“I honestly had no idea,” I told her. “We lived in Italy during the election and they didn’t cover the primaries that much. I only heard about the main campaign.”
We ran a little bit more while she thought about it.
“Then if it wasn’t for me, why’d you do it?” she asked.
“Because he’s a bully,” I said. “He picks on kids like me. Kids like Yin.”
“You know Yin?” she asked, surprised.
“A little bit,” I said. “He’s nice. I’m going to the zoo with him on Saturday.”
“You’re going to the zoo with Yin Yae?” she said, her surprise now disbelief.
“Yeah,” I said. “So’s Margaret.”
She didn’t respond and we ran almost half a lap before she spoke again. “You know, Madame Thibault said that we could work in teams for the French project. So would you like to be my partner?”
This caught me completely off guard. “Sure,” I replied. “That would be great. Want to meet in the library after school?”
“I can’t. I have a cello lesson. But if you’d like, you could come by my house at five. We could work on it there.”
“Okay,” I answered. “Where do you live?”
It didn’t dawn on me how stupid my question was until I’d already said it.
“Pennsylvania Avenue,” she said with a chuckle. “It’s a big white house with columns.”
“Okay, I actually knew that one.” I thought about it for a second and asked, “But what do I do? I can’t just walk up and knock on the front door.”
“You’ll need to talk to Malena,” she said, pointing at the Secret Service agent watching from near the bleachers. “We’ll do it at lunch. She just needs some background information for a security check, but it’s all pretty basic. Then all I have to do is leave your name at the guard gate.”
“That’s it?”
“Yep,” she said. “You show up there and they’ll ask you why you’re visiting. Just say that you’re supposed to work on homework with me. But when you do, you have to use my Secret Service code name. That’s how they know it’s real.”
“Cool,” I said. “What’s your code name?”
“You’ve got to promise not to tell anyone,” she said, more jokingly than serious.
“I promise,” I said.
She smiled for a moment before saying it. “Loki.”
I froze in my tracks and she laughed as she continued running.
14.
Rock Hounds
MARGARET LOOKED UP AT ME from behind a stack of yearbooks and shook her head in total disbelief. “How’d you find that out?”
“She told me herself.”
“She told you that her Secret Service code name is Loki?”
“And you should have seen the way she said it,” I replied. “She laughed like it was all a big joke.”
Margaret closed the book she was looking through and placed it on the pile as she considered this. “So that means there are two possibilities. One: She’s Loki and not being very subtle about claiming credit for all the pranks. Or two: Someone wants to point the finger at her.”
“It could be either,” I said. “But the part I don’t get is how come Dr. Putney didn’t mention it? I’m sure he knows her code name.”
Margaret flashed a proud grin.
“I may have a theory on that. While you’ve been off doing who knows what, I’ve been in here working. I started with the Question Marks and the Maxillaires and followed them through the rest of their time at Chatham,” she continued, motioning to the yearbooks. “And every year or so, they’d pop in another new group or club with some of the same kids as well as some new ones.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“The Fossil Club,” she said as she reached over and showed me one of the books. “Or the Young Smithsonians,” she added as she handed me another. “Once you know what you’re looking for, then you find a definite thread running through the history of the school. I’ve got a list of more than thirty-five likely members.”
The front page of her legal pad was now full; a column of names ran down the left with notations and dates written along the right.
“Impressive,” I said. “But what’s your theory? Why do you think Dr. Putney didn’t tell us about Lucy’s nickname when he first told us about Loki?”
“You know what a rock hound is?”
“Someone who looks for fossils?” I answered.
“Look at this picture of the Chatham Rock Hounds taken nearly thirty years ago,” she said, opening one of the yearbooks to a page marked with a pink sticky note. “Check out where they had their group photo taken.”
I looked at the picture and smiled. “In front of the Megatherium skeleton at the Museum of Natural History.”
“That’s right,” she said. “Now look at the rock hound standing second from the left.”
The face looked familiar but I didn’t recognize who it was until I read the caption. “David Putney?” I looked up at her. “The headmaster’s a Megatherium.”
“And so is Lucy,” she said. “I found out that it was her locker with the stripes and ‘How How’ painted on the inside, not Victoria’s.”
I plopped down into the chair next to her. “So you think he didn’t tell us her code name because he didn’t want us to suspect that it was her?”
“Exactly.”
“Then why involve us in the first place?” I asked. “Why have us investigate when it might lead us to his secret organization?”
“That’s a good question,” she said. “But if someone is trying to make it look like Lucy’s guilty, then he’d want the problem solved as quickly as possible.”
I thought back to French class when I tried to test Becca and Lucy by saying “How How.” Becca took the bait instantly and even went so far as to follow me to the bathroom. But Lucy was calm. She didn’t react at all. Unless her reaction was something much more calculated.
“Maybe that’s why she invited me to the White House?”
Margaret turned to me, surprised. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Lucy invited me to come to the White House later today,” I said. “That’s why I’m late. I’ve been giving all my information to the Secret Service.”
“Why did she invite you?”
“She said it was because she wanted to work on our French project together,” I answered. “But maybe what she really wants is to get me in the most intimidating place on the planet and tell me to stop snooping around the Megatherium Club.”
“Wow! That is so cool,” she said. “You’re actually going to the White House? Not as a tourist but as a guest.”
“Well, I don’t think we’ll be hanging out in the Oval Office, but yeah.”
“Well, that’s fantastic,” she replied. “Use TOAST to find out everything you can about her. Especially try to figure out who might want to make her look bad. If someone is setting her up, it’s got to be someone who really hates her.”
“She said that Tanner and she are mortal enemies,” I told her. “Their fathers ran against each other for president.”
“Tanner Caldwell is Pete Caldwell’s son?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“That explains a lot,” she said. “His dad seems like a jerk too. Oh, and I found out she hates Yin.”
“Really?” I asked, surprised. “Why would she hate Yin?”
“Because he’s better at playing the cello than she is,” she said, as though it should be obvious. “When she arrived she was the star musician of the school, which is a big deal because she wants to go to Juilliard and play in an orchestra someday. Then along comes Yin to steal her thunder and all of her solos. Apparently Mrs. Chiang complained to the board of trustees about the way she treats him.”
“How did you find this out?”
“Victoria’s grandfather is the director of the board,” she said. “We’ve begun to bond and she’s opening up more. She’s also the one who told me whose locker was whose.”
>
“Lucy did have a funny reaction when I told her that we were going to the zoo with Yin.”
It was a lot to take in and we sat quietly for a moment until the door opened and Dr. Putney’s assistant entered the room with a prospective student and his parents.
“What are you doing in here?” she asked, surprised to see us. “And why are you making such a mess?”
“Sorry,” Margaret said. “We’ve just been looking through some of the old yearbooks. The senior partner at my mother’s law firm went to school here and I was looking to see if I could find a picture of him so I could tell him I’d seen it.”
“Well, you’re supposed to be at lunch right now,” she said, softening. “Clean this up first, though.”
“Yes, ma’am,” we both said as we quickly cleaned up the table. Margaret slyly slipped the legal pad into her backpack without anyone noticing as I put the yearbooks back on the shelf.
“By the way,” Margaret said to the family as we were leaving. “The school is amazing. You should definitely come here.”
We slipped out into the hallway. “That was good. Quick thinking.”
“It helps that it was true,” she said. “Last night I found out my mom’s boss was a Chatham alum. I thought that made for a better excuse than admitting what we were actually doing.”
“Good call,” I agreed. “Let’s meet back here after school and look some more.”
“Aren’t you supposed to go to the White House after school?”
“Not until five,” I said. “So we can look for at least an hour.”
Through the last few class periods of the day I tried to process what we’d learned. For all the twists and turns, the one that surprised me most was the idea that Lucy hated Yin. She didn’t seem the hateful type and he didn’t seem hateable. I was also struggling with another clue that didn’t make sense. If Becca and Lucy were both in the Megatherium Club, why did Becca go out of her way to completely ignore Lucy? You’d think they’d be friendly to each other.
After school I confirmed things with Lucy and met up with Margaret outside the library. “There’s something we forgot,” I said.
“Yeah,” answered Margaret. “Lunch. I was in the Founder’s Room the whole period and now I’m starving.”
“Okay, we’ll make it quick and head over to Warren Burgers,” I said.
“Sounds good.”
“But the thing I meant was Becca,” I said. “She won’t even look at Lucy in class, but they’re both Megatheriums. You think they’d be friendly.”
“Maybe she’s jealous,” Margaret offered. “Maybe she didn’t want Lucy in the club.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. “But it still seems a little out of whack.”
“All I know is that Lucy’s locker is the one with the triple stripe and ‘How How’ painted in it,” she said. “What else could it mean?”
I thought about it for a moment. “Nothing else really?”
We went into the Founder’s Room and were surprised by what we found. Or rather what we didn’t find.
“Where are the yearbooks?” I asked.
“They’re all gone,” she replied in disbelief.
The bookcases that once teemed with them were now empty.
“What is going on in here?” I asked.
“That’s exactly what I would like to know,” said a voice.
We turned to the door and saw Dr. Putney.
“What is going on in here?” he asked, repeating my question. “And why are you two so interested in old yearbooks?”
“As I explained to your assistant . . . ,” said Margaret.
“Don’t tell me about the senior partner at your mother’s law firm,” he said. “Tell me what you’re really looking for.”
“Loki,” I said. “Just like we said we would Monday morning in your office.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “Well, you won’t find Loki in old yearbooks, that’s for sure. Loki is a kid out there making me look foolish.”
I thought it was an odd way to put it. As though the prankster were doing this to him personally and not the entire school.
“And it seems to me that you’re looking for all sorts of things except for Loki,” he continued, his voice rising slightly. “I just had a troubling meeting with one of our top students.”
“Becca,” I said to myself. She must have gone to him and told him that we knew about the Megatherium Club. Add that to what his assistant told him she saw and he figured out what we’d been up to.
“Now let’s sit down and straighten this out,” he commanded.
“Actually,” said Margaret, “I think we’ll be leaving now.”
She moved toward the door and he blocked our way.
“First, hand me your backpack,” he demanded.
I wondered if his assistant had noticed the legal pad after all.
“No,” she said. “It’s my backpack and you have no business with it.”
“Actually, a student is required to hand over a backpack when instructed by a member of the staff,” he informed us. “It’s right there in the student handbook.”
“Actually,” Margaret said, not bending, “I’m not a student at this school. I’m a consultant with the FBI. And according to the National Security Act of 1947, if you try to forcibly take it from me, you’ll be committing a felony.”
“The National Security Act,” he scoffed. “I think you’re overestimating your role with the Bureau.”
“Really,” she said. “I think you’re underestimating the fact that both of my parents are attorneys.” She looked up at him and added, “Exceptionally talented attorneys. I can’t remember the last time either one of them lost a case.”
There was a quiet moment before Margaret spoke again.
“Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go have a hamburger and Florian’s been invited to the White House.”
He finally relented and stepped back so we could open the door and leave. As we walked down the hall I marveled as Margaret strutted, exuding pure confidence. I could live a hundred years and never come close to finding a friend as impressive as her.
She was a total rock star.
15.
Try Not to Pass Out
MARGARET AND I WOLFED DOWN some burgers before I went home to begin the unexpectedly difficult task of deciding what to wear. As I changed out of my school clothes it dawned on me that I’d never been to the home of someone in charge of a global superpower. I wasn’t exactly sure about the dress code.
No matter what I pulled from the closet, it seemed wrong. A collared shirt and khakis looked overly dressy for an afternoon homework session, but cargo shorts and a T-shirt were way too casual for a building that hosts state dinners.
I tried on six combinations (twelve if you count the tucked versus untucked shirt variations) without any success before I got desperate and searched online for “Lucy Mays and friends.”
I was hoping to find a few images of her with other kids to give me some guidelines. Unfortunately, most of the photos were taken at formal events and most of the friends were girls. So they weren’t much help on the fashion front. But that doesn’t mean the pictures weren’t useful.
Two actually seemed relevant to the case. The first was from a White House birthday party, and the second was backstage at the Kennedy Center after a performance of the Washington Youth Symphony. In both Lucy was laughing with none other than Becca Baker. So while they may not have been on speaking terms at the moment, that wasn’t always the case.
I would’ve kept searching, but I was running out of time and assumed that White House protocol considered being late far worse than wearing the wrong color combination. I decided to go with an unbuttoned oxford over a gray T-shirt along with jeans and a pair of black sneakers Margaret called “Chucks.” I figured if it seemed too casual when I got there, I could always button up the shirt and tuck it in.
Clothes, however, were just the beginning of my nervousness. I’m not the most socially skilled pers
on on the planet (that’s more Margaret’s turf), and as I rode the Metro I began worrying about every little thing from the way I talked to my somewhat forgetful relationship with the rules of etiquette. By the time I’d walked from Farragut North station to the guardhouse I was a total wreck. So much so that I worried it might make me seem suspicious.
“Welcome to the White House,” said the guard in a friendly yet firm manner. “May I have your name please?”
“Florian Bates,” I answered, trying to project cool. “I’m here to do homework with Luce . . . I mean . . . I’m here to do homework with Loki . . . who I go to school with . . . who invited me.” (Not so much when it comes to the cool.)
He smiled at my awkwardness and started looking for my name in a binder.
“Hey, Tommy, I’ve got this one,” a woman’s voice interrupted from behind.
I turned to see that it was Malena Sanchez, Lucy’s lead Secret Service agent. Despite the fact that she was only my height and had a youthful face (which helped her blend in at school) she always radiated total confidence and intimidation. She wore her black hair pulled back in a short ponytail and was a master of the unflinching stare. I’d never once seen her smile. Until now. Unfortunately it was at the guard and not me.
“Malena,” said the guard, happy to see her. “How are you doing?”
“Very well, thank you,” she replied warmly. “I just turned in the paperwork on young Mr. Bates here, so he won’t be on the sign-in sheet. But you should be able to find him in the computer.”
He typed my name onto a keyboard.
“Here we go,” he said when he found it. “Florian Bates. Meeting with Loki in the residence.” He looked at me and smiled. “That explains why you’re getting the escort. Do me a favor and smile at the camera.”
“You think the press is going to take my picture because I’m going to the White House?” I asked him, surprised.