Читать книгу I Think My Dad Is a Spy - Sognia Vassallo - Страница 6

Journal entry:

Tuesday, 10:27pm

During second period Mr Griggs told us to pair up because we were going to do a science experiment called the ‘Pop Test’. Janice pushed and shoved her way through the students who were busily squabbling amongst themselves to see who was going to pair up with whom and barged her way in between Theo and I with a mighty shove. She bowled him out of the way and declared me her new partner.

“Hey that’s not fair!” Theo shouted from the laboratory floor.

“Finders keepers, losers weepers,” Janice teased poking her tongue out.

“NO PUSHING MISS VOYCE. IF YOU CAN’T PAIR UP PROPERLY WITH SOMEONE, I WILL FIND YOU A PARTNER!” scolded Mr Griggs eyeballing her from above his glasses.

He never missed a trick old Mr Griggs and I suppose he had to be very vigilant trusting a bunch of teenagers with highly explosive and poisonous chemicals. I imagine it must be quite a stressful job.

“Sorry sir, I didn’t mean to push. I meant to bump into Theo, I slipped,” Janice stuttered.

“YOU DIDN’t SLIP AND THAT WASN’T A BUMP! YOU BULLDOZED INTO ME,” Theo scowled angrily.

“Oh and you don’t need to find me a partner, I already have one—it’s Sophie,” Janice said ignoring Theo as she yanked me out from behind the desk as evidence.

Theo gasped with outrage as he shot up off the floor and brushed himself off.

I felt sorry for him, not just because his usual neat and carefully parted hair looked terribly scruffy, but because Theo was left without a partner.

“Okay Miss Voyce,” said Mr Griggs. “But I don’t want to see pushing in my laboratory again, leave it for outside.”

“HUH! THAT’S IT?!” Theo growled as he stomped his foot hard onto the floor in protest. Theo looked over at me with a ‘I-can’t-believe-that-Janice-got-away-with-it-look.”

Neither Mr Griggs nor Janice took any notice of his tantrum. Janice was too busy fussing over the seating arrangements and I wondered who Mr Griggs would pair Theo with. I looked around the room to see if anyone else was without a partner. I was kind of hoping that because Janice’s regular lab partner Laurie Holmes wasn’t here today, that Theo could be a trio with us.

“MR THEODORE RILEY COME OVER HERE PLEASE,” called Mr Griggs, snapping his fingers for Theo to quickly join Dunstan Milfrey at the front of the class.

Oh no! Theo had been reduced to pairing up with the wedgie-boy, who still had his underwear sticking out above his school trousers. That can’t be comfortable, I thought staring at him with shame.

“Janice, that was so rude of you to barge Theo out of the way like that,” I said smacking her in the arm. “Just look at him, he looks so miserable at the front of the class with Dunstan. I hope you feel really bad!”

“You know I actually do. Just think, that could have been me stuck with wedgie-boy,” she said shamelessly. I couldn’t believe Janice’s rudeness sometimes.

“Okay look, I promise I will make it up to Theo, but I really need to talk to you about your dad and this weird situation you’re in Soph. I think it’s pretty serious,” Janice insisted.

“Well you’re wasting your time Janice because I can tell you he’s not a spy, it’s just so ridicul…” but Janice cut me off.

“Ridiculous I hear you say! Far-fetched! Sophie, we see way wackier stuff on the internet these days,” she reminded me.

I hate to admit it but Janice was right—there’s a whole big wacky world out there where anything is possible.

Janice would make a great a lawyer someday, I thought. We then spent most of the lesson arguing back and forth about why my father could or couldn’t possibly be a spy, but it was useless arguing with her because Janice made a lot of good points.

Suddenly our debate was interrupted by an ear-wrenching popping noise…

Pop! Pop!

“Ahhhhh!” I screamed with fright. The whole class turned and sniggered at me. I was really getting tired of people laughing at me today.

Looking around the room I quickly realised that everyone’s science experiments were in full swing—except ours.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

I looked over at the next table to see Diana and Luke’s Bunsen burner heating up a test tube full of clear liquid which had started to bubble all scientific-like. Diana handed Luke some really oversized tweezers and picked up what looked like a small silver stone which he carefully dropped into the bubbling test tube. Diana quickly slapped on her earmuffs but Luke had barely enough time to get his on when their experiment made the loudest pop.

The whole class began cheering and clapping, but all I could hear was a rrrrringing in my ears.

Mr Griggs had already started walking around the room to mark our experiments. When he arrived at our table I was busy poking my fingers into my ears and trying to yawn, in the hope I would be able to hear again soon. Janice hadn’t even noticed him; she was too busy scribbling down a list of reasons why my dad was a spy.

I was hoping Mr Griggs wouldn’t notice our unlit Bunsen burner, our empty test tube, the small vial of hydrochloric acid and the silver stone sitting neatly on the table, just as they had been when we came in. But it was obvious he did notice them because his eyes flitted furiously from the table, over to Janice and then back at me still with my finger lodged deep into my ear.

He mumbled angrily to himself something about “life being too short to teach teenagers” and then showed us the ‘F’ he had recorded next to our names for our lack of effort. Wow that sucked grapes, and I usually liked Science!

After English with Mrs Crabapple, whose class I loved, it was recess time. Theo was still angry with Janice’s behaviour in Science, even though she’d already apologised a bazillion times. He could be so stubborn.

Janice was soon bored with trying to smooth things over with Theo.

“So what do you think about what we were talking about in Science and English, Soph?” Janice asked biting into a big red apple.

I looked at her with confusion; I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was partially deaf for most of Science and all of English.

But before I could answer, Janice shoved the list she had written into my lap.

I began to read it grudgingly.

1. Mysterious phone calls in the middle of the night.

2. Talking in the pantry.

3. A woman named Tiffany.

4. New York City.

Blah, blah, blah the list went on.

“So what do ya’ think of it?” Janice said waiting anxiously for my answer. I handed the notebook over to Theo who was still giving Janice evil looks.

“Yeah I suppose you have a point but I still think you’ve got it all wrong. There’s no possible way my dad is a spy. It just doesn’t make sense, he already has a job; he runs our post office, why would he be a spy as well?”

“But that’s just it Sophie, don’t you see, it’s the perfect cover. I can see the headlines now, Post office manager captured in Russia as double agent,” Janice announced proudly sounding like a news reader.

“Oh so now he’s a double agent,” I replied “and not even a good one because he’s been captured in Russia of all places!”