And when, right after this, I saw all these flashing red lights coming out of the rain and darkness, I was like, Oh, yes, here come the cops. Mr. Uptown Girl is so busted.

Only it turned out the sirens didn’t belong to the cops at all. Instead, they were part of the President’s motorcade. First came the lead car, a black SUV with a rack of flashing red lights on its roof. Then came another black SUV and, behind it, a long black limo. Behind that were some more SUVs with flashing lights.

Instead of being excited that I was going to get to see the President go by—even though you can’t really see him when he’s in his limo because the windows are those weird ones the people inside the car can see out of, but the people outside the car can’t see into—I was like, Aw, crud. Because Theresa was probably somewhere behind the motorcade, which was crawling along at a snail’s pace. Not only was she going to be in a really bad mood by the time she finally picked me up, but no way was I going to miss David coming out of Susan Boone’s. He would probably see me standing out here and be like, Man, she’s weird, and never speak to me again. Not that I cared, because I am fully in love with my sister’s boyfriend. But it had been nice of him to notice my boots. Hardly anyone else ever had.

And, besides, when you live in DC, seeing the President go by is really no big deal, since he goes by all the time.

Then the strangest thing happened. The first SUV in the motorcade pulled up right in front of me . . . and stopped. Just stopped.

And the traffic light wasn’t even red.

Behind the first SUV, the second one stopped, and then the limo, and so on. Traffic was totally stopped behind them, all along Connecticut Avenue. Then these guys with these earpieces climbed out of the cars and all went towards the limo.

And then, to my utter astonishment, the President of the United States got out of his limo and walked into Capitol Cookies, a bunch of Secret Service guys clustered around him, holding up umbrellas and looking around and speaking into their walkie-talkies.

That’s right, just walked into Capitol Cookies, like he did it every day.

I didn’t know that the President liked Capitol Cookies. Capitol Cookies are good, and all, but they’re not the most famous cookies around, or anything. I mean, there’s just the one store.

And wouldn’t you think that if you were the President, you could get the owner to send you a personal supply of cookies, so you wouldn’t have to go ducking out of your limo, in the rain, just to get your hands on some? I mean, if I owned a bakery and I found out that the President of the United States liked my cookies, I would fully make sure he got a steady supply of them.

On the other hand, the people who owned Capitol Cookies would probably prefer to have the President be seen ducking into the store. That is way better publicity than you could ever get by privately shipping him his own supply.

And then, as I stood there in the dark and the rain, with the red lights from the top of the SUV in front of me flashing in my face, I saw Mr. Uptown Girl throw back his rain poncho.

And it turned out what he’d been doing under there had nothing to do with him being a shoplifter. Not at all. It turned out what he’d been doing under there had to do with a great big gun, which he brought out and pointed in the direction of the door to Capitol Cookies . . . the door through which the President, his cookies having been secured with miraculous swiftness, was just exiting.

I am not what most people would call a particularly brave person. I stick up for the kids at school who get picked on only because I remember what it was like to get picked on back when I lived in Morocco, and during the whole Speech and Hearing thing.

But that does not mean that I am the sort of girl to throw herself into the path of danger without the slightest concern for her own personal safety. I mean, the closest thing I have been in lately that could qualify as a physical altercation would be the last time Lucy and I wrestled over possession of the remote control.

And obviously I am not much for confrontations. I mean, yeah, I was striking a blow for the creative spirit by boycotting Susan Boone’s and all. But really, I was just too embarrassed to go back in there after my humiliation the last time.

But whatever. What I did next was so atypical of my normal behaviour that it was like someone else took over my body for a minute, or something. All I know is, one second I was standing there, watching Mr. Uptown Girl raise his gun to fire at the President as he exited Capitol Cookies . . .

. . . and the next, I had jumped him.

It turns out if you jump on to the back of a would-be assassin, and he isn’t expecting you to or anything, you can really throw off his aim. So the bullet Mr. Uptown Girl had meant to send speeding into the President’s head went speeding harmlessly off into the stratosphere instead.