The Spyness

Chapter One: TV Ads and the Spyness...

I grabbed a bowl of popcorn, the small TV remote and plopped onto the couch. Predictably, the popcorn spread all over me, but this was how I liked it best. My name is Nyx Westwards and I turned 14 last spring. My eyes are a dark, attractive blue and my hair is pitch black, goes down to my waist and as straight as a pole. I have pale skin, and guys fawn all over me at school. Jerks.

My parents love things unique or mysterious or strange. My name happens to fall in that category. An example of my parents’ quirkiness was when they came home from fishing. In the middle of winter. Yes, I said winter. Dad had the frozen catch of the night (yes, I said night) sewed around the outside of his bucket hat.

Mum had opened her handbag, searching for something, and out she pulled a fish intestine. Dad started singing the Macarena. It was a tradition that whenever he got a fish and went home, he would sing any song that popped into his mind. Last month, it was It’s Raining Men. Mum danced to his awful, ear splitting screeches that vaguely resembled the Macarena. May Daize, my best friend, was luckily in my room, painting her nails orange. She paints her fingers a different colour every week, and I was the only one in our ‘gang’ who had her desired colours of nail polish. She came down, her hair swinging past her elbow. “Did you step on the cat again?” she asked my five-year-old cousin, Elliot Ralley. He shook his head, his little angelic curls swinging about the place adorably. He was five, and his blue eyes and blonde hair screamed, “TRUE BLUE AUSSIE!” Elliot was staying over, for Auntie Helen (his mother) was out in Argentina, probably recording her debut Opera album that she hadn’t gotten around to yet. May noticed my dad singing into a trolley bag handle. I broke it last year when I went all crazy in a temper tantrum and smashed it into a million bits, banana skin flying everywhere and unconsumed yogurt spilling all over my enemy, Ella Kane.

Of course, I didn’t care until a student council member told me to clean it up. Ella, of course, smirked so annoyingly that I felt like starting a huge brawl and ripping every fake fingernail off her real ones pronto.

Anyway, back to me sitting on the couch like Lazy Fatty, my large black and white cat who was sometimes called Yin and Yang by my exchange student from Russia. How she got the name Yin and Yang all the way in Russia, I don’t know. Don’t ask me.

“Are you lazy most of the time?” asked the man on the TV.

“Yeah,” I mumbled, my face stuffed with popcorn.

“Do you want money?”

“Defo,” I replied, not really eagerly.

“Are you intelligent?”

“I blooming well hope so,” I answered.

“Are you active?”

“Do you see me jumping around like a crazy twit?” I retorted to the inanimate screen.

“Are you good at being inconspicuous?”

“Well...”

“Then you should register for the new show, Spyness!” he yelled energetically.

“Fantastic!” I yelled back sarcastically, taking another piece of popcorn.

“What’s fantastic?” asked Mum, her brown hair in rollers.

“This ad trying to persuade me to go on a TV show.”

“That’s nice dear. I’ll register you for it, since you seem so excited. What is the site?” asked Mum, patting her rollers.

“Www.Spyness-register.com.au, but that’s beside the point - I WAS BEING SARCASTIC!” I yelled, for Mum had dashed to the computer. I sighed.

Just great. If I was picked, I had to go, but if I wasn’t, I would have a normal life with normal friends (well, kinda) and abnormal parents.