Rest assured that you would not have been given this challenge were you not up to it. To our returning students, this year will mark many changes.” She glanced at her colleagues and seemed to ponder something before turning back to face us. “We have come to a time when—” But before she could finish, the doors flew open, and not even three years of training at spy school prepared me for what I saw.
Before I say any more, I should probably remind you that I GO TO A GIRLS’ SCHOOL—that’s all girls, all the time, with a few ear-drop-needing, plastic-surgery-getting male faculty members thrown in for good measure. But when we turned around, we saw a man walking in our midst who would have made James Bond feel insecure. Indiana Jones would have looked like a momma’s boy compared to the man in the leather jacket with two days’ growth of beard who walked to where my mother stood and then—horror of horrors—winked at her.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said as he slid into the empty chair.
His presence was so unprecedented, so surreal, that I didn’t even realize Bex had squeezed onto the bench between Liz and Anna, and I had to do a double take when I saw her, and remembered that five seconds before she’d been MIA.
“Trouble, ladies?” she asked.
“Where have you been?” Liz demanded.
“Forget that,” Anna cut in. “Who is he?”
But Bex was a natural-born spy. She just raised her eyebrows and said, “You’ll see.”
