The Winning Element

Twenty minutes later, I made it to the other side of the island. I stopped and checked my cell phone. The blue dot was beginning to fade, indicating the thirty-minute tracker was dissolving, but from what I could tell, Eduardo was to my right.

I rode into a deserted parking lot of the state park. Behind me stretched a half mile of beach highway leading back into town. In front of me spanned the dark ocean lit only by the half moon. To the left stood a small concrete visitor’s station.

With the DNA glasses still on, I scanned the area. A red trail led from the parking lot, where the car must have dropped him and drove off, and onto the beach.

Leaving the bike, I followed the red trail across the beach and down the length of a long pier. The red trail stopped at the end of the pier, where a boat had probably picked him up.

There was no telling how far out he’d gone.

I unsnapped my pocket and pulled out the cell phone. I activated the audio recording/eavesdropping software Chapling had coded in.

Here went nothing.

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Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2008

All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Greenland, Shannon.
The specialists : the winning element / by Shannon Greenland.
p. cm.
Summary: GiGi, the teenaged computer genius, gets to lead her first mission, trying to catch a
notorious chemical smuggler who years ago was responsible for the deaths of her mother and
father.
[1. Spies—Fiction. 2. Orphans—Fiction. 3. Genius—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Winning
element.
PZ7.G8458
[Fic]—dc22 2007020206

eISBN : 978-1-436-23011-7

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

http://us.penguingroup.com

Acknowledgments

A shout out goes to Sandra Giles and the West Nassau Warriors! Thanks for letting me hang with you for the day and learn what exactly a scorpion is. Ouch!

[prologue]

SISISSY. SISISSY. di-did
yooouuu hear wh-what I aaassskkked yo-you?

Sissy pried open her heavy eyelids and focused on the fuzzy image of Ms. Gabrier. The teacher’s lips were moving, but Sissy couldn’t make out her words.

Ms. Gabrier stopped talking and stood still.

From across the classroom Sissy squinted, bringing her teacher into focus. She was looking right at Sissy.

Ms. Gabrier’s lips started moving again. Her words filtered into Sissy’s ears, slowly swirling through her head, echoing off her skull in distorted vowels and syllables.

Sissy dragged her dry tongue around her mouth, trying to moisten it, and smacked her lips. She needed a soda.

Faintly, she heard some giggles, and in her blurry peripheral she saw other students laughing at her.

So what? She could care less. Let them and their perfect little selves laugh.

“Sisissy?”

Dragging her head from the top of her desk, Sissy slouched, sliding her butt down in her chair. She propped her boots on the desk in front of her and let her eyelids fall back down. Sleep. Beautiful, much needed sleep.

“Sisissy?”

“What,” she grumbled. Couldn’t they see she wanted to sleep?

“Priscilla,” Ms. Gabrier snapped.

Sissy’s eyes shot open. “What?” she snapped back.
Nobody
called her Priscilla.

Her teacher’s eyes narrowed. “Do you realize you’re failing this class?”

Sissy shrugged. Of course she realized she was failing. She never turned in any homework or studied for tests. Her mom didn’t care. No one cared. Sissy’s life wasn’t going anywhere, anyway. And why did teachers always ask stupid questions that they knew you knew the answer to?

“All right.” Ms. Gabrier jabbed the off button on the overhead projector. “You know what?” She pointed her pen at Sissy. “I’ve had enough of you. I don’t care if you
do
have the highest test scores in the school. I don’t want you in here. If you don’t care, I don’t care. Look around you. Look!” her teacher shouted.

Sissy jumped, took her feet off of the desk, and sat up straight. She’d never heard her teacher raise her voice.

Ms. Gabrier’s jaw tightened. “I said
look.
”

Suddenly very awake, Sissy dragged her gaze over the thirty or so other students in Advanced Chemistry. Mostly preps and nerds. Everyone was college bound. Some with scholarships, others with Daddy’s and Mommy’s money. All of them were staring back at her with mixed expressions. Haughty, disgusted, amused, pitying, scared.

Scared of what? Scared of her?

Ms. Gabrier tapped her nail to the podium. “Do you see any of them sleeping through this class?”

Sissy swallowed.

“Do you?”

She barely shook her head.

“That’s right. Because they know what an honor, what a
privilege,
it is to be in here.” Ms. Gabrier placed her pen on the podium. “There are exactly seventy-one students on the waiting list to be in this junior class. Do you know how many students are on the waiting list to be in this high school?”

Sissy shook her head.

“One thousand eight hundred and twenty-three.”

Silence.

She’d had no idea that many kids were on the waiting list.

“You were placed in the Jacksonville Academic Magnet School because of your brilliance. This school made the top ten list in the nation. Do you know how incredible that is for a public school?” Ms. Gabrier closed the teacher’s edition lying on her podium. “What a waste. I’m tired of trying. This is what it’s like day in and day out with you . . . when you’re here.”

Ms. Gabrier pressed her fingertips to her temple. “I’m done. You’re out of here.” She closed her eyes. “Go fry your brain on drugs in someone else’s classroom.”

The blond girl beside Sissy snickered.

She turned and snarled back at her. Why did everyone assume Sissy did drugs? She was just tired. Exhausted. Working the night shift at the Laundromat to make enough money so she wouldn’t have to rely on her mom would do that to you.

Her teacher punched the projector back on. “Jami, please escort Sissy to the office. And Sissy, take all your stuff. You’re not coming back.”

Thirty minutes later, SISSY climbed in her friend Courtney’s open window. She snatched a piece of gum from the pack on the dresser and caught sight of her reflection in the dingy mirror.

She looked wasted. No wonder everybody always thought she was.

Heavy black eyeliner smeared her puffy bottom lids. Day-old black lipstick crusted her dry lips. Her dyed black hair stuck out in short, gelled clumps. And the bruise from last week’s fight with her mom still colored her chin.

Ms. Gabrier was the only teacher who had asked about the bruise. Sissy had told her she got in a fight with a friend. It was a better excuse than “I ran into a wall.” Who actually believed that anyway?

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