Chapter 3
December 19
Izaak Walton Bay, Near Sault Saint Marie, Upper Michigan
“Wake up, Josh,” he heard a strange man’s voice near his ear. Then Joshua remembered where he was. It was a bit startling to find himself reclined in the passenger seat in the giant CCV. Considering the warmth and comfort he was experiencing in his last dream of the night about Christmas morning the environments suddenly seemed unfriendly.
“Where the heck are we?” Josh asked.
Peter was moving about the cab in the second row. There was plenty of room. He’d apparently been cooking something. Tucked to the side was a small, two-burner electric smooth-top stove and a smallish microwave. From a pan on the stove he slid two pancakes onto a disposable plate and handed them to Josh as the boy figured out how to sit the chair back upright.
“We’re still in Michigan…but only barely. I camped along the shores between Michigan and Canada just outside of Sault Saint Marie. You were so cozy I figured we could probably make up time today on the flatlands after we pick up the trail again.”
Josh nodded as he turned about in his seat and stuck his legs into the wide open space between his and the center position driver’s seat. “My Mom?!” he asked suddenly.
“Got it covered. I called for you last night. I made those with chocolate chips in them. So do you want some jam, or syrup to go with them?”
“Huh? Oh,” Josh was still shaking off the sleep. “Syrup I guess.”
“Do you like eggs?”
“No,” the boy replied distastefully.
“Oh good. We have something in common. I can’t stand eggs…well…unless they’re in a breakfast burrito…or maybe a skillet mix,” Peter said. Then he shrugged at himself. “I guess I do like them. I just don’t like them scrambled or flat on their own.”
From a second, smaller pan Peter slid the boy two pieces of bacon on the plate. “You gotta love bacon though, right?”
“Mmm, hmm,” Josh agreed more positively, mumbling around his bite of pancake. The food was just the right thing for the moment. Especially since he realized they never really ate dinner.
“So…wait,” Josh asked after swallowing the latest bite. “You talked to my Mom?”
“Yes. And your Dad too. Everything’s okay. There still a bit under the influence, you know. We’ll probably have to tidy it all up with another bit of magic once this is all done too. But for now they’re happy to hear how excited you are.”
“Waddaya mean?”
The agent finished making himself a plate and then tossed the two pans into a small hidden cupboard behind the second row of seats. It was apparently some sort of dishwasher because all of a sudden Josh heard water flowing inside of it quietly. “Wash and sterilize, please,” he added before sitting down in the middle, back seat to talk with Josh.
“Well…” he took a bite of his pancakes and then had trouble speaking around them as he ate. “I talked to them first and let them know how happy we were to be hosting you at the regional school offices and that we had high hopes for you winning the writing event for your age group. Then…”
Agent Samuel reached forward and pushed two buttons in a row on the console near the steering wheel. Then plopped down in the back row seat again and stuffed another bite before continuing.
“Then I said hello to them,” he added. But echoing through the speakers in the cabin came Josh’s own voice, speaking the words Peter had just said. When Peter giggled a bit the speakers played Josh’s own voice again laughing at him.
“What the heck?!” Josh said. “You faked my voice?”
The speakers played back a half second later the same words, and again in Joshua’s own voice.
“Yep!” Peter said. Then the speakers repeated in the boy’s voice again. He reached forward and shut off the device, then plopped back one more time into his chair and stuffed a whole piece of bacon in his mouth.
“Wow! That’s amazing!” Josh stared at the electronics while he too nibbled at his bacon. “This is really good, by the way. Thank you.”
“No problem,” Peter smiled. “You know, it’s really true. I think I may need your help on this mission. But more than that, if you think about it, how do you suppose a top-secret institution recruits new agents? This might be a good experience for you. And I’m hoping you might enjoy being part of it.”
Josh smiled at the younger man, still in his black suit and thought about what it must be like to work as a spy…or whatever the heck the agents thought of themselves as.
“Would I get a cool truck like this?” Josh asked.
Peter laughed loudly, and then scrubbed Josh’s hair as he had before. “I don’t know. Probably not. This one is pretty special. But you never know what you might be asked to do. It’s different almost every day. Heck, you might be asked to gather Chupacabra teeth in Central America one day, and the next you just might be on a boat headed to Siberia to see if you can collect some Gnome dust samples. Sometimes we just spend days at a time interviewing people and then find out whatever it is you were researching was all just a wild goose chase. Or a hoax.”
Josh was listening intently. “Still, that does sound pretty interesting.”
“Oh it is,” Peter acknowledged. He chewed a few more bites and then said, “Hurry and finish though. When we’re ready we’ve got to pick up the trail and get moving. I have someone expecting us by mid-day.”
“In East…Sell….?” Josh added.
“Selkirk. Yep.”
The two quickly shoveled the remains of their breakfast in their mouth and then Peter stepped outside for a moment. As the cab door opened again he said to the CCV, “Incinerate” and the noise of what seemed like a small explosion could be heard muffled through the heavy vehicle. As the agent prepped the vehicle Josh noticed the faint smell of bacon burning. Then the windscreen and side windows came alive again with the exterior and overlays of several instrumentations and they pulled away from a grove of bare trees and a field of snow.