The Doublecross Read Online Free PDF Page A

which was about the only thing I could silently make fun of them for.
    â€œI wasn’t worried,” I answered. “
You
might be, though, when Ms. Elma sees your sleeves.”
    Walter’s face paled a little, but he still managed to snort. “Yeah. Whatever, Whale.”
    Sometimes I pretended Walter hadn’t changed due to puberty—that he’d just fallen into some toxic sludge—and that was why he transformed from totally-normal-guy Walter to worst-person-at-SRS Walter. One day, he’s coming over after school; the next, he has a little facial hair and is busy in the afternoon. One day, he’s huffing and puffing through the field exam along with me; the next, he’s sprinting along with the junior agents, looking like a fairy godmother granted him the gift of calf muscles. It’s not like Walter and I had a big fight or anything. One day we were friends, and the next, we weren’t. Was it better or worse that way? I couldn’t tell.
    I walked into a stall, double-checked the door was locked, and began to change. My feet went in easily, as did my legs, but when it came time to pull the uniform over my torso, things came to a grinding halt. I shimmied and twisted and managed to get the shoulders up. I could even zip it a little, so long as I didn’t need to do things like breathe or eat or have to pee. All in all, it was at least a better fit than my last uniform, which I couldn’t even pull past mystomach. I walked out of the stall, trying not to move too much, and made my way back to the classroom.
    â€œI don’t know what happened, Ms. Elma. They just ripped!” Walter said as I reached the door. The Foreheads nodded earnestly behind him.
    â€œShowing off,” Ms. Elma snapped, and Walter shrank. I was pretty sure I saw his lip quiver. “Always with the showing off at this level.” She said all this through a mouthful of pins, so everything sounded vaguely like a hiss. She was pinning the legs of a girl’s uniform to mark for alterations—Ms. Elma was always talking about how our uniforms should feel like a “second skin.” They should “fit like a glove.” I questioned the sort of gloves Ms. Elma wore. I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of a chrome leg-press machine. I looked like I’d been eaten by an enormous seal.
    â€œAll right, Jordan,” Otter said, motioning me toward Ms. Elma. “You’re up.”
    Ms. Elma looked at me and shook her head. “What are we going to do about this?” I couldn’t tell if she meant me or the uniform. “Perhaps we can use one of the others, sew some side panels in?”
    Otter nodded. “Probably—”
    â€œI wasn’t talking to you, Steve,” Ms. Elma said, waving him off without looking at him. Otter folded his arms, opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything. Ms. Elma buzzed around me, tugging here, pushing there. She suddenly hada tape measure in her hands, though I couldn’t have told you where it came from. “Right. Well, Hale, it’ll take me a few days, but you’ll have a uniform.” She said this like the uniform was something I desperately wanted.
    Twenty minutes later everyone who needed alterations had handed their uniforms back to Ms. Elma, who headed to the next classroom. Otter dug out a folder full of papers from a battered-looking leather satchel we all called a purse behind his back.
    â€œPractice missions,” he said. He rapped the folder against his palm, then sniffled in a way that made him look like a pug. Inside the folder were fake missions—many of which we’d been through before, and many of which were simulations of real, closed missions. He opened the folder and held out the papers, and my classmates dived, snatching and reading them hurriedly. Many were already running to the computer lab or the Disguise Department by the time I reached for one of my own.
    Otter