It was the morning of the Great MONARCH Sock Hop.

  MONARCH HQ hummed with excitement. Junior agents scurried down hallways, arms full of flyers and streamers, darting between classrooms and bulletin boards like patriotic squirrels. Every corner of the campus had sprouted signs—TONIGHT! SOCK HOP! 7PM! BRING YOUR DANCING FEET (and ID badge)!

  Sandy Beeches adjusted the last poster on the dance hall bulletin board with a firm press and a small sigh. Behind her, Squire was still holding the tape dispenser like it was a trophy.

  "I’m excited, Swift Fox," he said, beaming. "Dances are special. This one will be. It’ll be perfect."

  Sandy didn’t stop taping, but her lips twitched in a hint of a smile. "Perfect’s a tall order."

  "Some nice streamers," she continued, counting on her fingers, "a few decorations on the wall, some good music and lights, and most importantly—no chaos. No villains. No glitter cannons like our missions. Perfect."

  Squire snorted. "I’ve hidden Uncle Soash’s glitter cannon like you asked. And all his hidden ones too."

  That made her stop. Slowly, she turned to face him. "And all his hidden ones?"

  "All the ones I could find," Squire corrected, quickly. "He had one disguised as a coffee percolator. And one hidden in the trophy for 'Most Suspicious Dance Chaperone 1954.'"

  Sandy groaned, but her expression softened. The dance hall doors loomed ahead.

  "Come on. Let’s see how Big Joe’s doing with the decorations."

  Since Big Joe had been put in charge of the decorations for the big dance, none of the team had seen him much, only once in a while, sneaking in the back door of the hall with a sack or box.

  As they approached, a gaggle of junior agents came tumbling out of the dance hall—grinning, glitter-dusted, and breathless.

  "Agent Beeches! Agent Beeches! We helped Big Joe with the decor like you said!"

  "It’s weird," one of them added. "But like... weirdly wonderful. We hope you like it!"

  Sandy blinked. "Weird?"

  She picked up her pace.

  Squire trailed after her. "That’s not usually a word you like."

  "Exactly."

  She shoved open the doors and stepped inside the gymnasium—and stopped cold.

  The room was bathed in dim green light. A fog machine puffed dramatically in one corner. Giant cardboard cutouts of dinosaurs loomed against the walls, their eyes painted red, their teeth strangely glittery. A massive sign hung crookedly over the bleachers:

  WELCOME TO THE DANCE: PREHISTORIC PROM!

  At the far end, Big Joe stood proudly beside a papier-maché volcano that sputtered smoke. He wore a grass skirt, three leis, and what looked like a traffic cone painted to resemble a T-Rex head.

  Sandy's mouth opened. Then shut.

  Squire took a cautious step forward. "Um, Sandy? Should I get the fire extinguisher now, or wait until the volcano erupts?"

  "Joe," Sandy said slowly, eyes still scanning the room. "What... is this?"

  Big Joe gave a proud hrrrk and gestured wide with one antler. Foam boulders rolled off a nearby folding table and landed in a heap where the snack bar was supposed to go.

  "I understand it's a theme," Sandy said, answering Big Joe, flatly. "A dinosaur dance theme. Okay. Not the worst I’ve seen. But Joe... where are we supposed to dance?"

  She gestured to the floor, where not one centimetre was visible beneath the chaos: plastic ferns, foam boulders, cardboard dinosaurs, black tablecloths pretending to be tar pits, papier-maché palm trees, and—front and centre—a suspiciously bubbling kiddie pool labelld “Primordial Punch.”

  Squire took one step back. “Please tell me no one’s supposed to drink that.”

  "There's no space, Joe," she said, finally. "You’ve used up the entire gym. It’s like trying to do the cha-cha inside a science fair explosion."

  Big Joe drooped slightly. One lei slipped off his antler.

  Squire shifted beside her. "You wanted decorations," he offered timidly. "He decorated."

  Sandy arched an eyebrow. "He overdecorated. We need movement space. Unless we want a very memorable pile-up during the first slow dance."

  Big Joe gave a sad hrrrgh, like a tuba deflating.

  Sandy folded her arms. "Start over. Take it all down. Keep it simple this time. Like the plan."

  She tapped the clipboard. Joe squinted at the papers for a moment... then licked them clean off the board and began to chew thoughtfully.

  Sandy sighed as Joe wandered off to begin disassembling a cave entrance made of gym mats and duct tape.

  "Let’s go check on JIM," she muttered.

  Squire gave a half-salute. "Aye aye, Captain Agent Beeches! Away from the land before time and into the land of... less time. And probably more polka."

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  They stepped out of the gym just as the volcano gave one last hopeful puff of glitter-scented steam. It landed on Sandy’s clipboard with a pathetic sparkle.

  Meanwhile...

  The auto repair bay deep beneath HQ still smelled faintly of oil and axle grease. The old Monarch vehicle lift creaked as they passed beneath it, the undercarriage of a disassembled snowplow hanging overhead like a mechanical bat. Toolboxes lined the walls, each drawer labelled with cryptic tape: CIRCUIT TWISTERS, ARM JOINTS (LEFT), MIXTAPE FIX-KITS.

  JIM DANDI's room—if one could call it that—was a cross between a mechanic’s garage, a forgotten radio shack, and a robot’s bachelor pad. In one corner, a shop fan oscillated with sluggish dignity. On a back shelf stood a small shrine, lovingly assembled from curling trophies, vintage license plates, and a grainy signed photo of a cowboy-hatted man mid-boot-stomp. Above it, someone had welded a tin sign that read: STOMPIN’ FOREVER.

  JIM sat in the middle of it all, his back to them, humming slightly off-key through his voicebox. Before him lay an open cardboard crate labelled in stencil: STOMPIN’ TOM: Volumes 1–43. Rows of battered cassettes and 8-tracks gleamed under the flicker of a fluorescent light.

  Sandy stepped inside and crossed her arms. "JIM."

  “If you’re here about the '72 Snowmobile Rally Ballads, I got bad news and worse news: it’s toast, and it took my best 8-track cleaner with it. Total tragedy, eh?”

  "I'm here to ask if you remember what danceable music means."

  He finally swivelled his upper body, servo joints whining with theatrical slowness.“Sure I do. Means you move your soul, not just your feet—spiritually, emotionally, and with full civic pride, eh?” JIM tapped the cardboard box lovingly. “I got it covered.”

  "Wrong answer." She gestured toward the box. "That’s forty-three volumes of boot stomps, JIM. No teenager dances to Stompin’ Tom."

  "Exactly! I’m bringing them culture."

  "You’re bringing confusion."

  He tapped a cassette like a sacred relic.“Track five’s got a polka beat, Sandy. That’s basically a mosh pit in rural Manitoba.”

  "JIM."

  She pointed sharply to his legs. “Hand those over. Now.”

  He looked down with an exaggerated whirr.“You mean these beauties? My favourite leg modules? C’mon, Sandy, let’s not make this personal.”

  "You don’t get these back until I hear your revised musical lineup. One that wasn’t recorded in a barn."

  “But-” JIM said, tapping the box again.

  Sandy interupted. "Try again. Dancable. No Stompin’ Tom."

  She unplugged the quick-release joint clamps and his legs popped of with a sharp clank onto the floor. Squire picked them up, put them into the Stompin’ Tom box and carried it out the door.

  JIM stared after her, utterly unbothered. “Fine. But this betrayal’s goin’ in the logbook.”

  He pulled himself into the stroller, adjusted the handlebar for dramatic effect, and began to roll forward with grim dignity. The wheels squeaked like a tragic accordion.

  Meanwhile…

  Back in the upper corridor, Sandy and Squire rounded a corner near the payphones and nearly bumped into Soash.

  He was leaning against the wall with the kind of posture that suggested there should be jazz music playing faintly in the distance. The phone cord dangled around one arm. He winked as he spoke.

  “Gloria, darling. You know I can’t do another restraining order—Winnipeg was enough. Listen—tonight. The MONARCH sock hop. Just like old times, only with less espionage and more sequins. You bring the sass, I’ll bring the swivel.”

  A pause.

  Then, into the receiver: “Drop dead? Again? Hello? …Hello?”

  He hung up and turned smoothly—then froze when he saw Sandy and Squire watching him with the same deeply alarmed expression.

  “‘Drop dead,’ as we all know, is code for ‘tempt me harder.’ Gloria, that rascal. Probably playing coy because she’s still married to that Dutch dentist.”

  Sandy folded her arms. “You’re supposed to be helping chaperone the dance. Not speed-dialing old flames.”

  “Flames, embers, glimmers of romantic combustion—it’s all in the same fireplace, Agent Beeches. Besides, they’re teenagers. What’s there to chaperone? ‘Stop picking at that or it’ll never heal,’ ‘Your shoelaces are untied,’ ‘Tuck in your shirt.’ Real high-level stuff.”

  He pulled a crumpled napkin from his jacket pocket and squinted at it.

  “Hm. Next up—Gladys. Or was it Marnie? One of them had a hairlip. The other raised goats.”

  Squire leaned in. “Maybe both?”

  “Excellent point, Squire. A well-rounded lady.”

  Sandy was already walking away. “Come on. Let’s check on Redd and see how his speech is going—before he decides to open with a sonnet.”

  Squire snapped a salute. “On it, Agent Beeches. Operation Speech Patrol engaged.”

  Behind them, Soash flipped open a glitter-edged notepad labeled: DATE PROSPECTIVES: PLAN B, and dialed again.

  Meanwhile…

  They found Redd Ensign standing alone at centre ice in the MONARCH hockey rink, spotlighted by the one working arena light and flanked on either side by two plastic pylons. His arms were raised to the rafters. His voice boomed off the boards like a war hero delivering a eulogy for a broken Zamboni.

  “—To be in British Columbia, or not to be in British Columbia—what a silly question! For what province boasts nobler weather than Manitoba? All of them, friends. And yet, none with such valiant precipitation patterns as ours!”

  He turned as Sandy and Squire entered, arms still aloft.

  “Ah, excellent! Reinforcements! I was just perfecting the opening ceremony. Would you like to hear my eighth draft? Or the abridged version — only three intermissions!”

  Sandy blinked. “You’re doing Hamlet?”

  “Modified for patriotism,” Redd explained proudly, holding up a clipboard absolutely plastered with sticky notes and red pen. “It’s part of the cultural segment. Followed by an anthem, then a brief address on the history of provincial egg rationing in wartime.”

  Squire looked concerned. “This is still for the dance, right?”

  “Indeed! History dances with us, young man. Without proper civic context, how would our junior agents appreciate the foxtrot of freedom or the cha-cha of civic responsibility?”

  Sandy sighed. “Redd, how long is this speech?”

  “Currently?” He shuffled the pages dramatically. “Four hours and twelve minutes. But I can pare it down if needed. Remove the jazz interlude. Or perhaps one of the accordion tributes.”

  “No. Cut it to fifteen minutes. Max. With actual dancing allowed after.”

  Redd looked stricken. “But the statistical analysis on national sock wear! I’ve already built the charts!”

  “Fifteen,” Sandy said firmly.

  Redd clutched his clipboard like a wounded soldier. “Understood. Though the youth of today may never know the triumph of reinforced heel technology.”

  Sandy turned on her heel. “Come on, Squire. Let’s check on Big Joe. Maybe his next disaster smells less like glitter glue.”

  As they left, Redd called after them, already scribbling notes. “Would it help if I opened with a sonnet instead? A villanelle, perhaps? Ode to a Gymnasium in D-Minor?”

  Meanwhile....

  Sandy stood at the door with her clipboard held like a shield. Behind her, Squire tried to brush a plastic fern frond out of his hair for the third time.

  “Well,” she muttered, ticking another box with grim resolve, “we’ve got one pile of fake jungle ruins, one patriotic soliloquy, one musical protest, and one missing chaperone currently phoning every woman who ever filed a complaint.”

  “I call that progress,” Squire offered.

  “You would.”

  She sighed. The posters were still up. The flyers were still out. The junior agents were still excited. But Sandy Beeches knew the truth in her bones—the kind of truth you could only learn at a sock hop: there were too many variables, too much fringe, too many accordion interludes.

  “Please. Just one school function without federal incident.”

  Somewhere down the hallway, a glitter cannon clicked ominously into place.