Tara Sly, Super Spy

Meet Tara: student, gymnast, and daughter to two of the top minds in the spy business. When she notices a potentially dangerous blueprint for an entry to the upcoming science fair, Tara gets to work.

            There were only four minutes left and Mr. Wallace was still rambling. Of all the teachers at Skyview Academy, he was by far the strangest. And that's saying something. When you go to the most exclusive prep school in the lower 48 states, everyone is a little odd. We can deny it in public and defend our school's elite status with decades of excellent test scores and numerous awards, but everyone here knows the truth: we're a bunch of eccentric weirdos being taught by professional weirdos.

            But Mr. Wallace wasn't even one of our real teachers. He's a year-long substitute for last year's "Outstanding Teacher of the Year", Ms. Morgan. She took the year off to finish working on her Solar Water Purification System in Africa. It wouldn't be so bad if Mr. Wallace could take a single breath without talking about comet 501-P, or Wallace Prime, as he named it. That's right, he named a comet after himself.

            "Miss Sly?" he asked.

            It's always "comet" this and "meteor shower" that. He has comets on his ties and coffee mugs. All of his posters and binders are covered in comets.

            "Earth to Miss Sly. Come in Miss Sly," he said.

            Recently, he'd been talking non-stop about how Wallace Prime was supposed to be orbiting close to Earth. Closer than it had ever been, and closer than it would ever be again in our lifetimes.

            "Hello? Tara?" Mr. Wallace asked.

            Someone kicked my chair and I snapped back to reality. Mr. Wallace was staring at me expectantly, like he'd been waiting for me to answer for a while now. "Well?" he said, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

            "Umm, comet? Tails? Comet tails?" I said, it was the first thing that came to mind.

            The class laughed a bit. Guess I was wrong.

            "Close, but no," Mr. Wallace said. "What good is close anyway?" he said. "Close didn't put us on the moon, Miss Sly."

            I shrank behind my desk.

            "Does anyone else know what astronomical event causes meteor showers?" he asked the class.

            Mark sat up tall and said, "Comets leave a trail of dust as they fly through space called meteoroid streams. When Earth's orbit goes through one of these trails, we see a meteor shower." He looked at me with a snide grin.

            "That's correct, Mark," Mr. Wallace said. "You make your father proud."

            I sank a little lower behind my desk. "Comet tails was totally close enough," I thought. If Mr. Wallace had a cloned, 12 year old version of himself - and who knows, maybe he already has - it's Mark. He was new to Skyview this year with his dad's new substitute teaching gig. I couldn't seem to escape him, either. Mark was in every one of my classes after lunch and he just started coming to my tai chi lessons on Tuesday nights. His light brown, curly hair, freckles, and blinky, know-it-all eyes were always judging me.

            "Everyone remember to bring your projects tomorrow," Mr. Wallace said. "After lunch, we'll be showcasing all of your inventions in the observatory. He looked directly at me and added, "Even if they're not all as stellar as Mark's."          

            The bell rang. Everyone gathered their things and quickly moved to the hallway. Mark scrambled to grab all of his notes. He and his dad always went to lunch together, and the cafeteria served chili dogs on Wednesdays. They pushed past a few students on their way out the door.

            Nerds love their chili dogs.

            I tucked my notebook into my bag and looked back at my desk when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a yellow folder under Mark's desk. I thought about trying to catch him, but he was already long gone. The hallway was full of students talking and rushing around, all while The Blue Danube played over the speaker system. I guess they think classical music is good for us.

            "It's probably just full of the best science notes a teacher could ask for," I thought as I picked up the folder and flipped through it. "Whoa! Hang on..what's this?"

            There was a detailed blueprint inside the folder with a big logo in the top-right corner that said "WX".    

            The project looked like a small, circular platform, big enough for one or maybe two people to stand on. There were six metal posts that lined the platform's edge, each one topped with a round, metallic sphere.

            "Looks impressive enough, Mark. But what does it do?" I wondered.

            The next page had a list of bullet points: create vibration, reach optimal frequency, and store excess energy.

            It went on to describe how this device could be linked together with others like it to eventually power themselves and create enough extra energy to power a small home, or mall, or an entire city.

            "Hmm, free energy. Not bad," I said out loud. "Beats my un-pickable lock, I guess."

            I flipped to the last page of design notes. They looked different than the first two. This wasn't Mark's flawless handwriting, and the math and scientific equations were way more complex. But the new picture is really what got my attention.

            Standing in the middle of the platform on Mark's free energy device was a man wearing a very high tech looking suit. He was touching two of the metal spheres with his outstretched fingers. In a handwriting that was scribbly and hard to read, the man was saying, "Finally!" In the corner of the blueprint, up by the WX logo, there was a sketch of a comet flying closer to Earth and the words, "Mine at last!"

            "Mr. Wallace?" I wondered. I tucked the folder into my bag and went to lunch with a full plate of food for thought.

            The rest of the day was a blur. I don't even remember going to my history class, and P.E. came and went without any real challenge, like normal. All I could think about were those blueprints, where I'd heard of WX before, and that Mark was definitely going to win tomorrow's science showcase with his free energy machine.

            When I got home, I sketched the WX logo for my aunt to see if she recognized it.

            "Nope, sorry dear," she said. "I've never seen anything like that before."

            "Do you think Mom might know?" I asked, trying to sound as innocent as possible.

            Her voice got suddenly serious, "Don't go bothering your parents about this," she said. "It's probably nothing and you know how busy they are right now."

            I shrugged my shoulders and said, "You're probably right. Thanks, Aunt Abby. I'm going upstairs to work on my lock a little bit more before the show tomorrow."

            I went up the stairs two at a time and shut the door to my room behind me. I probably didn't need to set both locks on it and activating the laser tripwire was definitely overkill, but you can never be too careful.

            Here's the deal: my parents are international super spies. I live with my aunt while they travel around the world, keeping us all safe. My name is Tara Sly, and I can't wait to join the family business.

            I pulled Mark's folder with the blueprints out of my bag and laid them out on my desk. Then I opened the top-left hand drawer. Odds and ends rattled around in the drawer, unsharpened pencils, permanent markers, my night vision contact lenses, the basics. I pushed all of that to the side, uncovering the biometric scanner Dad installed before they left on their current mission.

            "Tara, only use this if it's a real emergency," he said. "You can always reach us with this, and only your handprint can access it. Contact us with this, and we'll drop whatever we're doing and answer, got it?"

            That was nearly six months ago. I've never used it before. Really, I don't even know if it works, but this is the first time I've stumbled into the middle of a crazy plot to bring a comet crashing to Earth. I took a breath and placed my hand on the sensor.

            My desk started making noise, like a car when it's sitting at a red light. Then it seemed to come to life. A big antenna, headphones, and a microphone came out from the back of my otherwise boring-looking desk.

            I looked at it in amazement. "Whoa..." was all I managed to say. I put on the headphones and I could already hear my mother's voice on the other side.

            "Tara?" she whispered. "Tara, come in." There was a crack that sounded like a broom handle being snapped in half.

            Then Dad's voice cut in, stern, but also whispering, "Are you okay?" I heard two quick tapping sounds, then what sounded like a bunch of wet towels hitting the kitchen floor.

            "I'm fine. Are you guys, uh...busy?" I asked. Of course they were busy! But I couldn't think of anything else to say.

            There was a brief moment of silence on their end, then the sound of a door closing.

            Mom's voice said, "Sorry, babe, we're working. But we're never too busy for you."

            Dad said, "We've probably got 30 seconds or so before they realize that their security system is offline. How was tai chi this week? And ballet?"

            "Are you practicing your violin every day?" Mom asked. But it sounded like she already knew the answer.

            I cleared my throat, "Have you guys ever heard of a company called WX? I saw some plans for a free energy machine today, but that's not all," I started. But Dad cut me off.

            "Is there a logo or emblem?" he said, his tone was suddenly very serious. "Hold up the blueprints, Tara," he said.

            "What do you mean?" I stammered, "How do you? Can you see? What?"

            "Just do it, dear," Mom said.

            "Oh my gosh! Do you guys have a camera in my room?!" I said, raising Mark's blueprints over my head.

            "Seven," said Dad. "Well, seven that you'll probably ever be able to find, anyway."

            Mom added, "And we'll talk about your violin practice as soon as we get home."

            I groaned.

            Just then, an alarm went off in my headphones.

            "Tara, listen very carefully," Dad started. "WX is the science division of a larger group that goes by the name VOID." The alarm was getting louder. "They're a crazy group that only cares about scientific progress, no matter who might get hurt along the way."

            "Looks like our girl found her first mission," said Mom. "You've got to find and disable that machine before someone activates it."

            My voice was shaking. "But I don't know anything about it. How would I..? All of those plans might as well be written in Latin!" I said, panicking more than a little.

            Dad said, "They probably are, but don't worry." The alarm grew louder still. "Just find the machine and clip the yellow wire. It's always the yellow wire," he said.

            "Unless..." said Mom, but then the line cut to static.

            "Mom? Dad? Hello?!" I pushed my hand onto the bio-scanner again, but nothing happened. Then, the desk slowly returned to normal. The antenna lowered and the microphone folded up and disappeared into the back of my desk. I sat in my room listening to silence on a pair of headphones feeling more alone than I ever had before.

            "Unless what, Mom?" I asked the silence. I took off the headphones and tucked them into the drawer before sliding it closed.

            I flipped through the pages of the blueprints one at a time, trying to make sense of them. Then I spun around in my chair, looking for the cameras that my parents hid in my room.

            "Well, I guess it's time to get to work," I said. I began packing my bag to go back to school. "Good luck wherever you two are. And wish me luck, too," I said, still looking for a hidden camera.

            I laid my violin case on my bed a smiled. I spent the next hour practicing violin and thinking about Mom. I studied Mark's plans, especially the third page until it tied my stomach into knots. So I did a couple of stretching routines from last week's tai chi class. Aunt Abby called me down for supper, which I ate with one hand. The other was busy working on picking a practice lock Dad brought home from their last trip.

            As the sun set and the moon took over the sky, it was back to my room, out the window, across the roof, down our neighbor's tree, and back to school to save the world!

            Getting to school was easy, but getting inside the most advanced prep academy in the country was a bit more difficult. I flipped my hood and pulled up my scarf to cover my face, hoping it made me looking more like a ninja than a burglar. I'm sure there were plenty of cameras on me by this time, but security only looks at them if someone trips an alarm or vandalizes school property.

            Being at school after hours is always a little strange. The hallways are quiet. The rooms are empty. Not even the most dedicated teachers stayed here this late. Whether it's for a basketball or volleyball game, a choir concert, play, dance, or trying to stop a madman from destroying the planet, the hallways feel bigger when they're not packed shoulder-to-shoulder with classmates.

            The security system here is solid. The bad news is that my parents helped design it, so you know it's top-notch. But the good news is that my parents designed it, so I know a thing or two about it.

            First, I'd have to deal with the keypad locking system. Every student and teacher at Skyview Academy has a unique, four digit combination that can get them in the building. Pretty basic, right? But Dad built in an anonymous code to use in case of emergencies. I put on my lightweight leather gloves and took a deep breath. Dad's secret code was 27 digits long. It's hard enough to remember when you just need to get back into the building because you forgot a textbook, but it's incredibly hard when your hands are sweaty and you're trying to break into school the save the world.

            Finally, the locks clicked in place and I was in. "First one down," I thought.

            Upon opening the door, I was greeted by a series of red and green lasers flashing on and off, crisscrossing into an impassible grid. The red lasers went across the hallway from locker to locker and the green ones stretched from the floor to the ceiling. They blinked off and on, alternating from a vertical to a horizontal security field.

            I'm sure it's imposing enough to make most intruders think twice, but I knew better.

            "Cute, Dad," I thought as I set the timer on my watch for ten minutes and walked right through the red and green light show. Dad's password was more than just an anonymous key to the building, it also deactivated the entire school's security system for ten minutes.

            "If you can't get in, save the world, and get out in ten minutes, you're not trying hard enough," was one of his "motivational" mottos.

            The laser grid, as impressive as it looked, was old tech, anyway. I continued to walk through the lights, listening to The Blue Danube still quietly playing over the hallway speakers. Mom came up with something way more advanced than an alternating laser grid. She called it "SF-2", short for Sonar Function Security Field, an intelligent system programmed to pulse, listening for any abnormalities after hours. Footsteps, whispers, even a door closing would put the school on a Level 1 Lockdown, trapping anyone inside until the police arrived. She said that there were five lockdown levels and that Level 4 launched the entire building into orbit. I'm not sure if she was joking to hide her real answer. But if she was being honest, what could a Level 5 possibly be?

            I thought through the various possibilities as I made my way to the school's state of the art observatory, checking my watch every twenty seconds or so. I quietly opened the double doors and walked into the enormous room. As I turned to make sure the doors latched behind me, someone grabbed me, covering my mouth and pinching my nose closed.

            I thrashed my legs and squirmed my upper body, but the grip was too tight. Whoever grabbed me was wearing a lightweight, metallic suit, protecting them from my flailing legs.

            "Miss Sly," Mr. Wallace said, "of course you were the one to find Mark's notebook. However, I'm surprised you could understand any of it."

            I continued trying to escape, but couldn't make any progress, and I was quickly running out of breath.

            Mr. Wallace continued, "I've come too far for anyone to ruin my plans, Miss. Sly. Comet 501-P, or Wallace Prime as it will be remembered, won't orbit this close to Earth for another two hundred years. No one can stop me from bringing it crashing down!"

            I felt his grip loosen as he talked. I was able to move my shoulders the slightest bit.

            "Not even a spoiled, nosy brat like you," he said. As he let go of my nose, there was a quiet hissing sound and my first gasping breath was full of a small cloud of smoke. I coughed and choked and then my body hit the floor, rigid and unable to move. I was still very much awake, but my arms and legs wouldn't listen as my brain yelled at them to run!

            Mr. Wallace picked me up and carried me to the storage closet in the back of the observatory. His metallic suit hovered six inches off the ground, making the gentlest of humming sounds.

            "So that's how his footsteps weren't picked up by SF-2," I thought.

            He opened the storage closet doors and propped me up in the farthest corner of the small room. That's when I got my first full look of the real Mr. Wallace. Not the quirky substitute science teacher, but the lunatic who planned to bring a comet crashing into the Earth. His suit covered him from helmet to boot in a lightweight, grey material that had light green sensor pads the size of dimes on his elbows, knees, shoulders, and one in the middle of each palm.

            I was surprised that he didn't have some clever super villain speech for me. He simply turned, closed the closet door as he left and I heard the lock click before the hum of his crazy hover suit carried him away.

            The timer on my watch read seven minutes until the school's security system went back online and here I am, sitting paralyzed in a closet that smells like chilidogs. Mr. Wallace is probably out there putting the finishing touches on his grand invention for tomorrow's showcase.

            I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. Then, slowly, I started trying to wake up my fingers and toes. If could just get them to wiggle a little bit, then maybe the rest of my body might wake up, too.

            One minute passed, six to go, and so far nothing. "Come on, MOVE!" I thought, as sweat started to form on my forehead and palms.

            Another minute ticked by and I finally got my big toes to curl the slightest bit.

            "Gah! At this rate, the comet will be here before I get out of this stupid closet," I said to  myself.

            Then I remembered a story Mom told me about a time she and Dad got captured mid-mission. "Don't panic," she said. Panicking brings mistakes, and if you're ever in that position to begin with, you're already over your mistake allotment for the day."

            I let my body go limp, which wasn't hard, as I could only control my big toes. The bigger challenge was trying to calm my mind.

            I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. I counted my heartbeats until they gradually slowed down to a normal, totally not panicky level. I counted for three full minutes and the sweat on my forehead disappeared.

            Finally, I opened my eyes and took a deep breath, then I looked at my right arm. "Easy does it," I thought. Without the slightest hesitation, I raised my arm and looked at my watch. Two minutes left.

            I jumped to my feet, caught my balance on a shelf full of rolled up posters of constellations, and got to the locked door. I pulled my favorite lock pick out of my shoe where I've kept it ever since I got it on my sixth birthday. In the time it would take a janitor to sort through his key ring, trying to find the right key, I heard the tumblers fall into place, unlocking the closet door.

            Ninety seconds left. I pressed my ear to the unlocked door, listening for the low hum of Mr. Wallace's hover suit, but heard only silence.

            "Here goes nothing," I thought, and I opened the door. Mr. Wallace's machine was sitting in the middle of the empty room, but the super villain substitute was nowhere in sight.

            I went to the far side of the machine and saw the control panel, just like on the blueprint. Fifty seconds to go.

            I opened the control panel door, ready to cut the yellow wire and sprint for the door. But when I lifted the panel door, my heart sank. Every single wire was covered in a heavy yellow coating.

            "Thanks a lot, Dad," I mumbled. "What was it that Mom tried to say before our conversation got cut off? 'Unless...' was all she said."

            I spent the next ten seconds looking at the guts of Mark's - no, Mr. Wallace's - machine before something clicked in my brain. My earliest tai chi lessons all came rushing back and I knew exactly what to do. I saw that I had just over thirty seconds to rewire Mark's project and get out the building before SF-2 came back online.

            Thinking back to the blueprints, I knew the basics behind Mark's free energy machine. "Thanks for the bullet points, Mark," I thought. I took the frequency generator wire and split it with one of the battery lines that was supposed to hold the extra power the machine made. "That should mess up all of the complex math in Mr. Wallace's equations. Close enough, anyway," I said with a slight grin.

            Or at least I hoped so, because I was out of time. My watch vibrated slightly as I secured the control panel back into place.

            "Now I just have to figure out a way to get past SF-2 and get home before Aunt Abby realizes that I'm gone," I thought.

            I sat motionless as The Blue Danube kept playing over the hallway speakers. I steadied my breathing, being careful not to inhale too deeply or exhale too loudly. My eyes darted around the observatory's towering walls. I continued to listen to the song and scan the room, looking for any possible escape when I noticed something. It was small, but it was most definitely something.

            A faint blue light, no more than a flickering blip, flashed in time with the music. I'd never noticed it before, but now that I saw one, I suddenly remembered seeing these lights above every classroom doorway, both inside the classrooms and out in the halls.

            I studied it just moment longer when a thought occurred to me, "My parents have been preparing me for this my whole life. The lock pick was more than a fun hobby. The tai chi taught me to look for ways to counter obstacles instead of hitting them head on. The violin taught me timing...and patience. And...," I slowly bent down to untie my shoes, "ballet to keep me light on my feet."

            I tied my shoes together with the laces and slung them over my right shoulder. Then I watched the blue light blink again and again, always in time with the music. Taking a slow, deep breath, I did the only thing I could think to do. I jumped.

            Not high. Nothing crazy. But I jumped a few inches off the ground, timing my landing with the music and the steady blink of the blue light.

            I stood straight and tall, like I was performing in front of an audience. And nothing happened. No sirens, no lockdown, just the continual blinking blue light as the song continued to play throughout the building.

            As long as my timing was perfect and I landed in time with the music, SF-2 was a piece of cake. I couldn't wait to tell Mom that I figured out how to beat her prized security system, assuming it didn't launch me into orbit if I missed a step.

            "I'm glad my friends aren't here," I thought as I danced down the hallway carrying my shoes like a purse. I leapt and bounded, always landing softly, always in time with the 150 year old song. I danced my way in and out of Dad's pretty laser grid as if it was a game and kept dancing until I was out of the building and off of the school's property. I danced because I didn't know how far Mom's security really reached. But also, after the night I just had, dancing was all I felt like doing, anyway.

            I just finished my first mission! And it went...it went pretty well, I guess. It could have gone better, but at least I made it home.

            I put my shoes back on, climbed up our neighbors' tree, crawled out on the big limb that hangs over our roof, dropped down and ran to my window. Once I got back inside, I checked the locks on my bedroom door. It didn't look like Aunt Abby tried to open it while I was gone. I unlocked them and yelled down the hallway, "I'm going to shower and go to bed, Abby."

            "What are you still doing up?" she answered. "I thought you were asleep hours ago. Hey, what time is the science show tomorrow?"

            "One o'clock, right after lunch," I said as I shut the bathroom door behind me.

            My hair was still wet and my mind was racing as I hit the pillow.  I wondered about Mr. Wallace and Mark. Did Mark know what his dad was planning? I second guessed my ability to rewire Mark's machine. I thought about beating SF-2. I thought about dancing in the hallways. But before long, my body gave up on my brain and I fell into a deep sleep.

            As soon as I woke up, my mind went straight back to asking a hundred questions a minute, but the one that stood out the most was, "Did I do enough?"

            "Should I have cut the wires instead of rearranging them?" I wondered at breakfast.

            "What exactly is going to happen with Mark flips the switch on his machine today after lunch?" I thought while I got my books out of my locker and went to my first class. "It's not like I know anything about free energy making machines turned into comet-seeking magnets."

            Then I looked at the faint blue light blinking in time with The Blue Danube as the bell rang and wondered if anyone might have looked at last night's security camera footage.

            "So what if they do," I decided. "Maybe they'll also see a crazy substitute science teacher floating around in a homemade space suit locking kids into storage closets!"

            The rest of the morning crawled by. History and math seemed to take longer than normal. I didn't even know that was possible. And then it hit me, I have science with Mr. Wallace right before lunch!

            "I can't go to his class today," I thought, panic starting to set in again. "He might think I'm still locked in the storage closet. No, he would have checked it by now, right?" My mind was a blur. "So he probably knows that I escaped by now. Does he know that I messed with his machine, too?"

            I suddenly felt sick, which gave me an idea. It wasn't a great idea, and certainly not flattering, but it was all that I had. I went to the closest girls' restroom, checked to make sure all of the stalls were empty, and went to the farthest one from the door.

            "At least Mr. Wallace won't find me in here," I tried to comfort myself.

            I pulled my feet up and sat cross-legged so no one could see me if they looked under the stall doors. I waited there, on the toilet, listening to The Blue Danube play on repeat until the bell rang for lunch.

            "Spy movies never show the tedious waiting scenes," I thought. "It's all motorcycle chases and fancy gadgets. Never a twelve year old girl hiding in a bathroom."

            When lunch was over, I heard the hallways fill up and move towards the observatory, where the science showcase was about to begin.

            I hopped down and left the bathroom to blend into the crowd. Dad told me once, "sometimes the best place to hide is in plain sight." So I joined the herd of kids and walked to the observatory. I stopped as soon as I entered the big room and let the crowd fill in around me.

            "Can I have everyone's attention, please?" our principal said over the room's speaker system. "I know we're all very excited to day, but if everyone could make their way to Mark Wallace's display, we'll start the show."

            The kids all moved in that direction and I took two small steps backwards. Who knew what would happen when he flipped that switch.

            Just then, Mr. Wallace made his grand entrance, floating in wearing his space suit. "Today," he started, "you're all going to witness a brilliant moment in scientific history!"

            I shrank a bit and avoided making eye contact as he hovered over the crowd and landed in the middle of the platform on Mark's project. He looked at the metal spheres all around the platform and held out his arms until he could almost reach across the small circular space. The dime-sized pads on his elbows, knees, and palms started to glow. He nodded towards Mark, signaling him to turn on the machine.

            "At last!" he yelled. "Finally, we all get to see WALLACE PRIME!"

            Mark flipped the main power switch and the low frequency generator started to hum.

            "Yes, YES!" Mr. Wallace continued to yell.

            But Mark looked concerned. He twisted a few dials trying to figure out why his project wasn't operating at full capacity. "Dad..." he said, his mouth hanging open.

            I looked in amazement with the rest of the crowd as Mr. Wallace started to float higher and higher in the air. Mark jumped to grab him, holding onto his dad's homemade space suit as they continued to climb higher towards the open ceiling, the circular pads were glowing brighter now.

            "Someone shut the observatory viewing roof!" a voice yelled. But it would take nearly five minutes for the motorized ceiling to fully close, and the Wallace boys would be drifting dozens of feet above the school by that time.

            "So," I wondered, "if the machine isn't bringing the comet to Earth, did I rewire it to send whoever was wearing the suit to the comet instead?" Not bad for a kid who entered an unpickable lock into a science show.

            The entire school watched helplessly as their bizarre substitute science teacher and his son flew up and out of sight. Needless to say, the rest of the science show as cancelled.

            By the end of the day, there were plenty of rumors going around. Some said that the Wallace duo landed safely a few miles off the coastline. Others claimed that they were picked up by a government jet. All that I know is that I watched the sky as a shooting star flashed across the horizon on my way home.

            When I got home, Aunt Abby told me that my parents left me a message.

            I ran to my room, locked the door and turned my desk back into the Family Sly Communication Center. "Mom? Dad? Hello?" I asked into the microphone.

            Dad answered, "Hey kiddo, sorry we got interrupted last time, work stuff, you know how it is. How was school today?"           

            I smiled. My mind was reeling, trying to figure out where to begin. How do you tell such a crazy story? "It was fine," I said. Seemed like a good place to start.

            "How's your aunt?" Mom asked. "She's not trying any crazy new recipes, is she? Or messing with any old ones?"

            "Nope, nothing new happening here. Just another Thursday," I said.

            "That's good," my mom said. "We should be home in a few days. Maybe we can plan a little vacation."

            Dad cut in, "Maybe hit the beach, walk along the coastline. Or we could grab a jet and go skydiving!" he said.

            "Sounds nice," I said, trying to play it cool. " Well, I'll talk to you then. Thanks for checking in. Bye!" I switched off the microphone and put away the headset.

            Did they already know about Mr. Wallace? They had to, right?

            "It's their job to know," I said out loud in my bedroom all by myself. I turned around in my chair and gave a slight wave to the cameras I couldn't see. And I knew my parents were waving back.

           

Author's Note

This first ran on our podcast back in the summer of 2015, so I'm not looking for line edits or anything like that. However, I am always open to constructive criticism and/or friendly compliments. :)