Living in Secrets

Chapter 2

It was our who-knows-how-many-th round, and Dan died in the game, naturally causing him to chuck his controller at the wall. "Dan! If you dent that our landlord is going to kill us!" But it seemed we had bigger worries. Just then both of our cell phones rang at the same time. We exchanged glances, knowing exactly what this meant. We answered and heard an oh-so-familiar voice on the other end.

"Agents Lester and Howell, you are needed in Mythterria immediately. Please pack your bags and be at the Agency in 30 minutes. Goodbye."

The voice on the other end hung up as Dan and I stared at each other with exhausted, unexcited expressions. They only told us to pack our bags when we were going to be gone for weeks at a time. We sighed in synchronization and rushed to our rooms. I grabbed my backpack and started throwing stuff in; shirts, pants, underwear, socks, jackets, hats, toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant, lion; all the essentials.

I zipped up my bag and flung it over my shoulder as I walked out into the hall. "Dan, are you ready?" I called. I stuck my head in his room and saw he had just barely found a bag. I sighed and dropped my bag as I started to assist in shoving stuff into his bag. "You should really tidy up your room, Dan. And pull up your pants; I can see your star boxers."

Dan pulled up his pants as he shoved his hair straighteners into his bag and pulled his fuzzy llama hat on over his straight brown hair. "You do realize that we are out of tele-taffy, it takes 20 minutes to get the grocery store and we have to be there in 5, right?' Dan said as he slung his backpack over his shoulder.

"Dan you don't need your flat iron. We probably won't even have electricity," I said as I pulled his straightener back out of his bag. " And I guess we will just have to run. Come on, we will change in the lift." I turned off the lights and held the door open for Dan, locking it behind us. We stepped into the lift and as soon as the doors shut, we transformed. I looked over at Dan and laughed, though it came out as a snarl, because it is always strange seeing him as a llama. He wacked the top of my head with his neck, although I barely felt it through my thick lion mane. We became invisible, and just in time, because the doors opened a second later. We casually strolled out the front doors and started sprinting in the general direction of the nearest Tesco. Once inside, we headed to the ketchup aisle and opened the secret passage to Mythterria.

We quickly entered the agency locker rooms and changed into more formal clothing. "Dan, this tie hates me!" I whined as I continued to struggle in the attempt to tie it.

"Fucking hell, Phil. You are 25 years old. It is time you learned how to tie a freaking necktie, you spoon," Dan insulted as he tied the black necktie properly. I didn't take offense because I knew he was only joking. Seriously, this is Daniel James Howell we're talking about. I think the doctors removed his last "nice bone" last autumn.

"I'll make you a deal. When you learn how to pull up your trousers and use a belt, I'll learn how to tie a necktie," I teased as I slipped the black "secret agent" sunglasses onto my face. I'm honestly not sure why the sunglasses are part of the uniforms. Maybe just so we look cool and secret agent-y? I don't know. "Now let's get a move on. We're late," I stressed as Dan slipped his own glasses on. We hurried down the hall into the assignment room to discover we won't be alone on this mission.

"You're late, twats," Brittnee snapped as we took our place at the table.

"Oh, don't be so rude, Britt. They probably ran out of tele-taffy and had to run here," defended Rose.

"Do you both maybe want to stop talking so we can get our assignment? I mean, I don't know about you, but I would feel awful if we were supposed to save somebody's life and they died because you can't shut your faces," retorted Arabelle, her voice oozing sass.