I Think My Dad Is a Spy (7 page)

Wait a minute, a Russian model? Grrrr that taxi driver, he had to be the anonymous caller. Oh I'm gonna give him what for when I see him next. I was so annoyed that people in small towns have nothing better to do than to gossip all day. Chelsea's sobbing grew louder.

“I have no idea who this woman is and where they've gone together,” she bawled louder.

As she looked at me I could see her wet blue eyes glistening under the lights.

“Do you know anything about her Sophie?”

“Umm…no I know nothing,” I lied.

Just as I went to lay my hand on her arm to comfort her Michael pushed me out of the way and hugged her tightly instead. I suppose I couldn't blame him or even Chelsea for being mad at my dad. He had been acting really weird these past few weeks, but how did this Russian woman fit into all this mess? Maybe I had read the dates wrong on the tickets. I could've sworn they had next month's date on them.

It didn't matter which way I looked at this, nothing made sense. As much as I didn't believe the whole ‘spy' thing, it was the only thing that sort of made sense. If my dad was a spy, then maybe his mission was to follow this Russian woman around the country to keep tabs on her, or maybe she was his prisoner and was taking her back to the CIA…

That's only if my dad was a CIA agent…

My mind had run away with me, I snapped back to reality, where Michael was locking the front doors and Chelsea was cashing up the tills. But I was left standing in the middle of the room— abandoned.

“What about me, where am I going to go?” I asked.

“You are more than welcome to stay with us if you want, but your dad thought you'd probably want to stay at Janice's house, so that was the only thing he told me before he left—that he'd rang Mrs Voyce and asked if you could stay,” Chelsea said.

Michael quickly shot me a warning look that said loud and clear—DON'T YOU DARE STAY WITH US INSTEAD!

“Ah thanks for the offer, but I'll stay at Janice's,” I said.

“All right then I'll ring Mrs Voyce to confirm your dad's arrangements.”

Journal entry:
Wednesday, 10:15pm

Dad is still away so I am staying over at Janice's house until Friday. So far we have found out that Dad didn't run off with the Russian lady after all. He had to leave in an emergency because Grandma had a fall.

She's all right now, but she has two broken ribs and a broken leg, so she called Dad and asked him to stay until the end of the week and help her finish up her book tour. I asked Dad why Grandma didn't call Aunt Maple instead but he said Aunt Maple was in a remote village somewhere in the middle of Africa and couldn't be reached by telephone, only by donkey!

I like Aunt Maple. She is Dad's younger sister and when I get to see her she tells me all kinds of stories about my mum and what they used to get up to as kids. They were the best of friends, right up until Mum died.

I've told Aunt Maple that as soon as I'm old enough I'm going to go with her to one of the African villages and make a documentary on her. She helps poor people by giving them medicine; she's a real hero you know.

Guess what? I found out who the Russian woman is. She isn't a model or a spy after all. She is Grandma Georgina's New York assistant. Grandma sent Zoe down here to do some jobs for her and she asked Dad to pick her up from the airport and check her into a hotel. But then on the day of the emergency, Dad and Zoe had to fly back to New York to be with Grandma. But what I don't understand is why Dad had kept all this a secret? It didn't seem like a big deal if you ask me…

WEIRD.

Anyway I'm glad Dad told Chelsea the truth, so now she knows he didn't run off with a Russian model. Boy, being in love seems so complicated so I have decided I am NEVER, EVER having a boyfriend.

Theo, Janice and I still haven't come up with anything to explain Dad's other odd behaviour so there were still lots of unanswered questions.

For example:

1. Why did he have airline tickets to Moscow?

2. Who has been calling him at all sorts of weird hours?

3. Where has he been sneaking off to and who has he been meeting?

4. What did that piece of paper in his jacket pocket mean?

Something tells me there is a lot more to t
hat Russian assistant Zoe (if that's really her name!). Janice is sure she's also a spy and Dad has been
sent to keep an eye on her…perhaps she is the double agent? I wonder what Grandma would say if she found out that her assistant was a Russian spy and maybe her son was one too.

Goodnight from Janice and me!!!

Journal entry:
Friday, 4:37pm

“How did you sleep?” Janice groaned at me in the morning emphasizing the ‘you' part.

She looked sleepy and very grumpy.

I guessed this was a trick question and I wasn't sure how to answer her.

“Urn…okay …I guess,” I said uneasily.

“Oh good I'm glad somebody did because you snored all night SOPHIE GEORGE!” she said throwing her pillow at me in anger.

Luckily I jumped out of the way because it crashed into the wooden blinds above me. The blinds fell onto my pullout bed making a huge clatter. Janice's dim room quickly filled with sunshine making Janice even grumpier. When her mum rushed in to see what all the noise was about Janice yelled at her and pulled the covers over her head.

I decided a trip to the bathroom was a good excuse to give her the time she needed to calm down. Boy, I thought I was grumpy in the mornings, I thought to myself as I tiptoed along the soft carpeted hallway. I really liked Janice's house, e
specially how the carpet felt under my feet. Nearly every room had soft cream carpet, so of course no one was allowed to step a foot into the house with shoes on.

Mrs Voyce had cotton slippers for guests to wear before they could come inside her spotless home. In our house the closest thing we had to carpet were the shabby throw rugs that lay on our wooden floorboards. I kind of preferred it on house cleaning day because sweeping was way faster than vacuuming and at least I had somewhere to hide the little piles of dirt after.

This week has flown by so fast. Dad was due home from New York this afternoon. I'm excited to see him and to go home. I really, really miss my
bed. Theo has been rehearsing all
w
eek for his ballet finals tomorrow and Janice and I
couldn't wait for this day to hurry up so it was
Saturday already.

At school today during Society & Environment, or ‘S&E' as we call it, Mrs Doggerty was talking about economics, which was sooooooo boring that I decided to doodle in my book. I like drawing in class and I often draw pictures of stickmen doing sports. Theo always sits in front of me in S&E and swings back on his chair to chat.

“Hey isn't your dad coming home today?” he asked leaning back on his chair pretending to stretch, so Mrs Doggerty wouldn't notice him.

“A-hum,” I said scribbling away.

“Did you and Janice crack that code thing yet?” Theo said still balancing on the back legs of his chair.

“Nah and I don't think we will,” I answered, finishing off the last leg of my stickman.

“What do ya' think of these little dudes?” I whispered holding up my economics book to see what he thought of my latest cartoon. Theo exploded into laughter and nearly tumbled off his chair. In one quick motion to keep from falling back he propelled himself forward and slapped his hands down with a mighty
smack
.

The whole class spun around to see what had caused the commotion. Unfortunately Theo also caught the unwelcome attention of Mrs Doggerty. She huffed and puffed and snorted her way towards the back of the class. She reminded me of those ugly snarling bulldogs from a cartoon.

She stopped at Theo's desk and gave him the once over, then for no reason at all she stood over me and started yelling.

“It wasn't my fault Theo was swinging on his chair,” I mumbled under my breath.

“What was that, Missy?” she screeched like a cockatoo, but I didn't repeat what I said.

“If you don't mind I'll take a look at that,” she said snatching the open notebook out of my hands. But I did mind; I minded a lot.

Soon after I found myself sitting outside the classroom in the rickety green chair with ‘TIME OUT' written on the back. It was obvious Mrs Doggerty didn't find my stickman as funny as Theo did.

Wobbling from side-to-side in the lopsided chair brought back many memories—mainly memoires of my old Maths teacher Mrs Gregg, as I spent most of her lessons sitting outside in this same uncomfortable chair.

Mrs Gregg was another teacher no one really liked. I don't believe in witches but I w
ould swear on my mother's grave Mrs Gregg was really, truly a witch. Everyone thought so too but no one had proved it yet.

She did have a big ugly wart on the end of her long crooked nose and she always wore a long black shawl thing that looked like a witch's cape. Theo, Janice and I were going to try and prove she was a witch…but she never came back to school after the summer holidays. Some of the kids think that because of our really hot summer this year the sun shrivelled her up like beef jerky.

I was enjoying rocking back and forth in the chair because when I rocked really fast it sounded like a hundred horses stampeding under the veranda…until Mrs Doggerty flew out of the classroom and put a stop
to that little pleasure as well. Oh man, that
s
ucked grapes! Now what was I supposed to do, just sit here and be bored?

After class, Theo kept apologising for getting me into trouble. I told him that it was okay and I knew he felt bad. The truth was I hoped he did,
even though I would never say that to his face. I
was a little cheesed off it was always me who got the blame for everything. This was a mystery to me, I mean it's not like I purposely set out to disrupt my classmates and annoy my teachers, it just sort of happened.

Journal entry:
Friday, 11:10pm

Dad's home now safe. He brought Grandma Georgina home with him and she's on crutches! I have to admit I am writing this journal entry in a state of devastation. You see I asked Dad if he had bought me back anything from New York City and he said as a matter of fact he did.

Then unzipping his small travel bag Dad took the following items out one by one and plonked them onto the coffee table: three packets of nuts, two tiny milks, two tiny cheeses, one miniature chocolate bar, one set of socks, one eye mask that had two stickers saying ‘PLEASE WAKE ME' and ‘DO NOT DISTURB', one miniature comb, one tiny toothbrush and one microscopic tube of toothpaste.

Dad looked so pleased with his collection of miniature airline assortments piled on top of the coffee table that I didn't have the heart to tell him they weren't quite what I was expecting.

Grandma Georgina told him, “That left over airline food doesn't classify as reasonable gifts!” Then she told me she had something I would really enjoy much better and to go and fetch her red case from the spare room. I didn't want to seem too eager, but I couldn't help myself so I skipped all the way to the guest room and back again. My excitement grew as she usually brought me expensively nice gifts. But when Grandma pulled out a copy of her new murder mystery book, Knives and Daggers, I felt my excitement quickly drain away like someone had pulled out a plug.