Two Lies and a Spy (23 page)

The last charm—Bran Castle—falls into the black hole and makes a particularly horrible noise as it gets ground
up. I guess that’s fitting as the grand finale—I drop the chain in after it, and the noise gets worse.

“You’re hell in the kitchen, aren’t you?” Evan observes.

I look around, inhaling the familiar smells that years of cooking have left in this room. My mom’s made countless dinners for the family in here. I wonder if each one of them was made with bitterness and resentment?

But the funny thing is that even now, I know that’s not true. My mom truly enjoyed being a mom. And my dad liked being a dad.

I don’t think you can fake that stuff. Maybe it’s possible for a few days, or a week. But not day in, day out, for sixteen years.

I see Mom’s tears as our parents walked out the door. I remember that defeated, exhausted expression of Dad’s. And I think of Charlie’s last birthday, when Dad stayed up most of the night putting together this robotic creature for him. (Charlie, of course, immediately dismantled it and rebuilt it so that he could see how it worked.) Mom and I baked his rocket-shaped cake and had so much fun decorating it . . . in red, white, and blue. She wasn’t faking that joy. Dad wasn’t faking his dedication to his son.

Were they?

I become angry all over again—because they’ve thrown everything away. They’ve thrown away the love, the memories, the family itself. And for that, I’ll never forgive them.

This kitchen, with its history of good times, is now the
saddest place imaginable. I shut off the disposal and the water and wipe my hands on my jeans. Then I turn on my heels and walk out. We’ve got to get moving.

We stop in Charlie’s room next, with it’s theme of outer space. We pack a few of his clothes—in particular, he wants an old red sweatshirt and his favorite jeans. We throw in khakis and shirts and underwear and socks and a jacket. We take the Snoopy stuffed animal that he’s had since he was a tiny baby. He wants to take books, but they’re too bulky. I promise him that we’ll get him an e-reader. He makes me swear that we’ll download a copy of
Roget’s Thesaurus
on it.

His gaze goes to the robot in the corner. He walks over and kicks it.

Then we go to my room. I remember painting the walls purple with my mom and squeeze my eyes shut. I remember how my dad, though he hated the idea, painted all the trim in the room a high-gloss black. Purple walls and black trim made the room dark, but I loved it. Now I never want to see those colors again.

I yank a duffle out of my closet and throw in some basics. I carefully fold my
gi
and add that, along with my proudly earned brown belt. I toss in my iPad and its cord, though I guess I’ll have to get some kind of adapter in Paris.

Finally, I take a framed picture of me and Kale in a karate competition, one of me and Rita, and one of me and Charlie. I lay the photos that have my parents in them face down on the dresser.

Evan sticks his head through the doorway. “Ready?”

I take a deep breath. “Not quite.”

•  •  •

I get logs from the woodpile. I grab some old newspaper from the garage. And a box of long matches.

Charlie and Evan follow me out to the backyard, where I dump everything by the old fire pit that Dad constructed years ago. There are memories here, too, of singing campfire songs, huddling in blankets, and telling ghost stories.

Ten minutes later Charlie and Evan and I stand around a small bonfire.

“I didn’t know you were a pyromaniac in addition to all of your other talents,” Evan says. “What is it that you want to burn?”

“Hey, can we make s’mores?” Charlie asks.

I think of Sophie and the special version of s’mores she invented for my little brother. Sophie, whom our parents brought into our lives. That makes me coldly furious all over again. “No, kiddo. Not today.”

I walk into the house and make my way to the living room. I march up to the fireplace and yank the family portrait off its hook. Dad and Mom and the then-clueless me and Charlie smile up into my face: two big fat lies and the kids who now hate them.

I wrestle the painting out back. I hold it over the fire.

“Hey,” Evan tells me. “There’s an envelope with your name on it taped to the back of the picture.”

“I don’t care,” I say.

“What if there’s a letter from your parents in there? Cash?”

I shrug. “Charlie, do you have a problem with me doing this?”

He looks at the painting, at our falsely happy, “all-American” family. At Mom and Dad with their hands on our shoulders, smiling for the artist.

He shakes his head.

I drop the painting facedown into the flames, and my brother slips his hand into mine as we watch it blacken, curl, and smoke.

Evan stands somberly for a moment with his hands in his pockets. Then he reaches down and snatches the envelope before it can burn. “Shall I open it?”

“I don’t care,” I tell him stonily. “If you do, then open it in private and keep whatever’s in there to yourself.”

We stay there until there’s nothing left but a few shreds. Then we shovel ashes over them and make triply sure there are no burning embers.

Evan puts one arm around Charlie’s shoulders and the other around mine as we walk out of the back garden gate for the last time. We get into his car without saying a word and drive away from our home, from our lives, from everything we once took blissfully for granted.

I hope we’re ready for Generation Interpol.

And I hope Generation Interpol is ready for
us
.

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing
Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events,
real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and
events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual
events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Simon & Schuster

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in
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is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Book design by Krista Vossen

Jacket design by Krista Vossen

Jacket photograph of girl and boys copyright © 2013 by Michael
Frost

Photograph of car and tunnel copyright © 2013 by Adrian
Assalve/Vetta/Getty Images

Photograph of Capitol building copyright © 2013 by Jodi Jacobson/E+/Getty
Images

The text for this book is set in Berling LT Std.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Carlton, Kat.

Two lies and a spy / Kat Carlton.— First edition.

pages cm

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Kari juggles saving her spy parents while
impressing the guy she has been in love with forever.

ISBN 978-1-4424-8172-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-4424-8174-9 (eBook)

[1. Spies—Fiction. 2. Parents—Fiction. 3. Brothers and
sisters—Fiction. 4. Love—Fiction.]

I. Title.

PZ7.C216852Tw 2013

[Fic]—dc23

2013006449

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four