My Classified Life

Chapter Twenty-Four: Baby, You're A Firework

Four days later, back in Washington D.C., it was the Fourth of July. You would think that since my father works for the government and we live near D.C. that this would be a super important day, right? Yeah, not really. It's one of the few days out of the year that my father is home but he's also kind of 'on call'. If his country needs him he will be there in a minutes notice. He hasn't had to mysteriously disappear from our house in the last two years, but you never know.

My amazing ritual for the Fourth of July is to simply watch patriotic movies. As you can tell, I'm super adventurous.

I start off with National Treasure, snack a little bit and do random other things before moving onto the Alamo where I can truly appreciate the sideburns of Billy Bob Thrornton. In the afternoon I usually lounge around the house and maybe watch a parade or two on TV or do general other things. Sometimes I even watch Independence Day. At night is when I cap off the day with The Patriot. Man, do I miss Heath Ledger...

The day had gone by uneventfully and I had just finished popping my popcorn and settling onto my bed to watch The Patriot. It was dark outside and sometime soon I would stop watching the movie to gaze out and see the fireworks at the capitol as I did every year. It was a beautiful sight and my bedroom window had a great view. I was settling into what was going to be a fabulous night. (As you can tell I can be a bit anti-social sometimes, but I also like it that way.)

I had just started the movie when I heard a small sound. I ignored it, figuring that it was nothing until I heard it again, and again, and again. Then the small sound became a loud crack as a rock hit my bedroom window.

Not going to lie, the first thing that crossed my mind was 'Omg someone is actually throwing pebbles at my window! I feel like a princess!' And I totally did, until I met Prince Charming...

“Dylan?! What are you doing here?” I said quietly down to him through my window that I had just opened.

“I figured, why wait until the next mission to see you?” he yelled back up to me.

“Shhhh! People might hear you!” I said back down.

“Then come down here so I don't have to yell.”

“No, you are leaving now! Goodbye..” I started to shut my window when he stopped me by yelling something back.

“Wait! I want to show you something! It might answer a few questions...”

My attention snapped back down to him. “What do you want to show me?” I questioned.

“You have to come down here.” he tested.

I left my windowsill and started to mentally debate. I knew that everyone in my family knew my whole Fourth of July routine by now and the chances of one of them checking up on me where slim and none. I also knew that I really wanted to see what Dylan was here about. As they say, curiosity killed the cat.

I walked back to my windowsill and didn't bother to turn the movie off, the noise would make it seem as if I was still there. I did however, restart the movie so I would have about 3 hours until I should be home. If my hunch was right that Dylan was most likely going to take me on some wild goose chase I had boughten myself some time. I locked my bedroom door and checked to see what I was wearing; shorts, a t-shirt, and a hoodie. I switched out of the shorts and put on some jeans instead but kept the hoodie.

As I approached the window again Dylan was getting impatient waiting for me. I slung my feet over the side of the window and dropped down gracefully onto my roof. Near our house is a large tree with an outstretched branch and Sammy had once told me she had snuck out using it, but Sammy said a lot of things like that.