Feet pounded on the hard London pavement. Cold February air bit at panicked young faces.

Flynn took the lead, still clutching Jessa’s shoes. They made turns left and right and left and right again. Flat-out sprinting, desperate and electric with adrenaline.

A park.

They ran toward a decorative fountain with a little wall all around and threw themselves onto the ground behind it. In a huddle, they peered over, looking back across to the gate.

Nobody else entered.

They were alone.

“That was close,” Maggie whispered breathlessly. “Do you think anyone saw us?”

“I don’t think so,” Flynn tried to catch his breath. “We got away quickly.”

Jessa peeled off her sopping wet socks and shoved them into her coat pocket before wiggling bare feet back into her shoes.

“Did you see anything in there, Jess?”

“Yeah,” a worried scowl contorted her face. “There were a bunch of people in there talking about… about… something that happened. They said it had happened again. There was a first victim and now there’s a second one, but they’re going to say the second victim got mugged so that people don’t get scared.”

“What does that mean?”

“Who was in there?”

“Did you see Mr Fletcher?”

“Woah, slow down. Yeah, I saw him. Dr Mortlock was there too. And other teachers, I think. From other schools. But they’re not really teachers. They said they’re “Agents.” There are Agents in all our schools, to protect us. But it’s not working. Something’s out there, and we’re in danger.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. Neither do they.”

Maggie put her arm around Jessa. “It’s almost half-past nine. We should get back to school.”

Some parents had already arrived for pick-ups. Their cars stood stationary in front of the school, hazard lights blinking with disapproval that the child to be collected wasn’t ready and waiting outside as they’d promised.

Jessa and her friends entered the bright lights of the foyer, receiving odd glances from passers-by who noticed their pink cheeks, dishevelled hair and wet-patched coats. It wasn’t long before Annora’s mum pulled up to collect her and Tonia. They gave each other quiet goodbyes, and just before leaving, Tonia pulled Jessa into a tight, reassuring hug.

“You were really brave tonight,” she said. “Good job.”

“Thanks, Tonia.”

“No problem. I’ll see you all on Monday.”

“Bye.”

They noticed that many students were leaving the main hall with cups of hot chocolate, so Jessa, Maggie and Flynn went to investigate. The hall looked very different to how they left it. Mellow music played quietly in the background, students stood around in groups, chatting, but the dancing was over. The flashing lights had ceased, and the bright main lights were on.

The party was most definitely over.

“What do you think they were talking about in that place?” said Maggie.

“I don’t know, Mags. Honestly, it sounded like they don’t know much.”

Jessa felt the familiar vibration of the phone ringing within her coat pocket. She pulled it out and confirmed the arrival of her mother, who was to give Maggie and Flynn rides home too.

“You all look knackered! Lots of dancing?” Mrs Baxter’s joyful eyes questioned them through the rear-view mirror.

“Yeah,” they all mumbled back.

“Wow, that much fun?” came the sarcastic reply.

“Sorry, Mrs Baxter, it was just a long day, and we’re all a bit tired now. The party was really nice.”

“Thank you, Flynn,” she smiled at him from the driver’s seat.

Mrs Baxter switched on the radio just in time to catch one of her favourite songs from the 90s, which she sang along to with an embarrassing gumption. The last few notes of the song faded out and were overridden by the familiar sound of Big Ben’s chime, announcing the hourly news report.

“It’s 10 pm on Friday the 12th of February. I’m Sandy Sanderson and this is NewsBullet. A bank in Wotheringham was raided today by masked bandits wielding knives. Fortunately, one of the employees pushed a panic button under the desk and the police arrived within minutes and arrested the wannabe bank robbers. In Frankerley Common, a road traffic accident has caused multiple injuries and slow moving traffic from Sentley Road all the way to the A879. And we are just getting reports that a teenage boy has been taken to hospital after being mugged near his home in Central London.”

Jessa’s spine straightened.

“Police say the fifteen-year-old boy, who has been named as Greg Sideman, a student at Field Lane, didn’t arrive home from school. Later this evening, he was found, barely conscious, by a couple who called an ambulance. The boy was taken to a nearby hospital, where he remains at this time. The police are calling for any witnesses. That’s all from me. Join us again at 11 for another NewsBullet. I’m Sandy Sanderson.”

“How awful,” Mrs Baxter tutted, turning down the radio so she didn’t have to listen to the adverts that followed the news. “There are some rotten people in this world.”

They dropped Maggie off at her house, then Flynn to his flat on the way back to 88 Duke Avenue, where Jessa exited the car and went inside without so much as a word to her mother.

“Is everything okay, love?”

“Mmm? Yeah, I’m just tired.”

“Are you feeling a bit low because you don’t have a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day? I wouldn’t blame you. It’s very natural for girls your age to want a boyfriend.”

“I’m really fine. It’s nothing to do with that.”

“Are you sure? Because you know you can talk to me about anything. What about Flynn? He’s ever-such a nice boy.”

“What are you talking about? Flynn’s one of my best friends!”

“Well, I’m just saying… feelings can be tricky at your age.”

“Mu-uum!” Jessa whined. “Please stop! I don’t want a boyfriend, and I especially don’t fancy Flynn, that would be so weird.”

“All right. Get up to bed, then, you ragamuffin. And why are your feet so dirty? You kids… I don’t know…” she trailed off as her youngest daughter plodded up the stairs to her room.

“Love you, poppet!”

“Love you too, Mum. G’night.”

#

“Ugh, nobody should come to school this early,” Jessa yawned. “It’s not right.”

“Dude, you’re the one who called a breakfast meeting,” said Tonia.

“Right. Hang on,” Jessa took a hearty swig of tea. “I’ve been checking the news a lot, and there’ve been no other reports of a student getting mugged, so this Greg Sideman kid has to be the one they’re talking about.”

“Yep. The news this morning said the police are still asking around for witnesses. So I guess they still don’t know what really happened to him,” Maggie continued.

“Do we know exactly where he was found?”

“No, they haven’t said,” Maggie’s gentle voice spoke again, “But they mentioned he’s at Great Lambert Hospital, so it must have been near there.”

“Didn’t they say he goes to Field Lane, though?” asked Tonia. “If he was on his way home from school, then he wouldn’t have been anywhere near Great Lambert Hospital. I grew up near Lambert and it’s south of the river, quite a trek from Field Lane.”

“Wait,” Jessa dropped the spoon into her cereal bowl with a splash. She lowered her voice to continue. “When my sister was going out with Hugo… I mean, Mr Fletcher, he was round my house quite a lot. And when that whole thing with Emmeline Victor was happening, he said he went to Great Lambert Hospital to visit her.”

“Oh no, do you think Emmeline was Victim 1 and now this Field Lane boy is Victim 2?” Maggie said aloud.

Jessa nodded. “Whatever happened to him is the same thing that happened to Emmeline, and they think it’s going to keep happening.”

Annora lifted a granola bar to her mouth and took a tiny bite but didn’t really chew it so much as thoughtfully move her lips.

Flynn sipped his coffee, then cleared his throat. “We can’t let this scare us. Obviously, whoever these Agents are, they’re trying to protect us. And they’re right, people will panic if they think there’s something bad going on. So we have to keep this to ourselves. For now, anyway. Okay?” He looked around at each of them.

“But we also have to be alert in case anything happens here,” said Jessa. “Even if Dr Mortlock and Mr Fletcher are the Agents at this school, they can’t be everywhere all the time. So we can help. We can keep a look out for anyone acting strange. Right?”

“Right,” they all agreed.

“So it’s officially a new entry in the Mystery Club’s ‘Book of Secrets,’ then?” Flynn joked.

He offered his hand into the centre of the circle to seal the pact with a group handshake. They all followed suit, with Tonia going last, placing her hand underneath Flynn’s instead of on top of the pile.

“As long as we stick together, everything will be fine.”

#

“Good morning, everyone,” Mr Fletcher greeted his class. “We have our PSE session first thing, so let’s just get straight on with it, shall we? The topic this week is ‘Relationships’.”

He noticed immediately when a couple of the students blushed or shifted awkwardly. Jessa felt her skin prickle.

“I don’t want anyone to be embarrassed. Biologically speaking, at your age there’s a lot of weird, new stuff happening inside your bodies as well as your minds, so it’s only natural to be a little confused, or even scared.”

Jessa was instantly reminded of the conversation she’d sort-of had with her mother just a couple of nights prior, and wished she could leave the classroom as easily as she’d departed the room at home and just gone to bed.

She’d always been private about her feelings, and never found herself with a crush on a boy. Even when Maggie swooned over the older boys at school, or her mother and sister saw famous actors on the TV and used words like “dreamy” or “hunky,” Jessa usually ended up rolling her eyes and keeping quiet, or just uttering a casual “mmhmm” if asked for her opinion.

Fortunately, Mr Fletcher wasn’t asking her opinion on the varying hunkiness of men, and Jessa was very pleased to find out that the lesson wasn’t nearly as personal as she’d initially feared. It was actually more interesting than she’d expected, as Mr Fletcher shared with them some articles about the psychology of relationships and how people form attachments. Thinking about relationships, Jessa found herself staring at Cecily and Eli, who were giving each other sensual looks across the classroom.

What does he see in her?

Jessa remembered the dream.

Her lips… her teeth… her grip.

She shuddered. The whirlwind of daydreams kept her mind occupied for the remainder of the lesson. She kept replaying the events from Friday night over in her head. It almost seemed unreal, the fact that she and her friends had followed Mr Fletcher to the curious location and eavesdropped on something they couldn’t even begin to fathom. It felt more like a dream. But it was completely real, and she had the churning knot in her stomach to prove it.

“Jessa—” Flynn tapped on her shoulder.

“Huh? What?”

“Lesson’s over. Time to go.”

Half the class had already left the classroom. She scooped up the line of pencils that she’d been mindlessly playing with on the desk, as Maggie and Flynn stood beside her and Tonia and Annora waited just outside the door. They all avoided looking at Mr Fletcher, whose burning eyes watched them from across the room.

Maggie, Jessa and Flynn were almost at the door when he spoke.

“Oh hey, guys?”

They turned around.

“I’m just wondering something…”

The three of them all tried hard to look as cool as possible.

He continued. “Is there anything you want to talk to me about?”

“You mean about the lesson today, Mr Fletcher?” Maggie asked innocently.

“Not what I was referring to, no, but is there anything about the lesson today that you’d like to discuss with me, Maggie?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she replied.

He just looked at them. Then he smiled. “No worries, then.”

Jessa realised she was holding her breath as she stepped out of the doorway, noticing Tonia and Annora hiding just out of Mr Fletcher’s sight.

“Actually, can you do me a favour?” he called out. “Jessa?”

She spun around slowly, trying hard to relax her face. “Of course. How can I help?” She tried to swallow away the lump in her throat.

“As you’re on your way to Maths, would you mind taking this to Mr Tucker for me?” he held out a folder of papers.

Jessa sighed inwardly with relief. He held the folder out toward her, and she looked up to smile as she took it from him. But the instant her fingers touched the cool surface of the binder she realised she’d been tricked.

Jessa immediately recognised the sensation she’d felt in the library when Mr Fletcher had handed her the pencil case and somehow incepted his spoken message voicelessly into her mind.

A jolt ran from her fingertips and zipped through her entire body in a second. She shrieked with surprise and jerked away as though she received a static shock. Mr Fletcher yanked the folder from her hand, shutting down their invisible connection.

Flynn, Maggie, Tonia and Annora all stood at the doorway, wide-eyed and watching. Jessa knew what Mr Fletcher had found out, and she looked up at him, waiting for a reaction. He leaned back on his desk again, his face low, rubbing his forehead. “I’m really sorry I had to do that, Jessa. But I needed to know.”

“You already knew, though, didn’t you?” she asked quietly.

“I had an inkling. All of you come in, please, and shut the door behind you.” He picked up his tablet. “I’m sending a message to Mr Tucker to let him know you’ll be late to Maths. We have some things to discuss.”

Maggie closed the door and Mr Fletcher motioned for the five students to sit down.

“What you guys just saw was something called transmitting. It’s a kind of telepathy, where you make a psychological connection with someone and gain an insight into a particular event or emotion.”

“You read Jessa’s mind?!” Annora gasped.

“Not exactly,” he reassured. “The person sending the transmission usually has to be very focused and active in their thought which, of course, Jessa isn’t because she’s not trained in this. So I had to perform what’s known as a transmission extraction. Don’t worry—it’s not painful, and it’s not intrusive. But you all know why I had to do that, don’t you? I knew you weren’t going to say anything, and I couldn’t let you go on without being able to talk to me about this. I mean, geez, I can’t even imagine what you’re thinking. I can’t even believe you did that.”

He paused. None of them could look at him.

“Do you have any idea how irresponsible that was? You snuck out of school during an official school event, and you didn’t think twice about galavanting around the streets of London at night.”

“It wasn’t even that late, though!” Jessa immediately jumped to their defence. “And we were all together! We stayed safe!”

“It’s not as simple as that, Jessa. What if something had happened to you? Your parents would be devastated. The school would be under a major investigation. There are so many consequences you didn’t even stop to consider.”

Jessa picked at her cuticles. Anything to not look at Hugo Fletcher’s disapproving face.

“We’re really sorry, Mr Fletcher,” Maggie’s voice wavered. “We’re not going to get expelled, are we?” A big fat tear plopped out of her eye and rolled down her cheek. Jessa was sure this was the first time Maggie had ever been told off by a teacher.

“Don’t cry, Maggie, it’s okay.” He took a long breath. “You’re not getting expelled.”

Maggie sniffed with relief.

“What I don’t understand, though, is why were you following me in the first place?”

“Because we know your secret,” Tonia said quietly.

“What’s that, then?” he said.

“We know you’re a police officer,” Annora said. “But don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone.”

“I heard Audrey on the phone one night,” said Jessa. “She was crying to Sarah, saying that you’d told her that you have some kind of secret, and she was saying that it was dangerous and stuff, and we figured out that you were a detective or something, and we knew something was going on, and we wanted to find out why—”

“Jessa,” he cut her off.

“You’re right. My presence here is not entirely as it seems.”

“Are you a spy? Like in the secret service?” Flynn asked.

“Something like that. I can’t tell you exactly.”

“Are you going to tell us what you’re investigating, though?” Jessa asked.

“Absolutely not. You know too much already.”

“Exactly, we already know it’s something about people attacking kids or abducting them or something! So why can’t you just tell us?”

“You’re not in a place to understand, Jessa. Please believe me when I say I appreciate your interest, but you need to let this go.”

“But—!”

“No buts! You’re fourteen years old. You should be worrying about—I don’t know—make-up, or boys, or homework, or heaven knows what else. This is bigger than you, Jessa, and I’m asking you to drop it. If you see or hear anything suspicious, you contact me immediately. Understood?”

They nodded dejectedly.

“All right, you’d better get to Maths. Make sure you apologise to Mr Tucker.”

The five friends shuffled out of the room and silently headed toward the staircase. The hallways were quiet and from behind closed doors they heard the muffled sounds of teachers speaking.

They reached the open landing of the first floor, and Jessa pulled her friends into a huddle.

“Are we really going to drop it?” Maggie whispered.

“No way,” Jessa replied. “If you guys want out, that’s fine by me. But I’m not letting this go.”

“Me neither,” said Flynn. “I know Mr Fletcher’s just trying to keep us safe, but I think if we’re smart about it, we might even be able to help.”

“I’m in,” said Tonia.

“And me,” chimed Annora.

“Mags?”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”