The Coolest Ball of Them All

The encounter was going down tonight at the Cool Inaugural Ball.  Charles Wu logged onto

 www.washingtonparks.net/cool_inaugural_ball

to purchase the ticket.  Seventy-five dollars was a small price to pay for access to the Georgian spy somewhere nobody would be expecting to find her--reporting on a grassroots green gala.  Wu had been trying to arrange a meeting with this elusive woman for a long, long time.  He might have to miss the other three balls on his agenda today, but this was a prize he could not pass up.

A few miles away, Henry Wu got an email alert on Wu's credit card purchase, checked it out, and logged onto the website to buy his own ticket.  Something was up.

Outside the Josephine Parks Butler Center, the starlings were already gathering, for there was something different about this ball, and they needed to be ready--nothing more was at stake than the very climate of life.