Authors: Jackson Pearce
The Doublecross
For Grandaddy,
real-life crime fighter
Chapter One
I should make one thing clear, right off the bat:
It. Wasn't. Cheating.
Agent Otter, who is the exact opposite of a cute and chirpy water mammal, said, and I quote: “Whoever crosses the finish line first doesn't have to do pushups at the end of afternoon training.” Do you know how many pushups I can do?
Zero
. Well, no, waitâI can do half of
one
. Because I can definitely get down; I just can't push myself back up, which is maybe the more important half of the exercise.
The finish line was the double door leading into the dining hall. The trackâif you could call it thatâwove through the halls of Sub Rosa Society headquarters. Upstairs. Downstairs. Past the wall of “windows”âglass panels with lights that were supposed to make us forget we were six stories underground. I wasn't sure exactly how long the track
actually was, but it
felt
like twenty-five, maybe thirty miles. Every week for the past four years of my life, I ran it. And every week, without fail, I came in last place.
Not just by a hair, either. Last, as in “most of my classmates had already changed out of their training clothes by the time I crossed the finish line” place. This always gave them plenty of time to line up and laugh at me when I finally huffed in, red-faced and sticky. You'd think the humor of watching a fat kid jog would wear off.
But apparently, I was the joke that kept on giving.
So anyway, you can see why, when Agent Otter said, “Whoever crosses the finish line first” instead of “Whoever is fastest,” I began to think. By the time my other classmatesâall the SRS twelve-year-oldsâlined up, that thinking had become planning. And by the time Agent Otter sounded the air horn, that planning had become . . . well. I don't want to use the word “scheming,” but I'd understand if someone else did. But aren't spiesâeven spies in trainingâsupposed to do a little scheming?
I was already sweating on account of the extended kickboxing session we'd just finished, in which I'd learned a variety of new ways to be pummeled.
Let it go
, I thought.
You're about to show them. You're about to win
. My classmates and I lined up, crouched down in near-unison. We were focused, determined. Otter snorted at usâwhich I guess
was large-brutish-man language for
Ready?
We lifted our chins and stared at the hall ahead in response.
Another grunt.
Set?
We lifted our butts into the air. Then froze. No one moved, not a muscle, not a hair.
You can do this. You can do this.
From the corner of my eye, I could still see Walter Quaddlebaum. As usual, he was wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off to better display his admittedly impressive shoulder muscles. Even crouched, he was obviously the tallest guy in class. Less obvious, but still noticeable, was the idea of a beard growing around his chin. Who had a beard at twelve? Walter Quaddlebaum, that was who.
Last year he was skinny and short, and his hair stuck up in front like the crest on a fancy breed of chicken. Last year he failed the physical exam right along with meâa single exam that kept us from becoming junior agents. Last year he was also my best friend.
But things change, and today he was just another guy I needed to beat. And I had a plan all worked out for how I was going to do that.
The air horn sounded, ricocheting off the concrete walls. My classmates jolted forward; I was a second behind them, but only a second. We charged down the hall, sneakers squeaking furiously on the floor. The first stretch was a straightaway, a mad dash for the staircase. The other kids were, of course, faster, their ponytails and
legs and impressive shoulder muscles steadily becoming farther and farther away. Walter hit the stairs first, taking three or four at a time. I was flyingâwell, for me, anywayâalmost to the first step.
Mission: Win Agent Otter's Cruel and Unusual
Punishment Race
Step 1: Skip the stairs
I took a sharp right, away from the others. My lungs were beginning to burn. My toes were getting that awful tingly feeling, but I had to keep going. Alarmed agents lifted their eyebrows as I passed their open office doors. Ignoring them, I dived for the elevator at the end of the hall, jammed my fingers onto button 2, and punched Door Close.
The elevator played a smooth jazz song as it went up.
“Second floor,” the female voice told me as I sprang out. I could hear my classmates again as they made the loop around the upper level. Something in my leg cramped, and I began to limp. Walter was still in the lead as he rounded the corner. His hair was flung in front of his eyes in a way that reminded me of the covers of Mom's romance paperbacks. My hair was in my eyes in a way that reminded me of a swamp monster.
I ducked into the break room and wedged my body behind a rolling cart of water jugs, bracing my legs against
it. I pushed, hard. The wheels creaked, then inched forward. Walter streaked by the break room door. Jacob, Eleanor, and the others weren't far behind.
Step 2: Deploy obstacles
I took a deep breath and then pushed my feet as hard as I could. The cart shot forward, rolling out the door and into the hall, blocking the race route. Jonathan slammed against the cart, and jugs of water began to slide and whisk the other runners off their feet.
Yes!
I staggered out into the hall, stumbling over a stray jug. Walter and the front of the packâmostly kids who were already junior agentsâwere turning the corner ahead. I ran for the custodians' staircase in the opposite direction.
I knew where all the dry storage rooms, electrical closets, and staircases were at SRS. I'd like to tell you it's just because a great spy is keenly aware of his surroundings, but the truth is, I spent a lot of time avoiding my classmates by hiding in those places.
That time, however, was about to pay off.
Step 3: Use carefully researched alternate route
I flung open the door of the staircase, hurdled over a mop (okay, it was more of a stumble-almost-face-plant than
a hurdle), and slid down the first few steps. Bursting through the first-level door, I cut across the hall through the Disguise Department.
“Hale! What do you think you're doingâHey! Stop!” shrieked a woman meticulously painting a prosthetic nose. I grabbed on to her bookcase to help turn a corner; its display of wigs on Styrofoam heads crashed to the floor. Fake hair scattered everywhere. I kept going, plowing through the copy room, sliding on stray bits of printer paper. The production studio was ahead, filled with desks and props for making fake newscasts, anonymous clips, and the occasional staged wedding video for when senior agents needed to pose as a married couple. I heard footsteps pounding on carpet nearbyâI was just in time.
Step 4: Everyone takes a trip
I crossed into the production room, grabbed a cable on the closest camera, then squeezed behind the green screen. I yanked the cable taut as the footsteps rounded the corner.
Crashes. Clatters
. Sophie, whom Walter had a crush on in second grade, used a word I knew her mother would have yelled at her for.
The green screen in front of me floated down across the scrambling bodies of my classmates. Was that all of them? It was impossible to tell from the limbs and loose shoes thrashing around under the fabric. I climbed over the pile
of people (Sophie said a few more words that would get her in trouble) and took off.
There was no one ahead of meâthe hall was blissfully empty. There was no sound other than my feet on the floor, thuddingâslowly, I admit, but thudding along.
This must be what it's like to be the fastest. The strongest. The winner
. I'd never really experienced the sensation before, so I tried to enjoy it and ignore the fact that my lungs felt like they were about to collapse.
I turned a cornerâthe dining hall doors came into view. This was amazing. I was going to win. I wasn't going to have to do pushups, which was still pretty fantastic, but that suddenly seemed a mere bonus to the
winning
. The dining hall looked strangely empty, mainly because my classmates weren't lounging in the tables by the doors, waiting to mock me. I would be there so early,
I
could lounge! I could . . .
Footsteps. Pounding fast behind me, way faster than mine. I didn't want to look, but I had to.
Walter.
His eyes were serious, his arms pumping furiously at his sides. He was gaining by the second. I begged my legs to move faster, and I think they tried, but they were no match for Walter's. He was a machine, flying past me. He was a dozen yards away from the doors, then ten, nine . . .
You might remember I said that once upon a time Walter and I were best friends. Which means once upon a time we told each other everything. Which means I knew exactly
what would stop the machine that was Walter Quaddlebaum in his tracks.
I took a deep haggard breath. Puckered my lips, tilted my head back, and called out in a pitch-perfect impression of Walter's mother when she was angry:
“Waaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”
It really was pitch-perfect. I'd been around the Quaddlebaum family often enough to learn the tone, the length of the
y
sound, even the trill of the
a
. I'd also been around the Quaddlebaums often enough to say, without any reservation, that there was nothing,
nothing
an SRS spy could possibly face more terrifying than Teresa Quaddlebaum when she was angry.
Walter slammed his heels into the floor and whirled around. I could see his eyes darting back and forth across the hall, looking for his mother; his lips parted, probably to combination answer-apologize for whatever he'd done to warrant the tone.
I lumbered past him. I was only a few steps along when I felt Wally realize what had happenedâone step, two steps behind me, he was building speed . . .
I flung myself forward, arms outstretched. My stomach slapped against the floor first, and I began to slide, slide forward, slide through the doors, into the dining hall. My shirt ruffed up, and my skin began to squeak against the tile as I drifted to a stop, inches away from the first row of tables.
I choked for the breath that had been knocked out of me, and I rocked onto my side, staring at the ceiling.
Was I dying? I certainly
felt
like I was dying, what with the way my heart was imploding and the beautiful glorious white light I saw above me. After a few desperate breaths, however, the glorious light became a plain old fluorescent one. Dizzy, blinking, I sat up.
Walter was in the doorway, staring at me. His expression was hard to nameâwas there a word for something between “amazed” and “horrified”? Agent Otter was beside him, silver whistle in his teeth, hands on his hips.
His
expression was easy to name: dumbfounded. He was dumbfounded, with his knees slightly bent, his eyes wide, his brows furrowed, like he had been about to whistle in the race winner, but someone hit Pause at the exact moment he saw it was me.