“Rafe?” Ms. D said, waving a hand in front of my eyes. “Hello? Anyone there?”

“Huh?” I said. “Sorry, what?”

“I was saying that a person can learn a lot from copying the masters like that,” Ms. Donatello told me. “But it’s good to do your own thing too. I just hope ‘SAM’ understands that. Whoever he is.”

By now, I was about 99.9 percent sure that Ms. Donatello was talking in code, like she was giving me a message. I wasn’t going to confess about my two secret identities—they’re called secret for a reason. But it was pretty obvious she didn’t need me to.

But she didn’t seem mad. The more I stood there, the more it felt like maybe this wasn’t a red alert. More like orange. Or yellow. Or maybe a green light.

“Keep setting those sights high, Rafe,” she told me. “Maybe do something a little different for this new assignment. Something nobody’s ever seen before. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think so.” Because I’m pretty sure that I finally did.

Ms. Donatello was a good teacher. No—not even that. She was a great teacher. The best.

That’s what I understood.