“Do you have anything less bright?” I asked the girl behind the counter.
“You’re lucky we have anything left in your size, period,” she told me. “Besides, you want bright skis as a beginner. It makes them easier to find again after you wipe out.”
“You mean if he wipes out,” Zoe corrected.
“No. I mean when,” the ski girl said. “You’re beginners. You’ll wipe out. In fact, you’ll wipe out a lot. And you’ll wipe out big. Everyone does. That’s skiing. Take your boots off.”
“Why?” I asked. “It just took me five minutes to get them on.”
“I need to adjust the bindings on the skis, and I need your boot for that. It’s about a million times easier to do if your foot isn’t still in it.”
Zoe and I both sat and pried our boots off. The ski girl adjusted our bindings and then we had to go through the agony of forcing the boots back on. After that, yet another ski rental employee gave us poles and helmets, and then we finally emerged from the shop.
If it had been hard to walk in ski boots to begin with, it was even harder to do while carrying a set of skis, which were extremely unwieldy. I felt like I might topple over at any moment.
Chip and Jawa were waiting for us outside, examining their rental gear with disdain.
“I miss my real skis,” Chip grumbled. “This stuff is garbage.”
“You’re supposed to be a beginner,” Zoe pointed out. “Beginners don’t have their own skis.”
“I’ll bet Jessica Shang does,” Chip argued.
“We’re not even supposed to know the name Jessica Shang,” Jawa hissed under his breath. “So stop talking about her before she overhears us and you blow the whole mission.”
“Jessica’s not going to overhear you,” Erica said.
She had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. It was something she did all the time, and yet I had never gotten used to it. There was nothing magical about it; Erica simply moved with such stealth and grace that you never saw her coming unless she wanted you to. What made it all the more impressive was that, once I knew Erica was there, I found it almost impossible to take my eyes off her again. Not only was she beautiful, but she had a way of making everything around her look good too. Even things that weren’t attractive. For example, her rental equipment. The rest of us, with our dented helmets and ill-fitting ski clothes, looked like we’d just been fired out of a cannon. Erica had the exact same stuff, but somehow looked like she should be on the runway at Fashion Week.
“Why won’t she hear us?” Jawa asked, still keeping his voice low.
“Because she’s way over at the ski school meeting area,” Erica explained.
Everyone looked that way.
“Don’t all look at once!” Erica snapped.
Everyone turned back to her at the same time, which was even less subtle.
“Try it again,” Erica growled. Although she didn’t actually add “you idiots,” the tone of her voice indicated it was there. “Only this time, do it one at a time, and don’t stare. Act like you’re looking somewhere else.”
We all did our best to casually glance over toward the ski school meeting area, one at a time. It was across a snowy plaza, a little beyond the boarding area for the gondola.
There were hundreds of other skiers in the plaza, but it wasn’t hard to pick Jessica Shang out among them. She was the only one surrounded by bodyguards. There were four of them. They were doing their best to blend into the crowd, wearing ski clothes and dopey woolen hats, but it didn’t work. They were all so big that they stuck out like islands in the sea of humanity around them. Each had a set of skis the size of a small tree. The scary one with the blond mullet was with them. His stringy hair poked out from below his hat behind his ears.
I couldn’t actually see Jessica. She was too short to make out in the crowd. But I could see the tip of a pink ski helmet between all the guards and figured it had to be hers.
“We’d better get over there,” Erica said. “Lessons start at oh-nine-hundred hours. We will all approach the target separately. And remember, none of us are supposed to know each other. So don’t act too familiar and blow our cover.”
“Know what else might blow our cover?” Chip asked. “Saying things like ‘oh-nine-hundred hours.’ The only people who talk like that are spies and the guys in charge of launching rockets. Normal people say ‘nine o’clock.’ ”
Erica fixed him with a stare sharp enough to bore holes through him. “I’m not a moron. When the time comes, trust me, I can be in character.”
“Sure you can,” Chip said dismissively.
I was about to tell Chip to back off—I’d seen Erica in character before, and she was staggeringly good at it—but before I could, Warren walked out of the rental shop. Or at least, he tried to walk out of it. The problem was, he was carrying his skis sideways across the front of his body, the way one might carry firewood, which didn’t work very well when trying to go through a doorway. The tips of his skis caught on both sides of the doorframe, stopping Warren so abruptly that he clotheslined himself and collapsed to the ground.
Erica groaned in disgust and turned to me. “Ben, you head over first. We’ll all give you a little time to get to know Jessica solo.”
“All right.” I took a deep breath to gather my nerve.
Zoe pulled me aside. “One last quiz. What’s the best way to establish a rapport with a target?”
“Find an area of common interest.”
“Exactly! And that’s already done for you: You’re both beginner skiers. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Start with that and just be yourself. She’ll like you. I promise.” She gave me a big smile that actually made me believe her. If she’d truly been upset with me before, it seemed to have passed.
I took another deep breath, grabbed my skis, and plunged into the crowd, stumbling through the mass of fellow skiers to the ski school meeting area. A dozen blue signs ringed it, each marked with the ages of the kids who were supposed to meet there: 5 AND UNDER, 6–7, 8–9, and so on. There was a surprisingly large crowd around the sign marked SKIERS 12–15. Some seemed to have come with friends, or had made friends quickly, while others looked kind of lost and lonely. Despite this, no one had attempted to talk to Jessica Shang yet. The bodyguards surrounding her were too intimidating.
Jessica stood in the center of the four big men, wearing a stylish ski outfit and—as Zoe had predicted—holding a set of brand-new skis. She looked a bit self-conscious, like she was unhappy to be cut off from everyone else her age. I decided to play to that.
I wandered up to the bodyguard with the mullet and asked, “Do you know if this is where ski school for ages twelve to fifteen meets?”
“What’s the matter?” Blond Mullet asked gruffly, nodding toward the blue sign. “Can’t you read?”
“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t see that. Sorry. It’s my first day.”
“Now you’ve seen it,” Blond Mullet said dismissively. “So go read it.” He had a deep, imposing voice, but also a singsong Scandinavian accent that made him sound ridiculous.
I was still cowed by him, though, and almost shrank away. But then I noticed Jessica. Although she hadn’t said a word, she seemed upset at Blond Mullet for trying to run me off so quickly. So I steeled myself and decided to ignore the bodyguard. I looked right at Jessica, as if Blond Mullet hadn’t even spoken, and asked, “Is it your first day too?”
She gave me a shy smile. “It is.”
“I’m Ben,” I said. “Ben Coolman.”
The name had been devised for me by a team of CIA analysts. I’d been allowed to stick with my own first name so that I wouldn’t forget it. And I’d been given the name “Coolman” because, well, it had the word “cool” in it, which a million dollars’ worth of CIA research said made me sound cooler.
Jessica’s smile widened, like she was thrilled someone had actually braved her bodyguards. “I’m Jessica.”
I started to say “It’s nice to meet you,” but I barely got throu
gh the first syllable before Blond Mullet stepped between Jessica and me and pointed a finger the size of a kielbasa at my face. “I told you to go,” he warned. “If you don’t, I will rip your arms off.”
I might have backed off right then and abandoned the mission—after all, I liked having my arms attached to my body—if Jessica hadn’t intervened. She stepped around the bodyguard, placed her hand on his, and said, “Dane, there’s no need for that.” Her voice remained soft and sweet, but there was a firmness beneath it that unnerved the big man. Even though Jessica’s hand was dwarfed by his, he lowered it obediently.
“But . . . ,” he began.
“He’s only a boy,” Jessica said. “And he was just being friendly.” She then turned to me, looking embarrassed about the whole ordeal. “Sorry about that.”
I glanced at Blond Mullet—Dane—warily. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Not at all,” Jessica replied. “Dane overreacted. He wouldn’t have really hurt you, I promise; he just likes to act tough.”
If Dane was upset by this comment, he didn’t show it. Instead, he kept his stony gaze fixed on me.
“He’s good at it,” I said.
To my surprise, Jessica giggled.
Dane’s gaze grew even stonier.
The other three bodyguards were acting like I wasn’t even there. They were staring off in other directions, watching the crowd. With so many people around, keeping an eye out for potential threats was a big job.
“Where are you from, Ben?” Jessica asked.
“Near Washington, DC.” The CIA had advised me to use my real hometown, rather than a false one, because I’d never really lived anywhere else and wasn’t ready to fake it. (I would have needed more research for that, and we hadn’t had the time.) “How about you?”
“Shanghai.”
I did my best to act surprised, like this was news to me. “Shanghai, China?”
“No, Shanghai, Nebraska,” Jessica said sarcastically. However, she did it in an inoffensive way that made me laugh. Her sense of humor caught me pleasantly by surprise.
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s just that . . . well, you speak English like someone who’s actually from Nebraska. Actually, probably better than most people from Nebraska.”
Now Jessica laughed. “Thanks. I ought to speak it well, though. My father has taught it to me ever since I was a baby. Though I’ve never had the chance to speak it to anyone from the United States before.”
“No way,” I said.
“Well, I got to say a few sentences to the customs agent at the airport,” Jessica admitted. “But other than that, you’re my first.”
“You’re doing great,” I said, genuinely impressed—and Jessica seemed pleased by the compliment.
I thought about asking her about her father then and there—who he was, what he did, and so on—but decided against it. Kids didn’t usually ask other kids about their parents right off the bat, and I didn’t want to make Jessica suspicious. Or make her think I was a weirdo. As it was, she seemed surprisingly happy to talk to me, so I figured I’d just go with it. “So you came all the way here from Shanghai just to ski?”
“I’ve always heard Colorado was the best. So here I am.” Jessica looked around excitedly. “I wonder how many different classes there’ll be. Looks like there’s a lot of kids our age here.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, taking the opportunity to look around as well. My fellow spies had all come along by now, blending in with the other kids and doing their best to look normal—except for Warren, who had clonked several other people in the head with his skis. “They’re not supposed to put too many kids in each class, though.”
“It’d be cool if we were in the same one.”
I turned to Jessica, unable to hide my shock that she’d said this. “Really?”
“Of course,” she replied shyly. “You’re the only person I know here. So it’d be nice to get to stay together.”
“It would,” I agreed, pleased with how well things were going.
“All right, kids!” yelled a pretty blond woman in a blue Vail Ski School outfit. “Gather ’round! It’s time to meet your instructors!” Several other adults in matching blue outfits stood behind her. The blond woman checked a clipboard and began to rattle off names. “Ben Coolman, Jessica Shang, Chip Stonehill, Zoe Kinsler, Warren Tinkleberry, and . . . Oh boy, I know I’m going to mess this one up . . . Jawhortlelal?”
“Jawaharlal,” corrected Jawa. “But you can just call me Jawa.”
“Jawa, right,” said the blond woman. “You guys and Sasha Rotko are all in a class together.”
Erica stepped forward with the rest of us. She was Sasha Rotko, the only one of us the CIA trusted to be able to use a completely fake name.
She had once again shifted out of her normal personality, just as she had around the Arabelle the day before. “Sasha Rotko” was nothing like the normally cool, calm, hyper-intelligent Erica Hale. Instead, she was an awkward, fatuous, gum-smacking ditz. Erica made everything about herself different, from the way she walked to the vacant look in her eyes to her voice, which was now high and squeaky. If they gave Oscars for undercover work, Erica would have won in a landslide.
“Hey, Ben!” she said to me. “We’re in the same class! Super-coolness!”
“You two know each other?” Jessica asked warily.
“Not really,” Erica told her. “We just met at the pizza place yesterday. I was getting a slice and Ben was getting a slice, and both of us wanted to walk around town, so I was like, ‘Hey! Let’s walk around town together!’ So we did!”
She was telling the story for the benefit of Dane, who’d seen us together the day before. Despite how well Erica sold it, though, it was hard to tell if Dane was convinced. His stony gaze remained exactly the same, giving no indication of what was going on in his mind.
I wish I could have said the same for my fellow students. None of them had ever seen Erica transform herself like this before, and they all did a lousy job of hiding their astonishment. Chip, who had been so dismissive of Erica’s ability to act a few minutes earlier, now appeared completely dumbfounded by her performance.
Luckily, before Jessica, Dane, or any of the other three bodyguards could notice this, the blond ski school woman intervened. She waved us all over to her and said, “Okay, kids, your instructor is going to be Woodchuck.”
My friends, who had finally recovered from the shock of seeing Erica morph into Sasha, now struggled to hide their surprise at the identity of our instructor. (Erica, of course, registered no surprise at all.) Their reactions were subtle, though, so no one probably noticed but me. There was a good chance I showed some surprise myself, figuring it was unlikely that there were two people in the world who actually went by the name “Woodchuck.”
“Hello, future skiers!” a big voice boomed behind me. Sure enough, it was Woodchuck Wallace, the CIA’s expert outdoorsman. Normally, Woodchuck ran our academy’s summer facility for outdoor training—also known as spy camp—so I’d never seen him in winter clothing before. Or really, much clothing at all. He’d made most of his own clothes at camp, usually out of buckskin. So he looked a bit odd in a ski suit. But he was still the same burly, incredibly athletic, exceptionally confident guy—although he pretended that he didn’t know us. “It’s nice to meet all of you. I know it’s only your first day, but I promise you, if you’re ready to learn, I’ll have all of you blazing down this mountain in no time!”
All my friends responded with enthusiasm, though Erica was the most enthusiastic of all. “Sounds great!” she whooped. “Let’s do this!”
Woodchuck grinned and pointed at her. “I like that spirit!” He checked his roster and asked, “You’re Sasha?”
“That’s right.”
Woodchuck turned to the rest of us. “Take a lesson from Sasha, gang. Skiing is ten percent physical ability and ninety percent attitude. If you want to do it, you can do it. So who’s ready to ski?”
All of us whooped exci
tedly now. We weren’t faking. Woodchuck’s energy was infectious.
“Excellent!” Woodchuck cried. “Now, the ski school for kids is up at the top of the mountain. We’ve got an awesome setup there to teach you everything you need to know. So let’s head over to the gondola right now and get to know each other on the way up.” With that he hoisted his skis onto his shoulder and led the way.
The rest of us grabbed our skis as well. Dane the bodyguard reached for Jessica’s, but she made a point of taking them herself. Warren managed to bonk three more innocent bystanders in the head while starting out. Fortunately, they were all wearing ski helmets, so no one got hurt.
Jessica’s bodyguards tried to stay around her as she walked, but she sideslipped them and dropped in next to me. “I’m excited we get to be ski buddies,” she said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Me too.”
Dane didn’t seem too happy about this, though. Instead, he sized me up suspiciously, his gaze so cold that it made me shiver.
“And I’m excited to get out there and finally ski,” Jessica went on. “This is going to be more fun than a bucket of weasels!”
“Bucket of weasels?” I repeated.
Jessica frowned. “Oh, shoot. I got that wrong, didn’t I? I always have trouble with your idioms. They’re so strange.”
Understanding came to me. “You meant ‘more fun than a barrel of monkeys.’ ”
“Yes! That’s it!” Jessica agreed brightly. “See what I mean? Honestly, would a barrel of monkeys be that much fun?”
“More fun than a bucket of weasels,” I pointed out.
“No way. Have you ever been around monkeys? They smell and they throw poo at you.”
“Are you two talking about monkeys?” Erica asked, slipping in between us. “I loooove monkeys! They’re so cute! Especially lemur-monkeys!”