And then I went and took a shower.
And then I ate a cinnamon roll.
And I didn't hear a thing Mr. Smith said about ancient Rome and the catacombs, which if you know where to look, still provide pretty awesome access to the city.
All day long, it seemed like people kept saying exactly what I was thinking.
"Well, I guess she's probably there by now," Tina said after breakfast.
"Macey is going to get to see so many cool protection tactics," Eva remarked on our way to COW.
"She's with Abby," Liz said on our way down the Grand Staircase.
"And Abby rocks," Bex reminded me just as we parted ways with Liz and headed to the elevator for Sublevel Two.
From a purely intellectual standpoint I knew Macey was as well protected as she could possibly be, but Mr. Solomon had been teaching us for a year that being a spy isn't always about intellect—it's about instincts. And right then my instincts were telling me that it was going to be a very long day.
And that was before Mr. Solomon met us at the entrance to Sublevel Two with a stack of Winters-McHenry T-shirts and said, "Let's go."
I'd been in a helicopter with Mr. Solomon twice before. The first time I'd been blindfolded. The second, I'd just found out that there was another top secret spy school… for boys! But that day, boys and blindfolds seemed easy in comparison.
"Security threats come in how many forms, Ms. Alvarez?" Mr. Solomon asked.
"Five," Eva said, even though, technically, we hadn't covered that chapter yet.
"And who can tell me what they are?" our teacher went
on.
"Long range, short range, suicide, static …" Bex rattled, not to show off, but more like she had to say them—like they'd been on her mind for too long and she had to set them free.
"That's four," Mr. Solomon told us.
The blades of the chopper were spinning; the ground beneath us was roaring by—trees and hills, rivers and highways, towns full of normal schools and normal kids and people who would never ever know the answer to our teacher's questions.
"Internal," I said so softly that with the spinning blades and gushing winds I wondered for a second if anyone heard.
But we're Gallagher Girls. We hear everything.
"That's right," Mr. Solomon told us. "And that's the big one."
I told myself that he wasn't talking about Macey—that he didn't mean that what had happened in Boston had been orchestrated by someone inside, someone close. But rather he was speaking in general terms, reminding us all of what we knew too well, that traitors are the most dangerous people of all.
"You're going to see a lot of things today, ladies. Seasoned operatives working in the field with one primary objective. It's not about intel, and it's not about ops. It's about protection today, pure and simple."
In my mind I was already running through the scenarios that only a man like Joe Solomon could come up with. I was imagining what tests could possibly be waiting on the ground.
Bex must have been thinking along those same lines, because she asked, "What's our mission?"
"It's a hard one," Mr. Solomon warned, then smiled. "Just watch. Just listen. Just learn."
Gallagher Girls are asked to do hard things. All the time. But until that day I never really knew that the hardest mission of all is to do nothing.
After all, it's one thing to take a group of highly trained teenage future spies and drop them off in a crowd of thousands and tell them to find the potential security threat. It's quite another to take those same girls, equip them with comms units tuned to the same frequency as the Secret Service (not that the Secret Service actually knew or anything), and tell them to sit back and enjoy the show.
I don't even like letting someone else put the syrup on my waffles (I have a system), so letting other people be in charge of Macey's safety…well…let's just say it was a little out of my comfort zone.
And if that wasn't bad enough, the jeans that someone had packed for me to change into were a little on the snug side. And I don't know about everyone else, but Bex Baxter is the only girl I know who can enter and exit a helicopter without having it do really unfortunate things to her hair.
Most of all, I wanted to pretend that I still believed I lived in a world where hair and jeans really mattered. But I didn't. So I just thought about my mission and stared out into the crowd.
And then I disappeared.
The Essentials of Being a Chameleon By Cameron Ann Morgan
1. It's very important, at all times, to look like you belong.
2. When #I is difficult, try pointing to imaginary people and walking purposefully toward no one.
3. Stillness. Stillness is key (except when you're doing #2) because people see motion more easily than they see things. So when in doubt, freeze.
4. It totally helps if you aren't all that special looking (in either really good or really bad ways).
5. Acquaint yourself with your surroundings ASAP.
6. Dress in a way that isn't flashy, fashionable, ugly, or obscene.
7. Hiding is for amateurs.
"This is…wow," Bex said ten minutes after we'd arrived at the park … or what I think was supposed to be a park.
A long grassy promenade covered at least two city blocks. Beautiful historic buildings lined the space, but at the far end, someone had erected a stage. Bleachers circled behind it, facing the lawn, and from where Bex and I stood it seemed like half of Ohio had come out to see Macey's triumphant return.
Over the loudspeakers I heard a local politician trying to make the people on the bleachers behind him chant "Winters" while the people on the grass in front of the stage were told to yell "McHenry."