Spy School Out West

Chapter 16

Okay, have any of you guys read the Framed! series by James Ponti? It's very similar vibes to Spy School, except, well, different plot. And only three books, though I would have loved more. The characters feel a lot more ordinary and there's a lot less almost dying, though not in a bad way. The main character is a nerd (check!) who gets scouted by US intelligence (check!) because he solved a mystery using this special technique he developed (umm...) and goes on a lot of mysteries that take him around DC, and technically to foreign countries. (... check!)

Also, I do really like the covers they have on his website (I don't know if that's a good thing), but I haven't been able to find them for sale. *shrug*

Enjoy!

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Erica's POV
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Somewhere in northern Indiana
June 9
1330 hours
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My father is a horrible driver.

Well, he's not actually that bad, but he drives at the speed of a demented tortoise and pays way too much attention to traffic regulations. I actually saw him count to fifteen at a stop sign before we even left the county. Twice.

The drive was pretty uneventful. The car was big enough that we all had some room to spread out, and with Grandpa and Mom around, I didn't feel like I had to stay alert. I dozed off somewhere around Iowa and woke up again in Indiana to dead silence. Nobody was talking, and it appeared Dad had turned off the car. "What's going on?" I asked.

"We're reducing our carbon footprint," he replied, looking like he'd swallowed a tube of toothpaste. "You see, one time, on a mission in Shanghai, I was very inspired by their lack of-"

"Cut the crap," I ordered coldly. "Did the gas tank run dry?"

"Er, that's an awfully dire way of putting-"

"Dad," I snapped. "Shut up. Are we out of gas?"

"Maybe." He turned the ignition on again, as if perhaps the car was just being stubborn.

"Of course," I groaned, then started to shake everyone awake. "Dad forgot to fill up the gas, and we need to figure something out."

Soon, we had vacated the minivan, which was pulled over on the side of the poorly-maintained highway. Grandpa then sent Chip to stick his thumb out on the side of the road since he looked older than he was and probably wasn't worth that much to our current predicament.

"Does anyone have signal?" Mom ordered urgently.

"Yes, that's important," Dad agreed. "We ought to see if we can get food delivered. Why, once, when I was on a, extremely crucial mission in Wales-"

"Genuinely, be quiet," Balto commanded. She was very good at voicing her feelings around us. Zoe probably had a logical explanation for this, and I half-made a mental note to ask her. Dad turned red and went to fiddle with the ignition some more.

"I have signal," Jawa announced triumphantly. "What do you need?"

"Wonderful," Mom said. "I'm going to put in a number. Can you tell them our situation?"

"Of course!" Jawa chirped, excited about getting to do something productive.

Balto pulled out her phone and frowned. "My siblings are all blowing up my text messages," she said. "What should I tell them?"

"Before you do anything, I need to deactivate the GPS so nobody can track us," I instructed, then held out my hand. Balto obediently handed her phone to me, and I sat on the grass and went to work.

Soon, I heard her sit next to me and watch. "So that's the tracker?" she asked, pointing to the little gold and green chip I was focused on.

"Yeah," I said, then calmly used a pair of tweezers from my utility belt to remove it. "Go throw this at something," I instructed. "Or stomp it on the road. Bring the pieces back to me so I can see them." I went to work closing the phone back up.