Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Page 7

"What if you get a guy agent?" Courtney Bauer joined in the conversation. "Aren't all the Secret Service guys really hot?"
"They're okay," Macey said nonchalantly, as if she'd seen hotter (and I'm pretty sure she had).
"What if he's like, Mr. Solomon hot?" Anna asked and then blushed.
As much as I wanted to join in and feel excited about a possible (hot) newcomer, all I could think was that there was too much risk and danger already. I remembered the feeling in my stomach as the elevator took us to the roof in Boston. I could have stopped it then. If I'd been focused, if my mind had been anywhere except on a certain boy, my school and my sisterhood might still be safe. But instead, a generation of geniuses were sitting around stealing dinner rolls and discussing the theoretical biceps of the person who might jeopardize our entire way of life (and whether or not he would actually take a bullet for Macey if the need arose).
Suddenly the doors at the back of the room swung open, and my mother appeared, leading our teachers down the center of the huge room.
I saw the new face of Mr. Smith, our Countries of the World instructor, who is one of the more paranoid government operatives on the planet and chooses to prove it by getting a new face every year during summer vacation. I heard the muttering of more than a hundred teenage girls as they realized that this year Mr. Smith's new face was…hot.
And then a hush went through the crowd, because our teachers were not alone.
Macey's parents were walking through the doors, waving and shaking hands, followed by a member of the United States Secret Service. I'm pretty sure if there had been any babies to kiss, The Senator would have done it.
There are a lot of scary things about being a Gallagher Girl, but having people who don't belong in your school walk inside it is high on the list. And I knew that we were being welcomed back to a very different school.
"Ooh," Liz said beside me. With wide eyes, she watched
Macey's parents greet our Culture and Assimilation professor, Madame Dabney.
Across the table, Bex grinned and whispered, "Pop quiz?"
"Welcome back, ladies," my mother said from the front of the room. "I can honestly say that I have never felt so glad to have you all here …" She paused; her gaze swept over the room, which instantly grew dim as the sun slipped below the horizon. If I hadn't known better, I might have sworn I heard my mother's voice crack as she finished, "safe and sound."
No one whispered. No one giggled or teased. What had happened to Macey (and to me) hadn't been some wild tale that we'd carried back from our summer vacations. It was real. And no one felt like laughing anymore.
"As you know, the eyes of the world are now upon the Gallagher Academy," Mom went on. I couldn't help glancing at the McHenrys to see if they guessed my mother's secret meaning, but the two of them kept nodding the same somber nods that must be second nature for anyone with their name on a ballot.
"We must learn and we must persevere. We must be careful and we must be brave. And most importantly"—right then it seemed as if a hundred girls sat up a little straighter, literally rising to the challenge—"we must protect our sisterhood." Her voice grew a little stronger. "And our sisters."
I don't know for sure how many active Gallagher Girls there are in the world. Hundreds. Thousands. We disappear into society and do our jobs without a word of thanks or any hope of praise. I may be the Chameleon, but in truth, every Gallagher Girl has to be somewhat invisible. Yet now, we were all in the spotlight.
"There are things that are expected of us," my mom went on. "For that reason, there will be some changes this semester."
A slight murmur went through the crowd.
"AM lessons will take place inside the safety of the primary mansion." Senator McHenry nodded as if this seemed like a good idea, not really understanding how good, considering that a paparazzo with a telephoto lens might have some questions if he ever caught a teenage girl practicing a perfect Forenstyl Flip on a three-hundred-pound member of the maintenance staff.
"Also, as far as our most notable student of the moment is concerned, we will be enforcing a strict no comment policy," Mom continued. "Be prepared, ladies. People are going to want to hear how Macey is coping." I glanced at the girl beside me, wondering the same thing. "But they're not going to hear it from us."
Gallagher Girls keep secrets—that's what we do. And that mission had never felt so personal.
"And perhaps the biggest change of all," Mom said slowly. I felt the room lean closer. "This semester we will be welcoming a member of the McHenry's security detail into this school for Macey's protection."
I can't swear to it or anything, but for a second her eyes locked on me. "The security of Macey McHenry will not change what and how we learn. To that end, let's welcome Agent Abigail Cameron, who will be responsible for Ms. McHenry's security detail."
The room around me filled with noise and movement, but in my mind, things were suddenly quiet and slow. A woman with long dark hair and gorgeous green eyes had appeared at the back of the room.
"As it so happens, Agent Cameron is a graduate of the Gallagher Academy and therefore uniquely qualified to give Macey the best protection possible."
I know, having aced my lip-reading midterm the previous semester, that the hall was a chorus of "Wow, she's pretty"s and "Wait, who's that?"s.
I know that every Gallagher Girl in the Grand Hall was looking at the woman walking through the room, thinking, This is our sister. But not me. All I could do was stare at her and whisper, "Aunt Abby?"
Chapter Eight
When you've spent four years living with a certain British secret agent-in-training who loves to practice spontaneous attacks and self-defense maneuvers when you're brushing your teeth, it takes a lot to knock you off guard. So I like to consider myself the kind of person who can keep a straight face during just about anything. Or…well…almost anything.
I tried to remember the last time I'd seen my mother's sister—not since before Mom left the CIA, not since before I started school here. Not since before…Dad. And yet there she was, twenty feet away and walking closer.
Her hair was longer than I remembered, past her shoulders now. She was still thin and athletic, but she seemed shorter somehow, and then, genius that I am, I realized that maybe I was just taller.
"Hey, Cam," Bex whispered, jabbing me in the ribs, "isn't Cameron your mom's maiden name?"
"Yeah," I murmured as if it were just a big coincidence.
I studied her every move as she wove between the tables; she was the embodiment of what every girl in the room wanted to be when she grew up.
"She seems sort of…familiar," Liz said, and I could almost hear her mind working, gears turning, as if my aunt's face were a code she was trying to crack.
Then Abby winked at me, and, for Bex, the pieces fell into place. "No way!" She was pointing between my aunt and my mother as if memorizing every detail of their unmistakable family resemblance. "That's your aunt—"
"Shhh!" I whispered, cutting her off. After all, Tina Walters was only a few feet away; the McHenrys and Agent Hughes were at the front of the room; there were at least a dozen reasons why this was not the best time to go through the entire Cameron family tree, not the least of which was that I was already way more notorious around there than any chameleon should rightfully be.
My mother was the headmistresss.
I'd had an illegal (sort of) relationship with a normal boy who had crashed (literally) my Covert Operations midterm last December.
And the last time several members of the student body had seen me, I'd been kissing a boy from the rival spy school in the middle of the foyer during finals week!
I was not invisible anymore. And something told me that having my aunt leading Macey's security detail wasn't going to help matters. At all. Because even though I hadn't seen her in years, I was sure that if there's one thing Abby is not, it's invisible.
"Cam." Liz's voice was soft. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Aunt Abby finally made it to the front of the room, and I just sat there feeling like maybe … I had.
Questions I Never Wanted to Hear Again After That Night
1. Did Zach call/write/break into and/or bug my grandparents' house over summer vacation? (Because the answer was no.)
2. Did I know that the news channels only showed part of the footage from the attack in Boston, but it happened to be the part where my skirt blew up? Way up! (Because, sadly, the answer was something I couldn't forget.)
3. Did I think Mr. Smith's new face made him look kind of…hot? (Because Smith and hot were two words I never wanted to hear together.)
4. Where had Aunt Abby worked? (Because I didn't know.)
5. What had Aunt Abby done? (Because I couldn't even guess.)
6. Why would an operative in the prime of her career come out of the field to take over Macey's security detail when there had to be a lot more senior operatives who would have dropped everything to keep one of their own safe? (Because I didn't want to think about it.)
"Come on, Cam," Liz pleaded the next morning, the lack of significant intel finally weighing on her. "She's your aunt. You've got to know something."
I just shrugged. "Liz, she's a deep-cover covert operative—you know how it is."
Liz stared at me blankly, but Bex nodded. After all, her parents were with MI6, so she did know. Better than anyone.
"Do you think she'll be teaching a class?" Liz gripped her extra-credit project for Mr. Mosckowitz as if her life depended on it (because, when you're Liz, your life kinda does). "I tried hacking into Langley, and everything about her was classified. I mean, seriously classi—Ow!" Liz cried.
I'm not sure how she did it, but Elizabeth Sutton, the smartest Gallagher Girl in perhaps the history of Gallagher Girls, had just managed to cut her chin with a paper clip.
Bex laughed. Liz bled (but only a little). My stomach growled, and I felt the clock inside of me ticking again, telling me that it was time, so I grabbed my bag and called, "Come on. We don't want to be late."
I was already in the hall before I noticed someone was missing.
"Macey!" I yelled, pushing open the bathroom door. "We're heading down to—" But I couldn't finish. Because Macey McHenry, the girl with the physical appearance so perfect a supermodel might feel inferior, was changing her clothes in the bathroom. And then I saw why.
A bruise covered her entire side, green tinges bleeding into purple. Her elbow was still swollen to twice its normal size. I didn't have to hear her wince to know how much it hurt, and yet the look on her face said that having me witness her vulnerability was the most painful thing of all. Macey's pride was the one thing that had come away unscathed, and she was going to protect it if it killed her.
"Cam!" Bex yelled from outside. "We're hungry!"
"Go on," I called, my eyes still locked with Macey's in the mirror. "Macey's not letting me go without eyeliner." It must have been a believable cover story, because the door closed. The suite grew quiet, and Macey turned around.
Wordlessly, she held her arm out to me, and I eased her shirtsleeve over her cast. She turned back to the mirror but no longer met my eyes as she said, "Nobody finds out."