Spy School Read Online Free Page A
Author: Stuart Gibbs
shoulder. There, a bank of monitors presented views of every place I’d been on campus.
I winced as understanding descended. “This was a test?”
“Lucky for you,” said the man in the center of the table, the owner of the disappointed voice. He was a stocky man who seemed to think he was more roguish than he truly was. His suit was dotted with food stains, his waistline stretched the fly of his pants to the breaking point, and though his hair was thick and perfectly coiffed, it was also quite obviously a toupee. “If this had been a real incident of external aggression, we’d be mailing your remains home in a doggie bag.”
“But I haven’t learned anything yet,” I countered. “I just got here.”
“I’m well aware of that,” the man snapped. “The SACSA exam is standard for all students upon arrival.”
I looked to Alexander for help.
“Survival and Combat Skills Assessment,” he explained, then turned to the panel. “I thought that trick he did with the reference book in the library was rather clever.”
“It was a lucky shot,” Bad Toupee said dismissively.
“And using the Taser on the keypad?” Alexander asked. “We’ve never seen that before.”
“For good reason. It was moronic.” Bad Toupee stood and fixed me with a hard stare. He had a slight tic—a twitch in his left eye—which seemed to be exacerbated by his anger. “I’m the principal of this academy. These are the vice principals, Agents Connor and Dixon. You’ve already met Alexander Hale . . . and, of course, Erica.”
I turned around. The girl was behind me. She had entered without making a sound.
I gave her a half wave hello but got nothing in return.
“I think we’re all in agreement that your performance today was deplorable,” the principal continued. “You’ve displayed amateur-level skills or worse in virtually every arena: unarmed combat, elusiveness, savoir faire . . .”
“Is there an essay portion of this test?” I asked hopefully. “I usually do well on those.”
The principal glared at me, his left eye twitching wildly. “You’re not so hot at knowing when to keep your mouth shut, either. Frankly, if you hadn’t done well on your STIQs and shown an extraordinary aptitude for cryptography, I’d be sending you right back home to Mommy and Daddy. But we’ll just have to see what we can make of you. You have a lot of work to do, Ripley. And, as of now, a D-minus average.”
With that, he waved me away dismissively.
I left the office, feeling hollow inside. I’d never had a grade lower than a B in my life—and that was an 89 in handwriting back in third grade.
I was also slightly confused by something the principal had said. I’d never known I had extraordinary cryptographic ability. In fact, despite my gift for math, I’d always found cryptography rather difficult. Math and logic will get you only so far with many codes; you also need to be good at wordplay. Which was why I could calculate exactly how many seconds I’d been at spy school so far (1,319) but still be stumped by the newspaper’s daily jumble on a regular basis.
There had been a few cryptography games on the CIA website. I was under the impression that I’d utterly failed at them, but perhaps they’d been designed to detect some latent skills that even I didn’t know about.
Erica stepped into the hall behind me.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, right?” I asked her. “I mean, I’ve had no training in anything yet. I’ll bet no one does well on this test when they first get here.”
“I aced it,” she told me. And then she left without so much as a good-bye.
Thus, a mere twenty-three minutes after my arrival at spy school, I had learned something extremely important about it: It wasn’t going to be easy.
INTIMIDATION
Armistead Dormitory
January 16
1750 hours
Moving from home to a boarding school where I didn’t know anyone would have been difficult under normal circumstances. After my frightening and
I winced as understanding descended. “This was a test?”
“Lucky for you,” said the man in the center of the table, the owner of the disappointed voice. He was a stocky man who seemed to think he was more roguish than he truly was. His suit was dotted with food stains, his waistline stretched the fly of his pants to the breaking point, and though his hair was thick and perfectly coiffed, it was also quite obviously a toupee. “If this had been a real incident of external aggression, we’d be mailing your remains home in a doggie bag.”
“But I haven’t learned anything yet,” I countered. “I just got here.”
“I’m well aware of that,” the man snapped. “The SACSA exam is standard for all students upon arrival.”
I looked to Alexander for help.
“Survival and Combat Skills Assessment,” he explained, then turned to the panel. “I thought that trick he did with the reference book in the library was rather clever.”
“It was a lucky shot,” Bad Toupee said dismissively.
“And using the Taser on the keypad?” Alexander asked. “We’ve never seen that before.”
“For good reason. It was moronic.” Bad Toupee stood and fixed me with a hard stare. He had a slight tic—a twitch in his left eye—which seemed to be exacerbated by his anger. “I’m the principal of this academy. These are the vice principals, Agents Connor and Dixon. You’ve already met Alexander Hale . . . and, of course, Erica.”
I turned around. The girl was behind me. She had entered without making a sound.
I gave her a half wave hello but got nothing in return.
“I think we’re all in agreement that your performance today was deplorable,” the principal continued. “You’ve displayed amateur-level skills or worse in virtually every arena: unarmed combat, elusiveness, savoir faire . . .”
“Is there an essay portion of this test?” I asked hopefully. “I usually do well on those.”
The principal glared at me, his left eye twitching wildly. “You’re not so hot at knowing when to keep your mouth shut, either. Frankly, if you hadn’t done well on your STIQs and shown an extraordinary aptitude for cryptography, I’d be sending you right back home to Mommy and Daddy. But we’ll just have to see what we can make of you. You have a lot of work to do, Ripley. And, as of now, a D-minus average.”
With that, he waved me away dismissively.
I left the office, feeling hollow inside. I’d never had a grade lower than a B in my life—and that was an 89 in handwriting back in third grade.
I was also slightly confused by something the principal had said. I’d never known I had extraordinary cryptographic ability. In fact, despite my gift for math, I’d always found cryptography rather difficult. Math and logic will get you only so far with many codes; you also need to be good at wordplay. Which was why I could calculate exactly how many seconds I’d been at spy school so far (1,319) but still be stumped by the newspaper’s daily jumble on a regular basis.
There had been a few cryptography games on the CIA website. I was under the impression that I’d utterly failed at them, but perhaps they’d been designed to detect some latent skills that even I didn’t know about.
Erica stepped into the hall behind me.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, right?” I asked her. “I mean, I’ve had no training in anything yet. I’ll bet no one does well on this test when they first get here.”
“I aced it,” she told me. And then she left without so much as a good-bye.
Thus, a mere twenty-three minutes after my arrival at spy school, I had learned something extremely important about it: It wasn’t going to be easy.
INTIMIDATION
Armistead Dormitory
January 16
1750 hours
Moving from home to a boarding school where I didn’t know anyone would have been difficult under normal circumstances. After my frightening and
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