I Think My Dad Is a Spy (4 page)

“I, oh…” stammered Dad.

“Well then you shouldn't have any objection if I go with you to the airport this morning. Then we can both pick up this Zoe person together!” Chelsea said with a flourish.

“NO! YOU CAN'T!” boomed Dad. His outburst so startled me I lost my balance and fell backwards into the long damp grass scraping my arm on the garden tap.

“OWWW!” I cried loudly as I jumped up rubbing my grazed arm. “OH GRAPES!” I yelled even louder when I realised I had mud all over my brand new jeans.

Oh why did I wear these jeans to spy in? I thought spinning around so I could get a good look at the huge muddy wet stain on my bottom. It was then that I realised I was standing up outside the window. On the other side was Dad, his face turning purple with rage.

“SOPHIE! WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING OUT THERE?” he bellowed, his angry breath fogging up the glass.

I panicked and dropped to the ground, hoping he hadn't really seen me at all.

“GET UP OFF THAT WET GRASS AND GET INSIDE THIS INSTANT!” he hollered louder than before.

My heart was pounding so fast. I looked down at my slightly grazed arm and squeezed it hard to make the bleeding look worse than it was. If I was going to get out of this mess alive, I needed to look like I was on the verge of nearly dying!

“Ow, Ow, Ow,” I cried crawling on my hands and knees. I then stood up and limped to add a sprained ankle to my list of injuries. Dad and Chelsea were now standing outside on the porch expecting an explanation. With Chelsea in that ugly dressing gown I think I should have been the one asking for an explanation on what on earth made her buy such a hideous robe!

“So what were you doing under the kitchen window?” Dad snapped tapping his foot impatiently on the wooden deck. I could tell he didn't believe my sprained ankle routine. If he thought my injuries were serious he would've come running. I think my father was growing more unsympathetic as he got older, or more suspicious. Here I was his only daughter crawling around in the wet muddy grass in my brand new jeans, blood gushing out her arm, tears streaming down her face, (they may have been fake tears but they were still tears no less!) and yet…nothing. No sympathy at all.

I realised I had to do something drastic. I had to make this an Oscar winning performance.

“Ow, ouch, eeek, oh Daddeeee,” I whined loudly as I held out my bloodied arm in front of him…but still no sympathy!

“WELL! I am waiting for an answer Sophie and it better be a good one,” he said angrily and still tapping his foot on the deck.

I wasn't about to give in just yet. I could be just as stubborn as he was.

I took a deep breath in and began my story:

“You see…I forgot my bag so I was running back home as fast as I could to get it and that's when my ankle gave way and I skidded head first across the lawn and landed underneath the kitchen window. Then that's when you saw me,” I said quite pleased with myself.

Partly that was the truth, I had forgotten my bag. It was still sitting in the hallway where I had left it.

“Really!” said Dad sounding unconvinced, “I'm still confused though. What were you doing under the kitchen window in the first place?”

Now I was confused, didn't he just hear what I said?

Dad was looking at me suspiciously and I could tell he was trying to read my expressions.

I did my best to keep a blank look on my face but it was hard. I couldn't help but feel I had the words ‘liar, liar, pants on fire' written boldly across my forehead. I felt a lump grow in my throat. I tried swallowing but it was too dry, instead I just gagged and made a choking sound.

Luckily Chelsea felt sympathetic; she rushed to my aid and helped me onto my feet. Dad, however, didn't move a muscle. He just looked down his nose at me crossly with his arms folded tightly.

“
This still doesn't explain anything Sophie. To be under the kitchen window you must have run directly past the front door, which is where you would need to go to get your bag. Yet, you were around the side of the house. So, what were you doing there exactly?” Dad asked me suspiciously.

Chelsea interrupted him and told him to drop the silly subject and to help get me inside to be cleaned up.

After a lot of whining and crying about my ruined jeans, sprained ankle and bleeding arm, they shuffled me into the house and sat me down at the kitchen table. As soon as Chelsea left the room to fetch the antiseptic for my ‘grazed' arm, Dad began firing a bazillion questions at me, like:

“How long were you under the window?”

“Why didn't you come straight into the front door?”

“Did you see or hear anything that maybe you shouldn't have?”

I was being grilled and it was pretty scary. Dad sure knew how to interrogate somebody. I started to panic, but lucky for me his mobile phone rang just in time.

That's when a really odd thing happened, after Dad answered ‘hello' his voice sounded angry. “Why are you calling me?” he spat as he darted out the front door so fast he looked like a blur.

A few seconds later Chelsea scurried back into the kitchen with her usual bright cheery smile but it quickly fell away when she asked where Dad had gone. Then when I told her that he took an important phone call outside, her face turned red with fury.

“THAT'S IT!” she screamed. She slammed the first aid box down so hard the lid flew open causing the cotton balls and band-aids to scatter across the kitchen table.

Journal entry:
Saturday, 8:32pm

The giant oak tree at the park was our hangout and it had been for years. Janice's brother had spread a rumour around the town that it was haunted so other kids wouldn't go near it. The tree was over a hundred years old, with a giant split at the base which meant you could walk inside the hollow tree. It was quite a large space as far as tree rooms go; it was almost the entire size of my bathroom.

Janice's brother Damian and his friends had already done the hard work for us. They had dragged in logs, stumps and a tree branch for us to use as chairs and tables; it was the best hangout ever.

By the time I finally arrived at the oak tree I was fifteen minutes late. Janice was already in a bad mood as she hated to be kept waiting. She quickly changed her mind as soon as I showed her the band-aids on my arm and I told her how I got them. I also described the rest of
m
y morning which finished with Dad getting another weird phone call and then Chelsea losing the plot.

“OMG Sophie, are they going to split up?” Janice asked.

“I don't know, but it's not looking too good. Dad is definitely up to something and I have to find out what it is soon or they just might be heading for splitsville.”

“Maybe that isn't a bad thing; at least you'll have Michael McClain out of your life forever?”

Janice had a point, Chelsea's son was a real pain in the butt and the thought of him becoming my step-brother made me want to puke. But the more I actually thought about it, the more I realised it wasn't about me; it was about Dad and Chelsea being happy and they made each other happy…until recently anyway.

“Unfortunately they're good together and love doesn't always came in a nice neat package, sometimes there are major obstacles in the way, like Michael. I am just going to have to deal with that problem later; right now I have to concentrate on Dad and Chelsea. It's up to us to find the truth and solve it, before it's too late,” I said.

“Okay Soph, if that's what you want, what do we do first?” Janice asked taking out her notebook and pen from her orange overnight bag. We both sat down at the log table and began to think.

Theo had just arrived, still wearing his dance clothes. Janice looked up from her notebook and rolled her eyes at him.

“Couldn't you have at least changed your clothes before you came here?” she scowled rudely.

“As a matter of fact, no! I ran the whole way here because I have some great news to tell my friends!” He said the word ‘friends' sarcastically. Janice moved uncomfortably on her log.

“So what's your news?” I asked Theo quickly hoping to lighten the mood.

It turned out Theo had come first in his ballet semi-finals and next Saturday he was going to compete in the state finals. Janice and I told him we would be there cheering him on. I was so proud of him that I gave him a big hug.

While Theo was putting on his tracksuit over his dance outfit I told him the story of how I ruined my new jeans.

“Oh no! They weren't the light denim pair with the studs on the side your grandmother bought back from New York were they?” he gasped utterly beside himself.

I nodded slowly, still feeling very sorry for myself.

Theo's eyes rolled back in his head and he looked as though he was about to faint. Quickly he pulled out his asthma inhaler from his black leather satchel and sucked in two deep breaths.

“Don't worry about me I'll be okay in just a minute or two,” he gasped holding his hand out as he patted the air.

To tell the truth I wasn't worried about him at all, he could be such a drama queen at times. His overacting had made Janice roll her eyes at him.

My friends were such opposites. If they could swap bodies I was sure they would get along much better than they did, I thought while looking at them.

“Okay you two we have wasted too much time already but I think I have an idea about what we can do next. What's the time now Soph?” Janice asked me quickly.

I looked at my empty wrist and realised I had taken my watch off when Chelsea washed the blood off my arm. “Err, my watch is at home sitting on the kitchen table,” I said looking at Janice disappointed.

“Oh never mind my mobile phone is in here somewhere,” said Janice scouring around her gigantic overnight bag. Out flew her pyjamas, slippers, two bags of chips, a packet of lollies and her toothbrush…all the essential items that made a comfy sleepover at my house.

“It's precisely 10:15 am,” Theo announced calmly flipping the leather case back over his phone with a SNAP!

I saw Janice clutching her old pink phone in her hand but she quickly dropped it back into her bag.

“Nice phone, is that the new i-one?” she asked Theo curiously.

“Yeah, Father bought it back from Dubai for me last week, it's all right I guess,” Theo said sounding very uninterested. “Here you can take a look at it if you want?” he said casually holding it out to Janice.

“No!” she snapped. “Why would I want to look at your phone when I have one the same?” she fibbed angrily as she furiously shoved her clothes and things back into her bag.

Janice zipped it up and threw it hard onto the dusty ground, making a big puff of dirt.

I didn't know why she was so angry; I didn't even have a mobile phone. Dad said I didn't have a reason to need one until I was older. I must be the only kid in high school without a phone, it was really quite embarrassing.

By the time the dust had settled we were putting our plan into action. We were on our way to Tony's Taxi Station. I knew Dad must have taken a taxi to the airport for two reasons:

1. Dad's car was getting serviced this weekend.

2. After their argument this morning there was no way Chelsea would be lending Dad her car—not without her going along with him.

Luckily for us Tony's Taxi's was the only taxi service in town.

Before our long walk to the other side of town we stopped off at Mrs Wong's Deli. I needed some supplies, which included a bag of chocolate frogs and some black liquorice straps.

“Why are you buying liquorice straps, you hate liquorice?” Theo reminded me.

“I know, but they're not for me, I like chocolate see!” I said showing him my mouthful of chocolate frogs.

“Eeww you're so gross sometimes Sophie,” he said storming out of the deli.

Sometimes I forgot how many good manners I
l
acked when I hung around Theo.

“What's up his nose?” Janice scoffed as she stuffed several more lolly snakes into her over loaded mouth.

It had taken us what felt like forever to walk to the other side of town and now I had a really bad
stitch. Theo said it was because I had eaten the whole bag of chocolate frogs myself. That wasn't true, I had offered them one frog each.

“Hey look there's Tony's taxi,” Theo yelled excitedly, as it pulled into the taxi station. What great timing. Theo and Janice rushed over the road towards the station while I hobbled behind them holding my aching side.

Janice was the first at the scene and she began bombarding Tony with questions before he had even opened his car door. As I had suspected Tony was a little reluctant to talk at first but after bribing him with his favourite black liquorice straps, he invited us into his office and soon told us what we wanted to know.

(Spy rule 121:
Bribing usually gets
you what you want!)