Why I Haven't Posted
I've been in a rut. Some people would call it writers block, but in reality it's more of just me avoiding to write a chapter that I thought was going to be boring. Also, with the holidays it was really easy to slack off.
Anyway, that is no excuse. If I want writing to be my future job, then I must approach it with the same tenacity as my school work. Just so you do know, I have been working on the cover design for my book. Although there are a couple of designs I still want to try out, I'll eventually be sharing my experience with that. For now, I think it's only fair for me to share the bothersome chapter from A Figure Skater & Secret Agent.
First Day of Spy School
“Irene!”
Aiden launched out of bed hitting the top bunk with his head drenched in a cold sweat. It was only the second night back in his bed after Simon had left to ‘establish his cover’ in Morteau. Engulfed in his REM sleep, Spencer didn’t wake up at four am on Wednesday, January 3rd with Aiden. Someone pounded on the other side of the wall; it was the first day of the second semester at Belcher International School, and most of Aiden’s 74 colleagues were back from the break sleeping in the dorms. With the prospect of falling back into that dream, a nightmare from his past, Aiden decided to get dressed and go downstairs.
The smokey smell of bacon led him down the red carpeted stairs to the kitchenette in the common room where Aiden discovered Tessa. She was wearing the full Belcher International School’s uniform. Like Aiden, she had her white button-up tucked in under a burgundy blazer. Unlike Aiden, Tessa wore a black flared skirt that ended just before her knees covered with tights.
“Morning,” said Aiden grabbing the simmering kettle in front of Tessa.
“You’re up early.”
“Couldn’t sleep. You?” Aiden took a sip of the tea he’d poured himself.
Tessa focused on not burning the eggs or bacon in the pan, but the red veins in and purple half-moons under her eyes, the way she chewed her bottom lip, and the nearly empty coffee press spoke volumes. He waited a little long for her to say something, but upon her silence Aiden prompted her to talk about what he thought was depriving her of sleep.
“Do you know your schedule?”
Tessa groaned at the thought of spending every first period with Ceilí.
Grabbing a bowl and putting oats in it, Aiden said, “Don’t worry. Your first day won’t be that bad.”
It was 8 in the morning when Tessa discovered what her problem solving class actually entailed. Up on the third floor of the main school building, Tessa barely made it through the door before the bell rang. Immediately, a pot-bellied greying man, who introduced himself as Mr. Lachance, paired Tessa up with Ceilí who was waiting in front of a dark archway. Passing different tables with odd little tools and knickknacks, Tessa thought she felt a few hands brush across her butt.
“I thought Aiden said this class was like puzzle solving?” whispered Tessa.
“Aye, we’re going to prove to all these jackasses,” Ceilí gestured to 20 guys, “that the only girls in this class can escape one of Mr. Lachance’s tests before the period ends or one of them has to save us.”
“What kinda test?” Tessa nervously glanced at the dark room behind them.
“We’ll be zip-tied together in the closet with the goal of escaping, so don’t freak out.”
Precisely one minute later, panic was Tessa’s middle name. Ceilí had successfully broken the zip-ties by tightening them more and using all her might to snap them. They had also found the light and had been in the closet for less than five minutes, but then water started pouring into the room from a grate on the wall. The water was a trickle then a gushing force drenching Tessa and Ceilí’s heels. Tessa couldn’t breathe. The room was starting to spin.
“Tessa, calm the fuck down and do something useful!”
Ceilí started rummaging through the only other thing in the room, a shelf with boxes. Tessa joined her looking for something useful to do. All the boxes held random janitor supplies. The water was now sloshing around their calves while Ceilí mumbled, “I need more fucking time.”
Spotting a can of spray foam, Tessa grabbed a dry cardboard box and the bubble wrap inside. Tessa tore the box in half while splashing to the grate. The holes in the grate were big enough for Tessa’s fist to fit through, so she rolled her cardboard sheet making able to fit through the top holes. With the other hand, Tessa pulled the bubble wrap through the grate. Putting it in front of the cardboard, Tessa slowly slipped the cardboard backed bubble wrap down blocking the flow of the water. Although the water was already seeping through the cardboard, the grate was dry enough for Tessa to push the cardboard blockade forward with one hand while closing the hole with spray foam.
Stepping back and looking for leaks, Tessa said, “There, I did something useful.”
Ceilí glanced over, “Great! Now help me find a pair of long, skinny rods to pick the lock with.”
“Why don’t you just use the filament from the light bulb?”
“Because I didn’t think about it.”
After five minutes in the dark, Ceilí got the tumblers aligned and opened the door. The water rushed out finding its way to a drain in the floor.
“Well,” said Mr. Lachance running a hand through his greying brown hair, “fifteen minutes is the fastest anyone’s ever gotten out of that one. Let’s see how you two did it. Otherwise, that’ll be an A in the gradebook.”
“Betcha one of them broke a nail.” sniggered a guy cutting a red wire on a box nearby. Luckily, Tessa and Ceilí’s socks dried by the time class was over with Ceilí heading to the ground floor for her field medicine class and Tessa stopping on the second floor for her independant French with Madame Dubois.
Lunch came just after English literature and Tessa found herself at a round table with Aiden, Ceilí, and Spencer.The lodge-like, red-carpeted cafeteria rang with the scraping of spoons against ceramic. Halfway through her viscous soup, a redhead girl ran up to the table leaning on Ceilí’s shoulder.
“Hi, Niamh, did you get lots of presents from dad?”
“Yep, Séamus said he misses you. Who is that?”
“I’m Tessa. I didn’t know there were other girls in the school.”
“That’s because we’re the only girls in secondary school. Go on Niamh, your lunch is over.”
The 6th period bell rang. Spencer, Ceilí, and Aiden squeezed into the elevator watching the weight gauge near the 9,072 kg capacity. Tessa, on the other hand, found herself alone in a classroom full of boys trying to remember postulates and theorems. The last time Aiden was in Basement 2, Madame Dubois was debriefing him on their semester final. Stepping into one of the interrogation rooms, Spencer, Ceilí, and Aiden gathered around the brushed steel table waiting for Mr. Falk.
A file slipped out from under the door and Spencer opened it. Spencer’s shoulders relaxed as he let out a breath.
“How did we not fail?” said Ceilí trying to snatch the file. Aiden plopped down on the floor.
“Well,” said Spencer, “there’s a whole bunch of points taken off for doing a job where Aiden posed as a student and for Aiden making contact, so the actual grade on the assignment is a 65 saying it would have been a 0 if we hadn’t excelled in all other fields and caught the guy.” Spencer eyed Aiden, “Tessa being nabbed actually gave us the bonus points need to save our grade, mate, although it does say you're a right git for going to that exchange alone.”
“It does not!” said Aiden as Mr. Falk walked in.
“Now, what do you three propose for your second semester project?”
Ceilí spoke up, “We’ve got a meeting set up with a past secretary of Aiden’s father, so we’re hoping she’ll have some information we can use against the family.”
Mr. Falk glared at Aiden, “So you're going to poke the bear?”
Aiden rubbed the back of his neck avoiding eye contact with the large man in a suit.
“Well,” said Mr. Falk scribbling on his clipboard, “we can’t let you kids go to this exchange without backup and…”
“Oh we’ll have backup, mate.” said Spencer leaning back in the metal chair and crossing his arms over his chest. “Simon’s going to pop us down to Morteau, so that'll be three people to back up one guy.”
“Fine, but I want the three of you to draw up escape routes from Freahildr.” with that Mr. Falk left the three of the to their schemes.
While Spencer went back upstairs for his Freahildrian class, Tessa joined Aiden and Ceilí in the gun range for her next period. As Aiden showed Tessa how to not shoot his or her foot off, Ceilí did the obstacle course running, summer-salting, and back-flipping with a pair of lugers missing 2 of the 40 targets. Tessa found Aiden’s guidance rather awkward considering the last time they were this close Aiden was hammered and asking for a kiss. Aiden, on the other hand, chose to focus on getting Tessa somewhat able to fend for herself, since there was the possibility that in a couple days Aiden wouldn’t be coming back to Belcher International.
The few shots Tessa did get off in the range were great at missing the target sheet by 10 feet. A brick held out at arm's length, Tessa feared the handgun would kick back to hit her face. Ceilí took over for the seconds Aiden was out on the course; all 40 targets sporting a matching pair of shots through the chest and head. Despite his noble effort, Tessa was only able to graze the target when Aiden stood behind her with his chest rhythmically breathing and arms strong but not tense guiding hers.
For the last period of the day, Tessa and Ceilí left the gun rang early walking down the hall to the locker room. The humidity of Florida and smell of wet jockstraps offended Tessa’s nose as she followed Ceilí between the wooden benches and steel lockers.
“Ceilí, why are we in the boys locker room?”
Ceilí twirled a dial opening a lock, “There isn’t a girls locker room. Also, you can put your uniform in an empty locker.” so Ceilí and Tessa .
Shortly after the girls threw on some gym clothes with Tessa wearing the shorts and shirt of Ceilí’s little sister, Niamh, the bell that ended seventh period rang with a pack of guys in basketball shorts and muscle tops swarming Tessa with questions. They barely escaped the locker room before the guys started changing. Coming out of the locker rooms, Aiden and Spencer stretched on the floor next to Tessa and Ceilí as the teacher barked something about timed rope climbing. Of course, Tessa opted out waiting for Ceilí take Tessa through a gymnastic based workout.
Since Aiden’s knuckles had healed from the fight with the two kidnappers, Spencer and Aiden hit the punching bags. Already tired from his earlier gym class, Aiden took it easy bracing the punching bag as Spencer worked on his left jab. His eyes scanned the underground gym finding that half a dozen guys were competing to see how far they could get up the salmon ladder, but most of the guys, whether they were supposed to be spotting their buddy or waiting for a machine, were watching Ceilí show Tessa, who was just sitting on the ground doing the splits, how to land from a high drop. After Tessa had the tuck and roll down, they moved onto the sprung floor where the whole gym got a nice view of Tessa’s ass for a second as she learned to back-flip across floor. Unfortunately, Tessa and Ceilí left to get changed before the guys causing the gym to erupt into a groan.
Taking a shower, Tessa turned the faucet as hot as it would go filling the locker room with steam. Ceilí was in and out within a minute, but the pounding of nearly boiling water on Tessa’s tense shoulders forced her to linger there for a moment longer. Letting out a long low sigh, the screaming, burgundy snow, and Mason from that night’s batch of nightmares went down the drain with the suds.
“Tessa hurry the fuck up unless you want to get swarmed by the guys again! Also, I put those gym clothes back into Niamh’s locker.”
Wrapping a towel around herself while wringing out her long brown hair, Tessa opened the locker where she’d stashed her uniform earlier, but it was empty. Ceilí was nowhere to be seen probably already on the elevator and sweaty guys were filing toward the showers. Checking all the lockers in the aisle, Tessa didn’t find a single locker that was open and had at least somebody’s uniform in it, so she plopped down on the bench. Ok, don’t panic. Just wait until all the guys leave and then search the whole locker room for something to wear. Too bad Ceilí already put those shorts and shirt away, and too bad I don’t know the combination.
Then, three guys showed up at each end of the aisle. Folding her arms over her chest, Tessa silently cursed herself for showering for so long. On the other side of the lockers, Aiden and Spencer were in the showers joshing each other on their punching technique or lack thereof. By now it was too late for Tessa to crawl into one of the bigger lockers to hide and the guys were edging closer to her on both sides.
“Oh, are your lockers over here, cause I can wait outside?”
One of the several future hit men stepped forward brushing away a lock of silver hair that fell out of his little man bun. From behind his back, he pulled out a black skirt that looked child-sized in his sinuous hands.
“Is this yours?” he said trying to hide a grin creeping across his face.
“Well, it’s not yours.” said Tessa reaching for it with one of her hands.
Pulling back he said, “I’m we’d all like a reward for returning this.” The rest of the guys nodded in agreement as he raised an eyebrow looking through his mono-lid eyes down at Tessa’s boobs that were starting to nip out.
For a moment panic overwhelmed Tessa and she thought she’d break down in tears at the end of her first day. Instead, Tessa stood up yelling, “Aiden, can I borrow some clothes?”
The guy with silver hair turned around running into Spencer whose boxers had a lovely pineapple print. Aiden shoved his way through the other end of the aisle his wet hair flopping on his forehead as his white button up fluttered behind him.
“Tessa, what are you doing still in here?”
Tessa was trying to figure out if Aiden had a six-pack or if the white sheen of his tummy hid an eight-pack.
“Oi, mate! What do we have here?” Spencer yanked the skirt out of the silver-haired guy’s hands shoving him in Aiden’s direction.
Grabbing the guy by his muscle shirt, Aiden spat, “Where’s the rest of her uniform, Kim?”
Slipping of the wet floor, three of the other guys around them ran out of the locker room. Meanwhile, Kim nodded to his two other buddies. One of them started taking swings at Spencer as the other lumbered toward Tessa, who vacated her spot on the bench immediately. Jabbing Aiden’s ribs, Kim missed Aiden’s face hitting the lockers behind them. Aiden, who was thoroughly done with this shit, took one hand slamming Kim’s head on the wooden bench. Playing the dodge game, Spencer was avoiding the use of his hands that had just been bruised on the punching bag. Tessa shot out of reach of the guy coming after her, who Aiden got a hold of and was wrenching back one of his arms.
Running into none other than Mr. Falk and Madame Dubois, Tessa discovered quite the little crowd was watching the fight apparently confident in Aiden and Spencer’s abilities to take on the jerks. That or they were waiting for Tessa’s towel to drop.
“Alright, boys knock it off!” boomed Mr. Falk. Aiden released the guy he had pinned while Spencer returned Tessa’s skirt.
“Tessa, mon cheri, what happened?” said Madame Dubois patting down her frizzled black hair. Once again, Tessa was reminded of how naked she was under that little white towel and that approximately thirty people she’d see daily were watching her.
“Kim, I think that’s his name, those two, and three other guys took my uniform and…”
Aiden spoke up, “Wouldn’t give them back.”
“Where you asked Bowman?” sneered Kim, who was still dizzy.
“Did you get your uniform back, mon cheri?”
“Just the skirt.” Tessa glared at Kim.
“Alright boys,” rumbled Mr. Falk, “give the girl back her clothes, so we can be done with this.”
Kim got up wobbly, “I think Jameson was going to give the blazer and bra back for a lap dance. I don’t know what the other guys did with the rest of her clothes.” A sheepish smirk made its way onto Kim’s face. Aiden didn’t even have time to really consider if it was worth breaking Kim’s rhinoplasty, because Mr. Falk was already hauling them off to the superintendent’s office where their detention would probably be a night hung upside down.
Once Aiden, Tessa, and Spencer exited the elevator, they ran into Ceilí carrying a pile of maps as well as field and travel guides. Wearing only Aiden’s black socks that came past her knee with the heel awkwardly resting halfway up her calf, his white button-up under his massive blazer, and her own skirt, Tessa felt every draft due to her lack of underwear. The only change to Aiden’s outfit was a random hoodie Spencer had kept in his locker since the beginning of the year.
As the four of them walked back to the dorms explaining to and ranting at Ceilí, Tessa thought, Wow, it took one day of school to get Ceilí to not be a bitch to me. Shoot, she’s even apologizing!
Inside, the common room was packed. Most of the older guys were consolidated around the fire-pit while pod
s of middle-school boys and girls filled out the rest of the free space. Changing into the undergarments that she had bought the day before on a quick trip to Bern, Tessa joined Ceilí in Spencer and Aiden’s room, whose door was wide open. While Aiden, Spencer, and Ceilí argued over five different maps on the floor, Tessa sat on the bottom bunk doing her geometry homework. She was working on a particularly difficult proof when Aiden hopped up onto his bunk with her. The warm smell of pine needles that Tessa had first noticed wearing Aiden’s blazer and had smelt faintly on the bed, overwhelmed her as Aiden looked at what she was working on and decided that math was a useless subject.
“So on a scale of one to ten with one being absolute shit and ten being decent, how bad was your first day at Bisque?”
Tessa looked up at Aiden seeing the sparkle in his green eyes wondering if this really was the same guy who’d dumped her a year ago. “Um, I suppose a nine? Getting my uniform taken was really shitty, but it’s really nice to know that I’ve always got you and Spencer to back me up. Also, Ceilí and I escaped one of Mr. Lachance’s tests in under fifteen minutes!”
Aiden smiled, but Tessa was right; she’d be mostly defense less without himself, Spencer, or Ceilí. He let out a sigh. Hopefully, Tessa will be able to fend for herself when they’re gone.
If you're interested, why not read the beginning?