Okay I don't really like this one, but hopefully it's not too bad?

Masquerade

"Alright" The voice rang out, cutting through the air. The wind whipped once more, grabbing the last bit of the word and taking it for itself. Dan pulled his coat around himself, but it wasn't his coat. Those weren't his shoes either, that wasn't his shirt, and those definitely were not his glasses. It was all just a costume, a disguise, clothes picked with an aim in mind. To blend in, to become your surroundings, to be as plain as the day around you. Dan was already a natural at being plain, his hair a patent sort of brown, with eyes to match, his features proportional and unpretentious, it wasn't the sort of face you looked at twice. "Task is simple, each of you will tail one person, find out the three things we want you to, and be back by 4'o clock." His eyes glanced over our small group, connecting with mine briefly before flitting away again. "Any questions?" his voice seemed firm, final. Ben's hand went up, he was a shy boy, or as shy as you can be here, with sandy blonde hair. He got picked on a lot, sometimes Dan could hear his small shaky cries through the vents in his room. The academy didn't believe in secrets, if you had something to say, you could say it in front of everyone, or not at all. Didn't stop Dan feeling sorry for him though. "Umm sir?"
"Yes, Benjamin?" And even from a distance Dan could see the eye roll, hear the little outbreaks of laughter. "How do we know which person to tail?"
"You don't." he said curtly, "but it may become obvious to some of you."

And that was that, he finished speaking and they split up. The theme park was busy that day, rollercoasters racing above, whipping wind into Dan's hair, screams of both delight and terror filling Dan's ears, queues stretching all around him, excited chatter and nervous dread strutting around the air, fusing with the sickening sweet scent of candyfloss and popcorn and something else, too, something which Dan couldn't quite put his finger on. People pushed past Dan, shoving him in all directions like he was the pinball in the machine. Dan didn't like it. Could barely even see the appeal. People were obsessed with seeking thrills, so desperately trying to reach for a life that's not boring. But boring was what Dan needed to be, mediocre, middle of the road, he needed no one to look at him and take a second glance, because the outcomes could be dangerous.

Dan had to remind himself to focus, to cast away all the noises and scents and concentrate on the task in hand. It wasn't easy. Dan had been trained to see everything, to notice the tiny details as they passed him by, to take in every bit of information and assess the situation. His eyes hooked on a red balloon, floating through the air and into space, they darted back to the ground to notice a crying child, tears streaming down its face. Focus Dan, he told himself but it was much too loud. He stopped, seemingly consumed by the crowd as people weaved around him. There. He saw it. A tiny little rope ladder leading to a platform built on one of the trees. It had all sorts of spotlights and wires attached, probably floodlighting for at night. His eyes scanned the ground but there was no-one guarding it, it was all for the taking.

He set off, walking leisurely despite his time limit. Nobody must notice him. It was drilled into his head. Dan went to a school for spies, he didn't remember a life before it. Instead of footballs, he had had night vision goggles, instead of action figures, a gps tracker. He hadn't even known these things weren't normal until a few years ago, in fact he still didn't understand the purpose of play dough. For all intents and purposes, Northern Academy Boarding School for Brilliant Boys felt like a home to him. And his cover as a rich, spoilt boy had always come quite easily. Because he didn't get in on accident, he came from a lineage of spies, all of which had gone to the school before him. Field work, it would seem, was his calling. His parents both worked high up in MI5, it was destined and Dan wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that. Some days, he was thrilled, a life of excitement! Of experiences beyond compare! Some days could barely wait to graduate and get out there, and some days it scared him, he wanted options, he wanted to be in the catchment area for a good school, with a little ford fiat and a family cat.

He was almost at the top of the ladder now. It was made of rope, with rungs of wood and it swung in the breeze. Dan clung on, his feet steady, he had always had good balance. Finally he reached the top, stretching out his hand and clutching onto a branch, pulling himself up. He sat down, with his back against the trunk. He was actually in the tree, he could see for miles.

Up there, the people seemed less intimidating. Colours; that was all they were, just a sea of colours interweaving around each other. Dan had to focus now. His eyes bore down like a god from above. But everyone looked so normal, who was he supposed to tail? The woman pushing the pram? The man buying a churro? The person dressed in a clown's suit? And then he spotted him. A man, with blindingly blonde hair and skin as pale as a ghost. Dan was certain that he had seen that very man, less than ten minutes ago, dressed in a trench coat and black boots, and yet now here he was in a football top and jeans. Did this mean he was the target? A line of speech drifted back into Dan's head, "Do something suspicious once, it's probably just an accident, twice and you should be wary, three times and it's a suspect."

The man moved around for the next hour, never getting on any rides, drifting around from stall to stall as if he had no need to be there. In fact, he seemed to be wandering in a kind of pattern, from the churro store to the candyfloss place, right over to the coconut shy and then he looped back round again. Sometimes, he would go to stalls and queue, only to get near the front and then leave the queue again. In that time, he had changed clothes twice more, his hair had even switched direction. He was definitely the man. Now, what was the fake information the school had set up for him to find out? He sighed, he would have to go down to the ground and tail him from there. He really was enjoying sitting up in the air, feeling the breeze on his face and just sitting down for the first time in months.

He shuffled along the platform so that he could descend the ladder. Except the ladder was already swinging, someone was already coming up it. "Hey," a voice called up the ladder, "don't mind if I join you, do you?" It was a little too late, Dan thought, seen as he was already half way up, the rope swinging as his hands and feet scurried upwards. "Umm, I'm not sure people are supposed to be up here."
The boy laughed, "Well how come you're up here then?" Dan could almost hear the smirk in his voice. "I work at the circus, my dad owns the coconut shy." Dan lied, his voice smooth, without any indication that it wasn't the truth. "Impossible." The boy stated, his hand grabbing onto the platform. "Why?"
"Because my dad owns the coconut shy." the boy flicked his eyebrows up, as if to say 'I win.' The boy was tall and gangly, his body looked as if it had been stretched out just a little too far. His hair was a dyed black, Dan didn't need to be a spy to know that, and his eyes were the most beautiful things Dan had ever seen. It was as if they were three colours, all at once, like a sea of blue dotted with green seaweed and yellow sand. The boy coughed awkwardly and Dan realised he had been staring just a little too long. "So why are you here then?" The boy said, shifting his body so that his long legs could hang off the edge of the platform. "Just wanted to get away from all the people." Dan didn't know where that answer came from. The boy nodded, sympathetically, "I get it, I'm here nearly every day with my dad over the summer, and if you think it's hectic now, you have absolutely no idea, in fact this is sort of my spot, to get away from it all."
"Oh, sorry." Dan didn't quite know what to say, interrogation he could deal with, planting bugs, tailing people, making deductions from their trash, were all things he knew how to do, talking to a cute boy? Not so much. Wait, did he just refer to him as cute, Dan shook his head. It appeared to Dan that the boy had been talking, and he hadn't heard a word that he had said. "Yeah, yeah."
"Yeah, yeah? Were you even listening?" the boy said, his mouth breaking out into a smile, and Dan was sure right then and there, that the boy had magical qualities. He blushed, tilting his head down slightly "Umm, no, sorry?" the boy laughed,
"I said, my name's Phil, what's yours"
"Oh. My name's Dan." Dan internally kicked himself, why didn't he use a cover name? Years and years of tuition down the drain because of one boy's cute smile. 'Cute' there it was again. Is that really what he thought? Apparently so. It was silent for a little bit, Dan still trying to recover from his mistake. "Top five favourite films?" Phil blurted out, his eyelids fluttering slightly.
"What?"
"What are your top five favourite films?"
"Why?"
"I'd like to know."
"We're not going to see each other ever again." Phil pouted,
"We're not?"
"Are we?"
"I'd like to." Phil paused, looking upwards as if he were considering something, "in fact, here, I'll give you my number." and before Dan could refuse, Phil had whipped a pen from his pocket and was scrawling various digits across the back of his hand. He smiled, "There. Now you have to tell me your five favourite films, it's only fair." Dan laughed,
"Okay then. Hmm let me think." The truth was that Dan loved films, loved capturing himself in another moment, another person's life that was always so vastly different from his, but he didn't have a lot of time. He had watched all the classic 'spy films' as a child with his parents but other than that he had had to watch them in secret, on a tiny portable DVD player that he had bought from Japan when he went with his parents last year. Ever since then he had been secretly buying DVDs, it was his form of escapism. "The breakfast club would definitely have to be one, umm this is hard, oh Beetlejuice and err Slumdog millionaire, we need to talk about Kevin and err the perks of being a wallflower." He said shyly, he didn't usually discuss his interests with anyone. In fact he rarely talked about anything except school and work and old spy legends and gossip. It felt good to talk about something so aggressively mundane. He looked up from the floor, to see Phil smiling.

Before Dan knew it, it had gotten to half three and he still hadn't left the platform, in fact he had forgotten about his mission all together, swapped it for smiles and laughter and conversation. He hadn't even realised how much he had yearned friendship until that moment. Dan's eyes caught on his watch, "fuck!" he exclaimed, the time reflecting in his eyes.
"What?"
"I really have to go, I'm err already late for doing something."
"Do you really have to go?"
"Yes, yes, I'm sorry." He said making his way to the edge of the platform and swinging onto the rope ladder. "Aww, please stay." He stopped for a minute, taking in Phil's face. He really, really didn't want to go. "I'll call you later okay?"
"Okay." Phil said, his lips stretching into a smile, "I look forward to it." Dan felt dazed as he climbed down the ladder, at what point had his life become a film?

He had no time and he knew it, in fact he had lost sight of the man all together. He could have dyed his hair and adopted glasses in the time Dan had been up there, what the hell had he been thinking? He hadn't been thinking, that was for sure. Dan pushed through the crowds, not being very subtle at all, but he couldn't find the man. Fuck, he thought again, he was going to fail. He wasn't used to failure. He stopped dead still, causing people to run into the back of him and curse loudly. He tried to remember everything he had seen before. He pictured the man, throwing balls at the coconut shy, something was odd about the image and Dan knew it. He forced the action to run through his mind, again and again and again. What was it? And then Dan knew, the man was left handed, and yet the bulge in his coat pocket had been on the right side, suggesting that whatever was in the pocket, wasn't something that he was going to take out and use but rather something he was going to give to something else. Dan focused harder. When he had swapped the coat, the bulge had gone, hadn't it? Implying that he gave the object away inside the coat to avoid suspicion, but what was it? Dan didn't know, he didn't know and the clock was nearing four. That's all he had, he would have to fail.

He got back to the meeting point, just in time, slamming into the back end of the line. Mr Callidum was already there. His eyes glared at Dan, before his voice boomed, "Now who here got all three pieces of information?" Dan's palms sweated. He looked around him, a few hands went in the air, but not nearly as many as he had expected. Mr Cal scanned the crowd and stayed silent for a while, "do these people look familiar?" he said, motioning to the people walking towards him. Dan's mouth dropped open, amongst the crowd of people was Phil, who raised his hand and waved shyly. "Class, meet your distractions, fresh from Augustine School for the Arts of Espionage" His mouth curved into a tiny smirk. He could speak fifteen languages, recite over a hundred criminal acts, and he knew exactly where to hit a man to make them unconscious with causing harm, and yet he had been fooled by an attractive teenage boy in skinny jeans.

Okay so this was based upon a scene from a book called 'Cross my heart and hope to spy' which is from a series that I was obsessed with when I was eleven (it's still kinda good ssh) hope you liked it :) Thank you for reading and please review :)