If Ringmaster really was here for Aymes, Jasper supposed it made sense that the race took place the same day as the science fair and the musical. They were all scheduled for Reonsday, which served as a day off at the end of a pentasol. Hopefully, the day before would be the calm before the storm.
But maybe hoping for a calm was too much.
According to Holly, Aymes would set up his project at the fair, and then head out to do tech on the musical. At Jasper’s encouragement, Thea offered to keep an eye on his stuff for him while he was gone.
The morning before the race, Jasper circled the classroom while students worked on their projects. She tried to grab Aymes’s smartsphere while he was distracted, but other kids kept bothering her with annoying questions like, “Do you have a rubric for the project?” or, “When is this due?” and, “Can we use stuff in the lab?” And then, of course, “I spilled this chemical on myself and my skin is burning what should I do?”
“Grace, could you grab Aymes’s sphere?” Jasper finally asked, straining to keep exasperation out of her voice.
“Aymes is the only one here doing any work!” Grace replied.
“Exactly! While he’s distracted, you could—”
“Hey, did any of you ever learn how to cite your sources? It’s not hard. I figured it out this morning because I took five minutes to look it up!” It seemed like Grace wanted to sound polite, but there was no way to make that statement friendly.
“Okay, Holly,” Jasper tried. “I need you to try to grab Aymes’s sphere during rehearsal. Or maybe his tablet, if you can get into his bag.”
“I don’t think I can,” Holly replied. “He’ll be in the booth and I’ll be on stage.”
“Well, Dax, you’ve gotten along with him pretty well. Maybe you can grab it?”
“Uh.” Dax did not sound confident. “I guess I could try at the beginning or end of class, but we can’t have our devices on us while we’re playing.”
“Ugh. Guys. The whole point of this mission is to spy on Aymes.” Aymes. The poor kid who’d somehow gotten caught up with Ringmaster and only wanted to do well in school and help his mother. Jasper folded her arms and watched him scroll through his text for the project. She felt bad that he was doing all this work for a fake project, especially considering the rest of the group didn’t care. Well, besides—
“Has anyone finished their summaries?” Grace asked.
“Almost. We’re still picking a font,” a girl replied.
“But you’ve written it?”
“Well, no.”
“Thea,” Jasper said. “I really need you to get into his stuff. I want to know how Ringmaster found him and convinced him to join him.”
“I thought you wanted information on Ringmaster’s plans with Starr—” Thea started.
“Yeah, yeah, that too. Just give me everything.”
“I’ll probably have a chance while we’re working on our projects for the fair.”
Jasper sighed as she watched a nearby student drop a vial of glowy chemicals onto the floor. Shattered glass and liquid splattered the tile. “I’m sure you will, assuming you don’t get distracted by your own stuff.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Thea asked.
“You tend to get carried away,” Jasper told her. “Oh, and don’t forget about that thing I need for the race.”
“What thing?” Holly asked.
“Don’t worry about it. Thea’s got it covered.”
“I hope you’re not wasting time on unnecessary—”
“I said don’t worry about it,” Jasper said. “It’ll take Thea five minutes, and it’ll give me a huge advantage.” She paused. “I will need your guys’ help stealing a vehicle carrier and parking it on the race course, though. No biggie.”