Cajoling Loupa Fink

• Becky Spain, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2011

Loupa Fink was a normal girl on the outside, but that's the catch, she was far from normal to those that knew her, to those that knew she was a spy. So you'd say that her parents didn't know her because they didn't know she was a spy. It's hard to know your teenage daughter's a spy when she has a secret tunnel that leads to the spy HQ and a best friend in the spy business too.

It wasn't always that way though, Loupa was once just a girl, not a spy. Then she moved to Inritea and met her neighbour, Alicia.

***

“What if I fail the tests and get rejected, that would be embarrassing and I’d feel like a total reject.” Puffed Loupa as she walked around the block with her new neighbour and friend, Alicia. Before she moved to Inritea and met Alicia, Loupa had never really done much exercise and was very unfit. “You won’t, just be yourself during the tests and answer the questions using your knowledge and principles. They’re not expecting you to have any training, they’ll train you up before you go on any missions.” Alicia said, trying to convince Loupa to try out for her spy school. “What about my parents? Won’t they get suspicious that I’m away for ages during training? Where is it anyway? How do I get there?” Loupa fired the questions like cannonballs off a ship. “Well.... your parents will think you’re on school camp or something so...no, they won’t get suspicious. As for where it is, I don’t actually know. Tomorrow, if you will come to the try out, I’ll take you.

You are hard to convince huh? Look, I’m just telling you that it would be fun and the tests are perfectly safe. Honestly, I think you would be good at it. Meet me tomorrow in my room at 8am, I’ll take you from there.” Alicia was on the school debating team and was rather good at persuading people to do things; Loupa was even better at resisting persuasion.

***

Oh why didn’t I agree to go, it would be fun and then I’d have something interesting and fun to do. Loupa’s thoughts were a perfect example of the angel\devil consciences in movies. What if I fail, what if I die on a mission? She could hardly ever decide on things. The best way, she found, to decide, was to go into the garden, pick a flower and pull off its petals. I’ll go, I won’t go, I’ll go, I won’t go, I’ll go. Loupa Fink is going to become a spy! Yeeeehaw! When that thought entered her consciousness Loupa knew she wanted to be a spy.

***

“I’m coming with you, I want to try out.” Loupa said, wandering into Alicia room. “YES! I knew you’d come around!” Alicia opened the trapdoor and down the girls went, on the giant slide leading to the spy try outs.