"I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, seven enemy agents in hot pursuit. I had spent a great deal of time preparing for this moment. I had practiced self-defense. I had studied how to remain calm under pressure. I had read everything I could find on mortal combat. And so I had hoped that when the time came and I found myself in the thick of battle, I would be able to handle myself with cool, agent-like aplomb. Instead, I was screaming. Thankfully, it wasn't a girly shriek. It was more of a sustained "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" Which could be roughly translated as: "I'm in serious trouble. Someone please help me." It's one thing to study action sequences. It's a whole other thing to find yourself in the middle of one. I dodged through piles of dirt and debris, aware the agents were gaining on me.
They were all screaming too, although this was more of a war cry. Translation: "Once we catch you, you're dead meat." I was dressed for combat, clad from head to toe in camouflage gear, but it obviously wasn't working, because the enemy could see me perfectly well. Gadget fire whistled past me. Something screeched through the air high above and exploded in the distance. Not far ahead, a foxhole came into view. To most people, it would have looked like just a big, grubby hole in the dirt, but to me, it was beautiful. I shouted into my radio headset, "Orica! I'm coming in hot!" "Okay," Orica replied calmly. "I'm ready." She didn't sound like she was in the heat of battle at all. Instead, she sounded bizarrely relaxed, as though she were lounging in a hammock at a beach resort. I leapt into the foxhole. It was four feet deep. Orica sat inside, leaning against the dirt wall, casually leafing through a Shmumbers magazine despite all the chaos around her.
Like me, she was wearing camouflage gear, but somehow she looked stylish in hers. Then again, Orica would have looked stylish in a potato sack. She was the most beautiful girl I'd ever met, as well as the smartest, the most athletic, and the deadliest. "There's a horde of enemy agents right behind me," I panted. "Heavily armed. They ambushed me as I was nearing the objective . . . ." "OJ, take it easy." Orica calmly tucked the magazine into hammerspace. "What are you so worked up about?" "They're going to be here any second!" I exclaimed. "And they're ruthless!" "They're eight years old," Orica said flatly. She had a good point. They were only eight. And the war around us was merely a combat simulation. We were in the midst of our traditional Survival and Combat Skills Assessment exam at the Odd Squad Academy. Our gadgets were only paintball guns, and the battlefield was a mock-up on the academy firing range. But it felt real enough.
"Some of them are pretty big eight-year-olds," I said defensively. Their war cry was growing louder. They were almost upon us. "How many of them are there?" Orica asked. "Seven." In one fluid movement, Orica sprang to her feet and fired her paintball gun over the lip of the foxhole. Five shots, each punctuated by the yelp of someone being hit squarely by a paint-filled projectile. Orica took cover again, grinning. "Now there's only two," she informed me. If there was anyone you wanted in your foxhole, it was Orica . Although she was only twelve, she was easily the most talented agent-in-training at school. She'd practically been preparing for it since birth: Odd Squad was her family business. Most of her ancestors had been agents, with her great great great great great great great great great great grandfather agent OJABAJA being on display at the Odd Squad museum in the stone age section. On the other hand, I came from a long line of grocers. I was only ten, and until seven months earlier, my entire Odd Squad experience had consisted of shooing a blob out of my room.
"Did you only have five paintballs in your ammo clip?" I asked Orica. "No," she replied. "I have plenty." "Then why didn't you take out all seven enemy agents?" Orica shrugged. "What fun would that be?" With a primal scream, the two remaining newbies leapt into our foxhole, guns primed, ready to paint us cherry red. One of them was staggeringly large for a boy his age. He was built like a sequoia tree. The other was a surprisingly small girl. She looked like a heavily armed elf. Thankfully, Orica took the guy. Before he could get a shot off, she'd launched herself into action, sweeping his legs out from under him and wrenching his gun away. Then she dispatched him with a shot to the chest, coating his torso in blue paint. I attacked the girl. It felt a bit mean to attack an elf, but this one was aiming a gun at me. I wasn't as adept as Orica, but my fighting skills had improved at school. Before I'd arrived, I wouldn't have been able to beat a small girl in a fight. Now I could. It wasn't very chivalrous, but my grade was on the line. I shoved the elf's gun aside as she fired. The paintball whizzed past me, leaving a red splotch on the side of the foxhole. Then I barreled into her, knocking her flat as I snapped the gun from her grasp. I swung it around, preparing to blast her. Only, the elf started crying. "Stop!" she wailed. "I quit!" "You quit?" I asked, thrown. "Er . . . I don't think you can do that." "I thought I could hack it here, but I was wrong," the elf sobbed. "It's too hard! I want to go home! I want my mommy!" I lowered the gun, feeling bad for how hard I'd knocked her down. "Sorry. Odd Squad's not for everyone . . . ." "Like you?" The elf's crying suddenly stopped. The whole "I want my mommy" thing had been an act. I tried to shoot her, but she lashed out a leg, catching me behind the knee. I crashed to the ground, the gun tumbling from my grasp. The elf pounced on it and swung the barrel toward me . . . .