City Spies

“This is what justice feels like. This is what we’re all about.”

When Sydney helps Brooklyn break into her old foster home to retrieve her shoebox, Brooklyn is overwhelmed by the way Sydney and Mother are willing to help her and sacrifice their safety even though they have just met. Sydney expresses the group’s values of striving for Justice, and Brooklyn knows she is where she belongs.

“The Rwandan refugee who lived alone in an abandoned factory was now part of a family in which he played the role of protective older brother. He’d flourished in his new environment.”

Paris has transformed during his time with the spy team. After being adopted by Mother, the other children joined one by one, and Paris took each on as a younger sibling. He acts as a guide and protector for everyone on the team, and regularly reinforces their self-esteem and courage. The environment that Mother provides the children is one which allows them to grow into their full potential as people and as spies, and to Prevail Through Their Own Experiences of Adversity.

“Bad guys never wait, so good guys can’t be late.”

Mother creates adages that he calls “Motherisms”. These adages serve as motivators and practical advice for the children as they learn and grow into full-fledged spies. This particular adage describes one of the group’s values as spies: They must always stay one step ahead of the people they are trying to pursue.

“Just beyond the airfield was a sprawling three-story stone house overlooking the sea. It had a turret on one side, and Sara wondered if it might technically be a castle.”

Ponti incorporates European History within the story to achieve a sense of realism, create relatability between the reader and the novel’s characters, and add a sense of magic and mystique to the story. The juxtaposition of technology and architecture from antiquity serves as a source of imagery and gives the story a lucid tone.

“The globe no longer held water, and its plastic shell had been broken and pieced back together with tape now yellowed with age. It had been a present from her abuela, who passed away when Sara was seven, and it was Sara’s most prized possession.”

The snow globe that Brooklyn carries with her throughout her life is a symbol of the hope of finding a Family. It was gifted to her by the last surviving member of her biological family, her abuela, and is something that she has since placed in the window of every foster home, hoping to guide her family back to her. In the novel’s conclusion, Brooklyn gifts the snow globe to Mother, and in doing so gives him the gift of hope that he will find his children.

“Dinner was doomed before the roast beef even made it out of the oven.”

Ponti draws on literary devices such as alliteration to make the story more readable and enjoyable. It adds an extra level of character to the narrative and in this case a dose of humor as well. Ironically, the dinner is not really doomed, and Ponti’s exaggerated opening line of Chapter 10 acts as a small form of trickery against the reader as they continue to wonder how the dinner will be doomed.

“I did all this to show you that I can do all this. I can learn fast. I can be a valuable part of the team.”

Brooklyn outsmarts the other children when she discovers them spying on her upon her arrival in Edinburgh. She photographs each of them and pretends to steal a jewelry box to expose them to Mother. Her scheme has good intentions, as she only wants to prove her worth and her natural abilities as a spy. She is successful in doing so, although it causes a rift with Rio that takes time to heal.

“Justice doesn’t require a membership. Just a sense of right and wrong.”

When Mother finds Sydney, she is attending a boarding school with a racist history. In an act of defiance and social justice, Sydney blows up the statue of the school’s founder while Mother is there searching for his daughter. Mother is instantly drawn to Sydney’s passion for Justice and its relationship to compassion despite the fact that it is not her who is suffering directly.

“That’s Father Benito Viñes, a Spanish-born priest who moved to Cuba in 1870. He was the first person to successfully predict the paths of tropical storms, which saved countless lives. He was known throughout the Caribbean as Father Hurricane.”

The FARM and the people who live and work there hold a special place for Benito Viñes, and even named their supercomputer after him. Throughout the novel, his work and influence is continuously brought up as a point of inspiration. Viñes’s work is used as an example of environmental advocacy, the power of scientific inquiry, and the impact of persistence on success.

“How do you hack a hacker? You don’t. You let them hack themselves.”

Brooklyn becomes increasingly clever and deceptive in her hacking abilities, largely thanks to the training she received from the other children. She uses Rio’s principles of deception to make Charlotte believe that she caused the errors on her computer herself, which works long enough to keep Charlotte off their trail as they investigate Sinclair. Brooklyn also emulates Mother by inventing her own adage in relation to her hacking skills.

“Kat is absolutely amazing. And if the cost of that is a little social awkwardness, then the price is well worth it.”

The group that makes up the City Spies is one that promotes Diversity and acceptance of differences. Kat is a unique personality with quirks that Brooklyn finds hard to understand at first. With the help of Sydney’s patience and ability to explain matters clearly, Brooklyn learns to understand that Kat is an exceptional human being. By the novel’s conclusion, Kat and Brooklyn are bonded as friends.

“I mean, why go to all the trouble to scrub and hide that in a trash can unless there is something suspicious about it.”

Brooklyn is adept at using deductive reasoning to figure out connections and observe patterns. This is in part a natural skill and in part something she learns from her lessons with Kat. Brooklyn deduces that Charlotte creates a fake company using her own name as an anagram, and pushes Mother for the truth about Charlotte and why she left the team.

“Despite the fact that he’d spent years planning for this very day, there was no urgency as he spread butter and jam on a fresh baguette he’d purchased from the corner bakery.”

Ponti instills sinister foreshadowing when he breaks the narrative and takes the reader to a scene of the novel’s villain sitting in his French apartment. He is described for his human traits, such as his love of art, his deceased sister, and his breakfast. This creates a disturbing calm that the reader intuitively knows is just the calm before the storm.

“It’s a work of art that is also an exhibition of science.”

When the group goes to see the Eiffel Tower after a day of work, Monty asks Brooklyn to reflect for a moment. She inquires about Brooklyn’s opinion on the nature of art and science, and whether the Eiffel Tower qualifies as one or the other. Brooklyn ponders for a moment before answering that it can be both; art and science are not exclusive things but can work together to create masterpieces like the Eiffel Tower.

“You cannot achieve what you cannot believe.”

One of Mother’s most important adages is one which reminds the children to believe in themselves, their abilities, and their potential to do more than they thought they were capable of. Brooklyn reminds herself of this Motherism when she decides that she is going to climb the wall despite Mother’s recommendation not to do so. She resolves to trust herself and have confidence in her ability to succeed, and later on, she climbs the wall to successfully stop The Professor from unleashing the virus.

“That was the problem with being a hacker; you automatically assumed the worst in others.”

Brooklyn loves computers and being a hacker but recognizes that it comes with its challenges. Brooklyn has always struggled to trust others, and being a hacker only worsens that struggle as she constantly suspects that others are doing to her what she’s doing to them. Fortunately, Brooklyn finds trust and stability in her family of the City Spies.

“Each one had a label with a red dot. The question was, how had they ended up in the possession of Stavros Sinclair?”

Ponti ends many chapters on a cliffhanger. This technique engages the reader and keeps their thoughts in motion as they try to guess what happens next and what each clue suggests. As the characters unravel the mystery of Sinclair Scientifica, the reader does so along with them.

“Unlike the living, the dead can’t hurt you. […] I felt safest when I was underground.”

Paris is a Rwandan refugee and likely a victim of many traumatic experiences, including being surrounded by death. For him, the catacombs serve as a place of comfort because at least those who are dead can do nothing to harm him or those he loves. Paris’s knowledge of the underground catacombs proves pivotal in the mission.

“Like all good spies, Kat tried to blend into the background.”

One of the key qualities of a spy is the ability to blend in, avoid being seen, and remain discreet while undertaking missions. Finding One’s Inner Spy is something that each of the children are on their way to discovering, and here Kat demonstrates how she has learned to be unseen in plain sight.

“Rio scanned their faces, amazed that they’d trust something so important to him.”

Rio struggles with his confidence and his role as a member of the team. He feels as though he is not trusted with the same level of responsibility due to being the youngest member and is deeply wounded when Brooklyn uncovers his plan to spy on her. When Rio is given the chance to show his true leadership skills to retrieve the key from the Olympus worker, he jumps at the opportunity. The moment illustrates how Finding One’s Inner Spy also helps the characters grow and develop as people.

“There was in fact one person who was better. Brooklyn sat across the room and smiled as they tried to solve the problems that she was secretly sending their way.”

Brooklyn and Charlotte become rivals when Brooklyn discovers that she is a replacement for another hacker who used her skills to steal money from various banks. Brooklyn dislikes and does not respect Charlotte, and Charlotte returns those feelings. In Brooklyn’s antagonistic relationship with Charlotte, it becomes clear that Brooklyn revels in Charlotte’s misfortune because it proves to her that she is the one who belongs with the spies.

“You are much braver than you realize.”

As Brooklyn ascends the wall to the ventilation room, she remembers something that Paris told her about her own courage. While the group was in the catacombs, Brooklyn found herself paralyzed with fear at the sight of the walls of bones. Paris helped her find her courage, and she draws on that moment to find her courage once again. Part of Finding One’s Inner Spy is overcoming the fears that hold a person back.

“Well… we all use our hometowns as our names […] And we’re spies. So… how about… the City Spies.”

In the novel’s resolution, Brooklyn awakes at the British Embassy surrounded by her family of spies. When she hears that their formal name is Project Neverland, she finds that horrid and insists upon changing it. In an act of true acceptance of Brooklyn, the others decide that she should be the one to name the group. Brooklyn decides upon City Spies, after their diverse origins across the globe.