“Hello, Benjamin,” Alexander said meekly. “How’s your first day of school so far?”
“Not so good,” I told him. “I just got expelled.”
Alexander’s eyes widened in surprise. “For what?”
“I sort of blew up the principal’s office.”
“Oh. So that’s what that loud boom was.”
I nodded. “Yes. He just kicked me out.”
The old Alexander Hale might have volunteered to go to bat for me. Or at least pretended that he was going to. Instead, he sighed. “We all fall from grace sooner or later, don’t we?”
“I would have preferred later.” I noticed what was inside the box Alexander was carrying. Office supplies. And then I realized that the office Alexander had been exiting wasn’t his. It belonged to Nathan Kagan, the dean of Survival Skills. “Is all that stuff yours?”
“Er . . . Kind of.” It was suddenly evident that Alexander hadn’t been embarrassed about running into me; he’d been embarrassed because I’d caught him swiping office supplies. “Kagan filched plenty from me over the years. I can’t even count how many bullets I lent him. But was he there when I needed someone to stand up for me? No. He threw me to the wolves. So at the very least, he owes me a stapler.” He grinned at me weakly. “I really should go. If anyone asks, you never saw me.”
Alexander ducked away before I could say another word, probably intending to use one of the secret exits off the campus to avoid running into anyone else.
I headed down the main staircase to the first floor, where there was a big, open lobby, the grand entrance to the Hale Building.
My friends were gathered there. It was a good-size crowd, with Zoe, Jawa, and Chip at the front. I spotted Warren as well, lurking off to the side.
“I can’t believe they’re booting you for this,” Zoe said, and everyone echoed the thought.
“How’d you even know?” I asked. “The principal just told me . . . .”
“We’re studying to be spies,” Jawa explained. “It’s our job to know things.”
I nodded, realizing I should have expected that.
“You want to get even with the principal?” Chip asked. “I’d be happy to handle that for you. Just say the word and his car ends up in the Potomac River.”
“Thanks for the offer,” I said. “But I’ll pass.”
“How about his cat, then?” Chip asked. “I could do something bad to his cat.”
“Chip!” Zoe gasped.
“I don’t mean kill it,” Chip told her. “I mean shave it or something. To send a message to the principal that you don’t mess with our friends.”
In truth, I would have loved for my friends to get even with the principal. After all, the man had just dashed all my hopes and dreams. When I’d first arrived at the academy, I had desperately wanted to become a great spy but had feared I might not be qualified. But now, after several months of school and camp—not to mention two successful confrontations with SPYDER—I really felt I had what it took. And now I was being dumped back into the real world. The principal wasn’t tossing me for any real reason; he was just being petty, and I hated him for it. And yet it seemed that having my friends prank him in response was equally petty. Plus, there were cameras everywhere at spy school. If I asked anyone to do anything illegal, it’d be recorded.
“There is something I’d like you all to do to the principal,” I said.
“Really?” Chip asked, excited. “What?”
“Tell him he’s making a mistake.”
Chip frowned, deflated. “You mean, like write a petition or something?”
“Yes.”
“We could do that!” Zoe proclaimed eagerly. “And we could send it to the top brass at the CIA too! They should know they’re losing one of their best spies-to-be for a dumb reason. If anyone should have been booted for this, it’s Warren.”
Lots of people seconded this.
“Hey!” Warren cried. “This isn’t my fault!”
“You loaded the mortar,” Zoe said pointedly.
“There were only supposed to be paint bombs in the ammo pile,” Warren replied. “I’m not the idiot who put a live shell in there with them.”
“But you are the idiot who didn’t notice the difference,” Chip told him.
“They looked exactly the same!” Warren cried.
“They shouldn’t have,” Jawa chided. “A paint bomb and a shell are nothing alike.”
“These were,” Warren snapped. “I swear. Any one of you would have made the same mistake!”
“Well, we didn’t,” Zoe said. “You did. And now Smokescreen’s getting sacked because of it.”
Warren cringed, looking wounded. Everyone on campus knew that he carried a serious torch for Zoe—except Zoe. I almost felt bad for the kid. Not quite, but almost.
Now that I thought about it, something seemed wrong about the whole mortar incident. I tried to place what it was, but before I could, a hush fell over the room.
Erica had arrived.
I hadn’t seen her come in, but that wasn’t unusual. Erica had a way of seeming to suddenly materialize. One moment, she wasn’t there—and the next, she was.
The crowd parted like the Red Sea, allowing her to pass through it.
Erica didn’t look at anyone else as she passed them. She kept her eyes locked on me until we were face-to-face.
I expected that she was there for moral support, like everyone else. She was going to tell me that the administration was doing the wrong thing. She was going to admit that she’d really miss me. Maybe she’d even show a rare spark of emotion and hug me good-bye.
But she didn’t. Instead, she said, “You really screwed up.”
“Me?” I asked, surprised. “Don’t you mean the principal?”
“No.” Erica’s gaze remained steely and cold. “You cracked under pressure and made a huge mistake. Yes, you saved some people, but in doing so, you nearly killed someone else—and did serious damage to this building. Who knows what might have happened if you’d behaved like this on a real mission.”
“But you’ve been with me on a real mission,” I protested. “And I didn’t screw up then!”
“That’s not exactly true,” Erica said. “In fact, you made plenty of mistakes.”
“Like what?”
“Accidentally alerting potential suspects that you were spying on them, getting captured by the enemy, allowing yourself to be led into an ambush . . .”
“All of those weren’t entirely my fault . . . .”
“And refusing to accept responsibility for your failures. Now, I chalked some of that up to you being young and naive, hoping you’d get better. But today’s events proved me wrong. I’m sorry, Ben, but it doesn’t look like you have what it takes to be a spy.”
Erica couldn’t have hurt me more if she’d punched me in the face. And to make matters worse, she’d done it in front of my friends. I gaped at her, trying to figure out what to say, but no words would come. I felt completely empty inside.
“Take my advice,” Erica said. “The next time someone comes to you with an offer to change your life, accept it—and then try not to mess it up like you did this time.”
She spun on her heel and started back through the crowd. Everyone else looked as shocked as I felt.
“All of you know the rules,” Erica told them. “After today, in order to protect the secrecy of this institution, none of you can have any more contact with Ben. Anyone who violates that directive will suffer the same fate as he did. As far as this school is concerned, Agent Benjamin Ripley no longer exists.”
Then she melted into the crowd and vanished from sight.
CIVILIAN LIFE
Robert E. Lee Junior High
September 4
1200 hours
I didn’t think it was possible to feel worse than I did after being expelled from spy school, but I was wrong. Less than twenty-four hours later, I found myself in one of the most horrible places I could have ever imagined.
/>
Middle school.
After packing up my belongings in my dorm room, I had taken a cab to my parents’ home in Vienna, Virginia. Spy school had already established a cover story for my return: Due to some unforeseen cutbacks, St. Smithen’s Science Academy could no longer afford my scholarship. My parents were at once upset by this news and thrilled to have me home. Mom had quickly whipped up a celebratory welcome-back dinner while Dad had done his best to assure me that it wouldn’t be so bad to return to my old life.
The next morning, they reenrolled me at my old middle school. It wasn’t difficult, as the school year had begun only the day before.
I wasn’t very happy about this.
Although spy school had been extremely challenging and people had occasionally tried to kill me there, it had still been significantly more enjoyable than middle school. Junior high was mind-numbingly dull, socially distressing, and potentially dangerous as well; it was common to be threatened with physical harm by the roving gangs of bullies there. In addition, the cafeteria food was toxic, the bathrooms were putrid, and many of the teachers were dumber than dirt. (For example: Mr. Godfrey, my American history teacher, who hadn’t known when the War of 1812 took place.)
As far as I was concerned, there was only one good thing about middle school: My best friend Mike Brezinski was there too.
Mike and I had met in first grade and been friends ever since, even though we’d grown into very different people. I worked hard and studied hard. Mike didn’t. In fact, he tried to get away with doing as little as possible. Things always worked out for him, though. He was popular, happy, and dating Elizabeth Pasternak, the most beautiful girl in school.
“It’s good to have you back, buddy,” he told me at lunch the first day.
I poked at the grayish slab of meat I’d gotten in the hot lunch line, checking it for insect parts or stray cafeteria-lady hairs. “It’s good to be back,” I agreed, doing my best to sell the lie.
Mike saw right through this. “I know you’re bummed that you can’t go to that science school anymore, but trust me, it’s way better here.”
“I already went to this school,” I reminded him. “It sucked.”
“More than science school? Please. What’d you do there for fun, dissect worms?”
“Not exactly,” I said. If there was anyone I wished I could tell the truth about spy school, it was Mike. Throughout our lives, he’d been the cool kid while I’d been the dork. And now I’d fought bad guys, been in death-defying action sequences, and saved the life of the President of the United States—and Mike still thought I was a dork.
“I’ll tell you why this is better,” Mike said. “We have girls here.”
I took a tentative bite of my mystery meat, then spit it right back out again. It tasted as though it had gone bad several months earlier. “There were girls at St. Smithen’s.”
“I mean attractive girls. Not science girls.”
“They were attractive. You saw Erica.”
Mike paused, then nodded agreement. “True. Erica was smoking hot. But you’re not seeing her anymore.”
I frowned. I’d never really been seeing Erica. Mike had once spotted us together and mistakenly assumed we were dating—and I hadn’t exactly tried to convince him that wasn’t true. It was the one time in my life he’d actually seemed jealous of me. However, since I was barred from ever seeing Erica again for security reasons, I’d had to claim things were over between us.
“You know how you get over losing a hot girlfriend?” Mike asked. “You get another hot girlfriend.”
“Just like that?” I asked, dubious.
“Just like that,” Mike said. Like it was easy.
As if on cue, Elizabeth Pasternak arrived at our table with her best friends: Chloe Appel and Kate Grant. Back in sixth grade, I’d had crushes on all three of them. Although they paled next to Erica, I still felt my heart rev up when they sat with us.
All of them seemed slightly annoyed that I was crashing their table.
Elizabeth gave Mike a peck on the cheek. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Mike said back. “You all remember Ben, right?”
“Kind of,” said Elizabeth.
“Maybe,” said Chloe.
“No,” said Kate.
I’d been in the same grade with all of them since kindergarten.
Mike said, “Ben just transferred back here from private school.”
“Really?” Chloe asked, trying to be nice. “What school?”
I started to say, “St. Smithen’s Science Academy,” but before I could, Mike said, “You wouldn’t have heard of it. It’s top secret.”
The girls all perked up, intrigued.
“Why was it secret?” Chloe asked.
“Because Ben was training to be a spy,” Mike told them.
I turned on Mike, worried, wondering if he really knew my secret or was simply trying to make me sound cool and had guessed the truth by accident.
“Liar,” said Kate. Then she looked at me. “He’s lying, right?”
I couldn’t believe I had to lie to the three hottest girls in the school—about not having trained to be a spy—but I did it anyhow. “Yes, he’s lying.”
“I knew it!” Kate exclaimed.
“Oh, come on,” Mike said. “You can’t expect him to admit the truth, can you?”
The girls all took a moment to think about that.
“I thought you were at some dorky science academy,” Elizabeth said.
“It was his cover,” Mike told her.
I tried to deny this, but before I could, Chloe asked, “If you were in spy school, what are you doing back here?”
“He’s undercover,” Mike said.
He was surprisingly convincing. The girls all now looked intrigued. It took everything I had to tell them, “That’s not true. I did go to a science academy. I was never training to be a spy.”
Chloe said, “That’s exactly what I’d expect someone who was training to be a spy to say.”
I started to deny this, but Mike gripped my arm tightly and pulled me aside. “What are you doing?” he whispered.
“What are you doing?” I shot back.
“I’m trying to get you a new girlfriend.”
“By lying to them?” I asked.
Mike shrugged in a way that could have either meant, “You know I’m not lying” or “So I’m lying; who cares?” Then he told the girls, “Sorry. Ben’s upset at me for blowing his cover. Apparently, now that you know the truth about him, we’re all in mortal danger. So we have to stop talking about this.”
Elizabeth and Chloe nodded in understanding. They didn’t look concerned about being in mortal danger. They looked excited.
Kate fixed Mike with a skeptical glance. “You’re so full of garbage.”
I couldn’t believe the irony of my situation. The one person who thought Mike was lying was actually wrong. While the other girls, who’d been theoretically misled, now believed the truth. It was so screwed up, I could barely keep track of right and wrong.
Before I could even begin to sort it out, though, someone grabbed me by the collar from behind, dragging me away from the table and hoisting me to my feet.
It was Dirk Dennett. Otherwise known as Dirk the Jerk. Dirk wasn’t the toughest bully we had at our school, but he made up for that by being the meanest. Before I’d gone to spy school, he’d made my life miserable every chance he got, and now that I was back, he seemed eager to make up for lost time. “I heard you got kicked out of your science school,” he taunted.
“N-no,” I stammered. “I lost my scholarship.”
Mike was suddenly on his feet beside me. “Leave him alone, Dirk.”
Dirk didn’t take his eyes off me. “Why do you insist on hanging out with this loser, Brezinski?”
“ ’Cause it’s better than hanging out with a jerk like you,” Mike shot back. “Now let him go.”
Elizabeth, Chloe, and Kate all cooed, impressed by Mike’s chivalry.
Dirk shifted his attention to Mike, but kept a vise grip on my collar. “You gonna make me?”
Mike wasn’t really a fighter; he tended to get by on charm. He sized Dirk up, a bit daunted, but then stood up for me anyhow. “I might.”
Dirk shoved me aside and clenched his fists.
“Mike,” I said quickly. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do,” Mike replied. “I’m not letting this bozo ruin your first day back.”
Without warning, Dirk suddenly took a swing at Mike. Only, something caught his fist en route.
To my surprise, it was me.
I’d learned some things over the past few months at spy school. For starters, I wasn’t completely helpless when it came to self-preservation. I’d hoped to keep all that a secret, given the official directive I’d received to not reveal anything about my training, but the instant I saw Mike in jeopardy—for trying to help me, no less—my instincts had taken over.
Dirk seemed even more surprised that I’d caught his fist than I was. Then he turned on me and attacked.
Right up until that point, I had never considered myself a good fighter. I’d been one of the worst at spy school. But then, I’d been measuring myself against other spies-to-be, many of whom had been studying martial arts since preschool. I’d never fought a normal person before.
In truth, even a bully like Dirk didn’t fight that much. He merely threatened smaller kids and hoped they’d fork over their lunch money. Or he sucker-punched them and put them out of commission before they even knew what was happening. The only reason he attacked me then was that, after all my years of letting him bully me, he was sure he’d win.
He was wrong.
Without even thinking about it, my training kicked in. First, I went with the Sneaky Cobra defense. I quickly sidestepped Dirk’s punch and wrenched his arm behind him. He buckled at the knees and I slammed his face right into Chloe Appel’s hot lunch. His face splatted in her mashed potatoes, flecking gravy onto her blouse.