Lesson 1: Concealment Basics

[Amanda Blaine]

Hello and welcome to your first class in... oh, yes, concealment devices. I am subbing for this class today, just until we find a teacher. Don't worry, class. I know how concealment devices work. Well, we'll learn together. I was taught this before; it has just been a few years.

Let's start with a basic definition. Concealment devices are ordinary objects that have been altered to contain objects that need to be hidden. For example, you could cut out a section of a book and make a concealment device to hold jewelry.

The creation and detection of concealment devices are very impotant to the training of any spy. This course will teach you to detect and create an effective concealment device.

What, class is over already? Don't think you're getting off that easy. Here's your homework. Just reply with complete answers. I or your new teacher will give you more in depth work at your next class.

Homework:

1. What are concealment devices and why is it important for a spy to understand their use? (5 pts)
2. Describe a situation in which you would need to understand or use concealment devices. (10 pts)
3. In your dorm room, I want you to make a concealment device and hide this (*hands out a marble to each student*). Describe your choice of that type of concealment device. What does it look like and how does it work? Leave your marble there for a while.(10 pts)

[MeiMei]

*She got out her notebook and wrote the questions down, quickly.**

[In the notebook]

1. What are concealment devices and why is it important for a spy to understand their use?
"They are regular objects that are altered to hide something."

2. Describe a situation in which you would need to understand or use concealment devices.
"When carrying somethign of importance, like a disc with a program, or even a wire."

3. In your dorm room, I want you to make a concealment device and hide this (*hands out a marble to each student*). Describe your choice of that type of concealment device. What does it look like and how does it work? Leave your marble there for a while.

[In her room]
"Hmm.. Now what can I do to make a conseal- Hey..!" She paused, struck by insperation, sitting up quickly she glanced down to the necklace she wore today, a dragon claw with a marble sized sphere in it. "I wonder.. Maybe.." She reached behind her neck, un-hooking the clasps of her necklace and began working on popping out the sphere. "Metallic purplish black.. I bet nail polish would work to fix the color problem.." She said, reachinf into her drawer and pulling out a little bottle of her nail polish, carefully covering the marble in this colour, she blew it dry gently, after tn minutes she carefully put it into the claw thing on her necklace and re-did hte clasps, laying down in her bed with her hair braded she clicked the lamp and closed her teal eyes for bed. She'd explain the rest when she woke up just before class.

[Nathan Dark]

Concealment devices seemed to Nathan to be just a new way to play hide and seek, which in a way it probably was. He drifted off a bit as the teacher spoke while thinking about ways to hide things, and only woke up in time to write down their homework and head out.

In the evening, when in his room, he looked at the questions and scratched his head thoughtfully, making the hair fall into his eyes again. He brushed it back and started working on the questions.

1. What are concealment devices and why is it important for a spy to understand their use? (5 pts)
Concealment devices are ordinary objects that have been modified to hide away something in. It is important to understand them so you can hide things in them when you are on a mission.

2. Describe a situation in which you would need to understand or use concealment devices. (10 pts)
Any time when it is of great importance that what you carry is not found by the enemy - be it a microchip or an ancient manuscript.

3. In your dorm room, I want you to make a concealment device and hide this (*hands out a marble to each student*). Describe your choice of that type of concealment device. What does it look like and how does it work? Leave your marble there for a while.(10 pts)

Nathan leaned back and studied the task again, and then dug out the marble from his pocket, turning it over with his fingers as he thought. It was such a small thing, surely it must be easy to hide it away? He got up and wandered around his room as he thought about it. First the bookcase - hadn't the teacher mentioned that you could cut out a section of a book to hide something in? But when Nathan looked over his books, he first thought it seemed too obvious, since the teacher had mentioned it, and second, he didn't want to destroy his books.

He wandered on. Perhaps he could hide it in the furniture somewhere? He looked around, but no place came to mind. He opened his wardrobe, looking around it to see if he could find anything in it, and after a bit of rummaging, he found an old pair of shoes. He didn't really know why he had brought them to school, considering they would probably be too small for him when winter came, but for now he was quite happy about it. He brought the shoes out and using his pocketknife he managed to get off the heel of it. Then he carved out a round hole in the heel, put the marble in it and then pressed the heel back to the shoe. Seeing as the heel was held in place by tiny rivets, it reattached nicely, and when Nathan put the shoes back in place in the wardrobe, he felt quite happy with his work.

Back to the task, then. Nathan studied the wording. Was he supposed to just tell them about his concealment? Wasn't that sort of against the whole spy-idea? Eventually he started writing.

I choose to hide the marble among things I use almost daily, in a place that I don't think most people would think to look in at first. I had to use tools to create the hiding place, but it is a quite good one. I will tell about it more exactly if you ask me to, but I think the whole idea with concealment devices is to learn to keep a secret.

Once he was finally done with his homework, he closed the notebook again and then decided it was time to sleep.

[Aaralyn]

Aaralyn sat down that night, got out her marble and her notebook, and begen her CD homework.

1. What are concealment devices and why is it important for a spy to understand their use? (5 pts) "Concealment devices are ordinary objects that have been altered to contain objects that need to be hidden." She writes, word for word. "It is important for a spy to understand them because spies have to hide things."
2. Describe a situation in which you would need to understand or use concealment devices. (10 pts)
"Well, suppose you're given a marble in your first CD class and told to hide it." She wrote, sarcastically. She didn't take this teacher very seriously. "I would think that you'd have to have a basic understanding of concealment and ability to conceal to do this assignment, wouldn't you think?"
3. In your dorm room, I want you to make a concealment device and hide this (*hands out a marble to each student*). Describe your choice of that type of concealment device. What does it look like and how does it work? Leave your marble there for a while.(10 pts)
Aaralyn rolls the marble around in her palm and thinks to herself. She is almost finished sewing a hat, so she slips the marble into the brim and secures it there. "No..." she thinks to herself, seeing the large lump it leaves. She takes it out and slips it into the stuffing of her pillow. "Good enough for now, I guess. Aren't they suppossed to TEACH us where to hide things, anyway?"
She writes "It looks like a pillow. It smells like a pillow, though now a feel like 'the princess and the pea.' It works because no one can see it. It's concealed.
She closed her notebook and started on her next homework assignment.

[Harem Del Villar]

Harem sits in class and writes down the assignment. then she went off into the school grounds. She sees the large oak tree and starts to climb it, reaching the toughest and highest branch.

Where should i put this marble?
She looked around for ideas before she thought of something. she thought of the bookcase in her room.

Brilliant.

Jumping down from the high branch, harem walks into her room and starts the rest of her homework.

When harem was done working on the bookcase, she lifts a green book from it's place and a cord is pulled. the cord is attached to a door like opening and is opened to reveal the marble.

Taking the sweat off her brow, harem begins to write.

Concealment devices help protect a spy and give them advantages against others. It can also help sneak in objects and hide them from plain view. It is important to understand the usage of concealment devices because important items may be stolen and damaged.

If you have to carry something dangerous, per say, a concealment device will put it out of sights view.

The next days she brings in the paper and sits in her desk.

[Fredrick Nova]

Fredrick was worried about having homework. He was used to being tutored by his parents and not having to do much in his free time. He stared between the paper where he'd jotted down his concealment homework and his violin case. He hadn't touched the instrument since arriving.

He gave in and took it from its case, tuning it quickly and then practicing for half an hour or so. He hoped no one would ask him about the noises, even though he knew the others must have heard him. Finally, much more relaxed, he turned to his concealment homework.

He sighed and took the marble from his pocket, turning it over and over between his fingers. It was pretty in a simple way. He looked around the room and his eyes fell on the hollow metal bedframe. With a little muscle work he unscrewed the small bedknobs and looked at them. The frame was too big, the marble would be lost forever, but if he could get it into the bedknob somehow, he'd be able to get it back.

He put one of the bedknobs back in place and, using the sharp end of his pen, he pushed through the thin metal between the knob and the part that screwed into the frame. He pushed the marble in and then pulled out a stick of chewing gum and, after chewing it for a moment, stuck it in the hole he'd made so the marble wouldn't fall through. Then he put the bedknob back in place and smiled.

Finally, he sat and scribbled out his answers to the homework.

1. Concealment devices are everyday objects that can be used to hide important things. They are usually altered in some way so they can hide things that they wouldn't normally be able to.

2. If you were using a safe house between jobs and needed to keep your personal records of your missions secret, you would probably need to have them in a concealment device, preferably one that wouldn't burn. You wouldn't want your former employers to even know you had records, so it would be important for them to be in something that looked quite normal.

3. I chose my concealment device because it's something that people wouldn't think was odd to have in a normal bedroom. It looks normal from the outside, which is the whole point, and it works through something really simple that any student would have. I'd rather not say more about it, accept that I feel the marble is quite safe there.

[Ai]

1. What are concealment devices and why is it important for a spy to understand their use? (5 pts)
Concealment devices are things that conceal things of importance or things that you do not want to be seen. It is important for a spy to understand its use so that when one needs to conceal something of great importance we can we can create something to conceal it that no one will suspect.

2. Describe a situation in which you would need to understand or use concealment devices. (10 pts)
When a spy needs to hide something of importance it would be ideal to undersrtand and to use a concealment device to hide it so the enemy would not get it.

3. In your dorm room, I want you to make a concealment device and hide this (*hands out a marble to each student*). Describe your choice of that type of concealment device. What does it look like and how does it work? Leave your marble there for a while.(10 pts)
Since you want us to leave our marble like that for a while more I guess it is to test if it is concealed good enough or would it be found out. So for now I will keep the place where I put it a secret. Lets just say it looks like a very normal item.

When Ai was done with the homework and the concealing of the marble. She chuckled at what she wrote on the last question. She sounded like she was trying to be pert.

[Cian O'Neil]

Cian scratched his head and got to work, thinking that this class might be fun.

1. What are concealment devices and why is it important for a spy to understand their use? (5 pts)

Concealment devices are storage devices designed to look like one object and contain another object so as to hide the inner item. Spys must conceal important documents and items, so effective use of concealment devices is crucial.

2. Describe a situation in which you would need to understand or use concealment devices. (10 pts)

You may need to hide identifying information that is required as a spy, such as multiple ids.

3. In your dorm room, I want you to make a concealment device and hide this (*hands out a marble to each student*). Describe your choice of that type of concealment device. What does it look like and how does it work? Leave your marble there for a while.(10 pts)

My marble is concealed inside my blanket. I ripped the seam and re-sewed the marble into the seam. As a blanket, the device is easily overlooked, and the blanket is think enough for the marble to not be easily felt.