The Agent's Daughter

The Agent’s Daughter

Ron Corriveau

~~~~~

This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of
the imagination of the author or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual events, businesses, locales or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

The Agent’s
Daughter

All rights
reserved.

Published by
Geek Parade Books at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Ron
Corriveau

This ebook is licensed for
your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or
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with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each
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it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to
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the hard work of this author.

First Edition: May
2013

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Melina stared out the window of her
classroom and thought of a million things that she would rather be
doing. Her language arts teacher, Mrs. Frerking, gave lectures that
could be used to induce hypnosis, so Melina often found herself
daydreaming of things far more exciting than class.

“
Miss Roberts. Eyes to the
front, my dear,” Mrs. Frerking said from the front of the
classroom. Known for being the strictest teacher in tenth grade,
Mrs. Frerking had a pet peeve about students that did not pay
attention in class.

“
I’m sorry, ma’am,” Melina
said as she quickly sat up straight in her chair and fixed her gaze
to the front of the room.

“
Now then, we have a few
minutes left so let’s spend some time going over the reading
assignment for this week,” Mrs. Frerking said, addressing the whole
class. “Remember, there is a test on it tomorrow.”

Mrs. Frerking liked to teach right up to the
bell. She took immense pleasure in making the students that had put
all their things away in anticipation of the end of the class have
to get them back out again.

“
Okay,” she continued.
“Our book selection for this week was the historical non-fiction
book,
Great Women Spies of the Civil
War
.”

Ordinarily, Melina would have read this book
as soon as she got it. She loves historical non-fiction and this
book in particular features strong, courageous women living
exciting lives. There was one problem. She had lost the book. She
can remember bringing it home, and then it was gone. Afterward, she
tried to borrow a copy but the classmate that was going to lend
Melina her copy didn’t because she had never finished reading the
book herself. Another student in her class was going to lend her
their copy, but she forgot to bring it to school.

“
I trust everyone has done
the assigned reading?” Mrs. Frerking said with an expression of
rhetorical doubt on her face. “Is there anyone that would like to
answer a few questions for the class?”

There was the usual assortment of hands
raised with enthusiasm and hands half-raised as if to say do NOT
call on me.

“
Hmm,
” she said as she scanned the room, increasing the
drama.

A voice whispered in Melina’s direction. “I
hope she doesn’t call on me.”

The voice belonged to Alex Winfield, the boy
that sat in the seat next to her. He was new to the school having
just moved from Seattle a few weeks after the start of classes. All
of the girls in the class thought he was extremely cute with long,
straight shoulder length blonde hair and deep turquoise colored
eyes. He also dressed in a way that was different from all of the
other boys that was a mix of old Seattle grunge and new skater boy.
As luck would have it, when it came time to find the new student a
seat, he ended up at the only available desk next to Melina. While
he said hello to her every day and they had engaged in numerous
conversations, shyness on her part prevented the conversations from
being anything but awkward and all business. Most of the time they
were discussions of school assignments and such.

“
I hope she doesn’t call
on me either,” Melina whispered back, trying to flash her best
smile.

That went well Melina thought, but she had
to get back to the matter at hand. Mrs. Frerking most often called
on the half-raised hands, so Melina raised her hand quick and
high.

It didn’t work.

Mrs. Frerking turned and stared at Melina.
“You read the entire selection, Miss Roberts?”

“
Uh, yes ma’am,” Melina
stammered.

“
All right, then,” Mrs.
Frerking began, still standing at the front of the class, “what can
you tell me about Sarah Emma Edmonds?”

Melina thought for a moment, stalling,
before offering, “She was a spy?”

That brought scattered giggles from the
students. Mrs. Frerking was now slowly walking toward Melina.

“
That is most intriguing,”
Mrs. Frerking said as she continued her stroll toward Melina. “I
would not have guessed that from the title of the book.”

Mrs. Frerking smelled fear and was now
closing in for the kill. She now stood right in front of Melina’s
desk. “Miss Roberts, can you tell me how Sarah Emma Edmonds was
revealed as a spy?”

There are times when people have been known
to come up with brilliant answers under extreme pressure. This was
not one of those times.

“
The government tapped her
phone?” Melina said with a meek voice.

With that, the class erupted in laughter.
Shrinking in her seat, Melina did not yet realize what she had said
that everyone thought was funny.

“
My dear,” Mrs. Frerking
said, “I suppose it would be news to historians that Sarah Emma
Edmonds had a telephone ten years before it was
invented.”

Now she understood. All she could muster at
that point was a blank stare.

“
Umm,” Melina said,
finally.

“
You did not read the
book, did you Miss Roberts,” said Mrs. Frerking.

“
No ma’am, I lost it,”
Melina said, trying to sound as contrite as possible.

Mrs. Frerking sensed that her young student
had suffered enough. “Okay, Miss Roberts. You have a twenty-four
hour reprieve. Find it and read it by tomorrow.”

“
Okay ma’am. Thank you,”
Melina said, her voice barely audible.

Mrs. Frerking now addressed the whole class.
“Let’s try this again, is there anyone in class that did read the
book?”

A girl sitting a few seats in front of
Melina raised her hand. “I did.”

It was Ellen Barrow. Tall as a runway model
and dressed almost as well, she was part of a group of people that
were considered the popular crowd. Popular having the usual meaning
that you were pretty and wore the latest trendy clothes. Although
Melina could qualify under those rules, she preferred to dress in
her own style of jeans and retro tennis shoes, so she steered clear
of them. She had extra motivation to stay away from Ellen in
particular. One day at lunch, early in her freshman year, Melina
suggested to Ellen that perhaps she should not cut in front of
everyone in the cafeteria line. Every day since, she’s greeted
Melina with a stink-eye hello.

“
Okay, Miss Barrow,” said
Mrs. Frerking. “Can you tell me how Sarah Emma Edmonds was revealed
as a spy?”

“
Sarah Emma Edmonds
disguised herself as a man throughout the Civil War, so she could
be more effective as a spy,” Ellen began. “When she contracted
malaria, she was forced to give up the stunt. Although Sarah was
never found out, during her bout with malaria, the fake male
soldier that she concocted was put on the military rolls as a
deserter, so she just stopped spying.”

“
Excellent answer, Miss
Barrow,” Mrs. Frerking said. “I hope everyone has studied as hard
for the test tomorrow.”

With that, Ellen turned around and gave
Melina a bonus I’m-smarter-than-you stink-eye. Mercifully, the bell
rang at that point, and Melina made a beeline for the door. Once
outside the classroom, she began to make her way with the throng
down the hall toward her locker.

Melina heard a voice behind her. “Hey lady,
wait up.”

She stopped and turned around. It was her
best friend, Jean.

“
Hey,” Melina said with a
small wave.

Melina had known Jean since kindergarten. On
the first day of class, Jean grabbed a game that Melina was playing
with right out of her hands, and a small fight broke out between
them. In order to help the two strong willed girls get along, the
school principal made them spend the rest of the week at recess
playing together. By the end of the week, they were best friends.
Jean knew her friend well, and could tell by Melina’s voice and her
manner that something was wrong.

“
You sound terrible,” Jean
said. “What is the matter?”

“
Come on,” Melina said.
“Walk with me to my locker and I’ll fill you in on all of the
details of the great language arts class meltdown.”

“
Oh no! Did you say
something stupid to that cute new guy?” Jean asked.

Melina smiled. “No. I wish it were only that
awful. I said something stupid to the whole class. I hadn’t read
the reading assignment, and Mrs. Frerking called on me to answer
questions about it. Then, I said in front of everybody that I
thought a Civil War era spy was busted because of a phone tap.”

“
And …?” Jean asked,
thinking there was going to be further details to the
story.

“
The Civil War had ended
ten years before the phone was invented,” Melina said with a
dismissive tone.

“
Well, I can see how that
would be embarrassing in that egghead language arts class. Us folks
in bonehead English, we barely can use phones,” Jean said with a
note of sarcasm.

“
I’m sorry, Jean,” Melina
said. “That is not what I meant.”

“
Why are you even in that
advanced English class?” Jean said, “You obviously hate it. You are
such a genius in science and math. You should-”

Melina held up a hand toward Jean. “Don’t
say it.”

“
You should junk the
difficult English stuff and focus on your strength in the hard
sciences,” Jean said. “There. I said it.”

Melina sighed, unhappy about having this
conversation again. “I am taking that class because it will help
prepare me for what I ultimately want to do as a career.”

Jean rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. You
want to be some foreign diplomat or something. You want to get out
of the suburbs and see the world.”

“
I want to do something
exciting with my life,” Melina explained. “If I take science and
math classes, I will end up in some boring career as some boring
scientist or engineer.”

“
Like your dad,” Jean said
with a smug tone.

“
Listen, Jean,” Melina
said, “I love my dad. He is apparently a brilliant engineer and the
software code that he writes is mind numbingly difficult, but
that’s not for me. I see my dad put on a tie and go to work at the
same place every day. When he comes home, and I ask him how his day
went, he says that he sat at his desk all day typing on a keyboard
and moving a mouse. My dad never complains, and he does seem happy,
but that is not the life that I want. I want a career that has some
excitement to it. When my family asks me how my day at work went, I
want my description of it to sound just like a novel.”

“
Doesn’t your dad get to
do some traveling?” Jean asked.