Excerpt #1: 
The school’s auditorium stage was bathed in colors. White for the actors. Orange for the wooden set representing the faraway pyramids of Egypt. Blue to emphasize the painted sky backdrop above it all. It was the opening night performance of The Spy Who Loathed Me.

Emma Rothchild strutted across the stage in a gorgeous floor-length silk dress, her costume for this scene. Tonight, she craved the eyes of the audience and knew this dress guaranteed their full attention. 

Emma was deep into character. She was Russian spy Olga Tetrovich. Emma had studied online videos of Russians speaking candidly and mimicked their accents as best she could. Her drama teacher had complimented Emma on her dedication to the craft.

The MI6 spy George Bond followed Olga on stage, but hid behind a fake tree. The actor’s rich brown skin might be a shock to the 007 spy traditionalists in the audience, but Emma hoped that his performance would win them over. Bond was following her in this scene, thinking she would lead the English spy straight to the microfilm that was stolen from him by a Brazilian dwarf named Tatu. 

From a souvenir stand, Emma picked up a clay model of the pyramids, something a tourist would buy at a market. She smashed the stage prop against the table in dramatic fashion and held up the roll of microfilm hidden inside so the audience could see it.

George Bond made his move. He crept up behind Emma without detection while she slipped the microfilm into her small hand purse. Emma’s hand came out holding a cap-gun revolver. She pivoted on her heels, making her dress swoosh around her ankles, and aimed the gun at Bond. The move looked great in rehearsals.

“I don’t think so, Mr. Bond,” Emma said, with her gentle Russian accent. “Our brief partnership is at an end. I have what my government wants. Now I will take my revenge. Do you remember that man you killed in Vienna?”

“Yes, I do,” George Bond said.

“He was my lover.”

Emma waited for Bond’s next line.

But the actor hesitated. 

Emma was about to lose it. Did Lewis forget again? They’d rehearsed this scene, like, twenty times.

“What do you have to say about that, Mr. Bond?” 

The line was an ad-lib, something to draw the next line out of the boy’s mouth.

Lewis’s face was a river of sweat as his eyes glazed over, the actor turning himself into just another tree on stage. 

“Your silence is a good enough confession for me. Any last words before I fire?” Emma went off script, but Lewis could pick his line up there. She was trying to help him.  

But the boy shook his head. Lewis wasn’t taking the hint.

Emma pulled the trigger and the gun hammer snapped forward. She squeezed the trigger numerous times in a series of loud snaps. Emma dropped the weapon. “You planted that empty gun in my handbag, didn’t you?”

Lewis nodded. Okay, he’d reacted to that ad-lib. 

It was a sliver of hope, so Emma went with it. “Then I’ll have to kill you with my bare hands.” Emma approached Lewis with her arms raised in a karate-looking stance. The boy blinked, still trapped inside his scary place. What could Emma do now? Physically attack him? Bond was supposed to seduce the Russian agent, not have her attack him.

Then a breath of inspiration hit her.

Emma grabbed Lewis’s shoulders. She guided him over to a bench on the set and made him lie down. Emma plopped her body on top of Lewis and pretended to struggle with him. Emma whispered into his ear, “Now get up and glare at me, Lewis.”

His eyes blinked again. Lewis rolled out from under her and stood on stage. Emma pressed her back against the seat of the bench and stayed there while Lewis glared.

Emma labored her breathing, as if she were being seduced. “Oh, why can I not kill you, Mr. Bond? What power do you hold over me?”

Lewis didn’t move, his glare frozen on his petrified face.

Emma knew this would work better if Lewis helped sell it, but…she lifted herself from the bench like a graceful ballerina, trying to act seduced by Bond’s man-powers. “Why can I not kill you, Mr. Bond?” she repeated.

Emma went for his lips, kissing Lewis with passion, as if the male spy had successfully messed with her brain. As Emma eased her lips away from his…life came back into Lewis’s eyes. He gripped Emma and pulled her towards him and they kissed again. 

Finally, the boy was acting.

 

Excerpt #2:
Emma drove back across the bridge to San Francisco instead. Once again, she handed her keys over to the valet and pushed open the doors to the San Francisco Centre. The smells from the food court reminded Emma’s stomach that she only had a piece of fish for lunch. At Salad Island, there was a tasty mandarin orange salad that would be good for her. But Emma gave into her sadness and bought a small Blizzard with gobs of cookie-dough chunks and vanilla ice cream. 

Emma found a nice empty booth and nibbled on her treat as her thoughts and feelings drifted back to her father. 

She zoned out for a while.

Until the bald man sat down next to her. 

Emma tensed up immediately. 

The man surveyed the food court with an eerie calmness that made Emma want to bolt and scream her head off. 

He said nothing.

Emma’s muscles tightened as she prepared herself to dash off like a rabbit.

“May I join you?” a kind, but firm woman’s voice asked in a British accent.

Emma noted an old white woman leaning on her cane. She wore a modern, yet age-appropriate dress with a certain flare. Emma tossed another look at the bald man.

“Don’t mind him. He’s with me. May I sit?”

Emma nodded.

“Thank you.” The old woman eased into her chair with confidence and grace. “Good afternoon. May I introduce myself? My name is Mrs. B.” 

Emma was at a loss for words. What was going on here?

The woman continued. “Your name is Emma. Am I correct?”  

“Yes,” Emma whispered.

“Let us see here.” The woman put on her reading glasses and licked her thumb before opening a pad of paper. “Emma Rothchild. Now living in Berkeley, California, but a recent transfer from New York City. You are sixteen years old. You drive a white Mercedes AMG Coupe. You dropped out of ballet class when you were twelve because you told your father that dancing hurt your feet. You were a straight A student at Van Dorn Hall, taking the usual college preparatory curriculum. However, you did take multiple electives in theater and performed smaller parts in off-Broadway productions. Very interesting.” 

The old woman took off her glasses.

“I watched your performance in the Van Dorn Hall’s production of Romeo and Juliet on YouTube. You played Juliet a bit over the top I must say. And I did detect some nuances you stole from Miss Natalie Potter’s Oscar-winning performance in that interesting film Black Water. If your drama teacher knew anything about acting, she would have spotted these errors and corrected you during the rehearsals. But I digress.”

“I wasn’t copying Natalie Potter. She inspires my acting. And what do you mean by…over-the-top performance?”

Mrs. B addressed the bald man. “I’m feeling a bit dry. Do purchase me some root beer, if you please.”

The large bald man nodded and left.

“I would like to compliment you on rescuing and paying for the treatment of that injured dog. A very selfless act. Dr. Leslie Vanders does good work. Her record as a veterinarian is impeccable.”

How did she know about the dog? Emma was sure she’d lost her bald friend at that traffic light. Or had she?

“Did you follow me yesterday?” Emma asked.

“My associate did.”

“Why? Why was he following me?”

Mrs. B put on her glasses again and went through her notebook. “Your father’s name was Kenneth Rothchild, owner of Rothchild Industries, a conglomerate composed of numerous companies. A few tech firms in Silicon Valley, a prestigious New York law firm, two professional sports teams, a German toy company, and the crown jewel of the conglomerate—AirTech—a company specializing in climate control systems for commercial buildings worldwide.”

“What’s going on here?”

Mrs. B ignored Emma. “The French concluded their investigation into your father’s crash. Based on their report, they believe it was a ground crew error complicated by pilot error.”

The bald man placed a drink in front of Mrs. B, who pulled out the straw and removed the top before sipping. “Thank you,” she said to the man before continuing. “Have the French told you anything else?” 

Emma shook her head.

“Would it interest you to know that when they examined the wreckage of your father’s jet, the French discovered a few other disturbing facts? Facts that are being kept classified?”

“Classified? What? Like, CIA classified?”

“All I can say here is…it wasn’t pilot error.”

“So what happened?”

Mrs. B didn’t answer. She removed a phone from her small purse and pressed a few buttons.

Emma’s phone chirped with a new message.

“Be at that address tonight at eight o’clock. I’ll answer all your questions then.”