Trinity Grove Spy Girls (Book #1)

chapter one | the chicken nuggets are poisoned

Emily

Present day, Trinity Grove Girl's Boarding School, Maryland, USA

Trinity Grove Boarding School is just like any other boarding school in North America, with mean girls, nice teachers and disgusting cafeteria food. Oh yeah, and weapons training, ex-military soccer coaches, and the usual review of our lesson on what to do if you're poisoned, with the addendum of Mrs. Thurner's 'chicken' nuggets. Whether they're actually some form of chicken or not is open for debate.

Right now, you're probably like 'woah, Emily, want to backtrack?' Sure—my name is Emily Weiss ('Weiss' rhymes with 'nice', by the way). I'm 13 years old, and I go to the previously mentioned Trinity Grove Boarding School, an all girls high school run by a joint team of FBI and NSA agents. Yes, I truly meant the last four words I just said. That FBI, you know, the Federal Bureau of Investigation? I'm sure you've heard of it.

I live in a dorm room with two other girls, Macie Craven and Harper Stallings. We share two sets of bunk beds (I'm on the top, Macie's on the bottom), and one bathroom, that is often crowded with an assortment of hairbrushes and lip gloss. Despite being agents in training, we do like to keep our appearance up.

Our schedules include all the normal things you'd find at a traditional school. English, math, science, art and history. But when we're not doing geometry homework, we're learning how to save the world from crime bosses in the middle of the night with only a roll of duct tape and an umbrella. Maybe I'll tell you how to do that later. Maybe.

Macie Craven is a computer genius, who happens to have straight A's in every single academic subject at Trinity Grove, and barely passing grades in almost every spy-related class we have. She's spectacular at hacking, and equally good at mathematics, but her lock picking and self defence skills leave a lot to be desired. It doesn't help that she's extremely afraid of heights. She also failed the duct-tape-and-umbrella test.

Harper Stallings is the actress of our clan. Acting skills make for great spy skills, so by default, Harper is an excellent sleuth. She's popular, and pretty, and looks like your classic girly-girl, rocking a curly Afro, blue eyes, and red lipstick. She's the kind of person I would put under the "Looks like a cinnamon roll, could actually kill you" category. She may be the most petite member of our group, but she's extremely strong and fierce.

But, you came to hear about me, and buckle up. It's a long story.

When I was about 2 months old, I was abandoned. I don't know where, and I don't know when, I just know I was. Then I was adopted by an older lady and her daughter. Six years ago the lady passed away, then, 1 year ago, the police and FBI found that the daughter was doing some very criminal things. I can remember exactly what happened

1 year, 3 months ago, Hopewell, Virginia, USA

I grumble to myself, trying sort out my grammar homework. "Maybe...." I scribble something down, then just as quickly cross it out. Ridiculous grammar. I'm about to try again when there's a hard pounding at the door.

"FBI!" A voice hollers. "Is Catherine Weiss in there?" The same voice demands. I dash downstairs, and even though I know I didn't do anything wrong, I'm worried. I open the door tentatively.

"Can I help you?" I ask quietly of the woman standing at my door. Her face softens, and she nudges her partner.

"Sorry sweetheart, I'm Agent Marla Phillips, is Catherine home?" I nod. "I'm surprised she didn't hear you." I add. Agent Phillips' partner bites his lip.

"Sorry about that." I shrug in response, "You want me to go get her?" Agent Phillips thinks this over. "Do you mind if we go talk to her ourselves?"

"Go ahead. She's in the basement," I nod my head toward the door. "Second door on the right." "Thanks," she nudges her partner forward, muttering something to him. He nods, then steps through the threshold.