Spy School

The school is unimpressive, dowdy, and gothic. The only thing that makes it stand out is the cluster of guards around the front gate. Ben reflects on the ease with which his parents had agreed to let him go, noting that they’d been “wowed” by Alexander’s pitch and the promise of a full scholarship. Ben’s best friend, Mike Brezinski, had been more disgusted—he asks Ben why he doesn’t “just get ‘loser’ tattooed on [his] forehead” (14).

Once they are through the gates, Hale comments on the lack of students in sight. It is “minutes before nightfall in the dead of winter,” but Alexander claims, “this period is reserved for sports, physical conditioning, and self-defense training. Campus ought to be crawling with people right now” (15). Alexander pulls to a stop in front of a building marked Armistead Dormitory and tells Ben to run for the doorway when he tells him to. Ben runs, frightened by the sounds of gunfire behind him and by the bullets hitting the ground around him. He makes it to the dormitory only to find it abandoned. Suddenly, someone sweeps his feet out from under him and pins him to the ground. It is a young woman who is disgruntled by Ben, who she calls “a newbie” (16). She takes off her mask, revealing herself to be beautiful. Ben instantly develops a crush on her.

The girl gives Ben a taser because, “you can’t accidentally kill me with it,” and then tells him to follow her (18). She explains that there was a security breach on campus and that the entire student body is being held hostage in the assembly hall. When Ben laments that he’s “been here only five minutes” and is already supposed to “face an entire platoon of deadly commandos with only a Taser,” the girl smiles and says, “Welcome to spy school” (19).

The girl leads Ben through the school. Ben notes that she “remained amazingly composed given the circumstances, even pointing out things of interest along the way, as though this were the standard orientation” (20). As they move, they hear the distant sound of gunfire. Ben tells the girl that he’d come to campus with Alexander, expecting her to be relieved by this. Instead, she is annoyed by the news and asks where Alexander is. Ben tells her that Alexander is outside fighting snipers. He says, “I think he saved my life earlier” (21). The girl responds, “I’m sure he’ll think that too” (21).

The girl tells Ben that they must travel to the top floor of the administration building, where they will find an emergency radio beacon that links directly to CIA headquarters. Ben asks if there’s a men’s room nearby because he has to pee. In an aside, he refers to this as “‘Hogarth’s theory of fear-based urination’: The amount of danger you are in is directly proportional to your need to pee” (22). The girl is exasperated and tells him to hold it.

When they reach the administration building, the girl tells Ben that she will fend off the approaching enemy agents so that he can get to the top floor and contact the CIA. She tells him to go through the library and find the principal’s office. In the library, Ben goes up to a second-floor balcony. On the ground floor, a man with a machine gun runs towards him. Ben grabs a heavy book off a shelf and drops it over the railing to hit the enemy agent in the head and knock him out. He continues upstairs and finds the principal’s office, but there is a keypad lock that requires an access code. Ben uses the taser on the keypad, which overloads the building’s electricity and turns off all the lights. Enemy agents appear at either end of the hallway near him. Preparing to surrender, Ben accidentally bumps into the door handle and the door opens.

Inside the room, the lights come back on. On the floor, Ben curls up and begs for mercy. He hears a voice say, “Begging for mercy? That’s D-quality performance for sure” (27). He opens his eyes to find two middle aged men and one middle-aged woman sitting at a conference table. Alexander is also standing in the room. There are monitors showing everywhere Ben has been on campus. He realizes that the whole thing was a test, and that the administrators are disappointed in his performance. They tell him that this is the Survival and Combat Skills Assessment (SACSA) exam, and that it is standard for all students upon arrival. Alexander tries to advocate for Ben, saying that the book drop in the library was clever, but one of the other men says, “It was a lucky shot” (28). The man introduces himself as the principal; the other two adults are the vice principals Connor and Dixon. He says that Ben has already met Erica, who turns out to be the girl who led him around campus.

The principal says that Ben “displayed amateur-level skills or worse in virtually every arena” (29). He says that if Ben didn’t demonstrate great skill in cryptography, he would have been sent home already. Ben is a little confused by this, as he’s always found cryptography difficult and confusing. Erica and Ben leave. Ben tries to get reassurance from her that many people perform badly on this test when they just arrive. Erica tells him that she aced it and then leaves without another word.

Ben considers quitting the school and calling his parents, but he decides that he’s going to stay and try to improve. He finds his belongings with a map to his room, which turns out to be in the attic of the Armistead Dormitory. The room is very small, cold, and cramped. There is a communal bathroom which Ben describes as disturbing and gross. While he unpacks, he gets a text from Mike, asking “How’s loser science school?” (33). It makes Ben feel even worse.

There is soon a knock on his door. Ben is hesitant to open it, but the student on the other side talks him into doing so. The guy introduces himself as Chip Schacter. He is a few years older than Ben and very polished and handsome. He tells Ben that all students received his dossier and that they are very impressed by his cryptography scores. He says that he will help Ben survive spy school and be his friend in exchange for one small favor—helping Chip hack into the school computers to retrieve classified information for an assignment. Ben doesn’t want to do this—chiefly because he doesn’t want to get kicked out of the school already, but also because he doesn’t have the crypto skills that Chip thinks he has. Chip threatens him: “You know what’ll really get you in trouble? Making me an enemy rather than a friend. ‘Cause I can be a real good friend… or a real bad enemy” (36). Ben feels he has no choice but to go along with the plan. When Chip touches the doorknob, though, he is electrocuted and falls unconscious. The door opens then, and a kid about Ben’s age is there, holding the device he used to electrify the knob. He tells Ben that it’s a “Palm-size Van de Graaff electrostatic generator” and that Ben has about five minutes to get away before Chip wakes up (38).

Ben goes with the other student to the mess hall. The boy who helped Ben get away from Chip is Murray Hill. He tells Ben, “Here’s the first thing you need to know about spy school: It sucks” (39). He explains, “Everything you hated about regular school? We still have all of that here: rigid social cliques, lousy teachers, incompetent administrators, terrible food, bullies. And on top of that, occasionally, someone tries to kill you” (40).

Though the other students are dressed nicely, Murray “seemed to be making a deliberate attempt at slovenliness” (40). Despite this, Ben can tell that Murray is very intelligent; he also notes that it can be difficult to “[get] a word in edgewise” when Murray is speaking (41). Murray explains that Chip was likely trying to get Ben to help him cheat, because he’s tried to get most of the student body to help him cheat in the past. Murray says that the administration knows about this but, because the academy is not a traditional school, cheating is not necessarily frowned upon, “as long as you do it cleverly enough” (41).

Murray asks if Ben is going to eat his spaghetti. Ben says no because it looks disgusting. Murray takes the spaghetti and tells Ben that it’s one of the best dishes the school serves, and that he thinks the school intentionally serves awful food so that the students will build their “immunity so that if someone ever tries to poison us, it won’t work. Arsenic’s got nothing on the meat loaf here” (42). Despairing, Ben asks if anything about the school is good, and Murray says that the classes are pretty good. When Ben asks about “classes in weapons and combat,” Murray asks if Ben is a Fleming, or “[s]omeone who comes here actually thinking he’s gonna become James Bond” (43). Ian Fleming is the inventor of the character James Bond.

Ben challenges Murray, saying that the school “is supposed to teach us how to be spies” (43). Murray says that Bond is a movie spy, and that real-life spy work isn’t as glamorous. Ben says that Alexander has a good assignment. Murray responds that those jobs are for the best of spies and that even if Ben works as hard as he can for six years, he won’t be the head of the class. He points out Erica and tells Ben that her name is Erica Hale, Alexander’s daughter, and that she is a legacy who will inevitably beat them all for the best jobs.

Murray says that he’s hoping for a desk job. Ben asks why Murray is encouraging him in this way. Murray says that he was like Ben once, but “someone pulled [him] aside and showed [him] the light” (46). Just then, Chip comes into the mess hall flanked by two other students, who Murray names as Greg Hauser and Kirsten Stubbs. Chip approaches them and says that he knows Murray electrocuted him earlier. Murray responds, “you were trying to intimidate Ben here into helping you cheat because you’re not capable of doing your own dirty work, but then you let your guard down and allowed someone to knock you unconscious. […] I’d be embarrassed as heck if I got caught with my pants down like that” (48). This infuriates Chip, but Murray says that if he was the one who electrocuted Chip, that he would have put a camera under the door and recorded the incident as leverage against retaliation. He says the principle may not care about cheating or Chip’s threats, but he would be alarmed at Chip’s inadequate defense.

Chip says that whoever did it should watch out because someday Chip will get the opportunity to retaliate and will take advantage of it. He tells Ben that he should not hang out with Murray because he’s an outcast and Ben may become collateral damage. Greg Hauser takes Murray’s spoon and squeezes it in one massive, powerful hand, crumping the utensil. After they leave, Murray tells Ben that the group are morons and that he shouldn’t be afraid.