“For what?” Walter asked, grinning.
“Well, the music, for one. But also those bikini girl posters.”
Walter blanched. “Oh, wow. I’d have to get rid of those.”
“Yep.”
“Speaking of, I got you something for your birthday. It’s not a secret message encoded in a dye pack release signal or anything, but it’s something,” Walter said, then motioned for me to follow him to his room. Once inside, Walter flung his suitcase on the bed and then opened it; he tried and failed to quickly move the stuffed frog from the suitcase and tuck it underneath the blankets. When he looked back to see if I’d noticed, I pretended like I’d just been looking at some origami cranes folded on top of his dresser.
Walter reached to the bottom of the suitcase, where he had something folded up tightly. He pulled it out and handed it to me. I lifted an eyebrow, took it, and carefully unfolded it. It was a world map—a giant one, bigger than I was. There were dots all over it—most in yellow, and a few in bright green.
“What are these?” I asked.
“The green ones are where you’ve been on missions,” Walter said, pointing—most of the dots were around League headquarters, but then there was one in Geneva and one in Somerset by Wookey Hole. “And the yellow ones are where your parents have been on missions. Recently, anyway. Kennedy had to help. I thought it might be cool, though, to see where you’ve been that your parents have been? Maybe see where they go a lot? So you can . . . you know. Know you’ve all been in the same places. That sort of thing.”
I stared.
“It’s . . . Sorry. It’s dumb. It’s all I could afford. Well, it was, anyway. I guess technically I now have a half-million-dollar gold bar—”
“It’s awesome, Walter. Thanks,” I said, still staring, because it was basically the perfect birthday present, but I didn’t want to get all sappy with Walter. Now I didn’t know what to say, except, “Thanks. Again. It’s . . . It’s really awesome.”
Walter looked pleased. “I’m glad you like it. Especially because I’m pretty sure Otter got you coupons.”
“Wow. Otter got me a birthday present?”
“Coupons, Hale. He got you coupons. Did you hear that part?”
“Still,” I said, and grinned as I left the room. Once I was back in my own, I hung the map up over my bed. It took up the entire wall, and I had to steal a whole bunch of push pins from the bulletin board to make it stay. It made the entire room look brighter, what with the blue oceans and bright pastel countries. I sat at my desk and stared at it for a long time.
Where were my parents now? Surely, not Geneva, not anymore. Maybe not even Europe. I let my eyes wander across countries and continents, waiting to feel some sort of pull, some sort of click that told me I was looking in the right spot. Except, it didn’t come. I didn’t know where they were.
But they knew where I was. They were watching. They were there, even if I didn’t notice, even if there were no messages in the paper, even if birthdays were now accompanied by bank heists and dye packs. It was dangerous for them to stick so close to me. It was dangerous of them to send a message to me on my birthday. They’d done it anyway.
Because they didn’t always think of the mission. They were former SRS agents, after all, but they were also just Mom and Dad.
Everyone at The League threw me a surprise party when my actual birthday rolled around a week later.
Only, it wasn’t really even close to a surprise because, for a group of elite spies, they were really terrible at keeping it a secret. Still, there was cake and ice cream, and Clatterbuck bought a piñata that I was terrible at hitting, but Walter pummeled it so well, I felt bad for the piñata. Beatrix and Ben rigged some fireworks to go off the roof in celebration (and by fireworks, I mean explosives that Ben mixed together), so that night we all gathered on the roof and watched them spiral into the sky.
My parents weren’t there, but all in all, it was a pretty excellent birthday. Plus, since we were at The League rather than at SRS, I could eat the cake again for breakfast the next morning. SRS would never have allowed that.
“So, what’s on the list?” I asked Otter as we sat in the cafeteria post-fireworks show. Kennedy, Walter, and the twins were playing with Annabelle among the remains of the piñata, and Clatterbuck was dozing off in the corner, legs splayed out like a dropped marionette. Otter gave me a questioning look instead of answering my question, so I clarified. “The money. What’s on the list of stuff we’re doing with the money?”
“You’re not the director, Jordan. You don’t need to know—”
“You got me coupons for my birthday,” I reminded him.
“Those are good—”
“Three of them are already expired.”
Otter rolled his eyes, but at least he looked a little embarrassed. “Fine. One million goes to repairs on the building—apparently we need a new roof. One million goes to getting a few essentials—better security, mostly, since now that we’ve robbed SRS we might want to put some laser wires around the doors. And the rest . . . well. The rest we’ll use. Travel, mostly. We’ll need it, with the missions I’ve got planned.”
“What missions?”
“Hale, it’s your thirteenth birthday. Go take another whack at that piñata Walter killed. Eat some more cake. Stop being a spy for a minute.”
I rolled my eyes at him, but I got up anyway and joined everyone near the piñata carcass. Annabelle was there too, snuffling around on the floor for stray pieces of candy.
“Show Hale!” Ben shouted to Kennedy.
“Okay, okay. I taught Annabelle a trick. Plan B, remember? Training her to make money on her own?” Kennedy asked.
“You trained this dog to do something useful?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yes! Watch.” She grabbed a paper plate and then quietly walked across the cafeteria till she was on the complete opposite side, near the buffet lines (that hadn’t actually held food in years and years). She reached into her jacket pocket and removed a little can of dog food, which she popped open and dumped onto the plate. She sat it down, then—
“Annabelle! Dinner!” she called.
Annabelle, who’d been sleepily gnawing on the piñata’s dismembered ear, leaped to her feet and ran—I mean ran—to the plate of food, smacking at it like it was a gourmet meal. It was gone in seconds.
“You trained her . . . to eat?” I asked as Kennedy walked back, grinning. Everyone applauded.
“To eat beautifully, every time, like she loves it,” Kennedy corrected me. “I posted a video of it online and two dog food companies are interested in her for commercials. They pay four hundred dollars per commercial, and free food for two months!”
“Four hundred dollars. Whatever did we steal the gold for?” Otter asked drily, but his eyes betrayed him—he was impressed. “All right, everyone—if we’re done with the birthday thing, we should head to bed. We’ve got to be on the mission control deck at zero eight hundred hours.”
“For what?” Beatrix asked.
Otter was already walking away, but he responded over his shoulder, “For another mission. What’d you expect? You’re spies, aren’t you?”
Copyright © 2016 by Jackson Pearce
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First published in the United States of America in July 2016 by Bloomsbury Children’s Books
E-book edition published in July 2016
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[email protected] Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Pearce, Jackson, author.
Title: The inside job : (and other skills I learned as a superspy) / by Jackson Pearce.
Description: New York : Bloomsbury Childrens Books, 2016. | Sequel to: Doublecross.
Summary: Together with his friends, twelve-year-old Hale, an overweight and non-athletic double agent against SRS, the corrupt spy organization he was raised in, travels to Switzerland to destroy the SRS bank account.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015025273
ISBN 978-1-61963-420-6 (hardcover) • ISBN 978-1-61963-421-3 (e-book)
Subjects: | CYAC: Spies—Fiction. | Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Overweight persons—Fiction. | Ability—Fiction. | Switzerland—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION/Action & Adventure/General. | JUVENILE FICTION/Humorous Stories. | JUVENILE FICTION/Social Issues/Friendship.
Classification: LCC PZ7.P31482 In 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015025273
Book design by Yelena Safronova and Nicole Gastonguay
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Jackson Pearce, The Inside Job: And Other Skills I Learned as a Superspy
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