Heather Demetrios - Code Name Badass: The True Story of Virginia Hall

Spy! Saboteur! Shero!

Code Name Badass

The True Story of Virginia Hall

by Heather Demetrios

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Childrens Publishing Division 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

Map credit: Robert Lazzaretti: pp.

Photo credits: British National Archives: pp.

FOR MY (BADASS) FEHST FAMILY: LINDA, WALT, NICK, ANDOF COURSEZACH

Virginia Hall is a clerk of unbounded ambition, a lack of appreciation of her own limitations, and a most praiseworthy determination. She is not good material for a career service because she lacks judgment, background, good sense, and discriminatory powers. She also talks too much.

J. KLAHR HUDDLE, US DEPARTMENT OF STATE AMBASSADOR

Shut up. Thats just about the most stupid idea I ever heard.

VIRGINIA HALL, THE MOST WANTED ALLIED SPY IN FRANCE

It started with a lost umbrella.

Picture me in Washington, DC, in a gloomy mood because it was raining buckets and Id left my fabulous new umbrella in the car my friend and I had taken to the International Spy Museum. This forgetfulness didnt bode well for my future as an international Woman of Mystery.

Going to the spy museum had been my idea: Ever since I could walk, Ive wanted to be a clandestine operative, and I had a sneaking suspicion a museum dedicated to espionage would rival Disneyland itself. Because Im a maladjusted weirdo, my Happiest Place on Earth is a building where you can learn all about how to kill people in sneaky ways, steal government secrets, and, of course, rock fantastic disguises. My bad vibes disappeared the minute I walked through the doors and received MY VERY OWN COVER IDENTITY.

About halfway through the exhibit, I got to the World War II section, which is my other happy place (re: maladjusted weirdo). They had exploding coal on displayperfect for sabotaging Nazi supply trainsand a pistol flashlight, a precursor to the KGBs kiss of death. This is a pistol made to look like a tube of lipstick, which is now at the top of my list of things to ask for when the CIA recruits me. Or for Christmas. Whichever comes first. I thought I knew everything about WWII, but I had no idea that many of the agents and their recruits working in France during the war were women. A good portion of these women were couriers or wireless operatorsarguably the most dangerous jobs behind enemy lines. A few of these dames even ran whole cells within the French Resistance, led sabotage missions, rescued downed Allied pilots, and engaged in a constant game of chicken with the Gestapo, who were hunting them. They killed a few Nazis along the way too. Most of them were spies when James Bond was still in diapers.

I came across Nancy Wake wearing her military uniform and looking chill AF even though she was a superstar thorn in the Nazis side on D-day, giving them what-for while commanding hundreds of men in successful guerrilla warfare ops.

The heavy-lidded eyes of the beautiful Violette Szabo, a Brit who joined up after her husband was killed in the war, looked out at me from a series of photographs, along with the confident, direct gaze of Polish aristocrat Christine Granvillea legend who, as one newspaper would later say, flirted with men, and with death. (#lifegoals)

And thenand then, mon cherI came across a glass case that contained a wireless radio and a selection of identification documents for a woman named Virginia Hall. I liked her face: serious, but with a slight upturn of the lip that suggested she had secrets there was no way shed be telling you. A little smug. I liked that, too. Next to a photo of her receiving the Distinguished Service Crossthe only female civilian in WWII to receive what is one of the highest honors in the United Statesthere was a small box of text with the title Americas Incredible Limping Lady.

A young Virginia Hall hangs out on the family farm.

Intrigued, I read on. The phrases artificial leg, spy network, and French commandos had me at hello: I had to find out everything I could about this woman. The more I read and researched, the more I realized that Virginia Hall was the baddest bitch in any room she walked intoand I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. The Nazis didnt call her one of the most dangerous Allied spies for nothing.

So how does a girl who was a pirate in the school play and loved nothing more than jumping on a horse or shooting hoops end up getting on the Gestapos most wanted list?

I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED.

Grab a pair of dark sunglasses, your favorite wig, and a Sten gun or twoits time to do some spying.

A Note on Reading: Ive endeavored to use the true name of an agent or rsistant whenever possible. Code names are in italics.

PART ONE THE MAKING OF A SECRET AGENT

Virginia is far right, a spy in the making wearing the first of many costumes.

When a woman finally learns that pleasing the world is impossible, she becomes free to learn how to please herself.

GLENNON DOYLE

1 BIG REPUTATION 1931

To say Virginia Hall was ambitious would be an understatement.

She was that girl at your high school who makes everyone else look like a slacker, no matter how hard theyre working: a perfectly well-rounded rsum that would please any college admissions board, with a nice balance of extracurriculars and decent grades. Good family. Money. Fancy all-girls school. She was the class president who somehow managed to get the best part in the school plays (the villain, naturally), edit the yearbook, and rock it on the field hockey team.

This was the girl whod get into Harvard but find it boring, choosing to ditch the hallowed halls of Cambridge in favor of studying abroad and sending home pictures of herself posing in front of castles and perched in gondolas with intriguing foreign men. Someday shed receive prestigious awards from the president of the United States and the king of England. You know this girlwe all do. The girl who goes hard. Whos hungry. Who makes things happen for herself. And youre either the kind of person who loves her for it, admiring her swagger, or you hate her, jealous because she has the moxie to hustle for what she wants. Right here, right now, lets decide to be Team Virginia. Lets celebrate the hell out of a woman who would have left us all in the dust.