just hide it under your sleeve,” Clatterbuck said, reaching forward and slipping the bracelet—I meant, com unit—over my wrist. I sighed. At least if Walter and his friends saw it, they’d be too busy laughing to realize I was double-crossing SRS. Clatterbuck continued, “That’s just the microphone—it doesn’t have great range, but we can pick up conversations within a few feet. The earpiece . . . Well . . . you don’t have to wear it all the time. Just put it on when you want to talk with us.” He reached into his vest pocket and removed a heavy-looking ruby earring. The clip-on kind, the sort that was too fancy and overdone to possibly be a real jewel.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“Now, come on, Hale. This is the only com unit we have that’ll work from underground. Actually, it’s the only one we have that still works, period. All the others had dead batteries and I couldn’t figure out how to change them out. Only one earring is an earpiece, but there’s a second—hang on, it’s down deep in my pocket . . . Oh, there it is. Anyway, there’s a second so they look like a set of earrings. You’d look stupid just wearing one earring, after all.”
“And I definitely wouldn’t want to look stupid,” I muttered, plucking the earrings from his fingers.
“I’ve got a set too, only mine are emeralds. I promise you, Hale, I’ll be wearing them all the time just in case you need us. All the time.”
“Even in the shower?” I said, grimacing. I didn’t like to think of talking to Clatterbuck in the shower. I liked the idea much less when I realized he’d not only be in the shower, but wearing ladies’ jewelry.
“Well, no. They aren’t waterproof. I know! I won’t shower until I hear from you!” He nodded at me sincerely.
“Thanks,” I said, and weirdly enough, I was grateful. It wasn’t every day I saw someone so dedicated to talking with me. I jumped out of the car and cut around the back of the building. It took only a few moments to grab Otter’s dry cleaning and slide back into SRS headquarters.
“You missed it!” Kennedy said when I walked into our apartment. Her volume told me that Ms. Elma wasn’t around, which was a relief. She was still pretty mad at me over the lack of Present-Palooza a few weeks back.
“Missed what?” I asked.
“We did a field exam today,” Kennedy said, hopping from one foot to the other. “And my teacher says I can maybe test for junior agent later this month!”
My mouth dropped. All I could see were our parents’ names beside the status “In the Weeds.” How could Kennedy still be excited about being an agent for SRS?
Because she didn’t know.
I didn’t feel good about it, but I lied to Kennedy. After I got back from the HITS lab, I told her I couldn’t find anything. I told myself this was because I was worried she couldn’t keep it a secret, but really, it was because I just couldn’t handle telling my sister that our home, our school, our world wanted our parents killed. It was just too much. She was only nine, after all.
“Congratulations,” I said. I walked to the couch and flopped down next to her. “I’m sure you’ll pass. You’ll be a great junior agent.”
This was true—I was sure she would pass. And I was sure she would be a great junior agent.
Which terrified me.
Timing is everything to a spy.
One second too early, you get spotted. One second too late, you miss a brush pass. I didn’t just need the right second, though—I needed the right day.
The trouble was, agents—especially junior agents—didn’t typically get a lot of lead time on missions. My parents were usually notified the day of for a domestic mission; for an international mission, if they were lucky, they might get twenty-four-hours’ notice. It made sense for Fishburn to keep information close—he often said, “The more moving parts, the more things there are to break.” Too many people involved with mission details, and there was too big a chance of something accidentally getting leaked or discovered or hacked and wrecking the entire thing.
So, I had to wait.
“No double cuts, and if it blows, you start over,” Otter barked at us on Friday, like we’d offended him just by showing up for class. We were diffusing mock bombs, and I was pleased to see Walter was failing miserably. His bomb blew up three times before I’d even begun, largely because he wasn’t taking the time to work out how it was wired—he was just hacking and hoping for the best. Luckily for him, these weren’t actual explosives—they were just computer programs that flashed the word “boom” at you and played a cheesy exploding sound if you messed up.
The fake bomb in front of me had a half dozen wires strung between the cylinders of metal. The wires were a mess—tangled and knotted together, and the ends were stripped of their colors so that you couldn’t always tell which color wire really was connected to what. A timer had been fixed to it, which was new to us, and it made the whole diffusing thing a whole lot harder.
Walter blew up again.
I inched my fingers into the bomb, reaching for the pink wire that was lodged down by the bottom. That controlled the bulk of the device, so surely it was a good place to start. I reached in and clipped it. Nothing happened. I grinned and turned to look at the timer . . .
I blew up.
“Oops,” said Michael—one of the Foreheads. “Butterfingers, Hale?” Walter snorted in response and the two of them did some sort of handshake that involved both chest- and fist-bumping.
“Butterfingers? Nope,” I muttered, clipping a different wire. I paused.
It didn’t blow.
My computer screen turned bright green. I pushed my chair back and folded my ar
ms.
“Don’t look so happy with yourself,” Walter told me. “Come next Friday, you’ll still be here, making latte runs while I’m in the field on an actual mission.”
“What, like interviewing kids at a chess championship?” I muttered under my breath. Walter’s first junior agent mission had been a few months back, and it hadn’t exactly been a riveting page-turner.
Walter glowered but didn’t say anything else. Instead he cut another wire and his screen turned green. It was only a moment later that most of the class’s screens did. Cameron, the other Forehead, was last. I thought it was pretty ridiculous that no one got mocked for coming in last place here. Otter walked to the main computer and typed in a few things; our bombs reset, with different parameters this time, and we began again.
I beat my classmates every time, but I hardly noticed. My mind was on the mission—my mission for The League. But moreover, whatever mission Walter planned on going on next Friday.
Walter wouldn’t be going. But if everything went perfectly, I would be.
Chapter Fourteen
While most everyone at SRS ate dinner in their apartments, lunch was pretty much always eaten in the cafeteria. No one wanted to run back to their apartments, eat, and then rush back to class or work or Central Asia, so everyone was willing to muddle through whatever super-healthy and super-tasteless combination of foods the nutritionists had drummed up. After Thursday’s morning classes—during which Walter managed to take his shirt off not once, but twice—we all walked to the lunchroom in a pack, Otter trailing along behind us. I kept pace with the others. Then, when we cleared the cafeteria doors, I hurried ahead in the line.
Mission: Get sent on Friday’s mission
Step 1: Wait for chili day
Four-bean chili was famous at SRS, because it was the closest thing the nutritionist would make to junk food. Sure, it was meatless and cheeseless, and the nutritionist was always trying to convince you that soft tofu was a perfect topping, but still. In a sea of salads and fish cakes, chili was precious. No one missed getting at least one bowlful.
Today was chili day.
A few ladies from Enemy Surveillance were already eating but rose when we jostled our way toward the soup station. They looked annoyed that a bunch of kids were interrupting their lunch break. I got to the serving counter first, grabbed a bowl, and reached for the ladle. Cameron pressed in close behind me, like if he didn’t practically stand on my shoulder bones, he might miss out.
Step 2: Force proximity
Proximity was key for this sort of trick. The closer you were to someone, the less they could see. Everyone knew that—in fact, everyone at SRS knew this entire trick, since we learned it in year three. But since it didn’t involve explosions, daring escapes, or fancy codes, I suspected my classmates wouldn’t even realize I was pulling one over on them.
“Back off,” I huffed at him, taking my time lifting the lid from the pot of chili.
“Come on, Hale,” Cameron said, rolling his eyes at me. “You’re holding everyone up.”
Step 3: Create a diversion
I lowered the ladle into the chili, scooped up a serving, and brought it toward my bowl. I let the ladle strike the side of the pot, spilling about half of its contents over the edge and onto the floor. Cameron behind me jerked backward so the splatter didn’t get him, forcing those behind him to do the same.
“Careful, man!” he shouted, and a few of the people in the back of the line craned their necks to see what the holdup was all about.
“It’s your fault! You’re right on top of me. What’s your problem?” I said, trying to puff myself up the way Otter did when he was angry (take a moment to be as freaked out as I was to be acting like Otter on purpose). Cameron’s eyes jolted from the ground to mine, challenging me. Which meant I had the last thing I needed to pull this off.
Step 4: Get their attention
You couldn’t keep your eyes on someone and on the giant vat of chili.
“That was rude. You should apologize,” Cameron said threateningly. At this, the line behind him went silent. I hesitated.
“Whatever. Fine. I’m sorry,” I said swiftly. Then I broke our eye contact and returned the ladle to the chili, scooping up a small bowlful. I hurried to grab a seat while the rest of the class filed through the line. Otter finished flirting with the nutritionist and followed behind them. Soon the other classes started filing in—the eleven-year-olds, then the ten-years-olds, and then Kennedy’s class of nine-year-olds. They all took big bowlfuls of chili.
Step 5: Everyone enjoys four-bean chili
Well, technically, it was now five-bean chili, since I’d managed to dump nearly the entire bag of JellyBENs into the vat during the diversion. They sank down into the chili while I held eye contact with Cameron. And now they were being eaten by every single person at SRS. Including me.
I dug my spoon in and took a few bites. I could taste the bright flavor of the JellyBENs, but only because I was looking for it. I lifted my eyes to make sure the rest of my classmates were eating as enthusiastically as expected on chili day. They were; in fact, some were nearly finished with their first serving. So far, this was going perfectly. I just hoped there were enough that everyone got at least one.
Someone screamed.
It was a junior agent, a girl from my class with pretty hair. Personally, I thought her hair looked even prettier complimented by the lavender shade her skin was turning, but based on the horrified looks she was giving her ever-purpling palms, she disagreed.
“Is she choking?” someone shouted.
“Does she need mouth-to-mouth?” Michael shouted louder.
“Don’t you dare!” the girl shrieked back. “What’s happening? What—”
Another shriek. This time from a boy a year younger than I was, who was now the sort of flat color of squashed plums. Then Michael himself turned, then Otter, then . . .
I looked down and suppressed a grin. My hands were turning a now-familiar shade of violet.
Step 6: Everyone turns purple
Someone went running to get the on-call nurses, who then ran in with bags full of shots and wraps and pills, none of which were especially useful against a plague of purple. They sealed off the doors, just in case whatever we had was contagious, but it didn’t take long for everyone to figure out that whatever it was, it had to do with the food. The nurses picked through the remains of the chili vat, but it was mostly empty. When they looked at the pot the nutritionist had been moments from bringing out, they found nothing but four kinds of regular old beans swimming in a thick broth. Still, they took samples, which they passed off to a few agents from chem lab for testing.
“I told Dr. Fishburn! I told him to stop getting chemical shipments through the kitchen doors! This was bound to happen! Bound to happen!” the nutritionist cried as she flipped through her recipe book frantically, like she’d somehow missed a note that warned “may cause purple.” I felt a little bad about how upset she was, but given how often she tried to pass off cucumbers as a dessert item, my guilt didn’t last long. I sat back. A few people had apparently missed out on getting a JellyBEN in their chili—but luckily for me, they were mostly the nine-year-olds. Otter was a particularly rotten-looking color, but oddly, it suited him, though he looked a little bit like a walking tomato as he frantically talked to Fishburn over a com unit.
“Hale!” someone shouted beside me. I spun around—it was Kennedy, who was almost neon purple. Added to her bright red hair, she looked like some kind of exotic flower.
“Don’t worry, Kennedy—” I began, but Kennedy cut me off with a big grin.
“I’m not worried! This is awesome! Hey—wait. Yours is fading!”
“Huh?”
Kennedy motioned at me, and I looked down. Sure enough, the purple was fading slowly, just like it had back at The League. First my nose, then my cheeks and ears. It was another two hours before the color was gone entirely, but by the time they let us out of the cafeteria, I was compl
etely normal-colored. The nurses swarmed me.
“Huh,” said the oldest nurse, a woman with wispy gray hair and big glasses. “I guess he metabolized it quicker. Makes sense—he’s a bigger guy than the rest of them.”
“You’re saying Hale isn’t purple anymore because he’s Hale the Whale?” Walter asked, laughing.
I lifted an eyebrow at him. “You look like an Easter egg, and you’re making fun of me?”
Walter sniggled to a stop and rolled his eyes, but I saw his ego deflate a little. It was very satisfying.
Walter and the other purple people walked out of the cafeteria.
Otter stepped though the crowd. I hadn’t even realized he was still here. “Hale! Dr. Fishburn and I will need to talk with you. His office, thirty minutes.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, nodding. It was hard not to grin—my plan was working.
I walked Kennedy back to our apartment, where Ms. Elma was waiting for us. She didn’t believe in taking lunch breaks, so she’d been spared the whole incident. She acted like Kennedy hadn’t tried hard enough not to turn purple. I made it back to Fishburn’s office just a few moments early and sat down by the door, leaning my back against the sleek frosted glass that made up the administrative sector. I could hear Fishburn talking with someone—I think the nutritionist?—on the other side.
Down the hall, another door opened. I leaned forward to see who it was, then tightened my chest to hold in a groan. Mrs. Quaddlebaum, wearing a suit so stiff that it looked a little like a beetle’s shell. She gave me a firm stare as she passed, clutching several folders to her chest. She was the assistant director—did she know about my parents being In the Weeds? Did she know that SRS was really the criminal organization? It was impossible to tell.