| Turns out, my seat was next to Kevin’s. He seemed to like that and I was okay with it. We talked through the flight. It was nice to talk to him.
I then, after 30 minutes, turned to look at the person sitting next to me was another guy. Just my luck, I thought. He was buried in a book. His hair color was brown, like a dull kind. I couldn’t see his eyes but I supposed that they would be brown just like his hair.
I decided to talk to him, just to be nice. “ Hi, my name is Danielle. Do you know what we will be doing when we get to the school?”
He slowly extracted himself from his book and looked at me. His eyes shocked me, they weren’t the dull brown that I thought they would be. They were a brilliant green, so bright and shining. He considered me. His eyes sliding from my scar to my hair to my eyes. When I looked at him full in the face I realized that he looked angelic and so beautiful. I knew he wasn’t my type but I was still amazing to behold him.
“I am very glad to meet you, Danielle,” His voice matched his eyes, which told that what he was saying was true, “You should know you look so much like your mom. We may do many things but we will be Sorted first, when we get to school.”
But I was still fixated on his eyes. It took me a moment to really understand what he had said. “Wait, you knew my mother?”
“Oh, yes. She was very kind to my mother. It seems that you have inherited many qualities from her. Including her niceness, a trait which people never will fail to under value. You also have her exact hair color.”
I just stared at him, “Thank you. Will you ever under value my niceness?” I said this because from that point I knew we would be very good friends.
“More than likely every once in a while, but I will try not to as much as I can.” He smiled.
“That’s pretty good to know. By the way, I never caught your name.”
“Well, I guess you can know that,” this seemed s bit mysterious, “My name is Connor.”
“Good to meet you, Connor. You must know of my brother Dan, then, if you know of me.” It was meant to stump him.
“Actually I do. He probably portrays your father well.” This wasn’t a question, it was a statement. As though he already knew the answer before I spoke.
With that he buried himself back into his book.
“Wait,” I said, a bit out of breath, “Where do you live?”
“I live in Tennessee.”
“Good to know. Do you mind if I sketch you?”
“I think that you could do that. On the condition that I see your other sketches that you have done.”
“I think you can do that.”
I handed over my sketch pad and watched him flip through it. He past the picture of the girl on the window sill, the one of the landscape of my backyard, and finally coming to the portrait that I loved best of all. It was the one of Dan when he was coming across the finish line of his last race.
At this one Connor gaped at the picture looking from it to me and back again. “You did this? I mean it’s absolutely amazing. I mean, well, I'm just a bit surprised, that’s all.
“Mmhmm. Well keep going, then, you’ll still be even more shocked. But I hope you like it.”
“Yes, I do, very much so.” And with that he kept flipping through the pictures, finally stopping at the one of a burning building.
“My house,” I said answering his silent question.
He looked at me and smiled, “I should have known. Knowing you, though it could have been something much, much worse.”
“Hello, students of Jarrett Academy. We will be landing shortly.” Said a voice from overhead.
And I felt happy to know I had made at least one new friend before we officially got to our destination.
|
| Almost there
So we had set off, getting to the airport pretty soon. We sat in the waiting area after getting past security. Then, we went and had lunch and bought some things at the news store. While I read the news paper Dan was checking out every cute girl that past us. It made me sick to the stomach. It seemed more and more people, teenagers to be exact, were filling the area around Dan and me. Then one boy sat down on the right of me and I felt a tingling, happy feeling. I had cleaned myself up this morning, taking a shower and wearing one of my best outfits. It was a shirt that was v-neck, yellow, giving the impression that my hair was on fire, which I loved.
The boy was about 14, I could tell. He had black hair that was short, but not the kind of military buzz cut that you usually saw on the guys back home in Montana. He was tanned but not that you could not see whiter skin under the wrist. I thought he probably came from North Carolina.
Before I knew it and without a seconds hesitation I was talking to him. Cute as he was I wasn’t about to let that get to me. “Hi,” I said, “My name’s,” I took a deep breath here, remembering that I was apparently famous in the spy world, but I took the chance anyway, “Danielle. What about you?”
But he was staring at my scar. God, I thought. I had forgotten about my scar.
But surprisingly he took his eyes away from it and seemed to process what I had said, since he started talking to me, “My name is Kevin. Nice to meet you, Danielle,” His eyes traveled back to the scar, but he quickly looked away.
“I know that you probably already knew who I was.” I said.
He grinned sheepishly, “Well you probably already knew that you were famous.”
I smiled, it was small, but he seemed to take it for a yes.
“But I thought that you had no idea we existed, I mean it was told that you were sort of in hiding, I mean. Well sorry. I'm just surprised that I'm meeting you, that’s all.” He said at light speed.
Again I smiled, “Well, I'm flattered. I didn’t know that you existed, it’s true.” I said.
“Do you have any special talents? I can do a good many things but my best accomplishment is being able to do the obstacle course in 1 minute,” He said proudly.
I thought about all my talents and decided upon the one I hadn’t mentioned to the Decker man. “I can draw some really good pictures. Would that be considered a special talent?” Then I thought about how fast I was and added as a joke, “And don't think you can hold onto that record for much longer.”
He smiled and his eyes traveled up and down my body. I was sort of annoyed but I didn’t let it show.
“Once you're done checking me out,” he looked embarrassed, “You might want to talk to my brother,” I said.
Unlike me, Dan had no evidence of the crash on his skin. Right now more than ever I wished that I had his faultless skin.
As Kevin turned to talk to Dan I looked around. It was odd because some people were pretending to have conversations while every now and then they stole sidelong glances at me. Others were staring at me openly and pointing. I had even heard someone shout a few moments back, “OMG, there she is!”
I thought all of them were pretty crazy since they were making a big deal out of me. Then again they probably knew more about my father and mother than I did.
I felt jealousy swell inside me while I watched a girl my age being hugged and kissed by her mother and father before the plane started to board.
I thought that it was unfair that Dan and I be called first while everyone else watched us get on the plane.
Dan and I split up and sat in my seat. And waited for the plane to take off.
|
| The room was large, square, and cold. I felt an involuntary shiver run through me though I was not sure if it had to do with the room or the man sitting inside it. He was around 25. His hair, though, was already graying at the tips. And the way that the two men in black stood, behind me and my brother, you could sense who was the leader in the room.
And finally, sick of the silence, I spoke, “Who are you?” I said to the man inside the room. “And why the heck am I here in the first place?”
The man looked fairly surprised, saying in a deep rumbling growl of a voice, “She doesn’t know?” And when the men in black just shook their heads he asked, “And you didn’t tell her?” Again they just shook their heads. “Well, we will have to inform her. It’s a good thing that we are in the briefing room then, huh?” And he laughed at his own joke. But he became serious once again. “Haven't you ever wondered why you got that scar, Danielle?” I probably should mention one last thing about my looks. I have I very thin, jagged scar running the length of my neck. The worst part about it though is that everyone who meets me always asks how I got it. I tell them that I tripped over a chair when I was younger but that is not the real truth. Only my brother, father, and I knew the real truth. The real truth was that I got it in the crash that killed my mother. It almost killed me.
“I already do know why I have this scar,” I said, with a growling edge to my voice.
“Then you know that it did not happen when you tripped over a chair?” He said, with the slightest hint of a smile lingering on his face. When I nodded, it was very stiff.
“I want to know how you know my name and how know so much about me.” Another growl escaped from me. It wasn’t a polite please or a question of could I know. It was a demand of I wanted to know.
“Alright. My name is John Decker and I am the director of the CIA. Your mother and father were both spies. On your fathers last mission we lost him and two days later we received this message.” The laptop that had been on the table was put onto the floor where Dan and I had sat down while we absorbed this information.
Our father had gone missing and could be dead, was pretty much what this man had told us. Another thing that it seemed both Dan and I had taken into account was the fact that Dan seemed almost invisible to this Decker man. Apparently, the man did not know I had a twin or he did not know that the boy sitting next to me was my twin. This seemed useful to me at the moment.
Then the man opened the laptop and I nearly fell over with shock. There was a picture of my face on the screen next to a picture of my fathers. The caption underneath them said, “Give us this girl and we will give you back your agent.”
“As you can see, we are in a little predicament. We would not and will not ever give you over to them for we have no idea what they could do to you. Also, seeing as your father could very well be dead by now, we will not give you over to the enemy. What we have resolved is to send you to the M. A. Jarret Academy for exceptionally talented boys and girls. One last thing you ought to know is that you and your twin, wherever he is, are exceptionally famous in the spy world. This reason is because you survived the attack of the rogue agent when she tried to kill you and, including you and your brother, there are only three people in this world that have ever done so. And I believe that we would all be in this room if Cole and Chris stepped out.” I could only suppose that Chris was Scar-face.
“Now you don’t have to go anywhere if you don't want to Danielle. But in all my experience the Academy is by far the safest place to be for a hunted spy. That is if you accept, since the Academy is a spy school.”
“But I have no idea what spies do or how they learn.” I said with the slightest bit of fright in my voice.
“Well, do you have any special talents? And if so why don't you tell me.”
“O.k. I can climb all types of trees, I can read a 300 page book in 1 hour, I can swim very fast and run fast, I can play all types of sports, and I can sneak around without a sound all the time.” I said ticking them off on my fingers as I said them.
“Well, I’d say that those are all things that good spies can do.” He smiled slightly, “And I think that you just turned in your application to the school.”
“I would just like to know, who was the rogue agent that tried to kill me?” I asked.
“Her name was Arrabella. And she still is alive and trying to hunt you for some reason. So I wish you good luck”
|
| “The… the… huh?” I managed to get out.
Now everyone was looking at me in surprise, even Dan. But I knew that the reason Dan was surprised was probably different. To avoid the stares of the people around me I looked out the window and saw a clothing shop. I saw Dan do the same out of the corner of my eye. We exchanged glances, knowing that the other was thinking the same thing; a clothing shop was where spies did their work?
It seemed that the men realized where we were looking because they smiled and pointed at an old-fashioned telephone booth nearby. Again Dan and I exchanged glances. We were both thinking, Are we all going to fit in there? And, what are we going to do, call somebody to pick us up.
And again the men saw us look at each other. Scar-face spoke again saying, “You need to look at the bigger picture.”
And we did and once again all we saw was the booth. Nothing great there.
Scar-face smiled, enhancing his features amazingly. “You shall find out in two minutes. We must get going.”
So, we walked into the booth, seeming the slightest bit suspicious to the average person; the two men-in-black with the two, seemingly, delinquent children going to call the parents. But the real thing was the two spies going to their headquarters with the newest agents. Baldy didn’t dial the number but he spoke in a calm clear voice, “I, Cole Loyn, am here to escort Danielle Blackthorn to the briefing and debriefing room.”
“Thank you, Cole Loyn, the lift will be there momentarily. While you wait talk among yourselves. We are not recording at this moment.” Replied a cool female voice.
Then the lift started moving and millions of questions filled my head. The ones that I voiced though were, “What do you mean debriefing? Did that just say we? And why the heck would they need to record in here anyway?
Again the men stared at each other in surprise. Finally Scar-face voiced what they both were apparently thinking, “You really do not know what we are talking about, do you Danielle?”
I just shook my head no. I saw Dan do the same thing.
“Well I guess you shall just have to find out then.”
Then the lift stopped and the voice said, “We have arrived at the Briefing and Debriefing room. Have a nice day.”
But I thought, this day is nowhere near nice right now. At least it can’t get worse.
I had never been more wrong in my whole entire life.
|
| We had run on and on, finally finding a small hotel where we could stay the night. It had a little store where they sold some extra snacks for the road. I bought a lot with my cash. Our room had two beds, a T.V., and a dresser. It also had another room that it was connected to. Dan and I sort of had a mutual decision that we wouldn’t touch even the door and when we signed in to use fake names. Mine was Gianna and Dan’s was Richard. The beds were covered in flower petal quilts that made me shiver. I had never seen anything so nice and homely. It almost made me sick to think about that.
I suppose that the reason I had never seen something like that was because my mother was dead. And that happened when she was driving along the road to our old house. It was at night and a hit and run. She had been meant to die. So had Dan and I. But for the miraculous reason that was life we survived. Dan and I were three. And I knew that the bomb that day and her death were oddly linked. I had uncovered these facts when my dad had gone on one of his business trips I was looking for something in his office. There was a drawer that was locked so I got Dan to open it, one of his special talents, out of plain curiosity and what I saw inside almost frightened me, almost.
There had been files. File after file on her. On my mother. From her marriage to Kory (my dad) to her death, five years later. I didn’t read most of them because I was afraid of what I would find. I quickly put everything back. And that was the last I ever thought of my mother. Until now. Now I really missed her and wanted her to be here for me. Maybe even doing something like it’s going to be O.k., giving me reassurances, or stroking my forehead. The kind of stuff they did in movies.
I felt silly and useless. Right now I had nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except Dan. Hopefully I would always have Dan No matter whatever happened. I would always have him. And together I knew we could get through this. Whatever this was. And that was my last thought before I climbed into bed and drifted off to sleep.
Before I knew it I was being roughly shaken awake and even in my semi-awake state I could tell that something was wrong, utterly definitely wrong. I could tell that I was in a vehicle and that I was moving, from the sway of the car. My hands were tied behind me for I could feel the rope scratching a dent into my skin. But I immediately I knew that it wasn’t my captor shaking me awake; I could tell that the hands were my brother. Rough but careful. Finally I opened my eyes.
And I saw men in black suits sitting in the passenger and driver seats. I very quietly gave a moan of alarm since I then saw that I was also bound at the ankles, too. I then looked into my brothers eyes and saw that he was obviously happy that I was awake, but there was also the same dismay that I felt. Suddenly, one of my captors, the one in the passenger seat that was bald, glanced back and saw that I was awake. He seemed happy by this, since he turned back to his partner with the tiniest of grins playing across his rough features. They spoke in whispers for a long amount of time, during which Dan and I exchanged small sad smiles.
Then Baldy turned back to us and said, “We will be there shortly. You might want to ask your friend to help you get your bonds off as I see he has already done so for himself.”
Then I looked at my brother and he very willingly untied me though I knew even without looking at him that he hated the men for getting past him. I leaned back slightly so I was almost in his chest, saying, “It’s o.k. There’s a fifty percent chance that these people can tell us what’s going on.”
“And the other fifty percent chance is that they can kill us right now while we aren’t watching!” He growled back, into my ear.
But this didn’t worry me and we waited in silence through the rest of the ride. And finally the car stopped and the man in the driver’s seat turned around. He had a scar that ran the length of his face, from hairline to chin, which sent a shiver of horror down my spine.
His voice was hard and gravelly when he spoke, “Welcome Danielle, you are a hard girl to find and an even harder girl to understand. You shall need some clothes, I expect, no? We will get them for you inside. By the way, this is HQ. Welcome to the world of spies.”
|
|
Jordan's Story
