I walk into the dim gray brick classroom right on time. At once, twenty, at least, pairs of eyes stare at me. All the seats are full, except for one in the front row, which I begrudgingly go to. I put on the friendliest smile I have to hopefully deter any negative feelings. A cat-like girl with pink hair tied into strawberry shaped buns and pink glasses at the desk next to mine smiles as I set my things down.
“Hi hi, new kid! My name is Lava Cheng, future spy! And I can dance. And sing, too! How about you?” She exclaims with a barely contained grin, speaking almost too fast to understand.
“I’m Celestine, but you can call me Celly!” Her eyes widen.
“WAIT! Are you that kid that Otter promoted!?” She exclaims. I awkwardly nod.
“Omigods that's awesome!!! Do you know what that means!? I’ve got a rival! I'll save the deputy seat for you, don’t worry.” Lava’s positive energy is infectious, and despite the clear challenge offered, I can’t help but smile. Antonio would love her. “Anyhoo, Mr. Aspe-Captain Grant’s gonna be here in about ten seconds, so you should prob’ly sit down.” Lava whispers surprisingly matter-of-factly. I quickly get prepared for class, and after exactly 10 seconds, the metal door to the classroom swings open dramatically and Aspen Grant, captain of spies, enters.
“Greetings and salutations, welcome to your first year of being a spy. With hard work and a pinch of luck, it sure won’t be your last.” Despite his short stature, the captain has a way of getting people’s attention, which was likely a result of his many years spent in the theater. His bright sunset hair and intricately detailed jacket doesn’t hurt either. Captain Grant strides up to the front of the classroom, and writes in large letters on the chalkboard, ‘Why are you here?’. He sits down at his neat desk, and after a bit of silence, asks, “Well? Who’s first?”
Lava, eager as ever, shoots her hand up, and before even being called on, gives the whole class the same spiel she gave me. She’s followed by several others in the front row, all giving responses along the lines of, “I want to go to the surface”, “I wanna be a great knight”, or “I need to know all the best gossip”. To that one, Captain Grant laughs a little. “If you stick around, your wish will definitely be fulfilled. Celestine? How about you?”
I’m caught a little off guard. What am I even supposed to say? “Actually, I’m not sure.” The Captain looks a little disappointed, but shrugs and the next row of students take their turns. After everyone has gone, Captain Grant and Lava, who eagerly volunteers, pass out textbooks with Unit 1 printed on the cover. I flip through mine, spotting lots of diagrams of facial expressions and tips for spinning stories. I never realized how important it was to be able to lie when you’re a spy.
“Open to page one and find a partner. For our first lesson, we will be getting a baseline of everyone’s ability to bend the truth. Each of you was given a scenario with your book. While telling your partner about an event, you must tell them three different details. However, you can’t let them know how you really got this information. Lava?” I hadn’t even noticed her raising her hand.
“Can we come up with our own?” She asks.
“I suppose, as long as your partner doesn’t mind,” he answers.
Lava turns to me with a huge grin. I notice her unusually sharp looking canines. I smile back.
“Any other questions? No? Alright then, get started and ask me if you need help.” Lava is all too eager to begin, and before I even get to read mine, she chirps,
“Ok! I’ve got one! Did you know that three tons of eggs were stolen from the food ward yesterday morning?” That’s certainly a prompt.
“How did you find out?”
“My friend Jacob works there and he told me.” Wait a minute. Jacob is a friend of Fran’s, and I distinctly remember him saying how much he hates that place because of the noise.
“Jacob works in the tavern. How did you really find out?” She stops smiling.
“Um, well, I overheard him being told. Last time I was there, he was visiting a friend.”
“Why were you in the kitchens? The cafe is a lot closer.” She looks lost in thought.
“They stopped serving my favorite scones.”
“That’s fair. When they stopped serving the lemon chocolate cookies, I had to start ordering them straight from the kitchens.”
Captain Grant suddenly adds, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, “Nice work on the interrogation, but remember, once you catch one lie, don’t trust anything they’ve told you.”
“Understood, sir.”
“I need to work on oversharing. It’s hard to keep up with complex lies.” Lava adds. Captain Grant seems satisfied and walks away. I let out a breath that I hadn’t even realized I had been holding.
“Your turn, Celly!” I take out the prompt and read through it. ‘You are a double agent sneaking out to spy on the surface. You must share information about the sun (using your imagination), information from a book from the surface (must be something surface exclusive), and that you are wearing surface clothing (no capelet or dull colors). You are by the surface exit when someone finds you. Your first sentence is:’ I read it out loud. “Hello! What are you doing so close to the surface?” Lava looks pensive, and responds calmly.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“I like imagining what it’s like up there. There's this thing called the sun I read about that I'm trying to picture. I bet it’s beautiful, bright, yellow, and warm!” I’m just making things up, since hardly any books mention the sun, and those that do are very technical about it. And yet, the words seem to slip out of my mouth, like I’m describing something I’ve seen a million times.
“What makes you think that?” Lava’s voice snaps me out of my imagination.
“All the books I’ve read say a couple different things about it, and a lot are along those lines.” It's not untrue.
“What books?”
“Um, mostly textbooks.” She’s giving me a strange look. I take it as a sign to elaborate. “My mom once brought home some old ones from the surface!” She seems satisfied.
“Also, do you want to go shopping later? I have to wear these weird old clothes until we get the washing machine fixed. I don’t even have a clean capelet.”
“Yeah! My grandma wears clothes that look like that!” She laughs, playing along. I think that’s everything I’m supposed to say, and she doesn’t seem overly suspicious. I’m about to ask Lava what we’re supposed to do now when Captain Grant calls us all to attention.
“Since it is the first day, you won’t get any written homework, but if you’re expecting this class to be a breeze, I’ve got some bad news for you.” Lava chuckles quietly. “I’ll go over all the units this year, and give you this week's scavenger hunt item. Each week, you’ll get a new item, and if you find it, tell me to get some extra credit points. You’ll have the rest of class to get started. Lava?” He adds, once again calling on Lava before her hand is even raised.
“Where are the boundaries of this scavenger hunt?”
“Everywhere but the dump and layer six. For the record, anyone who survives to the third year of captain training gets to go on a supervised field trip to the dump. Some people refuse to understand how dangerous it is without hearing the firsthand experience of it. In the meantime, if you go down there without a captain or admin there to protect you…” He suddenly gets serious, and I sense a bit of sadness behind a mask I hadn’t realized was there.
“Anyway, the first unit is manipulation, the second is combat, third is negotiation, then survival and performance. Hopefully everyone gets to the end of the year, we could always use more actors. If you’re already into the whole acting thing and you like witches, stop by the quartz theater in a couple weeks. Thank me when you’re famous.”
“I’m gonna be the best Gilda, just you wait!” Lava whispers to me, her lapis blue eyes twinkling. I wouldn’t consider myself a theater kid, but I’ve always admired the passion they share. Suddenly, a bell goes off in the hallway outside. Captain Grant rolls his eyes.
“Has it really been a half hour? These shortened first days go by faster every year. Don’t get in the habit, though.” He glares at a student who’s already packing up. “Tomorrow we have the full fifty minutes. And you all have your core classes in the afternoon. Your scavenger hunt assignments are on the board outside. Class,” he pauses, looking around the room at everyone flocking towards the door. “Dismissed.”
“Wanna hang out at lunch?” Lava trills excitedly, prancing over the threshold. “We can go to the cafe, ooh, or the theater! I live right by there and can show you around! It’s reeeally cool!”
“Sure, but I want to ask the Captain a quick question.” I’ve been dying to ask for a while but haven’t had the chance.
“Alrighty! I’ll be right outside!” She smiles, and dashes out the door. The rest of the class follow close behind.
“Excuse me, Captain Grant?” He looks up from what appears to be a pile of scripts.
“Yes?”
“Why was I put in this class? I’ve never felt very knightly, and I don’t think I’m a prodigy or anything. I’ve never gotten a great grade in math.”
“Can you count to one hundred?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you do addition, subtraction, and the like?”
“Yes.”
“If I gave you an address with numbers in it, could you get there?” I hesitate. I start to answer, but I’m cut off.
“You’re a friend of Cam’s, right? She can help teach you. I can get you a pass to sit in on a few navigation lessons.”
“Thank you.” I’m a little annoyed at how obvious I must have been. At least Cam is nice.
“So it’s fine if I flunked calculus?”
“Of course, is Ms. Gekkota still there?” I’m taken a little off guard, although I knew she had been teaching since before I was born. I nod.
“She was my teacher. The old fossil grades so harshly that they changed the graduation requirements. You’re welcome for that. Must have been twenty-five years now. Anyway, if you really want to do math, go down the hall to the tactician classroom. Ask for Tracy, they always need some help with paperwork.”
“Thank you, I'll keep it in mind.” I don’t plan on going over there, but if I ever do, I know who to not bother.
“Also, could you tell Lava to tell her dad that the props arrived? ” I nod, and start heading out. Lava is standing right outside the door.
“What’d you ask!?” She exclaims, startling me
“I wanted to know why I’m in captain training, since I haven’t even taken the preliminary knight classes.”
“Well, what’d he say?”
“Something about how my math grade doesn’t matter. Wait a minute…” I run back into the classroom, but Captain Grant isn’t there.
“There’s a secret tunnel in the classroom leading to the Sol Theatrum. Unfortunately, there's no show going on right now and the Sol Taberna is closed, so there's no point in following him. It’s too deep anyways. I’ve heard the pressure can really mess with your head.” As Lava talks, I remember my mom telling me how fancy it is down there. I’ve never seen any of Layer 6 myself, but I want to someday.
“Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t use that passage, it’s captain only. And my dad, apparently. He and Mr. Aspen are super close. He also doesn’t know I know that, so please don’t tell him.” She continues. It makes sense, especially considering Captain Grant’s alter ego as the unrivaled star of the theater.
“Don’t worry, I won’t. I’ll just ask again tomorrow. Also, if your last name is Cheng, wouldn’t that make your mom Captain Petunia?” I regret asking when I see Lava’s face fall. I can sense sorrow and a pinch of regret in her expression.
“Yeah, I miss her a lot. Have you ever lost family?”
“No, unless you count the chibbits I kept as pets.” I don’t know any of my biological family, and my ren never even speaks of theirs. My grandparents and uncle on my mom’s side visit often, which is nice. I’ve never given it much thought.
“Anyways, let's look at our scavenger hunt items and decide where we want to go.” I can tell she’s deflecting, but it’s not my business to pry. I go over to the message board outside the spy classroom and look at the assignments written out in colorful chalk.
“I got a gold plated dumbbell, you?” Lava asks.
“I need to find a silver statuette of a chibbit with a top hat.” Neither of us can contain our laughter.
“Also, Captain Grant told me to tell you to tell your dad that the props arrived, so maybe we should find him.” I suggest.
“He’s probably in one of the theaters or at home. Unfortunately, my little sister Flaire’s at school. She’s awesome! I hope you can meet her soon!” Lava trills enthusiastically.
“Race you to the end of this hallway!”
We make it to the quartz theater surprisingly quickly. Lava shows me the way, so I don’t even get lost! I’ve been here before, but I’m still impressed by the grand chandeliers in the house. We all come here for any sort of concert, recital or school play. Lava grabs my arm and leads me backstage.
“Are you sure this is the right place? I wouldn’t think to put a bunk…” She pushes aside a small gray curtain and opens the door behind it. I nearly trip down a small flight of stairs. The inside of her house is decorated in all manners of gray, dark blue, and pink. A large orange flower pot contains a small tree with pods I’ve only seen in textbooks.
“Is that cacao?”
“Yup! Otter specifically grew some for us. Mr. Aspen hangs out here a lot, and he loves chocolate. By the way, ” she looks around the living room, “DAD! Come meet Celly!” In walks a well-dressed man with white eyelashes and a streak in his otherwise black hair. He’s wearing glasses, similar to Lava’s, but they’re a deep blue. A silver laurel wreath given to non-knights at the top of their class sits over one of his fluffy cat ears. I recognize him as Firesi Cheng, the esteemed director of the theater. Considering how passionate Lava seems to be about both being a performer and a knight, her being the child of two very talented individuals explains a lot.
“Oh, greetings and salutations!” He says as I wave hello. I’m trying to figure out how to introduce myself in a more formal way when Lava exclaims:
“By the way, Mr. Aspen says the props arrived!” Mr. Cheng seems to pause for a second, before smiling sheepishly.
“My apologies then, I’d best be going. It was nice to meet you.” He leaves as Lava and I sit by the coffee table.
“You never told me your dad is the director!” I exclaim once he’s out of earshot.
“You never asked!” Lava laughs. “Anyway. Now that our-well, your-messenger job is complete, let’s get some cookies!”
“Do you have any lemon chocolate ones?”
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