Code Name Cassandra Read Online Free PDF

violinists.
    “Technically,” I said, “that song wasn’t a bit dirty.”
    “Oh, God,” Ruth said, making a face at something she’d spotted over my shoulder. “What’s
she
doing here?”
    I looked around. Standing behind me was Karen Sue Hanky. I hadn’t seen Karen Sue since school had let out for the summer, but she looked much the same as she always did—rat-faced and full of herself. She was holding a tray laden with grains and legumes. Karen Sue is vegan.
    Then I noticed that beside Karen Sue stood Pamela.
    “Excuse me, Jess?” Pamela said. “Can I see you for a moment in my office, please?”
    I shot Karen Sue a dirty look. She simpered back at me.
    This was going to be, I realized, a long summer.
    In more ways than one.

C H A P T E R
3
    “I t wasn’t dirty,” I said as I followed Pamela into her office.
    “I know,” Pamela said. She collapsed into the chair behind her desk. “But it sounds dirty. We’ve had complaints.”
    “Already?” I was shocked. “From who?”
    But I knew. Karen Sue, on top of the whole vegan thing, is this total prude.
    “Look,” I said, “if it’s that much of a problem, I’ll tell them they can’t sing it anymore.”
    “Fine. But to tell you the truth, Jess,” Pamela said, “that’s not really why I called you in here.”
    All of a sudden, it felt as if someone had poured the contents of a Big Gulp down my back.
    She knew. Pamela
knew
.
    And I hadn’t even seen it coming.
    “Look,” I said. “I can explain.”
    “Oh, can you?” Pamela shook her head. “I suppose it’s partly our fault. I mean, how the fact that you’re
the
Jessica Mastriani slipped through our whole screening process, I cannot imagine… .”
    Visions of steam tables danced in my head.
    “Listen, Pamela.” I said it low, and I said it fast. “That whole thing—the getting struck by lightning thing? Yeah, well, it’s true. I mean I was struck by lightning and all. And for a while, I did have these special powers. Well, one, anyway. I mean, I could find lost kids and all. But that was it. And the thing is—well, as you probably know—it went away.”
    I said this last part very loudly, just in case my old friends, Special Agents Johnson and Smith, had the place bugged or whatever. I hadn’t noticed any white vans parked around the campgrounds, but you never knew… .
    “It went away?” Pamela was looking at me nervously. “Really?”
    “Uh-huh,” I said. “The doctors told me it probably would. You know, after the lightning was done rattling around in me and all.” At least, that was how I liked to think about it. “And it turned out they were right. I am now totally without psychic power. So, um, there’s really nothing for you to worry about, so far as negative publicity for the camp, or hordes of reporters descending on you, or anything like that. The whole thing is totally over.”
    Not even remotely true, of course, but what Pamela didn’t know couldn’t, I figured, hurt her.
    “Don’t get me wrong, Jess,” she said. “We love having you here—especially with you being so good about changing cabins—but Camp Wawasee has never known a single hint of controversy in the fifty years it’s been in existence. I’d hate for … well, anything
untoward
to happen while you’re here… .”
    Untoward
was, I guess, Pamela’s way of referring to what had happened last spring, after I’d been struck by lightning and then got “invited” to stay at Crane Military for a few days, while some scientists studied my brain waves and tried to figure out how it was that, just by showing me a picture of a missing person, I could wake up the next morning knowing exactly where that person was.
    Unfortunately, after they’d studied it for a while, the people at Crane had decided that my newfound talent might come in handy for tracking down so-called traitors and other unsavory individuals who really, as far as I knew, didn’t want to be found. And while I’m as anxious as