Double Vision Read Free Page B

is that this Farmer Johnson has hired Zachary Quinn.”
    â€œWhat?” I felt sick. So that was the lawyer Mom was meeting tonight. Zachary Quinn is one of those slick guys you always see on TV, ready to sue the pants off anyone he thinks he can get money from. I thought about how we Bakers wouldn’t survive a lawsuit, since we could barely afford the groceries, let alone a lawyer. How we might even lose the house because that’s all we owned.
    â€œYour family is in for some fun.” Agent Fullerton looked annoyingly smug. “These types of lawyers specialize in making your life miserable, ensuring you’re broke and homeless by the time they’re through with you.”
    Agent Stark nodded.
    I thought of my parents and how they’d already dealt with so much misery over my antics. “You would make this lawsuit go away?” I asked. “If I agree to take this junior agent Benjamin Green’s place?”
    Agent Fullerton shrugged. “Of course.” Like it was the most normal thing in the world.
    â€œAnd then I get to come back home after.”
    â€œThat’s right,” Agent Stark said. “You come with us, be Ben for a week, and we’ll make it so that chicken farm business never happened.” She stepped closer. “But you do the job first. When you’re done, we take care of that farmer and his ambulance-chasing lawyer. No sooner.”
    Now, this is what you would call an impossible dilemma. Right? I agree to this, and my family’s troubles will be taken care of, but I would put my life in danger. I don’t do this, the Bakers might be bankrupt and homeless.
    What would you do?
    Here’s what I did: I stalled by asking questions. “Where am I going exactly?”
    Agent Fullerton shook his head. “Can’t tell you that. Not until your parents sign some paperwork.”
    â€œCan I think about it?” I asked.
    â€œWe need an answer now. Time is of the essence here.” So much for stalling. Agent Fullerton stepped closer. “Are you in or out?”
    I hesitated.
    â€œLinc!” Mom called from inside the house. “Dinner!”
    Thinking of Mom, Dad, and Grandpa, waiting for me over the standard Friday spaghetti dinner, I knew there really was only one choice. “I’m in.”

4
PLACE: MY BEDROOM
    TIME: SATURDAY, 10:30 A.M.
    STATUS: NAPPING ON PAGE THREE OF THE HISTORY OF CRIME , VOLUME ONE
    I’M PRETTY SURE IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO keep a secret and eat spaghetti at the same time, because I just picked at my food at dinner that Friday night. Thankfully, Mom was rushing out the door to meet the lawyer, so us guys took our bowls to the living room to watch TV. I pretended to watch the news, where the announcer told us about some terrorist group in Europe, but all I could think about was my promise to the government. And watching bad guys on TV was not helpful.
    Stark and Fullerton had left, promising to come up with a way to get my parents to sign off on this whole secret agent thing. I didn’t sleep a wink that night.
    So when the phone rang, waking me from a good nap late Saturday morning, I expected it to be Agent Fullerton. I let Dad answer it and waited. A few minutes later, he knocked on my bedroom door.
    â€œYour mother called,” he said, frowning at my reading progress of three pages on The History of Crime . “There’s been a change of plans. We’re meeting with the principal in an hour.”
    So this wasn’t the government calling after all. “At school, on a Saturday?”
    â€œGuess so, champ.” Dad shrugged.
    I closed my book. “Why not Monday?”
    â€œSomething about a new deal.” Dad looked at me. “For you.”
    I’m pretty sure Principal Thornton has a script for his speeches, since they usually follow a standard three-act format.
    Everyone sits, and we all take a moment to feel uncomfortable about being there.
    Principal