EIGHT

Later that day at the U.E. Headquarters I sat again in the control room with Commander Eckle, Lieutenant Gates and Jaisen.

“Save the Whales?” I said to Commander Eckle. “You can’t be serious.”

“Katie.”

“Yes.”

“Tomorrow you and Jaisen get to Save the Whales,” Commander Eckle said.

“Mmm…” I said. “Great.”

“We want to keep an eye on Margaret Patent. By all accounts, she cares very deeply about the whales. We believe that she will be attending the Save the Whales benefit dinner tomorrow evening. A dinner at which you and Jaisen are going to volunteer. I believe that the student chapter of Save the Whales is always looking for help.”

They hadn’t changed their mind and I was still stuck with the rookie. Plus, I was going to Save the Whales. It wasn’t that I had anything against the whales–I was all for helping out our aquatic sisters, but the Save the Whales group was not a cool group at Norshore High. They were known for being pushy. I don’t know how many pamphlets I’d had shoved in my hands in the past year, but it was plenty. Jaisen sat listening to Commander Eckle as though the idea of becoming a pushy whale saver didn’t bother him in the least.

“Why are we keeping an eye on Margaret Patent?” I asked.

“As you recall, you did see her under fairly suspicious circumstances in the middle of the night last night. Because of this, and because she is the head of the company that Franklin Culpepper was fired from, she is high on our suspect list.”

“Suspect list?” I asked. “We don’t even have a crime yet. Firing Franklin wasn’t a crime exactly, was it? Civil rights violation maybe, but he can handle that himself in court.”

“Katie,” Commander Eckle said, sighing. “Franklin Culpepper isn’t going to be handling anything in court. He’s disappeared. We don’t know what crime has been committed, but a bogus firing and a disappearance are enough to make us suspicious. You are going to spy on Margaret Patent tomorrow night and you are going to find out what is going on.” Commander Eckle shifted in his seat. “If you will let me continue with your briefing, I will give you your assignment for today.”

This was getting more interesting.

“Today your training session will be cut short.” I tried to look sad about this, but I’m not sure it came across quite right.

“Instead we want you to check out Franklin’s apartment–see if you can figure out if he left town for his own purposes or involuntarily. You leave in one hour.”

“What’s our cover?” This was way better than the whale thing. At least there would be an undercover role to get into.

“You will go disguised as cable repair people.”

Of course, the old cable repair people trick. I had watched enough spy movies to know that dressing as cable repair people let you get away with murder practically.

“Please try to get the information that you need while still respecting the man’s privacy as much as you possibly can,” Commander Eckle began.

“Yes, definitely. Jaisen and I, we are full of respect, right Jaisen?”

Jaisen looked stunned that I had included him. “Yes?” he said.

Luckily, this distracted Commander Eckle and he dismissed us before I had to sit through another lecture on ethics in espionage for the millionth time. Commander Eckle could pontificate for hours on what was acceptable spy behavior.

In the hall with Jaisen and Melissa, Jaisen asked, “What was that all about?”

“Ethics in espionage is one of Commander Eckle’s favorite subjects. Trust me, you don’t want to have to sit through it.”

Clutching my two briefs, I followed Melissa down the hall toward the locker room.

Tomorrow’s mission meant that Jaisen would be coming to my house. My parents were going to meet him. This was almost more than I could handle. It was one thing being under cover with strangers, but in front of my own family? This was going to be much more difficult.

“I’ve got your outfit for the dinner tomorrow,” Melissa opened her locker and started piling my spy gear for tomorrow on the bench. “Your cable repair outfit should be in your mailbox by the time we’re finished sparring.”

I looked down at the locker room bench in front of me and almost fell over backwards in surprise.

“Melissa, are those for me?”

“Yup.”

Sitting on that ugly wooden locker room bench was the most beautiful thing I could imagine. Tennis shoes. Jet-black, but undeniably tennis shoes.

“Melissa, you are so cool. You finally convinced administration that I was killing myself in those horrible high heel shoes.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“What? They just came around? Got a new designer?”

I pushed my fingers into the shoes and my fingers sunk into the cushy soles.

“I wouldn’t say that so loud. Jacques would be incredibly offended if he heard you say that.” Melissa leaned against her locker door. “You have Jaisen to thank.”

“Shut up.” I dropped the shoes. “I have been complaining about the shoes I’ve been issued for nine months and the new guy comes in and gets what he asks for the first time? You have got to be kidding me, Melissa. It’s the sexist administration isn’t it?” “Maybe Jaisen just asked nicely.” As though I hadn’t asked nicely. I had asked nicely. Just not quite as nicely as Jaisen, apparently.