Breathless, the boy ran through the dark halls, aware of the footsteps approaching him from behind. Up ahead, the boy saw a metal door. With a quick glance behind, the boy sprinted to the door, jerked it open, and rushed inside, closing the door behind him.
Outside the door he could hear footsteps as they slowed from a frantic run to a quick walk. As the heavy footsteps came closer the boy opened the door just a crack. When the footsteps came right in front of the door, the boy swung the door open, knocking the person on the other side to the ground. When the boy stepped around the door he found a tall, burly man sprawled on the floor, blood dripping from a wide gash on his forehead. The boy stepped towards the man, made sure he was knocked out, and pressed a bright red button on his watch. Less than five minutes later a horde of men in dark clothes swarmed into the tiny hallway like cockroaches swarming out of the cracks in the walls.
As the boy watched the men set up computers and surveillance equipment, a tall dark man in a black suit walked towards the boy and said, “Congratulations, you have succeeded in your assignment. Soon you’ll be ready for a real mission with real criminals.”
“Thank you. I can’t wait to show you how well I can do,” the boy replied.
“Well, I’ll decide whether you do well or not, but before you can go on any real missions I think you have somewhere to be, am I right?”
“Oh, yeah, guess I should get going. See you later!” The boy ran through the open door he used to knock out the man, sprinted to the window on the far end of the room, and jumped. As he soared through the cold morning air the boy reached out his hands and grabbed hold of a rope ladder and started to climb to the helicopter the ladder was attached to.
“Welcome aboard, agent,” the pilot shouted as the boy climbed into the helicopter.
“Happy to be aboard,” the boy replied as he pulled a backpack onto his back.
“You all ready yet?” the copilot yelled to the boy. “We’re almost to the destination.”
“Yeah, I’m ready,” the boy shouted back. “Tell me when!”
“Okay, in three! One…two…three!” the copilot bellowed as he turned to watch the boy jump out of the helicopter into the sky.
The boy, enjoying the feeling of falling towards the ground, pulled a lever on his backpack and a huge, white parachute billowed out behind him. While he slowly drifted towards the ground the boy tried to steer his way to a large, square, brick building. As the building loomed closer and closer, the boy braced himself for a landing. As soon as his feet touched the roof, the boy began to run while taking off his parachute. The boy found a hatch in the roof, opened it, and jumped through, landing just as the bell rang. “Perfect timing,” the boy thought as students began to file out of the classrooms all around him.
As the boy walked towards his locker, he bumped into someone. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said as he bent down to pick up the person’s books that scattered all over the floor.
“Oh, it’s okay. I wasn’t looking where I was going,” a girl replied.
As the boy looked up to hand the girl her books he came face to face with two large, blue eyes that looked lost. “Um, here, you dropped these,” the boy said, giving the girl her books. “You look like you’re kinda lost. Do you need any help?”
“Thank you and yes, I'm new, and lost,” the girl responded. “I’m Emily and I have to go before I’m late for class.”
“I’m Cody. If you want I can show you where to go,” Cody said quickly.
“Really? That would be so wonderful, thank you,” Emily replied gratefully as Cody pointed out which hallways to use.
“And that should get you there pretty quickly,” Cody finished.
“Thank you so much. You know, most boys wouldn’t do that; they’d just try to flirt and make a fool of themselves,” Emily said.
“Well, I guess I’m not your average boy,” Cody replied as Emily began to walk away.
“Guess not. Well, thanks again; I’ll see you later, bye!” Emily yelled as she walked down the hall.
“You’re welcome!” Cody shouted back. “Great, there’s another girl I’ve made a complete fool out of myself in front of,” Cody thought as he turned to go to his locker. “If I could talk to just one girl without getting completely tongue-tied, I’d—”
“Hey, Cody, where were you this morning?” a short, dark haired boy named Trey said as he walked towards Cody. “You missed a great lecture in geography. Mrs. Digy kept going on and on about some country in Africa. So how hard do you think our geometry homework was? What about biology? Hey, did you finish English? I’m stuck on number three so do you think I could copy yours?” Trey said as he dug through Cody’s backpack.
“Hi to you, too,” Cody sighed as they walked towards the cafeteria.
“Huh, oh yeah, hi. Hey, did I just see you talking to that new girl, Emily Dulcet? I heard that even though she’s new she’s already considered one of the ‘it’ girls. Why was she talking to you? I mean, you’re not a geek or anything, but you sure aren’t Mr. Popular either, no offense,” Trey finally stopped to hear Cody’s answer.
“Oh, I just bumped into her on accident, that’s all. It’s not like the whole world stopped or something,” Cody said, getting irritated with Trey’s numerous questions.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean it as a bad thing or anything, you know,” Trey apologized as the boys got in line to get their lunches.
“Yeah sure, whatever, hey did you find my English homework or you need help?” Cody asked as he paid for his lunch.
“Oh, yeah, you have so many binders and folder I couldn’t find it,” Trey said as they sat down at a table with a few other kids. “You know, I think Mrs. Newbury has something against me. She gave me a C- on my last report card.”
“That could be because of all the questions you ask when she’s trying to teach or because you never study for her test.”
“Maybe…you know what, I think that Mrs. Newbury is an alien, sent here to suck out all our brains and make us her henchmen.”
“Yeah, sure, I bet the number one thing on Mrs. Newbury’s mind is brainwashing us,” the boy sitting across from Trey interjected.
“Hey I mean it! Have you seen the way she always stares at the sky during class? And have you seen the size of that mole on her chin? She could have an antenna hidden under that thing! Think about it, Ryan,” Trey objected.
“Oh, yeah, of course, did you ever think that she looks at the sky because she wants to get out of the classroom?” Ryan asked.
“Sure, that’s what you say now. Just wait; one day when you’re all brainwashed and I’m the only one who can save the world from Mrs. Newbury and her mole, then you’ll believe me,” Trey exclaimed.
“When that day comes, yes, I’ll believe you. Until then I’ve got to finish my bio homework or else I’m dead meat,” Ryan said, tired of arguing.
“Oh yeah, I’ve got to do that, too. That reminds me,” Trey said turning to Cody, “you never answered my question before: where were you this morning? We had a pop quiz in Spanish that was over fifty questions.”
“Sorry I had to miss that. I had some…work to do,” Cody said nervously.
“Whatever, did we have any P.E. homework?” Trey asked.
“Just to study for that test today; oh, and we had a ten page essay on the rules of golf,” Cody replied sarcastically.
“What?! I didn’t know about that! How good of an essay do you think I could write before lunch ends?” Trey yelled, searching frantically for paper and a pen.
Cody laughed as Trey emptied his backpack onto the lunch table, “You’re so gullible some times! You should have seen you’re face!”
“Yeah, you looked like you just saw a ghost or something,” Ryan said, his face turning purple from laughing so hard.
“Oh shut up,” Trey mumbled, throwing his bread roll at Cody.
“Hey, you gotta admit, that was a good one, wasn’t it?” Cody asked.
“Sure, I’ll remember that next time you don’t know what we have for homework.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Note to self: never ask Trey for our homework.”
“Like he’d have it anyway,” Ryan said.
“Hey! Well, I guess you’re right; don’t rely on me for things like that,” Trey exclaimed.
“We won’t,” Ryan and Cody said in unison.