next page »

Subject: FFFBI Agent Nelson

File Under: Back Story

I should tell you that Nelson worked his way up at the FFFBI.

He started in the mailroom, sorting mail for the various departments—the Department of Top Secrets, the Department of Bottom Secrets, the Department of Document Shredding, and so on. His unusual speed at sorting and delivering was brought to the attention of the Deputy Director, who placed him into Field Assignments. His first job was to help the Alpha Team track down a major Ketchup Smuggling operation.

He found immediate success there, catching what turned out to be some Sandwich-Faced Daddy's Boys from the Daddy's Boys Gang. Impossibly hiding behind a very skinny lamppost, he leapt and caught them red-handed (they spilled the ketchup) and from that day forward Nelson picked up a reputation at the Bureau as the "Elephant of Surprise."

You may often have heard that a great plan needs the "Elephant of Surprise." When you need an elephant, he's your man. Since then he's established himself as one of the Go-To Guys at the Bureau, and Duty Officer Solomon usually picks Nelson for the Alpha Team when there's a new case.

Over the years he's investigated many crimes by CRUST (the Confederacy of Rascals and Unspeakably Suspicious Troublemakers) and by the mysterious techno-villains, the Cyber-Toothed Tigers.

He also helped close down the Teen Alibi Network, a private agency set up to provide the parents of teenagers with fictional friends and fictional parents for sleepovers.

It worked like this. Hannah, our sample teen, would say, "Mom, I'm staying at the Smiths' tonight. You know Sally Smith. I've told you about her. She's housebound because of that poetry-reading knee injury thing she has." Hannah would be allowed to go. Then, that night the phone would ring at Hannah's mom's house:

"Hello, INSERT NAME OF PARENT HERE. This is Sally Smith, DAUGHTER'S NAME HERE's friend's mom. I thought you'd want to know that DAUGHTER'S NAME HERE and Sally decided to watch C-SPAN then go to bed early to read Walt Whitman poems."

next page »