Agents Assistant - 2

         Miss Berkley kept us busy right up until break-time, so I did not get much chance to talk to Finn. Finally it was break-time.

         I couldn't wait to find out everything about Finn Despard, the coolest new boy at school ever.

         We had just got out of the door when Finn asked, "So do you see that new girl you where waving at?"

         I must have looked betrayed, because he quickly said, "If you waved at her you must like her a little bit. Don't worry about what the other children think. They will be teasing someone else after break, you'll see."

         "Do you know that you talk like an adult?" I asked. "How old are you?"

         "I am 8 years old, the same as you," he said, smiling.

         "How did you know I was 8 years old and not 7 years old?"

         "I read your file." he said.

         "My file! What file? Where? What else does it say?"

         Finn was laughing. "I was joking." He did not sound convincing. "Come on, let’s find your friend."

         We went around both playgrounds twice, but I could not find her. I did see yet another new child, a blonde haired short boy. There were lots of new people today.

         I was not that bothered that I could not find Evie just then. There was always another break. Besides I had not seen my friends all week and needed to catch up on things.

         I saw Jake and Doug running towards me with Eric chasing them.

         "What are you doing?" I called to them.

         "Tag!" Doug called as they ran past.

         As Eric ran past me he tagged me on my shoulder and shouted, "Your it!"

         Great! At last we could play. I turned to Finn and tagged him on the shoulder.

         He jumped back and stood like a Karate black belt.

         "Are you OK?" I was not sure what was going on. "You are it. You have to tag one of us."

         He stood in the same pose for a couple of seconds. Suddenly he tagged me and ran away.

         "Hey!" I shouted, "That's not fair!"

         I ran after him as fast as I could. He was running towards a corner in a dead end part of the school. He was running faster than me, but it was a dead end, so I was going to get him.

         He ran straight at the wall, jumped, pushed off the wall with his left foot, pushed off the window ledge on the other side of the corner with his right foot and grabbed the edge of the roof. Then he pulled himself over and onto the flat roof, and disappeared.

         I could not believe it. It was like a Jackie Chan Movie, except Finn was just a kid. How did he do it?

         When he walked back into the playground 2 minutes later, I asked him. “How did you do that?”

         “I copied Jackie Chan,” he said with a grin.

         “I copy Jackie Chan sometimes, but I can’t get on a roof.”

         Finn seemed to think for a minute and then he leaned closer and whispered, “Can you keep a secret, Tom?”

         “Of course. What is it? How can you jump onto roofs?”

         “OK,” he quickly looked around to check no one was close by. “I work for the Government.”

         I should have burst out laughing, but there were so many strange things about him that I could easily believe it were true.

         “Well,” I said taking a deep breath. “You should sue them. It is against the law for children to work, you know.”

         “Ah, yes, but I am too young to sign a contract and I don't get paid."

         "You should definitely sue them," I had decided to play along. It was like a game. "So what work do you do for the Government? Why do they want you to jump onto roofs?"

         "Just forget about the roof thing will you? I have been trained to evade any trouble that I might run into." He looked at me as if that explained everything.

         "Well," I was getting a bit bored of this now. "If I get into trouble I just run to Mum or Dad. Miss if I am at school."

         "Well, the missions they send me on involve a bit more trouble than you find in the playground."

         "Mission?" I did laugh now. "What are you a spy or something?"

         "We prefer the term - Agent." He really meant it too.

         "Can I be an Agent's Assistant, then?" This could be great. "Or do I have to be able to jump onto roofs?"

         The whistle was blowing for end of break. We walked back to class.

         "Look," Finn said quickly. "This mission is to seek and find a politician's daughter and watch that the bad guys don't get to her."

         I looked at him as if he was crazy. "I am not making it up, Tom. I think that this Evie Wingfield could be that girl. They did not have a photo or a name, so I had to look for any new girl at the school."

         We were back at our seats by now.

         "So are going to report in or something," this was unreal.

         "If you can help me to find Evie at lunch time, I will make contact, establish identity, inform her of my role in her protection and then report in."

         "What are you talking about?" I still thought he talked like a grown up. He was weird sometimes.

         "Could you just help me find Evie at lunch time?"

         "Ok"



         At lunchtime I grabbed my lunch bag and showed Finn the way to the Café, the name for where we eat packed lunches. Evie was not there, so she must have been having school dinners. We walked to the school canteen, but did not have to go in, because Evie was walking out as we arrived.

         "That's her," I said pointing to her.

         She saw me, smiled and moved towards me.

         "Hello, my name is Evie." Her voice was bright and friendly. It made me feel happy.

         “Hello, my name is Thomas. Do you like your new school?”

         "It's all been a bit scary, but all in all I think I can say it has been lovely, thus far." She had a very posh voice, but it was very natural with her.

         Finn butted in at this point. "Well, that's great. But we can show you around, isn't that right, Tom?"

         "Huh!" I was a bit confused. "But this is your first day ..."

         Before I had a chance to finish, Finn had grabbed Evie's arm and was half dragging her across the playground towards the rear school gate.

         I was more than a bit confused now. I called out, “Finn, where are you going?” He just carried on dragging Evie towards the gate. I just stood there trying to work out what was going on.

         Finn reached the gate, which was locked, because it was still school time. He reached into his pocket for something and pointed it at the padlock. The padlock went bright red and fell off.

         Evie was really struggling now, but Finn still held onto her arm and opened the gate with his free hand. He went through the gate, but before he managed to get Evie through as well, a boy ran up to the gate and jumped at it with both feet.

         It was the short boy with blonde hair I had noticed at break.

         The gate slammed shut onto Finn’s arm. He cried out in pain and let go of Evie’s arm. She immediately started to run away from Finn and back towards me.

Everyone in the playground had stopped doing what they were doing and stared at the commotion, just like I was.

         The blonde haired boy was running after Evie. He was very fast and caught up with her as she got close to me.

         “What is going on?” I asked both of them. “And who is that with Finn?”

         The blonde boy looked behind him to see what I was looking at. Finn was running towards us, holding his arm and a man in blue workman’s overalls and cap, was running with him.

         “Let’s go!” the blonde boy said sharply. “NOW!”