From the Journal of William Kidd

Entry #10

Journal,

Sorry I fell asleep on you.  We ran night drills, so I was super sleepy.  Anyways, back to Lily.

“So,” she said, watching Spot sprint towards the tennis ball.  “A Blackthorne Boy, huh?”

I’ll admit it.  I might’ve dropped my jaw a little.  “How did you know that?”

She looked at me from the corner of her eyes, her smile widening ever so slightly.  “Don’t you know?” she said, looking over her shoulder.  Her voice was whisper as she said, “I’m a spy.”

My heart leapt and my stomach churned.  I tried to hide a gulp.  “What?”

“Oh yeah,” she said, crossing her arms.  She stuck her chin up, making her look just a little bit taller.  It didn’t help her much though.  A person can only look so tall when they’re 5’2”.  “Top secret missions, James Bond, barrel rolls—all of it.”

Which are just about the least spy-like things that a person could say.

“It’s on your jacket,” she said finally, pointing to the little crest on my chest, the words Blackthorne Military Academy for Boys embroidered just below it.

Right.  Of course.  It was literally written all over me.

“My mom says I should stay away from Blackthorne Boys,” she said, a tease in her voice.

I nodded slowly, thinking oh how true it was.  “Your mom’s probably right.”

She curled her lips over her teeth, looking at the ground and kicking at a patch of grass that was grabbing on to the dirt by a few resilient roots.  “Oh?  And why’s that?”

I felt myself smile and she, in turn, smiled back.  It was like she couldn’t help herself.  “Don’t you know?” I asked her.  Something in my chest thumped at an impossible speed, the words nearly getting stuck in my throat as I said, “I’m a spy.”

The words were out there, lingering in the air somewhere, but I couldn’t find them over the sound of Lily’s laugh.  People are always comparing laughs to church bells, but Lily’s really is a ring.  A crystal clear ring.  “I like you, Will,” she said, and I wasn’t exactly surprised.  Everyone liked me.  I was a likeable guy, apparently.  “I like you, Spot likes you—”

“And I like you,” I told her, finishing up her list.  She looked down at the grass again, giggling.

“It’s too bad we’re both spies, then.  Maybe we could have gone for coffee or something, if not for our duties to the government and all.”

Lily says the government instead of our government.  This, more than anything, reveals her status as a civilian.  “I don’t know,” I heard myself say, not sure what was supposed to come next.  “I think spies can go for coffee.”

She looked up at me—god she’s so short.  “You think so?”

What did she think spies were?  Robots?  Spies could get coffee—in fact, coffee comes highly recommended for the covert life.  Especially when Hughes makes you run night drills and dawn drills on the same day.  “Sure,” then I thought of my mission, risking a glance back at Hughes.  “But I’ll need your number.  You know, so I can call you after I get back from… well, that’s classified.”

I wasn’t going anywhere, but man, Lily sure did swoon at the word classified.  Who knew that talking to girls who weren’t spies would be so easy? 

She giggled and gave me her number.  Easy as pie.  Spot came back with the tennis ball, dropping the slime-covered thing in her hand.  I told her that I had to be getting back, but that I’d talk to her soon.

Hughes was by the water fountain that sat hidden behind a patch of trees.  “Got it,” I told him, waving the gum wrapper with seven digits scrawled across it.  “Now what?”

“Now you get rid of it,” Hughes said.

“Get rid of it?”

He took it from me, sticking it in the water fountain and letting it run.  I watched as the numbers melted, the wrapper dissolving down the drain.  “There will come a day when world peace will depend upon you getting the phone number of the woman on the other side of the room,” he said.  “But today is not that day.”

I guess I should’ve known that I wouldn’t get to keep it.  That Lily would be gone as soon as I got her.  That’s the way a spy’s life works—no strings attached. 

I still remember those seven numbers, though.

Regards,

Will