It's Not What You Think

Chapter 9

Back in Pennsylvania, Zoe and Svetlana were stuck sitting next to their own giant pile of cheese.

"This is really not what I pictured when I came over to the CIA's side," Svetlana said.

"This doesn't happen very often," Zoe said. "By which I mean it hasn't ever happened before. Because this is absurd."

"It's kind of fun though," Svetlana said. "But in a really weird way. I don't know. Should this be fun?"

"Does it matter?" Zoe asked. "It's weird no matter what. We might as well not be miserable."

Svetlana looked around at the cheese, then said, "I really don't even like cheese."

"I'm kind of allergic to some of it," Zoe said. "It makes my ears swell."

"How does cheese make your ears swell?" Svetlana asked.

"It just does," Zoe said. "But it's not all cheese. I'm just allergic to some cheese. Most cheese is ok. But, you know."

"I wonder what kind of cheese this is," Svetlana said.

"I don't know," Zoe said. "It looks like a mix, but I'm not exactly an expert at cheese identification."

"Who is?" Svetlana asked. "Because that seems like a really strange thing to go into. Just studying up on cheese."

"I guess it could be a little useful in situations like this," Zoe said. "I mean, not greatly useful seeing as it wouldn't help us get rid of all this cheese, but it would be nice to know what exactly we're surrounded by."

"At least it's not liquid," Svetlana said. "That would be a lot messier."

"Yeah," Zoe agreed.

They sat there for a few more minutes before Zoe said, "So. What do you want to do now? Besides stare at cheese. Because this is not particularly interesting."

"Really?" Svetlana joked. "I mean, this is almost as good as watching paint dry. A little slower watching cheese go bad, but it's not too slow."

"Do you think we ought to be cleaning this up?" Zoe asked.

"Do you want to be cleaning this up?" Svetlana asked. "Because I really don't. I also don't know what to do with all the cheese."

"Who even would?" Zoe asked. "Like, I don't know who to contact about this. I guess the adults, but who knows where Catherine is? I mean, I guess we could call her."

When Catherine didn't pick up, Svetlana said, "We could call back to Alaska and see what Alexander thinks."

"I don't think he knows either," Zoe said.

There was a loud sound overhead of a helicopter flying in low.

"What's that?" Svetlana asked Zoe.

"I think that's a news helicopter," Zoe said. "I guess this would be a pretty big story."

"We should probably get out of here before some reporter finds us here in the midst of the cheese," Svetlana said.

Zoe nodded. "We should probably head into town and act like we were never here."

Zoe and Svetlana walked through the cheese and towards the town. There was quite a rush of news vans that made it so that they had to hide behind trees and bushes to avoid being seen as they went into town.

Svetlana stopped suddenly while she and Zoe were crawling behind some bushes.

"Does that look like the president to you?" Svetlana asked pointing through the leaves.

"What?" Zoe asked.

"David Stern," Svetlana said, still pointing. "Does that man not look like him?"

"I still don't see where you're pointing," Zoe said.

"Just go where I am," Svetlana said, scooting over. "Do you see it now?"

"Oh," Zoe said. "Yeah, he does look a lot like David Stern."

"Do you think it actually is him?"

"Probably not," Zoe said. "I mean, what would the president be doing here?"

"I don't know, but it kind of looks like he's coming over here," Zoe said.

"What do we do?" Svetlana asked.

"I don't know," Zoe said. "Just be quiet, I guess."

The man who looked an awful lot like David Stern approached the bushes.

"I could have sworn I heard  someone over here," he said in a way that made clear that he absolutely knew who was there. "A couple little spies maybe? Perhaps? Perchance? Potentially? Possibly?"

Zoe and Svetlana just looked at each other.

"Aha!" the man who was maybe David Stern exclaimed. "Zoe and Svetlana, I see. Nice to have found you. At least not everyone was lost in the cheese."

Just then the man who had looked like David Stern suddenly ceased to look like him and quickly morphed into none other than Murray Hill.

"Did you not know I could shapeshift?" the person who was now Murray asked.

"Uh, no," Zoe said.

"That's too bad," Murray said. "But hey! Now you know. And isn't this so cool?"

Zoe just looked at Murray distainfully. "You think that after all I've seen today, that is going to impress me? Come on."

Murray looked slightly hurt at this. "Why don't you think this is cool? I mean I could be anyone Elvis! The president! James Bond!"

Zoe just shook her head. "James Bond isn't real."

"So?" Murray asked. "I could still shapeshift into him anyway. The possibilities here are endless."

"Why don't you just shapeshift yourself away from here?" Zoe said.

"Why would I do that?"

"Because this is just annoying. Don't you have some new evil scheme to be working on?"

"Who's to say I'm not working on that already?" Murray asked, then shapeshifted himself into Dane Bramage and knocked both Svetlana and Zoe unconscious.