“It’s bad news,” she said. “I know it’s bad news.”

“How can you tell?” Duncan asked.

“I’m allergic to bad news,” she said, showing him her hands.

Jackson shrugged. “Agent Brand probably wants to lecture us again about filing our reports.”

Matilda rolled her eyes and dashed out of the way of a group of giggling kindergartners. “I highly doubt he would call us in for paperwork.”

“He would if you hadn’t filed any since you became an agent,” Jackson said with a mischievous grin.

Matilda laughed, but when she spotted Ruby’s disapproving look, she forced a frown onto her face. Ruby still wasn’t thrilled to have Jackson as part of the NERDS team. He had once been a bully—until he got his braces—and was a bit too arrogant for his own good.

“I hope it’s a mission,” Duncan said. “There are some new gadgets I want to try out.”

“Who cares about gadgets?” Matilda said. “I just hope I get to bodyslam someone.”

They rounded the corner and came to a dead stop. Blocking their path was a pack of bullies, led by Brett Bealer, Jackson’s former best friend.

“Well, well, well,” Brett said. “If it isn’t the nerd herd. What are you doing in my halls, losers?”

“These aren’t your halls!” Ruby cried.

The outburst caused Brett’s gang to circle the children, like a pack of jackals searching for weaknesses.

“Gluestick! Where are you and the rest of the team?” Ms. Holiday’s voice sounded in Duncan’s head. “Agent Brand is in a particularly grumpy mood this afternoon. Don’t keep him waiting.”

“On our way,” Duncan mumbled. Then he turned to Brett. “He’s right, Ruby. We have no business wandering around like we belong here. I think we need to be taught a lesson.”

“What?” Matilda cried.

“Duncan, you’re taking the nice guy thing a bit too far,” Jackson added.

Brett scratched his head as if he had just opened a ten-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle and had no idea what picture the pieces would make.

“Maybe you should stuff us into these lockers,” Duncan said, pointing to a row of lockers nearby.

“Oh, I get it,” Jackson said, giving the chubby boy a knowing wink. “Yeah, that will teach us!”

“Good idea, nerd! Get ’em, guys,” Brett said. Duncan and his friends were roughly grabbed by the arms, necks, and underwear waistbands and shoved unceremoniously into lockers. Then the doors were slammed shut.

Now, for ordinary kids, getting stuffed in a locker would be the worst humiliation ever, but Duncan, Flinch, Ruby, Matilda, and Jackson were no ordinary kids and these were no ordinary lockers. A blue light flashed in the ceiling of Duncan’s locker and a robotic female voice could be heard.

“Welcome, agents. Prepare for transport to the Playground.”

The floor disappeared beneath Duncan, and the chubby boy was spun, shot, flipped, flopped, twisted, and turned through a series of tubes, shafts, and loop-the-loops until he finally plopped into a leather chair at the center of a huge subterranean chamber.

All around him in the cavernous room were scientists in white lab coats, working on complicated experiments that pushed the limits of imagination: robotic pets, exploding lunch boxes, sneaker silencers, even a new underwater breathing prototype called Scuba Gum. No wonder they called the place the Playground. To Duncan it was heaven on earth—filled with cool inventions and brilliant people who loved science and technology as much as he did. He would have to leave NERDS when he turned eighteen, but he was already considering a job working here as a researcher when he retired.

The rest of the team arrived, landing in their own leather chairs. They were seated at a glass table made up of thousands of wires, circuits, and blinking lights. At its center was a hole. Duncan reached into his pocket and removed the blue orb he called Benjamin. It floated out of his palm and hovered over the hole.

“Let’s get started,” said a voice from behind the kids. They turned to find a tall man in a tuxedo. His name was Alexander Brand, and at one time he had been America’s greatest secret agent—dashing, fearless, staggeringly handsome. He was the man the government called when no one else could get the job done. But then he had been injured in the line of duty and forced to use a cane to get around; his life as a spy had come to an abrupt halt. Still, his mind was as dangerous as his body had once been, so he was the perfect person to become Director of the National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society, though it was clear to Duncan and the others the man wasn’t completely comfortable managing a group of fifth-grade superspies.

Duncan was incredibly curious about Brand. He was a mystery. Duncan had used Benjamin to try to track down information about him but had found nothing. There were no clues to how he had been injured, where he grew up, or even the names of his mother and father. It was as if the man did not really exist, and though Duncan was tempted to hack into Brand’s government file, he knew the former spy would be furious if he discovered the breach. He was not the kind of man who liked to share. In fact, he spoke very little, unless, of course, he was angry, which was frequently.

“So, boss, what’s the trouble—”

Brand raised his hands to silence Ruby. “Heathcliff Hodges.”

The children looked at one another in stunned silence.

“He’s back,” Brand said.

“That’s not possible,” Ruby said. She began to feverishly scratch her leg. She was allergic to impossibilities.

“Pufferfish is right,” Jackson replied. “I saw him fall into the ocean. There’s no way he could have survived.”

“Apparently, no one told Heathcliff,” their director said. “Benjamin, could you be so kind as to replay the bank footage we received?”

The blue orb hovered on the glass table before them. It let out a few odd chirps and suddenly a dozen television monitors lowered from the ceiling and flickered to life. The screens showed a young boy in a black mask with a white skull on it using a herd of squirrels to empty cash drawers. The boy took off his mask to reveal his enormous teeth. Duncan watched the security guards and Heathcliff’s hostages suddenly calm down, then follow his commands like sheep.

“Aarakdhgyyg!” Flinch said, then turned a knob on his harness. “Sorry, too much sugar at lunch. How many banks has he robbed?”

“This is his fifth heist,” another familiar voice said. From one of the passages came a stunning woman with blond hair and blue eyes. She wore a cashmere sweater and a wool skirt. Stylish glasses sat on the end of her button nose. Ms. Holiday was the school’s librarian, but she was also the team’s information specialist. “We estimate that he’s stolen nearly a hundred thousand dollars so far, focusing on the tellers. He also hypnotizes the customers into using their ATM cards to empty their accounts.”

“Why not head for the vaults?” Matilda said. “That’s where most of the money is kept.”

“Modern bank security systems make the vaults nearly impenetrable. They’ve made a guard with a nightstick obsolete,” Ms. Holiday said.

Duncan had read a lot about banks in magazines and books. He was fascinated with how their security systems worked. He spoke up. “Even if Simon were to break into a vault, he would find a steel wall blocking his exit, then sleeping gas knocking him out until the cops could arrest him. If he managed to get past all that, many banks have a program that drops the vault into a chamber dozens of feet below the ground, making it nearly impossible to escape.”

“What do you think that little runt wants with the money?” Matilda asked.

Jackson shook his head. “It’s not about the money.”

“Then what?” Ruby said.

“Attention,” Jackson said. No one challenged him. Braceface was an expert on getting attention, having once been the most popular kid at Nathan Hale Elementary. “If you’re trying to be inconspicuous, you don’t rob a bank with a herd of squirrels. He wants us to see him. He wants us to know he’s still alive and plotting something new.”