Not everyone felt as dreary as the day looked, though, because when Liz appeared beside me, she cried, "This is great! I can't believe we're going to get to use the wipers!" I guess when you get published in Scientific American at the age of nine, you have a slightly skewed idea of fun.
Our feet splashed down the soggy grass as we cut across the lawn toward where Madame Dabney sat waiting in the car, its headlights already slicing through the gray as the wipers sloshed back and forth.
Fifteen minutes later, Madame Dabney was saying, "Um, Rebecca dear, perhaps you should…" Her voice trailed off, though, as Bex made yet another turn and ended up on the wrong side of the road. One might have expected a spy to lay on the emergency brake and knock Bex unconscious with a well-placed blow to the back of her head, but Madame Dabney merely said, "Yes, a right up here, dear… Oh, my…" and gripped the dashboard as Bex turned across traffic.
"Sorry," Bex yelled, presumably to the truck driver she'd cut off. "Keep forgetting they're over there, don't I?"
The rain had stopped, but the wheels made a wet, slick sound as they threw water up into the undercarriage of the car. The windows were fogged, and I couldn't see where we were going, which was kind of a blessing, because every time I caught a glance at the world around us, I saw another year of my life flash before my eyes.
"Perhaps we should let one of your classmates take a turn?" Madame Dabney finally managed to say as Bex nearly ran into a cement truck, jerked the wheel, jumped the curb, and flew across the corner of a parking lot and onto another street.
But that's when I noticed something strange. Not only was Bex not paying attention to Madame Dabney's anguished cries and the laws which govern the operation of motor vehicles in this country, but—and here's the weird thing—Liz wasn't freaking out!
Liz, who hates spiders and refuses to go barefoot anywhere. Liz, who is a perfectly good swimmer and yet owns six different types of flotation devices. Liz, who once went to bed without flossing and couldn't sleep the entire night, was sitting calmly in the backseat while Bex nearly took out a trash can on the curb.
"Rebecca, that could have been a pedestrian," Madame Dabney warned, but she didn't use her emergency brake, so now I'll always wonder what Madame Dabney saw in France to make her definition of "emergency" so wildly skewed.
That's also when I noticed the street signs.
"Oh my gosh!" I muttered through clenched teeth. Liz was grinning as a sign announcing we were on North Bellis whizzed by.
"Shhh," Liz said as she reached into the pocket of her bag and pulled out the remote control from the stereo she'd destroyed on her first day back.
"What are you doing with—"
"Shhh!" She cut a warning glance toward Madame Dabney. "It will only be a little explosion."
Explosion!
Seconds later a loud bang rocketed through the car. Bex fought for control of the wheel. I smelled smoke and heard the dull, lifeless flapping of rubber banging against the pavement.
"Oh, no, Madame Dabney," Bex exclaimed in her most theatrical voice. "I think we've got a flat!"
"Oh, do we now?" I said as I glared at Liz, who just shrugged. Maybe I should take back my ringing endorsement for having genius friends. Normal friends probably don't go around blowing up Driver's Ed cars—well, not intentionally, anyway.
When the car finally came to a stop—you guessed it— we were in front of Josh's house.
"Oh, girls," Madame Dabney soothed, turning around to make sure that Liz and I were still in our original one-piece bodies. "Is everyone okay?" We nodded. "Well," Madame Dabney said, composing herself, "I suppose we'll just learn how to change a tire."
Of course Bex and Liz had known that was coming. That was the whole point. But Bex still sounded surprised as she shouted, "I'll get the spare!"
In a flash of blinding speed she was out of the car and popping the trunk, while Liz intercepted Madame Dabney.
"Tell me, ma'am, what causes the majority of flat tires, do you think?" As Liz dragged our instructor to inspect the damage at the front of the car, I met Bex around back.
"What are you doing?" I demanded.
But Bex only grinned and reached into the trunk, revealing a bulging trash bag just like the ones that lined the street. "Couldn't leave the curb bare, now, could we?"
And then I noticed it; all up and down Bellis Street, trash cans and plastic sacks covered the curb, waiting like soldiers standing at attention.
"You switched the days," I said, dismayed. "You blew the tire. You …" I trailed off, probably because the next words out of my mouth were either going to be "You care enough to do this?" or "You're destined for a life of crime." It was a toss-up either way.
"Can't give up now, can we?" Bex said, sounding very Bexish. Dramatically, she pulled the jack out of the trunk and cocked an eyebrow. "We owe it to your country."
No, they thought they owed it to me. I'm just really glad she didn't say so.
Within seconds, Bex and I had the spare tire out of the trunk, and Madame Dabney was illustrating the finer points of lug-nut-loosening, but all I could do was look up and down Bellis Street. What if he saw me and recognized the car and the uniforms? How would I ever explain? Would he want me to explain? Would he even see me at all, or would I simply be "some girl"? Would I just be "nobody"?
"School trip to D.C.," Liz whispered in my ear when she saw how tense I was. "He won't be back until after nine."
I felt myself exhale.
"Do you have any questions?" Madame Dabney asked as she eased the jack out from beneath the car and Bex went to put the ruined tire in the trunk. Liz and I shook our heads. "Well, that should do it, then," Madame Dabney said, slapping her hands together, obviously proud of her handiwork.
Yeah, I thought, as I stole one last look at the neighborhood around me and saw Bex flash me a quick thumbs-up. That should do it.
Summary of Surveillance Operatives: Cameron Morgan, Rebecca Baxter, and Elizabeth Sutton
Report of trash taken from the home of Josh Abrams Number of empty cardboard toilet paper rolls: 2 Preferred variety of canned soup: tomato (followed closely by Campbell's Cream of Mushroom).
Number of empty Ben & Jerry's containers: 3—two mint chocolate cookie, one plain vanilla. (Who buys plain vanilla ice cream from Ben & Jerry's, anyway? Is there a greater waste?)
Number of Pottery Barn catalogs: 14 (No items marked or otherwise identified, even though the Windsor Washable Throw Pillows were on sale and appeared to be quite a bargain.)
"Where are we putting the paper towels again?" Bex asked, looking around our odd little circle of piles. "Are they household or food?"
"Depends," Liz said, leaning toward her. "What's on it?"
Bex took a whiff of the used paper towel in her hand and said, "Spaghetti sauce … I think. Or blood?"
"So, either they love pasta or are a family of axe murderers?" I quipped.
Bex turned and dropped the towels onto one of the half dozen piles that were growing around us while the original pile in the center began to slowly shrink. We'd opened all the windows in the suite, and a cool, damp breeze blew in, diluting the smell of garbage (a little) as we sat on a plastic tarp, examining everything from used tissues to empty cans of tuna.
If you ever wonder whether or not someone is too good for you, I'd advise going through their trash. Really. No one looks superior after that. Plus, if Mr. Solomon was right, there were answers here—answers I desperately wanted.
Why did he offer to walk with me to (supposedly) get my mom's jacket, and then turn around and tell his friend I was no one? Did he have a girlfriend? Had he struck up that conversation with me in the street so that he could win some horrendous bet with his friends, like they always do in teen movies? I mean, I know I spend my winters in a mansion with a bunch of girls, and my summers on a ranch in Nebraska, but both places have movies, and a lot of them involve wagers in which plain-looking girls (like me) are approached by really cute boys (like Josh).
But those boys aren't Josh-like, not really, or so I realized the deeper into his garbage we went. The boys in those movies wouldn't help their kid sisters with a fourth-grade ode to Amelia Earhart (Gallagher Academy, Class of 1915). Those boys wouldn't write notes like the one I have taken the liberty of pasting below:
Mom, Dillon says his mom can drop me off after the field trip, so don't wait up for my call. Love you, J
He tells his mom he loves her. How great is that? I mean, the boys in the movies with the bets and the plain girls (who are never really plain, just poorly accessorized) and the big, dramatic prom scenes—those boys would never leave their mothers kind and courteous notes. Plus, boys who leave kind and courteous notes become men who leave kind and courteous notes. I couldn't help myself: I instantly imagined what it would be like to get a note like that myself someday.
Darling, I may have to work late, so I might not be here when you get back. I hope you had a great time in North Korea and disabled lots of nuclear weapons. With all my love, Josh
(But that's just a draft.)
I stared at an empty pack of chewing gum—the teeth-whitening kind—and I tried to remember if his teeth had been extra white or just regular white. Regular white, I thought, so I chucked the pack into a stack beside Liz and dug back into the pile again, not knowing what I hoped to pull out.
I found an envelope, small and square, with beautiful calligraphy on the front. It was addressed to The Abrams Family. I'd never seen anything in my life addressed to The Morgan Family. We never got invited to parties. Sure, I remembered a time or two when Mom and Dad dressed up and left me with a sitter, but even then I knew she had a teeny tiny microfilm recorder in her rhinestone broach and his cuff links contained cables that could shoot out for fifty yards and let a person rappel down the side of a building if he really wanted to. (When you think about it, it's not that surprising we didn't get invited out much.)
I was just starting to imagine what it would be like to be the other kind of family, when I heard an ominous, "Uh-oh."
I turned to look at Liz, who was holding a piece of paper toward Bex.
She has to go through Bex first, I realized in terror. Josh only has six months to live! He's taking drugs that will prepare him for a sex change operation! His entire family is moving to Alaska!
It was worse.
"Cam," Bex said, her voice bracing me for the worst, "Liz found something you should probably see."
"It's probably nothing," Liz added, forcing a smile as Bex held out a folded piece of pink paper. Someone had written "JOSH" on it in blue ink with a flowery, ornate kind of penmanship that no one at the Gallagher Academy ever seemed able to master—after all, if you've got organic chemistry, advanced encryption, and conversational Swahili homework every night, you're not going to spend a lot of time learning how to dot your i's with little hearts.
"Read it to me," I said.
"No…." Liz started. "It's probably—"
"Liz!" I snapped.
