Staying Undercover

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I watched from my window as Mom drove away to go on another business trip. The specifics of her job were not a priority, not when I sat alone at home most of the time.  I had other things to focus on, mainly my homeschooling work.  One of the cons of having a scientist for a mother is that she expects you to be just as smart as her, if not smarter.  It leads to a bunch of work and topics that I have to teach myself whenever she's gone.

It was kind of sad living by myself for most of the time, but some good comes out of it. I'm only 14, but I can take care of myself. My mom leaves money for me and I ride my bike to get whatever I need, but my bike's not my only form of transportation.  In addition, I've actually become pretty good at cooking, especially when I relate it all to a scientific equation.  That's always been easier for me than for most people.

I walked out of my room and looked back in. Another good thing about my mom never being home is that I could do whatever I want with my room.  I don't do much with it, I painted the one wall with a neon honeycomb design and another with a color-blasted abstract design.  My drawings and paintings were mostly of that style.  At least once a month I would paint over one of the walls with a new pattern.  It was the way I got out the side of me that couldn't be expressed by math and science. 

The floor of my room looked like an abstract drawing too.  I practically always have clothes, books and a ton of other stuff lying on the floor.  Today was no exception to the messiness of the floor.

I looked at my door and pulled it shut behind me. At the top of the door I had painted my name in black cursive when the back stairway had been repainted and there was paint leftover.  It was one of my few drawings that was a single, dark color.

I hated my name. My first name was fine, but the combination of my first and last name. Foley Bailey. Foley was a unique name, more or less, but the fact that it kind of rhymes with Bailey just kills me. Everyone I talk to says it doesn't rhyme, but I think it does. And the only person I talk to is my mom, so that doesn't count.

I walked down the hallway from my room and pushed the button for the lab on the elevator and rode down. I was in here most of the time when Mom isn't home, for a few reasons. First of all, she doesn't like me interrupting her work when she's home so I don't get to go in here when she's home. Also, she doesn't want me to mess anything up that she leaves behind, so she doesn't want me going in there when she's not home. I have to have something to do when I'm bored, which is most of the time, and I can't exactly be seen by the neighbors otherwise they might start to ask questions.  Questions always end bad for me.  But the main reason that I come down here is that I like to experiment.

Most people would think I'm a nerd, and I am.  I enjoy reading, writing, math, educational TV shows and anything that has to do with science.  I don't like to do experiments like baking soda volcanoes or dissecting stuff. I experiment on myself. That may sound dangerous, but I had a close call with death a few years ago that caused me to do this.  It's also the reason I can't be seen by most people.

My mom used to work at a chemical plant of some sort.  She would never go into specifics and she would never let me come along with her.  One day, something changed all of a sudden and I had to go to work with her instead of going to school and getting picked up by a babysitter like I normally did when I was eight.  There was something going on and my mom had to go to some emergency meeting and I was supposed to wait at her desk and worked on my homework until she got back.

Naturally, I didn't.  I began exploring and whatever door I could open, I would go through.  I was a very curious child and nothing would stand between me and anything in this place.  It was a dream come true for me.  The child genius within loved all the big machines and equipment in the lab.  Somehow, one of the doors to the main compound was open, and I heard people inside, one of which sounded like my mom and someone else I knew, so I went inside.