Shane complained about having to help with the stupid third graders homework for every single minute they were there. It wasn't even that long, only two hours.

"Enough time that we can convince our parents that we were busy with this for a while. I dunno about you, but I told my mom I would be here for a while. Probably somewhere from two to—" Sam had said, and Shane interrupted with, "Fine, two hours. But no more."

After two hours, which Shane timed to the second, they bid Mrs. Finnegan goodbye and left. Sam had to actually grab onto Shane's wrist a few times like he was an actual four year old to keep him from running through the school hallways and out the door.

"I really, really think that you are as mature as one of the kids here, and am starting to think that I should kick you out of my plans altogether," Sam told Shane once they left the school.

Diana agreed. "Yeah, do it. It'll be easier without him."

"Wow, geeze, don't be mean. Fine, I'll act all dumb and 'mature'. But what's your plan anyway?" Shane asked.

"Well, we've got to get information somewhere, and if we can't get it from Lilla because she's trying to be tricky, then we should go right to the source. Lilla might not even be hiding what we're trying to figure out. But if we go to the CP headquarters, then we know all the info is there."

Sam looked over her shoulder for a moment, just double checking, before dropping her voice to a whisper and adding, "So we break into the main building."

Di and Shane's reactions weren't nearly as shocked as Sam had expected them to be. Change that, not as shocked as Sam had hoped they would be. It wasn't that she wanted to be talked out of this, but having her friends not immediately think that breaking and entering was a good idea would have been comforting.

Diana only looked a bit startled when something seemed to click in her mind. "Wait, you're going to teach Shane how to lock-pick? That's actually a terrible idea, you know."

"I don't need to teach him if you'll learn and do it instead," Sam suggested, and Diana frowned, shaking her head. "Okay, then yeah, I've got to show him."

"Oh, awesome!" Shane shouted, punching the air excitedly. "So can we go do that now?"

"Um, no. I'm going to teach you after I get my picks, unless you want to randomly bang a rock against a door or something."

After Shane finally figured out that Sam was definitely serious, he huffed and stopped arguing, trailing behind the others. Sam was glad of that, seeing as the other option was to listen to him whine the whole way back to her house. She didn't understand his need to complain when they were on the way to do precisely what he had said he wanted to. At least Diana seemed more patient.

"So, you're really going to break into the Counterparts Program place?" Diana asked, raising an eyebrow. "I figured you would have a better plan."

"We don't really break in. I mean, at least not that much. You'll just have to get from the lobby to wherever the computers are. I figure that I can schedule an appointment or something and bring you guys with, and you can get wherever you need from the lobby," Sam said. She hoped that made as much sense to them as it did to her.

Diana frowned. "How is that better than us just straight out breaking in?"

"Well, I'd be distracting whoever is meeting with me, and if I needed to then I could create a diversion." What a possible diversion would be, Sam did not know, but she could improvise.

It wasn't until Shane and Diana were waiting outside of Sam's window while she dug for her picks that they continued the discussion. Diana tapped on the edge of the window and got Sam to look over.

"Wait, so why am I learning this too, if I'm not going to be part of the break-in team?" Di asked, going up on her tip-toes to look over the windowsill.

Sam grabbed a handful of bobby pins and walked over to the window to drop them into Diana's hands. "Because you're gonna be there, so you might as well learn at least the basics."

"What's the basics?" Diana asked, sighing in exasperation when Sam didn't answer immediately, just going back into her chest of drawers and getting something wrapped in leather. This she tossed to Shane, who fumbled but ended up catching it.

Only once they were sitting on the grass in Sam's backyard did Sam actually give a decent explanation to anything. First she snatched the leather booklet from Shane and opened it, showing her friends the metal tools inside.

"These are for most locks. That one on the fence?" Sam pointed to the padlock holding her backyard fence shut. "These could unlock it, because it's a tumbler lock."

Shane pulled one of the bobby pins from the end of the chain that Diana made. She huffed, but let him take it.

"So we can't use this to pick it?" he asked, waving the bobby pin around madly.

Sam shook her head, tossing the lock picks back to Shane. "Nope, those are for another type of lock. I'll show you why they're a crappy idea for padlocks later. What they are great for is handcuffs."

"Oh, sweet! We get to learn how to be escape artists too!" Shane exclaimed, bending the bobby pin open and twisting it into a terrible U shape. "Where's the cuffs?"

"Nowhere, Shane. I hope you're good at visualizing, because I don't have anything for you to practice with," Sam warned, shrugging. Shane visibly delated, setting the mangled bobby pin on the ground in front of him.

He picked up the picks again instead, looking through them while Diana pinned her hair back with one of the clips. Sam grabbed one of her own and lifted it to her mouth, tearing off the plastic bits that were stuck over the ends to keep the metal from scratching her scalp. Those were not needed and probably one of the most annoying things about bobby pins right next to the disappearing acts they tended to pull.

"Here," Sam said, handing Diana the pin after she had bent the ends of it into two little curves. "Just keep this instead of trying to make one on the spot if you have to. Getting the angles right is a pain in the ass."

Diana twisted the pin between her fingers, watching the ends twirl. Shane grabbed it from her a moment later, looking at it closely before giving it back.

"Just twist it like you would a key," Sam shrugged.

Never mind that she had only ever actually unlocked a handcuff once, and that was because her aunt was a policewoman and her cousins would play cops and robbers like it was a war to end all wars.

All that said, Sam couldn't give her friends much more advice than that. She knew the shape that the pin had to be in order to work, but apart from that, she only knew that there was a bar that the pick had to lift. Or something like that. Tumbler locks were a lot more comprehensive. That as probably because they were everywhere and so Sam had access to a thousand and one to practice on.

"This is probably a bad idea, Sam. You know what they say. Curiosity killed the cat," Diana told Sam, frowning slightly.

"But satisfaction brought it back," Sam sang back, shaking a finger at her friend with a smile. "It'll be worth it no matter what."

"Sammy, you're not actually planning on us getting arrested are you?" Diana asked, tucking the molded pin into her hair next to the plain one.

Shane held out one hand to Sam expectantly. "If you're going to get us arrested, then I want one of those pins you made all special. Scratch that, I want one either way."

"I'm not planning on getting anyone arrested, I'm doing this just in case," Sam told them, reaching for another bobby pin to bend into shape for Shane.

"In case of what?" Diana leant forward, cocking her head and resting her chin in her hands. "Because I'm still not planning on going with Shane to steal government information."

Sam sighed. She could have guessed that Diana wouldn't be behind the break-in. Even thinking about it, Sam wasn't sure why she was orchestrating it at all. Things were just too weird to let them set and not to try investigating. It would be a disaster if there was actually something going on and they didn't find out until it was too late.

"Just in case, Di. Better safe than sorry. You don't have to learn the other picking if you don't want to." Sam held out her hand for Shane to hand over.

He gave them up reluctantly, exchanging for the bobby pin. Once he had the pin, he looked rather conflicted on what to do with it. He slid it into his back pocket after starting to put it in his hair a few times and seeming to change his mind. Sam almost laughed out loud. Boys have such fragile masculinities.

Instead of making her friends come with her over to the fence, Sam quickly unlocked the padlock and brought it back over to Di and Shane. She didn't tell the others that there was about a fifty-fifty chance that the office building actually used key locks like this one. They might have key cards or number locks, both of which would prove difficult for them to get through. She just hoped that wouldn't be the case.

"Tension rod." Sam held out the metal tool with a right angle bend at the end. "To keep the pins from falling back into place."

"Hook pick." This time she showed them a similar piece of metal but with a bend that was along the narrow side. "You're probably going to use this one most of the time."

After a moment of contemplation, Sam shrugged and passed the pack of lock picks over to Diana. Her trying to explain the whole process would not help this, given that she was not exactly the best teacher ever. Though it took a bit of demonstration, Diana was able to crack the fence's lock in less time than however long it would take for Shane to get bored and walk away. It took Shane a while longer than Di.

"Why do I have to learn this?" Shane asked about half an hour later, not turning around from where he had stormed away to.

Sam groaned. "Well, apart from the fact that you have asked me way too many times to teach you, you mean?"

"Yes! I mean, fine," Shane muttered, sulking back over to where Diana had grabbed the picks Shane left behind when he stormed away.

This wasn't the first time Shane had temporarily given up, dropping the lock and tools in frustration. It also wasn't the first time that Diana snatched them up the moment the hit the ground, concentrating for a few moments before getting a hang of the puzzle that was making Shane so angry. Her quick learning curve only made Shane all the more irritable.

An hour or so after he started trying to pick the gate lock, the shackle finally sprung open for Shane, and he let out a loud whoop. Diana rolled her eyes at Shane's reaction, but both Shane and Sam ignored her. Sam gave Shane a high five.

"You're not going to have an hour to get into the computers and stuff there, Shane," Diana said, and Shane deflated. "You did remember that part, right?"

"Okay, yeah. Geeze, what a downer. You can't let me be happy for ten seconds?" Shane looked down at the ground and frowned.

"Just practice." Sam tossed the lock back to Shane. He handled it as though it was a bomb in need of diffusing. "We'll wait to go until you're ready."

It was a moment later that Diana rolled back so she was looking straight up at the sky and sighed. "He's not going to be ready until it's too late. By the time everything is figured out and he is quick enough, the program will be in every school in the country."

"Why do you have to be so mean, Diana?" Sam asked, sighing right back at her friend. Diana curled her neck forward to look where Sam was frowning, Shane continuing to fumble with the lock.

"M'not being mean, Sammy, I'm just telling the truth. If you're really doing this psycho break-in plan, you're going to need a different lockpick. Maybe Shane can be your accomplice or whatever next time, but you need someone else for the program." Diana didn't even look over to her friends this time.

Shane nudged Sam with his elbow. He raised his eyebrows and nodded toward Diana skeptically. Sam shrugged.

"Di, you offering to be bad guys with us?" Shane asked.

Sam thumped her forehead into the palm of her left hand. Worst wording ever, Shane. Diana hummed questioningly and shrugged. She didn't look super into the whole plan anymore than before, but at least seemed less critical of joining, maybe.

"I still think we could figure out another way, but if you need the help of lock pick that isn't you, Sam, I guess I'll offer mine." Diana snatched the picks back from Shane, who was glad enough to have them stolen if the way he realized was in cue. "I'll only help if the plan has a chance of working. I don't want either of you—or me for that matter—getting arrested, thanks."

"We don't need that much information, just somewhere to go from, and it's nothing that should be kept under that tight security. If it is being kept so secret, then that's just a bigger reason we need to get to it. We find out where Lilla actually works, and if it has anything to do with the CP Program. I don't like all their secrets when they know everything about us," Sam explained. She nodded over to the lock picks. "Those are just precautionary."

This seemed to be Diana's last straw. Almost hitting Shane as she threw her hands up in the air, the exasperated girl asked, "Precautionary of what, Sam?"

"Precautionary as in you two only go in if I ask Green and she won't tell me the truth about Lilla," Sam promised. "And if you do go in, I'll do something to make sure the attention is all off of you."

"What's that?" Shane asked.

"Dunno. Maybe I'll faint. Maybe I'll pretend there's a fire. Maybe I'll start one."

Diana laughed. "That's terrible. Don't start a fire."

So Samantha promised she wouldn't set the building on fire and Diana agreed to be the group's resident lockpick, come Wednesday. Maybe it was a bit rushed, but that was the least of Sam's problems. She had watched far too many mystery and detective shows as a little kid to give up when she had a feeling something was weird.

As she definitely thought that something was up, and that whatever it was would be going down soon, the next two days couldn't come and go quickly enough. Sam would admit that she was looking forward to playing spy.