Sarah smiled. “If you want to be in this family, you have to have an appetite for chaos. Come home right after school.”
“Fine, but I have some rules. The little ones have to stay out of my room. They’re like ferrets going through my drawers, pulling things out, and dragging them all over the house,” Ruby said. “I have a system.”
“OK.”
“And I absolutely insist that everyone read the visitors handbook I made for the house, especially the part about how to use the remote control for the television. Remember last year, when Grandpa Saul got his hands on it? Pandemonium.”
“Deal!” Sarah said, throwing her arms around her daughter and hugging her tight.
“Mom! Hugging is supposed to happen at 8:20. You’re messing up the schedule!”
TOP SECRET DOSSIER
CODE NAME: BIGFOOT
REAL NAME: PEGGY GRUNT
YEARS ACTIVE: 1994–99
CURRENT OCCUPATION: FOREST RANGER
HISTORY: PEGGY’S AWKWARD
STAGE, FROM THE AGE OF TEN
UNTIL FOURTEEN, WAS ONE OF
THE WORLD’S MOST DISTURBING.
SHE HAD ARMS THAT HUNG
NEARLY TO HER FEET AND AN
UNFORTUNATE UNDERBITE THAT
RENDERED MUCH OF WHAT SHE
SAID UNINTELLIGIBLE. SHE CAME
TO THE TEAM’S ATTENTION AFTER
SHE WAS CAPTURED BY HUNTERS
WHILE ON A SCHOOL FIELD TRIP
TO COLLECT LEAVES. WHEN THE
HUNTERS TRIED TO SELL HER TO
A CIRCUS, NERDS RESCUED
HER AND OFFERED HER A
PLACE ON THE TEAM. SHE
WAS A FAITHFUL SPY UNTIL
SHE TURNED FIFTEEN AND
SUDDENLY WENT FROM
UGLY DUCKLING TO
SUPERHOT BABE.
UPGRADE: BIGFOOT PRODUCED A
PHEROMONE THAT CAUSED BOYS TO
FALL IN LOVE WITH HER, MAKING
THEM HIGHLY SUGGESTIBLE TO
HER REQUESTS.
The team assembled at the mission desk in the Playground and waited for the principal to arrive. Heathcliff hunkered in the shadows. He knew he was forbidden from taking part in mission briefings, but he just couldn’t help himself. Being a spy was exciting, and it frustrated him that he wasn’t allowed to help. Plus, he wanted to be ready for the day when they invited him back on the team.
“Another mission?” Matilda cried. “This is ridiculous!”
“If Ms. Holiday is behind this one, I’m going to scream,” Duncan said. “We just stopped her from melting the polar ice caps last week!”
“Don’t forget the man-eating plants that attacked Birmingham,” Jackson added.
“And when she poisoned the world’s supply of corn dogs,” Flinch grumbled.
“The earthquake machine was no day in the park, either!” Duncan said.
“They know we’re only twelve years old, right?” Jackson roared.
Heathcliff understood their frustration. The team had been working eighteen-hour days for months, keeping the world from exploding or falling into chaos. They were understaffed and underappreciated.
Ruby stood up and raised a hand to calm everyone. She was a natural-born leader and the team’s spokesperson. Heathcliff and Ruby had knocked heads many times when he was on the team, but he always respected her.
“I’ll handle this,” she said. “The principal will understand. I think that a few staff additions will make a huge difference. We need a gadget tech to teach us the latest stuff coming out of the science team. We need a surveillance expert to go over what’s happening around the world. We need an information specialist and a historian—”
“—and a new Benjamin!” Duncan said.
Ruby nodded. “Yes, a new Benjamin would be helpful, plus a pilot for the School Bus now that the lunch lady is the principal. I don’t feel comfortable flying around in a remote-control rocket.”
“Um, hello?” Jackson said, raising his hand. “I’d be happy to train for that job. I have excellent eye-hand coordination and I look hot in aviator sunglasses.”
“We can’t have a child flying a supersonic jet,” Matilda said.
“Oh, but we can have one jumping out of it to fight robots and mad scientists?”
Just then, the principal walked into the room, and the team turned their anger on him. The five of them were like a pack of angry dogs, yipping and barking at the bewildered man.
“What in the world is wrong with you people?” the principal asked.
“We’re tired!”
“We’re overworked!”
“We’re frustrated!”
“We haven’t been in a classroom in months!”
“The snack machine is out of taffy!”
Everyone looked at Flinch.
“Well, it is,” he said defensively.
Heathcliff knew it was time to act. “Maybe I can help,” he said as he stepped into the light.
The principal frowned. “Listen, Heathcliff, we’re having a team meeting and—”
“Just hear me out, OK?” No one argued, so he continued. “I know how to fix this team. You’re outmatched. Ms. Holiday is springing one world-ending scheme after another on you. Some days you even have to split up, which weakens the team. That’s not how this group is supposed to work. The team is falling apart.”
“Duh!” Matilda said. “Tell us something we don’t know.”
This was more than Matilda had said to him in weeks, and Heathcliff faultered. They thought he was criticizing them. He had to find the right words to win them over.
“You guys are the best of the best,” he said. “I believe Ms. Holiday is intentionally trying to wear you out. Her schemes are outlandish and impractical. You’ve stopped most of them without much effort. They’re not supposed to be hard. They’re supposed to be frequent.”
“No one would know better about end-of-the-world scheming than you,” Jackson said with a chuckle. The others gave him an angry look and he blushed.
Despite Heathcliff’s ravenous hunger for information about his past, he brushed the clue aside. He had to stay focused on his goal. “What I’m saying is, you could use some help, and I think I can be that help. I want back on the team.”
An uncomfortable silence filled the room. It was not the response Heathcliff was hoping for, but he wasn’t giving up.
“You wouldn’t have to train me. I remember all the fighting styles, the code-breaking, even how to free-fall from the School Bus. All you would need to do is put me in the upgrade chair and—”