One by one the teaches in the foyer began to break away and start down the halls or up the stairs.
"Cam?" Anna asked, her voice higher.
"Sorry, Anna," I muttered. "I've . . . got to go."
Professor Buckingham was already at the top of the Grand Staircase, walking toward the Hall of History, when I cried, "Professor? Professor Buckingham!"
"Yes, Cameron?" She didn't snap the words, but they sounded weary. She seemed tired as she stood beside the sword that had belonged to Ioseph Cavan. "Is there something I can help you with?"
I wanted to know why my mother's door was closed to everyone, even me. I wanted to ask how it could all be true about Mr. Solomon - how it could be true at all. But there was only one thing that I knew it was okay to ask.
"It's spring," I said.
"It is?" Professor Buckingham glanced out a window streaked with freezing rain.
"I mean, it's the spring semester. You said last fall that you might be able to teach me about the Circle of Cavan in the spring. And . . . it's spring."
All around us, girls were filing into classrooms, rushing out the front doors to P&E. the halls were growing quiet. School was back in session - life was back to normal. But behind Patricia Buckingham, my mother's office door stayed closed.
"Junior year curriculum is very challenging, Cameron dear," she said.
"I know that's why I -"
"You need to focus and learn as much as you can."
"I know, but the Circle is -"
"Cameron, the lessons of this school are essential for fighting the evils of the world - no matter what that evil calls itself. You have to learn those lessons," she snapped, and I knew it wasn't advice; it was an order. And she was right. My classes weren't less important now. Not by a long shot.
"And even if that were not the case, I'm afraid there are a number of . . . pressing matters that require my attention for the time being."
And then it hit me: for the first time that I could remember, our oldest faculty member looked . . . old.
Her hands were dry. Her eyes were puffy. And I could have sworn I heard her voice crack as she said, "Now, if I'm not mistaken, you're about to be late for Covert Operations. You don't want to keep our newest teacher waiting."
Chapter Thirteen
Running through the halls toward the elevator to Sublevel Two, I tried to brace myself for what I had to do.
1. Learn what (if anything) Agent Townsend knew about it my mother, Mr. Solomon, and the Circle of Cavan.
2. Discern whether Agent Townsend would lean toward practical or theoretical examinations and how to best master each. (Because being the target of an international terrorist organization is no excuse for letting your GPA slide.) When I reached the small hallway beneath the Grand Staircase and the large mirror that was supposed slide aside and show me the way to the Covert Operations classrooms, I pressed my hand against it waited for the eyes of the painting behind me to flash green.
But the glass beneath my palm stayed cool, and nothing happened.
It was first lecture with Agent Townsend, and I was already late. I actually knocked on the mirror as if there were someone back there, waiting to let me in.
Still nothing.
I was turning, starting for the other elevators, when I saw it: a small, neatly typed piece of paper taped to the wall.
ATTENTION STUDENTS: UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, THE SUBLEVELS WILL BE
CLOSED. ALL COVERY OPERATIONS COURSES WILL TAKE PLACE IN ROOM
132.
I didn't know what was happening. All I knew for certain was that I was late, so I turned only heel and ran through the empty hall, past the library and the student - all the way to the classroom that had been nothing but a big storage closet at the end of last semester. I almost ran right past it, but at the last second I grabbed that door frame and skidded to a stop.
"Oh, there you are."
Okay, I don't know about regular schools, but let's just say that at the world's premiere spy school, tardiness isn't exactly typical. And when it does happen, it's almost always met with questions like "Was there explosion in the chemistry lab?" or "Do you have another concussion?" It is most certainly never met with "Oh, there you are."
But those were the words Agent Townsend chose, and for someone who had questioned me in top secret facility just hours after one of the world's most wanted men had pseudo kidnapped me, he certainly didn't seem concerned with where I'd been.
"I'm sorry, I -"
"Just . . . sit," he said with barely a glance in our direction.
I took the desk next to Bex, and without looking at the clock, I knew I was three and a half minutes late. Three and a half minutes in which my classmates had been sitting in silence waiting. And as I joined them, I realized our teacher wasn't waiting for me.
Four minutes.
Five minutes.
Ten minutes, we waited. The only noise was the sound of Agent Townsend turning the pages of his newspaper.
It was a test, I told myself. He wanted to see if we were memorizing the front page of the paper he held; he was gauging how still we could be, how silently we could sit. Great operatives are naturally patient, I thought. He wanted to see if we could wait.
Little did he know, Tina Walters doesn't wait for anyone. (Or, well, she does, but evidently she draws the line at ten minutes.)
"Mr. Townsend?"
Our teacher didn't glance up, didn't say a single word.
"Sir," Tina went on, "is there something we could do to help you get started with your lecture?" She sounded very much like Madame Dabney, but Mr. Townsend wasn't impressed.