Chapter Four- The A-Word

Zoey begins obsessing of Ansley's file and learns more about her family and her Aunt's life before she went missing

CHAPTER 4- THE A-WORD

 

 

 

 

A few days after her return from the IUOS, cheerleading tryouts for Annapolis High School were held and Zoë did not go. She couldn’t have gone. Zoë was doomed to spend the rest of her high school career at the TSU. Zoë was going to miss normal school, with its sports and clubs that had nothing to do with spy work or trying to hack enemy computers. It wasn't until the day of cheerleading tryouts came and went that Zoë decided she was ready to look at the file.

The file had spent those last few days sitting Zoë's backpack hidden in the back of her closet. Zoë was afraid to look at it for fear that someone would walk in and see her with the incriminating file. Zoë was half expecting her dad to come home from work one day telling the family at dinner about the scandal where someone took Ansley's file the day he took Zoë to work.  Then again, Zoë thought, he wouldn't bring up Ansley's file at home because of Grandma so there could be a huge search for the file going on and she could have no idea. Those thoughts didn't make her any more eager to look at her aunt's file.

It was around 2:00am when Zoë woke up from a dream. She was at TSU with a bunch of kids she didn't know and then a huge dog jumped on her. The dog's jump woke her up and Zoë returned to Annapolis seeing her closet door wide open. Turning the desk lamp on Zoë crept to closest and grabbed her backpack. Sitting back on her bed she took out the file. Zoë made sure her door was fully closed and shut the blinds on her window, going to a spy school made her especially aware of these kinds of things.  Checking once more to make sure no one was looking, Zoë opened the file and out poured piles of papers and pictures that spend all over her bed.

The first thing Zoë picked up was a newspaper article from the TSU parent's monthly bulletin. The article was titled “Training Squad 16 Tackles Toughest Missions" and beside the title was a picture captioned 'squad 16 members Danny Jameson, Brittany Tanner and in center, leader Ansley Parker.' The photo was of three kids around Zoë's age laughing with their arms around each other. The one in the center was definitely her Aunt Ansley, she had freckles and long blonde curly hair that flew around her face. They were all wearing TSU t-shirts and shorts. Ansley had scrapes on her knees and tons of colorful bracelets on her wrist.  Below that picture were individual shots of each of the kids. Ansley's photo was captioned 'Fourteen year old Ansley Parker and her spy dog K9 Agent 87 Ice'. Next to Ansley was a large wolf like dog with big blue eyes and a large toothy smile. Zoë set down the newspaper and picked up a mission report from the IUOS. 'Ansley Parker performed admirably on her mission in New York City...” the report started off with, Zoë set it down, that wasn't the kind of thing she wanted to read. She checked the date on the mission report, Ansley would have been sixteen. That wasn't right, TSU students couldn't start IUOS missions at sixteen, could they? Zoë decided if she was going to find anything she would first have to organize all the papers. As the dark night sky turned to the pale blue hue of the morning Zoë organized Ansley's information into piles, one pile for each age, spanning from when she thirteen to when she was twenty. Zoë was exhausted she tried her best to keep the hard earned piles from mixing. Zoë heard footsteps coming from down the halls. She stuffed all the papers into her backpack and fell back into her covers pretending to be asleep. Her father's head popped through the crack of her door looking around her room. He whispered, "Zoë? You up?"

Zoë kept silent as her father closed the door and prepared to leave for work.

Zoë shot out of bed and make sure her piles where intact. She found pieces of colorful construction paper to separate the different piles and slid the back in the file. The file was returned to its cozy spot in her backpack and the backpack was tucked away under the bed.  Knowing that the file was safely hidden Zoë crawled in bed and went back to sleep.

"Hey who's this?" A voice said from the floor by Zoë's bed. She blinked open her eyes and saw Tammy sitting cross legged on the floor looking at a picture. The sun shone through the blinds and Zoë saw the stereo clock on her desk. It was 1:03 in the afternoon.

"What are looking at?" Zoë mumbled still waking up.

"This," Tammy showed her the small photo. It was one of the newspaper clippings from the file, it was the one with Ansley and her training squad. It took Zoë a few seconds to realize what it was.

"Gimme it!" Zoë tried to tug the picture away from, but Tammy was too fast for her. Tammy would be the worst person to find out that she smuggled a file out of the IUOS. She'd tell everyone.

"Who are these people?  Are they your friends from school?"

"No! Just give it to me!"

"Thought so, they seem popular, you’re friends are those weird wanna-be punk kids right?” Tammy asked. Zoey lunged at her from her bed.

"I’m not wanna-be punk! What does that even mean? Christ Tammy just give it to me!"

"No!" Tammy said. “And you are such a wanna-be punk it’s ridiculous.”

"Tammy…" Zoë began and sighed. She could never win, her parents liked Tammy too much. "It's one of the pictures from Grandma and Grandpa's room okay? I wanted to look at it."

"Who are these people?" Tammy asked. "Why did you want to see this picture?"

Zoë debated on whether to tell Tammy the truth or not. If she told her who it was, she could go blabbing about how Zoë was doing research on Ansley. If she lied, Tammy would probably ask someone about the photo and Zoë would be caught in a lie. "Aunt Ansley and her friends when she was kid."

"Oh, so that's what she looked like! I heard Grandpa talking about her once to Grandma and she got mad. So I asked dad about her, and he got mad, saying I couldn't talk about her in front of Grandma and Grandpa. Who is she?"

"Dad's little sister." Zoë discovered she didn't like talking about Ansley either. It felt like she was talking about something forbidden and evil, something that should never be spoken of.

"Like Uncle Aaron? Why don't we see her? Is she on missions all the time too?"

"No, Tammy it’s a long story okay."

Tammy seemed disappointed.  She walked out of the room with the picture. "Fine, I knew you wouldn’t tell me anyway."

"You still have to give it back!" Zoë hollered sitting up in her bed.

"It's not yours. I just taking it back to Grandpa's room."

"Not while he's in there!" Zoë yelled, imaging what would happen if Tammy walked into Grandpa's room with that picture. He would know it wasn't his, Grandma would have a fit at the mention of Ansley, and all the drama would return back to Zoë and she'd be in trouble again.

"He's not. Grandma and Grandpa are at the doctors."  Tammy left.

The rest of the day Zoë was on edge. Her grandparents came home from the doctors after lunch. Grandpa went straight up to his room, Zoë wasn't too worried about him, she did not think he would notice an extra picture. It was grandma that Zoë was worried about. Grandma practically memorized the house and would notice if anything was out of place.  She must have been a good agent at that kind of thing, Zoë thought.

Apparently all the other Parker's were getting worried about Grandma too, because the next day Zoë's father took her out to lunch and for a walk around the park. It was mid-July and the weather was getting much hotter, especially at the Parker's house since they never got their air conditioning fixed since last summer.  Zoë decided that this was going to be her only opportunity to get the photo back out of her grandparents’ room because her grandmother is always in there helping her grandpa. Zoë sat in the hallway across from her grandparents’ room pretending to read her summer reading book waiting for grandpa to leave. To go to the bathroom, get a snack, anything. Zoë didn't think finding one photo would be so hard. 

After some time of just sitting in the hallway, Zoë's grandpa did leave his room and went to the bathroom. As soon as the bathroom door shut behind him, Zoë dashed inside her old room and began scanning the walls and furniture for the picture. Finding the picture was much harder than Zoë had imagined, her grandparents had so many pictures it was hard to tell. Most of them were family photos from when their kids were younger.  Everyone looked pretty much the same. Grandpa's hair was gray even then, but he was much fitter and seemed happier. Grandma's hair was a darker blonde than it was now and her smile was bigger than Zoë had ever seen it. Her dad had more hair and seemed much more athletic. Uncle Aaron seemed the same, long blonde hair, tall and lanky, and in most of the family pictures he was giving Jeff 'bunny ears' with his fingers. There were pictures of other family members from around the country as well, other famous Parker agents from different branches and regions of the IUOS. At first Zoë did not see any pictures of anyone that could be Ansley, then on one of the bureaus Zoë saw a large cluster of frames, all with smiling blonde haired girls.

It was like a shrine. There were baby pictures of Ansley, softball pictures of Ansley, Ansley on her first day of school. Those were the earlier ones. In that group of pictures Ansley smiled shyly and looked happiest when she was with her brothers. As the photos went on, Zoë entered Ansley's TSU years. There was her with other kids smiling at TSU camp and Ansley and her brothers unpacking on her first day of school. Her posing arm and arm with a group of kids in the dorm lounge, Ansley with her huge spy dog. Those were the ones where she smiled the most, she always seemed like she was laughing. There were pictures of her at award ceremonies, Ansley wearing beautiful dresses carrying armfuls of trophies and ribbons. A few pictures later she was wearing a graduation cap and gown, Zoë compared that picture to the one before it. Ansley seemed like she had not aged much when she graduated, she looked the same from the previous picture from her sixteenth birthday. Weird, Zoë thought as she set down the picture and finally saw the picture she was looking for. It was propped up against the old table lamp on the other side of the table. Zoë grabbed it and was about to make a break for the door when Grandpa came in.

"Going somewhere?" Grandpa said chuckling. "Just looking at pictures?"

Zoë froze, picture in hand, and nodded. Grandpa smiled.

"Yeah that's where we keep our pictures of…well you know." Grandpa said walking over to where Zoë stood.  "What picture is that?" He asked, gesturing to the one in Zoë's hand. She gave it to him.

"Strange, I don't remember this one. Stinks getting old, don't it?" Grandpa said squinting at it. Zoë was silent. "Oh now I remember! This was her old training squad! I remember this."

Zoë breathed a sigh of relief.

"Yeah these were her buddies back in the day, I remember. They used to come over all summer, them and some other kids. That was her roommate," he said pointing to the girl in the picture." And…him," Grandpa said grinning. "That was Danny Jameson. I remember that kid. Wacky kid, always had some new crazy idea in that head of his, goodhearted though. I always liked him."

Zoë smiled. Not because it looked like her secret was still safe, not that she wasn't happy about that, but more that Grandpa was being Grandpa again. Ever since he moved in with Zoë, he kept in his room and barely said two words to anyone.  Zoë hadn't talked to her grandfather in ages, and for once, he seemed happy.

            "Yeah they would always come over, they only lived about an hour away. And when they got their licenses? Forget about it! They'd be here every week asking when…when...she… would be home from her mission. We'd always tell them, not yet, soon! But not yet!" Grandpa said laughing. "Then they would end up staying for dinner! God I miss that."

Zoë laughed too, thinking about Luke’s proposition to invite themselves over and bust her out of being grounded. Maybe she would have him come, as a joke for Grandpa, since he missed having Ansley's friends visit.

"Yeah they missed her. And she missed them, after her graduation and all, she barely got to see them, which really took its toll." Grandpa said sadly.

"An-...She was older than her training squad?" Zoë asked, catching herself before she said her name. The A-Word.

"No…no. She graduated early, two whole years to be exact. Teachers thought it was best, she was years ahead of everyone in school, they wanted in her in the IUOS. It seemed like a good idea, but then..."  Grandpa said with a pained look on his face, as if he was convincing himself he did the right thing while reliving an old nightmare.

"Well I'm exhausted! It's been nice to talk with you Zoë, I haven't gotten to see you in ages."  Grandpa said. Zoë took the hint and left the room and the picture behind. As Zoë closed the door behind her, she thought she heard crying.

Back in her room Zoë sifted through the different piles in the file and found the section for when she was sixteen. In that section Zoë letters from the TSU director to Ansley's parents, they talked about the prospect of Ansley graduating early and for her to join the IUOS.

 

From The Offices of the TSU Director

To: The Parents of Ansley Parker

Subject: Graduation

 

Parents of Agent 15 (Ansley Parker)

Agent 15 has been an excellent agent throughout her three years at the TSU Academy of Florida. She has made advances in all areas of spy work. Ansley has proved herself to be one of the best up and coming agent of the generation. All members of your family must be very proud of her. As you know, majority of Ansley's classes and course work at school these past two years have been extremely advanced for agents in training her age, and despite all the challenging class work she has excelled beyond all expectations. Her advances in her mission work with her training squad, squad 16 and her spy dog Ice, have been fantastic. These are all reasons why Ansley is being considered for early graduation.

 

If Ansley were to graduate by the end of her sophomore year, she would skipping two entire years of high school in favor of joining with the IUOS. Because of Ansley's advanced course work she is eligible to graduate by the end of this current school year if she passes all her classes. If graduating early Ansley would be inducted into the IUOS at the annual TSU/IUOS ceremony in July with the seniors of this year. After being inducted into the IUOS she will then take more training courses and college level classes while working on IUOS level missions. These are things she would be doing after she graduated high school.  After taking training courses and college classes for a year Ansley will be a full employee of the IUOS. She will go to work each day at the nearest IUOS branch and take on various missions and tasks. She is not permitted to work on any international missions until she is eighteen so until she turns eighteen her missions will stay in the United States. The missions she will work on for the IUOS will be full adult missions, but we are positive that Ansley will be able to handle and excel at these missions.

 

We believe that having Ansley graduate early would be a positive experience for her for a multitude of reasons.  Firstly, starting the IUOS would be a challenge for Ansley far more than any mission work TSU can provide. Ansley has already proven to all of her teachers and instructors that she is more than capable to handling all types of missions and would benefit from a more challenging environment. Ansley has completed most of TSU's most advanced course work and staying at the TSU much longer would be unproductive because TSU will have run out of advanced classes for her to take. It would be more productive and a time saver if Ansley were to graduate by the end of this year. Ansley is so far ahead from all her peers it would be better for her to be working with people who were up to her level. We do not want Ansley to feel she needs to dumb herself down to fit in with the students of her year.

 

We understand that you as Ansley's parents have many questions about this arrangement. We will want to call both you and Ansley into her schools offices to discuss things further and answer any questions or concerns you have about this plan. Of course the decision will ultimately be up to Ansley to see if she feels she is ready to start her spy career in the IUOS. I hope that this letter has made you consider this possibility and I hope we could come up a plan that would be good for all parties involved. Ansley is a wonderful child and agent and we only want the best for her.

 

Sincerely, the Director of the TSU

The Director of the TSU

 

Zoë set down the letter back in the file and picked up a picture of Ansley with two kids in TSU flight suits. Ansley seemed to having the time of her life, like all the other photos from her school days. So that was how it happened, Zoë thought. Ansley was so perfect she did not even need to finish high school.  Zoë did not like the Director's plan. Zoë would never want to graduate early, not that she would ever be offered the opportunity, she would miss her friends too much. Looking at how happy Ansley was in all her TSU pictures Zoë wondered why she chose to leave the TSU if she seemed so happy there. According to grandpa, her friends missed her so much they would try and see her every week, and he said she missed them. If she missed them so much, why did decide to leave? Was she so good at work that school was boring for her? Zoë had heard of stories like that where kids were so smart school was boring for them so they were put in advanced schools or sent to college.  Was that why Ansley left? Zoë decided she was probably going forget all of her ideas so she found an unused notebook from school and wrote everything down. Sure Ansley's life may seem like a mystery now, but Zoë was going to get to the bottom of it. She was sure of it.