"I thought we were going to meet your teacher in the wonderful world of Oz."
"We!"
"Sure. I'm going with you."
"No you're not," I snapped, because A) The aforementioned forklift thing, and B) I'm pretty sure bringing a boy to a clandestine rendezvous isn't in the CIA handbook.
"Look," the boy said confidently. "It's dark. You're by yourself. And this is D.C." Oh my gosh. It's like he had Grandma Morgan on speed-dial or something. "And you've only got"—he pondered it—"fifteen minutes to meet your teacher."
He was wrong by ninety seconds, but I didn't say so. All I knew was that I couldn't shake him—not without creating a lot more drama than letting him tag along was going to cause, so I just quickened my pace and said, "Fine."
As we walked against the cold wind, I told myself that this was good; this was fine. Nobody looking for a Gallagher Girl would expect me to be with a boy. He was cover. He was useful.
"You can really walk fast," he said, but I didn't say anything back. "So, do you have a name?" he asked, as if that were just the most innocent question ever. As if that isn't how broken hearts and broken covers always start.
"Sure. Lots of them."
That was probably the most truthful thing I'd told him yet, but the boy just smiled at me as if I were funny and flirty and cute. Let me tell you, I was none of those things, especially after not sleeping or eating, wearing a blindfold for an hour, then walking up and down the frozen Mall all day!
My nose was running. My feet were killing me. All I really wanted to do was get to Dorothy's slippers, click my heels together, and go home. But instead I had to put up with a boy who assumed I needed protecting. A boy with whom I could never "be myself." A boy who was staring at me as if he knew a secret—and worse—as if the secret was about me.
"Do you have a boyfriend?" he asked.
At this point I should point out that I was pretty sure the boy was flirting with me! Or at least I thought he was flirting with me, but without running it by Macey (and maybe plugging a sample into the voice-stress analyzer that Liz had developed for this very purpose), there was no way I could be sure. Last semester I'd thought I was learning how to interpret boy-related things, but all I'd really learned was that Gallagher Girls shouldn't flirt with normal boys—not because we won't like them. But because we might like them too much. And that would be the worst thing of all.
"Look, thanks for the chivalry and all, but it really isn't necessary," I muttered what may have been the understatement of the century, since I'm pretty sure I could have killed him with my backpack. "It's just up here." I pointed to the Museum of American History, which stood gleaming twenty yards away. "And there's a cop over there."
"What?" the boy said, glancing at the D.C. police officer that stood at the corner of the street, "you think that guy can do a better job protecting you than I can?"
Actually, I thought Liz could have done a better job "protecting" me than he could, but instead I said, "No, I think if you don't leave me alone, I can scream and that cop will arrest you."
Somehow the boy seemed to know it was a joke…mostly. He stepped away and smiled. And for a moment I felt myself smile, too.
"Hey," I called to him, because, despite how annoying he was right then, a pang of guilt shot through my stomach. After all, he had been all knight-in-shining-armory. It wasn't his fault I'm not the kind of girl who needs saving. "Thanks anyway."
He nodded. If it had been another day or I'd been another girl, a hundred other things might have happened. But I had begun the semester with a promise to be myself, and the real me was still a girl on a mission.
I darted for the doors and pushed my way inside, then slipped into a narrow hallway behind the help desk. I watched the entrance, waiting ninety seconds to be sure that I was clear.
"Bex." I tried my comms unit. "Courtney…Mick…Kim …" I told myself there was no way they'd all been made. They were probably downstairs in the ice-cream parlor; or maybe waiting in the van.
I grabbed a visitors' brochure from a stack on the help desk, slipped into a narrow stairwell, and began the three-story climb to the slippers, not really caring that I wouldn't get to see the sights. (After all, the "Julia Child's Kitchen" exhibit didn't even illustrate how she used to send coded messages in her recipes.)
I could feel the ticking clock, almost see the look on Mr. Solomon's face and hear him say well done. I was so close; I scanned the map and took the stairs two at a time until I emerged at the far end of the floor, where the ruby slippers were displayed.
There were no signs of Mr. Solomon or my classmates; not another soul in the great oval room. I felt the clock in my head chime five o'clock. I stepped toward a case, which looked almost exactly like the one that stood in the center of the Hall of History. But instead of the sword that Gillian Gallagher had used to kill the first guy who'd tried to assassinate President Lincoln, this case held a different kind of national treasure.
The ruby slippers were so small, so delicate, that a part of me wanted to marvel in the coolness of being that close to something so rare. The rest of me just wanted to know why seven Gallagher Girls had gone radio silent and my teacher was nowhere to be seen! Then I heard Mr. Solomon's voice behind me.