Double Agent

6. Rebellion, Bleach, and Knockout Darts

MONDAY, JUNE 5TH

SOPHIA

I stood outside my homeroom on Monday morning, waiting for the bell to ring so the teacher could let our class inside. I’d called Allison’s house about a hundred times over the weekend, and her cell probably twice as much, but she was never there. I had sent texts, been round to her house, and typed out countless emails. I had even planned to show up at her house early so that there would be no chance of her leaving for school without me, and we could walk to school together. I needed a serious talk with her, and what better place to do it than out in public where there were plenty of witnesses?

But when I knocked on her door, the sound echoed through her empty house and came back with no answer. The same as it had all weekend. She had probably gone off with Marina or Dylan. I shrugged it off and trudged to school alone.

And now here I was, standing alone outside of my homeroom with ten minutes to spare. Being early sucked. The smell of bleach was strong, emanating from the floor, which had clearly been cleaned to death after the dance on Friday. The hallways were empty, and I waited outside my homeroom for the next ten minutes.

Finally, after what seemed like ten hours, the bell rang, and a tidal wave of high-schoolers poured through the halls. The noise became deafening compared to the empty silence of before, and the smell was almost worse than the smell of the bleach. Now, no offense to high-school students (I am one, after all) but how about a shower once in a while, huh? Over the din, I heard the sharp tapping of Mrs. Jing’s high heels on the hall floor. My history teacher was tall in the first place, and the high-heels added about three inches to her already towering figure. She would have been intimidating, but her soft, neat features balanced out her height. Mrs. Jing was one of the best teachers I had ever had, but I really couldn’t understand her choice of subject. In my opinion, history class was a medieval torture device invented by some evil genius to bore unsuspecting students to death.

“Good morning, Sophia.” Her voice was clear and simple, smooth, and somehow loud enough to cut through the noise in the echoing hallway.

“Hi” I yawned

“Got here early, I see.”

“Yeah, eager to learn!” I said, injecting a heavy dose of sarcasm into my voice.

Mrs Jing laughed “I must be a miracle worker! I, Danielle Jing, got Sophia Chase to actually get to school on time!”

I smiled “You know it!”

After a few minutes, the constant stream of students in the halls started to putter out, and a swarm of bodies collected outside Mrs. Jing’s door. They say that people mature as they get older, but I’ve seen kindergarteners line up better than us. Mrs. J opened the door, and it was like a dam breaking, a wave of students flooding the classroom with noise and life and other things that I would rather not mention. I plunked my stack of books for first period on my desk and sat down. As the class settled, I noticed that the desk beside me was empty. Allison’s desk.

On any other day, I would have shrugged my shoulders and gotten on with my day. After all, it wasn’t like she had a perfect attendance record. Allison was constantly jetting off to some exotic location with her parents, who claimed that “travel was good for the soul.” (Yeah, they were slight nutjobs.) Normally I would stifle the small twinge of jealousy quivering in my stomach (ever try booking a family vacation for nine?), try to guess at where she had gone off to this time, and appreciate the free food she always brought on her return. But we needed to talk, and I was starting to have a nasty feeling that she was avoiding me...

Mrs Jing pulled out her black attendance folder and began looking around the class as she ticked names off the list. When she got down toward the bottom of the sheet, she started to look uneasy.