Spy Ski School by Stuart Gibbs (English) Hardcover Book

Description: Spy Ski School by Stuart Gibbs Twelve-year-old Bens unexpected success outside the classroom causes the CIA to activate him for a mission to become friends with Jessica Shang, daughter of a suspected Chinese crime boss. FORMAT Hardcover LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description In the fourth book in the New York Times bestselling Spy School series, Ben Ripley enrolls in ski school, where the slopes, and the stakes, get really steep. Thirteen-year-old Ben Ripley is not exactly the best student spy school has ever seen--he keeps flunking Advanced Self Preservation. But outside of class, Ben is pretty great at staying alive. His enemies have kidnapped him, shot at him, locked him in a room with a ticking time bomb, and even tried to blow him up with missiles. And hes survived every time. After all that unexpected success, the CIA has decided to activate Ben for real. The Mission: Become friends with Jessica Shang, the daughter of a suspected Chinese crime boss, and find out all of her fathers secrets. Ben might not be able to handle a weapon (or a pair of skis), but he can make friends easy-peasy. That is, until his best friend from home drops in on the trip and jeopardizes the entire mission... 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. Review "Readers will be glad they strapped on their boots and went along for the ride."-- "Kirkus Reviews" Review Quote "Readers will be glad they strapped on their boots and went along for the ride." Excerpt from Book Spy Ski School ACTIVATION Bushnell Hall CIA Academy of Espionage Washington, DC December 6 1130 hours The summons to the principals office arrived in the middle of my Advanced Self-Preservation class. Normally, I would have been pleased to have an excuse to get out of ASP, as it was my worst subject. I was only getting a C in it, even though, in real life, I had been quite good at self-preservation. Over the past eleven months, my enemies had kidnapped me, shot at me, locked me in a room with a ticking bomb, and even tried to blow me up with missiles--and yet Id survived each time. However, my instructors at the CIAs Academy of Espionage never seemed very impressed by the fact that I was still alive. They just kept giving me bad grades. "Theres a big difference between running away and being able to defend yourself," my ASP instructor, Professor Simon, had explained, shortly before the call from the principal came. Professor Georgia Simon was in her fifties and looked like someone my mother would have played canasta with, but she was an incredible warrior, capable of beating three karate masters in a fight at once. "So far, all you have done in the field is run." "Its worked pretty well for me so far," I countered. "Youve been lucky," Professor Simon said. And then she attacked me with a samurai sword. It was only a fake sword, but it was still daunting. (The academy had stopped using real swords a few years earlier, after a student had been literally disarmed in class.) I did my best to defend myself, but it was only twenty seconds before I was sprawled on the floor with Professor Simon standing over me, sword raised, ready to shish kabob my spleen. Which was all the more embarrassing, as it happened in front of the entire class. ASP took place in a large lecture hall. My fellow classmates were seated in tiers around me, watching me get my butt kicked by a woman four times my age. "Pathetic," Professor Simon declared. "Thats D-grade work at best. Would anyone here like to show Mr. Ripley how a real agent defends himself?" No one volunteered. My fellow second-year students werent idiots; none of them wanted to be embarrassed like I had been. Or hurt. Luckily for them, at that moment, the announcement from the principal came over the schools public address system, distracting Professor Simon. There were plenty of other, far less outdated ways to deliver urgent messages to the classrooms at spy school, but the principal didnt know how to use any of them. In fact, he wasnt very good at using the PA system, either. There were a few seconds of fumbling noises, followed by the principal muttering, "I can never remember which switch works this stupid thing. This darn systems a bigger pain in my rear than my hemorrhoids." Then he asked, "Hello? Hello? Is this thing on? Can you hear me?" Professor Simon sighed in a way that suggested she had even less respect for the principal than she had for me. "Yes. We can hear you." "Very good," the principal replied. "Is Benjamin Ripley in your class right now? I need to see him in my office right away." A chorus of "ooohs" rippled through the room: the universal middle-school response to realizing that someone else has just gotten in trouble. Professor Simon gave the class a warning glare and the "ooohs" stopped immediately. "Ill send him right now," she replied. Then she looked down at me and said, "Go." I leapt to my feet and hurried for the door, pausing only to snatch my backpack from my seat. Zoe Zibbell, one of my best friends, was in the next seat over. She looked at me inquisitively with her big green eyes, wanting to know if I knew why Id been summoned. I shrugged in return. Next to Zoe, Warren Reeves snickered at my misfortune. Warren didnt like me much; he had a crush on Zoe and saw me as competition, so he was always rooting for my downfall. I made a show of hustling out the door for Professor Simon--and promptly slowed down the moment I was out of her sight. I was in no hurry to get to the principals office. I had been summoned to the principal four other times, and it had always been bad news: Previously, the principal had sent me to solitary confinement, placed me on probation, informed me that my summer vacation plans were cancelled in favor of mandatory wilderness training--and expelled me from school. (Id been reinstated, however.) So I dawdled, wondering what trouble lay in store for me this time. I exited Bushnell Hall and entered Hammond Quadrangle on my way to the Nathan Hale Administration Building. It was the week after Thanksgiving. Fall had been mild and beautiful in Washington, DC, but now winter had arrived with a vengeance. Frigid winds were stripping the trees bare of leaves, and a crust of icy snow carpeted the ground. As I meandered across the quad, my phone buzzed with a text. It was from Erica Hale: stop dawdling and get your butt up here. were waiting. I stared up at the gothic Hale Building, wondering if Erica was watching me--or if she simply knew me well enough to presume I was dawdling. Either was a likely possibility. Erica was only a fourth-year student, but she was easily the best spy-in-training at school. However, shed had a head start on the rest of us: She was a legacy. The very building I was heading toward was named after her family. Her ancestors had all been spies for the United States, going back to Nathan Hale himself--and her grandfather, Cyrus, had been teaching her the family business since she was born. When Id been learning how to assemble Legos, shed been learning how to assemble semiautomatic machine guns. Blindfolded. I picked up my pace, hurrying toward the Hale Building. If Erica was waiting for me with the principal, that probably meant I wasnt in trouble. Plus, I was excited to see her. I had a massive crush on Erica Hale. She was the most beautiful, intelligent, and dangerous girl Id ever met in my life. I knew Erica didnt like me nearly as much as I liked her, but the fact that she liked me even a little was a big deal. Erica regarded most of her fellow students--and professors--with complete disinterest. As though they were rocks. And not even pretty rocks. Boring, gray rocks. Gravel. Even though her text to me had been curt and cold, it was still a text from her, which was more human contact than Erica usually parceled out. There were plenty of guys at school who would have killed to get a text from Erica Hale. I burst into the Hale Building and took the stairs up to the fifth floor two at a time. The security agents stationed there quickly waved me through to the restricted area. "Come right on in, Mr. Ripley," one said. "Weve been expecting you." I stopped and spread my arms and legs for the standard frisking, but the second guard shook her head. "No need for that. They want to see you ASAP." She pointed me toward a door. This was a different door than the usual one for the principals office. A piece of paper was taped to it. It said PIRNCIPAL. Given the misspelling, I figured the principal had written it himself. The principal was very likely the least intelligent person in the entire intelligence community. We had a lot of decent teachers at school, most of whom had been decent spies earlier in their careers. Meanwhile, the principal had been a horrible spy. He had failed on every single mission. No one wanted him teaching anyone anything, so he was made an administrator instead. He mostly handled paperwork that no one else wanted to deal with. The principal wasnt using his normal office because Id blown it up by firing a mortar round into it. (It was an accident.) The damage had been extensive, and since the government was in charge of the repairs, they were taking a very long time. The official completion date was set for three years in the future, but even that was probably optimistic; my dormitory had been waiting to have its septic system replaced since before the Berlin Wall fell. In the meantime, the principal had been moved down the hall. Into a closet. It was a rather large closet, but it was still a closet. Given the pungent smell of ammonia, I presumed that, until recently, cleaning supplies had been stored there. Instead of a nice big, imposing desk, the principal now had a card table. He sat behind it in a creaky folding chair, glowering at me from beneath the worlds most horrendous hairpiece. It looked like a raccoon had died on his head. And then been run over by a truck. The closet would have been crowded enough with only the principal and me, but three other people were crammed in there as well, waiting for me. All of them were Hales. Erica stood beside her father, Alexander, and her grandfather, Cyrus. Alexander Hale had been an extremely respected spy for years, despite the fact that he was a complete fraud. The Agency had finally caught on and kicked him out, but he had subsequently proved himself on an unsanctioned mission and been reinstated. Now he was back to his usual debonair self, wearing a tailored three-piece suit with a perfectly folded handkerchief and a crisply knotted tie. Meanwhile, Cyrus Hale was the real deal, as good a spy as Details ISBN1481445626 Author Stuart Gibbs Short Title SPY SKI SCHOOL Pages 368 Audience Age 8-12 Series Spy School Language English ISBN-10 1481445626 ISBN-13 9781481445627 Media Book Format Hardcover Birth 1969 DEWEY FIC Year 2016 Publication Date 2016-10-11 Audience Children / Juvenile Publisher Simon & Schuster Imprint Simon & Schuster Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States US Release Date 2016-10-11 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:139376852;

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