Double Vision Read Online Free Page B

My Boy Scout days are long over anyways.” He wrapped my fingers around it and patted my fist. “Remember, home is west.”
    â€œDepending on where you are.”
    He laughed. “Yeah.”
    I clipped the compass to the loop on my backpack, feeling very sad all of a sudden. I really just wanted to stay here with Dad at Baker Autos, changing the oil on some clunker.
    â€œTime to go.” Agent Fullerton stood in the doorway, tapping his gold watch. I took my backpack and skateboard, and everyone followed me outside to Agent Fullerton’s parked car. Mom hugged me and I had to repeat our home number like I was five years old. Dad patted me on the shoulder all father-to-son like. I got in a car with Agent Fullerton, and I was on my own.
    As I waved to my parents and watched my house disappear behind the trees that lined the sidewalk I skateboarded on to school every day, I felt really scared for the first time in years.
    â€œWhere are we going?” I asked Agent Fullerton as he turned onto the main street out of Lompoc. “You can tell me. My parents aren’t around.”
    â€œWe’re headed toward Los Angeles, to the Ventura Hacienda Hotel. You’ll be trained to take Benjamin Green’s place in the field.”
    â€œOkay. So this Benjamin Green guy, he’s a kid my age? And a secret agent?” I was trying to make sense of it all.
    â€œYes and yes. Benjamin Green is one of our first junior agents.” Fullerton sounded kind of proud of this, like maybe he came up with the whole idea. “Only the country’s finest make it into the junior agent training program.”
    â€œWait—you have a training camp for kids?”
    Agent Fullerton nodded. “Our government got intel a few years ago that the Chinese and the Russians were using kids in their undercover ops and that they have training camps. So naturally, we had to have some, too.”
    â€œNaturally.” Undercover kid agents? The world governments had gone nuts.
    â€œNormally, our junior agents only work on low-risk cases—crimes in middle schools and high schools, that sort of thing. We found the infiltration of junior agents to be very helpful in solving crime. You kids can go places and be unnoticed in ways our adult agents can’t.”
    â€œSo what was Ben doing?”
    â€œWe’ll brief you on Monday,” Fullerton said.
    â€œSo this is what’s in Los Angeles—a junior agent boot camp I have to go to?”
    â€œNo,” Agent Fullerton said with a little laugh. “It takes months, years to train an agent. Especially you kids. The vetting process alone takes almost a year.” He shook his head. “There’s no time to turn you into a real junior agent, especially not one of Benjamin Green’s caliber. Luckily, you need to be Benjamin Green just for a day—an hour!”
    At this point, Agent Fullerton started telling me all about this fantastic Benjamin Green. How he had a black belt in karate and could run five miles at Olympic record speed. How he knew Mandarin (apparently, that’s Chinese), aced every test at school, and could lift a hundred pounds with his pinkie.
    All right, so I made that last part up, but you get the idea. The guy was a superhero, and I was Linc the Chicken Boy. By the time we exited the freeway just north of LA, I hated Benjamin Green.
    â€œHow can a kid know all that?” I asked at the end of Agent Fullerton’s speech.
    â€œBenjamin Green applies himself,” Agent Fullerton said, like it was an accusation. “Failure isn’t an option for him.”
    This guy really knew how to make you feel special. “I’m athletic, sort of,” I argued, not liking being called a loser. “I played baseball for a while—I was a great pitcher.”
    â€œUntil you quit.” Agent Fullerton smirked. “You’re one of those kids who’s always looking for an easy way out. You never