But the killing and the unusual diet were only half of it. Every morning the Hyena and Dumb Vinci stood with the kidnapped scientists and watched Dr. Jigsaw do his daily workout routine. Jigsaw did one hundred one-armed push-ups. Fifty for his left arm and fifty for his right. When he was finished he would do one hundred lunges, one hundred shoulder presses, one hundred calf raises, and one hundred standing rows, fifty on each limb. It was a grueling workout, but what was even more painful was listening to Jigsaw’s lecture on the importance of symmetry, how essential it was to be equally strong on both sides of the body.
One morning after his workout, Dumb Vinci brought Dr. Jigsaw the tiny pencil-shaped device the Hyena had found in Dr. Lunich’s lab. Jigsaw studied it closely, turning it over and over, as if it were a beautiful flower.
“Dr. Lunich, tell me about your invention,” Jigsaw said. The Hyena was surprised by the man’s excitement. Jigsaw was nearly salivating.
Despite his kidnapping, Dr. Lunich had not lost his courage. He shook his head and turned up his nose.
“Dr. Lunich, that is bad manners. I invited you here to my lab. Don’t you want to be friends?”
“I was not invited. I was kidnapped just like all the others,” Lunich said, gesturing to the cowering men and women who stood behind him. “You should let us go before you get in more trouble.”
Dr. Jigsaw sighed and turned to the Hyena. “Mindy, dear, sometimes I wonder if I have what it takes to be a scientist. You see, I hate setbacks. I know it’s part of the job, and heaven knows I’ve had many. Some have been my fault—wrong turns I’ve made during my research, lack of imagination, exhaustion. But more often than not, my setbacks have been the result of working with lazy and small-minded people, bureaucrats, and pencil pushers. If I could only surround myself with passionate, open-minded thinkers, my plans would already have been completed. Take Iceland and Greenland—if I had the support of the scientific community, then they wouldn’t have slammed into each other so hard and perhaps—”
“You did that? You moved Greenland? People were killed!” Lunich said.
“My point exactly, and you have no one else to blame but yourself. All I’m asking for is some help with some equations and a little insight on your remarkable device. Don’t you want things to go better, Dr. Lunich?”
“You can forget it, Jigsaw!” Lunich shook his head. “I fear how you might use my invention.”
“Then let me explain,” the doctor said. “I have built a machine that can move continents from one place to the other with a blast of energy. Unfortunately, the machine is unable to move them precisely where I want them. Now, you’ve built an amazing machine, and I believe that if I can link my satellite to your tractor beam, I can literally tow everything where it’s supposed to go.”
“Supposed to go? I won’t help you. In fact, we’re all through with you.” Lunich gestured to the other scientists. “You’ll get no more help from us.”
Jigsaw stomped his feet like a child whose mother has just refused him cookies.
“You don’t have to be rude! If you don’t want to be friends, that’s fine with me!” Jigsaw shouted. He looked like he was about to storm off, but he hesitated for a moment. He stared at Lunich’s face as if he were cataloging his features.
“Doctor, has anyone ever told you that your left ear is slightly bigger than your right ear?”
Lunich scowled impatiently. “No, no one has ever told me that.”
“It’s really disconcerting. Now that I notice it, I find it difficult to see the rest of your face. It’s truly grotesque. I don’t know how you live with yourself.”
“You are clearly unwell,” Lunich said with disgust.
“I just can’t bear to look at it a second longer,” Jigsaw said, then pushed a button on his wristwatch. The floor beneath Dr. Lunich slid open and he plummeted downward. A flash of fire and a puff of smoke rose from below, along with a terrible scream.
The Hyena thought her eyes might pop out of her head.
“Well, friends,” Jigsaw said, waving the miniature tractor beam at the whimpering geniuses. “We’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way. Let’s break it open and see how it works.”
Jackson walked the hallways of Nathan Hale Elementary with a sense of wonder. The boring old cookie-cutter building he had never given a second thought to now seemed to be brimming with secrets. Every door might lead to a hidden room. Every face in the hall could belong to an international spy. He wondered if any of the other kids suspected anything. What would they think if they knew the world’s very existence was owed to these hallways? Yet at the same time, Jackson had serious reservations about joining Brand’s team. For one, he was worried he’d get killed, which was something he generally tried to avoid. And two, even with their souped-up technology, there were still nerds. All five of them were wheezing, whiny misfits.
Joining the group would mean giving up on ever being popular again. Even though his former friends had shunned him, Jackson still had hopes that they would give him another chance. If he accepted Brand’s invitation, he could flush all his dreams down the toilet.
The more he thought about it, the more he realized that becoming a nerd, albeit a nerd who was also a secret agent, was not for him. No, he’d keep doing what he was doing and eventually he’d find his rightful place in the spotlight again. After all, once his old friends got a look at what he could do with his superbraces, he’d be the most popular kid in school. He reached into his pocket and felt the envelope that the spy had given him and knew what had to be done. He shoved the boys’ bathroom door open and stepped inside.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” he said as he crunched the envelope into a ball and tossed it into the toilet bowl. He was leaning over to flush it down when he heard the bathroom door open. He turned to see who it was and saw a group of his former friends, led by Brett. They were laughing and slugging one another in the arm, a game they seemed to play all the time. Instinctively, Jackson smiled at them. After all, they had been best friends for years. But when Brett sneered at him, he knew he had made a mistake.
“Hey, Braceface,” Brett said. “How many toothbrushes do you go through in a day?”
The other boys exploded into obnoxious giggles.
Jackson felt his face flush. Before he could think, a nasty reply escaped his lips, “Hey Brett, you still using those big-boy diapers at bedtime?”
Brett’s face fell. His nightly bedwetting was a secret the two boys had shared since the second grade, when Jackson had spent the night at Brett’s house and they had gone hog-wild over pizza, candy, and root beer after root beer. Jackson had woken several times in the night to visit the bathroom. Brett had slept like a rock—a rock floating on a soggy mattress. The next morning, in front of Jackson, Brett’s mom had informed her son that from now on he would have to wear “pull-up pants,” which everyone knew was code for diapers. Horrified, Brett swore Jackson to secrecy.
Jackson felt bad about revealing the secret and began to make an earnest apology, when Brett grabbed him by the collar and forced him back inside the bathroom stall. Then, with the help of the other boys, he shoved Jackson headfirst into the toilet bowl. Someone flushed and the water swirled around Jackson’s ears. He was drowning, but there were too many hands holding him down. He kicked and punched and finally freed himself. Gagging and spitting, he managed to turn his head toward his attackers. They shrank back in terror. His braces! They had transformed into four metallic lobster claws, snapping and lunging at the bullies.
“Freak!” Brett shouted, scrambling for the bathroom door.
“No!” Jackson cried. “Wait. They’re really cool.”
His friends rushed out of the bathroom, leaving him alone on the floor. He lay there for a long time, fighting back tears. It was clear that his former life was officially over. As he got to his feet, he found a soggy wad of paper crumpled beneath him. It was the envelope. He scooped it up and opened it gingerly. Inside was a blurry handwritten note.
Go to the cafeteria. Ask the lunch lady for
the creamed corn. Welcome to the National
Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society.
Jackson reread the words over and over to make sure he understood them. What did creamed corn have to do with becoming a spy?
He hurried down the hallway, leaving soggy footprints behind him.
The fifth grade was halfway through their lunch break, so the line in the cafeteria was short. Jackson hopped onto the end and soon stepped up to the counter. There he found the lunch lady chewing on an extinguished cigar. Jackson had never noticed her husky forearms before or, for that matter, how hairy they were. He had never noticed her five o’clock shadow before, either.
“What’ll you have, kid?” the lunch lady asked in a rather deep voice.
“I was told to order the creamed corn,” Jackson said, eyeing the grayish-yellow muck boiling in a pan next to some off-color green beans.
The lunch lady cocked a bushy eyebrow. “Did you say you wanted the creamed corn?”
“Yes, the creamed corn.”
“You sure, kid? Once you have the creamed corn, there’s no going back.”
Jackson shook some toilet water out of his ear. “I’m sure.”
The lunch lady scooped out a heaping helping of the goop and plopped it onto Jackson’s tray. “Welcome to the team, kid,” she said.
Once he found a seat, Jackson took a sniff of the corn and quickly realized that ordering it had been a terrible decision. It smelled like feet and maple syrup, and jiggled on the tray as if it were alive. Summoning all his courage and tightening all his stomach muscles, Jackson plunged his spoon into the goop and shoveled some into his mouth. Just as it went in, he thought he spotted something tiny and metallic. It was too late. He had already swallowed.
Jackson could feel the metal thing at the back of his throat, but it wasn’t sinking into his stomach, it was climbing into his nasal cavity! There was an odd tickling feeling and then a sudden sharp pain that made Jackson yelp, which made every kid in the cafeteria look in his direction.
There was horrible popping sound and then Jackson’s head filled with a whining feedback. He clamped his hands on his ears and cried out in agony. He heard a kid sitting behind him diagnose him as a lunatic. He was about to reply when he heard another voice, this one soft and calming.
“Welcome, Braceface.”
“Hello?”
“Do you wish to join NERDS, Braceface? Please confirm.” Jackson nodded. “Sure … I guess. But my name is Jackson—”
“Yes or no is required, Braceface.”
“Enough with the Braceface! Yes! I want to join,” he shouted, collecting more bug-eyed gazes.
“Confirmed. You have received a TL-46A Tracking, Calling, and Communication Implant. It has three functions. The first emits a unique radio frequency allowing agents to track your whereabouts. I will test this function.”
An incredible squeal blasted in Jackson’s brain. The pain was similar to that of eating an ice cream cone too fast except, in this case, it was like eating forty pounds of ice cream too fast. Jackson’s head was filled with a teeth-rattling screech and he fell over onto the floor. The kids who were sitting nearby picked up their trays and moved to other seats.
“Adjusting volume,” the voice said as the noise faded. “The TL-46A’s secondary function is as a pager system to alert agents of a crisis. I will test this function.”
Just then, Jackson felt an incredible itch in his nose and he let out a massive sneeze. His nose was running like a river, and he wiped it on his sleeve. He had seen the same thing happen to the nerd herd.
“Secondary function working within parameters,” the computer said. “OK, Braceface—”
“All right, pal, you call me Braceface one more time and I’m going to—”
“Testing.”
Suddenly, Jackson’s nose started to tickle and he sneezed. Then he sneezed again, and again, and again.
“Lastly, the implant allows communication between agents. Testing.”
There was a horrible whine of feedback in his head that caused Jackson to slam his head on his table and hold his hands over his ears.
“Prepare to be delivered,” Benjamin’s voice continued.
“Delivered?”
Just then, the fire alarm rang and the sprinkler system came to life. Cold water poured down, causing panicked kids and staff to rush for the exits. In the chaos, Jackson felt the floor below him disappear, and he plummeted into darkness, landing in an overstuffed chair next to the computer desk in the center of the Playground. Agent Brand was waiting for him.
“Welcome to the team,” Brand said, helping the boy to his feet. Jackson brushed himself off and scanned his surroundings. The scientists he had seen before were busy working on their various experiments.
“Well, I suppose we should get right to it,” Brand continued as he escorted Jackson around the massive room. “You’ve seen the Playground before. It’s our mission room, as well as a multifunction lab, information collection center, and training facility. You’ve met a few of our scientists. There are nearly fifty on staff, and they make up the finest minds in chemistry, engineering, and astrophysics—all working on the latest technologies to help your missions succeed.”
Somewhere, something exploded.
Brand continued the tour, showing Jackson a bank of desks manned by men and women watching video monitors. “We also have a full team of experts who search the globe for trouble. Our eyes are everywhere, so that we can stop a problem before it starts. This is where missions start and end, Jackson.”
The spy led him to a wall with a big red button on it. He instructed Jackson to press his back against the wall, and then Brand pushed the button. The wall spun around, and they found themselves in a tight, confined space that smelled of body odor. The spy opened a door and the two stepped out into one of the school hallways. Jackson realized they had come back through another set of lockers—just as he had entered the Playground on the first day of his screwy new life.
They walked down the hallway to the library.
“I want you to meet our information specialist, Ms. Holiday.”
“Ms. Holiday—you mean the librarian? She’s a spy?” Jackson cried.
Agent Brand nodded. “She assists with mission intelligence, cover stories, clothing and weapons, and mission preparation. At the moment she’s relaying the latest intelligence on an ongoing investigation to the team. Why don’t we go in and say hello? I’m sure they will be thrilled to hear you’ve agreed to join them.”
They stepped through the doorway and found Heathcliff, Ruby, Matilda, Duncan, and Flinch sitting at a round table. They looked angry.
Jackson was puzzled. Maybe they were angry about their mission, because surely, deep down, nerds would be honored to hang out with a kid like him. He turned to the nerds and smiled his best popular-kid smile. “Listen up, folks. I’m thrilled to be joining the team. Clearly, you needed someone with a little athletic ability, and it doesn’t hurt that I’m cute and brimming with charm. I mean, you’ve seen those James Bond movies. He looks a lot more like me than he does the rest of you. So, I guess I’ll be the face of the team and you guys can do whatever it is you do behind the scenes. Good? Good. Glad to be here.”
Ms. Holiday rushed to Brand’s side. She looked worried.
“Agent Brand, the team has something to say,” she said.
Brand cocked an eyebrow. “Indeed?”
“We’ve taken a vote,” Ruby said, and she jumped to her feet.
“A vote?” the spy asked.
“Yes. We have decided that this punk is not right for our team. He has no training. He is a show-off and I doubt he’ll take orders. We have decided to pass.”
Agent Brand’s face tightened like he had just bitten into a very sour pickle.
“Pufferfish,” the spy said. “I’m sure that once the six of you get to know one another—”
“We know everything we
need to know about him,” Heathcliff said.
“Hggggaalfhal amldyad aaaal,” Flinch sputtered.
“What did he say?” the spy asked.
The hyper boy turned the knob on this harness and spoke again. “He’s a jerk.”
Suddenly, all the children were shouting angry words at Brand.
“Children!” Ms. Holiday cried over the chaos. “Let’s be professional. Jackson has a lot to offer the team.”
Matilda laughed. “He’ll draw attention to himself and us. He can’t help it. All he cares about is being popular.”
Brand’s face was hot and red. He looked as if he had a million things to say, but he gritted his teeth and said, “Train him.” Then he turned and walked out of the room.
The team was quiet for a moment. It was clear to Jackson they were unused to hearing someone tell them what to do. It was also clear they were very accustomed to getting their way.
Ms. Holiday forced a smile onto her face. “Welcome to the team, Braceface.”
“Uh, can we talk about my code name?” Jackson said.
Ms. Holiday laughed, trying to break the mood. “I suppose we should get your training started. Matilda, why don’t we start with you? Take Jackson down to the Playground and give him some hand-to-hand combat instruction.”
“I refuse,” Matilda wheezed.
She reminded Jackson of a small, squeaky toy that Butch the dog liked to chew. Jackson laughed. “Good, because Ms. Holiday, you should really have someone strong and fast teach me, not this little girl.”
“On second thought …” Matilda smiled slyly then turned to the librarian. “What’s the rule on broken bones?”
Ms. Holiday frowned. “The rule is there can’t be any broken bones,” she scolded.
Matilda frowned. “You’re no fun.”
Matilda led Jackson back through the Playground and into one of the many rooms that lined the main room. She pulled the door closed, and a series of heavy locks turned and sealed them inside. Suddenly, the walls flipped over, revealing a variety of weapons.