“What is it, Agent?” the director asked. He sounded tired.

“The principal is staring at me,” Flinch whispered.

“That woman!” Brand growled. “Don’t let her shake you.”

“Please, everyone, would you pass your homework to the front of the class,” his teacher said.

Flinch froze.

“Homework!” he whispered. “I didn’t do my math homework. Aaack! I didn’t do any of my homework. Yesterday I was too busy saving my neighborhood from giant ball-stealing robots and grandmothers with homemade flamethrowers. I went to bed without eating dinner! I didn’t even eat dessert! I never do that!”

Suddenly, his teacher, Mr. Poole, leaned over him. “Who are you talking to, Julio?”

Flinch gulped. “No one, sir. Just taking some mental notes.”

“I see. The only thing I don’t see is your homework.”

Flinch tried to smile. “I didn’t get a chance to do it.”

“You didn’t get a chance to do it?” Mr. Poole turned to the class. “Did anyone else not get a chance to do their math homework?”

The room was silent.

“I see. I wonder why they found time to do it and you didn’t. It’s a mystery. Would you care to explain?”

In a panic, Flinch tried to explain, but he was so hyper it came out as nonsense. “I broke my face on a chili pot and there were monkey pirates invading from the sun!” Then he let out a strangled cry. “Aaarrggggheeeeeee!”

“Agent Flinch, you need to relax,” Brand’s voice said in his ear. “It’s obvious Ms. Dove is after you. She’s told your teacher to give you a hard time to try to get some kind of reaction out of you. Maybe she wants you to say something disrespectful or to make a scene in class so she can have another excuse to send you to detention. Don’t give her the satisfaction.” Flinch looked at the door again. Ms. Dove was hovering there, as if waiting for her turn to smack the piñata with a stick. Brand was right, but it didn’t make Flinch feel better. In fact, he felt on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“I’m waiting, Mr. Escala!” Mr. Poole said.

“OK, kid, listen up,” Brand said. “I went to boarding school and I know how to handle teachers who spend all their time trying to embarrass you. Just repeat everything I say and say it as sincerely as you can.”

Flinch listened to everything Brand said, and he recited it word for word, as seriously as he could.

“There’s no mystery, Mr. Poole. I didn’t manage my time well last night because I was preoccupied with family issues. I realize that by not doing the assigned work I slow down an ambitious lesson plan and make it harder on my peers to learn. I apologize to you and everyone in class for my lack of commitment and vow that this will not happen again.”

Mr. Poole blinked hard as if he had just seen Bigfoot. His eyes were wide and his mouth seemed to be working out some kind of silent response. Flinch watched him struggle to make a sound. “Very well, Julio.”

Brand’s voice was in Flinch’s ear again. “If you talk to them with respect, they will do backflips for you. A teacher never expects an apology. It works every time.”

Flinch glanced back toward the door. Ms. Dove was still watching him.

When class was over, she followed him to the next one, and then the next, and then the next after that. In each class, Brand told him the right thing to say to the teacher to get him or her off his back. By the time lunch rolled around Flinch noticed that Ms. Dove was losing her smile. In fact, her face was curling up in a scowl fit for a hawk.

Flinch sat at his lonely cafeteria table picking at the chicken casserole surprise the lunch lady had prepared. Though Flinch had hoped the pilot had slipped in some candy corn as the “surprise,” there was nothing there when he got to the bottom of the bowl.

“Hey, what’s up?”

Flinch turned and saw a group of kids standing over him. They were the same four bullies who shoved him into his locker. He mentally prepared himself for a barrage of spitballs or an atomic wedgie. “Listen, guys—”

The boys grabbed some chairs from other tables, including a few that still had kids sitting in them, and sat down next to him, uninvited. A moment later they were all talking at once about a million different things, shouting over one another, and occasionally punching each other in the arm.

“So, that was pretty awesome how you threw us down the hallway,” the red-haired boy said. He had introduced himself as Wyatt.

“Yeah!” his buddy Jessie said, whistling with every word. “I’ve got a huge purple bruise.”

The short boy, who called himself Toad, lifted up the back of his shirt. “Me, too! Mine is shaped like Texas!”

“We’re going down to the train station to throw rocks at pigeons after school if you wanna come,” the chubby one said. His friends called him Hooper.

“You want me to come with you?” Flinch asked.

“Yeah,” Toad said.

“Um, didn’t you guys shove me in my locker the other day?”

“Yeah,” Jessie said.

“You realize that bullies don’t usually hang out with—”

“You think we’re bullies?!” Wyatt exclaimed.

All the boys shouted protests.

“We’re not bullies! We’re juvenile delinquents,” Toad croaked. His voice was much deeper than the others’.

“What’s the difference?” Flinch asked.

“There’s a world of difference!” Hooper cried. “A bully is a moron who has to pull down others to make himself feel big. A juvenile delinquent is an artist!”

“An artist?”

“Absolutely!” Jessie whistled. “We don’t paint or sculpt, but what we create is a masterpiece of havoc, whether it’s stuffing squeezable cheese into your socks or unscrewing the cap on the saltshaker in your favorite restaurant. We’re the Michelangelos of Mischief.”

“You guys are pulling all the school pranks?” Flinch asked. These boys must be the ones running Agent Brand ragged as a janitor. “Aren’t you guys afraid of getting caught?”

The boys roared with laughter. “We get caught all the time!” Toad said. “Why do you think we’re in detention? And in you, we see a kindred spirit—another artist, if you will.”

“Me?”

“You must have done something to get the principal on your case,” Wyatt said. “Hey! You’re not the kid that keeps stealing the letters off the movie theater sign, are you?”

Flinch shook his head.

“Whoever is doing that is an inspiration to juvenile delinquents everywhere,” Toad said.

Hooper laughed. “Last week there was a movie playing called Trouble in the Deep Water. He changed the sign to read The Turd in the Bowl.”

“Star Wars Festival turned into Fart Wars,” Toad said.

“Last month the sign advertised a movie called Eat Pray Fart!” Hooper exclaimed.

“It’s truly groundbreaking work,” Wyatt said. “He’s taking the juvenile delinquent world by storm!”

All of the boys laughed. Toad nearly fell out of his seat. Even Flinch laughed, right before he sneezed.

“Wow! You got some serious allergies, bro,” Wyatt said.

“We should record that and make it Ms. Dove’s voice mail message,” Hooper suggested.

“Flinch, I need you in the Playground on the double. We’ve got a problem,” Pufferfish told him through the com-link.

“So what do you say, dude? You hanging with us? Those rocks aren’t going to throw themselves,” Hooper said.

“Listen, thanks for the invite but I gotta go,” Flinch said as he stood up from the table.

“I told you the guy had a secret life!” Wyatt cried.

Flinch froze. How did Wyatt know? Had he seen him sneak into Locker 41? Had he spotted him running to school at superspeed? “Um—”

“You’re the one that keeps letting off stink bombs in Ms. Bailey’s class!”

“Yep—busted,” Flinch lied. It was best for the boys to think he was pulling pranks instead of wondering what he was doing when he disappeared.