by Carter, Ally
“Close the door, Cameron,” Buckingham instructed. I did as I was told.
“Abe Baxter missed a call-in,” Mr. Solomon said, crossing his arms as he leaned on the corner of Mom’s desk, just like I’d seen him do a hundred times during CoveOps class. And yet, it didn’t feel like a lecture. “Actually, he’s missed three call-ins.”
I didn’t realize his words had knocked me off my feet until I felt my backpack pressing against my spine as I tried to lean back on the sofa. Does Bex know, I wondered for a split second before the obvious answer dawned on me: of course not.
“He may just be delayed, of course,” Buckingham offered. “These things happen—communications difficulties, changes in cell operation . . . This doesn’t necessarily mean that his cover has been compromised. Still, three missed calls is . . . troubling.”
“Is Bex’s mom . . .” I stumbled over my words. “Is she with him?”
Mr. Solomon looked at Buckingham, who shook her head. “Our friends at Six say no.”
And then I realized why Buckingham was in charge of that discussion—she had been MI6, just like Bex’s parents. She had been the one to get the call. She was the one who was going to have to decide what, if anything, to tell Bex.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” my mom soothed, but I heard traces of the woman I’d seen the night before—traces I probably wouldn’t have heard twenty-four hours earlier, but I knew they were there now, and I’d be listening for them for the rest of my life.
“Bex . . .” I muttered.
“We were just talking about her, Cam,” Mom said. “We don’t know what to do.”
Say what you will about spies, but they don’t do anything halfway. Our lies come complete with Social Security numbers and fake IDs, and our truths cut like Spanish steel. I knew what my mom was saying. I knew why she risked saying it to me. The Gallagher Academy was made of stone, but news like that could burn it to the ground as quickly as if it were built out of newspapers and painted with gasoline.
“Cam”—Mom sat on the edge of the coffee table in front of me—“this has happened before, of course, but each case is different, and you know Bex better than anyone—”
“Don’t tell her.” The words surprised even me. I know we’re supposed to be tough and hardened and in the process of being prepared for anything, but I didn’t want her to know just because we were too weak to carry the secret on our own. I looked at my mother again, remembered how long it takes some wounds to heal, and realized there would be plenty of time for grieving.
Bex’s father was thousands of miles away, but she still had the promise of him. Who was I to take that away too soon? What would I have given for a few extra hours of it myself?
* * *
“Hey,” Macey McHenry said behind me, and I instantly regretted showing her the small, ancient corridor and telling her it was a great place to study. “That had better not be because of a boy.”
She dropped her stack of books beside me, but I couldn’t look at her. Instead, I just sat there wiping away the tears I was crying quietly for Bex’s father—swallowing the tears I was crying for my own. A long time passed. I don’t know—maybe like a millennium or something—before Macey nudged me with her knee and said, “Spill.”
Say what you will about Macey McHenry, but she really doesn’t beat around the bush. A superspy would have lied to her—good lies, too. But I couldn’t. Maybe it was stress. Maybe it was grief. Maybe it was PMS, but something made me look up at Macey and say, “Bex’s dad is missing. He might be dead.”
Macey slid to sit beside me. “You can’t tell her.”
“I know,” I said, and then I blew my nose.
“When will they know for sure?”
“I don’t know.” And I didn’t. “Could be days. Could be months. He hasn’t called his handler. If he calls, then . . .”
“We can’t tell her.”
Of course we couldn’t, but something about that statement made me stop and look at her. I thought back on it, and for the first time, I heard the we. There were things I couldn’t tell my mother, things I couldn’t tell my boyfriend, and things I couldn’t tell my friends. But sitting there with Macey McHenry, I realized for the first time that someone knew all my secrets—that I wasn’t entirely alone.
Macey stood and started to walk away. “Cammie, no offense . . .” When someone like Macey McHenry says “no offense” it’s almost impossible for someone like me not to be offended by what she says next, but I tried. “. . . but don’t go up there now. You look like hell, and she’ll see it.”
I wasn’t offended. I was actually glad she’d said it, because it was true and I might not have realized it if Macey hadn’t said so.
Macey walked away, and I sat there for a long time— thinking. I remembered the time my dad took me to the circus. For two hours we sat side by side, watching the clowns and cheering for the lion tamer. But the part I remember most was when a man stepped out onto the high wire, fifty feet above the ground. By the time he reached the other side, five other people had climbed onto his shoulders, but I wasn’t watching him—I was too busy staring at my father, who looked on as if he knew what it felt like, up there without a net.
Sitting there that day, I knew that the only thing I could do was keep putting one foot in front of the other, hoping none of the secrets on my shoulders would make me lose my balance.
“Eyes closed,” Mr. Solomon commanded again, and we followed his instructions.
The projector purred behind me. I felt its white light slicing through the room as we cinched our eyes together and trained our minds to recall even the most minute details of the things we had just seen. I thought about the photo of a supermarket parking lot as Mr. Solomon said, “Ms. Alvarez, what’s wrong with this picture?”
“The blue van has handicapped plates,” Eva said. “But it’s parked at the back of the lot.”
“Correct. Next picture.” The projector clicked, the image changed, and we had two seconds to study the photo that flashed before our eyes.
“Ms. Baxter?” Mr. Solomon asked. “What’s wrong here?”
“The umbrella,” Bex said. “There’s rain on the window and the coat on the hook is damp, but the umbrella is bundled up. Most people leave them open to dry.”
“Very good.”
When we opened our eyes, I didn’t look at the screen, I looked at our teacher and wondered yet again how he could talk to Bex, challenge her as if nothing in the world was wrong. I didn’t know whether to envy him or hate him, but I didn’t have time for either, because he was saying, “Eyes closed.” I heard him take a step, and I wanted to know how he could stand there when all I wanted to do was run away. “Ms. Morgan, what’s wrong with this picture?”
“Um . . . I didn’t . . . I mean, I’m . . .”
What was wrong was that I hadn’t been able to look my best friend in the eye for days. What was wrong was that people like Abe Baxter live and die, and the whole world goes on—never knowing what they’ve sacrificed. There was so much wrong that I didn’t know where to start.
“Okay. How about you, Ms. Bauer?”
“The teacup at the head of the table,” Courtney said.
“What about it?”
“Its handle is facing the wrong way.”
“So it is,” Mr. Solomon said as the lights in the classroom flickered to life and we all squinted against the glare.
Our internal clocks were telling us the same thing— class wasn’t over.
“I’ve got something for you today, ladies,” Mr. Solomon said as he handed a stack of papers to each girl in the front row.
Liz’s hand was instantly in the air.
“No, Ms. Sutton,” Mr. Solomon said before Liz could even ask the question. “This isn’t a test, and it’s not for a grade. Your school just needs you to say in black and white whether you are going to keep studying covert operations next semester.”
All around me, my classmates started filling out the form—a check mark
here, a signature there, until Mr. Solomon stepped forward and snapped, “Ladies”—he paused as everyone looked up—“my colleague Mr. Smith is fond of saying, ‘It is a big world full of dark corners and long memories.’ Do not”—he paused, surveying us, and I could have sworn his stare lingered on me—“take this decision lightly.”
Bex poked me in the shoulder. When I turned around, she flashed a big thumbs-up and mouthed the words “This is awesome!”
I looked back down at the form in my hands, rubbed it between my fingers, and tried to smell if there was poison in the ink.
It’s just paper, I told myself. Ordinary paper. But then that very fact sent chills down my spine as I realized the form wasn’t on Evapopaper. It wasn’t meant to dissolve and wash away. I caught Joe Solomon’s eye, and I’m pretty sure he saw me notice that—the permanence of what it meant. And even though it wasn’t meant to be eaten, I still got a bad taste in my mouth.
Now, you may think that if you’re a Gallagher Girl dating a boy from Roseville that the best thing in the world would be having Tina Walters come running up to you at breakfast, exclaiming, “Cammie, I talked to your mom, and she said we can all walk into town on Saturday!”
You may think that—but you’d be wrong.
Every moment I spent in town while it was swarming with Gallagher Girls was a moment they could see me with Josh, or Josh could see me with them. Still, I looked at Bex across the breakfast table, felt the sadness that I’d been carrying for days, and even though Liz whispered, “Cam, it’s a big risk,” I knew I had to go. I needed a few hours of forgetting.
Saturday morning, the suites were buzzing as girls collected their Christmas shopping lists and checked what movies were playing. (I’d already seen them both with Josh, of course.) Some of us rode into town in Gallagher Academy vans, but I chose to walk with the rest of the sophomores— amazed at how that familiar terrain looked by the light of day.
When we reached the edge of town, I started rubbing my temples. “Oh,” I said, “my head is killing me. Does anybody have any aspirin?” My classmates checked their pockets and purses, but no one could find any little bottles of pills (probably because I’d stolen them all the night before).
“You guys go on without me,” I said, when we reached the square. “I’m gonna run to the pharmacy.” Not a lie.
“The movie’s gonna start in ten minutes,” Bex reminded me, but I was already walking away, calling after them, “I’ll meet you in there.”
As plans go, it was a pretty good one. I could spend two hours with Josh, then sneak into the back of the theater, say something about the movie on the way home, and they’d never know I hadn’t been there all along.
The door dinged when I pushed inside. I’d never been to the pharmacy with Josh. It had always seemed better not to see him there. But he’d told me his dad was making him work on Saturdays, and having permission to be in town was too good an opportunity to pass up.
I walked to the counter and spoke to the woman behind it. “Hi. Is Josh here?”
“Well, hello, Cammie,” a man said behind me. I turned to see Mr. Abrams walking my way. He was wearing a white smock with his name embroidered above the pocket. I felt like I was getting ready to have my teeth cleaned. “This is a nice surprise.”
“Oh, hello, Mr. Abrams.”
“Is this your first trip to our little store?”
“Yes, it is. It’s . . .” I looked around at the long rows of cough syrups and greeting cards and bandages for every occasion. “. . . nice.”
Mr. Abrams beamed. “Well, Josh just ran out to make a delivery. Ought to be right back, though. In the meantime, I want you to go over to the counter and order up any kind of ice cream you want—on the house. How’s that sound?”
I glanced behind me to see an old-fashioned soda fountain stretching across the far wall. “That sounds great!” Totally not a lie.
Mr. Abrams smiled at me and started toward a set of narrow stairs, but before climbing, he turned and said, “Cammie, you come back any time.”
He disappeared around a corner. I was almost sad to watch him go.
The ice-cream counter was smooth against my hands as I walked in front of the huge mirror that hung behind the bar. The woman from the counter followed me over and slipped on an apron as I climbed onto one of the old metal stools.
A sign above the bar read “Proudly serving Coca-Cola since 1942.” There was a tall glass jar full of straws. The woman didn’t bat an eye when I ordered a double chocolate sundae, and for the first time in weeks I felt almost normal.
Outside it was November and cold, but the sun was beaming through the glass storefront, warming my skin as I ate my ice cream and fell into a dreamy, sugar-induced trance.
Then, I heard the jingling of the little brass bells above the door.
I didn’t turn around. I didn’t have to. The woman who’d been helping me pulled off her apron and headed toward the counter as I paused with a spoon halfway to my mouth and saw Anna Fetterman’s reflection in the mirror behind the bar.
“Can you help me?” Anna said, once the clerk drew near. “I need to have my inhaler refilled.”
“Sure, honey.” The woman took the slip of paper from Anna’s hand. “Let me go check on this. It’ll just be a minute.”
I was already off my stool and crouching behind an adult diapers display, when I realized that all I was really guilty of was eating a hot fudge sundae so soon after lunch, and let me tell you—Anna has seen me eat way more than that (a certain incident involving Doritos, squirty cheese, and the winter Olympics comes to mind), so I was just getting ready to go say hi, when I heard something that made me freeze.
The bells rang again, and I glanced through the shelves to see Dillon and a bunch of boys from the barn dance walk in. But they didn’t walk down the aisles. No. They’d already found what they were looking for.
“Hey, don’t I know you?” Dillon asked, but he wasn’t talking to me. It was worse. He was talking to Anna, and he wasn’t simply asking a question. His words were too sharp. His tone too predatory as he stepped closer to little Anna Fetterman and said, “No, wait, you don’t go to my school.” In the mirror above the bar I saw him crowd Anna against the shelves. “I bet you go to the Gallagher Academy.”
Anna drew her purse to her chest as if he were going to grab it and run away. “What a nice purse,” Dillon said. “Did your daddy buy you that purse?”
Anna’s daddy is an eighth-grade biology teacher in Dayton, Ohio, but Dillon didn’t know that and Anna couldn’t tell him. She was clinging to her cover just as ardently as I was clinging to mine.
The boys around Dillon started to laugh. And just like that I remembered why Gallagher Girls and town boys aren’t supposed to mix.
Anna stumbled backward, because, despite nearly three and a half years of P&E training, she could hardly swat a fly. The town was swarming with Gallagher Girls that afternoon, but Dillon and his friends had found Anna. It wasn’t an accident. Anna was alone and weak, so obviously someone like Dillon would be there to try to thin her from the herd.
“I’m just here to . . .” Anna tried to speak, but her voice was barely more than a whisper.
“What’s that?” Dillon asked. “I didn’t hear you.”
“I . . .” Anna stuttered.
I wanted to go to her, but I was frozen somehow— halfway between being her friend and being a homeschooled girl with a cat named Suzie. If I were one and not the other, I could have stopped it, but instead I told myself over and over, She’ll be okay; she’ll be okay; she’ll be—
“What’s the matter? Don’t they teach you how to speak at the Gallagher Academy?” Dillon said, and I would have given anything for Anna to bite back in Arabic, or Japanese, or Farsi, but she just took another backward step. Her elbow knocked a box of Band-Aids, and it teetered on the edge of the shelf.
Anna inched toward the door and mumbled, “I’ll come back for—”
But a couple of Dillon’s frien
ds stepped in front of her, surrounding her with a wall of crimson lettermen’s jackets, and I couldn’t see her anymore.
She’ll be fine, I said again, willing it to be true. Which in a way it was, because just then the doorbells chimed, and in walked Macey McHenry.
“Hey, Anna.” To my knowledge, Macey had never said more than two words to Anna Fetterman, but as she strolled through the door, her voice was light and free, and she sounded like the tiny girl’s best friend in the world. “What’s going on?”
The four boys parted around Anna, backing away; maybe because of the way Macey chomped her gum then blew a bubble that popped in Dillon’s face; maybe because they’d never seen a girl so beautiful in person before. But Dillon didn’t stray.
“Oh,” he said smugly, looking Macey’s amazing figure up and down. “She has a friend.”
Anna looked at Macey as if she half suspected her classmate to say, Who me? I’m not her friend. But Macey only fingered the bottles on the shelves, handing Anna a bottle of vitamin C. “You should really take these.”
Macey walked down the aisle, examining the shelves, ignoring Dillon and the gang, who kept looking at their leader for directions.
“I should have known the Gallagher Academy wouldn’t let its precious darlings out on their own,” Dillon mocked. But Macey only smiled one of her patently beautiful smiles.
“Yeah,” she said, eyeing his buddies. “We’re not brave like you.”
“Is there a problem here?” I knew the voice, but the accent was one Bex only used on rare occasions. To this day, I don’t know how she got through the front door without setting off the chimes, but there she was, strolling past the Cold and Flu section, coming to stand on Anna’s other side. I didn’t know why she wasn’t at the movie. I didn’t care.
It was three against four now, and Dillon didn’t like those odds. Still, he managed to look at Bex and say, “What’s the matter? Is your yacht broken or something?”
Dillon snickered. The friends snickered. It was an idiot snicker-a-thon until Macey said, “Not that I’ve heard.”