BRIDGET WILDER: BOYS DON'T SPY. CHAPTER TWO.

Last week, Bridget met weepy new student Emily Barnicle and Joanna had her chair pulled out from under her by school prankster, All Caps.

Now read on...

2)Friendship Is Magic

“You seemed  a little upset before,” I tell Emily Barnicle. It’s not that I want to get into a whole big emotional conversation with this  girl I barely know, but we’re standing outside a locked bathroom  door waiting for Joanna to recover from her traumatic cafeteria experience. We need to talk about something.

    “Drowsy P ghosted me,” is her reply.

    I have no comeback to that.

    Emily moves over to the sink. She washes her face and gazes at herself in the mirror.

    “The first weekend after we moved here, Casey threw me a Welcome to Reindeer Crescent party,” she

tells her reflection.

    “Of course she did,” I hear Joanna mutter from behind her toilet door, her suspicions confirmed  that

Casey, Kelly, and Nola’s lives are one long, fun party.

    “I reaaaallly didn’t want to go,” Emily continues. “I don’t like parties, especially when I’m not going to

know anyone and people are just going to expect me to be another Casey and they’re going to be disappointed when they find out I’m not. But my mom’s like, go, it’s important, you’ll meet people, and I say I won’t, and she says you will, and I say I won’t and she says…”

    “So what happened?” I say, interrupting Emily’s detail-filled story. She turns from the sink to face me.

    “Everything I expected,” she says. “It was like I was a window standing between Casey and all the

people at her party. They talked through me to get her attention. Plus, she gave this pre-party prep:

don’t talk about your old school,  don’t  talk about your old friends, don’t  talk about the divorce. If

anyone had even shown any interest in getting to know me, I wouldn’t have known what I was allowed

to say to them.”

    I give Emily a sympathetic smile.  I went to a party at Kelly Beach’s house and, even though  it was

only for the purposes of a spy operation that ended in a hideous double cross, I completely identify with

her stress and confusion.

    “I hid,” Emily continues. “My plan was to lurk in Casey’s house for another half hour, long enough to

convince my mom I’d made the effort to have a good time, and then head home.

    “Been there,” I say.

    Emily points a finger upwards. “I went up to the attic. Perfect hiding place. Except there was someone

already there. Some guy was looking through a book of old photographs. When he saw me, he said,

‘You hate parties, too?’”

    She widens her eyes at me. “Amazing, right? To see someone you’ve never met before and know in an

instant  who they are and what they’re all about.”

    I nod and think, that’s exactly the opposite of my spy life.

    “His name was Duncan Podesta. He attends the Reindeer Crescent School for the Performing Arts. His

friends call him Drowsy P because he has these kind of sleepy eyes…”

    I know where this story is going. Unlike the rest of the shallow party guests who treated Emily like a

window, Duncan Podesta aka Drowsy P treated her like a book, a book that grew more fascinating the

further he read. Drowsy P wanted to know everything about Emily. Her life in Boston, her friends, the

divorce, the relocation to Reindeer Crescent, her hopes and fears for the future, her interests…

    “People’s eyes glaze over when I talk about my passion for figure-skating and how intense the training is, but Duncan was so  interested,” I hear Emily sigh.

    I tune out as she continues to re-enact her surprise encounter with Drowsy P, and then goes into

great detail about the two occasions they hung out. I know how this story ends.

    “…and we talked about Grease which is my favorite musical and he said i should do a routine based

on one of the songs and then I said, wow great idea, what song? And he said ‘You're The One That I

Want’, and I said, what about ‘Hopelessly Devoted To You’, and then he never called me again. Never

replied to my texts. Nothing! It’s like he vanished. Except I know he didn’t vanish.” 

    Emily pulls out her phone. I know what she’s going to do. She’s going to show me Drowsy P’s

Instagram. I’m going to see lots of pictures of him having fun with his friends, and I am going to have to

agree with Emily that this is indisputable evidence that, in the sleepy eyes of Duncan Podesta, she has

ceased to exist.

    “It’s not like I thought he was the Maxim Trankov to my Tatiana Volosozhar,” she says. Picking up on

my confused look, Emily goes on, “Russian figure skaters who enjoyed a beautiful romance on and off

the ice.  But why wouldn’t he even want me as a friend? Now all I am is someone’s cousin and even she

doesn’t want me around.”

    Emily starts tearing up again. The locked bathroom door opens. I get tense.  Joanna likes to give the

impression that she’s cold, heartless and bulletproof. But it’s only an impression. Being dumped on the

ground by All Caps and laughed at by the entire population of the cafeteria could have scarred her for

life.

    “People suck, Emily Barnicle,” grins Joanna, as she emerges from the bathroom looking almost

radiant. “Know what you should do? Tell me all your cousin Casey’s deep dark dirty secrets and I’ll

publish them on my Tumblr.”

    Joanna Conquest is a misery vampire. Emily’s unhappiness  cured Joanna of her own  and made her a

happier, healthier, stronger person.

    “Don’t tell her anything,” I advise Emily. 

    “You want revenge on Casey for treating you like toilet paper stuck to her shoe,’ Joanna tells her.

    “I can think of a better way to get revenge,” I say. “Why not hang out with us?”

    Is this a good idea? Hiding my double life as a spy strained my friendship with Joanna, now I’m

voluntarily adding someone new to the mix for the express purposes of  lying to them, too? On the

other hand, I’m not actively involved in crucial spy work right now. When my biological father, Carter

Strike, moves into Reindeer Crescent, I’m going to demand he teach me all the tricks of his many years

in the espionage trade. But right now, maybe helping  fragile Emily Barnicle fit into school and social life

is my mission. Also, if I’m really honest, I like the idea of having a second friend. Someone to stop

Joanna and I falling into a friend-rut. Which, you know, when there's only two of you is a real possibility.

    Joanna and I both look to Emily for a reaction. Her tears of sorrow change before our eyes to tears of

happiness.

    “Oh my gosh, yes,” she gulps. “Do you want to come over to my house this weekend?”

MORE NEXT WEEK!