City Spies

As Sara awaits court, she wonders if she made a mistake in trusting the strange man with many names. Sara is in a cell with three other girls, and two of them begin an altercation over who gets to protect Sara as Sara watches. In the courtroom, Mother argues for a longer sentence than the original two and a half years offered, confusing Sara. He asks her to trust him again, and she notices burn scars on his arm. This convinces Sara that Mother might have dealt with more than he lets on, and she listens as Mother suggests a place called Crunchem Hall, a home for juvenile offenders to receive education, counselling, and personalized attention. The judge and prosecutor begin to argue, but Mother makes up a story about some compromising emails that Sara “discovered” about the judge. The judge backs down, succumbing to the idea of Crunchem Hall and admitting remembering its dean, Ms. Trunchbull (unaware he is referencing Roald Dahl’s fictional school in Matilda). Sara is released into Gerald Anderson’s custody, and as they leave, he explains the lie and warns Sara that life is full of risks—something she must embrace. He tells Sara that, like Roald Dahl, he is a spy for the “British Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6” (31), and is hoping to recruit Sara. He opens the door to a limousine, and Sara recognizes the girl inside as the one from her cell. The girl introduces herself as Sydney.

Mother asks the limousine driver to take them past the house of Winston Churchill’s mother, as Churchill is a hero of Mother’s. He tells Sara she will be attending school at Kinloch Abbey in Scotland and asks her to attend for a year before deciding if she wants to continue or go back to the States. Sara is given the option to live at the school or on the farm with Mother, Sydney, Dr. Alexandra Montgomery (Monty), and the other children, Kat, Rio, and Paris. Since everyone has to use an alias, they refer to each other by their place of origin. Along with school, Sara will learn everything about being a spy, including “espionage, counterintelligence, self-defense, code-breaking, and other assorted goodies” (38). They arrive at Sara’s old house and tell her she must break in to retrieve her belongings without being seen and that it will be her first field test. Sara finds the idea thrilling, and upon hearing that she must create a “nugget” (44) to enter without being seen, suggests distracting her old foster parents by having Mother dress as an FBI agent and lure them with the prospect of money.

Mother goes to the door and announces himself as an FBI agent searching for a huge sum of money that Sara hid on the roof of the house. He plays on the paranoia of Sara’s ex-foster parents by suggesting the government drones are on their way, and the man decides to go look for the money himself. Sara and Sydney go up to Sara’s old room to find her shoebox full of possessions, and Sara finds it difficult to be in the house again. Sara locks her ex-foster parents on the roof, and as they all drive away, Mother wonders what lies ahead with Sara on the team. He tells Sara that her old foster parents are being investigated and all of the children relocated. Sara feels overwhelmed, confused, and excited all at once, and bursts into tears. As they drive out to the airport, Mother tells her the story of how his arm was burned.

Five years ago, Mother was performing an extensive sting operation on the leader of a crime syndicate called Umbra in Paris. Since the man was an avid collector of art, Mother planned to meet the man and pretend to sell him some rare pieces. Mother went to stake out an old factory, and when Mother arrived, he found a boy of about 11, living there alone. He professed to have no family, and Mother found himself in a difficult position. He decided to house, feed, and clothe the boy, who decided to go by Paris. Over the coming weeks, Mother set up surveillance and various other things while Paris secretly watched, despite Mother’s warnings that it was no longer safe for him to be there. One night, a group of people arrived at the factory, and Paris crept closer to hear their conversation. Suddenly, a loud cracking was heard, and a massive fire erupted inside the factory. Mother was tied up and trapped inside, thinking of his children and his wife, who betrayed him to join the crime syndicate and who was outside, watching. Paris ran inside to save Mother, who tried to tell him to leave him there. Paris showed him a secret way out of the factory, and they escaped.

In Edinburgh, Scotland, Paris, Kat, and Rio are on their way to spy on Sara and the others at the airport. Paris urges the others to hurry so they can watch Sara before meeting her in order to get a proper “read” (65). Rio and Kat bicker back and forth as Kat expresses her skepticism in having Sara join the team on such short notice. Rio complains about being the youngest kid in the group and never being taken seriously and hopes that Sara will be younger than him. Paris decides to let Rio take the lead and be the “alpha” (68), and Rio makes a plan to split up and watch Sara from different points along her journey home. To initiate the mission, Rio says, “This operation is hot. We are a go” (71) and they each go their separate ways.

Mother invents adages for what he feels are key aspects of being a spy, such as, “You can’t look out if you stand out” (72). Kat struggles to do this as she stands in the Edinburgh airport as a girl from Nepal and darker skin. She finds a place and assesses the situation using math to determine when Sara will come out of the gate. Kat sees Sara right away, recognizing her as the only child on her own; which is something Mother insists on to avoid putting the children in danger. Given a new cell phone and a set of instructions, Sara is tasked with finding a rendezvous point on her own, another of many tests. Sara gets on a bus as the other kids talk to one another on their cell phones and decide what to think of her. Rio catches up with Sara when she deboards in the city and watches as Sara goes into a store and steals an expensive watch. He reports this observation to the others, and they immediately become concerned about Sara’s moral character. They realize they need to confess to spying on Sara to tell Mother what they saw.

Sara finds Mother and Sydney standing at a Monet painting of haystacks at the art gallery. Mother proudly proclaims to work at the gallery and takes the girls to the parkade where an old Station Wagon awaits them. Mother jokes that a spy’s car has to blend in. He goes on to explain that MI6 considers him “dead” as a result of the factory fire after it was found that several agents defected. This is to protect Mother and allow him to work even further undercover. He manages an airfield and works at the gallery to earn an income, since MI6 can no longer pay him. His face was also changed after the fire. He has no idea where his wife or children are, but still searches for his children. Soon, they arrive at the “farm,” a land called Aisling, which is actually an air strip and air control tower. Behind the tower is a great stone house with a turret, making it castle-like. Mother lives in the tower, and the children occupy the house. The yard and roofs are littered with various weather instruments, and a large sign reads, “The Foundation for Atmospheric Research and Monitoring” (92), otherwise known as the FARM.

Sara enters the house and sees a portrait of a man that Mother explains is the baron who owns the land. The baron was interested in studying weather and climate change “long before it was fashionable” (95) and turned the site into a weather research center. The baron is also an MI6 agent, and the land served a second purpose as a Soviet Union spy operation during the Cold War. The children’s cover is kept under the guise of a fellowship program for disadvantaged youth. Sara meets Monty, who is friendly and takes Sara to her new bedroom. Sara is shocked to hear she gets her own room and is amazed to see she has a view of the sea. Sara thanks Monty for having her and is left alone to rest and find her footing. She sits on her bed and takes a broken snow globe out of her shoebox—a gift from her deceased abuela. Sara lies down, breathing in the salty air of the sea, and drifts off to a deep sleep.

The other children plan to reveal that Sara is a thief before dinner, but Mother doesn’t arrive home until dinner is ready, and they find themselves trying to fake their way through dinner. Sara feels self-conscious and unwanted, especially by Kat, who refuses to let her sit in any of the chairs she chooses. Sara mentions her love of soccer, reading, and computers, as well as being born in Puerto Rico. Monty also likes computers, which feeds the conversation for a moment until Mother realizes that the other kids are hiding something. They reveal that they saw Sara steal a watch, and Sara informs them of how she outsmarted them all. She only stole a box, not a watch, and did so after noticing the three children following her around. Everyone is stunned when Sara shows photos that she took of each of them. She explains that she wanted to prove she was capable of being part of the team. Sara reveals how she deduced her role as a replacement for another girl named Charlotte who was also an American hacker. She is not sure what happened to Charlotte, but is ready to embrace her position, and the children and adults are stunned at Sara’s level of intelligence and reasoning. She then asks to be called Brooklyn from now on.