Spy Kids Quotes

You should stop and listen to yourselves sometimes. 'We're practically adults, let us run wild.' 'We're only kids, leave us alone.'... You can't have it both ways.

One sister for sale, One sister for sale, One crying and spying young sister for sale I'm really not kidding so who'll start the bidding Do I hear a dollar? A nickle? A penny? Oh isnt there isnt there isnt there any One person who will buy this sister for sale This crying spying old young sister for sale.

No matter how bad your past is, you still don’t want it erased.

Come join me for some tea so we can discuss how your giong to die

It was time for the mirror pep talk. “Okay, Maggie,” I said to myself after my shower, wiping the steam off the medicine cabinet. “You could eat these kids for breakfast. You won’t, though, because that would be cannibalistic and wrong.

In climbing, there was always a fraction of a second between the security of being locked in and the freedom of an actual rappel.

Lucas Benes lay in a sleeping bag on the roof of his father’s hotel, dreaming about a past he couldn’t remember.

The sign above the door was written in French. It read: ARRÊTE ! C’EST ICI L’EMPIRE DE LA MORT. “That means,” he explained to Gini, “‘Stop! It is here the Empire of Death.

The kid might be smart, but he has the survival skills of a potato bug.

Growing up, I always had a soldier mentality. As a kid I wanted to be a soldier, a fighter pilot, a covert agent, professions that require a great deal of bravery and risk and putting oneself in grave danger in order to complete the mission. Even though I did not become all those things, and unless my predisposition, in its youngest years, already had me leaning towards them, the interest that was there still shaped my philosophies. To this day I honor risk and sacrifice for the good of others - my views on life and love are heavily influenced by this.

When I started school I thought that people in sixth class were so old and knowledgeable even though they were no older than twelve. When I reached twelve I reckoned the people in sixth year, at eighteen years of age, must have known it all. When I reached eighteen I thought that once I finished college then I would really be mature. At twenty-five I still hadn’t made it to college, was still clueless and had a seven-year-old daughter. I was convinced that when I reached my thirties I was going to have at least some clue as to what was going on. Nope, hasn’t happened yet. So I’m beginning to think that when I’m fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety years old I still won’t be any closer to being wise and knowledgeable. Perhaps people on their deathbed, who have had long, long lives, seen it all, traveled the world, have had kids, been through their own personal traumas, beaten their demons, and learned the harsh lessons of life will be thinking, “God, people in heaven must really know it all.” But I bet that when they finally do die they’ll join the rest of the crowds up there, sit around, spying on the loved ones they left behind and still be thinking that in their next lifetime, they’ll have it all sussed. But I think I have it sussed Steph, I’ve sat around for years thinking about it and I’ve discovered that no one, not even the big man upstairs has the slightest clue as to what’s going on.

Doing something was better than doing nothing. Without warning Lucas hit the emergency stop but-ton, and the elevator braked with an uncomfortable jolt. Then he mashed the OPEN DOOR button and punched the door itself. The front doors opened in between the second and first floors. Lucas’s heart pumped in his chest. “I hear that baby in the parking lot crying.

Are you French?' I asked instead. 'Oui!' Foreign. Foreign spy. French Communist Party acted on Stalin's instructions during part of World War II. French Communist spy. Stop it stop it stop it I turned to Art, a black kid who was a foot and a half taller than me and whose pecs were about to burst of his shirt and eat someone. I gave him a two on the delusion detector. I didn't trust those pecs. 'Hi,' he rumbled. I waved weakly.

Before reaching Grassy Butte, though, Dad spied a farmhouse with two pumps in the drive and a red-and-white sign out front saying DALE'S OIL COMPANY. Another sign said CLOSED, but a light was on in the house and Dad pulled in, saying, "I believe we might prevail on Dale. What do you think?" "Prevail on Dale," I repeated to Swede. "To make a sale," she added. "And if we fail, we'll whale on Dale--" "Till he needs braille!" "Will you guys desist?" Dad asked.

I spied my shadow slinking up behind me in the night, I issued it a challenge, and we started in to fight. I wrestled with that shadow, but it wasn't any fun, I tried my very hardest— all the same, my shadow won.

Apakah setiap orang akan menjadi orang yang berbeda ketika mereka bersama orang lain?

I’ll take care of you, baby,” he said. “I’ll keep you in finery and smoothies.” He hugged me around the middle like a kid hugging a stuffed animal. I laughed, put a hand on his. It had been a long year, for me and for us, but we hung in there. Later, when I decided some of that reporting would make its way into a book, I’d send him a draft, and put in a question, right on this page: “Marriage?” On the moon or even here on earth. He read the draft, and found the proposal here, and said, “Sure.

The wrought-iron gate squeaked as Lucas opened it. He lowered the rented bike down the stone steps and onto the sidewalk. To his right was the most famous Globe Hotel in Paris, disguised under another name. In front of the entrance five Curukians sat on mopeds. Lu-cas and his eighteen-month-old friend then shot out across the street and through the invisible beam of an-other security camera. He rode diagonally across the place de la Concorde and headed toward the river. It seemed only natural. The motorcycles trailed him. He pedaled fast across the Alex-andre III bridge and zipped past Les Invalides hospital. He tried to turn left at the Rodin Museum, but Goper rode next to him, blocking his escape.

College kids today are about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of twenty or thirty years ago,” Konrath reports.

Lucas crept around the building to the back parking lot. And there it was, just like he had seen from the roof—a baby lying in a shopping cart. Lucas’s mind went negative. What if the kid was dead? He tried to think if he had ever seen a dead person before. He’d never been to a funeral, and he knew he had never seen a dead baby. And he definitely didn’t want to. His heart pounded in his chest. Lucas walked, almost tiptoed, toward the shopping cart. The last of the parking lot lights flickered out, leav-ing only the early morning sun. He moved across the blacktop, making sure not to step on a white line. At this moment he needed all the luck he could muster. As he got closer to the cart, he held his breath and swallowed. Then he grabbed the shopping cart handle and looked over into the basket. He gasped.

Emergency? Knighthawk sent. I’m just bored. I blinked, holding my phone and rereading that text. Bored? I sent. You’re literally spying on the entire world, Knighthawk. You can read anyone’s mail, listen to anyone’s phone calls. First, it’s not the whole world, he wrote. Only large chunks of North and Central America. Second, do you have any idea how mind-numbingly DULL most people are? I started a reply, but a flurry of messages came at me, interrupting what I was going to say. Oh! Knighthawk wrote. Look at this pretty flower! Hey. I want to know if you like me, but I can’t say that, so here’s an awkward flirtation instead. Where are you? I’m here. Where? Here. There? No, here. Oh. Look at my kid. Look at my dog. Look at me. Look at me holding my kid and dog. Hey, everyone. I took a huge koala this morning. Barf. The world is ruled by deific beings who can do stuff like melt buildings into puddles of acid, and all people can think of to do with their phones is take pictures of their pets and try to figure out how to get laid.

They could do that thing from Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams where they could read each other’s minds.

You know my brother Robbie?” Dakota asks in a hushed voice. I snicker loudly. “No, kid, I don’t know Robbie. I just coach his team.” A sheepish flush blooms on her cheeks. “Oops. Right. That was a stupid question.” “Ya think?” Giggling, she says, “Anyway, you can’t tell anyone, but Robbie has a girlfriend!” I raise my eyebrows. “Yeah? And how do you know that? Are you spying on your big brother?” “No, he told me, dum-dum. Robbie tells me everything. Her name is Lacey and she’s in eighth grade.” Dakota shakes her head in amazement. “That’s a whole grade higher than him.” I stifle the laughter threatening to spill over. “Landed himself an older woman, huh? Good for Robbie.” Dakota lowers her voice to a whisper and proceeds to tell me every single detail about her brother’s eighth-grade girlfriend. I listen obligingly, all the while trying to pinpoint exactly when it was that hanging out with middle-schoolers became the highlight of my days.

I remembered talking with a writer friend who lived in Otisfield and supported his wife and two kids by raising chickens and turning out one paperback original a year — spy stories. We had gotten talking about the bulge in popularity of books concerning themselves with the supernatural. Gault pointed out that in the forties Weird Tales had only been able to pay a pittance, and then in the fifties it went broke. When the machines fail, he had said (while his wife candled eggs and roosters crowed querulously outside), when the technologies fail, when the conventional religious systems fail, people have got to have something. Even a zombie lurching through the night can seem pretty cheerful compared to the existential comedy/horror of the ozone layer dissolving under the combined assault of a million fluorocarbon spray cans of deodorant.

Back then, she had to worry about the government tapping her phone. It still probably does, but all the other stuff's been outsourced. Now, instead of just a COINTELPRO operation, she’s got to worry about that and some dude stalking her relatives from his mother’s basement, and kids bombarding her with death threats because it makes them feel like part of the (terrorist) gang, and a troll farm in Russia using the Center as the next cause célèbre to whip up Nazis. All the people who really are a threat to the country; somehow they’ve been convinced to do its dirty work, more or less for free. She would admire it if it weren’t so damn horrific.

Kids never jumped head first from the top ledge. Never. It seemed forever before Stoney came back to the surface. Most of the white bubbles had already disappeared.

Never in a million years did she expect to be doing her first real mission with Agent Ace Knight, the number one spy in history!

You're not a spy, are you, Jello?" I petted his flat head. "No, of course not. You're a good boy.

Snooping scandal. As serious as the implications are, the media manages to give it a catchy little name. Not so much intruding, trespassing, invading, or spying. Snooping. You know, like a boyfriend snoops around on his girlfriend’s Facebook account. Or kids snoop through the closets for Christmas packages. It’s like dubbing HealthCare.gov’s disastrous launch a “glitch.

That wasn’t bad,” Tom said. “Almost as good as Alex.” “You’ve got to be kidding,” Jack growled. “Alex would have blown them up or forced them off the road. Just a shame I forgot my hand grenade.” “Next time,” Tom said.

Kill them quickly?” Murray asked, without bothering to raise his hand. “Really? Isn’t it more fun to draw their death out a little? To make them suffer?” Joshua sighed. “No. We’re not James Bond villains here, kids. The more you draw out your enemy’s deaths, the more chance they have to escape. So no lowering them into pools full of crocodiles or trying to slice them in half with lasers or anything like that. Just shoot them and be done with it.” Ashley

Ri, here's a question for you,” Stella started. She opened it up to everyone else, as well. “When do your kids stop being pets and start being people?” The room went silent, except for Gloria trying to stifle her giggles. Stella looked around and felt pleased that she'd gotten the desired reaction. “What are you talking about? How could you call children pets?” Shannon demanded before Bernadette had the chance to. “No, this is an honest question.” Stella insisted. “You have them, you name them. They're helpless, and you teach, or train, them. Feed them, water them, whatever. And as they grow up, you just hope that they grow up well and don't spend their time clawing your nice sofa or humping your leg." Stella, "Sugar and Spies: Spy Sisters Book 1

When I get back to my dorm room, there it is, staring at me from above my bed. The Vladimir Putin calendar. Ha! I guess Katerina got a copy of it for me after my drunken rant at the secret supper club about how I had to ironically have one. This is a girl after my own heart. You have to see this calendar. July: Vladimir Putin fly-fishing topless. March: Vladimir Putin smelling a flower. November: Vladimir Putin holding a puppy. I'm not kidding. Holding a puppy! I laugh to myself. Katerina sure has my number. Maybe she will be my BFF even after I go back to the States.

The only kid in real, close proximity to me was Erin, a thirteen-year-old who lived next door. She taught me that owning a trampoline was the most glamorous thing a girl could have, and that jelly shoes were haute couture. I learned all this through spying on her through my bedroom window, because she didn’t like me and wouldn’t spend any time with me, physically. Despite

If you have read many adventure novels, you'll know that spies spend about half of their time in the sewers. They run along sewer tunnels, shooting. They find secret hideaways in sewers. They take weird funeral barges through sewers, poled along by old men in hoods. In fact, if a spy's kid wants to get a message to their mom or dad, the easiest way to do it is just to flush it down the toilet.

Remember the M.S. St. Louis?” Jo nodded. It felt like every week of Hebrew school they’d gotten lessons on the Holocaust, including the story of the ship of nine hundred Jewish refugees that had been turned away from the United States in 1939 because the government believed the passengers were spies. “I’ve told you what it was like for me as a girl. Kids calling me names. Throwing things at me. And nobody

I shrug, suddenly remembering how Adam never called me this morning, even though he said he would. “I should probably go back to Adam’s apartment to have a look at his door.” “Want some company?” Wes asks. “I can bring along my spy tool. I’ve got a cool UV-light device that picks up all traces of bodily fluids.” “You’re kidding, right?” Kimmie asks. “You know you want to give it a try.” He winks. “I’ll even let you borrow my latex gloves.” “Say no more,” she jokes. “I’m in.

down near the Brooklyn Bridge and Tweed courthouse. As a kid I’d read something about the courthouse that has stuck with me my entire life: In the nineteenth century, Boss Tweed had used its construction as a pretext to embezzle millions from New York State. When they finally got around to trying him for that crime, they did it in the courthouse named after him. How hilarious an irony—here was a city government building celebrating one of the most corrupt members in its history.

and approved for sale. Dr John Rock, champion of the pill, rejoiced that humanity’s rampant sex drive would finally be stripped of its consequences: ‘The greatest menace to world peace and decent standards of life today is not atomic energy but sexual energy.’ The Cold War resumed at full intensity after an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. War hero Dwight D. Eisenhower was still president; it was his last year in office. The election campaign was a neck-and-neck race between man of the people Richard Nixon and rich kid Jack Kennedy. Nineteen sixty is the year in which this story begins.

I jerked my head up, my tie with Jack severed. 7 “You’re early,” I told the Magician as Matthew and I climbed down. “Wanted to avoid the midnight-hour traffic.” When Cyclops padded over hesitantly, Finn grumbled, “Free fort, sit where you want!” He situated his crutch over his lap. “So an Empress, a horse, and a wolf walk into a fort. . . .” “If this is a dirty joke, I’ll pass.” I’d missed the Magician’s humor. Tilting my head at him, I said, “You don’t look so good, Finn.” “I feel like a bucket of fuck, but I’ll be ready,” he assured me. “Right, Matto?” “Ready Magician!” “H to the Azey. That army blows Baggers.” “Somehow she dragged me back to the fort.” “Good thing I’m dying young,” Finn continued in a nonchalant tone, “or I’d be shit out of luck with this bum leg.” “Dying young?” He wasn’t kidding. “Made peace with it.” He shrugged. “Kind of think we all should.” Have you guys gotten snow here yet?” I thought I’d spied a single flake the night I’d left Aric. “Not looking forward to that. SoCal surfer boy here, remember? Just think: if the snow comes down like the rain has . . .” “Snowmageddon!” Matthew cried, cracking both of them up. “Yeah, Matto, that groundhog came out to check for nuclear winter. But then a Bagger ate him!

I placed my hand on his arm. Muscles tensed as he stepped into me, placing the tips of his fingers on my chin, but before he could do anything, someone cleared their throat behind us. I turned, spying Solos in the doorway. “Just making sure you two are okay,” he said, a single eyebrow arched. A rush of shame and guilt smacked into my stomach. “I’m not going to kill him and stash his body in the fridge.” “That’s good to know,” Aiden muttered. “One can never be too safe.” Solos pivoted. “Chop, chop, kids; people are getting antsy.” I sighed. “Gods, I kind of miss Apollo. At least he didn’t think I wanted to kill you.” “Yeah, well, about that…

I remember." I nod. Wanting to say: I remember everything-all of it-the question is: Do you? But instead, I stare down at my feet, smiling stupidly. Everything I do around him is stupid. Some Seeker I've turned out to be. Attempting to redeem myself,say something normal,not let on that I already know he's employed here-thanks to the raven who allowed me to spy on him earlier,I say, "So,I guess you hang out here a lot then?" He pushes a hand through his hair, as his eyes-the color of aquamarines-glide down the length of me.And damn if I can't feel their trajectory. It's like showering in a stream of warm, molten honey-dripping from the top of my forehead all the way down to my feet. "I guess you could say that," he says,voicelow and deep. "More than most, anyway." He waves a damp towel, tugs on the string of his apron, and I blush in reply. The sight of it reminding me of what I saw in the alleyway-watching him lean against the wall,his face so soft anddreamy I longed to touch him-kiss him-like I did in the dream. I study him closely,seeking traces of recognition, remembrance-some small token of evidence to assure me that, as odd as it seems,that kiss in the cave was as real as it felt-but coming up empty. "So,how long have you worked here?" I ask, returning to the topic at hand. My gaze drifting over the black V-necked T-shirt skimming the sinuous line of his body-telling myself it's all part of my reconnaissance,my need to gather as uch information as I can about him and his kin. But knowing that's not really it.The truth is,I like looking at him, being near him. "I guess you could say somewhere between too long and not long enough-depending on the state of my wallet." His laugh is good-natured and easy-the kid that starts at the belly and trips all the way up. "It's pretty much the only decent game in town." He shrugs. "One way or another,you end up working for the Richters,and believe me, this is one of the better gigs." I peer at him closely,remembering what Cade said when I was here via the raven. How he referred to him by another name. "You're not a Richter?" I ask,holding my breath in my cheeks.Despite what Paloma told me, I need to hear it from him,confirm that he doesn't identify with their clan. "I go by Whitefeather," he says,gaze steady and serious. "I was raised by my mom,didn't even know the Richters when I was a kid." Despite getting the answer I wanted, I frown in return. His being a Richter was a good reason to avoid him-without it,I'm out of excuses. "Is that okay?" He dips his head toward mine,his mouth tugging at the side. "You seem a little upset by the news." I shake my head,break free of my reverie, and say, "No-not at all. Believe me,it's more like a relief." I meet his gaze,seeing the way it narrows in question. "Guess I'm not a big fan of your brother," I add,watching as he throws his head back and laughs,the sight of that long,glorious column of neck forcing me to look away,it's too much to take. "If it makes you feel any better, most of the time I'd have to agree." He returns to me,the warmth of his gaze solely reponsible for the wave of comfort that flows through me.

Glass struck the map with the back of his hand. 'You been around it yet?' Leonard, still not trusting himself to avoid more of his 'Well, actually, no,' shook his head. 'I've just been reading this report. One of the things it says, and this is just anyone's guess, but what they say is that between five and ten thousand individuals in this city are working in intelligence. That's not counting backup. That's guys on the ground. Spies.' He tilted his head and pointed his beard at Leonard until he was satisfied with the response. 'Most of them are free-lancers, part-timers, kids, Hundert Mark Jungen who hang around the bars. They'll sell you a story for the price of a few beers. They also buy. You been over to the Café Prag?' 'No, not yet.' Glass was striding back to his desk. He had had no real need of the map after all. 'It's the Chicago futures market down there. You should take a look.

...The gulag—with its millions of victims, if you listen to Solzehnitsyn and Sakharov—supposedly existed in the Soviet Union right down to the very last days of communism. If so—as I've asked before—where did it disappear to? That is, when the communist states were overthrown, where were the millions of stricken victims pouring out of the internment camps with their tales of torment? I'm not saying they don't exist; I'm just asking, where are they? One of the last remaining camps, Perm-35—visited in 1989 and again in '90 by Western observers—held only a few dozen prisoners, some of whom were outright spies, as reported in the Washington Post. Others were refuseniks who tried to flee the country. The inmates complained about poor-quality food, the bitter cold, occasional mistreatment by guards. I should point out that these labor camps were that: they were work camps. They weren't death camps that you had under Nazism where there was a systematic extermination of the people in the camps. So there was a relatively high survival rate. The visitors also noted that throughout the 1980s, hundreds of political prisoners had been released from the various camps, but hundreds are not millions. Even with the great fall that took place after Stalin, under Khrushchev, when most of the camps were closed down...there was no sign of millions pouring back into Soviet life—the numbers released were in the thousands. Why—where are the victims? Why no uncovering of mass graves? No Nuremburg-style public trials of communist leaders, documenting the widespread atrocities against these millions—or hundreds of millions, if we want to believe our friend at the Claremont Institute. Surely the new...anti-communist rulers in eastern Europe and Russia would have leaped at the opportunity to put these people on trial. And the best that the West Germans could do was to charge East German leader Erich Honecker and seven of his border guards with shooting persons who tried to escape over the Berlin Wall. It's a serious enough crime, that is, but it's hardly a gulag. In 1955[sic], the former secretary of the Prague communist party was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. 'Ah, a gulag criminal!' No, it was for ordering police to use tear gas and water cannons against demonstrators in 1988. Is this the best example of bloodthirsty communist repression that the capitalist restorationists could find in Czechoslovakia? An action that doesn't even qualify as a crime in most Western nations—water cannons and tear gas! Are they kidding? No one should deny that crimes were committed, but perhaps most of the gulag millions existed less in reality and more in the buckets of anti-communist propaganda that were poured over our heads for decades.

switching to a different channel, where I found Jason Stern mouthing off about me. It wasn’t an official interview; instead, Jason had been posting about me on social media—probably without his family’s permission—and the news was wantonly parroting everything he said. Unsurprisingly, Jason was being awful to me—and very supportive of himself. “My father would have been dead if it wasn’t for me,” Jason had proclaimed on his blog. “I suspected Ben Ripley was a possible assassin all along. The kid was real weird. So when he came over, I was on guard. When I heard his jacket ticking, I risked my own life to rip it off him. Sucks that it blew up the Oval Office, though. And that the Secret Service let him escape. Losers.” On Twitter, he had been much more succinct: “Stopped #AssassinBenRipley from killing my father today. You’re welcome America.” Since Jason wasn’t actually giving interviews, no one could ask him why he’d invited me over for a playdate if he suspected I was an assassin all along. Somehow, none of the news commentators thought to point this out either

You haven’t said what happened with you and Kavinsky that night after I left.” “Oh. We broke up.” “You broke up,” he repeats, his face blank. That’s when I notice Kitty lurking in the doorway like a little spy. “What do you want, Kitty?” “Um…is there any red pepper hummus left?” she asks. “I don’t know--go check.” John is wide-eyed. “This is your little sister?” To Kitty he says, “The last time I saw you, you were still a little kid.” “Yeah, I grew up,” she says, not even a little bit nicely. I throw her a look. “Be polite to our guest.” Kitty turns on her heels and runs upstairs. “Sorry about my sister. She’s really close with Peter and she gets crazy ideas…” “Crazy ideas?” John repeats. I could slap myself. “Yeah, I mean, she thinks that something’s going on with us. But obviously there isn’t, and you don’t, like, like me like that, so, yeah, it’s crazy.” Like, why do I speak? Why did God give me a mouth if I’m just going to say dumb stuff with it? It’s so quiet I open my mouth to say more dumb stuff, but then he says, “Well…it’s not that crazy.” “Right! I mean, I didn’t mean crazy--” My mouth snaps shut, and I stare straight ahead.

Any prize off this bottom row,” the guy tells us, walking away to a waiting customer. “You did it!” I jump down off the counter and wrap my arms around his neck. “You won me a prize!” “Thank fuck.” His arms wrap around me. “I was starting to worry for a moment there. Felt like I was losing my man card.” I reach up on my tiptoes and kiss his lips. “Never. And thank you.” I tip my head back to look into his face. His hands slide down my back to my ass, and he gives it a squeeze. “Go pick your prize, Boston.” Leaving Liam, I head back to the counter and lean over, looking at the bottom row of prizes. I see all kinds of crap here, including really cheap-looking stuffed animals and dolls. I definitely do not want a doll. They freak me out. Then, I spy this sad-looking odd toy. Reaching over, I grab it. Liam comes up behind me as I right myself. His chest is pressed to my back. “Is that a…fucking knitted jellyfish?” I turn my head to look up at him. He’s squinting at the toy I’ve picked up. I look back down at it in my hands, and I think he’s right. It is a knitted jellyfish toy. “I think so.” It’s white and pink and looks like a little princess jellyfish. And the more I look at it, the cuter it becomes…in a weird knitted jellyfish way. “She looks like a jellyfish princess,” I say. “It looks like a piece of shit.” “Hey! You’ll hurt her feelings.” I jab him in the arm. Then, I hug her. “I shall call her Squishy, and she shall be mine.” I laugh, meeting Liam’s blank expression. “Finding Nemo? No?” I say. Liam slowly shakes his head, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Okay, makes sense. You were probably too old to watch it when it first came out—you know, when I was still in diapers and you were out serenading teenage girls with the Backstreet Boys—hey!” I squeal when he digs me in the ribs with his fingers. “We’ll watch Nemo later, and then you’ll get the reference.” I turn to the guy. “I’ll take Squishy,” I tell him, holding the stuffed animal up. “Okay, what’s next?” I hook my arm through Liam’s, holding Squishy to my chest. “Hook a Duck.” “Hook a what?” I give him a confused look. “Duck.” “And what’s Hook a Duck?” “You don’t know what Hook a Duck is?” Liam looks appalled. “No…but I feel like I should.” “You should.” “What’s so special about it?” “Well, nothing special per se, but it’s like a rite of passage. Every kid plays Hook a Duck when they come to the fair.” “Hate to break it to you, Hunter, but we’re not kids.” “Maybe not. But it’s your first time at a fair in England, and you have to play.” Liam grabs my hand and sets off, I assume, in search of this Hook a Duck game. We find one a few minutes later, and it’s closed. All shut up with the tarpaulin covering the booth. “It’s closed. Never mind,” I say to him. I start to walk away, but Liam tugs me back by the hand he’s holding. “Like a little thing like it being closed is going to stop us from playing.” He gives me a grin and drops my hand. I watch as he unhooks the tarpaulin at the bottom and lifts it just enough so that he can sneak in underneath it. “Hunter, what are you doing?” I hiss. He ducks his head back out. “Come on,” he whispers, holding the material up for me to go under. “I’m not going in there.” “Yes you are. Now hurry the fuck up, or you’ll get me arrested for breaking into a Hook a Duck tent,” he whispers. “Ugh,” I complain.

A big part of becoming a spy is learning all the secrets that are used to keep things under wraps. A spy has to be able to pass information and do their job without being noticed or caught in the act. While there are a few things that they do to accomplish this, nothing is quite as important as a spy's disguise.

Who cut him?' Sam liked saying things like 'Who cut him?' It reminded him of being a kid and watching prison movies, which is probably why prisoners talked like that, too.

The water was supposed to look like molten lava, although it actually looked far more like blood (for which reason every kid in town called the volcano Mount Hemorrhoid).

Jon burst out laughing. Spy. Jesus. Nancie Stendahl said, “You always laugh at yourself?” “If you heard the crap in my head, you’d laugh, too.” Stendahl was leaning against Pike’s Jeep, which had been released along with everything else. The parking lot was near empty, though he saw the big white ATF van on the far side. Stone was pleased to see her. He sympathized with her personal involvement, and respected the all-in effort she was making to find her kid. Jon was big on all-in effort. He hoped she wouldn’t ruin the moment by lecturing him about the rule of law. If she started with that crap, he was going to recite Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment in the original Russian to freak her out. She

I always thought of myself as a fairly typical modern American kid—tech-savvy, a bit of a smart-ass, and thoroughly multicultural. Take one look at my olive complexion. That’s the future face of America, not the goofy grin of Beaver Cleaver or Richie Cunningham. I was born here, though my mom and dad were not.

Clove giggled. “I love Lionel,” she said. “Last year he thought clowns were invading because someone’s tablecloth blew off their clothesline in the middle of a storm and he thought the clown from It was spying on him. He kept ordering people to lay siege to the sewage plant – even though we don’t have one.” “I came out here to see what they were doing,” I said. “One of the kids got mouthy, so I told him I was going to call Chief Terry. For the record, I didn’t. The threat was enough to make the kids scatter, though.” “Without picking up their mess,” Clove surmised. “I get it. I’m sorry for thinking you were partying in the woods. That’s probably worse than hitting you, huh?” “Probably,” I agreed, rolling my eyes. “Well, um, I guess I should be going,” Clove said, shifting her feet as she glanced around. “I’m sorry I hit you.

Sam [the family dog] had no idea that his fellow pet had joined a crime-fighting spy agency, and Kat wanted him to stay that way. Her identity was top-secret.

Boris hung out at cafés and race tracks. He enjoyed strolling down the Champs Élysées wearing kid gloves, yellow spats, and straw boater, with cane in hand and his trademark white gardenia in his boutonnière. Chez Duval was his favorite restaurant, Closerie des Lilas his most loved bar. He met spies and revolutionaries at La Rotonde and entertained them with stories of his salad days when he was blowing away tsarist bureaucrats with the regularity of a mail train.

Cinder Slaughterhouse-Five Becoming Mrs. Lewis Diary of a Wimpy Kid Buffalo Before Breakfast (Magic Tree House #18) Magnolia Table The Apothecary A Year in Provence Under the Tuscan Sun House of Spies The Paris Architect The Joy Luck Club Little Dorrit A Man Called Ove Nine Women, One Dress Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

There was no path from teaching that led anywhere else she might want to go. A woman taught, had kids, retired, died.

Many articles speculate about Tom’s retreat from public life. He’s an organization helmed by committee, a criminal, a group of women. Much has been written about why he won’t permit interpretation of Parakeet. That he believes in time-capsule art, that he is a misogynist maestro. They’re all wrong. Baffled companies who want to produce this odd, violent heart of a play are not being held to the specifications of a playwright, but of a little girl. We were hypersensitive, sickly kids, constantly made fun of in school. Every day my classmates reminded me I was different though there was little chance I’d forget. They’d mark my out-loud face as if doing me a favor: Your eyebrows are joined, they’d say. Your calves are not shaped the way mine are. Your mother looks like an Arab spy. My mother demanded silence, but when we were together Tom and I were feral. One night, frustrated by our noise, she booted the door down and hurled handfuls of my stuffed animals into trash bags. Tom stood between her and them and widened his stance so he could not be moved. My mother backhanded him against the corner of a bureau.

Given that we’re kids, it makes the most sense to say that we inherited the money.” “From who?” Ashley asked. “Our very eccentric, incredibly wealthy long-lost great-uncles,” Murray replied. “And what happens,” I said, “when someone decides to check into the story and finds out that I don’t have a very eccentric, incredibly wealthy long-lost great-uncle?

Yeah,” I agreed, taking the opportunity to look around as well. My fellow spies had all come along by now, blending in with the other kids and doing their best to look normal—except for Warren, who had clonked several other people in the head with his skis.

At normal schools, kids quizzed each other before their exams to make sure they were prepared. We were prepping for our mission the exact same way, only instead of algebra or Shakespeare, we were reviewing the finer points of espionage. And the penalty for failure wasn’t an F. It was death. After which, we would also get an F, posthumously.

Running in ski boots was even more difficult than I expected. In addition to being exceptionally tight, the boots were also heavy and oddly balanced. I got exactly one step, then pitched forward and landed on top of two small children, knocking them flat. Just my luck, it turned out to be the same family I’d wiped out on the ice rink the day before. “You again!” the father snarled, while his kids started crying. Several other adults glared at me accusingly. Behind them all, I caught a glimpse of Chip and Jawa, laughing hysterically. “No hablo inglés,” I said to the father. Then I hurried off before he could pound me, doing my best not to crush any other preschoolers. I found Zoe at the ski counter, trying to act like she didn’t know me in front of everyone else. I wasn’t sure if this was because she was angry at me—or embarrassed to be seen with me after I’d just made a scene. “That was smooth,” she said under her breath.

Are you kidding?” Ashley gasped. “There were two six-packs in there at least. You drank twelve cans of soda all by yourself?” Murray gave a loud, carbonated belch. “They didn’t let us have soda in prison. Only milk, water, and herbal tea. It was horrible.

The modern institution of the presidency is the primary political evil Americans face, and the cause of nearly all our woes. It squanders the national wealth and starts unjust wars against foreign peoples that have never done us any harm. It wrecks our families, tramples on our rights, invades our communities, and spies on our bank accounts. It skews the culture toward decadence and trash. It tells lie after lie. Teachers used to tell school kids that anyone can be president. This is like saying anyone can go to Hell. It's not an inspiration; it's a threat.

We’ll look less suspicious if we’re eating,” Erica explained. “Like two kids who just went out for pizza, rather than two spies on a recon mission. Plus, I’m starving.

Bacterial contamination. They had to shut it down last spring. A couple kids who’d gone swimming ended up covered with hives. They looked like raspberries in Speedos.

Could be. What kind of people name their kid Nefarious?” “Exactly. Although, believe it or not, Nefarious actually got off easy. According to his file, his folks named his little sister Placenta.

I felt groggy, like I’d been drugged. It took me only a few seconds to figure out why: I had been drugged. A thirteen-year-old kid probably shouldn’t have been drugged enough times to recognize the sensation,

This was a lie. It wasn’t really nice to meet the kid at all. It was sort of like meeting a brick.

Which means we need to get Mike out of the picture.” “You mean, like, kill him?” Warren asked. Chip whacked him on the back of the head with an open palm. “We’re not gonna kill an innocent kid,” he chided. “We only have to maim him a little.” I gagged on my soda. “Maim him?” “Nothing permanent,” Chip assured me. “Just enough to send him off to the hospital for a few days.

Are you kidding me?” he said. “Jesus, that makes no sense,” she said, spying a photographer with a powerful camera sneaking up on them from behind a parked car. “Me? Why would anyone want a shot of me?” “Maybe it’s who you’re spending time with that’s the news,” Walt said with a shrug. He pulled her closer against him. “Let’s make sure there isn’t any doubt about that.” And he swept over her mouth with powerful intentions and, just as he had secretly hoped, the clicking went on and on and on. When he let the kiss run its course, he pulled back just a little and laughed. “That ought to do it.” “That was very unlike you,” she said. “You don’t normally like that sort of thing.” “Muriel, honey, I’m dead in love with you and it suits me just fine for the whole world to know it.” She

kidding.” She pressed her body back into his. “Maybe you were, but that might be just what we need to do. We could recruit them. They don’t like Whitney any more than we do.” “Are you crazy? Even if they did decide to join us, how would we know if they were really committed to being part of us or playing the role to be a spy for Whitney?” “How did you know I was telling you the truth? Your people certainly interrogated me.” He ran his hands up the sides of her rib cage. She felt small and delicate, a woman’s softer body, so intriguing, so beautiful. He cupped her breasts and then touched his marks on the slight curves. She had a point. “Arguing with you is going to be a fucking waste of time, isn’t it?” She laughed, and the sound slid into his body, an arrow aimed right at his heart. “Yes. You may as well get used to it, honey.” 14 “You have to devein the shrimp. There is actually shrimp in the gumbo, Bella,” Nonny said. “We’re doing a shrimp gumbo so it’s necessary to use shrimp.” Pepper and

The Director’s Chair is with Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, etc.), and Robert refers later to this quote from Francis: “Failure is not necessarily durable. Remember that the things that they fire you for when you are young are the same things that they give lifetime achievement awards for when you’re old.” ROBERT: “Even if I didn’t sell Mariachi, I would have learned so much by doing that project. That was the idea—I’m there to learn. I’m not there to win; I’m there to learn, because then I’ll win, eventually. . . . “You’ve got to be able to look at your failures and know that there’s a key to success in every failure. If you look through the ashes long enough, you’ll find something. I’ll give you one. Quentin [Tarantino] asked me, ‘Do you want to do one of these short films called Four Rooms [where each director can create the film of their choosing, but it has to be limited to a single hotel room, and include New Year’s Eve and a bellhop]?’ and my hand went up right away, instinctively. . . . “The movie bombed. In the ashes of that failure, I can find at least two keys of success. On the set when I was doing it, I had cast Antonio Banderas as the dad and had this cool little Mexican as his son. They looked really close together. Then I found the best actress I could find, this little half-Asian girl. She was amazing. I needed an Asian mom. I really wanted them to look like a family. It’s New Year’s Eve, because [it] was dictated by the script, so they’re all dressed in tuxedos. I was looking at Antonio and his Asian wife and thinking, ‘Wow, they look like this really cool, international spy couple. What if they were spies, and these two little kids, who can barely tie their shoes, didn’t know they were spies?’ I thought of that on the set of Four Rooms. There are four of those [Spy Kids movies] now and a TV series coming. “So that’s one. The other one was, after [Four Rooms] failed, I thought, ‘I still love short films.’ Anthologies never work. We shouldn’t have had four stories; it should have been three stories because that’s probably three acts, and it should just be the same director instead of different directors because we didn’t know what each person was doing. I’m going to try it again. Why on earth would I try it again, if I knew they didn’t work? Because you figured something out when you’re doing it the first time, and [the second attempt] was Sin City.” TIM: “Amazing.

Name: ???? It was too rotted to tell. Captain:??? Some man wearing underpants on his head. Reaction: mumbles and grumbles and drools (I didn't want to get too close.)

This was also concerning. When most people said they had a slight problem, it meant they’d done something like burn the toast. For Erica, it was most likely something far worse. For example, a missile attack. A kid my age really shouldn’t have known what an incoming missile looked like. But sadly, I had seen one more times than I’d seen Star Wars. And so I instantly recognized the shiny silver object racing toward us outside my window.

Kimmy, who spent most of the time making lame excuses for Jason’s behavior, apparently worried that I might blab to the press that the president’s son was a jerk—or worse, that I’d seen the first daughter’s panties. “Jason has been under a lot of pressure lately,” Kimmy explained weakly. “It’s tough to be a kid when the public is watching you all the time.” “Know what else is tough?” I asked. “Getting falsely accused of being a pervert in front of the Secret Service.” “Er . . . yes,” Kimmy conceded. “I suppose it would be. Would a souvenir White House key chain make you feel better?” “A little,” I admitted. By the time Cyrus arrived fifteen minutes later, I had scored an additional four White House key chains, three White House reusable water bottles, a model of Air Force One, a set of fancy pens with the presidential seal on them, and three dozen packets of official White House jelly beans.

The sole book now in Dorothy’s possession is a copy of Hamilton’s Mythology. A book she has loved since childhood, when she spied the tattered paperback in a bin in her local library, passed over by all the other kids for its ruined state. It says on the back, published in the U.S.A. She has learned to read this foreign language from this book, this book of myths. She loves each of the little chapters, how they are short, and self-contained, but also all fit together in a larger universe of gods and goddesses, spirits, lower and higher, deities of all types and their seconds, their assistants, their rivalries and hierarchies, their relative powers and weaknesses. Their petty squabbles and sordid doings and secret crushes. Every time she opens the book, she hopes to turn to a new page, a new god, a little tiny thing. She likes the minor gods the best, because they are easier to master, to learn everything about. She can search out and soak up all of the other things that other people had written or said about this minor god, and in that way become an authority on such a god. And when she becomes an authority someday, an expert in her own right, she thinks that maybe she might be able to make her own entry in the book. To create a tiny god from scratch. She has not named it yet. Perhaps the god of bus rides. The god of sponge baths, or maps, or minimum wage. The god of immigrants.

It’s not bad, kid. We just need to refine it a little so you aren’t assuming responsibility for things outside of what you can handle or control. That’s the kind of thing that can crush a person if they aren’t careful. “How about we tweak it this way: ‘To gain the best information available in the hope of saving as many lives as possible.’ Would that allow you to keep the nature of your vow and hopefully your sanity later on? This is just the beginning, my dear. You don’t want to drown yourself in impossible tasks right away.” He smiled, and his eyes appeared kind.

thecapital

Into The Forest

…Your population of guards is pulling from the rural South Carolina job Market? Lotta poor white people bein’ eft behind while the planet’s getting’ warmer and the rich folk are fucking off to space. A lot of the bad stuff white did to Black folk, they did to these kids. Some of these kids came in beyond hope. They watched their parents get spied on by police and picked up in unmarked vans. Had their first taste of first-gen toasters. They just knew how the whole system was. They knew and didn’t give a fuck. I think it just made them more likely to blow the whole place up. Ain’t no cage for their kind of angry.

You were also at the Black Dock this morning.” “Are you asking if I’m spying on you?” “Either that or you desperately want in on the cool kids’ club.” “A good spy would tell you no, and say you’re being paranoid.” “But you’re…not a good spy?” “I’m not a spy at all, and you’re being paranoid.” Bryce rolled her eyes, and Hunt smiled to himself as she walked to the door, making it shut behind Baxian. As she closed the door, he heard her say to the Hellhound, “You’re going to fit right in around here.

She has turned on all the lights downstairs. 'Are you OK, Stan?' 'What are you doing, Laverne?' shouts Dad. 'Turn the lights off. Do you want everyone to see?' 'It’s late, Stan. Go to bed,' she sighs. 'You too, kids' she calls up at us. We go back to bed. -- The next morning, when Alice and I go down for breakfast, everything is exactly normal again. 'Dad…' I start, but Mum gives me a look that says, 'Don't you dare mention last night.' So I don't say anything. Dad beams at us over a big steaming cup of black coffee. 'Good morning, poppets. You sleep OK?' He looks tired and a bit dirty, but he has a huge grin on his face. 'Yes, thanks,' says Alice. I don't think she remembers last night at all. Right now

Mum’s phone beeps. 'Time to go,' she says. Dad gives Mum a quick peck on the cheek. 'I'm off too,' he says, gesturing towards his shed. Dad quit his real job a while ago to work on something important in his shed. 'I'm going to be pretty busy today, kids, so please don't disturb me.' 'Bye,' shouts Mum as she heads out of the door. 'Don't get up to any mischief. And please, Belle, try not to spend ALL day indoors.

Dora and John come round after breakfast. They are our next door neighbours and we see them practically every day, especially in the summer holidays when we are all bored and hot. Dora is thirteen, just like Alice and Moz. Dora and Alice are best friends forever. It can get a bit much sometimes. But that's OK, because this summer I am mainly hanging out with Moz and John. Moz is my big brother and he's pretty cool. He is enjoying lazing around at home and in the garden, getting a tan. I think this is because he likes to take his t-shirt off all the time to show the girls his cool bod! He has got a lot taller suddenly this year and looks strong and athletic. But I think he's still a bit of a kid inside, wanting to hang out with me and John rather than try and talk to all the cool girls and not knowing what to say. The down-side is that as he's the eldest, he's always bossing us around. He ALWAYS thinks he knows best. John is eleven, like me. He's OK most of the time, but he can be very annoying too.

Dora and John come round after breakfast. They are our next door neighbours and we see them practically every day, especially in the summer holidays when we are all bored and hot. Dora is thirteen, just like Alice and Moz. Dora and Alice are best friends forever. It can get a bit much sometimes. But that's OK, because this summer I am mainly hanging out with Moz and John. Moz is my big brother and he's pretty cool. He is enjoying lazing around at home and in the garden, getting a tan. I think this is because he likes to take his t-shirt off all the time to show the girls his cool bod! He has got a lot taller suddenly this year and looks strong and athletic. But I think he's still a bit of a kid inside, wanting to hang out with me and John rather than try and talk to all the cool girls and not knowing what to say. The down-side is that as he's the eldest, he's always bossing us around. He ALWAYS thinks he knows best. John is eleven, like me. He's OK most of the time, but he can be very annoying too. He

I wandered over to the adobe birthplace of Ignacio Seguin Zaragoza, whose father was posted at the garrison in the early 1800s. Zaragoza went on to become a national hero in Mexico, leading a reformist revolt against Santa Anna and defeat- ing an invading French force on May 5, 1862, the date celebrated as Cinco de Mayo. While exploring the birthplace, I met Alberto Perez, a history and so- cial studies teacher in the Dallas area who was visiting with his family. When I confessed my ignorance of Zaragoza, he smiled and said, "You're not alone. A lot of Texans don't know him, either, or even that Mexico had its own fight for independence." The son of Mexican immigrants, Perez had taught at a predominantly Hispanic school in Dallas named for Zaragoza. Even there, he'd found it hard to bring nuance to students' understanding of Mexico and Texas in the nineteenth century. "The word 'revolution' slants it from the start," he said. "It makes kids think of the American Revolution and throwing off oppression." Perez tried to balance this with a broader, Mexican perspective. Anglos had been invited to settle Texas and were granted rights, citizenship, and considerable latitude in their adherence to distant authority. Mexico's aboli- tion of slavery, for instance, had little force on its northeastern frontier, where Southerners needed only to produce a "contract" that technically la- beled their human chattel as indentured servants. "Then the Anglos basically decided, 'We don't like your rules,"" Perez said. "This is our country now.

Why?’ ‘People use them as a security device, to keep a track of the kids, anything really. I think some insurance firms even give lower premiums if you have one. Spy more, pay less, that kind of thing.’ ‘Yeah, well, I’m guessing Kirsty had no idea it was there,’ Matt said. ‘You’d have to be looking for it to find it, if you know what I mean.’ They were less than a mile away now from Daryl. But that mile just couldn’t zip by quick enough. ‘We’re nearly back at the house,’ Harry said. ‘What about you and Jen?’ ‘We were just about to head over to speak with Adam’s brother,’ Matt said. ‘Just to check up on what he saw up on the moors, the lights and whatnot. Just wanted to get this development to you first.’ ‘Right,’ Harry said. ‘Good job. Well, you crack on with that, see what Gary has to say. But get a message through to Jadyn to contact Swift and tell him what we’re up to.’ ‘Will do, Boss.’ Harry told Jim to hang up. ‘We’re nearly there,’ he said, dropping speed now as they passed into a residential zone.

That kid couldn’t find a bomb if it was taped to his butt.

Plotted with an enjoyable amount of suspense, Ponti’s story features a well-drawn cast of kids from around the world forming a chosen family with sibling-like dynamics. A page-turner suited to even the most reluctant readers.” —Publishers Weekly

our tacit agreement. I’ll go in, then we’ll see what happens. At least you’ll have a spy inside the gate, at that point.” “It seems wrong to use you so.” “Mm, but kids only dare defy those whom they really trust. The fact that I’m still mostly a stranger to him gives me an advantage, which I invite you to use.” “True enough. Well . . . all right.” The door opened a cautious crack. Miles waited. It opened a little wider. He sighed, turned sideways, and slipped through. Nikki shut it again immediately,

Is that them?” “No, that’s a Pontiac.” “It is?” Angela watched it go by. “Well, what were they in?” “A Chevrolet.” “I can’t tell the difference,” she admitted. “There isn’t any.” She looked at me, to see if I was kidding, and said, “Then how do you tell them apart?” “The hood ornament. All General Motors cars have different hood ornaments. That’s so the salesmen can tell how much to charge.

Unfortunately, Beck and Adrian weren’t allowed to sleep, either. Maybe two minutes after they’d snuggled into each other, and Adrian was about to get his nap on, there was a relentless pounding on Beck’s door. Beck grabbed something and threw it at the door. Not the lube, Adrian hoped. Whatever it was made a satisfactory thud. “Go the fuck away," Beck bellowed. “What the hell is going on in there? Half the frat is complaining you woke them up. The other half is bitching that you’re having way too much fun and it’s rude to not share with everyone.” Adrian recognized the voice. It was Travis, the frat President, and he sounded super butthurt. “No sharing,” Beck bellowed. “Get your own twink.” “What?” Travis yelled back. Beck got out of bed and flung open the door. On the other side was Travis, and behind him was an assortment of other brothers. Most of them Adrian knew by sight but couldn’t put names to the faces. “Go away,” Beck snarled at Travis. “You’re harshing my afterglow.” “You’re naked,” Travis pointed out. He seemed confused as he looked over Beck’s shoulder and saw Adrian in Beck’s bed. Adrian gave Travis a little wave with his fingers. “And there’s a dude in your bed.” “Thank you, Captain Observation. Go. Away.” “But you’re not gay.” Travis glanced at some of the brothers who stood behind him like he was searching for moral support. “Right?” “None of your fucking business. In future, we’ll try to keep down the noise. I think I need to muzzle the kid. Or maybe just keep my dick in his mouth.” Adrian grinned. He had no idea how long Beck’s attraction would last, but he decided he was gonna ride that gravy train as long as possible. “But then you couldn’t fuck my tight ass, Daddy,” he called out. The brothers outside the room looked shocked, like they were a bunch of middle-aged white women who’d been shown porn for the first time. It was fucking hilarious and Adrian couldn’t help but giggle. Beck turned back to him. “This is true, and your ass is very fine. Ball gag it is.” He turned back to Travis. “Does a ball gag work for you?” “I… what?” Travis’ voice had gone weak and plaintive. It was clear he no longer wished to be a part of the conversation. “A. Ball. Gag. Used for stifling the noises made by twinks who are apparently screamers. I had no idea the kid was gonna be a screamer, Travis. Hell, I had no idea he was hiding in my bathroom, spying on me. But thanks to that glory hole bullshit, I did know that the kid could suck a golf ball through a garden hose and that’s not a skill I think should go to waste. So he’s mine now. He’s gonna move his shit out of the basement and into my room. And he’s mine, you get me? No one lays even the tiniest finger on him. Fuck. Don’t even look at him cross-eyed. Mine. Get your own twinks.

Do you think God stays in heaven because he too, lives in fear of what he's created?

The face Isaac made when bonding with his aluminum toy would have made you smile. The innocence of it. It was one of those mind-lending activities that make us like people—like spying on someone playing the piano or solving a puzzle. Every person looks like a child when de-seeding a pomegranate. If you watch someone open a juice box, however old, you’ll see them young again—their soft, wondering face. It’s one of the most ephemeral beauties for the eyes to partake in.

Warren, however, was one of those kids so rigid about proper procedures that he could barely brush his teeth without consulting a manual.

Why would a kid have meat on his jacket?” Fry demanded. “Why would a kid have explosives on his jacket?” Kimmy countered.

And since the bus was full of middle school kids, it was only halfway to its destination before everyone on board had to go to the bathroom. (Erica sparked this by loudly declaring that she had to go, and was immediately seconded by a chorus of other tweens who’d had way too much soda before boarding the bus.)

She seems dazed like she hasn't grasped it yet. Sam's staying with her…’ The volume of his voice faded in and out. ‘Those poor kids. Leah's just a year older than you, and Seth is only fourteen…’ He shook his head. He kept his arms tight around me as he started toward the door again. ‘Um, Dad?’ I figured I'd better warn him. ‘You'll never guess who's here.’ He looked at me blankly. His head swiveled around, and he spied the Mercedes across the street, the porch light reflecting off the glossy black paint. Before he could react, Olivia was in the doorway. ‘Hi, Mr. Anderson,’ she said in a subdued voice. ‘I'm sorry I came at such an inconvenient time.’ ‘Olivia?’ Peered at the slight figure in front of him as if he doubted what his eyes were telling him. ‘Olivia is that you?’ ‘It's me,’ she confirmed. ‘I was in the neighborhood.’ ‘Is Chiaz…?’ ‘No, I'm alone.’ Both Olivia and I knew he wasn't asking about Chiaz. His arm tightened around my shoulder. ‘She can stay here, can't she?’ I pleaded. ‘I already asked her.’ ‘Of course,’ Mr. Anderson said mechanically. ‘We'd love to have you, Olivia.’ ‘Thank you, Mr. Anderson. I know it's horrid timing.’ ‘No, it's fine. I'm going to be busy doing what I can for Harry's family; it will be nice for Karly to have some company.’ ‘There's dinner for you on the table, Dad,’ I told him. ‘Thanks, Bell.’ He gave me one more squeeze before he shuffled toward the kitchen. Olivia went back to the couch, and I followed her. This time, she was the one to pull me against her shoulder. ‘You look tired.’ ‘Yeah,’ I agreed and shrugged. ‘Near-death experiences do that to me… So, what does Chiaz think of you being here?

Unfortunately for Jemma, all of this prevented me from doing what she probably wanted most: simply closing the bathroom door. It now swung all the way open, so that Jemma was still fully visible on the toilet when three more Secret Service agents came charging up the stairs. All of them had their weapons drawn, ready for action. Jemma screamed again, then kicked the bathroom door shut in their faces. The agents now shifted their attention to me, yanking me off the floor and shoving me up against the wall. Several pairs of hands roughly frisked me at once. I tried to explain what had happened, but the first Secret Service agent had knocked the wind out of me when she’d tackled me. All that came out was a wheeze of air. “Miss Stern?” the biggest of the agents called through the bathroom door. “Miss, is everything all right in there?” “No, everything isn’t all right!” Jemma yelled back. “That little pervert walked in on me!” “It was an accident,” I gasped. “She hadn’t locked the door.” “I shouldn’t have to lock the door in my own house!” Jemma cried. “This is the most secure building in the country! I wasn’t expecting a pervert to be on the loose here!” The Secret Service agents all looked at me accusingly. “I’m not a pervert,” I said quickly. “I’m a friend of Jason’s, here to hang out.” This didn’t seem to convince the agents of anything. “I wasn’t informed of any playdate today,” the big agent said. “It’s not a playdate,” I said quickly. “And it was kind of last-minute. Maybe they forgot to tell you.” “Or maybe you’re a pervert who snuck in here to see Jemma Stern on the toilet,” the agent replied suspiciously. The agent who’d tackled me was massaging her back where she’d been gouged by the stuffed eagle. She pounded on Jason’s door and said, “Jason, could you please come out here?” “I’m busy!” Jason shouted back. I figured he had certainly heard all the commotion in the hall but was willfully ignoring it. “It’s a matter of national security,” the wounded agent said. Jason groaned, and then the sound of his video game paused. His footsteps slowly thumped across the floor. “Could you all possibly handle this somewhere else?” Jemma asked through the bathroom door. “I could really use some privacy.” “We’re taking care of this as quickly as we can, miss,” the female agent informed her. “Feel free to go on with your business.” “You have got to be kidding me,” Jemma groaned.