Spy school goes to Zoo

Chapter 2

Departure

My cheap alarm clock jolted me awake at the pleasant time of 3:00 in the morning. I rolled over on my rock hard mattress, violently rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. I flicked on the lamp next to my bed, illuminating the whole room. My packed suitcase was now clearly visible in the center of the cramped room. It was filled to the brim with t-shirts and shorts. Although the CIA could never really give us an exact timeline for the mission, I had a sense that it would be much longer than just a few days. Since we were set to attend the local school near Funjungle, I figured we would be in Texas for a longer amount of time.

I stood up and walked across the splintered wooden floors to my closet. Wanting to blend in, I selected a plain black shirt, ripped blue jeans, a baseball hat, and a pair of red high-tops. I quickly pulled on my clothes, brushed my teeth and zipped up my bag. Trying to be as quiet as possible, I tiptoed through the dorms and down to the bottom floor of the building.

When I got to the parking lot, Erica, Alexander, and a cab were already waiting for me. Alexander has apparently forgotten to change out of his pajamas and looked extremely sleepy. Erica on the other hand, looked just as awake as ever, though she did look out of character wearing jeans and sporting a light pink shirt. I put my luggage in the trunk and got in the back seat.

"Took you long enough," Erica said to me.

"Where to?" The cab driver said. He turned on the engine.

"DCA," Erica replied. The driver had a puzzled expression on his face.

"Look, I don't know all the acronyms in the US. Tell me what that stands for." He said in a harsh tone. Erica ignored this.

"Ronald Reagan Washington National airport." Erica put on her seatbelt, I did the same.

The driver looked even more confused. "How could DCA stand for Ronald Reagan Washington national airport?"

"It's the airport code." Erica yawned, sounding somewhat annoyed."

"Oh, well that explains everything." He replied sarcastically. The driver pulled out his phone and searched for the directions. He sighed. "30 minutes."

We paid in advance and soon we were off. In the 30 minutes it took for us to get there, I slept through half of it.

"Get up." she said, shaking me awake. We slid out of the car and my ears were instantly filled with the noise of a bustling airport. We made our way through the crowded check-in area and to security. After passing through the metal detectors and out of the screening area, Erica grabbed my hand, making my cheeks turn a dark red. I was somewhat disappointed when she pressed a small earpiece into my hand and immediately let go.

"Keep your guard up for anything that looks suspicious, SPYDER has eyes and ears everywhere. Turn the brim of your hat down, don't make eye contact, and don't talk to anyone." She whispered to me while pretending to fiddle with her long dark hair. I did as she said.

A little while later when we were close to the airport, Alexander broke up and began trying to persuade us into going to the McDonald's nearby.

I didn't get anything to eat that morning and I was too nervous and busy packing that night to eat dinner. It also didn't help that the food at spy school was exceptionally bad. While we were passing by, I and Alexander begged Erica to stop. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and then went to our gate, leaving me to speculate what was to lie ahead.

After we said farewell to Alexander, we realized that we had a ton of extra time. Our plane was delayed and it took 30 extra minutes to get out of the gate. There had been a thunderstorm the night before and the airport was trying to catch up on all of the flights. Then, our 737 was grounded for another hour to get in line for takeoff. Finally, we took off. Even though I had been on an airplane about 2 times, the takeoff was still captivating.