Free Spy in the Alley by Melanie Jackson Page A

mourned. “So frosty. She hates me now.”
    â€œHmm,” said Mother, biting into a chocolate ladyfinger. “Do you think the one follows the other? I wonder.”
    Proving that, for all her dottiness, Mother had her flashes of insight. Reaching for several ladyfingers at once, I proclaimed, “I knew from the start that Madge li — ”
    Mother took one of the ladyfingers from my hand and stuffed it in my mouth. “Interesting that Stanley Park would be the site of a showdown between GASP and Fields Tobacco,” she resumed comfortably, as if I hadn’t tried to speak. “Originally Stanley Park was called the much less dignified Coal Peninsula. It was a military reserve, with weapons at the ready in case the United States invaded.
    â€œBy 1889, Canada’s Governor-General, Lord Stanley, sensibly realized that such an attack was unlikely. The land should be enjoyed for its beauty. So, he dedicated it as a park, perhaps rather immodestly as Stanley Park.”
    Pantelli and I laughed. A wan grin was even dawning across Jack’s freckled features when the front door opened. Madge walked in, her blue eyes icy enough to sink the Titanic . She saw Jack and stopped.
    He got up. There was a moment of tense silence.
    Cr-r-runch! Out of sheer suspense, I’d just broken a ladyfinger.
    â€œI could have accepted that you need to humiliate me,” Madge informed Jack. “I guess you and your friends are entitled to get your jollies in a sick kind of way, if that’s what you want. But vandalizing Rod’s car!” With a toss of her auburn hair, she scowled out the window.
    Of course we all craned our necks to see. On the sidewalk, Rod was standing — and also scowling — beside the new pink Mazda his dad had bought him.
    Wait a minute. Pink? I’d thought Roderick’s new Mazda was forest green. I shoved my glasses up closer to my eyes — in hot weather, my specs tend to slide — and squinted.
    Pink spray paint covered the Mazda. Specifically, pink spray paint in the shape of the letters GASP SAVES THE DAY!, GO GASP and other slogans.
    Jack looked as stunned as the rest of us. At last he commented weakly, “That’s pretty awful. I’ll definitely have to speak to the GASP art department about this.” I understood his reaction. When on the spot, try to make a joke — I do this all the time, most frequently in the principal’s office.
    But Madge had no empathy whatsoever. “Yes, you would find this humorous. Your buck-toothed volunteer at work again, I suppose,” Madge said witheringly.
    From Jack’s unhappy face it was obvious he didn’t really find the spray-paint job humorous at all, but Madge didn’t wait to look at him. With another auburn toss, she went to the front door again and waved good-by to Roderick.
    El Dweebo’s voice drifted in: “I’ll phone you, hon.”
    â€œYes. Fine,” replied Madge.
    Jack lifted the bouquet of beige roses he’d brought with him. The paper and plastic wrapping made loud, embarrassing crackles in the silence.
    â€œI’m so sorry,” he told Madge. “I honestly don’t know anything about the spray-painting. But I’ll find out, I promise you. I’m also sorry you were embarrassed at the rally. Please believe that the protests have nothing to do with you personally. If I’d known that you would be there, I’d have warned you. It was Fields Tobacco we were after, not you.
    â€œI’d do anything to make up to you for what happened,” he said. “Walk on hot coals. Sleep on a bed of nails. Or sleep on hot coals and walk on a bed of nails. You name it.”
    â€œWow,” I breathed, munching the broken ladyfinger. How poetic!
    Madge turned up her elegant nose. She dropped the bouquet at his feet and went upstairs.

Chapter Ten
    Jack’s really bad day, continued
    An evil green blob, oozing icky, deadly