Rocky Road by Susannah McFarlane Page A

fast asleep and that was just fine with Emma.
    Emma much preferred her music to be something she did by herself or, at least, something she shared with just a few friends. She didn’t really like performing or being in the spotlight. She didn’t mind the clapping and cheering that came at the end of the performance, although her mum sometimes got a bit carried away which was embarrassing, but she didn’t really enjoy performing in front of people. It was frightening. Emma would freeze, she couldn’t play a note and she forgot all the words. While herfriends, especially Elle, seemed to love performing in public, Emma preferred to keep her music a secret. She liked to keep it as something which was shared with only a few special people. Which wasn’t such a surprise really. After all, she was a secret agent.

    Emma Jacks was Special Agent EJ12, field agent and expert code-cracker in the under-twelve division for the SHINE agency. SHINE uncovered and stopped the plans of the evil agency SHADOW. To do that, SHINE needed agents, code-cracking agents, and EJ12 was one of their very best, despite still being in primary school.
    Emma had been recruited to SHINE when she won a maths competition. SHINE used maths competitions to help them find people who could think well and solve problems. When Emma was introduced to SHINE, she thought they must have made a mistake—she did like maths but she didn’tthink she was very good at solving problems at all. In fact, she always seemed to be having problems rather than solving them. However as EJ12, she had solved many problems, cracked lots of codes and stopped SHADOW’s evil plans. She had saved rainforests, shut down SHADOW spy bases and rescued wild animals. SHINE hadn’t made a mistake. In fact, as EJ12, Emma Jacks was one of their best agents and in the top five of the SHINE Shining Stars Spy of the Year competition.
    SHADOW also had good agents and they had them all over the world. They communicated with them via secret messages. They left notes, they sent emails and texts, once they even carved a code into a tree in the middle of a rainforest. They were always coming up with new ways to give instructions to their agents so they could carry out their evil plans.
    If SHINE was going to stop SHADOW, they had to intercept their messages, crack their codes and try to keep one step ahead of them. Normally SHINE managed to keep SHADOW under control but lately they had been having problems tracking downthe messages. They suspected that SHADOW must have found a new way to send out their messages but couldn’t discover what that was. It must have been music to SHADOW’s ears.
    SHADOW might have changed their tune, however, if they knew that EJ12 was about to take on the mission.



Emma had barely entered the school gates the next morning when Hannah, Isi and Elle raced up to her. Isi, predictably, nearly knocked Emma down in her excitement.
    â€˜You’ll never guess what has happened,’ cried Hannah.
    â€˜It is the best thing ever!’ cried Elle.
    â€˜It is so cool, so, so cool!’ shrieked Isi.
    â€˜What?’ asked Emma. ‘What’s happened?’
    And then everyone started talking at once.
    â€˜It’s a competition,’ said Elle.
    â€˜A music competition!’ shrieked Isi, once again getting herself rather worked up.
    â€˜We’ve Got Talent,’ said Hannah.
    â€˜Well, we are quite good,’ began Emma wondering why Hannah would suddenly declare how good she thought they were.
    â€˜No, We’ve Got Talent is the competition! You know, like on TV. The school is having its own talent competition and we have to enter our band. We get to perform in front of the whole school,’ explained Hannah.
    â€˜And our families are invited too,’ said Elle. ‘How good is that? It will be like we’re a real band, at a real concert.’
    Emma looked at her friends. Hannah, Elle and Isi were