Chapter 2

Chapter 2 HYPOTHESIS: OUR SCIENCE TEACHER IS FROM A POST-APOCALYPTIC FUTURE Jodi Mercado looked over her list of equipment. Binoculars: check. Sunglasses: check. Trench coat: too hot and probably not necessary, so she had left it at home. She had done her research. She knew all the tools of the spy trade. "It's difficult to use sunglasses and binoculars at the same time, though," she said, switching back and forth between the two. "Excuse me," said a voice at Jodi's back. She turned and saw the new girl standing there. "Is this second-period gym?"

"Yes," Jodi replied quickly. "Welcome!Here, hold these, please." She handed her sunglasses over. The binoculars gave a much clearer view. She now saw her science teacher, Doc Culpepper, walking through the school parking lot with a box full of circuit boards and wires and…gadgets of some sort. "Sorry, one more question," said the new girl. "Where is the gym teacher?" "Coach Graham is always three or four minutes late," Jodi answered. "Which means these are the best three minutes of the day to test my hypothesis."

"Hypothesis?" echoed the new girl. "It means an educated guess," explained Jodi. "You try to prove your guess is right or wrong through experimentation or observation." "I know what a hypothesis is," the girl replied. "We already had our science fair at my last school. I meant, what is your hypothesis?" "I think our science teacher is from the future," Jodi answered. "I think she was fighting evil robots, but the robots were winning. So she traveled back to our time to change the past and prevent them from conquering the world." The new girl laughed. But it wasn't a mean laugh. Jodi knew what a mean laugh sounded like. Jodi lowered her binoculars and continued. "Culpepper is new this year. She's brilliant. She's a real doctor! I looked her up online, and she has worked on artificial intelligence. So what is she doing at our school?" "Maybe she enjoys teaching," said the new girl.

"That's an interesting hypothesis," said Jodi. "But I like mine better." "Well, I have bad news," said the girl. "I think your science project has gotten away." Jodi spun around and looked through the binoculars. "How did she do that?" she asked. "Did she step through a time portal?" "She stepped into…a minivan!" the new girl answered dramatically. "Hmmm…," said Jodi, disappointed. "That's so normal, it's almost suspicious…." The new girl giggled. "I'm Ash, by the way."

Jodi put the binoculars away. "I'm Jodi. I saw you this morning. We both have Ms. Minerva for homeroom." She pointed to Ash's sash. "So you're a Wildling Scout? You have so many badges!" Ash nodded. "Unfortunately, there's no Spycraft badge. But maybe I can help you anyway. I do have a badge for bird-watching. And camouflage. And drone building." "Oh, I love the drone idea," Jodi said. "I could

paint it to look like a ghast!" She scratched her chin. "But what if Doc takes control of it remotely with advanced technology from the twenty- third century?" "You're right," said Ash. "A drone is too risky." Jodi sighed. "I need a real science project, anyway." She perked up. "Wait. Did you say you've already done one this year?" "Yes," Ash said. She pointed to a badge with the image of a test tube on it. "I made an exploding pi.ata. It uses carbon dioxide." "A pi.ata you don't even have to hit?" Jodi said. "It's the invention of the century!" "The science is easy," said Ash. "But it takes an artist to make it look like a real pi.ata."