Edition Thirteen

Maddie Demmerson’s Ideas of Getting Blackthorne

1. Attempt to escape the Gallagher Academy covertly in the middle of the the night leaving only a note to explain my absence. (Yeah, not gonna happen. I don’t know the secret passageways as well as Kayla, and there’s no telling what kind of security measures they’ve put up.)

2. Attempt to escape the Gallagher Academy covertly in the middle of the night with my roommates leaving only a note to explain our absence. (And how exactly am I going to convince my roommates to leave the academy. Let alone calm Sophie down because she’s never done that before, drag Jordan out of bed, and make sure Kayla isn’t screaming in her sleep as we’re making our way to Blackthorne???)

3. While on a Covert Operations field trip, attempt to take over the van and drive my CoveOps class and my dad to Blackthorne. (I could end up in prison for several different things for attempting that, and locking myself in a car with one of the best spies in the world and ten spies-in-training probably wasn’t the best idea...)

4. Attempt to manipulate Macey McHenry (one of the top spies in the world and the head of the Gallagher academy) into letting me go to Blackthorne. (And what exactly would I say to one of the top spies in the world and the headmistress of the Gallagher academy?)

Okay, so my ideas weren’t great. I’ll admit to that. But considering I was trying to either escape the Gallagher Academy or attempt to convince trained spies to let me go to a school that is for assassins, those were pretty good ideas. Those were the only ideas.
I went through and calculated all the odds of how well they would work, and all of them were pretty low.
I thought all of this in a couple of seconds as I made my way out of the ally and into the street.
I saw Kayla come up to me, and say something, but my mind wasn’t comprehending much right then. All my thoughts evolved around Blackthorne and my brother that I hadn’t seen in years. Conner. Blackthorne. Conner. Blackthorne. Conner. Blackthorne. Maddie. Wait, ‘Maddie’? I didn’t think about myself.
“Maddie!” I heard a voice call me back to reality. I recognized the voice as the one and only Makayla Goode- oops, I meant Andrews.
“What?” I asked, sounding a lot more harsher than it was meant to be.
Kayla raised her hands up, a sign of surrender. “I was only gonna ask if you were okay,” she said timidly.
“Oh... sorry,” I said. Suddenly, my shoes became a lot more interesting. “I’m fine.”
I knew Kayla didn’t believe me, and I knew I wasn’t hiding my emotions real well also, but I was relieved when she let it go then nodded.
“Guy in the police uniform. Third time,” I said and just like that, Kayla and I were back to business.
“No, it’s his fourth time,” Kayla said, retying her shoe laces.
“Jogging suit, clown uniform, and now the police officer. That’s three,” I said.
“And he was dressed in a blue t-shirt and jeans with tennis shoes three minutes and twenty seven seconds ago,” she said. “It was after the clown.”
I was about to ask if she were crazy or something, but then I remembered that I was gone talking to Conner for a couple minutes. So instead of arguing, I lied and said. “Oh yeah, you’re right.”
Kayla eyed me weirdly, but kept walking. She then pointed to the Ferris wheel, sending me a clear message saying ‘We’ll get better view for seeing the people up there.’ but to an average person, it would just look like a teenage girl excited to go on the Ferris wheel.
I nodded as if it were an amazing idea, but really I couldn’t have Kayla seeing Conner. That could be really bad.
“I bet you ten bucks you can’t get us on there for free,” I whispered to Kayla as we approached the guy that was taking money for the Ferris wheel ride. I saw Conner about ten feet away buying cotton candy from a cart, and I wanted to distract Kayla so she wouldn’t see him.
“You’re on,” she said with a smirk.
“Hi,” Kayla said as she approached the Ferris-wheel-guy.
The guy looked Kayla up and down. “Hey, how are you doin’?” A small smile played on his lips. In the corner of my eye, I noticed Conner’s position change into a offensive stance. Curiosity shot through me. Why would Conner be ready to attack? It wasn’t like there were enemy agents around, because Conner’s gaze wasn’t darting around looking for more. No. His gaze was locked on Kayla. Crap.
“I’m doing just fine,” Kayla said, batting her eyelashes. “And you?”
“I’m doing pretty darn good now,” he said.
“So how much does it cost?” she asked him.
The guy smirked. “Does what cost?”
Kayla rolled her eyes, but smiled. “The tickets to go on the Ferris wheel.”
“Three dollars each,” he said.
Kayla dug in her pocket, and pretended not to feel any money. Her eyes went wide as she “checked” her other pockets. She turned to me. “Hey, do you have any extra money?”
“No, sorry,” I lied. “I spent it already.”
Kayla’s face fell, and as she turned to the guy, I noticed a fake blush forming on her cheeks. “This is really embarrassing.” She bit her lip.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” the guy said. “Embarrassment doesn’t fit your pretty face.” Kayla fake blushed again, but didn’t say anything. “You can go ahead and get in cart ten.”
Kayla’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
The guy laughed. “Yeah, really.”
“Thank you so much!” she went up and hugged the guy, then skipped over to the cart with me on her tail.
“Thanks,” I said as I passed by the guy.
“No problem,” was his response.
I looked back to Conner, and he was also in line for the Ferris wheel. Why?!? Why was the idiot in line for the Ferris wheel?!? I noticed the glare he was giving the Ferris-wheel-guy, then Conner’s gaze shifted and softened. I thought he was looking at me- now in Ferris wheel cart number ten, sitting beside my best friend- but a closer look told me that he wasn’t looking at me. No. He was looking at the dark-haired girl in a white blouse/tank top, jean shorts, and her wavy hair down, that was sitting beside me. He was looking at my best friend. Why? I didn’t know.
The Ferris wheel started to move, and I could feel our cart teeter slightly as it had to adjust to the movement. Conner was still in the line, watching our cart so intensely.
“Fox, Tootsie,” I said into my comms unit. “How many do you have so far?”
“Two men. One currently dressed as police officer- changed four times. The other in a red t-shirt and basketball shorts- changed six times,” Sophie rattled off.
“What about you?” asked Jordan.
“Same,” I said. “Keep your eyes open, we’re on the Ferris wheel for an overview of the grounds.”
“Okay, we’re at the popcorn cart three carts west of the balloon toss contest,” Jordan said.
Kayla’s eyes trailed over toward the balloon toss contest, but before she could get there, she noticed that one boy in line for the Ferris wheel. Great.
I pretended to find Jordan and Sophie as Kayla saw Conner. Conner lifted his hand and waved a half-wave to Kayla, then set his hand back down. I saw him smile slightly.
“Hey, that’s Jake!” Kayla said, giving a half-wave back.
“Who?” I asked.
“Jake from the vintage store, last Sunday,” Kayla explained, her eyes never left Conner.
“Where?” I asked.
Kayla looked at me with a smile on her face, “He’s in line for the Ferris wheel!”
I looked at the line and furrowed my eyebrows. “Kayla, there’s nobody that even looks like Jake in there.”
“Yes there is! He’s right-” she cut herself off, looking at the line with the absence of Conner.
Conner was gone. He wasn’t there and that would probably be the last time I saw him unless I went to Blackthorne. Kayla seemed nearly disappointed as I was, but for entirely different reasons. “He was right there!” Kayla said, desperation for me to believe her was in her voice. “I promise, Maddie, he was right there. He even waved at me.”
“Kayla.” I believed her. I did. I knew he was right there and I knew he waved at her. I knew everything that had happened and more, but Kayla couldn’t. Right then, I understood why I didn’t want Kayla to think about Conner (or ‘Jake’ in her eyes). I didn’t want Kayla to look at Conner. I didn’t want Kayla to think that she could have him, because I never could. I hadn’t had my brother for years and I couldn’t stand the thought of my best friend getting him in less than a week. It wasn’t fair. So, call me selfish, but that’s what made me say, “Jake was never there. You only saw him because you wanted to see him.”
“That’s not true!” Kayla objected. “I saw him. He waved to me!”
“Kayla, you’re playing a dangerous game here. You know what happened with the Chameleon,” I made sure to remember that I had to say ‘The Chameleon’ and not ‘your mom’, but I knew that Kayla got the message.
“But I’m not falling for him!” Kayla said, we were almost done with the Ferris wheel ride and I could tell that she was ready for it to be done also. I raised my eyebrows. “I’ve only talked to him once, and when I did, I was honey potting him!”
“Kayla, you’re seeing him because you want to see him. Now get your head in the game,” I said, not looking her in the eyes. If she were able to see she my eyes, she’d know that I was lying to her.
In response, Kayla pursed her lips. “Whatever,” she mumbled.
I checked my watch and we had ten minutes to get to the theater. Considering it would take us about eight minutes to get there while looking around for the subjects changing. “Let’s get a move on it,” I said as I stepped onto the solid ground.
Kayla and I slowly made our way to the theater, small cart by cart and checking our surroundings. I was silently praying that we wouldn’t see Conner on our way there, and it sort of worked; I only saw one small glimpse of him and then he was gone. This time, it was for good.
We made it to the theater in record time, stepping into the doors at the exact moment my internal clock told me that the hour was up. I saw the entire junior class there, but there was a lack of Andy’s presence.We all kind of stood there for a second, waiting for him to suddenly appear from right around the corner... but he never did.
I glanced at Kayla, confusion probably showed in my eyes because Kayla’s face was more than likely echoing my own. “What’s going on?” Joze came up beside me and asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Why is he not here?” Kayla mumbled. “There has to be some reason.”
Every spy knows that in everything, there is something- even if there’s nothing, there’s always a reason for the nothing. Then it occurred to me, “You guys, observe. That’s what we need to do.”
Kayla’s eyes widened and she finally understood what Andy was trying to tell us. “It’s a puzzle. We have to look for all the clues then find the van.”
“Exactly,” I said. There was a small piece of paper tucked into the corner of a loose board by the entrance to behind the counter. I walked over casually, and bent down to “tie my shoe”/get the note from the counter. When I got done “tying my shoes” I stood up and walked back over to my three friends. By this time, the entire junior class was surrounding us, and i realized that both Kayla and Jordan had two slips of paper in their hands like me.
“Security is up,” Kayla read from her piece.
“Everyone thinks you’re home,” Jordan read.
I looked down at my piece of paper and read aloud the three words that pulled a twist on our junior class’s night: Don’t get caught.