Super (Market) Spies Excerpt

Maps of the area were spread around us, carpeting the floor and papering the ceiling. A thousand pins were jutting out of the maps like an attempt at voodoo.

 “Whoa!” I surveyed the covered room in shock. “How many maps did you get?” 

“They’re not all maps” was Zeke’s reply. He was shuffling a stack of papers as if they were a deck of cards. “I’ve also got these blueprints of the building, which I spent about two hours trying to find last night” The dark rings around his eyes confirmed this.

“Don’t get us wrong, we’re totally appreciative of the effort” Kiwi cut in, running her finger along a red squiggly line that marked out the nearest motorway. “But please elaborate why we need to know the shortest and most direct route to the Scottish border?”

“Escape plan” he shrugged, confused that his purpose wasn’t obvious. “You were the one that said we should have a back-up plan”

Kiwi nodded. “That makes sense”

Apart from the abundance of maps covering nearly every surface in HQ, Britt had filled two duffel bags with supplies, and we weren’t talking hand grenades and automatic missiles: something much, much worse.

“Make-up?” Ethan squeaked. “No way am I getting my make-up done”

“Relax, doofus, it’s for us girls” Britt opened the bags in a quick and fluid motion, exposing the contents. The first bag was full to the brim with eye-shadow, army coloured paints, lipstick and concealer.

“You do know this stuff can’t actually conceal you from the enemy, right?” Zeke picked up the transparent pot of cream coloured powered.

“Hey, don’t mess with that, it costs like £6 a tub” Britt complained, snatching the now open make-up from Zeke’s grasp.

“Girly shit is expensive” Ethan laughed, unzipping the other bag and moving it onto the table, having cleared it of Zeke’s multitude of maps. “Is this hair dye?”

“Why do we need hair dye?”  I felt a little unnerved as Britt arranged her equipment on the table. It was beginning to resemble a drugstore make up counter, not excluding the little ‘try-me’ tubes of lip gloss. It shouldn’t have been that surprising that Britt was loaded with beauty products; her sister did work at ‘Better Beauty’

“For disguises” Britt pulled on some plastic gloves and pulled up a chair. “Sit down Meg, you’re going first!” She waved her hand at me and smiled menacingly. I hoped that she wasn’t about to cut all my hair off. I was yet to observe any scissors.

Luckily the hair dye was a natural colour. Kiwi instantly moaned, saying that she would have preferred pink or maybe florescent blue but Britt pointed out that this wouldn’t exactly blend in with the crowd, which was after all what we are trying to achieve.  

As Britt mixed up the hair dye with a white fluid I tapped my finger against my thigh and pressed my nails into my palm. I’d never dyed my hair before and was nervous for the result; I’d heard plenty of horror stories about hair turning a disgusting shade of green.

“Ethan, you can do something usual for a change and brush Kiwi’s hair” Britt said, now applying a slather of hair dye to the top of my head, smoothing it over from root to tip. “The brush is next to the hairspray”

He frowned but didn’t object. Kiwi scooted over to Ethan, tilting her head in his direction. “Don’t pull to hard” she said.

For a few minutes the room was filled only with the sound of brushing and typing. Zeke was inputting some more data on to his laptop, compiling the blueprints of the supermarket and marking out all the possible entrances and exits.

“Now, darling, what would you like done today? I could do a bob, or a bowl cut, it’s your choice” Ethan put on a posh fake accent. “I can just tell you’d look amazing with a bowl cut”

“If you harm one hair on my head, I’ll harm you” Kiwi threatened, but the way she was laughing retracted the seriousness from the statement.

“We’ll need to guard a lot of the store tonight everyone.” Zeke said, tuning out all the hairdressing. “This is going to be a lot harder than we expected”

“We didn’t expect it to be easy” Ethan said, reverting back to his usual voice.

“I also thought it was going to be hard” I added. Britt had stopped running dye through my hair and had instructed me to sit still for the next ten minutes so the staining could begin. I didn’t like the sound of that.

Kiwi began to pace around the room. She rifled around in the secondary duffel bag and pulled out a long stretch of black fabric. “What is this?” She searched some more before Britt could respond. “Why are there three of them?

Britt blushed slightly. “Catsuits. You never see spy in denim jeans, do you?”

A nervous laugh escaped from Kiwi’s mouth as she held up the catsuit to her body. “You are not serious!”

“I couldn’t be more so” Britt tapped my shoulder. The dye had dried, meaning it was time to wash through. It was slightly awkward because we didn’t have a water outlet in the outhouse, so Zeke had to sacrifice one of his bottles of spring water that Britt explained she would pour onto my head outside. She reassured me that she’d brought towels so that my hair could be dried. The process took all of five minutes.

When I returned into the room, Kiwi, Zeke and Ethan gave me blank stares. Kiwi’s mouth was hanging slightly open.

“Oh my goodness!” she exclaimed, pointing to my head.

“Meg, you look so different!” Ethan managed to spit out.

“She looks amazing alright” Britt smiled, enjoying the credit. She made me do a full princess spin so she could admire her work from every angle. “I’m a genius….and slightly jealous.”

“Do I not get to see?” I was desperate to know how I looked. Zeke picked up a hand held mirror from the table and held it out to me. A stranger stared back. She had the same eyes, the same ears, the same nose but she had luscious brunette hair, the complimented her rosy complexion and made her look a lot older than the twelve year old I was often mistaken for.

Britt really was genius. She clapped her hands. “Now the boys need to vacate the room whilst we change” She shuffled them both out of the room with a swatting motion. Kiwi and I stood gripping each other’s hands as Britt had closed the door. “Ladies, let’s suit up”

 

After exactly eleven minutes, ten stumbles and nine expletives all three of us were dressed and ready for action. Britt looked like a supermodel, Kiwi looked like a super hero and I looked like a super dork…with lovely new hair.

The boys were granted access back into HQ. Britt handed them black jackets, Ethan’s made of leather and Zeke’s made of polyester, which as we all know suggests tough guy much more than leather.

“We should have code names” Kiwi excitedly clapped her hands as she clipped a spray painted tool belt around her waist. Britt was even more prepared than we originally thought.

“We should not have code names” Britt glared at her.

“Code names would be really fun though! I’ve always wanted a code name!” Kiwi took the brush from the table top, pretending it was a walkie-talkie. “Fruit Salad to Barbie Girl, come in, come in”

“If we get code names mine is not being Barbie Girl” Britt huffed. She helped Zeke adjust his bow tie that was disguising a microphone. Zeke looked happy with the arrangement.

“You don’t get to pick your own code name, those are the rules” Zeke zipped up the small backpack that Britt had agreed to tote round, caring a bunch of homemade gadgets, for example, a plastic box of marbles for tripping-up purposes.

“That’s unfair; I want to be Fruit Salad” Kiwi complained.

“Is that because your name’s Kiwi?” Ethan laughed. He twisted his shoe laces into a quick double knot then turned around to help me with the clasp of my sash, which held a few bobby pins, a mathematical compass and a key ring holding three keys.

“No. I like the sweet”

Zeke snorted which caused a ripple of laughter around the room. “Fruit Salad is not a good code name”

“And Barbie Girl is?!” Britt slapped Zeke’s arm in mock anger.

“I never said that! Don’t slap me I bruise like a peach”

“Zeke’s code name is now officially ‘Peach Boy’”

“That’s unfair!”

“You don’t get to pick your own code name, those are the rules!” I grinned, giving Kiwi a high five. All five of us had finished getting our gear on; now Britt was adding the final touches to our make-up.

“Don’t come near me with that blush, B” Ethan said, slapping away the make-up brush she was waving in his face. “I demand manly war paint only.”

“I second that motion” Zeke agreed.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer a bit of peach bronzer, Zeke?” Britt poked him gently in the arm this time.

“I regret talking to you all.” He said, but put his arm around Britt’s shoulders to prove the opposite.

“What are our code names going to be then?” I asked, applying my own version of Ethan’s manly war paint. “If we’re picking each other’s then we need to be serious.”

“Code names are not meant to be serious” Kiwi pouted, but agreed to the terms and conditions as if she hadn’t read them.

“Kiwi, you can be Tooty Fruity” Ethan declared, using a umbrella to knight her. Kiwi took the umbrella then placed it on my shoulders.

“Meg will be Fruit Cake” she smiled sweetly in my direction. “Nutmeg is a key ingredient after all.”

“YOUR NAME IS NUTMEG?!” Zeke shouted. Ethan punched him in the side. “Ouch!”

“Shut up, silly, you knew that already.” I held the umbrella over Britt’s head. “I pronounce you Barbie Girl”

Britt looked upset for a second before her face changed to a fake smile. “I am perfect, aren’t I?” She flipped her hair in a truly cheerleader fashion then grabbed the knighting ‘sword’” Zeke, you can be my Ken”

“Ken is my code name? I think I prefer Peach Boy” Zeke protested.

“OK, Wizard then”

Finally, Zeke looked at Ethan and christened him ‘Action Man’

I gave a loud whistle once everyone had finished cheering. “It’s spy time!”

“What a cliché.” Kiwi giggled, but followed as I led the way out of HQ.