The Model Spy

Chapter 1 - Three Strikes

The life of a frog wasn't that fascinating. Especially the way Ms. Flammish taught it. If someone couldn't hold my attention, they were extremely boring. I prided myself on having an excellent attention span. But the autumn day was calling to me and the last thing I wanted to do was listen to that lady's voice. I was positive that if she had a DNA test done, she may have been part frog. All I heard while sitting in that stifling classroom was croak, croak, croak coming from Ms. Flammish's wrinkly lips.

As Ms. Flammish rasped on and on, my focus shifted to the window. It was barely the lunch hour, but students outside were already lingering on the patio, basking in the California sunshine. For a moment, I thought of raising my hand, asking to use the bathroom, and skipping the rest of the lecture. I looked down at my pasty, white thighs. Skipping class didn't seem like such a bad idea. I could use a serious tan. That would be the normal thing to do, right?

I shook my head and looked back at the notes I had been taking. I had given up on them midsentence. In my slanted handwriting, all I could read was "Amphibians are environmental indicators because..." The rest of the notebook page was crisp and blank. How could I ever pick up and leave class, especially when the answers to such "pressing" questions were hovering on the pruned lips of Ms. Flammish, a woman who probably hadn't kissed even a frog in a very long time.

Besides, I missed school a lot. So much so, in fact, that I had been called down to the guidance office three separate times in only the two or so months I had been a student at LA High. Mr. Amelio, the guidance counsellor, sat behind a desk adorned with mugs and picture frames and ceramic fruits all exclaiming inspirational quotes. All three times he calmly asked me if I was getting along well at LA High (no), if I was making friends (no), if there were any issues in my home life (no), if there was anything I wanted to talk about (definitely not). Afterwards, he would always send me on my way back to class with a piece of hard candy and stack of brochures on everything from peer pressure to depression to drug addiction.

I hated missing school every other week. I would fall behind in classes and the kids would think I was some sort of freak with behavioural issues. At California Prep, my old school, the rumors about me spread faster than the ones printed in those trashy magazines sold at the kiosks by the subway stations. According to the science club kids, I was pregnant. I heard from a girl in the drama club that she heard from a boy on that swim team that I was dying from a rare disease I had contracted from a jellyfish sting. Instead of fighting back, though, I always let the rumors slide, because they sounded much more plausible and understandable and...normal...than the actual reason I continually missed school.

Luckily, it had been two weeks since my last high school hiatus. I had time to remember my locker number. I didn't need to read my combination off of the little sticky note in my purse. I even had time to actually learn the students' names. My favorite name so far was the one that belonged to the varsity football captain who just happened to sit in front of me in Ms. Flammish's bio class: Will Antalio. I often sat in class and stared at the back of his curly head of hair and imagined what it would be like to go to the movies with him or walk along the beach or even go to the homecoming dance with him in a few weeks. Just imagining how amazing that would be sometimes caused me to smile to myself and stare off into space. But even if we didn't end up going to the dance, because he probably thought they were lame, I would have been happy just sitting on a couch with him and watching some horrible movie together. Something as miniscule as that would be enough for me to feel like maybe I wasn't so strange after all, that maybe it was completely and entirely possible to live a normal life.

But being a normal teenage girl is not part of the job description when your parents work for the CIA. While I sat in school, they were somewhere in South America. There was a doctor doing illegal experiments on guests at his bed and breakfast. While that may have sounded strange to other people, it was nothing new to me. Other parents grabbed a briefcase and headed to the office. Mine hopped on a private CIA jet and headed to Brazil.