by Ally Carter
Page 18
"Cammie," Mom said calmly. "I need to know why you left the Grand Hall tonight. "
Okay, its one thing to tell your mother about undergarment emergencies, but its quite another to share them with your teacher—especially a teacher like Joe Solomon, so I shrugged and said, "I … uh … had a clothing…malfunction. "
"Oh," Mom said, nodding.
"And you left the Grand Hall?" Mr. Solomon asked, not stopping to ask which article of clothing. "Where did you go? Who did you see?"
"Mom," I pleaded as I searched my mothers eyes through the glow of the emergency lights that filled her office, "whats this all about?"
But Mom didnt answer.
"Did you try to leave the mansion tonight, Ms. Morgan?" Mr. Solomon demanded.
"No," I said.
"Cam," Mom said. "You wont be in trouble, but we need to know the truth. "
"No!" I exclaimed again. "I didnt leave. Something happened to my dress, and I left for a second, and then…" But they already knew about the sirens and the lights, and for some reason I couldnt bring myself to remind them. "Whats going on?" I asked one final time.
Mom and Mr. Solomon looked at each other, then my mother got up and sat next to me on the leather sofa, pulled me down beside her, and said, "Cammie, do you know whats in this mansion?"
For a second I thought it must be a trick question, but then I remembered what the mansion contained…the experiments, the prototypes, the mission summaries, and…most of all… the names and traces of every Gallagher Girl who had ever lived.
"Do you have any idea what would happen if the general population—much less our enemies—had access to what is contained within these walls?" my mother asked. I seriously didnt want to think about the answer. And the truth was, I didnt know the answer—no one did. And the most important thing in the world was that we kept it that way.
"Ms. Morgan, you were in the halls tonight prior to the security breach," Mr. Solomon stated. "We need you to tell us exactly what you saw and heard. "
I could have asked what was going on—who they suspected and why—but when youve lived your whole life on a need-to-know basis, you eventually stop asking the questions that you know no one will answer.
So I sat on the leather couch in my mothers office knowing that more was riding on my memory than it had for any test Id ever taken. I closed my eyes and told the story straight through—from Zachs dance to the doors swinging open. I left nothing out.
"You saw Zach?" Mr. Solomon asked.
"Yeah. He was waiting for me. You should ask him if he saw or heard anything," I said, but my mothers gaze never left Mr. Solomons. "Mom…"I started, but my voice cracked.
"Everythings fine, sweetie, dont worry. " She smiled at me and rubbed my back. Rachel Morgan is probably the best spy I have ever known, so when she stood and opened the door and said, "The mansions secure, it was probably just a false alarm," I tried to believe her. When she hugged me good night, I tried to wipe the worry from my mind.
But then I risked a backward glance at my teacher, who had removed his jacket and loosened his tie, and I couldnt help but think that the party was officially over.
After I left my mothers office I made my way through the red glow of the emergency lights. The halls were empty. The windows were covered. I expected to see running girls, to hear debriefs and a thousand crazy theories, but the halls echoed with silence as I slowly pushed my bedroom door open.
It seemed to take forever for Bex to say, "What did your mom want?"
Sure, theyd all traded their ball gowns for flannel pajamas, but one look at my roommates told me they were anything but comfortable.
"She wanted to know where I was and what I saw. " I kicked off my tight shoes and felt my feet instantly swell up to twice their normal size.
"Well…" Bex said slowly. "Where were you?"
And then I told the story—the whole story. Again. And when I was finished, two things were clear. A) I seriously needed to remember to go pick up that bra from the floor first thing tomorrow morning. And B) My roommates had been expecting a very different story.
Liz sat up straighter on her bed. "So you didnt decide to sneak out and go see Josh at the spring fling?"
"No!" I said. "It wasnt me! You guys know I wouldnt breach security like that. "
"Of course it wasnt you," Bex huffed. "You wouldnt get caught. "
Okay, so it wasnt exactly the vote of confidence Id been hoping for, but it was a start.
"And besides, youd never leave in the middle of a test," Liz added. "So you arent in any trouble?"
"No. "
"And Zach just disappeared?" Macey asked. "He didnt even go with you to your moms office?"
"No. "
"Cam," Liz said, and for the first time tonight, I could detect fear in her voice, "what do you think happened?"
Despite all my training, experience, and instincts, all I could do was crawl into bed, pull the covers tightly around me, and admit, "I dont know. "
And then the lights came on.
Chapter Eighteen
Ive had some very challenging days since coming to the Gallagher Academy (like the time our archery midterm happened to fall on nondominant hand day, for example), but the day that followed the ball was the most difficult yet—for a lot of reasons:
Even though it was Saturday, no one slept in, so that meant girls were walking up and down
the halls, talking in front of our door by seven a. m.
Even if it hadnt been for all the noise, I still probably wouldnt have been able to sleep.
The kitchen staff had gone to such extremes the night before that our only option for breakfast was
cereal.
Extensive ball preparations during the previous week meant that everyone was behind on their
homework.
My elaborate, twisty updo from the night before made the hair-washing and detangling process very
difficult and painful.
Even though the teachers were busy passing along the official story that the Code Black had been a
false alarm due to faulty wiring—the unofficial story was about… me.
The lights were on. The steel shutters had disappeared, and everything in the mansion was back to where it always was, but as soon as I stepped into the library, I knew things were different. The weird thing wasnt that fifteen teenage girls were in there at nine a. m. on a Saturday morning. The weird thing was that as soon as I walked in, everyone stopped talking.
Even Tina Walters dropped her book and gaped at me as I walked past the fireplace on my way to the section of the library devoted to world currencies (we had a paper due for Mr. Smith). I ran my hand across the spines of books, looking, until I heard a whisper filter through the shelves.
"Well, of course theyre going to say it was a false alarm," said I voice I didnt recognize.
I froze.
"Obviously her mom is going to cover for her. "
And my heart stopped. "Its not like its the first time, either. "
Im used to people talking about me … sort of. I mean, I am the headmistresss daughter, and my chameleoness is rather legendary, and my secret boyfriend had followed me to my CoveOps final and driven a forklift through a wall. So you could say Ive never been entirely under the radar. But none of those things were ever followed by pulsing sirens and spinning bookshelves and a mansion-wide lockdown three times more secure than what would happen to the White House in the event of a nuclear war.
By lunchtime it was all I could do to maintain a brave, unguilty-looking face as I sat in the Grand Hall, feeling entirely unchameleony.
I couldnt blame them, entirely. After all, my ex-boyfriend had invited me to a party in Roseville. I have, on occasion, violated school security to see that particular boyfriend. So it shouldnt have come as a total surprise that, as I sat in the Grand Hall at lunch that day, eating my lasagna, the entire school was staring … at me.
"How did this happen?" I whispered to my friends.
"Well, everyone knows you used to sneak out to see Josh; and they know he invited you to a party," Liz said, not really getting the whole rhetorical question thing. (Liz likes questions too much to ever let one go unanswered. ) "And then there was a security breach, and the next thing we knew, you were there—looking …"
"Guilty," Bex said, summing the night up nicely.
"Cam," Liz said, leaning closer. "Its not so bad. No one thinks you did it on purpose. "
Bex shrugged. "But everyone does think you did it. "
There have been Gallagher Girl traitors before, but no one ever talks about them. Very few people even know their names. But right then I felt like one of them—or at least like people thought I was one of them.
"So, Cammie," Tina said, taking a seat beside me, "is it true that you werent actually sneaking out to see Josh—"
"Thats right, Tina, I wasnt," I said, kinda relieved to get it off my chest. Tina didnt even seem to hear me, though, because she just plowed on.
"—Because according to my sources, instead of going to that dance in town, you were really sneaking out to participate in a rogue mission for the CIA. "
"Tina! Of course I wasnt. "
"Really?"
"No, Tina. I wasnt sneaking out to go to the dance in Roseville; I wasnt sneaking out because the CIA needed me; I wasnt sneaking out!"
Tina rolled her eyes.
"Tina, Im serious," I snapped. "You can ask my mom," I offered, but she didnt look terribly convinced. "You can ask Zach. "
And this got her attention.
"You were with Zach?" she whispered. "You were with Zach!" Tina yelled, and then she was off to where the boys sat at the end of the long table.
I tried to pretend I wasnt watching, that I didnt care. But I was. And I did.
"So, Zach. " Tina leaned over him while he ate. "Is it true that you were with Cammie last night during the Code Black?"
"Cammie?" Zach asked, sounding confused. "Morgan?" he asked again, then laughed. "Why would I be with her?"
I thought my throat was going to swell up. I thought my head was going to explode from all the anger and embarassment that was sending blood to my cheeks. But that wasnt the worst part. The worst part was that Tina believed him. She took one look at Zach and then at me and seemed to know that a boy like Zach wouldnt be with a girl like me.
"Yeah, sure, I saw her at the party," Zach went on. Then he laughed that little half-laugh of his again. "But I wasnt with her. "
The spy in me wanted to utilize some highly illegal interrogation tactics (or perhaps the whole-body-waxing thing) and force him to admit the truth. The girl in me…well… she just sat there, too stunned and embarrassed to do anything at all.
"Zach," I started, but he just got up and left the table.
"See ya later," he said, as if he barely saw me.
I could feel every eye turning toward me, and at that moment I was the least invisible Gallagher Girl in the room.