Spy School

The principal comes to Tina’s room to hear Ben’s recounting of the incident. He is skeptical about Ben’s story, noting that there was no one and no weapon in Ben’s room. Ben asks why he’d make it up; the principal suggests he might have done it for attention. He asks why someone would target Ben, saying, “If someone wanted to go to the trouble to get past all our defenses and break into a dormitory to kill someone, you’d think they’d go after somebody worth killing” (62). Before Ben can respond, Alexander shows up. He’s dressed in a tuxedo and appears to have lipstick smeared on his neck. He defends Ben, saying that it’s Ben’s first night and he hasn’t had any training yet. The principal says maybe it was just some older boys hazing Ben.

Ben remembers the questions about Pinwheel and tells Alexander and the principal about them. Both men feign ignorance. Alexander asks Ben to think carefully about the event and tell them what questions the man asked. Prompted by Alexander to be sure he tells them exactly what happened, Ben says that the man may not have intended to kill him and that the gun may have fired accidentally when Ben hit him with the tennis racquet. This seems to mean something to Alexander and the principal, but they do not share it with Ben. A crime scene investigator comes in and says there were no fingerprints, blood, or hair left behind. Alexander suggests they check the security cameras. The investigator says that the cameras that would have caught the man were disabled, which they acknowledge as evidence that someone was on campus. The investigator suggests that they may want to consider security clearance before they continue the conversation. The three adults leave and Ben protests, asking if they’re just going to leave him alone, and where he’s supposed to sleep now that his room is a crime scene. The principal says he will sleep in “the Box,” (67).

The Box is a holding cell on campus that is a “reinforced cement bunker in the sub-subbasement of the administration building […] protected by a matrix of lasers; tripping one would trigger an alarm—and the deployment of sarin nerve gas” (70). Ben is close to quitting immediately but decides he will wait until the morning to call his parents. Despite the long day and the security of the Box, Ben can’t sleep. At 5 a.m., he thinks he hears the door creak and someone pounces on him. He tries to fight back and quickly realizes that it’s Erica. She tells him not to turn on the lamp because she doesn’t want the campus security to know she’s there.

Erica helps Ben to see that someone planted false information in his file, which claims that he knows about Pinwheel and is a cryptographic genius. Ben also realizes that the principal knows about the false information. Erica doesn’t think much of the principal; she says that he was a terrible spy and was always captured and tortured on missions. Ben puts the evidence together and realizes that there is a mole in the academy, someone who is leaking classified information. He also realizes that he has been brought to the academy as bait. Erica says she thinks they chose Ben because he has strong math skills and could believably be very good at cryptography, and that he happened to live close by. She tells him that his presence at the school is part of something called “Operation Creeping Badger” (75).

Ben is devastated by this information, which crushes his dreams of being an amazing spy. He angrily realizes that the principal suggested that Ben was making up the attack even though he knew there was a mole and set Ben up as bait. Ben says that Alexander was there and that he’ll be better at discovering the mole than the principal. Erica responds neutrally and agrees only that Alexander is involved. She tells Ben that Pinwheel is a ploy to interest enemies and that she thinks the enemy in this case is a “rival agency from another country” and reveals to Ben that the reason there was an opening in the school was because another student, a sixth year named Joshua Hallal, was killed (79). The school tried to cover it by claiming that he had an allergic reaction to a bee sting. Ben gets the impression that Erica had a personal connection to Josh. He asks why someone would kill Josh in particular, considering how many other talented students there are in the academy. Erica agrees and says there must have been a reason. She asks Ben to help her with her investigation into who the mole is and who they work for, and then to “take the whole thing down” (80).

Ben agrees for several reasons: First, if enemy agents think he is in possession of important information, they will keep coming after him even if he goes home; second, the investigation will give him a chance to spend more time with Erica; and third, it will give him a chance to prove that he could be a great spy so he can stay at the academy.

Ben gets a call from Mike the next morning. Mike tells him that he hung out with Elizabeth Pasternak the night before after attending a hockey team. Elizabeth invited Mike to a party at her house tomorrow night. Mike says he’s allowed to bring a friend and offers to pick Ben up so he can go to the party. Ben says he wouldn’t be able to go. Mike pushes, saying that Ben can’t pass up this opportunity to hang out with so many pretty girls.

Ben says that the academy has hot girls, too, and describes Erica. When Mike is skeptical, Ben says he’ll send a picture next time he sees her. He talks Erica up, but he also notices that other students are staring at him as he walks to class. Mike isn’t convinced Erica will ever spend time with Ben and Ben tells him that they hung out alone last night in his bedroom and that Erica asked him to do a project with her, so they’ll be spending a lot of time together. He says goodbye and hangs up so that he won’t be late to class to start his training.

Ben’s first class is Introduction to Self-Preservation. He is excited about the class but is disappointed to realize it’s boring. Ben credits this to Professor Lucas Crandall’s lack of charisma and energy. Murray saved him a seat in the back row; he tells Ben never to sit in the front row in a class. Ben asks why, and Murray tells him there are various reasons: “In Psychological Warfare, Miss Farnsworth has nasty halitosis. In Arms and Armaments, there’s shrapnel. In this one […] Crandall doesn’t appreciate seeing students passed out in the front row. Luckily, he can’t see much beyond that” (89).

Ben falls asleep during the lecture and is awakened by Murray, who hands him a pair of eyeglasses that have magazine photos of open eyes taped to the inside of the lenses. They give the appearance from a distance that the person wearing them is awake. Ben asks if Murray should pay attention in the class, considering he failed it twice the year before. Murray says failing it is part of his plan to get a cushy desk job. Erica told Ben to pay attention to his surroundings, so he tries to stay awake by doing that. He thinks about more of their talk the night before—Erica explained that Ben’s file is likely on the CIA mainframe, but that physical copies would have been given to the members of the review committee. She saw her father’s, and she knows the mole would have seen someone else’s. His job now is to pay attention to everything that happens around him and make note of anything that stands out.

He realizes that many of the students are staring at him instead of paying attention to the lecture. One of young women says it was awesome that Ben fought off an assassin last night. Ben demurs, saying that it was just part of his SACSAs, but one of the other kids says they never run at night, and that he’d heard Ben tanked his exam. The girl defends Ben, saying he pretended to fail so potential assassins would think he was a poor adversary. The girl introduces herself as Zoe; her “weaselly” friend introduces himself as Warren. Greg Hauser interrupts the meetings by saying that they’re all pathetic, and that Ben is a loser, and the others are “double losers for thinking he’s not” (96). Zoe defends Ben, but this just makes Hauser suggest that Ben should fight him in the gym after lunch that day. Zoe agrees, which makes Ben backpedal to try to get out of it. This is interrupted by Professor Crandall, who asks Ben if he transferred “from a school where it was acceptable to hold court during a professor’s lecture” (98). Ben says no and apologizes, but Crandall announces he’s going to give Ben a pop quiz. The other students, including Murray, immediately flee the room. Crandall reveals that the pop quiz is on the topic of Japan. He opens a side door to reveal three ninjas, who enter the room and start attacking Ben. He tries to run away but is knocked unconscious by a nunchuck thrown at his head.