Spy School Project X by Stuart Gibbs (English) Hardcover Book

Description: Spy School Project X by Stuart Gibbs "Superspy middle schooler Ben Ripley races against time and across state lines - traveling by car, train, boat and plane - to track Murray Hill down before Bens cyber enemies can find him"-- FORMAT Hardcover LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description In the tenth book in the New York Times bestselling Spy School series, Ben Ripley races against time and across state lines--by car, train, boat, and plane--to avoid his new cyber enemies and track down Murray Hill. Ben Ripleys longtime nemesis, Murray Hill, has put a price on Bens head and accused him of being at the center of a conspiracy on the internet. Now Ben finds himself in his greatest danger yet, on the run from both assassins and conspiracy theorists. Ben must find Murray before his machinations catch up to Ben--but with so much at stake, even some of Bens most trusted friends might not be at the top of their game, leaving Ben to be tested like never before. Author Biography Stuart Gibbs is the New York Times bestselling author of the Charlie Thorne series, FunJungle series, Moon Base Alpha series, Once Upon a Tim series, and Spy School series. He has written screenplays, worked on a whole bunch of animated films, developed TV shows, been a newspaper columnist, and researched capybaras (the worlds largest rodents). Stuart lives with his family in Los Angeles. You can learn more about what hes up to at StuartGibbs.com. Excerpt from Book Chapter 1: Self-Preservation 1 SELF-PRESERVATION Lyman Gymnasium The CIAs Academy of Espionage Washington, DC June 11 1200 hours I had an emergency meeting with the principal. As if finals at spy school werent stressful enough. I used to go to a normal middle school, so Im aware that exam weeks everywhere are difficult, but ours was brutal. Not just mentally--but often physically as well. For example, an algebra exam in regular middle school might have a few questions on working out parabolas--while an algebra exam at spy school entailed having live grenades lobbed at you. The grenades were loaded with paint instead of explosives, so they would merely color you blue, rather than blow your limbs off, but still, the test was so traumatic, it frequently left students gibbering in fear. Im lucky enough to be gifted in mathematics, and yet, theres a very big difference between doing a complex equation in a nice, quiet classroom as opposed to a muddy foxhole with paint-filled explosives raining down on you. And that was one of the easier exams. The most difficult was in Advanced Self-Preservation. It also happened to be the most painful. Well, it wasnt painful if you were good at self-preservation. In that case, the exam could be rather hazardous for your instructor. But I wasnt good at self-preservation at all. Everyone has their strengths. Mine happen to be more cerebral. Im quite skilled at deducing what bad guys are plotting and then figuring out how to defeat them. This wasnt only in a classroom setting: I had faced actual bad guys a surprising number of times, given that I was only in my second year of spy school. Due to some extraordinary circumstances, I had managed to prevent evil organizations from dismantling the planets electrical grid, destroying the Panama Canal, assassinating the president of the United States, and melting Antarctica. And that was just in the spring semester. Unfortunately, at spy school, we didnt get good grades for successful missions. In fact, we still had to make up the homework we missed while we were away. To be honest, Ive gotten much better at self-preservation since coming to spy school. I could probably defeat the average person in a fight. But when youre a spy, you dont get attacked by average people. You have trained killers come after you. And so, to properly prepare us for the field, the exams in Advanced Self-Preservation were extremely difficult. The final involved a little-known Tibetan style of martial arts known as Nook-Bhan-San, which loosely translates as "Wow, That Really Hurts." Each student had to fight one of the academys many martial arts instructors. If we could defeat them, we would get an A. Personally, I felt that was highly unlikely. The best I could hope for was a D, which involved losing the fight, but not getting sent to the school infirmary. I would have been nervous enough about the self-preservation exam on a normal day, but the impending meeting with the principal made everything worse. The principal had two basic personalities, angry and incompetent, and he tended to swing back and forth between them without any warning at all, so being with him was never a pleasant experience. He also had said that my life depended on this meeting, which made me even more anxious. Then, to top things off, Professor Crandall had been late for the exam. Crandall was an elderly and doddering instructor with a big secret; in truth, he was very aware and capable, but only pretended to be in decline to throw off his enemies. (I was one of the few people who knew this, having learned of it during my first mission, and had sworn not to tell anyone.) Crandall was exceptionally good at the doddering act, and his lectures were famous for being incredibly boring and only vaguely coherent. In his final class of the semester, he had rambled on for a half hour about how to protect yourself against Vikings, even though the last time they had been a threat was 1000 AD. The exam took place in the school gymnasium. Two students at a time were paired with instructors to fight. Crandall sat in the stands, ostensibly watching the proceedings, although he seemed to keep nodding off. (Like I said, he was a very good actor.) Normally, I would have been in no rush to get my butt kicked, but I was hoping to go early so that I could still make my meeting with the principal. Instead, I was placed in the final pairing. By then, I knew there was very little chance that I would get to the meeting on time, which would certainly incur the wrath of the principal. I never enjoyed incurring wrath, but the only way to be punctual would be to throw my exam. That would be extremely painful, and I enjoyed pain even less than wrath. Also, I didnt want to get an F in self-preservation and have to take the course over again the next semester. So I tried my best. The student who was selected to compete at the same time as me was Zoe Zibbell. For much of my time at spy school, Zoe had been my closest friend, although we had recently hit a bumpy patch. Zoe had thought that one of our fellow students had switched to working for the bad guys and had gone behind my back to try to have them arrested. Her intentions were good--although she was wrong about the other student--but I had felt betrayed. Zoe had apologized profusely, and I knew she meant it. Yet things were still awkward between us. Zoe didnt look impressive physically, being small and slight of build, but she was a formidable fighter. Plus, her size sometimes worked to her advantage. Her opponent, a wiry, muscular instructor, had certainly been told not to underestimate her--and then he did it anyhow. In under a minute, Zoe had him pinned to the mat and howling in pain, an A-plus performance for sure. My own exam didnt go nearly as well. I was matched against a young woman with muscles so taut, they looked like iron bands. I started out decently well, employing a Nook-Bhan-San move called "Fast as Lightning." This wasnt really an attack. Instead, I just darted about quickly in an unpredictable pattern, hoping that my opponent might grow tired of chasing me around before she got the chance to hurt me. It wasnt the sort of technique that earned you an A, but then, it was a lot less painful than staying put and getting punched in the nose. Unfortunately, my opponent responded with a move called "Even Faster Than Lightning" where she simply moved quicker than I did, then locked her hand around my wrist with the Grip of Extreme Stickiness and unleashed the Ordeal of a Thousand Smacks to the Face. I managed to slip free of her grasp with the Greased Snow Monkey, although my attempt to counterattack with the Fist of Annihilation failed miserably when she executed a perfect Evasive Yeti Maneuver and all I ended up punching was air. But then, to my surprise, my opponent made a mistake. She shifted into the unmistakable stance of Pangolin Death Strike, for which the proper response was to drop to the floor and implement a Golden Jackal Leg Sweep. So I did it. In fact, it was the finest Golden Jackal Leg Sweep I had ever performed. There were sixteen separate movements, and I made each one of them perfectly. Only, it didnt work. My opponent didnt perform the Pangolin Death Strike at all. Instead, she nimbly leapt out of the way of my leg sweep and dropped on top of me, driving her elbow into my solar plexus. One moment, I thought I was about to win the match--and the next, I was pinned. Professor Crandall came down from the stands, clucking his tongue in disappointment. "Oh, Benjamin, you walked right into that one. In dropping to the floor, you left yourself wide open for the lethal Here Comes the Avalanche move." "But you never taught us about the Here Comes the Avalanche move!" I protested. "Thats not fair!" "When youre on a mission, the bad guys are rarely going to play fair," Crandall informed me. "You need to be prepared for anything . Im afraid Ill have to give you a D minus for that performance." "But...," I spluttered, peeling myself off the floor. "That was my best Golden Jackal Leg Sweep ever!" "Perhaps so, but this is Advanced Self-Preservation, not Interpretive Dance. In a real-life fight, you dont get points for style. And if you lose, you end up dead. Oh goodness, there appears to be a slice of cheese in my pocket." Crandall removed what was, in fact, a slice of cheese from his fleece vest and looked at it in wonderment, as if its presence was one of the great mysteries of the universe. At this moment, I began to question how much of Professor Crandalls doddering act was an act and how much was actual doddering. I really wanted to stay and argue that I deserved a better grade than a D minus, but I reluctantly had to admit that Professor Crandall had made a valid argument about what real-life fights were like--and I was now late for my meeting with the principal. "I have to go," I said. "Have a nice summer!" Crandall told me cheerfully, then nibbled the cheese hed discovered and exclaimed, "Ooh! Its Havarti! My favorite!" I grabbed my backpack and headed for the door, moving a little slower than Id intended, as I was still aching from the Here Comes the Avalanche. Zoe dropped in beside me, doing her best to act like her extremely supportive pre-betrayal self. "That was really uncool of Crandall just now. You performed one o Details ISBN153447949X Language English Year 2022 ISBN-10 153447949X ISBN-13 9781534479494 Format Hardcover Pages 352 Series Spy School Publication Date 2022-09-06 Publisher Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers Imprint Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers Audience Children / Juvenile DEWEY 813.6 Author Stuart Gibbs Audience Age 8-12 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:137034633;

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