"How did you do that?" Grace is asking me.
We're two hours post-dinner and just finished 'prep', which is where we're confined to our room to do homework. One day in school and I already had three essays to write.
We're heading down to the shared communal area we have with the boys. All the girls who weren't wearing any makeup this morning suddenly look their best, there isn't a single eyelash without a bit of mascara on. It's amazing what the prospect being up close and personal in a TV Room with boys can do to girls.
"How did I do what?" I ask, letting my hand slide over the marble banister.
"In C.M? How did you know all the answers about Stan Jones? We haven't been taught that yet, not really."
I don't want to speak about dad, I don't want to cry in front of someone I've known just over twenty-four hours. But I can't not speak about him if I'm answering questions like hers, because it's the only answer I have.
I steel myself as I say, "it a game my dad and I would play. Well, I thought it was a game. I wanted to be better than him at it. I would spend hours and hours when I was a kid, practicing. Turns out he was training me for..." I lift my arms to gesture to the school. "This."
"That's cool," Grace nods as if it makes perfect sense. I suppose from the outside it does, but when you grow up thinking you're having a very normal childhood and it turns out you are decidedly not, it's a bit disquieting. "Your dad is a spy?"
"I, uh. I don't know." I stumble for an answer. "I always thought he was an engineer. Miss Gateshead's said he was an engineer and then she said and so much more. Whatever that means."
"Ah, yes. These operatives and their vague answers."
"Wait." I pause mid-step. "You're not saying that Miss Gateshead is, you know, a spy?"
Grace laughs, "of course she is. She's one of the best in her field. They had to practically strong-arm her into taking the job here, at least that's what the rumour mill is churning out."
"But... Why? If she's the best? Why send her somewhere like this?"
Grace shrugs, "who knows. My dads worked with her, he's pretty tight lipped about it though. They all are. The old headmaster vanished one day and she appeared, like a magic trick."
"And everyone just accepted that?"
Grace shrugs again, "they're spies. The very best. What can a bunch of kids do?"
Did she really just ask what a bunch of kids, who have been trained is espionage, can do? "A lot," I mutter.
Grace gives me a pointed look, then she links her arm through mine and says, "come on, let's go and get a hot chocolate."
When we get to the communal area, there's sixth formers everywhere. Some are cuddling up on sofas, kissing their boyfriends. Some girls are flicking their hair and loudly laughing at something a boy said. Some are fixing their outfits in a long mirror, touching up their lip gloss. Grace and I head into the mini kitchen, it's got a tiny four seat table, a kettle, a toaster, a microwave and an oven. It's about three people wide, and it's completely empty.
"I'll make the hot chocolates," I say to Grace, reaching for two mugs and the chocolate powder.
Grace takes a seat at the small table, fiddling with a bit of paper that had been left there. I mindlessly make the drinks, mulling over the day. I think about what happened in C.M, Elijah, Stan Jones; what it means to be in a school like this, Miss Gateshead.
I have hundreds of questions banding around in my skull, there's a feeling of despair knowing that I'm never going to get any answers; who dad was; why I'm here. I'm never going to understand it, the only person who could clarify isn't here - it almost seems futile to even bother questioning it.
"You okay?" Grace asks, "you've been stirring that hot chocolate an awfully long time."
I take the spoon out, plop it into the sink, plaster a smile on my face and turn to Grace. I hand her the hot chocolate then take a seat opposite her. "I'm Fine. Sorry."
"Thanks," She says, taking her mug. She's momentarily distracted by something in the little glass panel behind me and grins. "Your boy has come down tonight."
"My boy?" I ask, turning to look, but whoever she saw is gone.
"Yeah. Elijah."
"He's hardly my boy."
"Well, I've known him for five years and he's never given a girl his number before."
"Never?"
"No. He's pretty committed to the school; to becoming an operative. He's focused, driven and unattainable. It's why the girls go so crazy over him."
"Well, maybe that but the way he looks certainly helps," I add.
She nods, "that helps. Will deffo help when he finally does get work too. According to science, people trust the good looking more."
"I always thought that spies were nondescript, so you'd forget them as soon as you saw them?"
I totally got that from Jason Bourne, but it rings true, doesn't it?
Then it hits me. Dads lawyers. The men at the funeral. All of them, forgettable. Nondescript. I remember thinking that when I was looking at all of them. I thought they were all cut from the same cloth, they weren't intimidating, or scary, or memorable in any way. They were the perfect people to move through society unseen. They were all the perfect spies. Some of them had said they'd gone to school together with dad. I overheard them when I was sulking from mum. Could it be they all went to this school? Am I a legacy too?
"You've gone white as a ghost." Grace mutters.
"I think my dad was a spy." I whisper.
"Yeah, no shit." Grace laughs.
"No, I mean, he never told me. But I think he went here, to this school."
Grace shrugs, "that's pretty much the only way you can get in."
She doesn't get it. This isn't earth shattering for her. She doesn't realize that if I confirm this then my whole life will have been a lie. Every memory I have, every playful childhood recollection will be tainted, because it won't have been true. My mind reels, clicks and whirrs. I need answers. I deserve answers.
"Does this school have graduation books?" I ask her.
"No." Amelia half laughs, she's look at me as if it's an absurd idea. "Of course it doesn't, Amelia. It's spy school. Besides, that's American."
"You really have a thing about Americans, don't you?"
Grace stares at me. "I feel like you're having a moment about your dad right now and I don't think my issue with Americans is the hill you want to be standing on."
"You're right." I nod, choosing to ignore her dislike of anything American. "There must be lists of previous students or something, right?"
"I mean if there is, it's highly classified."
I deflate, "right."
"On the bright side, if you become the best spy they've ever seen, you'll probably have clearance to read all the files."
"That means I'd have to wait until we graduate in two years." I moan.
Grace shrugs, "better than never finding out at all. Look, I'll help train you. Catch you up on everything you might have missed over the last five years, then you can be top of the class. Along with Elijah, the perfect couple. Then maybe you'll get some answers."
I'm oddly touched. "You'd do that?"
"Sure." She shrugs. "I don't want to be top of the class. But you know who does? Jenny McFee. She's the only other Irish girl in our year and she's a pain in my ass, she's practically my cousin and every family event is met with; I'm so much better then Grace. It would be worth it just to see the smug smile taken off her weasily little face."
"So, we dislike Jenny McFee and Americans?"
She nods, but she looks amused. "We do. But there isn't anything I wouldn't do for the people I do like and you're becoming one of them."
"Well, that feels like a compliment."
"It is. It's rare and few in-between."
I laugh, "a hard girl to please!"
She laughs with me, then stops. "Tomorrow we'll go to the hockey fields after school and practice some fighting techniques, see where you're up to with that. How good is your dancing?"
"My dancing?"
"Yeah, we have debonair classes where we learn how to blend into any crowd, a big part of it is knowing how to dance... to any music."
"Er, I can't dance at all."
"Okay, so combat and dance is where we'll start - they're usually the things people don't teach in other schools, right?"
"Definitely."
Grace grins at me, "Oh, I love a good plan!"
"A good plan for what?" Elijah asks out of nowhere, making us both jump.
Considering Grace has been a spy in training her whole life, and dad has always taught me to be constantly vigilant, it's completely bewildering and a little terrifying that he managed to sneak up on the both of us. He's leaning against the kitchen side, arms folded, muscles taught.
"I'm going to teach Amelia to be the best sodding spy this school has ever seen."