The Secret Life of Kitty Granger

by G.D. Falksen

Genres: Young Adult; YA Contemporary; YA Social Themes; YA Mysteries & Thrillers

Synopsis

Sixteen-year-old Kitty Granger has always known that others consider her peculiar. She hates noise and crowds, tends to fixate on patterns, and often feels acutely aware of her surroundings even as she struggles to interpret the behavior of people around her. As a working-class girl in London's East End, she's spent her whole life learning to hide these traits. Until the day when she notices the mysterious man on the bus and finds herself following him, driven to know why he seems so out of place...only to accidentally uncover the location of a Russian spy ring.



When Kitty's keen observation and quick thinking help her survive a dangerous encounter, two secret agents working for Her Majesty's government offer her a job in their espionage operation.



Kitty's first mission pits her against a conspiracy led by a prominent politician―who's also a secret fascist. With help from an unusual team of fellow spies, Kitty must use her wits, training, and instincts to get out alive. And she might as well save the country while she's at it.

 

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Release date: March 2, 2021

Publisher: Carolrhoda Lab ®

Print pages: 195

Sample

CHAPTER 1

It was midmorning, and Kitty Granger sat huddled in her seat on the crowded London bus, sandwiched between a very stylish Indian lady and a big pasty-skinned man who smelled of tobacco. She eyed the man beside her and shuddered. His tie was decorated with little horseshoes, and it looked ghastly. Also, it was lime green, but the horseshoes were the worst part.

It had rained earlier, and the smell of damp fabric mingled in the air with the unpleasant odors of cigarette smoke and cheap perfume. Half the time Kitty felt like she was choking. The other half, she was too overcome by the crowd to notice anything else. The people all blurred together until they were just a jumble of motion and noise that seemed poised to crash down upon her like a giant wave. But despite all else, the damned lime green tie with its little horseshoes kept staring at her out of the corner of her eye.

Taking the bus might have been a mistake, but it was the easiest way to get downtown. This was her first day off work in two weeks, and she was determined to visit the British Museum—and have a good time doing it! Kitty clenched her jaw and gave a firm little nod to remind herself of that. It probably appeared odd, but no one was looking at her. She was just an ordinary teenage girl on an ordinary London bus. No one knew that she really just wanted to scream and hide, to huddle in a safe dark corner away from all these people.

Kitty rubbed her fingertips against the rough wool of her skirt. To any

observer, it would just look like she was brushing away wrinkles, but in fact she found the texture of the fabric very calming, and the repetitive motion soothed her nerves.

She should have bought a newspaper before leaving. There was a book in her handbag—a delightfully lurid detective novel—but she’d never be able to concentrate on reading. Kitty needed a puzzle to distract her from the loudness of the world.

She glanced awkwardly at the woman seated next to her, who had gotten on ten minutes ago and spent the entire journey reading a copy of The Times. Well, no, the woman wasn’t actually doing much reading. Kitty had noticed that. She was watching a man in a Mackintosh raincoat a few seats in front of them, rather like how Kitty kept watching the hideous green tie. No one else noticed, but Kitty did. It often felt like she noticed everything all at once, and it was exhausting. Maybe the lady next to her was the same way.

No, Kitty took another look and knew that couldn’t be the case. Her accidental traveling companion was far too glamorous to be peculiar. The lady looked very chic and modern, with a short bob haircut tucked under a newsboy cap, blue flared trousers, and a matching jacket worn over a white sweater. All that stylishness made Kitty feel hideously plain by comparison. But somehow the lady didn’t look out of place, even here in the East End. She was just a person who belonged wherever she decided to be. Kitty imagined the lady could wear a fur coat in the middle of the Sahara and still look natural.

Then Kitty realized that she was staring, a moment after the lady did. The lady slowly turned her head toward Kitty and arched an eyebrow. Kitty shrank back, afraid that she had done something wrong. She was never sure how long was too long to look at another person. All those social cues everyone else seemed to know instinctively, Kitty could never quite get right. She had to pretend to understand the game without actually knowing the rules.

“May I help you?” the lady asked in a very crisp Mayfair accent. She spoke softly and kept the newspaper up, still hiding from the man a few seats ahead.

Kitty quickly looked down at her hands, and folded them to keep from fidgeting. The lady had a very direct stare and it made Kitty uncomfortable.

“Pardon, miss,” Kitty stammered. “But, um, could I trouble you for . . . ?”

“Yes?”

“Could I trouble you for the Times crossword?” Kitty asked, internally wincing with each word. God, it sounded so stupid when she said it. Imagine her, mousy little Kitty Granger from East London, asking this very refined woman for a crossword puzzle! The lady was probably a model or an heiress or something. She had better things to do than talk to a peculiar girl who couldn’t even make eye contact when having a conversation!

The lady’s eyebrow arched a little more. Then she shrugged and smiled, like she was amused.

“Certainly,” she said to Kitty, shuffling through the pages of her newspaper.

When the bus came to a halt at the next stop, the lady’s eyes darted toward the man in the raincoat, and Kitty looked too, sizing him up at a glance. The man was on his feet, heading for the front door in haste. He was carrying a

leather briefcase, and his hand gripped the handle as if for life itself. That was odd. Kitty sometimes did that when she was nervous, but she had learned a long time ago that most people didn’t unless they were outright terrified.

Why would a man in a raincoat carrying a briefcase on a London bus be terrified? People got on buses in raincoats all the time and nothing bad happened to them.

The lady frowned and shoved the newspaper into Kitty’s hands. “You can have the whole paper if you like,” she said.

Kitty watched the lady set off in pursuit of the strange man. She had no idea what to make of it, so she just shuffled through the newspaper until she came to the crossword. It was still untouched, and a glance at the questions suggested it would be a good one. Kitty grinned and pulled a pencil out of her handbag. She felt a glimmer of safety again. The puzzle was like a wall she could use to shut out the world around her.

Three words in, the bus started moving again. Suddenly, Kitty heard a commotion from the back door, and she looked to see what was the matter. She saw the man in the raincoat clamber aboard, breathing hard like he had just made a dash for it. That was very odd. Why would he get back on the bus he had just left?

The conductor apparently had the same question. “’Ere, didn’t you just get off?” he asked.

“Um, wrong stop,” explained the man in the raincoat. He fished money for another fare out of his pocket and offered it to the conductor. “Sorry, I’ll pay again.”

The conductor just sighed and jerked his head toward the seats. “Get on.”

As the man in the raincoat pushed his way the middle of the bus, Kitty hid behind the newspaper and fixed her eyes on the crossword puzzle. There was something strange going on here and she wanted nothing to do with it.

Except that it made her curious, and that curiosity began twisting around in the back of her mind, worming its way through her self-imposed disinterest.

She was so preoccupied with not looking up from the paper that she didn’t notice the man in the raincoat approaching until he dropped into the seat next to her. A shiver of alarm shot through Kitty, but she fought back the urge to squeak in fright.

The man set his briefcase on his knees and looked out the window. An unpleasant smile curled the corner of his mouth. Kitty stole a glance too and saw the Indian lady standing on the street corner at the bus stop, watching the bus depart with a furious expression. She’d been following the man and he had given her the slip. Kitty wasn’t imagining things.

What was going on?

Kitty sank back in her seat and kept her eyes fixed on the crossword puzzle, trying to block out the world. It was fine. It was none of her business. She was going to the British Museum to have a nice afternoon. She wasn’t going to let her curiosity get the better of her.

And for a little while, she almost believed that.

 

CHAPTER 2

Kitty spent the next few minutes in total silence, keeping her gaze focused on the crossword puzzle. It was suddenly very hard to concentrate on the words. The man in the raincoat was distracting, worse than the man with the green tie. He was trying to keep his cool, but Kitty felt nervousness rolling off him in waves. Every forty seconds or so, the man would drum his fingers against the side of his briefcase. It was practically clockwork, a constant annoyance.

Within minutes, the annoyance had become a fascination. Who was this strange man? Why was he so nervous? And why was that lady following him?

Maybe the man was having an affair. Maybe the lady in blue was his wife. Or maybe she was a private detective! That was it. She was following him with a camera to take photographs of his scandalous doings, which she would then sell to his wife, destroying their marriage. Perhaps he was a banker or even a minister of the Crown, only in disguise for meeting his fancy woman in secret. When news of the affair came out, it would be in all the papers and it would bring down the government and scandalize the Queen and . . .

Stop it! Kitty hissed inside her head.

But it was too late. The absurd notion had dug its hooks into her and suddenly Kitty couldn’t think about anything except finding out what was going on. She was still staring at the newspaper in front of her, but all her attention was focused on the man in the raincoat.

A moment later, the bus stopped and the man in the raincoat jumped to his feet. Kitty gripped the corners of her newspaper and tried not to shake. She didn’t like sudden movement, and the man’s agitation just made it all worse.

Don’t get up. Don’t get up. Just let him walk away.

It wasn’t going to work. The stress of the crowd and the strange man’s manner had already worn away at Kitty’s resolve. As the man pushed his way to the door, Kitty got up, tucked the newspaper under her arm, and slipped out the back of the bus. She told herself she was just going to see which way the man went and leave it at that, but she knew it wasn’t true.

Kitty watched the man from around the corner of the bus. He seemed even more on edge than before, and he looked around a few times before walking away from the bus stop at a quick pace. A few other people on the street were going in the same direction, so Kitty fell in among them. She kept her head down and tried to look inconspicuous. That part was easy: even being peculiar, she rarely stood out.

Following the man wasn’t all that difficult, even after the crowd thinned out. A block from the bus stop, he turned down a side road and Kitty followed, pausing at the edge of a building before hurrying after. He looked over his shoulder every few minutes, and Kitty only narrowly avoided detection the first two times by ducking around corners and waiting until the coast was clear. After that, she had worked out how to tell when the man was going to look again. He always shifted his shoulders before turning, and it gave Kitty enough warning to hide.

Kitty knew she was being reckless. If the man realized she was following him, there was no telling what he would do.

A few blocks from the bus stop, he turned onto a one-way street that ran between two large brick warehouses. A few cars were parked near the intersection. One of them had someone behind the wheel. Kitty noticed that but didn’t think much about it. She should have.

Kitty hurried to the intersection and pressed herself against the wall of the nearest building. Something told her that the man in the raincoat had begun to suspect her. If she rushed around the corner, he would be there, waiting to confront her. And then she would have to run very fast to get away.

But to her surprise, when she peeked out, she saw him standing midway along the street, looking back and forth nervously. Kitty ducked back behind cover and took some deep breaths. This was very stupid. She shouldn’t be doing this. And yet, for some reason she couldn’t shake the feeling that something important was going on. All the little pieces making up the past half hour were starting to fit together into something very suspicious.

She looked out again and saw the man farther down the street, walking very quickly. A couple of times, he glanced over his shoulder, and Kitty was forced to stay where she was to avoid being seen. By the time she was able to get moving again, the man in the raincoat was too far ahead to follow. He promptly disappeared down the next street.

Kitty inhaled the chilly, damp air. The fixation was starting to fade. With the man gone, there was nothing left to keep her focused on her absurd adventure.

“Well, Kitty,” she muttered, “you must be awful proud. You’ve made an ass

of yourself, and now you’ll be late.”

Kitty went down the street, following the route the man had taken. In her mind, she pictured a map of the London bus routes, which she knew almost by heart. She had wandered far enough that she could reach another stop closer to the museum if she kept going this way.

As she walked, something about one of the buildings troubled her, and she stopped near where she had seen the man standing. She looked at the wall and it made her uncomfortable. After a few seconds, she realized why.

There was a small line of chalk marked across two of the bricks, the dull white standing out against the red clay and gray mortar. No one else would give it a second thought, but Kitty noticed it. It was out of place. It didn’t belong. Things that were out of place always made her uneasy.

Unable to control the impulse any more than her curiosity, Kitty knelt and brushed the chalk away with her thumb. It was stubborn and didn’t want to go. In the end, Kitty just managed to smudge it and get bits of chalk on her fingertip. She sighed and looked at her hand. Now the chalk stain was going to bother her until she could wash it off.

I’m a bloody mess today, she thought dejectedly. Maybe she was tired. She’d been up late helping her father rearrange the stockroom, since he would have to mind the store by himself today.

As she looked at the smudge of chalk, Kitty noticed a new feature of the wall that troubled her. A few inches below the mark, one of the bricks jutted out from its place slightly more than the rest. The lack of symmetry made Kitty twitch. She pushed at the brick a couple of times, even though she knew it was probably the work of bad placement on the part of the mason who had laid it.

Except that the brick was loose. And there was something behind it. Kitty tilted her head and pulled the brick away. It came free very easily. Behind it was small hole hollowed out from the wall. Kitty peered inside and saw a little metal canister.

Leave it, Kitty told herself, as she reached in and pulled the canister out.

Don’t open it.

But open it she did. Inside was a roll of undeveloped film. Kitty felt herself grow cold with fear. This wasn’t right at all. The man had been up to something, probably something criminal. Had he left the film canister behind the brick in the wall? What was on it? What secrets did it conceal?

Put it back! Kitty shouted inside her head, but as usual her impulses didn’t listen. She got up and shoved the film into her bag. The movements were almost mechanical, like someone else was doing it.

Kitty started walking quickly. Despite the cold, she felt sweat on her forehead and the palms of her hands. She had made a terrible mistake coming here, but it would be all right. No one knew what she had done. She’d find a rubbish bin somewhere and throw the canister away, and no one would be the wiser.

Only she knew that wasn’t true. She was fixating again. Her curiosity was running wild. If she didn’t shake this soon, she might actually find a chemist’s shop and get the film developed.

Kitty clenched her hands shut. Get yourself together. Put the film back!

She was too caught up in her thoughts to pay attention when one of the cars behind her pulled out from its parking space. Kitty only heard the roar of the engine when it sped up to reach her, and then the squeal of tires as it lurched to a stop in front of her. She stared, dumbfounded, as the side door opened and a grizzled man in a leather jacket got out.

Run! Kitty screamed to herself.

This time she did listen. Her instinct was to freeze in shock, and that was what her conscious mind did, but the impulsive part of her subconscious wasn’t having any of it. The same part of her brain that had driven her to follow the man, to wipe away the chalk, to remove the brick, and to take the film assumed control again. Kitty dashed for the intersection.

As she rounded the back of the car, a second man with an unpleasant-looking mustache grabbed her from the side and slammed her against the wall. Kitty started to scream, but the man with the mustache covered her mouth with his hand. His companion reached them and pulled out a knife.

“Don’t you dare make a sound, girl,” he growled, waving the knife in front of her eye. “One peep and I’ll slit your throat.”

Kitty froze in terror, unable even to whimper. She was going to die.

“Christ!” the mustached man said. “She’s just a kid.”

“I don’t care if she’s your bloody gran,” snarled his companion. He grabbed Kitty’s handbag and pulled out the film canister. “The boss was right: they’re onto Higgins. Girl must’ve followed him when he left to make the drop.”

“We can’t stay here,” Mustache said, glancing down the street. “They wouldn’t send a girl to follow him on her own. There’s probably someone else a few minutes behind.”

The other man nodded and grabbed Kitty by the scruff of the neck. He dragged her away from the wall and toward the back of the car.

“We take her to the boss,” he replied. “Open the trunk.”

“No! No, please!” Kitty cried.

She tried to explain that she didn’t know anything about Higgins or the film or anything at all really, but each time she tried it just came out as a confused jumble of words that didn’t make sense even to her. ...