Jennifer and Kristina’s mom Shalen sit at an empty conference table at the Girl Scout office and look at the large clock on the wall. The girls had been gone for about an hour and it would be a few hours more before they returned. Jennifer and Shalen had brought the girls almost directly from school to the office building. Thing had gone fairly smoothly—the only near disaster happened when Molly got into the car and they’d driven away. Jennifer thought that something looked a little odd about the girl and asked Molly if she could check her uniform. In a bold move, Molly had decided to wear an Obama T-shirt instead of her official uniform shirt and she also left her vest at home. Like any good Girl Scout, Jennifer was prepared for the situation, having brought her daughter Hallie’s uniform along just in case something like this were to happen. From past experience, she knew that the Girl Scout office wouldn’t allow a girl to represent the Scouts unless they were dressed in a full official uniform.
During the afternoon, they’d met Connie Lindsay, President of the Girl Scouts of the USA, and Kathy Cloniger, Girl Scout CEO. Over pizza, Sharon Pearce, the Girl Scout’s Director of Public Policy, had instructed them on how to address the First Lady and the President, should they have the chance to meet him.
“Just give everyone a firm handshake and answer in a nice clear voice,” she advised them. Then they departed for the White House, leaving Jennifer and Shalen behind. Secretly the women both had hoped to go along for the ride, but that night belongs to the girls from Troop 2288.
When the Girl Scout group arrives at the White House, they line up for a security check with the rest of the middle school groups. Young students from Maryland, DC, and Virginia stand one after the next as they pass through the gates and have their names checked off of the official list by the White House staff. Each group is assigned a guide for the night’s activities who pass out official credentials—a special souvenir guest pass on a lanyard—that students are required to wear around their necks. Lining the route to the South Lawn is a swarm of television reporters who stick their microphones out as students walk by to get their first reactions to being at the White House.
“Are you excited to be here?” one reporter from Fox News asks Molly as she passes him.
“Yes,” she says in a news bite that will make the Ten O’clock News, “I like astronomy because I’m interested in the constellations and Greek mythology.”
When the students make it down the hall and through the door, they’re sent to the White House South Lawn where more than twenty telescopes of various types are arranged on the lawn for observing Jupiter, the moon and the stars. One is a brass replica of the Galileo Telescope and another is a telescope brought to the event by the Franklin Museum in Philadelphia. In the middle of the lawn are tents and an inflatable dome, the NASA Goddard GeoDome, where the students can go on a three-dimensional video tour of the universe and look at displays of moon rocks and meteorites. But while the other young people wait to look at the sky through the equipment, Kristine, Molly, Becca, Camille, Sabareeshini, and the adult Girl Scout leaders are escorted through the South Lawn vestibule under a familiar deep blue portico into the Diplomatic Reception Room to wait for the First Lady.
When they walk in the room, they wonder if they’re in the Oval Office, because the room is also shaped like an oval. But they soon realize that it can’t be the Oval Office because it doesn’t contain the President’s desk. Instead there are three rows of chairs for visitors and on the curved walls are large panoramic paintings. A fireplace takes center stage and above it hangs the famous Gilbert Stuart painting of George Washington. At one time the room had been used by the White House staff to polish silver and FDR had used this fireplace as the site of his fireside chats. But that day, it is the scene of Girl Scout history.
The girls stand in a line as they’ve been instructed with the adult Girl Scouts at either end. In the middle is a space left for Michelle Obama. The White House photographer comes into the room and they wait for the First Lady to make her appearance. The girls all tingle with excitement and anticipation.
