Chapter 2

Josephina

     The next morning I woke up with sunshine, homemade pancakes, and a mission objective. Unfortunately, I also woke up with a bad hair day. I rushed with my straightener to calm the dark-brown-almost-black peaks of frizz building up where smooth hair was supposed to be. But in the back of my head, hidden under layers of emotion, I knew I couldn’t lie to David, even if he was in the YBYS association. I mean, he’s a spy, but I am too, and, most importantly, how could I steal his permanent record? Sure, I can easily break into the principal’s office and grab it from the file, but how could I bring myself to look inside? Maybe being a spy isn’t such a good thing. Maybe I should back out to live a naïve life as the little Brooklyn girl I always truly wanted to be.

“Josie, the bus is waiting!” Oh great. I’m late to the bus, and my hair is a frizzy mess. So, as learned in spy training, I did the only thing I could. I stuffed on a red ball cap, and literally jumped out the bathroom window, (I really hope David didn’t see that) and ran through the bus doors, that split the two O’s of Carasie High School, right before they closed.

Natalie waved for me to sit down next to her and Lexi in the third row, but our bus driver apparently, had other plans.

“Two to a seat Miss Rodrigues.” Our bus driver, Eleanor, obviously was not in her usually happy mood; she always let us three sit together. She said we were an exception to the school rule because we were so close (not really, we just pretended to because no one wanted to go to dork avenue, in the back, and sit by Nathan or his genius sister, Rebecca, uhh).

My sort-of-best-fried made a face and I did to, to make her feel good. But, I was secretly grinning; there was an open seat next to David! I slid down casually next to him, but immediately pulled down the ball cap as David grinned at the mess of frizz on my head. If there was a world record for “worst hair day” I would definitely win.

“Bad hair day huh Jo”, he said. Did he just call me “Jo”? No one calls me “Jo”, but Nat, and my own mother (and Gary Clark). I just don’t allow it. Who was he to call me by my nickname?  I was about to scowl at him and say “Josephina” when I saw his smile. Not a smirk, or a sneer, just that friendly half-smile that makes your eyes twinkle. When I saw David smiling at me I felt almost…sorry for him. After all, I had to steal his permanent record. I had to know his dark secrets. I had to…lie to him. How could I? I wanted to cry. I wanted him to be the sweet naïve boy I had always thought he was. But deep down I knew he could never be. He was a YBYS boy; he was my enemy.

   

“So what do you like to do,” David said, finally breaking the awkward silence between us as we pulled up by Stacy Newman’s house (aka, the-only-person-in-the-universe-that-can-rock-out-on-the-triangle). Spy, I thought.

“I play flute,” I said “…and, yeah.”

“I play drum set,” David grinned “…and, yeah.” I’m sure he meant to mock me, but I just laughed, realizing that we were both holding in the fact that we both knew advanced Judo (assuming that YBYS taught advanced Judo as well).

The bus stopped at Carnasie High, and I smiled as David replied, “See ya around, Jo.”

And then, he winked. At me. My mouth gaped open. Could he possibly like me? David casually stepped out of the bus on to school grounds, as if he didn’t see the gaping hole at the bottom of my face. He just smoothed his hair, swung his backpack over his shoulder, and walked off to wherever he goes for first period. At that point I desperately hoped he wasn’t the only boy in our huge high school that I was supposed to hate.

“Shut your mouth girl,” Lexi said, shoving my chin up, and forcing me to swallow a breath of school-bus air, hiccup, and then giggle. She looked at me skeptically, but soon shook her head and marched out of the bus, leaving me helplessly giggling like some weirdo.

Natalie came up beside me, and hauled me out of the bus, in through the doors, and into the hallway filled with all our lockers.

“Sheesh,” I heard her mutter.

         Finally, I managed to stop laughing, and grabbing my books, I sauntered off to history class. As I slipped through the doors of room 121, a sudden thought popped into my head. Would David still like me if he knew I was a spy?