Inside the Shadow City by Kirsten Miller Page B

sunset.
    â€œWe’ve got a lot to do today,” she said, ignoring the question and standing up. She was wearing a Girl Scout uniform, complete with a sash covered entirely—front and back—with badges.
    â€œYou’re a Girl Scout?” I scoffed. “Shouldn’t you have outgrown that sort of thing by now?”
    â€œMaybe, but the Marines wouldn’t take me.” She tossed a bag over the table to me. “Guess what,” she said. “Today you’re a Girl Scout, too. We’re going incognito.”
    â€œNo way. I have to wear one of those?” Two yearsearlier, I had left the Girl Scouts in disgrace after sharing an illustrated edition of
A Man’s Body
with my fellow troops. I had hoped to never see another Girl Scout uniform as long as I lived.
    Kiki glared at me. “You’ll wear it if you’re coming with me,” she said.
    Ten minutes later, I emerged from the bathroom of the café wearing a polyester uniform that rubbed uncomfortably in all the wrong places. A waitress smiled down at me.
    â€œAren’t you just the cutest! I was a Girl Scout, too, when I was little.”
    â€œI’m not in the Girl Scouts, I’m undercover,” I snarled back at her.
    â€œOh, isn’t that just perfect!” She beamed. I resisted the urge to give her a good kick and stomped out to the street, where Kiki was waiting. She looked me over and straightened my collar.
    â€œNot bad.” She grinned. “You look good in a uniform, but we’re going to have to work on your posture.”
    â€¢ • •
    Our first stop was a Girl Scout meeting in the basement of a ramshackle church in Morningside Heights, its ancient steeple leaning ominously toward a row of little houses across the street. In the basement, which smelled of mold and mothballs, the meeting had already begun. An unremarkable group of girls sat Indian-style in a circle on the cold, concrete floor. A couple of them shifted to make room for us.
    â€œYou’re just in time, Kiki,” said a plump, pleasant-lookingwoman dressed in an ill-fitting Scout leader uniform. “Luz Lopez is just about to share her latest project with us. Let’s all give her a hand.”
    The Girl Scouts clapped obediently, and a sullen girl with long curly hair pulled back tightly from her face rose from their midst. She walked briskly to the front of the room and stopped in front of a table covered with a tattered sheet. With an unexpected flourish, she snapped the sheet from the table, revealing a small electronic device. Speaking quickly but carefully, the girl addressed the crowd.
    â€œThe invention you see has been put to the test and has proven highly successful in the field. My mother keeps a small patch of flowers in front of our building. For the last few months, someone has been wrecking her garden. Personally, I couldn’t care less about plants, but my mother was very upset. The evidence speaks for itself, I think.”
    Luz retrieved a handful of Polaroids from the pocket of her uniform and passed them out to the group. Each picture showed a different view of the sad remains of a little garden. Mangled tulips were strewn across the sidewalk, their bulbs squashed into pulp. Dozens of dainty, brightly colored pansies lay dying on the windshields of nearby cars, and a clump of sweet peas dangled from the limb of a tree.
    â€œI always suspected Mrs. Gonzalez, one of our neighbors. She’s never liked my mother, and she’s always saying rude things to my sisters. But I didn’t have any proof, and my mother was too polite to accuse Mrs. Gonzalez. I tried staking out the garden, but the damage appeared to occurin the hours after my curfew, and my mother wouldn’t let me stay outside to watch.
    â€œThat’s when I had my stroke of genius. I found an old baby monitor in the trash outside my building, and with a few adjustments, I was able to convert it into the