"It's my pleasure to introduce Dr. Steven Sanders. Dr. Sanders…" Mom started, but trailed off as the little man walked behind the staff table, tilted the microphone toward his mouth, and said, "Dr. Steve."
"Excuse me?" Mom asked.
"Call me Dr. Steve," he said with a punch at the air.
I looked at Liz, suspecting that the thought of calling a teacher by his first name would send her into shock, but she didn't seem to notice anything beyond the boys who stood near the head table.
"Of course," Mom told him, then turned to face us. "Dr. Steve and his students will be spending the remainder of the semester with us."
At this, a low chorus of whispers grew inside the hall. "They will be attending your classes, eating with you at meals." Sleeping in the East Wing, I thought.
"Ladies, this is a wonderful opportunity," Mom finished. "And I hope you will use this time to forge bonds of friendship that you can carry throughout your lives."
"I wouldn't mind being bonded to him," Eva Alvarez said, gesturing to a boy at the edge of the pack. A boy with dark brown hair and broad shoulders.
A boy who crossed his arms and leaned against the head table.
A boy who was smiling.
At me.
Chapter Twelve
"Members of this tribe can be identified by what physical characteristic, Ms. Bauer?" Mr. Smith asked an hour later, but I'm pretty sure I speak for the entire sophomore class when I say that we were far less interested in the countries of the world than we were in what was going on in our own school. I mean, how were we supposed to focus when there were extra chairs at the back of our classroom? Chairs that were waiting … for boys.
Even Liz kept looking around as if the boys were going to teleport into the back of the room or something. But Mr. Smith kept lecturing like this was an ordinary day—right up until a deep voice called "Knock knock," and Dr. Steve pushed open the door.
Dr. Steve exclaimed, "Good morning, ladies," except that, if you ask me, it wasn't. And I was just getting ready to say so, when the morning got worse. Way worse. Because, not only had Dr. Steve barged in, interrupting a perfectly nice lecture, but he hadn't come alone.
Three boys stood behind him: one was skinny with glasses and thick black hair. One bore a striking resemblance to your average Greek god. And standing between them … was Zach.
My friends call me the Chameleon—I'm the girl who blends in, who goes unseen—but I have never wanted to be invisible as much as I did then.
I mean, I get the interschool cooperation thing; I can totally grasp the concept of camaraderie and teamwork. But the spy in me had been beaten the day before, and the girl in me had been flirted with and used. I slumped in my chair, wishing Bex were still using that volumizing conditioner, because at the moment, I needed all the cover I could get.
"Can I help you, Dr. Sanders?" Mr. Smith asked, not even trying to hide the impatience in his voice, but Dr. Steve just looked at him and held one hand in the air as if he were trying to put his finger on something.
"I say, your voice sounds so familiar." Dr. Steve said. Mr. Smith is one of the most wanted (not to mention paranoid) ex-spies in the world, and every summer he goes to the CIA's official plastic surgeon and gets a whole new face, so there was no way Dr. Steve was going to recognize him. "Have we met before?"
"No," Mr. Smith said coolly. "I'm quite sure we haven't."
"Never did any work at the Andover Institute, did you?"
"No," Mr. Smith said again, then started back toward the board as if his lecture had been delayed long enough.
"Oh well," Dr. Steve said with a laugh. Then he pointed to the boys behind him. "Shall we have the boys introduce themselves?"
"I have learned, Dr. Sanders—"
"Steve," Dr. Steve corrected, but Mr. Smith carried on, not even pausing for breath.
"—that ours is an occupation where names are—at best—temporary," Mr. Smith finished. Which, when you think about it, is putting it mildly coming from a man who (according to Tina Walters) has one hundred and thirty-seven aliases registered with the CIA. "But, if they must…" Mr. Smith rolled his eyes and sat on the corner of his desk.
The skinny boy stepped forward, pulling nervously on his tie as if it were an entirely new kind of torture.
"Um…I'm Jonas," he said, shifting from foot to foot. "I'm sixteen. I'm a sophomore—"
"Thus your enrollment in this class," Mr. Smith said drily. "Welcome, Jonas. Please have a seat."
"Excellent job, Jonas." Dr. Steve said, ignoring Mr. Smith, who had started to hand out a pop quiz. "Excellent job. Now, Jonas here is on the research track of study. I don't suppose any of you young ladies could show Jonas around?"
"Humph!" Liz exclaimed, which probably had less to do with the fact that she was eager to show Jonas around than the fact that Bex had just kicked the back of her chair (hard). But Dr. Steve didn't see any of that. He pointed at Liz and said, "Excellent!" again.
(Note to self: "excellence" at the Blackthorne Institute is probably graded on a very different scale than the one we use at the Gallagher Academy.)
"Jonas, you can spend the day with Ms…" Dr. Steve looked to Liz.
"Sutton. Liz Sutton."
"Excellent," Dr. Steve said one more time. "Now, Grant, if you would—"
"I'm Grant," said the boy on Zach's other side. Grant didn't look like a high school sophomore—Grant looked like Brad Pitt's body double.