K-10’s radio buzzed. “B-12 to K-10, the mother ship’s moving in. You gotta get out of there!” Panic stricken, K-10 flashed a glimpse towards the window-his only escape. “She’s heading for the office door! Move! Move!” K-10 raced, heart pounding, hands shaking, toward the window. The doorknob rattled. She was here. K-10 took one last glance out the window to find his leader had abandoned the mission! His radio lay on the ground to show for it! Gulp! Kasey was afraid of heights. The window was merely four feet off the ground but he was deathly afraid. But, K-10 was an agent! He needed to do this! He lived for the missions. So, K-10 sprinted toward the door, then dashed straight for the window completing a one-handed front hand spring, planting merely on the windowsill and closing the window with his free hand. But, the window was smaller than K-10, so multitasking, he had also kept his knees bent. A split second later, K-10 was safely on the ground, and all the agents lived happily ever after.

Mhmm. Yeah right. Reality of the mission was, Kasey was stuck in Matt’s mother’s office and she was coming in, that very minute, and poor Kasey had no way of getting out. What were Kasey’s options? He needed to think of something to get out of this one. He quickly reached for a plain yellow pencil. Yeah. Maybe he could use this to defend himself. Right. But Kasey had a better plan. He hoped. Matt’s mom entered. “Kasey? What on earth are you doing here?” Kasey swallowed hard. This had better work.

“Oh. I’m with Matt. He sent me in here to get a pencil. Gaming codes, ya know? We’ve reached a new level!” Now maybe Kasey wasn’t as good a liar as Alex, but he sure had experience with it. Step 1: let the adult assume. Don’t go into too much detail, and use sentences that could mean virtually anything.

“But why from my office?”

Kasey shrugged, “Matt said.” Step two: adults always believe their kid, and won’t interrogate their children until later, when you are out of the picture, if they interrogate them at all. Seriously.

“Wonder why…”

Step three: keep it short; don’t let them corner you. And remember step one when leaving. “Sorry, got to go. Matt is waiting,” Kasey left the room, simple as that. He had a smirk on his face. Cinch, he thought, Cinch.

He made his way to the game room across the hall, where he guessed Matt would be.

“Oh hey Kasey,” Matt said only quickly glancing up at him, “Who let you in?” Kasey sat down next to him.

“Your mom.” Kids were even easier to lie to. They never questioned their authority. Kasey grabbed a controller and waved it in Matt’s face a bit.

“No,” he stated, “I’m playing.”

Kasey put on the puppy pout, used his pleases and then said, “C’mon, Matt. One game?” In order to make this stunt he had just pulled believable, he needed to spend at least ten minutes with Matt.

“Fine,” Matt grumbled. So they would play one little racing game together, ten short minutes of Kasey getting slaughtered by Matt, the champion.

“Ok, well. That was fun. Bye!” He spoke rather abruptly. Luckily, Matt was too wrapped up in the game to notice anything out of the ordinary. Kasey left the house, making it successfully out! He then went around the side of Matt’s house and picked up Brian’s dropped walkie-talkie and just smiled. He felt satisfied, as the one person who didn’t bail on the mission. Kasey walked with a skip in his step to Alex’s house where he knew everyone would be anxiously awaiting to hear of his doom. Kasey was going to have to disappoint them. He opened the front door and walked right in. His fellow “fallen agents” were seated at the kitchen table.

“Kasey!” Everyone screeched when he stepped through the door. Then he was mobbed in the middle of the hallway with people hugging him and screaming with joy (well that was mostly Press). “Kasey, I heard- but- how did you-?”

Kasey completely ignored Press and turned to Brian and stated, “I’m taking over as leader.” Brian was gaping, staring at his brother, while the other three cheered. After a short moment of thinking, Brian came to his senses, “Fine. But on one condition.”

Everyone went silent until Kasey responded by asking, “What?”

“Tell us how you did it,” Brian said.

Kasey smirked, “Well, ya know. A little front handspring usually does the trick!”