Mrs. Smith's Spy School for Girls by Beth Mcmullen

Author:Beth Mcmullen
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Aladdin

Chapter 19

San Francisco. Where Tom and I Pretend to Be Friends.

WE HEAD OUT THE DOOR first. Bronwyn gives us a five-minute head start. Traveling west, we hit Broderick Street and turn right. The sun is bright and the fog that devoured the city last night has receded. The bay glistens like it’s sprinkled with diamond dust. We walk a paved path alongside a marina, where gleaming white yachts sway and tug at their mooring lines. I take a deep inhale of the salty air.

“Have you ever been here?” Tom asks. “San Francisco?”

“Once,” I say, remembering.

It was one of Jennifer’s courier trips where she dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night and plopped us on an airplane to an unknown destination that turned out to be here. We met a man in Golden Gate Park by the Conservatory of Flowers, a building that looks like a glass wedding cake. I wanted to buy tickets and go inside because a giant banner over the entry promised a thrilling exhibit about man-eating plants. Jennifer said I had to wait until later.

“But I’m missing school!” I protested. “Shouldn’t I be doing something educational at least? Man-eating plants are educational!”

“Meat-eating plants,” she corrected. “We’re waiting for someone.”

“That’s not educational.”

“Patience is a virtue.”

“Not one of mine,” I grumbled. I entertained myself by hanging upside down on the guardrail to the stairs, much to the horror of the many visitors tromping into the conservatory to see the carnivorous plants. Meanwhile, Jennifer scanned all their faces, back and forth, constantly and continuously. If she objected to my acting like a wild monkey, she didn’t mention it.

We waited a long time. The someone was an hour late, and this made Jennifer tense. I could tell because she gnawed on her cuticles, and she only did that when she was thinking really hard or freaking out about something. And if this person didn’t show up soon, she was in danger of running out of fingers to chew.

But he did finally arrive, and Jennifer handed him an envelope, which he took without a word and quickly left. The entire exchange took exactly ten seconds. My mother then flashed me a bright smile and said we could go see the plants.

Tom’s voice breaks the spell. “San Francisco’s the best city in the world,” he says with a grin. He’s cute but deluded.

“Have you even been to New York?” I ask, incredulous.

“Yeah.” He sniffs. “One time. It was hot and smelled bad.”

“You can’t make up your mind about a place after a single visit. There’s just no way.”

“Well, you’ve only been here once!” he protests.

“And I haven’t made any decisions about it one way or another!” I bark back.

We reach a stalemate and walk on in silence. Soon we arrive at a wide, sandy path separated from the bay by beach and scrub. The waves roll in smoothly, and I pause to enjoy them. I don’t get to the ocean much, but in this city it’s everywhere.

The walking path is crowded with people.

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