"Erm, I've got to go, just remembered... dentists appointment" The pathetic excuse almost makes me laugh, God they're definitely getting worse, he's used every one under the sun: family crisis, felt ill, coursework he needed to hand in, gifted and talented meeting, sessions for under achievers, the list goes on. And every other day I accept the lie and let him go; but not today. Today he arrived at school with a black eye, split lip, bruises all over his arms and a gash across his cheek. So today I position myself in front of the door, spread my arms and reply, "No you haven't."

I watch his face move from startled to pleading, as he begs me with his eyes to play along. Unfortunately the deep purple circle around his pleading eye makes me even more determined to stand my ground. I know he wouldn't physically remove me, or at least I hope he wouldn't, so the only way for him to go wherever he's going is for him to meet my conditions, actually condition, singular.

"Tell me why you have to leave, tell me the truth", I try to sound assertive, but I struggle to raise my voice above a whisper, surprising myself at how much this all means to me. I watch his face, watch him consider another lie, and then as his shoulders hunch in defeat, resign to the truth, or at least I think that's what he's resigned to. He leans in close to me, so his lips are almost brushing my ear lobe and whispers "I'm a spy."

~*~

My heart is racing, and it isn't because I'm unfit and running. When I get to the door, Rose and Carrie are already waiting; I see their smiles but am too lost in thought to respond. I walk into the cramped caretaker's closet like a corpse, aware of the quiet mumble of the girls' idle chatter. I don't even notice the rush of air as we plummet down into the Earth, or the fact that my school uniform has been replaced by a leather jacket and smart black trackies. Even as we walk into HQ, I'm still too confused to register Frank's greeting. I feel like I'm concentrating every part of my being on coming to a decision, I try to guess how the team will react, but I can't kid myself that I have any idea. They're just going to have to trust me.

"I need to talk to you" I blurt out, interrupting what I think was Frank congratulating us on another successful mission.

Frank's smile doesn't falter, but his head cocks inquisitively "Sure Oscar, go ahead, what do you want to say?"

Now that I've decided I'd tell them I realise I don't actually know how, "Erm..." I sit down heavily in a chair, and watch as Rose, Frank and Carrie copy. Staring at the floor, I try to string together a sentence that will make them understand.

Carrie's soft voice interrupts my thoughts; she leans slightly closer and looks right into my eyes, a look of concern in her own, "Are you ok?"

I take a deep breath, bluntness is my only option, "I told someone, about, the organisation", and leaning back in my chair I lower my eyes, not daring to watch my colleague's expressions. There's a truly awkward pause and I consider lifting my head to try and figure out what they are thinking, but chicken out at the thought of the anger, or worse, disappointment I might meet.

As usual, Frank speaks first, his voice not angry, but with a hard edge that tells me he's giving me a chance to explain before he blows his top, "Who did you tell, and what exactly did you tell them?"

Now I have no other choice but to look up, as I expected Frank's eyes are not angry, but wary; Rose looks confused, her logical brain unable to comprehend my confession; but Carrie, it's Carrie's eyes that worry me ,she looks almost hurt. I pull myself together; this isn't that big of a deal. OK so I shocked them, but at least I've prepared them for the worst, and the explanation will calm them down a little "I told, Mia Fenton," at this point I look at Rose and Carrie, "She's in our English class, and my French class, erm she's blonde, quite-"

"-yeah Oscar, we know her, the way you've been going on about her, how could we not!" Rose's smile is understanding and I'm grateful for some extension of friendship, but the smile I return is weak, Carrie's now staring at the ground and I don't know what's upset her.

"Well, as you've obviously noticed I've been spending quite a lot of time with her" a scoff from Rose's direction interrupts me, "and she's not stupid, she doesn't believe the excuses I feed her, but she's never pried before, just accepted that I didn't want to tell her, whatever. Anyway today she changed her mind, I think because of this" I gesture to the cut on my cheek and my black eye, received in a scuff between me and a skull agent on our previous mission. I'd over powered him of course, but not before he'd got a few good blows to my face and arms; I'd explained it away to Mia with some story about falling down the stairs, but I highly doubt she's believed any of it. "So today, we were in the IT suite, just us, and when my communicator bleeps I make an excuse as normal"

"Which one did you use?" Rose butts in.

"Dentist"

"That's pretty plausible"

"Maybe the first time, but after nine trips in a month, I don't think anyone would be fooled" the easy banter of everyday life distracts me for a moment, it's a frequent talking point between the three of us, what excuses we make for responding to our communicators and dashing to HQ. We spend hours of stakeouts coming up with lists of excuses, but they're always used up within about a week.

"So I go for the door but she stops me, won't let me go until I tell her where I'm really going"

Now it's Frank's turn to interrupt, "Couldn't you have just ignored the communicator, you know that if a situation's difficult you can ignore the first communicator call, I only called you to congratulate you, I thought you'd be free during lunch."

It's time to be completely honest, again I take the cowardly option and stare at my interlocked hands "I know; there's a thousand ways I could have avoided telling her, man I could have lifted her out of my way if I needed to but I didn't want to." I raise my eyes to gage the reactions of my colleagues, none of them look particularly angry, so I continue, " I'm so sick of all the stupid lies and what they're doing to her, I'm sick of abusing her trust, I really care about her," a rise of heat in my cheeks betrays just how much I care about her, " I didn't want to lie anymore" I pause almost stopping myself from saying the next sentence, "but if you want me to, for the good of the team and everything, if you don't trust her, all I told her was that I was a spy, she probably doesn't believe me and I can easily say I just made it up, this can end now if it has to." Sentimental speech over, there's nothing more I can do but wait for the verdict. Its MI9 rules that each agent is allowed to take one person into confidence about their work, after an official security scan. Few agents choose to, happy to continue lying rather than risk alienating their confidant with tales of villains, gadgets and secret spies. I know Mia has already passed the security scan, every student in the school, and the staff, had had to before MI9 decided to base our HQ here. And there is no-one else now or in the future I will want to confide in; but the other members of an agent's particular sector have to agree to the exposure. If they don't, and an agent ignores their verdict that agent will be immediately removed from the organisation and have their memories wiped.

Frank takes control, "Right well Oscar, you know the rules, we need to come to a decision, privately where you cannot influence us, so why don't you step into the interrogation room and we'll decide what's going to happen."

"What's with the formality, Frank, we all know what the outcomes going to be." Rose is obviously impatient to get her hands on the new computer software just sent through from base control, but her confidence in me is reassuring: one down, two to go.

"Now, now Rose, you know that official procedure must be followed at all times, we'll see you in a minute Oscar", my cue to leave.

I sit in the grim box-like interrogation room. The cold metal of the chair digs into my back and the two- way mirror only reflects my confused face. I've been so desperate to tell Mia everything, unlike Rose and Carrie I've no-one to confide in. Immediate family are allowed to know everything; in most cases, especially with the teenage sector that Carrie, Rose and I are a part of, agents are the sons or daughters of other agents. Rose's family is like that, both her parents are in the research sector, designing the gadgets and coming up with formulas to predict the enemies' next step. That's where Rose is heading, she's already smarter than half of the research sector, and is constantly being called in for consultancy work. Carrie on the other hand comes from a non-agency family, father a banker, mother a fitness trainer. Carrie's surprisingly level headed considering the pressure put on her by her mother, her mother's desperate for her to become a gymnast star, not that her mother's a bad person, just a little ... overzealous. That's how Carrie, joined the agency, scouted at a gymnastics competition, any one with her agility, speed and determination is bound to make a good spy. I on the other hand had a single agent parent, my mother, killed on a mission overseas. As an orphan of the organisation, I was shipped from safe home to safe home until I was ten, when I was enrolled in the youth agent training academy, a pretty new initiative back then. Six years later here I am, specialist in surveillance, working with Rose and Carrie, undercover in a school, possibly about to get thrown out because I blabbed before checking with my team.

I jump as Carrie enters the room, forgetting it's soundproof, so I got no warning she was coming.

"Is this the point where I'm supposed to pretend we voted no, and then watch the expression on your face change when I tell you I'm only kidding."

"Yeah, this would have been the apt moment; unfortunately you seem to have lost the element of surprise."

I smile and sigh with relief at the same time, quite a difficult feat actually, but before I can truly revel in my freedom I need to find out what's going on in Carrie's head.

"And now you're going to tell me what's up." I make my demand softly, trying to let her know I'm not angry, just worried.

She's quick to reply as if she's wanted to say something for a while, and now I've given her a chance, "Why didn't you tell me?"

For the second time in the space of a minute I feel that happy wave of relief. I can understand why Carrie's feeling a bit peeved, we're pretty close, having gone through training together, and usually we consult each other about everything. Luckily this situation is easy enough to sort, "I couldn't, some section of MI9 procedure, the agent must not discuss in private the planned exposure with any other agents in their sector prior to the judgement, in order to combat possible blackmail, harassment or bribery, though that's not quite a direct quote." I smirk and Carrie rolls her eyes, I have a particular knack for memorising phrases and it annoys her no end.

"So we're cool?"

I don't get a reply, just a light punch on the arm before she leaves the room, presumably to wind up Rose as she pours over her new software.

I'm left to decide what I'm going to tell Mia first.

~*~

I don't see him again till French. Halfway through the lesson he slopes in, mumbles some sort of excuse and comes to sit at our desk. There's an awkward silence as he unpacks his bag and I try to get my head round the conditional tense, neither of us knows what to say. I spent the entire lunch debating whether or not to believe him. It sounds so fictional, like he's taking the piss, but at the same time it makes sense, he skips out of school to go on secret missions, has an annoyingly good grasp of five different languages, can memorise whole sentences without even trying, he's funny about having his photo taken and has always been a bit vague about his past. Still, a spy? I didn't think they still existed, and he's only 16, surely that's not old enough to work for national security. My mind ached as I went round and round in circles, and I couldn't stand it anymore so I spoke first.

"Oscar, you have some serious explaining to do"

"I know, and I'm going to explain, but – Pour aller à la banque, s'il vous plait? – now's not really the time"

The random bit of French was Oscar replying to a question I hadn't even heard, in perfect French as usual.

"I don't want your full life story" I hiss, pausing to scrawl something in my book as Monsieur Bernard casts his beady eyes in my direction, "I just want to know a bit more than 'you're a spy'"

"Ok, fine, yes I am a spy, working in the teenage department of MI9. I don't know father and my mother was an agent killed when I was two, as an MI9 orphan I wind up in training. Now I work undercover with Rose Gupta and Carrie Stewart, our HQ is beneath the school and Frank the Janitor is actually our superior." Oscar finally breathes and then grabs my book to start correcting my work.

I sit gawping for a while, trying to process this sudden input of information; eventually I get a grip on reality and realise that Oscar is staring at me with a look of concern on his face.

"cool." Is all I can utter to put his mind at rest, but it seems to do the job as he grins and starts explaining where exactly I'm going wrong when it comes to French verbs. Some things never change.

~*~