“You don’t understand. His job isn’t easy,” Tessa snapped.
“That’s what your mother says to make you feel better, right? I’m sure she’s very worried about you, but she’ll keep quiet. She’s really not a wave-maker, is she? So sad. You’re just not on their list of priorities.”
“How do you know that?” Tessa whispered.
“I know lots of things, Tessa. After all, they do call me Miss Information. For instance, I know that your kidnapping has been completely covered up.”
“Impossible! All my friends saw you take me!”
Miss Information snatched a remote control off a nearby table and aimed it at a wall of television screens. Every major news channel was broadcasting live. Not one of them was talking about Tessa.
“That’s kind of odd, don’t you think? The president’s daughter is taken against her will in front of her classmates and there’s not a peep on the news? What’s on CNN? Oh, a report about a squirrel that water-skis. Well, that’s huge international news, right? Watch this—he’s going to jump a ramp. Wow, that animal is fearless.”
Tears began to well in Tessa’s eyes. Miss Information’s plan was working perfectly. Now it was time to be a friend. She got up from her chair and wrapped an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Now, now, there’s no need to cry.”
Tessa pulled away from her angrily. “He’ll come for me and you’re going to go to jail forever.”
Miss Information frowned. “I guess we’re going to find out, Tessa. In the meantime, you look like you could use some rest. Guards, take Ms. Lipton to her room—not the cell. Run a hot bath for her and then send in the massage therapist and the manicurist. Also, find out if there is anything she would like to eat. Ms. Lipton is our guest.”
“So I’m not a hostage?”
“No, you’re still a hostage. Did I say ‘guest’? I meant … well … what’s a nicer word than prisoner? Captive? Detainee? Oh, it doesn’t matter. Honey, the point is: Get comfortable. We’re going to be here awhile.”
TOP SECRET DOSSIER
CODE NAME: BELL BOTTOM
REAL NAME: JEAN GREENE
YEARS ACTIVE: 1979–84
CURRENT OCCUPATION: FASHION DESIGNER
HISTORY: JEAN GREENE WAS
BROUGHT IN TO REPLACE AGENT
GHOST WHEN GHOST LEFT THE
TEAM AFTER HER PARENTS
DISCOVERED HER SPY ACTIVITIES.
JEAN’S EARLY LIFE WAS
TUMULTUOUS. SHE WAS KNOWN FOR
STEALING CARS AND GOING ON
JOYRIDES—PRIMARILY IN
TRANS AMS. THE PROBLEM WAS,
SHE WAS ELEVEN YEARS OLD.
UPGRADE: PRE-NANOBYTE
TECHNOLOGY. JEAN’S GIGANTIC
FLARING PANTS WERE EQUIPPED
WITH HUNDREDS OF TOOLS AND
WEAPONS SHE COULD ACCESS JUST
BY SHAKING HER LEG.
Heathcliff got no pleasure from being right, so when the team returned from Sugarland Academy, he didn’t meet them. It didn’t seem appropriate to rub salt in their wounds, especially since the principal was busy doing that himself.
“It’s time to accept reality. You need help. I’m recruiting new members immediately.”
“Agreed!” Duncan cried.
“Forget new members. Just put Heathcliff in the upgrade chair and let him back on the team,” Jackson said.
Heathcliff was stunned. Of all the people in the world, he never expected Jackson to be on his side.
“Agreed,” Duncan said again.
“No way,” Matilda said, though it sounded like she was yawning. “Not after what he’s done.”
“Agreed,” Duncan said.
“Huh?”
“Sorry,” Duncan said. “I’m just so tired, I’m having trouble keeping track of this conversation.”
“Put your head back on the table, Duncan,” Jackson said.
“Thank you.”
“Graagggghhhh,” Flinch said. “What if ‘nice-guy Heathcliff’ goes back to being ‘bad-guy Heathcliff’ after we’ve given him upgrades? I vote no.”
“We’re not voting,” Ruby said. “We don’t need someone unstable on the team.”
Bad-guy Heathcliff? Unstable? Heathcliff felt his heart break.
“We have to do something, Pufferfish,” the principal said.
“Who’s going to train these new recruits? And what happens if they wash out? Then we have to wipe their minds of all they’ve learned about us. The kids who can’t hack it are never the same. Most of them walk through the halls with crayons shoved up their noses, claiming to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Remember Bobby Rickle? He thinks he’s an electric eel. He runs up and pinches people on the butt.”
“The Shocker?” Jackson says. “You guys did that to him? That’s hilarious.”
“No, it’s sad!” Ruby replied.
“And sad,” Jackson echoed, breaking into a giggling fit.
“Then I’ll bring in the Troublemakers,” the principal said. “You’ve all worked with the Hyena, and Flinch has a good relationship with the others.”
Ruby banged the table. “Those guys don’t fix problems; they make them. Absolutely not.”
“Ruby, be reasonable,” Duncan said.
“Nope. No way. No Troublemakers. No new members I can’t control. No Heathcliff and his unstable brain. If you add anyone to this team, I will quit. We can handle this ourselves.”
Heathcliff crept back to his room and lay down on his cot.
Unstable.
What did that mean? He didn’t feel unstable. He felt like a normal twelve-year-old boy—albeit a very smart twelve-year-old boy. If he were unstable, wouldn’t he have symptoms? Wouldn’t he be yammering to himself about conspiracies and wearing a tinfoil hat so the aliens couldn’t read his thoughts?
No! He was perfectly healthy. But … maybe he hadn’t always been. A break with reality or a sudden mental illness would explain the year and a half of missing days and why the others were so weird around him. But if he had been sick, how did he get over it? Mental illness wasn’t like a cold. You didn’t just get better by eating chicken soup and drinking OJ.
He knew if he wanted answers, he had to get them on his own, so when the NERDS went home for the day, he padded down the empty hallways to the command center. Though he had never been on a mission in this particular Playground, it wasn’t much different from the one at the elementary school. The mission desk had a computer built into it that was activated by hand gestures. He waved his fingers over the circuitry. A moment later a television monitor lowered from the ceiling.