"Really?" another girl said. "That's cool. Who's your senator?"
And then Bex and I each said the first name that popped into our heads: "McHenry."
We looked at each other and shared a very subtle laugh as the escalator carried us deeper and deeper beneath the city.
One of the girls, Kaitlin with a K, whispered to another girl, Caitlin with a C, "Are they back there?"
C peered back up the escalator, then grinned. "They are so following us!"
Bex and I might have exuded a panicked vibe about then, because K leaned in to explain, "These two hot guys have totally been checking us out."
"Oh," Bex said, as she and I used this as an excuse to check behind us. Sure enough, red-baseball-cap guy was back there (by now he was dressed like a navy lieutenant). And ten feet in front of him we saw the boys from the bench.
The C(K)aitlins started to laugh. It was hilarious. It was fun. Cute boys were on their tail, and maybe they thought they were being covert or cool, but all that really mattered was that once they got home they'd have a story they could tell. And it wouldn't be classified.
As the escalator entered the cavernous room, a train was already at the station. "Let's run and get it!" Bex screamed.
And everyone was off, racing to the bottom of the escalator, then dashing to the end of the train. The girls piled inside as the doors closed, and red-baseball-cap-slash-navy-officer guy jumped forward, barely making it into the next to last car as the train pulled out of the station, and away from where Bex and I stood underneath the escalator, waiting for our new friends and old shadow to disappear.
Bex and I watched the man in the train press himself against the glass as the train sped into the tunnel.
We were free.
We were clear.
We thought.
Chapter Nine
Overconfidence is a spy's worst enemy, so to be on the safe side, Bex and I decided to split up when we left the Metro station. We had exactly twenty minutes to make it to the Museum of American History and our rendezvous with Mr. Solomon. Twenty more minutes to make sure we really were clear.
I slipped into the shadows of the Metro station and watched Bex ascend the escalator, then waited long enough to be certain no one followed her. Then I headed to the elevator, but as I reached for the button, another hand beat me to it.
"Hey," one of the boys from the park bench said. He did that half head nod thing that all boys seem to do … or at least the boys I know. Which mainly means Josh.
"Hi," I replied, pushing the button again, hoping to make the elevator come faster, because the last time a random boy had said hi to me, things had ended badly—like Mr.-Solomon-practically-being-run-over-by-a-forklift badly. And needless to say, that's not the kind of thing that looks good on a girl's permanent record.
When the elevator doors slid open, I was kind of, sort of hoping he wouldn't step inside, but of course he did; and since the Metro station was forever and a day underground, the elevator ride was forever and a day long. The boy rested against the railing. He was slightly shorter and broader through the shoulders, but in the blurry reflection of the elevator doors, he almost looked like Josh.
"So," the boy said, pointing to the crest on my coat. "The Guggenheim Academy—"
"Gallagher Academy," I corrected.
"I've never heard of it."
Which was kind of the point, but I didn't say so. "Well, it's my school."
The elevator seemed to move slower and slower as the clock in my head ticked louder and louder, and I thought about how Mr. Solomon might make us walk back to Roseville if no one achieved our mission objectives.
"You in a hurry or something?" the boy asked.
"Actually, I'm supposed to meet my teacher at the ruby slipper exhibit. I've only got twenty minutes, and if I'm late, he'll kill me." (Not a lie, but maybe an exaggeration—I hoped.)
"How do you know?"
"Because he said, 'Meet me at the ruby slipper exhibit.'"
"No." The boy was smiling, shaking his head. "How do you know you only have twenty minutes? You're not wearing a watch."
"My friend just told me." The lie was smooth and easy, and I was a little bit proud of it, happy that I didn't have to think about how, in forty-five seconds, this boy had noticed something Josh hadn't seen in four months.
"You fidget a lot," he said.
Make that two things Josh hadn't seen.
"I'm sorry," I said, but I wasn't. "I have low blood sugar." Lie number three. "I need to eat something." Which wasn't really a lie, since…well… I was hungry.
And then stranger-boy totally knocked me for a loop, because he handed me a bag of M&M'S. "Here. I ate most of them already."
"Oh…um …" What was that I'd said about strangers with candy? "That's okay. Thanks, though."
He shoved the candy back in his pocket. "Oh," the boy said. "Okay."
We finally reached the surface, and the doors slid open onto the Mall, where dusk had somehow fallen in the last ten minutes.
"Thanks again for the candy." I darted outside, knowing that to be safe I couldn't take the most direct way to the museum—not yet. I had to—
Wait.
I was being followed!
But not in any kind of covert sense!
"Where are you going?" I said, spinning on the boy behind me.