Chapter 4: Covert Operations
“Where?!” Sammy and Jane asked at the same time.
Katelyn pointed up. The mall had a very tall ceiling made of glass. There were large crisscross construction beams overarching the mall. The glass ceiling showed clouds in the sky.
“Beams in the clouds!” they all exclaimed at once.
“I’ll get it” Katelyn volunteered. “Watch for security coming.”
“Got it!”
Katelyn rushed over to the wall and climbed up it. She easily swung up onto the beams and looked around. The cube had to be around here. Katelyn crawled through the beams and searched.
A person flipped through the air. Katelyn jerked back, almost falling off the beam. The boy from before sat on a beam a few feet away from her.
“Hi again,” he greeted with a grin.
Katelyn glared at him. “What do you want now?” she asked. She didn’t even know how he got up here so fast in the first place.
“Oh- what’s this?” he asked, reaching over to another beam. Katelyn’s jaw dropped open when she saw the cube with red designs in his palm.
“Give that to me!” Katelyn demanded, trying to grab it.
The boy held it out of her reach. “Why should I? You aren’t very nice to me.”
“It’s mine,” Katelyn told him.
“Said who? I found it on the ceiling beam” the boy said, smugly.
“I need it!” Katelyn said.
“Then come and get it,” he said, dropping onto a beam below her.
Katelyn immediately flipped under the beam she was on. The boy easily leapt from beam to beam.
“He has it!” Katelyn called to her friends. She grabbed his elbow and tried in vain to grab the cube he always held away from her. He was tall. Katelyn estimated at least 6 feet.
“Hey, easy there,” the boy said.
Katelyn glared at him. “Give me the cube or else you will regret it!” she ordered.
“What are you going to do?” he asked, smirking. “Slap me?”
Katelyn raised an eyebrow. Slap him? She was not some stupid high school girl... Katelyn balled her hand into a fist and threw a punch.
“Whoa!” the boy said, dodging to the side. “Nice punch for a girl...”
Katelyn was definitely going to let him have it. She swung her leg up but he caught her leg and flipped her. Katelyn was surprised at his self-defense skills. She easily landed on her feet though. Good but not good enough to beat her.
This temporarily distracted him. Jane kicked the cube out of his hand and grabbed it out of the air.
The boy whirled around and knocked the cube out of her hand. Soon it was Katelyn, Sammy and Jane against the boy.
“Who are you guys?” he asked, tossing the cube up and down. “Ninjas?”
“We just don’t let people like you push us around,” Katelyn said, crossing her arms. “May I please have the cube,” she asked through her teeth.
“Where’d you learn your martial arts?” he continued to ask. “It’s really good.”
“Look,” Jane said, being the calm and collected one of the group. “We have a contest right now with some friends. We really need to get the cube back or else we’ll have to face consequences. Can I please have the cube?” she politely asked, holding out her hand.
The boy thought about it. “Can I come?”
“Sorry, girls only,” Sammy said.
“Are you two guy haters too?”
“Stop trying to reason with him!” Katelyn snapped, balling up her fists. “I’ve had enough. Listen, you bastard, you either hand over the cube right now or we beat you to a pulp!”
“Well, this looks fair...” he observed as the three girls stood around him.
“Let’s even it up!” a voice called.
Two other boys leapt off of who knows what. Katelyn wanted to punch herself for not noticing them sooner. She really needed to get her act together. She was making way too many mistakes.
The original guy was tall with dirty blonde hair and green eyes. The boy to his left was pretty muscular. Brown hair, brown eyes. The one to the right was Asian with a more lanky build. He also dyed his hair blonde and had it styled to a purposely messy look.
Katelyn assessed her opponents. Their supposed ring leader, the blonde guy, was definitely very skilled so she suspected them to be as well. The one of the left would probably rely on his strength more. Sammy could go against him. She was petite but she had always used that to her advantage against bigger opponents. The Asian guy looked fast. Jane had the fastest reflexes. The three girls looked at each other, understanding the plan without a word spoken.
Katelyn cracked her knuckles. “Sammy, Jane...” she said in a low voice. “Let them have it...no one stands in the way of a Grace Marshall girl.”
Three vs three. Katelyn was surprised at how even the fight was. Regular teenagers didn’t have black belts in five different forms of self-defense. Katelyn really wanted to know who these guys were.
“Are we doing Aikido now?” the green eyed boy teased as he ducked a blow from Katelyn.
He grabbed Katelyn’s arm and Katelyn on reflex, gripped his other one. Feet planted on the ground, they were locked together. Neither of them could move.
“Why are you doing this?” Katelyn asked. “I have to get back!”
“How about this,” the boy said. “I give you the cube and you promise to meet me again.”
Katelyn stared at him. “I have school,” she said. “Plus, why would I want to see you again? I can’t stand you.”
“Do you want to get back or not?”
“I have school,” Katelyn said.
“You don’t have weekends?”
“Fine,” Katelyn snapped.
“Saturday by the fountain then at 1:00?”
“Whatever,”
“Okay, let’s both let go on the count of three.”
“Fine,”
“1…2…3…”
Katelyn and him both loosened their grips.
“Cole! Aiden!” he called. “Stop fighting!”
“Sammy, Jane,” Katelyn added. “He’s giving us the cube.”
Sammy pushed her opponent away. “What is your problem?!” she demanded. “You wasted so much of our time!”
The green eyed boy tossed Katelyn the cube. “My apologies,” he said, not sorry at all. “See you later then,” he added, grinning. “My name’s Derek Livingston, by the way.”
“I’ll remember that,” Katelyn said, turning away.
“Wait, what’s your name?” he called after her.
Katelyn turned. “Katelyn Hathaway,” she said.
“What do you mean see you later,” Jane demanded as they quickly left the mall.
Katelyn groaned. “I told him I would meet him on Saturday if he gave me the cube.”
“Why?!” Sammy exclaimed. “We definitely could have taken them.”
“But Miss Bates is timing us,” Katelyn reminded them. “We don’t have that much time to waste. Speaking of time, we need to hurry back.”
As soon as they got off the shuttle, they sprinted back to the gate. Miss Bates scanned her stop watch.
“Average,” she said, writing on the clipboard. “I expected more, Miss Hathaway.”
Of course, everyone expected Katelyn to be just like her mom…
“I will do better,” Katelyn promised.
“One doesn’t get better by talking big.”
“I’ll prove it,” Katelyn said.
Miss Bates studied her face. “Hang your uniforms outside your door,” she finally said. “Have a good day.”
The girls politely thanked her and trudged off back to their dorms.
“It’s only the first day,” Sammy offered as Katelyn angrily hung up her stained uniform.
“I know,” Katelyn said, peeling off her t-shirt and pulling on a tank top.
“You look perplexed,” Jane noted.
“Do I really need to show up on Saturday?” Katelyn finally asked.
Sammy gasped. “You’re thinking about your date!” she exclaimed.
Katelyn’s eyes widened. “What?! I am not! It’s not even a date anyways.”
“Well, you should be true to your word,” Jane said, shrugging. “But it’s up to you if you go or not.”
“You guys will be coming right?” Katelyn asked.
“Of course!” Sammy exclaimed. “We’ll be tailing you the entire time.”
“Let’s go to lunch first,” Jane suggested. “I’m famished.”
“Anyone else notice they were extremely good looking?” Sammy whispered as they slid their trays down the lunch line.
“No!” Jane and Katelyn said at once.
“Geez, sorry,” Sammy said, rearranging her bowl of salad. “But the one I was fighting, he’s buffer than the guy I dated over the summer.”
“Oh Sammy,” Katelyn said, taking a plate with a cold cut sandwich on it. “How do you have time to check out a guy’s biceps while you’re thinking about how to subdue him?”
“A good spy notices all details,” Sammy simply said, ladling yourself some soup. “Did you notice how tall the guy you were fighting was?”
“Well, yes,” Katelyn said. “But that was to assess his potential fighting skills.”
“Same thing, right?” Sammy said, as they sat down at their usual table.
“Not exactly…” Katelyn mumbled into her sandwich.
“Do we have any more classes together?” Jane asked, changing the topic.
The girls compared their schedules.
“I have Senior Gymnastics with Sammy and math with you, Jane,” Katelyn noted.
“Oh, we all have Technology together,” Sammy pointed out.
“Hi Katelyn,” a voice said.
Katelyn turned. “Hi Rachel,” she said, getting up. “How have you been?”
“Great, you?” Rachel said, giving Katelyn a friendly hug.
“Pretty well,”
Katelyn was probably considered the best spy in her grade but Rachel Williams had always been hot on her heels. They weren’t really friends but friendly. Katelyn and Rachel saw each other as motivating competitors.
Everyone expected Katelyn to be valedictorian and Rachel could easily be salutatorian. Despite that, more girls secretly wished they were Rachel. Katelyn always considered herself average looking but Rachel was anything but average. Long curly blonde hair, large ice blue eyes, tall, great figure... Basically, if someone was making a spy movie, Rachel would play the hot spy in a skintight spy suit.
“Do we have any classes together?” Rachel asked, making small talk.
Katelyn scanned her schedule. “I don’t think so.”
“That’s too bad,” Rachel said. “Well, good luck, Katelyn. It was nice seeing you.”
“You too,”
Rachel flashed her white smile and went to go sit with her friends.
“Anyone else not a fan of Rachel Williams?” Sammy asked, picking apart her bread.
“I think she’s okay,” Katelyn said, shrugging.
“But she’s your biggest rival,” Jane pointed out.
“Nothing wrong with a little healthy competition…”
“Whatever,” Sammy said. “So let’s talk about your date-“
“It’s not a DATE!”