How To Become A Spy

Chapter Ten

What? I resisted the urge to look at her in complete disbelief.

"Um... I was just sick, I'm fine now." I answered. The fact the rumors about me were already spreading, especially when I was so new, seemed ridiculous. Seriously what was everyone on at this school? Oh, wait.

"That's good. We have Science first up! I can speak to Emily about being a lying ugly cow if you want?" she offered. It was strange how she could talk about being so mean to someone but say it in the nicest tone ever possible. Her eyebrow was raised and she looked at me, waiting for an answer.

"Uh...no thanks, It's alright," I replied quickly. She nodded her head and continued to walk down the hallway. Immediately, I was focused on getting answers, pulling out my tape recorder and hiding it under my jacket.

"Hey Tasha, what do you know about a guy named Brad?" I asked, pressing the record button discretely.

"Brad as in Brad from our English class?"

I nodded.

"Why, you interested in him?" She asked curiously.

Realizing that I hadn't thought that far ahead, I quickly stuttered out a reply. "Oh yeah sure, he's really hot...I guess." I mentally slapped myself for not being ready to answer that question. Of course I would have needed a reason to ask about someone. Otherwise, it would have looked sketchy.

Tasha gave me an odd look due to my jittery response. "Okay cool...all I know is he can be trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" I asked. "Like detention trouble, or police trouble?"

"Police for sure. A lot of us think that Brad is actually the one behind the NT drug." She answered, twirling a strand of her hair in disinterest.

Bingo.

"But yeah, you should totally date him if you're interested," she continued. Her voice lowered as she began nudging me. "Maybe he could hook you up with those drugs. Get us all a discount?"

I smiled tightly at her, not warranting her with a response. Like hell.

"Maybe I'll try to speak to him a lunch," I offered after a moment. I needed to find out as much about this guy as I could

"Yeah, I'll totally introduce you to him!" Tasha said excitedly.

I grinned and turned off the recording. This was certainly going to be an interesting conversation to listen over this afternoon with Eric. He'd said I needed to do whatever I could to get closer to the people on this case in order to earn that trust - romantic involvement hadn't exactly come up during that discussion.

We both walked into our science classroom and found two vacant seats. Tasha sat down next to me, dumping her books loudly on the desk.

"Hey, a bunch of us are going shopping on Saturday morning. We need new outfits, wanna come?" she asked.

I had to hold back the urge to groan. Shopping with a bunch of self-absorbed teenage girls definitely did not sound like my ideal weekend. But getting close to these girls meant going along with everything they said.

"Sure, sounds fun," I lied. It definitely did not sound like fun.

Tasha smiled brightly before pulling out her phone and typing away. "I'm texting you the deets right now."

The things I was doing for this mission.

Our science teacher entered the room just in time to save me from having to talk to Tasha more. Eric had told me to make a note of this guy - he knew his science stuff. Anyone who understood chemicals and substances definitely was capable of making drugs. The fact that he also had frequent access to science equipment and laboratories, put him higher on the suspect list.