"We didn't have any."
"No!" Liz exclaimed.
Erin nodded. "A few months from now I'm going to be in deep cover somewhere, and this is how I'm supposed to get ready?"
She was right, of course. Mr. Townsend's class wasn't just a waste of time. It was dangerous.
Erin Shook her head, then turned to stare out the window and together we watched our newest teacher walk across the grounds then disappear without a trace into the falling snow. "What's he really doing here?"
Erin's a great student. She's going to be an awesome spy. As she turned and walked away, her whisper seemed to echo, settling down on the four of us.
Our mission was clear.
"He'll be a hard target," Bex said.
"I know."
"We're talking this-guy-makes-Mr.-Smith-look-like-a-candy-striper hard."
I nodded. "Yeah that's right."
"So the question is," Bex said slowly, "how far are you willing to go?"
I looked at my three best friends in the world. "How far is there?"
Chapter Fifteen
Covert Operations Report
Operatives Morgan, Baxter, Sutton, and McHenry began a dangerous information-seeking operation on a highly hostile target. And teacher.
The Operatives were able to ascertain the following:
·Agent Townsend never sleeps past eight or goes to bed before two.
·The Target runs five miles every day and was seen doing 500 sit-ups in a row (which, according to Operative Baxter, isn't nearly as impressive as it sounds).
·The Target strictly avoids both sugar and caffeine (which, according to Operative Morgan, is every bit as crazy as THAT sounds).
·Despite two weeks on the Gallagher Academy faculty, The Target has acquired zero friends.
I've had of lot of memorable meals in five and a half years at the Gallagher Academy, but that was one of the few times when I didn't actually eat anything.
"He's not coming, Liz said, her gaze glued to the big double doors at the back of the room. Bex and Macey and I stayed quiet, glancing around the Grand Hall, the two of them picking at their food as we took turns staring at the doors.
Liz was the one who voiced what we were all thinking. "What if he doesn't come?"
"Hey, Macey, can I have that -"
"No!" the four of us cried in unison. Macey grabbed a banana out of Courtney Bauer's hands, which might have looked kinda strange. But at the Gallagher Academy, "strange"
is a completely relative thing.
"Sorry, Courtney," I said, trying to explain. "It's just that we've got this experiment we're going to do later with . . ."
But then I couldn't finish because Agent Townsend was standing at the entrance of the Grand Hall, taking a long drink from a bottle of water. His dark curly hair was wet with sweat. In his black running suit, he looked as if he could have just gotten back from breaking into an embassy, parachuting behind enemy lines, meeting with a particularly shady informant in the darkest alley of the most dangerous city in the world. As much as I wanted to hate Agent Townsend, there was one thing I didn't dare forget: he was probably a very good spy.
I looked at my roommates, knowing that for the next hour, somehow, someway, the four of us had to be better.
"Who has eyes?" I whispered as I felt the man pass behind me.
"He's going to the buffet," Bex said, but unless you could hear her you would have sworn she was talking about the weather.
"What's he doing?" Liz asked. (Her face and voice, I'm sorry to say , were significantly less covert.)
"Apple," Macey said. Her blue eyes seemed especially big and bright as she looked at me and whispered again, "Apple."
It took four seconds for Liz to take the syringe from her bag. Her hands were shaking as I pulled the apple from my tray and held it beneath the table.
"You do realize this is probably illegal, right?" I asked, but Liz looked up at me and smiled as if I were the mast naïve girl in the world.
"It can't be illegal, Cam. It's research."
So that was it. Our teacher's fate, my safety, and Liz's GPA all hinged on what we were about ot do.
"You're doing great, Lizzie," Bex said, but still Liz's hand trembled.
"Liz . . ." Macey started.
"Got it!" Liz said, and in the next second the apple passed beneath the table from Liz's hand to Bex's.
In a flash, Bex was up and walking toward the door while Townsend did the same. Three seconds later my best friend was stumbling into him. The apple he's been carrying slipped from his grasp and tumbled through the sir, right into Bex's outstretched palm.
"Mind where you're going, Baxter," he said as she handed one apple back to him. But there was a glint in Bex's eyes as she turned her back to us, pulled another apple from behind her back, and took a big bite.
I just sat there wondering what Grandma Morgan would say if she knew what we were doing - no doubt something about forbidden fruit.
The Operatives engaged in a basic four-man rotating surveillance detail, tracking The Target through the Gallagher Mansion.
It would have been nice to have comms units. Every operative in the world can tell you the extreme disadvantages of tailing someone who knows what you look like. And to be perfectly honest, it's always easier when your co-agents are all well-trained and confident field agents and not . . . well . . . Liz.
"Oopsy daisy," Liz whispered as she missed a step on the big stone staircase that led to the old chapel.
I could hear Townsend's steps in the corridor above me. After forty-five minutes of following him through the library and watching from a window while Bex trailed him across the grounds - not to mention one very scary moment involving Liz, a suit of armor, and Professor Buckingham's black cat - my roommates and I paused on the steps, listening as Townsend walked faster, but toward what or who, I didn't know until I heard him call, "Mosckowitz, a word."