"Linus! Hey!" Sydney called.

Vaughn whipped around, smiling when he found her. "Hey! How's it going?"

"Good. Hey, listen, I've got something to tell you," she began, but before she could tell him the news, two people stepped towards the front of the room.

The first was a woman, slim and petite with dark eyes and light brown hair, wearing a blue-and-white Wizards T-shirt and denim shorts. The second was a man, dressed in the same "uniform," with blue eyes and a mop of dark hair. "Angus Flittman and Holly Rosenthal," Vaughn whispered in Sydney's ear.

Angus Flittman raised his arms and the entire ensemble fell silent. "Thank you!" he said. He had a broad Scottish accent and a ready smile. "I'd just like to let everyone know that our tour of Los Angeles, Victoria Springs, Loveless Lake, and Strasburg will start bright and early tomorrow morning – at 5 a.m." Over the groans of the corps, he continued, "So we'll need to work extra hard at choreography rehearsal tonight! That's all I have to say. Holly?"

"Nothing else," the woman said with a smile. "Let's eat!"

The corps filed into a small hallway to pick up trays, then turned left into the kitchen. "What did you want to tell me?" Vaughn asked.

"I'll tell you later," Syd replied, noticing the arrival of Natalie, Chelsey, and Maya.

The few buglers in front of them moved swiftly along the line, picking up their macaroni and cheese, green beans, Jell-O, and milk cartons. "I feel like we're at summer camp," Vaughn whispered to Sydney as he grabbed a fork and knife.

"Hey, Linus! Emma! Over here!"

"Who's that, and why does he know my name?" Sydney demanded, staring at the man who had just called their names.

Vaughn was smiling, to her utter amazement. He led her over to a table filled with people of both sexes, and claimed two empty chairs directly in front of a red-headed guy with a wide, grinning smile. "Emma Henry, this is Arlington Monroe. From Patagonia."

"That's near Pittsboro," Sydney said, proud that she had remembered her basic geography.

"Right you are, lovely lady. Gracious, Linus. You told me she was pretty, but not this pretty," Arlington said, grinning at both of them. With obvious delight and relish, he dug into his institution-style macaroni and cheese.

"What did you want to tell me?"

"Later," Sydney whispered impatiently. "It's… you know…"

"Oh." He got the message, and was quiet.

After dinner, the corps headed out onto the choreography field. "Have you learned any drill at all?" David asked Syd.

"No." She shook her head.

"But you know basic roll-stepping marching style?"

She nodded, figuring that was the best thing to do.

"Good. Then you should have no problem. Just stay close to Jeremy, and do whatever he does. He'll help you out in the drum feature as well."

Angus Flittman, Holly Rosenthal, and Willie Sorenson, along with a shaved-bald man Sydney hadn't met yet, stood on a podium at the far side of the field. "That's Ian Omes," Jeremy informed Sydney.

"Oh."

"Another choreographer," he continued. "You'll want to stay as far away from Ian as you can. He's a bit of a loose wire, prone to blowing up on anyone who gets in his way." He gave her a wry smile.

On the podium, Angus was raising his hands. "All right, kids, let's start with basics and a few sequences, and then we'll do a final drill rehearsal."

Three other people had also stepped to the front of the field. "Those are our drum majors," Jeremy said, pointing to each of them in turn. "Meg Rakowsky, Evan Scots, and Dan Waterfield."

Dan Waterfield clapped his hands together. "Corps, ten-hut!" he yelled.

"Hut!" the rest of the corps yelled, standing at attention immediately.

Sydney glanced at Jeremy and copied his position. His heels were together, his toes apart. His shoulders were back and his chin was lifted high. She stood that way, too, feeling the snare settle gently around her stomach.

Dan was clapping his hands again. "Forward, march."

The corps marched several steps, each member counting out loud. Sydney quickly realized that each odd beat – one and three – fell on her left foot, and each even beat – two and four – fell on her right. Jeremy, to her left, rolled each foot through, starting with his heel, his toes pointed sky-high.

"Toes up, guys! Kick the sky!" Evan yelled.

Sydney adjusted her feet to step as Jeremy did, toes pointed high, heels rolling gently. "You're doing great," Jeremy whispered out of the side of his mouth.

Syd smiled in spite of herself.

Drill rehearsal seemed to be the toughest thing the corps did. Syd stood next to Jeremy, who held onto her harness and pulled or pushed her as he saw fit. The corps counted out the number of steps in each "set," or group of movements, before going onto the next. Then, once they were done counting the set, they marched all of the sets together, counting out loud. Finally, they marched and played together.

Once the first song, Dave Brubeck's "Take Five," had been marched and played twice by the corps, Dan Waterfield called for a "Corps, at ease!"

Jeremy turned, smiling proudly, to Sydney. "That means take a break in drum corps speak," he interpreted. "You want some water?"
"Sure," Sydney agreed, seeing Vaughn standing near another bugle player.

They met up at the water cooler, a large orange plastic jug, and took water bottles from Meg Rakowsky. "What'd you want to tell me?" he asked in a quiet voice as they shuffled away from the water stand.

"Nothing," Sydney responded, pressing a button on her watch. "This will give us sixty seconds of interference-free time, and it scrambles our conversation to everyone else."

"Okay," Vaughn said, nodding.

"Anya Dombrowski is here," Sydney related, staring towards where Chelsey and Maya were talking with Natalie. "She's posing as a bugle player named Maya Stevenson." She nodded towards Maya.

"Wow," Vaughn murmured. "That was fast."

Sydney's watch beeped, and she pressed the button again. "Ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," he agreed.

The watch's second hand hit the 12, and the two spies were back once again in the middle of colorful discussions about a world they did not understand.

Marching rehearsal ended at nine-thirty. Sydney and Vaughn walked back towards the dormitories together. Vaughn carried his bugle case; Sydney hefted her snare case and harness. They didn't speak, there was really nothing they could say. Marching rehearsal had taken the spunk out of both of them. The other two songs, "In the Mood" and "The Puffy Taco," had taken them the rest of the rehearsal to perfect.

Once they reached the girls' dormitory, Sydney said, "I'll meet you at the corner of the Tip-Top Café at one-thirty. We've got to find a way to talk to Angus Flittman without Anya noticing."