The Tennis and Football Club

Right when I entered the building there were 3 beeps. Then a man who sounded like he’d rather be dumped into a volcano said in a monotone voice “The Tennis and Football Club is meeting in room...” 

He paused as he checked his printed schedule for the recreation center “...B211 right now.” I looked at the schedule on the wall. Right now (5:30 AM), there were only 3 activities going on: The Tennis and Football club, Knitting Class, and Princess club, which was full of girls who pretended to marry “princes” who really were kids from the high school nearby being paid minimum wage. I decided to go to the Princess Club. I had been trained well enough to consider even a kids club. We had to recite 300 times “Just because they're young, doesn’t mean it’s done.” So that soaked in well. Plus, it was ending the soonest. I walked through the hallways, passing the gym (where the Tennis and Football Club was), the empty pool since nobody wanted to swim at 5:30 in the morning, and finally arrived at a small room that was decorated like a palace. Right when I entered the room, I was surrounded by 3 year olds all wanting to “marry” me because they thought I was one of the “princes”. A grown woman also dressed in a tiara and pink dress said “Hello Prince…” She looked down at her clipboard “... Prince Felix!” She bowed for some reason, so I had to embarrassingly bow back. Yeesh, the Secret Service business is hard sometimes. Since the president was visiting this recreation center, the biggest in the country, I had to secretly make sure there were no weapons in the room. People had already come and looked through the room for weapons, but I was here to make sure they weren’t hiding anything. So I sat down on the floor with the other girls, and pretended to be as princely as possible. 

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In the gym, people were throwing footballs through the air. Nobody that wasn’t in The Tennis and Football Club knew why they chose Tennis and Football out of every sport in the world, but from the glass separating the hallway and gym, it looked like what you’d think a tennis and football club would look like. People jogging around while talking about what appeared to be strategies, and people appearing to be throwing balls and cleaning tennis rackets. And for the first one, they were right. They were talking strategies.

Strategies on how to attack the president, that is. 

They were really practicing how to throw a bomb into a room with incredible accuracy and timing, giving no time for anybody to run away, including a certain president, and they really were cleaning guns hidden in their tennis rackets. All you had to do was unscrew one end and you had a machine gun as Plan B in case the bomb didn’t go off. They were also practicing a way of communication while the president was there: throwing a football with a note on it. The gym was also one of the best in the nation, meaning it was soundproof. So they could openly speak there plans to take down America from within, with sports.

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After a few girls “married” me and ate a “feast” which really was just food they had bought at a 25% discount from Costco. I got a lot of chances to put bugs around the room and checked every last place where most people, like the searchers, wouldn’t expect a gun or bomb to be. I searched the entire bathroom, and then pretended to have to have to leave for an “emergency”. The teacher then said that “Prince Felix has to go because there’s been a problem in his ‘palace’”. This was the complete opposite of my house, a small house on the outskirts of Washington DC. Anyway, I walked outside with little girls clinging to me, but I ignored them. I pulled out a notepad and put a check next to “Princess Club”. Next I had to go to a knitting club. After all, the Tennis and Football Club wasn’t hiding guns in rackets or something. I walked into the room, to find a bunch of teenagers staring at me. What could I say? I looked a lot like James Bond, which was part of the reason why I joined the Secret Service. I actually was pretty good at the job, and excelled greatly. You’d think someone as experienced as me would be tasked with guarding the President himself. While I was pretty good, my strength wasn’t with weapons. It was instead with espionage and smartness. I had a knack for blending in with the crowd and playing along. So the CIA put me in “Pre-Arrival Checks” which basically meant I’d check places to make sure there was nothing going on. I arrived in the knitting club, which was a warm baby blue colored room with different shelves filled with various colors. Cool blues, natural greens, warm yellows, hot orange-reds, icey purples, and plain whites. There were hundreds of colors, since the knitting club was a popular club. It was very large too, filled with literally thousands of needles and hundreds of sewing machines. On a board in the front, it showed a few colors, and I could see a bunch of girls taking reds and whites to different tables where they worked on blankets. They were basically plain white blankets, but with a few red stripes on it. These blankets would go to the homeless shelter, and what they didn’t tell the 10 year olds who thought they were “helping the world” was that half of it they sold for cash. After all, they had to run a sewing club. For a few minutes, I watched, thinking of what disguise I should’ve done. Suddenly, a voice said behind me “What’re you looking at?” 

I whirled around, ready to pull out my pistol. But it wasn’t. It was actually a middle aged woman from the Tennis and Football club, wearing full white clothes. “Oh just…” I started, but she cut me off. 

“Looking at the girls?” 

I turned the same red color as the thread they were using.

“No…” I pretended to say, playing along.

“It’s okay.” She said, and then she opened the door. She whispered into my ear “Tell them I let you in.” I walked inside. The instructor asked me why I was there. “The lady from the tennis and football club said I could come.” I said. She let me go without a word, and didn’t seem to care about me. I pretended to be in awe of the club, when in reality I was checking everywhere. I looked at my watch. To my surprise, I realized the Tennis and Football club was going to leave soon. I then realized that no other group would go to the gym after that, so I could just check it when it was empty. And I could talk to the club when they were leaving. I finished up on the sewing club, and didn’t find anything. I placed a few bugs which people back at Secret Service HQ could listen to. I walked to the gym, just as a few of the club members were coming out. I walked up to them, pretending to be an over excited 20 year old.

“Hi, can I join the Tennis and Football Club?” I said pretending to be controlling my excitement.

Then the man in the front blatantly said to my face “No.” For half a second I stood there in shock, but then ran to catch up with them. 

“Why not?”

“Because I said so.” The guy said with a menacing glare. While I may have just been a 20 year old, this guy was messing with a secret service agents.

“And why did you say so?” I shot back.

“Because I said, ‘I said so!’” He said. He then realized how much of a tongue twister that was, and said “The point is, were not letting in Ameri-” He then realized what he was about to say and cut himself off. I noticed how there wasn’t a single American in the team. I don’t mean to be racist, but usually there would be at least one. After all, it was a country full of Americans. And he sounded like he didn’t allow Americans into the club. And right then, I noticed one of the tennis rackets. But I still wanted to play along with my act. I picked up a tennis racket on the ground. “No!” The guy yelled but it was too late. When I gripped the handle, the cap flew off of the tennis racket, and peaking out was what? A machine gun. Somehow, these people had managed to hide a machine gun in a tennis racket. This was why they created the secret search, since they would probably hide a gun from the searchers. I could see a small trigger had popped out of the tennis racket, ready and armed. The 30-so people aimed their tennis rackets at me. It would’ve been funny to see a bunch of people point a handle at someone, but it wasn’t. I crashed through the window of the knitting club, and everyone inside stared at me. “You know that cost $300 dollars to install-” started the teacher. Then bullets sprayed over the classroom. Everybody ran, which was good since they weren’t aiming for them: They were aiming for me. I had to contact the CIA! I duck behind a shelf, and tried to pull my walkie talkie, but it was missing! I realized that I had dropped it when I had crashed through the window. I had to get it! I thought to myself. I had been hiding behind a bookshelf I had pulled out. I also could see brightly colored strings strewn all over the floor. Then I got an idea. I ran from my hiding space, dodging bullets coming at me. But I didn’t have to. I narrowly avoided a tennis ball, but it exploded right where I had been 2 seconds ago. I was thrown back by the blast, and flew all the way behind the agents: Right on top of the walkie talkie. What I would’ve done but activated due to the blast was the fire alarm. Sprinklers sprayed everyone as a red blaring alarm. I watched as people ran past the gunfight, running faster. I fired at them. Despite being a secret service agent, I had never been in a real gunfight before. After all, things like this didn’t happen. But I knew how to win one. I shot back at them, though I only aimed at their legs. I was after all, not like them. I just wanted to defend myself and the country. I yelled into the walkie talkie, “Code Red! Engaged in a tennis racket fight with the tennis and football club. There throwing tennis balls at me!” I’m pretty sure the guy on the other end thought I was going insane, but he said “Yes sir! Hold out as reinforcements come.” I actually had done pretty well. I had managed to hurt 10 of them, nearly a ⅓ of them. But still. Now a few of them had got more tennis balls and rackets, and had a lot more firepower. I narrowly dodged a tennis ball as a bunch of t-shirts that said “Princess Power!” on them blew up. I knew they were going to launch more tennis balls, so I ran. Behind me, explosions rocked the room, right when the firefighters came. They took one look at the shooters, and ran. So that left me and them. The CIA guys were far away, so I had to hold out till then. I suddenly remembered. The grenade! In case things got bad (like now), we had one sleek black grenade. I wasn’t going to use it on them. But something else instead. Because they had their tennis balls in a huge bucket, waiting to be used. A aimed at the basket and fired. All I managed to do was make a huge black mark in it. To detonate them, I had to have a stronger force. Like the grenade. There was only one problem: It was halfway across the hallway. To do that, I'd have to go through the now 15 or so armed men with barely any cover. But what had to be done, had to be done. Instead of running away, I started slowly going from room to room, towards them, and away from safety. At some point I wouldn’t have any cover, and that would be pure luck. So for now, I went. When I was halfway through the room, they yelled something in some language I didn’t understand, and they started running straight for me. I got 7 of them, but left 7 more. They were taking handfuls of the bombs and tossing it at me. And then a tennis ball rolled straight under me. I leaped forward, but the ball exploded, and I was launched through the air… over the cart, and behind it. My legs however were a mess. It was thankfully too numb to feel any pain. I pulled the black grenade, pulled the pin, and threw it straight into the cart. It then exploded. For a half second, the tennis balls just rolled onto the floor like normal tennis balls, and I thought I had injured both my legs beyond use (for now) just for nothing. But then, there was a tremendous explosion. I was pretty used to it since they wanted to show how real explosions were like, and not what Hollywood said it was. I hadn’t killed the 7 of them, but burned them. A lot. Right then, a CIA team came through the door, aiming real guns at everyone. A little late guys. “How’d you take them down?” they all asked me like I was the president or something. I took a deep breath.

“I dunno. I guess luck.” 

“Well that’s a lot of luck.” Said one of the guys, chuckling.

“Yes. Yes it was.”