Synchronized Swimming

Chapter 26: The Sugar Spies

Mr. Blackbourne

The silence in the car is almost repressive. I look at the clock and sigh- there's still three hours left to go. Marc mutters something under his breath, causing Kota to glare at him.

"What did you say?" he asks suspiciously. Marc widens his eyes.

"Nothing Kota! Except..."

"Except what?"

"How could you not know I hate Starbucks? The whole Academy knows!" Marc exclaims.

"Excuse me for not listening to gossip, Marc. I was just trying to be polite in offering Starbucks, but I guess I'll save myself the effort in the future!" Kota says.

Axel turns around and looks at Marc and Kota. "Quit fooling around, we have actual planning to do and you two need to get along." he reproaches. They both apologize guiltily.

"Here's our plan so far: at the clinic, we'll work on getting invited to Tasia's house for a sleepover. Assuming that we're successful, Luke will snoop around and try to find Nikolas's computer. We're guessing that a cheating ring this large needs electronic coordination, so we'll make a copy of his computer drive. Victor may have to assist at this point for hacking into the computer. Throughout the sleepover, my team will keep an eye out for anything suspicious. Silas in particular will try and connect with Nikolas, using the pretext of wanting to speak Greek as his cover for talking to him. North will linger by him to try and catch anything that Silas misses, but he won't let on to the fact that he knows Greek. So really, this plan has two parts: getting the computer files and talking to the twins to catch anything that we missed." I explain. Axel nods besides me.

"Then after that, your team will give my team any evidence you collected so that we can deal with the authorities, correct?" he confirms.

"Yes, probably at night one of us will come and meet you guys so that we don't have a flash drive just sitting around with incriminating evidence." I clarify. Axel looks happy with this thought, but Marc gives an exasperated sounding grunt.

"It sounds like the plan's already figured out, so why did we have to ride with you guys?" he complains. I glance at the clock again and groan. Two hours and fifty-seven minutes to Greensboro.

Luke- detective extraordinaire, resident Sangologist, and grand prankmeister

"Admit it Gabe." I say.

"Nope!"

"Say it!"

"Nu huh!"

"Do it or I'm gonna make this car ride feel like a million years!" I threaten.

"You already are." North grunts. Buzz kill. Gabe looks over at North's not-so-sunny face and decides to do the lesser of two evils.

"Fine Luke, you're a detective extraordinaire, resident Sangologist, and grand prankmeister." he says in a rush. I hit the stop button on my phone and grin successfully.

"I got that on tape! I'm officially the best guys!" I gush.

Sang looks confused by this whole conversation. "I don't get why he's a Sangologist." she says in that cute voice of hers.

"It's because I figured out that the haircut was a prank!" I exclaim. She thinks about that for a moment before grinning.

"Shouldn't Sean be the Sangologist? I mean, he is a doctor." she proposes. Sean looks like he agrees with her wholeheartedly.

"Yeah guys! I'll gladly study Sang enough to become a Sangologist. I can see my thesis now: Sang Sorenson, a study on giggles and their cure." he says. North whacks Sean on the back of the head.

"Pervert!" he mumbles. Ah brother, ever the modest one. And subtle!

I reach over and rub the back of Sang's head. "I still can't believe how soft your hair is!" I say. Gabe gets an extremely smug look on his face.

"It's because I washed it. Also helped that all of the older hair got cut off. Am I good or what?" he brags. I examine Sang's hair, noting the playful quality to it. How adorable!

North looks back at Gabe and me and gives us a death glare. "I fixing to take Sang from you guys if you don't stop pawing her." he threatens. No way is he taking Sang from me! I've been slipping her candy for the past hour and now we're Sugar Spies together.

"Lighten up, North," Victor says, "Why don't I put on some music?"

We listen to classical for the next hour before Nathan switches it to rock. About an hour later Sang says that she brought a CD, so we play that. It's a bit weird, but a refreshing change from the normal songs on the radio.

Mr. Blackbourne and Kota are already outside the hotel when get there. Looks like the rest of the Toma team is, too. Most of their team came in a separate car, but I know that Marc and Axel rode with Mr. Blackbourne and Kota.

Victor parks and we go to greet the others. "Who are all of those other people?" Sang whispers to me. Panic sweeps through me- we never told Sang that Jonathan and Adrian couldn't make it!

"They're friends of Jonathan and Adrian who are helping us with the logistics of the clinic." I tell her. Did that sound convincing? I slyly glance at Sang to see if she bought my lie, and since she doesn't seem concerned then I figure she did. Phew, disaster averted!

Once we join them, Axel introduces his team. "I'm Axel, and this is Corey, Brandon, Marc, and Raven. Kevin couldn't come today, unfortunately."

"And I'm pretty sure that you've meet my team before, but we've picked up a new bird, Sang Sorenson. She's just here for synchro." Mr. Blackbourne says. Hah, Mr. Blackbourne's trying to be sneaky in telling them that Sang isn't Academy. Sang gives a small wave, looking embarrassed to have the spotlight on her.

Axel leads his team into the hotel, leaving just us Synchro Sharks left. We form a semicircle around Mr. Blackbourne.

"I got three rooms for us. Ms. Sorenson, would you prefer to sleep in your own room or share with some of the boys?" he asks. Sang blushes, but says that she doesn't mind sharing. "In that case, the first room with be Sean and me, the second room will be North, Silas, Victor, and Sang, and the third room will be Gabriel, Luke, Nathan, and Kota. These room assignments are non-arguable."

Sang's not in my room! The Sugar Spies are no more. Mr. Blackbourne hands out room keys with one final warning to not charge anything to the room. He looked right at me as he said that, which I think is rather unfair. So what if I once charged over fifty dollars worth of stuff to my room without asking? It probably didn't help that I vomited all that night after eating three ice creams in a row. But I'm older now, more mature. After all, two months makes a big difference!