Cody Coatsworth sat in his maths class, with his head leaning on his elbow, staring out the window.
“Cody!” his teacher rumbled, “How many times do I have to tell you, not to daydream in class”
Mr Rumblehill stood before him, his bristly moustache shaking with each of his breaths.
“Sorry Mr Rumblehill” Cody grumbled, as he turned his chair to face the teacher properly.
“Ok, now that we are all listening, it’s time for me to explain the rules of the game” Mr Rumblehill said in a kinder voice
Game? What game? Cody loved games. Why did he have to be daydreaming the day they finally got to do something fun in maths?!
“I will put you into two teams, and you will line up behind these desks” Mr Rumblehill said, pointing to two empty desks at the front of the class
Cody and the rest of the class stood up, and tucked their chairs underneath the tables. Mr Rumblehill came around and tapped everybody on the shoulder, saying either ‘one’ or ‘two’. The ‘ones’ went to one side of the room, near the tadpole tank, and the ‘twos’ went to the other side, near the door. Cody got put in the ‘ones’, and took his place at the end of the line behind the desks. He couldn’t wait to find out what the game was going to be.
“Now, you will come up one by one, and face the person from the other team. I will then call out one of your 3 times tables, and the first person to answer correctly wins. If you lose, you are eliminated, and you go sit down at your desk. We will keep doing this until there are only two people left. They will get one more times table, and the overall winner gets, umm, how about 2 stars on their star chart” Mr Rumblehill said in a clear voice, to make sure they all understood the game.
Cody decided he didn’t like this game. He liked games with his super hero action figures, or games with his Pokémon cards, not boring old maths games! He waited at the end of the line until it was his turn to play the stupid game. He watched the tadpoles swim by in the murky green tank. His class was growing them for science, and they were going to enter them in the science fair at the end of the year. They were doing the experiment ‘that tadpoles fed boiled spinach grow faster than tadpoles fed pizza’. So far, the spinach tadpoles were bigger and healthier than the pizza ones.
“Cody, it’s your turn now, come to the front” Mr Rumblehill said patiently, smiling in a friendly way
Cody snapped his head out of his daydream about the tadpoles, and dragged his feet along the carpet to the front of the room. Cody looked at his opponent- a tall kid with glasses, who Cody didn’t know the name of yet.
“Ready?” Mr Rumblehill said happily
“Oh yeah!” called out the tall boy
Cody just nodded his head grumpily
“Ok then, what is… 6 times 3” Mr Rumble Hill said
Cody was thinking. He had started to learn his 3 times tables earlier that week, but he had only gotten up to 3 times 3, which was 9. Cody didn’t like maths at all! He finally worked out that it must be a trick question.
“But, Mr Rumblehill!” Cody said excitedly, “You said we were doing our 3 times tables, but you said ‘6 times 3’, which is a 6 times table, and we haven’t learnt those yet.”
The whole class burst out laughing. Cody’s face went very red. He was embarrassed.
“Quiet down class,” Mr Rumblehill said, “It’s not nice to laugh at someone. Now Cody do you remember yesterday, when we learnt that 6 times 3 is the same as 3 times 6?”
Cody didn’t remember learning that. Yesterday, he was thinking about what would happen if the earth was invaded by aliens. He looked down at his feet and slowly shook his head.
“I think I need to have a talk with your parents, young man” said the teacher sternly.
Cody didn’t want him to do that, his parents were already angry at him for leaving his skateboard out in the rain last night, but he knew asking his teacher not to talk to them would make it even worse.
“I think this game is over now” Mr Rumblehill said, “Everybody go back to your desks and complete your worksheet on your times tables from yesterday”
Cody stomped back to his seat at the back of the class, near the window. He took the worksheet out from his folder and got a pencil ready. The problems on it were really hard. He had only gotten 4 done yesterday, and still had 26 to go. He looked at question 5: ‘if Samuel has 5 bags, and each bag has 3 marbles in it, how many marbles does Samuel have all together’. Cody thought it was very hard. He couldn’t quite work out how this was a times table. His teacher had explained it last week, but Cody didn’t understand. He was too busy drawing a picture of Mr Incredible on the back of his page.
The reason why Cody Coatsworth didn’t do well in school was because he wasn’t just an ordinary school boy. He was a member of T.T.S.S.: the Time Travellers Spy Society. He was a specially trained super-spy, with the rare ability to go back in time, and stop evil villains altering what would happen in the future by changing the past. It was Cody’s job, and 9 other young boys, to go back in time and use gadgets and special machines to make sure bad guys don’t take over the world. It was a big responsibility for such a little boy, so Cody had to spend his free time training in martial arts rather than doing homework. The main goal of TTSS was to take down agents from the Bothersome Attackers of Delicate Landmarks In Greater History, and Time, or B.A.D.L.I.G.H.T. for short. Cody could not tell anybody that he was a superspy, not even his best friend, Jason Mason. The only people that knew were his mother and father- ex-spies themselves. Even his mobile-phone-obsessed-older-sister didn’t know where Cody went on his long, weekend ‘holidays’. Behind his wardrobe at home, Cody had a secret room full of gadgets, tools and all other things to help him track down B.A.D.L.I.G.H.T. He even had his own uniform and ID card! Cody loved being a spy more than anything else, definitely more than maths.
