Special Delivery

Author's note: Well, now I suppose it's time for another chapter. Ah, I'm glad it's Saturday.

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Chapter 7: Nice Work, Spies
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06:01 PM - MARVIN'S PENTHOUSE
A WOOHP helicopter pulled up to the window, and Jerry climbed through. "Nice work, spies. Did you make the delivery on time?"
"Barely," Sam explained. She then turned to face Marvin. "Are you going to pay or not?"
Marvin sighed, and took a twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket. "Keep the change. I feel awful."

I smirked. "Oh yeah! Nothing can beat this team of four!"
"Four?" Marvin blinked. "There was Green, Yellow, and you … who's the fourth?"
"You'd probably call her Red if you recognized her," Alex responded without a flinch. "Remember the cleaning lady that's been making up your room? She's been in cahoots with us the entire time!"

At that moment, the lights came back on, and Clover entered the room. "Sorry if I interrupted anything, Marvin. I couldn't run the vacuum with the power off, so I got it restored."
Noticing that the mission was complete, Clover used her X-powder to don her jumpsuit. She then joined us in front of Marvin.

Marvin now felt like a million dollars … in Confederate money. "All my life, and this is the first pizza I've ever actually paid for. Driving pizza deliverers nuts trying to get to me has been so fun."
He continued. "I spent all my life thinking of new ways to delay pizza deliverers from Prince Pete's Pizza Parlor, just for the free pizza and the expressions on their faces. Now … all those defensive strategies have gone to waste."

Sam's face suddenly lit up. "Hey, wait a moment. Defensive strategies? I've seen that phrase somewhere."
"You probably saw it on the WOOHP bulletin board," Jerry replied. "I've been looking for a new defense captain. He has to have wits, persistence, and a mind for defensive strategies."

The younger two girls and I caught on in an instant. Clover spoke next. "Yes! Marvin here has a real mind for defensive strategies; I've seen some of them myself."
"Yeah, and in executing them he showed a lot of wits," Alex added.
I had to get a word in. "On top of that, when one scheme didn't work against us, he tried another and another. Persistence!"

Jerry raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying that Marvin here is just the person we need for our defense captain?"
"That's EXACTLY what we're saying."

"I see your point, but that's just plain stupidity- it would be like making one of the most dangerous criminals WOOHP has ever captured my personal assistant."
Clover leaned forward. "Uh, correct me if I'm wrong, Jer, but isn't that exactly what you did when you made GLADIS' CPU from the mind of you-know-who?"
(If you don't know what Clover's talking about, watch "Evil GLADIS Much?" sometime.)

Finally Jerry agreed to it. Marvin was just as enthusiastic when Jerry offered him the job, especially when he explained that WOOHP serves pizza at all initiation ceremonies.

SUNDAY 09:28 AM - SPIES' NEIGHBORHOOD
As we were walking down the sidewalk, I heard a sneeze coming from Mandy's house. I had to investigate, so I knocked on the door.
Mandy's mother answered. "What is it?"

"Is Mandy sick?" I asked.
"Yes, she is. She came down with a cold."
"Sorry to hear that. Tell her she can use my inhaler. It might help her feel better."

Saying this, I gave Mandy's mother just what you expected me to give her. When Mandy got the inhaler, she tried it, and got the only case of "frozen windpipe" in the medical history of Beverly Hills.
It didn't take anything more than a bowl of hot chicken soup to unfreeze Mandy's windpipe. When she could speak again, the first word Mandy was able to get out was: "LEO!"

Meanwhile, a sidewalk tile opened up, causing the girls and I to fall down a chute into the WOOHP lobby. Marvin was just passing through.
I got up and fetched my pencil from under Clover. "What's the problem, Jerry?"
"Well, there have been some unusual weather conditions in Sahara. More specifically, a blizzard has been sighted in the middle of the desert."

Marvin nearly choked as he overheard this. (Remember how he bragged to Clover in chapter 2?)

"Oh, by the way," Jerry quickly added, "Marvin is working out quite well with his job as defense captain."
Sam laughed a little. "I bet he is. I hope he hasn't stalled any pizza deliveries to WOOHP."

At that moment, Marvin approached me. "Hey, Gray- excuse me, Leo, I have to quit doing that- that plan to send Red, I mean, Clover ahead to spy on me was pure genius. I never suspected a thing."
I smirked. "Well, if there's anything you need to be a WOOHP spy, you need to be able to use careful …"
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THE END (almost!)