Always have a Plan B. And a Plan C. A Plan D would be good too.
— Rule Number 16 from Rules for a Successful Life as an Undercover Secret Agent
What was the point of having these cell phones if no one from the Agency answered them? I imagined Roy, Angry Woman, Ms. Bow Tie, and Unknown Breathing Person sitting around an office table at the Agency, staring at the ringing phones, saying, “I got the last emergency. Your turn,” while eating take-out Chinese food.
After I put both phones in my pocket, I moved the laundry into the dryer. Looking through some of the other boxes, I couldn’t figure out a use for our inflatable Rudolph or life jackets. Then I went back to the original Valentine’s box and picked up the key — smaller than a normal door key — and slipped it into my sock. After hiding a bottle of water and a food packet behind the washer, I put the rest away just as I’d found it. I returned to the kitchen, which was cleaner than it had been since Sunday.
There was still no sign of Frankenstella. I hadn’t yet had a chance to examine the new alarm system on Le Petit Musée of Antique Silver Spoons, and this seemed as good an opportunity as any.
As I opened the back door, I heard an angry male voice.
I popped my head out. The man, facing away from me, stood on the museum’s back porch next door — Inspector Montgomery. He was supposed to be on his way to Yakima with Aunt Gertie.
He said, “The roadblock is holding.”
I leaned against the back door, holding my breath.
“Look harder. PNW Security has to exist somewhere.” Montgomery said each word very carefully, just like my teacher did when she was about to hold the whole class in from recess for misbehaving. “It’s either our shell, one of our competitors’, or theirs.”
Shell? As in a fake company?
“No sign of the red case yet, Jackson,” Montgomery said.
Wrong, I thought. But I wasn’t going to point that out to the inspector.
Montgomery’s footsteps reverberated on the back porch. “Not a lot of crime here. Town’s pretty much the same as it was thirty years ago. The sheriff is a rule follower, but she’s not stupid.” Montgomery kept talking as he walked closer to the Star’s Tale and out of my hearing range.
I wanted to sneak after Montgomery, but the familiar whine of my mom’s car meant that Frankenstella had returned. I grabbed the broom and pretended I was still sweeping the kitchen floor. The car doors slammed, and a moment later Frankenstella thudded into the house.
“Remember anything yet?” Stella asked, barreling into the kitchen.
“No, ma’am.” I stood straight and didn’t fidget. “My mother never told me the alarm code.”
Stella eyed my legs, and asked, “How did you get so filthy?”
I looked down at my pink sweatpants, now brown and grubby. “I was doing laundry.” To cut off further questioning, I returned to the basement and waited until the dryer buzzed.
As I was making my way into the kitchen with the clothes basket, Stella pursed her lips. “Take a shower before dinner.”
“And hurry up,” Frank snapped as he dumped deli food onto serving plates.
“Five minutes,” Stella added.
Is five minutes the only time interval the woman knows?
The aroma of rotisserie chicken caused my stomach to growl as I stomped out of the room and leapt up the stairs.
Oh, joy. When I turned the corner at the top of the staircase, I could see that Victoria was already reclining on my bed. Her air mattress lay on the other side of the room. She had my glittery pumpkin next to her on my bedspread. I quickly looked around my room. The invisible Rules, the world map, the origami solar system, the fourteen plastic sunflowers — everything was in its proper place, except for the pumpkin. I picked it up and returned it to its rightful place on my dresser, next to the sunflowers.
“Ready yet?” Victoria was furiously typing away on a tiny laptop.
“No.” Was everyone in the Frankenstella family impatient all the time? “I have to shower first.”
“Obviously.” She cast a disdainful glance in my direction. “Why won’t my web page load?”
“The mountain,” I said.
“What does that chunk of rock have to do with the Internet?”
I skipped the lecture that Mount Rainier was actually considered one of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes, and at more than fourteen thousand feet high, it was way bigger than a chunk. “Some days it casts a weather shadow, and the Internet can’t get through,” I told her. A half-accurate answer, but I had five minutes to shower and I wasn’t going to waste any more of it. Besides, what would I say? In reality, my parents had high-tech shielding around the house that allowed cell phones to work, but screened all Internet traffic through a super-secret encoded transmission thingy. I obviously couldn’t tell Victoria that.
“I need to show you what we’re going to do.” Victoria tried a different web address.
“What do you mean?”
“The audition for the show. All the rules are on their site.” She tried reloading the page, but nothing happened. “Silverton sucks.”
“Four minutes.” Stella’s voice bellowed up from the first floor. She could count backward, I’ll give her that.
“Later.” I grabbed some warm clothes from the laundry basket and ran into the bathroom.