Agent Q, or the Smell of Danger! Read online

  “Taylor Quizmo, Secret Agent!” the boy announced. Then he waved the Game Wedge™ and ordered, “Stop where you are!”

  A guy leaned from the passenger-side window and pointed out, “That is a video game. A child’s toy. Not a weapon.”

  “Think again, friend,” said Taylor Quizmo, Secret Agent. “Taylor Quizmo doesn’t play games.” He pressed a hidden button, and a spray of green sleeping gas poured out of the pointy part of the Wedge.

  “Back! Back!” voices in the hay shouted to the driver. The driver hit the clutch and jolted the truck into reverse.

  Lily and Katie threw themselves against the wall so they wouldn’t get squooshed. “Grab them!” Lily shouted, which doesn’t make much sense when I write it, but did make sense when she shouted it—because the half-conscious Drgnan and Jasper were sliding by. The arms in the hay had gotten a taste of their own sleeping medicine—they drooped—and it wasn’t hard for Katie and Lily to start a little tug-of-war with their friends as ropes.

  Meanwhile, Taylor Quizmo, Secret Agent, was running toward the truck, spraying his aerosol sleeping gas and looking stern.

  “Bvletch!” Lily yelled to him, and Katie joined her: “They’ve still got Bvletch!”

  “Who’s . . . ?” Taylor Quizmo asked.

  “A friend! In the hay!” Lily yelled.

  Taylor Quizmo looked around, a little confused. He had just run into his own cloud of sleeping gas.

  The truck kept rolling.

  Lily and Katie held on to their friends for dear life.

  Drgnan and Jasper collapsed like sacks into the girls’ arms.

  The truck—with Bvletch still somewhere in it—screeched backward as the street got wider. It turned around and tore off.

  Katie was leaning over Drgnan, slapping him. Jasper was blinking and sitting up. Taylor Quizmo was struggling to keep awake.

  Everyone else was busy. So Lily ran after the truck.

  It pulled out into a main street. It started honking wildly. It didn’t move. Half-gutted lumps of hay rolled off into the street. A struggle of spy arms and legs was visible in the mound of feed.

  Lily realized why it wasn’t moving: The driver had fallen asleep. His head was bobbing on the horn.

  That might buy us time, she thought, puffing toward the cab of the truck. She hoped she could pull Bvletch out of the mess.

  The driver had fallen asleep—but the spy in the passenger seat had not. He pressed the driver’s leg down. The leg pressed the foot. The foot pressed the pedal. And the pedal set the whole mechanism of internal combustion rolling.

  The truck sped off, swerving, up the hill toward the Castle on its forbidding peak. It took off with Bvletch still inside.

  The alley behind it was left strewn with dazed bodies.

  TABLE FOR FIVE

  “He’s gone,” said Lily, pale with horror. “They got him. They took him toward the Castle.”

  The others were starting to stand, looking groggy and unsteady.

  “Who’s missing?” asked Taylor Quizmo, Secret Agent. “One of the monks?”

  “Brother Bvletch,” answered Drgnan.

  “We’ve got to go after him,” said Katie. She was giving Jasper a hand with his backpack.

  “No,” said Taylor Quizmo. “Let’s get you to the safe house. There we can talk to agents for the Resistance. They have people inside the Castle. We can make a plan with them.” He looked carefully at Katie. “Can I help you up?” he asked.

  She checked her legs. “It’s too late,” she said. “I’m already standing.”

  “It’s never too late to help a beautiful lady to her feet.” He gave her a quick, boyish wink and said to everyone, “Let’s go. We want to move fast.”

  “This way,” said Drgnan.

  As they walked, they all introduced themselves.

  Taylor Quizmo had a shiny, handsome face and hair so blond it was yellow, with the bright, sunny sheen of a cheap butter substitute. He wore a V-neck sweater draped over his shoulders. His shirt was aristocratic and striped, with a heraldic crest embroidered on the breast pocket.

  “I was sent by the U.S. government to get you across the border,” said the boy spy. “As I said, my name is Taylor Quizmo, Secret Agent.” He pulled out his wallet and flipped it open. “License to Kill,” he said, flashed a card in front of everyone, and snapped the wallet closed.

  “Um, did that say ‘License to Kill’?” Katie asked. “Because I thought it was a learner’s permit.”

  “It is. A special learner’s permit. License to Drive. And Kill. Well, the killing isn’t specifically included on the piece of paper. You can’t have that kind of thing written down. When you’re in a Ugandan prison and they’re really turning the thumbscrews on you, you can’t have pieces of paper that say, blah blah blah, this guy can kill, he’s vitally important to our national security, et cetera.”

  Jasper was extremely delighted to meet him. “So you are Agent Q. It must be thrilling to be a boy spy,” he said, practically hopping. “I suspect you are issued some excellent gadgets. Perhaps you’re even given them in underground rooms.”

  Taylor nodded, ducking his lips modestly. “Yes, there are a fair number of special ops gadgets attached to the position. And underground rooms. This, for example, looks like a Megaluxe Game Wedge™, but in fact it shoots sleeping gas.” He held up his game. “You saw it in action. It also plays Neutron Soccer IV. My high score is twenty-five thousand.” He snapped once. “Shakin’ and quakin’. What’s your high score?” he asked Jasper. “Your best score?”

  “I’ve never played Neutron Soccer IV.”

  Taylor looked to Drgnan. “You? Your top score?”

  Drgnan was bewildered. “I do not—”

  “Sure, you’re a monk. You don’t have fun. I forgot.” Taylor gave them all a big smile. Drgnan did not return the smile. Jasper was not looking quite as delighted at meeting a boy spy.

  Quizmo explained, “Some of the congressmen I know send me out on particularly delicate missions. An adult would be noticed. Suspected. But a kid? The baddies never see what hit them. Armed with my cool gear and all the lessons I learned from spy camp, I’m ready to do battle with anyone who threatens the way we live.”

  Jasper looked uncomfortable. He felt exactly the same way about defending the way we live, but he wasn’t sure he really liked Taylor Quizmo, who’d just appeared and taken over their little gang. He wasn’t really sure he wanted to agree with Taylor Quizmo.

  They had reached the market, just as Grzo had described. There was a lively trade in dusty root vegetables and old appliances. The kids went right over to Wilt’s Fishery, a shingled restaurant with an old-time diving suit standing by the door.

  They went in. There was a fishy smell. A woman stood at a little podium. She was heavily made up and wore a sweater covered with white sequins. In Doverian, she said, “Hi! Welcome to Wilt’s. How many in your party?”

  Taylor said, “Anyone speak the spit-noises that pass for language in this stupid state?” He chuckled.

  Drgnan gave the secret agent a cold look. Then, in Doverian, he said to the woman, “We would like a table by the bay, please. Table seventeen.”

  The woman showed no sign that he had said anything unusual. She nodded, crossed something off with a grease pencil, took a sheaf of menus, and said, “This way.”

  “She says to follow,” Drgnan reported. They all walked behind her.

  She led them down some stairs. Diners muttered over chowder and hexagonal crackers. She took the kids into a side room. There was a tank of lobsters, and some basins of fish on ice laid out in beds of parsley.

  The woman said to Drgnan, “There’s someone at table seventeen right now. Please wait here. It will be ready presently.”

  She smiled and absently knocked out a rhythm with her ring on the lobster tank. Then she swished off to seat someone else.

  “What do we do now?” said Katie.

  “You just keep looking beautiful,” said Taylor Quizmo with
a charming smile. “That’s what you do best.”

  “Look!” said Lily. She pointed to the lobster tank.

  One of the lobsters had trundled over to the wall of the tank and had inserted his claws into slits. He turned them back and forth, as if repeating a combination.

  “Sentient lobsters!” exclaimed Jasper.

  There was a click, and the lobster tank rolled to the side. Behind it was a low secret passage.

  Katie said, “Wow.”

  Drgnan said, “Splendid.”

  Taylor Quizmo looked at Drgnan like the monk was an idiot. “You think that secret passage is cool? It’s a fish tank.” He patted Drgnan’s arm. “But I guess your standards change once you’ve seen the Washington Monument slide aside to reveal a missile silo underneath. And once you’ve walked down secret passages formed out of flowing, molten lava into a control room on the bottom of the sea. Stick with me, friend.”

  “Should we go . . . ,” started Lily, then stopped. She suddenly felt like she didn’t want to talk in front of Taylor Quizmo. It seemed like he knew everything and thought people were stupid when they didn’t.

  Jasper, however, said, “Let’s go, chums. Before someone walks in by accident and sees the secret passage.”

  The five kids ducked down and entered. Drgnan, the last to go through, pulled the secret door shut with a click.

  Then the room was empty of people. The lights buzzed over the blanched fish. The tank bubbled. The lobsters went right back to playing solitaire, as if nothing had happened.

  DRROK, THE GARDENER

  There was only one lightbulb hanging from the ceiling of the secret corridor. Most of the passage was dark. They walked down it carefully. Jasper, in the lead, tapped his toe occasionally against the floor in front of him to check for holes or swiveling panels.

  “Uh, where are we going?” Katie asked.

  “The safe house, I assume,” said Jasper. “The passage from Wilt’s Fishery must be how the Resistance conceals the fact that many people come and go all the time.”

  “I don’t call any house guarded by a lobster ‘safe,’” said Taylor Quizmo. “Maybe a couple of Navy SEALs. Then we’re talking.”

  “That was a pretty good joke,” Katie admitted. “Lobster, then seals.”

  “I like a lady to laugh,” said Taylor Quizmo. “It shows her teeth.”

  Annoyed, Katie said, “I didn’t mean that I—”

  “Shhh!” said Jasper.

  “What’s wrong, kid?” asked Taylor. “You don’t like a good joke?”

  Jasper didn’t respond. He just waved his hand.

  Then they all heard it. A grating sound, like metal scraping.

  They were right under the bulb. Everything around them was dark.

  A voice echoed down the corridor.

  It challenged them in Doverian, a mass of spluttering syllables.

  Drgnan replied in his slender, musical voice.

  Another few questions. This time, the others could hear that Drgnan was introducing them all by name. “Jasperi Dashku, knb technonautika . . . dn Lilia Gefeltaku, srt wum . . . dn Katia Mulliganaku . . . vlerg jyt Horror Hollow, nyerc vm qulignamrt. Ctassm knb Taylori Quizmoku pyet, Ssfrt Kyelp. Wt kyelprt dn utr trznmn Kongreszi United Shtatii dyakrt.”

  More back-and-forth. The voice seemed to be much friendlier. Drgnan even laughed at one point.

  Then there was a resounding metal clank—a screech—and a heavy, bolted door was thrown open at the end of the passage. A block of light thudded down in front of them. They walked toward it.

  A guard with a machine gun was at the end, welcoming them. They each shook his hand, and he said, in a friendly, grumbly Delawarian accent, “Good hello. Good hello.”

  They came out in a courtyard of old yellow brick, ancient stone, and old, rotting woodwork. The house was an antique one, built in Wilmington’s glory days, when all the great families of the place lived around atria, or enclosed yards. As bare as the houses were on the outside, the inside was lively with colorful ornament: monsters carved on pillars; scenes from the great Doverian epics painted on the second-floor balconies; dormers colored with bright morning shades; and all over the walls, ancient frescoes of flowers and fruits, now only ghostly, though still ripe. Girls played jump rope in the shadow of an old 1940s car that was filled with potted flowers. A baby boy ran a toy truck across the bricks, growling the sound of shifting gears, which are the same in every language. Vegetables grew in a little garden, and lush, tropical plants hung on long rope braids from the upper stories.

  A man with a smart face and a clever goatee came forward, his mouth curled with pleasure, and bowed to them. He wore a dusty suit. His shirt collar was open, and he still carried a trowel in his hand. He had, apparently, been gardening.

  “Greetings, children,” he said. “I am Drrok, the gardener here. I shall look after you until it is time for you to leave.”

  They all introduced themselves—but the introductions were rushed. “Sir,” said Jasper, “there is dire news to report. One of our number has been kidnapped by the Ministry of Silence and taken up to the Castle.”

  Drrok touched himself on the forehead and asked with horror and concern when it had happened, where, how, and other details. Drgnan answered in Doverian.

  By this point, several older girls—teenagers—had come out on one of the balconies. They were staring at the boys and whispering. They especially seemed to stare at Taylor Quizmo. He looked up, saw the chicks, concealed a smile, then gave up and winked at them all. When he winked, they giggled.

  “Taylor,” said Jasper, “we have to think about how we’re going to help Bvletch.”

  “Don’t worry about it, kid,” said Taylor. “I have to think about my public.” He gave a cute little wave at his admirers.

  Jasper turned away with a frown.

  Drrok, the gardener, called for soldiers, and a couple came out of one of the apartments and rushed to his side. Drgnan and Drrok clearly were explaining the situation with Bvletch to them. Lily hated to think of what might be happening to Bvletch at that very moment. She knew he would be pulled, struggling, from that hay truck and frog-marched through the Castle halls, down to its dreaded dungeons and interrogation chambers. She pictured his cheeks, spotted with blackheads, being slapped by stooges. She couldn’t bear it.

  Taylor had sat lightly on a planter made out of part of a pillar. His legs were crossed at the ankle and he stretched back, carefully retucking the folds of the sweater that hung around his neck. As the girls up on the balcony tittered, he took out his detonator-wristwatch and cleaned it lovingly.

  Lily was trying to figure out what the soldiers of the Resistance were saying about Bvletch. She couldn’t catch enough words. She had learned a few by listening for the last several days—knb was “boy,” kragb was “Castle”—but that wasn’t enough to go on.

  “It’s kind of a pain, really,” Taylor announced, “attracting the kind of attention I do wherever I go. Not great for a master spy.”

  Lily looked around to see who he might be talking to. No one else was listening. She guessed he was talking to her. She didn’t really want to talk to him. She nodded vaguely and kept her ears trained on the conversation between the members of the Resistance and Drgnan.

  “There’s no way I can stay incognito,” said Taylor. “I mean, what is it with you women?”

  It sounded weird to Lily, being referred to as a woman. She didn’t want to be rude, but she kind of wished he would stop talking.

  “I mean, sure, I’m good-looking, but come on, not that good-looking. Not good-looking enough to explain all this attention I get all the time.” He waved back again to the girls on the balcony.

  Lily saw the two soldiers talking seriously together. One of them nodded vigorously. It looked like they were coming to some kind of decision.

  “I mean,” said Taylor Quizmo, “what do you think?”

  Lily pretended she hadn’t heard.

  Taylor said, “I’m not that good-
looking, really. I’m really not. What do you think? I guess you think I’m okay . . . hm?”

  She glanced back at him. She nodded softly, and then said politely, “I’m sorry, I’m listening to them.”

  “You nodded.”

  She nodded again.

  “You nodded that I’m okay.”

  Lily turned away from him.

  Taylor insisted, “What do you mean, ‘okay’?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “What do you mean by that? By nodding ‘okay’?”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “So you think just okay.”

  Lily was getting embarrassed and angry now. She didn’t normally get angry, but Bvletch was in danger, and all this spoiled spy would talk about was his own face. Lily wouldn’t even turn to look at him.

  “How can you say that?” Taylor said. “That I’m just ‘okay’?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Those were your exact words. Look, I have girls from New York calling me all the time. I guess they think I’m better than ‘okay.’ They really know, there in New York. They know what a good-looking guy looks like. Those New York girls.”

  “Good,” said Lily, trying to be nice. “That’s good. Maybe you can get a date with one or something when we get to New Jersey.”

  “Oh, but you, you’re too good for me,” he said. “That’s what you mean.”

  “No,” said Lily. “Could we not talk about this right now?”

  “Because you—Lily What’s-Your-Name—you’re too good for someone who once shared an ice-cream sandwich with a nineteen-year-old Russian countess.”

  “I don’t think they have countesses anymore,” said Lily. “I’m listening to the—”

  “Oh, they do! They have countesses, and countesses have ice-cream Chipwiches!”

  “Excuse me,” said Jasper Dash. “I think—”

  “What is it with you, kid, and the shushing? You going to librarian school or something?”

  “Librarians,” said Jasper hotly, “are the guardians of public knowledge.”

  Taylor laughed richly. “More like the guardians of the Dewey decimal system.”