Spy Camp

On the last day of spy school, Ben is summoned to the principal’s office, which derails his good mood. He’d been feeling good about his performance on his finals and looking forward to going home for the summer to visit with his family and friends. At the principal’s office, he learns that the school spies on its students. The principal confronts him about his summer plans and asks how Ben thought he would get away with skipping summer school. Ben says he didn’t know there was mandatory summer school; the principal explains that it takes place at the school’s wilderness education facility and that Ben’s cover story is that he is going to summer camp. He will be free to visit with family and friends over the weekend but must report for summer school on Monday at 9am. At first, Ben is annoyed by this news, but he quickly decides it will be fun to spend the summer with his new friends at spy school. When he returns to his room, he finds a letter from SPYDER, the “evil organization that had planted a mole in the school, sent an assassin to [his] room, and tried to take out every leader in the intelligence community with a bomb” (9).