A/N: I've (finally) edited the first couple of chapters. I also fixed the formatting a bit, so hopefully it's easier to read.

"What's the name of your boat?" asked Alex. The dark haired, spindly boy in front of him began to gush excitedly about their family's yacht, and how he spent his extra weekends sailing on it. Alex took notes on auto pilot and let his mind wander a bit.

It had been the councilor's idea to put him in accelerated English; some sort of reverse psychology about if he had more responsibility, he'd be less willing to miss school. In reality, all it did was make an amazing amount of homework for him to catch up on when he got back from his missions.

Today's torture was a timed writing assignment about an assigned partner in the class. They had that day to interview each other, and the next day to do the actual writing. Alex was partnered with a boy by the name of Sheldon, who enjoyed talking about himself and his various hobbies. Sheldon's chattiness was both good and bad: good because Alexhad a lot of information to write his essay about, and bad because the unstopping prattle was really annoying. Alex was snapped out of his revere by an abrupt halt in his partner's monologue.

"So," Sheldon began, "what about your family?"

Alex was sure his current situation was well enough know via public school gossip, but he decided to answer anyway.

"I don't remember my parents; they died when I was really little. My Dad's brother, Ian took me in and raised me until recently when he died in a car accident." The lie stuck hard in Alex's throat, and he thought bitterly of all that had happened since that fateful funeral. "Jack, my house keeper, looks after me now."

The boy nodded and jotted down some notes, but continued without batting an eye. "Have you ever been out of England?" Alex answered in the affirmative and gave some explanation to the places he'd been. The interview continued on for another ten minutes with him giving minimal, (and in some cases not entirely true,) answers until the bell was about to ring.

"Is there anything interesting about you that people might like to know?" Sheldon asked, gathering up his books and putting them in a stack as if he didn't expect an answer. Alex allowed himself the smallest of grins.

'Yes actually,' he thought, 'I'm a spy. I come from a family of spies. I've saved the world on a half a dozen different occasions, seriously ticked off at least 2 major criminal organizations, and oh, I've been be punched, kicked, run over, run into, attacked by wild animals, almost been drown, and shot over the past couple of months. Did I mentioned I don't even get paid?'

Yeah—that would go over really well. Alex shrugged his shoulders. "I peel my grapefruits and eat them like oranges," he said as the bell rang.