Double Vision (4 page)

AGENT FULLERTON LOOKED LOST. WHICH
was when I figured it was time for Lincoln here (that would be me) to speak. This was my chance to change things for my family and make up for all the trouble I'd caused. I owed Mom and Dad that. Plus, I'd made a deal with Fullerton, so now I had to step up. “I want to go, Mom.”

Mom looked at me, horrified. “Really? It's boot camp, Linc.”

“I know.” I looked at the principal, Dad, and back at Mom again. It was time to tell them what they wanted to hear. “I've got to change, Mom. I know I make bad decisions and that I always cause trouble even when I don't mean to. Maybe this camp is just what I need.”

Mom just stared at me, her mouth gaping a little.

“It's just like being grounded, but I'll be somewhere else. So you and Dad don't have to worry about me. And it might make this lawsuit go away.” I gave Agent Fullerton a stare, and he gave me a tiny nod, confirming our deal.

Mom closed her mouth, then slumped in her seat a little. “Boot camp?” she mumbled.

“It's okay, Mom.” I gave her my most convincing smile, like I was oh so happy to go.

She still took what seemed like forever before finally agreeing. “Okay. If this is what Linc wants, I'll go along with it.” Mom sat up and looked at Agent Fullerton in that way she always does when I'm supposed to clean my room or something like that. “But he calls me. Every day.”

“I don't think—”

“Or he's not going.”

Agent Fullerton nodded. “I think we can arrange that.”

The adults were practically high-fiving one another over this whole boot camp plan, and I went back to being “Lincoln here.” Mom gave Agent Fullerton her speech about nutrition and the growing child, and Dad somehow ended up talking about tire tread with Principal Thornton. They were relieved.

Meanwhile, I was sweating bullets. Thinking of this exchange, these bad dudes, and where they made Benjamin Green disappear to. It was a good thing my parents had no idea what they were really signing me up for.

We left the principal's office. Agent Fullerton followed us home in his dark sedan. I was supposed to gather some essentials and leave with him for boot camp right away.

I was stuffing an extra sweater in my backpack when Dad knocked on my bedroom door. Even though it was open. “Hey, Linc.”

“Hey, Dad.”

“All set and ready to go?” He pointed at my backpack.

I nodded. This was weird. I'd been away on overnight trips before, once with school, but never longer than a night or two. “You think I can bring my skateboard?”

“Why not?” Dad said, sounding a little distracted. He looked me in the eye. “You sure you're ready, Linc?”

“Yeah.” Not really, but this wasn't the time to be wimping out. “It'll be good for me.”

Dad smiled. “I hope so, buddy.” He took his keys and moved them around the ring. “Here.” He unhooked the small metal compass and put it in my palm.

“But isn't this yours, from Grandpa?”

“And now it's yours. My Boy Scout days are long over anyways.” He wrapped my fingers around it and patted my fist. “Remember, home is west.”

“Depending on where you are.”

He laughed. “Yeah.”

I clipped the compass to the loop on my backpack, feeling very sad all of a sudden. I really just wanted to stay here with Dad at Baker Autos, changing the oil on some clunker.

“Time to go.” Agent Fullerton stood in the doorway, tapping his gold watch. I took my backpack and skateboard, and everyone followed me outside to Agent Fullerton's parked car. Mom hugged me and I had to repeat our home number like I was five years old. Dad patted me on the shoulder all father-to-son like. I got in a car with Agent Fullerton, and I was on my own.

As I waved to my parents and watched my house disappear behind the trees that lined the sidewalk I skateboarded on to school every day, I felt really scared for the first time in years.

“Where
are
we going?” I asked Agent Fullerton as he turned onto the main street out of Lompoc. “You can tell me. My parents aren't around.”

“We're headed toward Los Angeles, to the Ventura Hacienda Hotel. You'll be trained to take Benjamin Green's place in the field.”

“Okay. So this Benjamin Green guy, he's a kid my age? And a secret agent?” I was trying to make sense of it all.

“Yes and yes. Benjamin Green is one of our first junior agents.” Fullerton sounded kind of proud of this, like maybe he came up with the whole idea. “Only the country's finest make it into the junior agent training program.”

“Wait—you have a training camp for kids?”

Agent Fullerton nodded. “Our government got intel a few years ago that the Chinese and the Russians were using kids in their undercover ops and that they have training camps. So naturally, we had to have some, too.”

“Naturally.” Undercover kid agents? The world governments had gone nuts.

“Normally, our junior agents only work on low-risk cases—crimes in middle schools and high schools, that sort of thing. We found the infiltration of junior agents to be very helpful in solving crime. You kids can go places and be unnoticed in ways our adult agents can't.”

“So what was Ben doing?”

“We'll brief you on Monday,” Fullerton said.

“So this is what's in Los Angeles—a junior agent boot camp I have to go to?”

“No,” Agent Fullerton said with a little laugh. “It takes months,
years
to train an agent. Especially you kids. The vetting process alone takes almost a year.” He shook his head. “There's no time to turn you into a
real
junior agent, especially not one of Benjamin Green's caliber. Luckily, you need to be Benjamin Green just for a day—an hour!”

At this point, Agent Fullerton started telling me all about this fantastic Benjamin Green. How he had a black belt in karate and could run five miles at Olympic record speed. How he knew Mandarin (apparently, that's Chinese), aced every test at school, and could lift a hundred pounds with his pinkie.

All right, so I made that last part up, but you get the idea. The guy was a superhero, and I was Linc the Chicken Boy. By the time we exited the freeway just north of LA, I hated Benjamin Green.

“How can a kid know all that?” I asked at the end of Agent Fullerton's speech.

“Benjamin Green applies himself,” Agent Fullerton said, like it was an accusation. “Failure isn't an option for him.”

This guy really knew how to make you feel special. “I'm athletic, sort of,” I argued, not liking being called a loser. “I played baseball for a while—I was a great pitcher.”

“Until you quit.” Agent Fullerton smirked. “You're one of those kids who's always looking for an easy way out. You never finish what you start.”

“That's not true,” I muttered, but he had a point, or at least a little bit of a point, anyway.

“So now you get a chance to be a real hero.”

By pretending to be Benjamin Green. This was not cheering me up at all.

That was, until I saw our accommodations. You know those fancy hotels, the ones with the giant pool, the big rooms with fluffy white towels, and the bellhop in the lobby, ready to take your luggage to your room? The Ventura Hacienda was one of those. It was right on the beach, and as we drove up, I got a glimpse of the pool in the back. I'd always dreamed of staying in a hotel like the Ventura Hacienda, and, as you may have guessed, my family was on a discount-motel budget. So I probably got out of the car just a little too fast.

“This isn't a vacation,” Agent Fullerton said. “You're here to work, and that's it. So you can forget about that pool and the beach.”

That would be difficult. But then Agent Stark met us in the shiny, Spanish-tiled lobby, looking crankier than yesterday. There was a blue folder tucked under her arm. At the far end of the lobby, there was a wall of high glass windows and French doors, and I could see the big blue pool. There for me not to enjoy.

Agent Fullerton slapped me on the back. “I'll see you Monday.”

“Wait—you're not staying?”

“Agent Fullerton is needed in the field,” Agent Stark said as he walked away. “I'll be getting you ready.”

“You sound really happy about that,” I said.

“Come on. I'll show you to your room.”

“YOU'RE IN ROOM 405.” AGENT STARK
swiped the key card. For all the fancy exterior of the Ventura Hacienda, my room looked a lot like the ones in the motels my family had stayed in before, surprisingly. Agent Stark pointed at a door in the corner. “I'm on the other side of that door, room 406.”

“Like a babysitter,” I said, but to be honest, I kind of liked the idea of having someone I knew nearby.

“Read this.” Agent Stark handed me the blue folder she'd been carrying around. It had a yellow sticker on it: CLASSIFIED. There was a pocket-size army-green book with black letters:
Junior Agent Manual
. And she tossed a couple of DVD cases, plastered with more CLASSIFIED stickers, on the bed. This was going to be fun, I could tell already. “Research. Get to work.” She grabbed my backpack.

“Hey, that's mine!”

“You'll get it back.” Agent Stark's tone told me there was no room for negotiation. “I'm going out, but I should return by six.”

“Out? Where?”

“Don't worry about what I'm doing,” Agent Stark said as she opened the door. “Just worry about what you need to do. I'll be back.”

The door closed, and it was really quiet all of a sudden. I sat down on the bed, opened the folder, and saw a registration form of some kind. It had Benjamin Green's name at the top and a photo that looked like a mug shot. It was very creepy, like looking at myself, only his eyes were different. Cold. The form had his height, weight, and hair color (same as me, only he had a blond streak). A bunch of words were covered in black bars, like someone had used a Sharpie. I tried to see if I could read what was underneath, but no luck.

I flipped through the pages. More government forms with boxes and tiny letters, lots more blacked out. Pages and pages of it—at least fifty sheets of boring were waiting for me. And all the quiet was making me itchy, so I decided to call home on the hotel phone.

“Mom?”

“Hi, Lincoln. How's camp?”

“Good. Real good. Is Dad around?” I asked, changing the subject.

“He's off to your uncle's to practice. He has a job interview at Meineke Monday morning.”

“Meineke?” I was about to ask why but didn't really have to. It was my fault. Business had been dropping at the shop ever since the tomato incident, and now the family was getting sued.

“He pulled a few favors, and it looks like he'll be able to work a part-time shift. Just until things pick back up at the shop and the lawsuit is done.” She sounded nervous.

I ached inside as I pictured my dad interviewing at Meineke, wearing his only suit. “How are things going with the lawsuit?” I asked.

“Don't you worry about that.” That was Mom-speak for not good.

“How bad is it?” I felt my throat tighten.

“Farmer Johnson is suing us for a million dollars.” Mom exhaled the number, like it sucked the breath from her lungs. “He claims lost earnings, pain and suffering, slander.”

“Might as well be a billion,” I mumbled.

“We'll figure this out, Linc. We always do. I have to head to work now. You just keep your chin up, okay?”

I felt like I was going to cry like a baby, so I bit my lip. “Okay, Mom. Tell Dad I said hi.” After I hung up, I sat holding the phone. Realizing I'd managed to mess up everyone's life by letting a bunch of chickens out of a barn, I felt myself get angry. But I wasn't angry with Agent Stark or Fullerton, or with super junior agent Benjamin Green—even if they were making my life miserable.

I was angry at me.

I was the one who'd been stupid, picking a food fight, setting off that Code Adam alert, opening chicken cages—what was I thinking? I punched the pillows behind me and sat up a little more, determined to focus on Benjamin Green. I would study.

I opened up the blue file. Benjamin Green grew up in Virginia, with both his parents (Rhonda and Jon) in the CIA. I could just imagine the convo at that dinner table. Or maybe since everything in their lives was classified, there wasn't any talking at all.

Now, I know you must be bored with this guy already—I know I was. I'll give you a quick recap so we can get to the part where I get my first taste of junior agent life and things get interesting. Here's what I learned about Benjamin Green:

He started boot camp the week of his twelfth birthday.

He's an expert at everything: archery, track—he even speaks German and French, and aced history, economics, and foreign politics.