7.

Christmas break was drawing nearer and nearer and it made me a little nervous. Rider and I hadn't talked in quite a while, which made trying to figure out what to buy him for Christmas a real pain. I had never been the type to settle for a gift card or cash and I knew for a fact that Rider had always hated getting clothes as presents. He would rather buy his own clothes. He was the only person that I still had to buy for, though, and time was running low.

One trip to Roseville was all that it took to shop for everyone else. I had gotten a cute, black clutch for my mom and a new MP3 player for my dad. For Alicia, I had gotten a cute hair straightener case and I had gotten a Laura a cute top that I found hidden among racks of other clothes. Leah would be receiving a book, a collection of candy, and new lip gloss from me. I had no idea what to buy Rider, though, and it was killing me.

"You'll figure something out," Leah said brightly as we headed into the CoveOps classroom.

I shrugged and headed for my usual seat. "I guess."

Mr. Solomon was, shockingly, already in the classroom, perched lightly on the edge of his desk wearing his usual pressed white shirt and brown shoes, his blond hair wavy and his green eyes bright. He smiled, "Good morning, Ms. Hunter."

Ever since my display of blatant disrespect towards him, he had been sure to address me directly in class each day. It didn't bother me, though. I tossed my curled hair over one shoulder much like Alicia always did. "Good morning, Mr. Solomon."

Leah then took to whispering, since we were so close to Mr. Solomon's desk. I had a feeling that he could still understand us, however. Perhaps he could read lips as I could. Oh well. "Maybe you could get him a CD. What kind of music does he like?"

"He likes everything," I commented. "But I don't know what he has and doesn't have."

"Hmm," she said. "You could try-"

"Ladies, listen up," Mr. Solomon said. "Today, we will be watching slides. You will have three seconds to memorize every little detail of the slide and then you will close your eyes. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," we all replied.

He turned off the lights and started up the slideshow. "Eyes closed."

We obeyed.

"Miss Parkinson, what is the license plate number of the blue van?"

Alicia rattled off her response, hesitating only slightly on the last two. "Next slide," he said and we all opened our eyes to look. "Eyes closed."

"Jacket on," I murmured under my breath and Leah snickered. It was a line from The Karate Kid with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan, where Jaden's character is learning martial arts by taking his jacket on and off.

"Miss Dodson, what was wrong with the picture?"

Leah held in her snickers. "The salad fork was on the wrong side of the plate."

"Eyes open."

I only halfheartedly observed the next slide. Taking in details was a natural thing for me, anyway. My brain just automatically took everything in. I can't really describe how it feels… Let's just say that you're a kid who really really likes Kool-Aid. So, let's say that you make Kool-Aid all of the time because you absolutely refuse to drink anything else. Well, after a while of making Kool-Aid every day, you eventually get to where you don't have to think about how much sugar to put in, right? It's kind of just a natural instinct. Muscle memory. That's how it was with me and observing things. My parents – especially my father – had trained me from a young age to notice everything.

"Eyes closed."

This was, admittedly, getting very boring. I only partly listened to Jordan tell him that the gray umbrella was located in the corner of the room, next to the dead body. Tedious; that's what CoveOps was becoming. I already knew all of this stuff; I had already been trained to do this stuff. When Buckingham had taught the class, it hadn't been exciting at all, but at least then, we all knew that she wasn't really attempting to do anything worthwhile. She was too old. But with Mr. Solomon, I felt like we should be doing more; going out on missions.

"Eyes open."

What I saw completely freaked me out. I had been there before, with my parents. I had lived there. The living room was exactly like the one in the house I had lived in when I had lived in Mozambique. It was small, with a white couch and black loveseat. The coffee table was made of beautiful wood and upon it, there was a vase of fresh flowers and a stack of magazines. In the corner, there was a coat hanger that held my father's burly black coat, my mother's faux fur one, and my small pink one. Yes, that was definitely the room from my Mozambique house. Even stranger, it was from the time I had lived there. How in the world had Mr. Solomon gotten his hands on that picture? I mean, the CIA had been monitoring the house, but that was nearly thirteen years ago.

"Eyes closed."

I closed my eyes, that strange feeling in my stomach telling me that Mr. Solomon was going to call on me. And he did. "Ms. Hunter, how many magazines were on the table?"

"Five," I answered in a whisper. My mother never kept more than five out. Four wasn't a good enough selection and six was too much. Five was just right, and that was still how she did it.

"Okay, ladies, you may open your eyes," he said. "Good class everyone. See you all tomorrow."

We stood to go and Leah touched my arm, concern etched on her face. "Katelyn, are you okay? You look really pale."

"I'm fine," I muttered as I shouldered my bag and turned to go.

"Ms. Hunter?"

I grit my teeth and turned around. I didn't like that Joe Solomon had something from my past and I hated the fact that he had flouted it in class even more. Was he just trying to show me who was boss? Was he trying to prove that he was better than me? "Yes?"

"Are you alright?"

That wasn't what I had expected. Why couldn't I ever understand Mr. Solomon? "Fine, sir," I replied.

Something flashed in his eyes, but I couldn't tell what it was and it was gone too quickly for me to analyze it. "Very well. On to your next class, then."