TWO

“Katie Carlyle, you really should start taking a multivitamin. A kid your age should be bursting with energy,” Mom said to me the next morning as I struggled not to fall asleep over my Corn Flakes.

That’s why I was so tired. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Couldn’t have been the secret mission I was working on for half of last night. Nope. It’s the vitamins.

Since I couldn’t say that, because my parents had no idea the “after school” program that I had been attending for the past four years was actually a secret spy-training program, I just peered sleepily at her and put out my hand to take the vitamin. My body was one giant ache and I wasn’t quite sure, but I thought that I might have punctured something in my rear quarters as I inched my way down the air shaft. It certainly felt like it.

“Paul called last night after you went to bed,” Mom said to Dad as she chopped fruit for her breakfast smoothie. “Guess why?”

Dad folded his paper and set it down next to his coffee. “Because he loves college and everything is going well?”

“No, he called to tell us about his first exam of the semester. Do you know what grade he got on his first exam of the semester?” Mom threw apple slices and mango wedges into the blender.

Dad shook his head.

“A ‘D’. In chemistry. He claimed that this was fine, because he’s just going to work in a coffee shop for the rest of his life anyway. He’s never going to get into medical school if he keeps this up.”

I tried to keep from laughing. Why did Mom not realize that Paul said these things to get her all riled up?

“Susan, isn’t having one son in medical school enough?” Dad said mildly, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Don’t get me started on Michael. If he’s going to bother going to medical school why did it have to be plastic surgery? I’m not saying that he has to go into the same field that I did, but OB/GYN is respectable. What could be better than helping women?” Mom hit the turbo speed button on the blender.

Last time they’d had this argument, Michael claimed that more than 80% of his clients would be women and he would be helping them. Mom didn’t seem to think that enlarging a woman’s boobs qualified.

I kept my mouth shut and took a sip of orange juice. Unlike my brothers, I was content to keep my career goals secret and not attract undue attention. This wasn’t terribly difficult, given the attention grabbing hijinks of my brothers, even now that they were both away at school.

Mom poured her smoothie into a glass and took a big drink. Then her eyes registered on me. “I almost forgot.” She reached into her pocket and pulled something out. “Is this yours?”

I looked down at her palm and my heart stopped beating. Sitting in her palm was my mini cam.

“It was on the floor in the hall.” She held it out to me.

I reached out and took the mini cam from her palm. “Science project, a project you know for science, on technology.” I forced myself to stop babbling and pocketed the mini cam.

“I’m so glad someone in this family is good with technology.” Mom ran her hands through her hair and turned back to her smoothie.

Before she could ask me any more questions, I gulped down the rest of my cereal and dashed out of the room.

I was just about out the door when Mom shouted:

“Don’t forget your lunch, Katie. That cafeteria food will kill you.”

As if getting caught with spy equipment AND Mom’s early morning lectures on nutrition weren’t bad enough, Emma Krimstein, my best friend since practically forever, started in on me as soon as I got to my locker.

“First of all, what is up with the khakis?” my dearest friend Emma said, her beautiful blue eyes taking in my outfit. “Don’t you remember the little talk that we had about khakis?”

“Sort of.”

“As I recall, we decided that you should never wear khakis ever again. No one should for that matter, unless they are in the desert or the jungle or maybe a Jurassic Park movie, but even then they should only be worn with a white tank top. Now I’m not saying you in particular, but they do have a tendency to make a woman’s rear end look bigger.”

“What’s wrong with my rear end?” I twisted to see my backside and almost fell into a locker.

“Nothing’s wrong with your rear end, you are perfectly proportioned, top and bottom. That’s why you don’t want to enhance your bottom. It puts you out of balance, because then it makes your top look small in comparison,” Emma continued. “Katie, khakis aren’t even a color and with your hazel colored eyes you need to wear color to bring them out or they just fade into the background.” Emma finished and took a closer look at me. “You look terrible.”

“Thanks, Em, you’re a real peach. Did anyone ever tell you that?”

Emma, of course, was impeccably dressed and made up, her black hair shiny, pale complexion rosy.

“Were you up all night studying?” She pulled me into the bathroom and took her makeup bag out of her backpack. I leaned against the edge of the sink, my back to the mirror.

“Studying? For what?”

“The history test we have today?” She dabbed under eye concealer on me.

“The history test isn’t until the sixth week of class, which isn’t until the beginning of October…except yesterday was, wait a minute, Em, was yesterday the first day of October?” Panic rose in my throat. “Oh my god. I didn’t study. I didn’t study. I did not study. Not one little bit.” Of course, Emma never had these kinds of problems. She was always on top of things. Homework, days of the month, fashion–Emma always knew what was going on.

“Katie, for someone who is practically a genius, you don’t have the whole knowing what’s going on thing down so much.”

“Emma, you aren’t helping.”

“Calm down, Katie. Maybe you should go home sick,” Emma said. She leaned back to survey her work with the blusher.

I couldn’t go home sick because if I did that I couldn’t work at the U.E. and I had to work. Mom would probably make me stay home and endure yet another lecture on nutrition and staying healthy instead of going to my “after school program.” Being a spy is way harder than anyone thinks.

I took a few deep breaths. “I’ll be fine. I mean, I’ve been in class. Something must have sunk in. How hard can it be?”

Why does anyone ever say how hard can it be? Ever?

Emma did not buy my bravado. “Well, at least you don’t look so tired now.” She said as she put her makeup kit back into her bag. “But next time I am at your house the khakis aren’t going to make it.”

I followed Emma down the teal locker lined hall to Mr. Front’s classroom and took my seat. I rummaged through my backpack and discovered that I didn’t even have a pencil. Emma shook her head and handed me one.

Mr. Front passed out the exams and I looked down. Multiple choice. Thank god. If it had been fill in the blank I’d be in serious trouble, because you can’t just pull answers out of thin air. But multiple choice meant you had at least a 25% chance of guessing right.

For me it was a little bit higher. Because I was an excellent guesser. It was all because of these “problem solving skills” that I had.

You know those Achievement Tests teachers are always making you take? They say that the tests don’t really count for anything, you aren’t graded on them, and it doesn’t show how smart you are. They just give the school an idea of how they’re doing on the curriculum and so on. That is a big fat lie, though the teachers probably don’t know it. Those Achievement Tests are one of the ways the U.E. flags potential spies.

They look for all sorts of things but problem solving is at the top of the list.

Of course, even after getting flagged, they have to make sure you’re physically capable and you have to take test after test after test before they decide you are fit to work for the U.E. It’s extremely rare to have the combination of skills you need to be a spy–at our branch there are only two of us in our teens. So as soon as the recruiters discover you, they snatch you up and start your training. It’s like being an ice skater–if you’re already in your teens it’s practically too late to get started and if you’re in your twenties, forget it.

I set to work using my lovely problem-solving skills on the exam and before long it was all over and there was a fairly good chance that I had at least passed.

I hoped that luck would stick with me until I had to face Commander Eckle at U.E. Headquarters and explain last night’s mission. Maybe he hadn’t gotten around to reading the report?