I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Chapter Seven

In shock, I dropped the bottle on the street, but it didn't break. As it rolled toward the curb, I bolted forward and tried to pick it up, but another hand beat me to it—a hand that was pretty big and decidedly boylike, and I'd be lying if I said there wasn't some inadvertent pinkie-brushing, which led to a tingly sensation similar to the one I get when we use Dr. Fibs's temporary fingerprint modification cream (only way better).

I stood up, and the boy extended the bottle toward me. I took it.

"Hi, there." He had one hand in the pocket of his baggy jeans, pressing down, as if daring the pants to slide off his hips and gather around his Nikes that had that too-white, first-day-of-school glow about them. "So, do you come here often?" he asked in a slightly self-mocking way. I couldn't help myself—I smiled. "See, you don't even have to answer that, because I know all the trash cans in town, and while this is a very nice trash can, it doesn't look like the kind of trash can a girl like you would normally scavenge from." I opened my mouth to protest, but he went on. "Now, the trash cans on Seventh Street, those are some very nice trash cans."

Mr. Solomon's lesson from the first day of class came back to me, so I noted the details: the boy was about five foot ten, and he had wavy brown hair, and eyes that would put even Mr. Solomon's to shame. But the thing I noticed most was how easily he smiled. I wouldn't even mention it except it seemed to define his entire face—eyes, lips, cheeks. It wasn't especially toothy or anything. It was just easy and smooth, like melting butter. But then again, I wasn't the most impartial judge of such things. After all, he was smiling at me.

"That must not be an ordinary bottle," he said (while smiling, of course).

I realized how ridiculous it must have looked. Under the warmth of that smile, I forgot my legend, my mission— everything—and I blurted the first thing that popped into my mind, "I have a cat!"

He raised his eyebrows, and I imagined him whipping out a cell phone to notify the nearest mental institution that I was on the loose in Roseville.

"She likes to play with bottles," I rambled on, speaking ninety miles an hour. "But her last one broke, and then she got glass in her paw. Suzie! That's my cat's name—the one with the glass in her paw—not that I have any other ones— cats, I mean, not bottles. That's why I needed this bottle. I'm not even sure she'll want another bottle, what with the—"

"Trauma of having glass in her paw," he finished for me.

I exhaled, grateful for the chance to catch my breath. "Exactly."

Yeah, this is how a highly trained government operative behaves when intercepted on a mission. Somehow, I think the fact that the interceptor looked like a cross between a young George Clooney and Orlando Bloom might have played into that a little bit. (If he'd looked like a cross between Mr. Clooney and, say, one of the hobbits, I probably would have been far more capable of coherent thought.)

From the corner of my eye I saw the Overnight Express truck turn into an alley. I could sense it idling there—waiting on me—so I turned and started down the street, but not before the boy said, "So, you're new to Roseville, huh?" I turned back to him. Mr. Solomon probably wouldn't lay on the horn to tell a girl to hurry up, but even through my busted comms unit I could feel his frustration, hear the ticking clock.

"I'm…um, how did you know that?"

He raised his shoulders up and down an inch or two as he shoved his hands farther into his pockets. "I've lived in Roseville all my life. Everyone I know has lived in Roseville all their life. But I've never seen you before."

Maybe that's because I'm the girl no one sees, I wanted to say. But he had seen me, I realized, and that thought took my breath away as surely as if I'd been kicked in my stomach (a comparison I'm perfectly qualified to make).

"But…hey…" he said, as if a thought had just occurred to him. "I guess I'll be seeing you at school."

Huh? I thought for a second, wondering how a boy could ever get accepted at the Gallagher Academy (especially when Tina Walters swears there's a top secret boys' school somewhere in Maine, and every year she petitions my mom to let us take a field trip).

Then I remembered my legend—I was a normal teenage girl—one he wasn't going to see around the halls of Roseville High, so I shook my head. "I'm not in the public school system."

He seemed kind of surprised by this, but then he looked down at my chest. (Not THAT way—I was totally wearing a sweatshirt, remember? Plus, let me tell you, there's not that much to stare at.) I glanced down to see the silver cross glistening against my new black sweatshirt.

"What…are you homeschooled or something?" he asked, and I nodded. "For what, like, religious reasons?"

"Yes," I said, thinking that sounded as good as anything. "Something like that." I took a backward step toward the truck, toward my classmates, toward my home. "I have to go."

"Hey!" he cried after me. "It's dark. Let me walk you home—you know—for protection."

I'm fairly certain I could have killed him with that pop bottle, so I might have laughed if his offer hadn't been so sweet. "I'll be fine," I called back to him as I hurried down the sidewalk.

"Then for my protection."

I couldn't help myself—I laughed as I yelled, "Go back to the carnival!"

Ten more steps and I would have turned the corner; I would have been free, but then the boy shouted, "Hey, what's your name?"

"Cammie!" I don't know what made me say it, but the word was already out there, and I couldn't take it back, so I said again, "My name is Cammie," as if trying the truth on for size.

"Hey, Cammie …" He was taking long, lazy steps, backing away from me, toward the lights and sounds of the festival in full swing. "…tell Suzie she's a lucky cat."

Have sexier words ever been spoken? I seriously think not!

"I'm Josh, by the way."

I started running as I yelled, "Good-bye, Josh." But before the words even reached him, I was gone.

The Overnight Express truck was waiting at the end of the alley when I got there, lights off. I felt Mr. Smith's pop bottle in my hand, and for a second I couldn't remember why I would be carrying such a thing. I know. I'm almost ashamed of it now—the fact that ten seconds with a boy had driven my mission from my mind. But I did look at it, and I did remember who I was—why I was there—and I knew it was time to forget about boys and trash cans and cats named Suzie; I remembered what was real and what was legend.

As I pulled open the back door of the truck, I expected to see my classmates sitting there, envying my mission-accomplishing superspy-ness, but all I saw were packages and packages—even the television was gone, and instead of cries of congratulations, I heard the words Tell Suzie she's a lucky cat echoing in my head then growing silent as I realized something was wrong.

I spun in the street. I looked in the cab of the truck, where a bright orange cap lay on the dashboard, probably where the rightful driver had left it. We had come and gone without a trace, and now all that was left was that bottle and a long run home.

I told myself that having to run two miles in wet jeans was just karmic payback for having indulged in both the corn dog and the ice cream, but as I reached the edge of town, I wasn't so sure. As I ran, my mind was free. I was back on the street with Josh. I was watching Liz and Bex disappear around a corner with Mr. Smith. I was talking to an old woman about a grandmother I didn't know. I was just another girl at the party.

The lights of the school cut through the leaves of the trees in the distance as my boots beat a heavy rhythm on the pavement. Damp denim rubbed against my legs. Sweat poured down my back. Mom is always saying that a spy should trust her gut, and right then my gut was telling me that I didn't want to go back to the mansion, that I didn't want to be anywhere near Joe Solomon and Mr. Smith, and by the time I reached the main gates, I would have given just about anything not to have to go through them.

"Big night, Cam?" A stocky man with a buzz cut and a perpetual mouth full of bubble gum appeared at the guardhouse doof. He knew my name, but I'd never been introduced to him. If I had, I probably would have called him something other than Bubblegum Guard. But as it was, he was just another guy on the staff who worked for my mom, who probably went on missions with my dad, who knew all the details about my life, while I knew none about his.

I suddenly missed my bench in Roseville. I longed for the noisy, anonymous chaos of the square.

I started down the driveway, but Bubblegum Guard called out to me, "Hey, Cam, you want a ride?" He gestured toward a ruby red golf cart that sat behind the guardhouse.

"No, thanks." I shook my head. "Good night."

I'm sorry I don't know your name.

When I reached the main foyer, I started for the stairs. I wanted a shower. I wanted my bed. I wanted to shake free of the uneasy feeling that had settled in my gut from the moment I saw that orange cap lying on the dashboard— abandoned. I had the bottle in my hands, but somehow I knew that wasn't really the point.

Then I heard footsteps and a cry of "Wait!" as Mr. Mosckowitz rushed after me.

"Hi, Mr. M. Great driving tonight," I said. I remembered that it had been his first mission, too.

Something important must have made him chase me down, but for a second his features shifted. He actually glowed (but not like the time he tested that flame-retardant skin gel for Dr. Fibs).

"You think?" he asked. "Because, well, at that second stop sign, I think I might have hesitated a little too long. Forty-eight hours or less," he said, with a punch at the air, "that's the Overnight Express motto; I just don't think a real driver would have waited so long."

"Oh." I gave him a nod. "I thought it was just right— nothing causes delays like an accident, you know."

His face brightened again. "You think?"

"It was perfect."

I turned again and started up the stairs, but Mr. Mosckowitz said, "Oh, gee, wait. I was supposed to tell you…" He paused, and I imagined him churning through the gigabytes of his brain. "… that you are supposed to go to the CoveOps class for a debrief."

Of course I am, I thought as I gripped the bottle. Of course it isn't over.

As the optical scanners swept over my face I heard Mr. Mosckowitz ask, "So, hey, Cammie, it was fun. Wasn't it?" And I realized that one of the most brilliant men in the world needed me to verify that he'd had fun.

This place never ceases to amaze me.