"So, Winnifred," I said once we were far enough away from shore that I was sure we weren't being followed. "There's something I should probably tell you. I'm not really from around here. And actually those men you just helped me escape from found me back home and made me kind of infiltrate your group and, well..."

I paused, sure that she should have said something by that point. Looking around me, I noticed that Winnifred was nowhere near close enough to hear me as she steered the very large and loud engine of the boat we were driving.

Delightful. Because I wanted to explain that once, not to mention twice. I steeled myself for the eventuality and stood to hobble over to her. Two shuffle-steps later, the boat made a hard left and bounced over a wave sending me and my fully clothed self overboard like the pot of gold falling from the rainbow.

"Woman overboard!" Winnifred called out, turning the boat to return for me and throwing a dingy out into the cold water. Fortunately, the sun was pushing pinks and oranges over the horizon by then, so we had no trouble locating each other. But to say I was physically weak would be a wild understatement. Holding on while they pulled me in proved nearly impossible.

I guess that's what I get for skipping arm day... every time.

But the fun was only just beginning as when I got to the edge of the boat, I had to be hauled in. I was supposed to help pull myself up but I could barely keep my head above water on my own steam. Fortunately, the door crashers helped me into the boat and after a small somersault, I was again seated firmly inside the vessel.

"Why on earth did you get up?" Winnifred asked me, patting the seat next to her as though asking me to sit there. "Your ankle is injured and you aren't used to boats. Sit down!"

I slid across the floor on my butt, using my hands and one good leg as leverage while I dragged my left ankle behind me. Fortunately, the cold water had numbed it a little bit so there were only a few pains shooting through my leg.

When the engine fired up, I had to speak quite loudly to be heard. "I was coming to see you. I need to tell you something about those men you just rescued me from."

"Yeah? I know them. Why?"

"Well, I know them, too."

I probably should have saved this conversation for when we were much closer to a shoreline.

"I'm not actually from here. And I didn't send that tweet on purpose. Those guys in black suits picked me up and sent me here so I could figure out what you all were up to but I never told them anything so I guess they decided to kidnap me?"

Yeah, smart way of spinning it, Harper.

I closed my eyes and pressed my back into the side of the boat, bracing for impact.

Instead, Winnifred just started laughing. And not just laughing either. Cackling so hard she was closing her eyes and starting to steer the boat off course.

"What's so funny?" I finally asked, reaching up to attempt to steer the boat back on course. "What did I say?"

"You actually thought we didn't know you weren't from here? Like someone who wasn't a foreigner would have asked so many questions yesterday. I mean, you didn't even understand the pyramid."

I forced out the most awkward chuckle anyone had ever uttered and looked up at Winnifred wiping the tears out of her eyes. "Not from here," she repeated, shaking her head. "You are too good."

Eventually, I regained my own composure and interrupted Winnifred's mockery. "And I overheard the Deep Voice guy say that they were planning a takeover, but I thought they were just trying to stop you guys from starting a coup..."

Winnifred tried to stop herself from laughing by biting her lip, but ended up cackling again at my expense, spitting and snorting as she slapped her knees and doubled over, completely letting go of the motor.

"They told you we were starting a coup? Oh that's hilarious. And you believed them? Wow, you are either the most naive or the most trusting person I have ever met in my life. Us starting a coup! That's rich."

She yelled the whole thing to the front of the boat so the door crashers could share in my embarrassment. And, of course, because we were on a boat, I just had to sit there and listen to them mock me for a solid ten minutes before anyone paid me any attention again.

Not the first time it had happened, but still annoying when the only way out is to jump into an ocean. I don't really want to do that a second time.

"Does anyone want to tell me what's going on?" I finally interrupted the laughter they were having at my expense. "Like what you all have to do with the takeover of your government?"

"We're trying to stop it," one of the Door Crashers said.

"And those guys who captured you work for whoever it is trying to do it. We still haven't been able to figure them out," said the other.

"Sorry we used your tweet to draw them out," Winnifred said, turning her face and the boat to the right. "We're almost there now."

"Wait, we're just going to ignore that? You used my tweet? That's what I've been trying to figure out this whole time and you could have just told me."

"You never asked."

I never asked. I mean, yeah of course I never asked but come on!

"Plus, we didn't know if we could trust you."

Okay, that one was fair. They definitely couldn't trust me. I would have spilled the whole story to the black suits if they told me because I had no idea what was going on.

"So?" I prodded.

"So nothing, we found your account and saw you posted ridiculously regularly and Janine really likes breakfast." One of the Door Crashers put her fist up in the air to acknowledge the truth of Winnifred's statement. "So, we thought we'd jump onto one of your tweets when we were ready to draw those black suits out. And it worked way better than we could have hoped."

"So I was bait?"

"No. We didn't think they would actually get you involved. That's why we picked you — we thought your relative obscurity would keep you safe."

"Hey!" I protested.

"Well? It's the truth."

"It was, anyway," Janine answered. "She has hundreds of thousands of followers now."

"You know what that means?" The idea had been swirling in my brain for a while but now was the time to let it loose. "It means if I made another tweet—"

"We could really make things interesting." Janine turned around and gave me a very exaggerated thumbs-up motion. "I like the way you think."

"The only problem is figuring out what to post that will bring the black suits out to play without leading them straight to us."

That's the hard part when you have to use coded breakfast food.

We all sat in silence as the boat casually scraped up against the rocky shore. "Oh! I know!' Winnifred exclaimed. "Give me your phone!"

And just like that, the tweet was sent to mobilize the troops.

"Let's get those black suits sent back where they came from, why don't we?"

And then the girls in the boat and the people approaching us from the shore all let out some type of rehearsed battle cry. I still had no idea what was going on, but I joined them anyway and thrust my fist in the sky, screaming something that vaguely resembled the letter O. When in Rome...