Courtney was borrowing earrings; Anna was trying on jackets; and I wasn't sure if I would ever feel safe going into hostile territory with any of them ever again.
"You know, Eva, what blends in Milan might stick out in Roseville," I tried, but she didn't care.
"You know, guys, hiding in plain sight requires looking plain!" I said, but Kim Lee was wriggling out of a halter top and nearly knocked my head off with her flailing arms.
"You know, I really don't think he's taking us to the prom!" I shouted, and Anna put Macey's gorgeous formal gown back into the closet.
I'm the chameleon! I wanted to cry. I'm the CoveOps legacy! I'd been preparing for this night my entire life—doing drills with my dad, asking my mom to tell me stories, becoming the girl nobody sees. But now I was drifting deeper and deeper into the shadows until I was standing in the middle of my own room, watching my closest friends swarm around our gorgeous new guest, and I was completely invisible.
"Lose the earrings," Macey said, pointing to Eva. "Tuck in the shirt," she told Anna, then turned to Courtney Bauer and said, "What died in your hair?" (Courtney does have a tendency to over-gel sometimes.)
Bex was sitting with Liz on her bed, and they both looked as amazed as I felt.
"Hey!" I cried again, to no avail, so I called upon my superspy heritage, and seconds later I was whistling loudly enough to make the cows come home (literally—that's why Grandpa Morgan taught me how to do it).
My classmates finally turned away from Macey, and I said, "It's time."
A silence had fallen over the room, but then a longer, deeper quiet stretched out.
We were through playing dress-up, and everyone knew it.
"Hello, ladies."
The words were right, but the voice coming to us through the shadows was wrong in so many ways that I can't possibly describe it here. Really, it would be cruel to all the trees who would have to give their lives for me to explain what it was like to be expecting Joe Solomon and get Mr. Mosckowitz.
"Don't you all look very…" He was staring, mouth gaping, as if he'd never seen push-up bras or eyeliner before. "…nice," he finally said, then slapped his hands together, I guess to stop the nervous shaking. But he still couldn't steady his voice as he said, "Well, very big night. Very big. For…" He hesitated. "…all of us."
Mr. Mosckowitz pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and stared beyond the lighted driveway of the mansion. Even I didn't know exactly what lay in that dark abyss. Sure, there are woods and jogging trails and a lacrosse field that is handy during Code Reds (and doubles as a great underground storage facility for the helicopters), but everyone knows the Gallagher Woods are a minefield—maybe literally—and I started shaking in my sensible shoes.
What if there are snipers? Or attack dogs … or … but before I could finish that thought, I heard crunching gravel and squealing tires, and turned around to see an Overnight Express truck roaring toward us. Gee, what's the package emergency? I wondered. But when the driver's-side door flew open and Mr. Solomon jumped out and yelled, "Get in!" I realized we were the package.
Instantly, my mind flashed back to one of Liz's note cards. COVERT OPERATION RULE #1: DON'T HESITATE. Mr. Mosckowitz opened the cargo doors and I climbed inside, imagining that the truck was like our teachers—it had led a fascinating and dangerous life before it retired and came to us. But I didn't see a wall of monitors and headsets—none of the stuff the trucks have in movies—only crates and crates of packages. That's when the truck became even cooler, because I'm pretty sure Mr. Solomon had stolen it!
"First rule," he warned as we settled inside, "don't touch any of the packages."
Then Mr. Solomon crawled in behind us, leaving Mr. Mosckowitz outside looking up at him like a water boy who'd just been asked to hold the star quarterback's helmet.
"Harvey?" Mr. Solomon said impatiently but still soft enough that he sounded like a pretty nice guy, "clock's ticking." He tossed Mr. Moskowitz the keys.
"Oh!" This seemed to wake him up. "Yep. Sure thing. I'll see you"—he pointed toward all of us—"out there."
"No, you won't, Harvey," Mr. Solomon said. "That's the idea."
Call me crazy, but this wasn't how I'd always pictured the first time I'd be in the dark with a guy who looks like Joe Solomon. (And I'm pretty sure I speak for the entire sophomore class on that one.)
"Operatives in deep cover will be given false histories," he fired at us through the dark. "These histories, including names, dates of birth, and favorite kindergarten teachers, and are called …"
"Legends!" Liz blurted. A test is a test, in Liz's mind, and as long as there was a Q&A, she could handle this mission business.
"Very good, Ms. Sutton," he said, and even in the dark I knew Liz was a number two lead pencil away from heaven. "For this mission, ladies, you will be posing as normal teenage girls. Think you can handle that?"
I'm not sure, but I think that might have been Joe Solomon's idea of a joke—but it was soooo not funny because, if there's one thing we're not, it's normal. But he obviously didn't care about any of that, because he just plowed on. "When conducting manual surveillance on a subject in a three-man rotation, the person with visual contact is the …"