It just so happens that when the mayor of the town your school is located in wants to visit, your headmaster and dean have no choice but to let him and his guests into the walls into your school, even if his guests are his personal camera crew. For what reason the mayor of suburban Somerville, Massachusetts I could never wrap my head around, but none of us opened our mouths to ask the questions burning on our minds. Really, the mayor visiting a normal school or mental institute may be just fine, fun even, but when you go to a spy school, where the students learn how to kill a man with a dollar store necklace and gum, spend their spare time learning advanced languages, and can build and disarm bombs in 2 minutes flat (my personal record, thank you very much), a visit from your mayor with an absence of a clearance level can cause some stress to say the least. My stomach twisted at the thought of my classmates and I's faces being broadcasted in his political ads in the area, our covers blown and our chances to ever truly work in the field crumbling under our fingers. What was the headmaster thinking?
As I made my way to the lobby where I had been directed to sit on a couch and work on ninth grade algebra (an insult to my intelligence really) and smile when need be, Saul breezed past me on the stairs, slowing down only momentarily to throw me a taunting smirk and pick a stray leaf out of my hair. "Heard you choked up real bad in class today, couldn't even get the journal from the kid. This time last year I was top of my class and you're what? Still failing assignments?" He scoffed as I felt the heat of anger and embarrassment rush to my face. "Pathetic." How had the rumor mill already started up? I flipped him the bird too late, his back already to me as he leapt down the rest of the stairs and disappeared around the corner.
Here's the thing about Saul Nguyen. He's good and he knows it, but he's also insecure and hates that fact that I know it. He reeks of it. There were maybe five people in the entire student body that could outrank Saul and I had no doubt the thought of not filling daddy's huge shoes of being deputy director of the CIA kept him up at night. Who was Saul Nguyen or even the majority of the students at Blair Woods if not credible and famed government agents of the future like their parents were? The pressure they felt was etched all over their features, this life of espionage and government servitude was all they knew. Meanwhile the rest of us had been recruited from normal homes from which our parents had shipped us off thinking that Blair Wood was the only hope for us to be rehabilitated and become sane again. I'd heard the stories though, some agents graduated and went out into the field, coming back with stories that haunted me. Maybe, some of us were never meant to be sane.
After a beat passed, I stepped into the lobby, sidestepping girls who were running around trying to hide textbooks and weaponry that would be a red flag for the mayor and boys thumb wrestling on the floor, to watch Saul walk right up to Headmaster Conroy, smiling and laughing like they were old buddies. His muscles pressed against the cloth material of his shirt he had ordered a size too small in as he shook Conroy's hand, raising his voice just enough that several heads in the hall turned in his direction. God, he was just eating this up. My face shriveled up in disgust, and maybe a little bit of jealousy before I turned away, squeezing myself in between Ace and Emery on the couch. I glanced at the bright green grass stains on Emery's clothes and had to stifle a laugh. "How was yoga?" Beside me, Ace snickered and turned away, pretending to cough.
Emery turned a stony gaze in my direction and examined my appearance before landing on the bird nest that had once been my hair. She, like Saul had just done moments ago, plucked something from it and held it in front of my face. "How was your lonely trek back here after you failed your assignment?"
I sucked my teeth and gave her a tight smile. "You shoot to kill, huh?"
"Just like they taught us." She made a fake gun with her fingers and pressed it to my temple before imitating it going off. Pshooh. "Cross me and you're dead."
Ace leaned forward to cut her a sharp warning look that shot across me. "Ms. Emery here is just mad that she always gets picked to be the face of the school to all visitors, but often forget why that is." Emery opened her mouth to interject, but was quickly cut off as Ace plowed on. "Come on, Ems. I know you've noticed that nearly everyone in your group is from some long line of spies. They put you out there to give you extra special training while the rest of us have to sit inside and stare at paper for an hour 'til this guy leaves. It's not the same."
Emery huffed and crossed her arms as she sank down into the cushions of the couch. "Not everything is about where I come from." It was though, and she knew it as well as we did.
The Carvers have been in the business of espionage since the Civil War, stopping countless numbers of assassinations and other international catastrophes that had been planned, the details of which I did not know because, of course, they were classified. Being a Carver really was like being part of a royal family and Emery should have worn that name like a chain around her neck, tattooed the six letters of her last name on her forehead, but Emery was stubborn. Unlike the rest of our classmates, she never talked about her family, never sat around in the circles after breaks and talked about her family history and what threats she had helped to neutralize.
In that way, Emery was like me. We didn't talk about family members, her legendary ones or my boring so-so ones back in Portland. When summer rolled around and her parents were in an undisclosed location risking their lives and mine were attending book club and orthodontist conventions, we stayed at Blair Wood, training day and night, staring at our ceiling, planning our futures as CIA agents.
"I'm more than a Carver, Emery. I'm good because I work hard, not because of who my family is," she said to me one night after we had just spent hours sparring with each other. My chest heaved up and down as I tried to catch my breath. Every night had been like this, me struggling to push air into my lungs as Emery took time to re-evaluate her life. I shifted in my bed and glanced at her, watching as her eyes found mine in the darkening room, the sun dipping below the horizon just outside our window. "I'm a good spy, right Bea? "
I nearly rolled my eyes, not believing that this was a conversation we were actually having Emery was nearly at the top of our class and already had agencies trying to convince her to join them after she graduated, good didn't even begin to describe her, she was a whole other level above just good. "You're one of the best students at this academy. Of course you're good."
I watched as her face turned up slightly and she sighed, the air from her mouth blowing up the stray pieces of her hair that lay across her forehead. "Yeah. Sure. It's just sometimes I need a reminder I guess."
My eyes snapped to Emery, shaking the memory away. I had a whole collection of memories involving the two of us, asking each other questions that we desperately needed answered, sometimes struggling to accept the truth for ourselves, but if I thought about it I would stare into the distance forever, always living in the past. I shoved my elbow discreetly into Ace's side, ignoring his small groan and nodded at her. "Professor Ian picks you because you're the best actress at this school. I actually thought you were a patient when I ran up."
A smirk crossed her lips and she leaned forward, "I am pretty good, huh? Lets see if I can fool the mayor too." She sat back and ruffled her hair until it looked like she had just rolled out of bed then turned to the two of us. "Do I look insane?"
Ace was quick to tell her that she always looked insane no matter what her hair looked like which ended in her reaching over me to punch him in the shoulder, and from by the way he flinched back, it hurt, bad. I swatted at the both of them and pointed towards the lobby entrance where I heard footsteps and voices rounding the corner. "Hush you two! Listen."
I'm good with my ears, better than most, which is due to the fact that without my contacts, I'd be blind as a bat. It really is true that where one of your sense is lacking, the others increase in force. My hearing is great for when I'm in the field, or just want to listen in or conversations that I wasn't invited to, but sometimes, admittedly, it gets me in trouble. It is also why Ace and Emery gave me strange looks when they glanced in the direction my finger was pointed and probably heard nothing other than the usual ruckus of students getting ready for a visitor. "They're coming!" I whisper shouted to my classmates around me.
A hush followed my warning and the panicked feeling that had been circling the room seemed to vanish. Suddenly, we were no longer scrambling students trying to hide our true identities from civilians, but spies embodying our covers perfectly. In a matter of seconds, Ace has gone from the lively guy I knew to looking like someone that was moments away from slipping into the clutches of death. He was draped across the arm of the couch like a carelessly discarded piece of cloth, muttering to himself as his eyes stared blankly at the wall before us. To any normal person it would sound like he was just aimlessly talking to himself, gone out of his mind, but I recognized that he was merely counting in Japanese under his breath.
"I'm afraid this is as far as the cameras can go Mayor George, sir. Patient confidentiality and all, I'm sure you're well aware of the laws regarding that. However, you're welcome to come on in and have a look around, speak to some of the residents if you wish." The sharp clicking sound of the dean's heels on the marble floor grew closer as I sunk deeper into the couch. It was one thing to look like you belonged in a mental institution, but an entirely different thing to keep up the act when the mayor was asking you questions.
The mayor hesitated with his response, peering over the dean's shoulder into the sitting area where we were. "Actually, no, that's quite alright. Perhaps we should skip over the interior of the building altogether, yes?" His eyes landed on Ace's slumped figure and widened dramatically, "Yes, let's just continue on the outside, shall we not? These children seem as if they need well deserved rest."
Dean Young followed the mayor's eyes and I watched as her eyebrows shot up in amusement. She flashed a subtle thumbs up in our general direction before ushering the mayor away from the area, rambling on about how advanced and successful our cognitive behavioral therapy session were, nonexistent as they may be. "Did you know," I heard her say as they went on, "that we have a nearly one hundred percent graduation rate?" The mayor gasped, "Splendid! Just splendid!" I could almost imagine the dean smiling as she lead him further away from our secrets. "Splendid, indeed."
I was the first to stand after the coast seemed clear, many following my example soon after. Beside me, Emery checked her watch, grabbing her things in a hurry to go. "Come on Bea," she urged, nodding her head in the general vicinity of the stairs, "we've got half an hour before F.O. 101. I need to shower before, and you need to think about how you're going to explain why you failed your mission."
I let her drag me up the stairs and into our room before I spoke. "Do you remember what my actual mission was?" I pulled the jumpsuit off of me, tossing it on my bed, reaching for one of the pieces of my actual school uniform.
"Retrieve the notebook from the civilian boy," she answered confidently. She threw her dark hair into a messy bun atop her head and stripped of her jumpsuit, heading for the bathroom. She stopped just short of the door, glancing at me over her shoulder. "Don't tell me you forgot what you were supposed to and failed to do, because that would just be an all time low for you, Bea."
I sighed and pulled on my school issue khaki pants, slipping on my shoes after. "Actually, my mission was, and I quote, 'Retrieve the information found within the journal being used by Subject B.'" The shower turned on and I raised my voice so as to still be heard, "just because I don't physically have the journal doesn't mean I didn't get the information!"
"So you're telling me that you got close enough to memorize what was in that notebook?" I heard her laugh as I stepped into the bathroom and hopped onto the counter. She pulled the shower curtain back and gave me a dubious look, her eyebrow raised. "You're good, Bea, really good, I'll give you that, but I don't think anyone's that good."
"You don't have to be that good!" I argued back, my face growing hot both from the steam in the bathroom and my rising frustration. "The journal was brand new! There was nothing to memorize because all he did was doodle in it!"
The shower water turned off with a groan and the curtain snapped back to reveal a freshly cleaned Emery wrapped in an oversized white towel that made her pale skin look tan in comparison. "Brand new, you say?" Her wet feet padded quietly from the tile in the bathroom to the carpet in the bedroom as she opened her drawers in search for clothes. She laughed to herself, shaking her head, "That Professor Keltler is something else. Do you think she knows?"
I shrugged, coming to stand beside her at her dresser. "Only one way to find out."
Emery nodded, eyes scanning over the identical uniforms pieces in her drawer before her. "Navy or khaki skirt?" she asked.
I smiled at the familiarity of the question she asked me each morning. "Navy," I answered almost immediately, khaki, she always said, made her look fat. My eyes wandered the walls of our room while she dressed, from the glow in the dark stars we had plastered near the door our seventh grade year to the collage of pictures we had taped between our desks. Everything here was so familiar, so comforting, it was hard to think that soon we'd be out of these safe walls, alone, saving the world one op at a time.
Before I could get too deep into my thoughts, Emery cleared her throat and tossed me my textbook. "Ready?" she asked. I nodded and followed her out the door, anxious at the thought of what awaited us in class.
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Yeet! Another chapter! I was half asleep as I typed this so it probably has all types of spelling errors, but I'll fix it later, okay bye, enjoy!!! Thanks for reading, xx. -t