by Ally Carter
“Bex,” I said as calmly as possible.
“I see her,” Bex replied.
Here’s the thing you need to know about detecting and losing a tail: to do it right—I mean really right—you’d need to cover half a city. You’d climb in and out of cabs and train cars and walk against the grain on at least a dozen busy sidewalks. You’d take all day.
But Mr. Solomon hadn’t given us all day, and that was kind of the point. So Bex and I spent the next hour going in one museum entrance and out another. Going up escalators only to come down the elevator two minutes later. We made sudden stops and looked in mirrors and tied our shoelaces when they didn’t need it. It was a virtual blur of corner-clearing and litter-dropping—everything I’ve ever seen, everything I’ve ever even heard of! (At one point Bex had almost talked me into crawling out the bathroom window in the Air and Space Museum, but a U.S. Marshal walked by and we decided not to press our luck.)
The seconds ticked by and the sun went lower, and soon the shadow of the Washington Monument was stretched almost the full length of the Mall. Time was running out.
“Tina,” I said through my comms unit, “how are you and Anna?” But I was met with empty silence. “Mick,” I said. “Are you there?”
Bex and I shared a worried glance, because there are reasons operatives go radio-silent, and most of them are not good.
We were cutting across the Mall, walking north, hoping anyone who wasn’t intentionally following us would stick to the path.
“Forty-seven minutes,” I announced, as if Bex weren’t fully aware of that fact.
She turned around to glance at a man walking too fast behind us, and I didn’t know whether to take it as an insult or a compliment that a team of CIA pros didn’t care if they stood out anymore. They just wanted to stay with us.
When a crowd of girls filled the sidewalk in front of us and started down the long, steep escalator to the Metro station below, I looked at Bex. “Do it!” she said, and we merged into the crowd. The girls were wearing white blouses almost exactly like ours. Their name badges bore a logo from something called Mock Supreme Court. They were almost identical to us from the waist up, so Bex and I slipped off our coats as we descended into the cavernous, echoing station.
“I love your bracelet!” I said to the brunette next to me, because, while most girls are on to the whole strangers-withcandy thing, the strangers-with-compliments strategy is still remarkably effective.
“Thanks!” said the girl, who, according to her badge, was Whitney from Dallas. “Hey, are y’all with the group?”
“Yeah,” Bex said. Then she looked down at her chest. “Oh my gosh! I left my name tag in my senator’s office—we took them off to have our picture taken,” she explained.
“Really?” another girl said. “That’s cool. Who’s your senator?”
And then Bex and I each said the first name that popped into our heads: “McHenry.”
We looked at each other and shared a very subtle laugh as the escalator carried us deeper and deeper beneath the city.
One of the girls, Kaitlin with a K, whispered to another girl, Caitlin with a C, “Are they back there?”
C peered back up the escalator, then grinned. “They are so following us!”
Bex and I might have exuded a panicked vibe about then, because K leaned in to explain, “These two hot guys have totally been checking us out.”
“Oh,” Bex said, as she and I used this as an excuse to check behind us. Sure enough, red-baseball-cap guy was back there (by now he was dressed like a navy lieutenant). And ten feet in front of him we saw the boys from the bench.
The C(K)aitlins started to laugh. It was hilarious. It was fun. Cute boys were on their tail, and maybe they thought they were being covert or cool, but all that really mattered was that once they got home they’d have a story they could tell. And it wouldn’t be classified.
As the escalator entered the cavernous room, a train was already at the station. “Let’s run and get it!” Bex screamed.
And everyone was off, racing to the bottom of the escalator, then dashing to the end of the train. The girls piled inside as the doors closed, and red-baseball-cap-slash-navyofficer guy jumped forward, barely making it into the next to last car as the train pulled out of the station, and away from where Bex and I stood underneath the escalator, waiting for our new friends and old shadow to disappear.
Bex and I watched the man in the train press himself against the glass as the train sped into the tunnel.
We were free.
We were clear.
We thought.
Overconfidence is a spy’s worst enemy, so to be on the safe side, Bex and I decided to split up when we left the Metro station. We had exactly twenty minutes to make it to the Museum of American History and our rendezvous with Mr. Solomon. Twenty more minutes to make sure we really were clear.
I slipped into the shadows of the Metro station and watched Bex ascend the escalator, then waited long enough to be certain no one followed her. Then I headed to the elevator, but as I reached for the button, another hand beat me to it.
“Hey,” one of the boys from the park bench said. He did that half head nod thing that all boys seem to do . . . or at least the boys I know. Which mainly means Josh.
“Hi,” I replied, pushing the button again, hoping to make the elevator come faster, because the last time a random boy had said hi to me, things had ended badly—like Mr.-Solomon-practically-being-run-over-by-a-forklift badly. And needless to say, that’s not the kind of thing that looks good on a girl’s permanent record.
When the elevator doors slid open, I was kind of, sort of hoping he wouldn’t step inside, but of course he did; and since the Metro station was forever and a day underground, the elevator ride was forever and a day long. The boy rested against the railing. He was slightly shorter and broader through the shoulders, but in the blurry reflection of the elevator doors, he almost looked like Josh.
“So,” the boy said, pointing to the crest on my coat. “The Guggenheim Academy—”
“Gallagher Academy,” I corrected.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
Which was kind of the point, but I didn’t say so. “Well, it’s my school.”
The elevator seemed to move slower and slower as the clock in my head ticked louder and louder, and I thought about how Mr. Solomon might make us walk back to Roseville if no one achieved our mission objectives.
“You in a hurry or something?” the boy asked.
“Actually, I’m supposed to meet my teacher at the ruby slipper exhibit. I’ve only got twenty minutes, and if I’m late, he’ll kill me.” (Not a lie, but maybe an exaggeration—I hoped.)
“How do you know?”
“Because he said, ‘Meet me at the ruby slipper exhibit.’”
“No.” The boy was smiling, shaking his head. “How do you know you only have twenty minutes? You’re not wearing a watch.”
“My friend just told me.” The lie was smooth and easy, and I was a little bit proud of it, happy that I didn’t have to think about how, in forty-five seconds, this boy had noticed something Josh hadn’t seen in four months.
“You fidget a lot,” he said.
Make that two things Josh hadn’t seen.
“I’m sorry,” I said, but I wasn’t. “I have low blood sugar.” Lie number three. “I need to eat something.” Which wasn’t really a lie, since . . . well . . . I was hungry.
And then stranger-boy totally knocked me for a loop, because he handed me a bag of M&M’S. “Here. I ate most of them already.”
“Oh . . . um . . .” What was that I’d said about strangers with candy? “That’s okay. Thanks, though.”
He shoved the candy back in his pocket. “Oh,” the boy said. “Okay.”
We finally reached the surface, and the doors slid open onto the Mall, where dusk had somehow fallen in the last ten minutes.
“Thanks again for the candy.” I darted outside, knowing that to be safe I could
n’t take the most direct way to the museum—not yet. I had to—
Wait.
I was being followed!
But not in any kind of covert sense!
“Where are you going?” I said, spinning on the boy behind me.
“I thought we were going to meet your teacher in the wonderful world of Oz.”
“We?”
“Sure. I’m going with you.”
“No you’re not,” I snapped, because A) The aforementioned forklift thing, and B) I’m pretty sure bringing a boy to a clandestine rendezvous isn’t in the CIA handbook.
“Look,” the boy said confidently. “It’s dark. You’re by yourself. And this is D.C.” Oh my gosh. It’s like he had Grandma Morgan on speed-dial or something. “And you’ve only got”—he pondered it—“fifteen minutes to meet your teacher.”
He was wrong by ninety seconds, but I didn’t say so. All I knew was that I couldn’t shake him—not without creating a lot more drama than letting him tag along was going to cause, so I just quickened my pace and said, “Fine.”
As we walked against the cold wind, I told myself that this was good; this was fine. Nobody looking for a Gallagher Girl would expect me to be with a boy. He was cover. He was useful.
“You can really walk fast,” he said, but I didn’t say anything back. “So, do you have a name?” he asked, as if that were just the most innocent question ever. As if that isn’t how broken hearts and broken covers always start.
“Sure. Lots of them.”
That was probably the most truthful thing I’d told him yet, but the boy just smiled at me as if I were funny and flirty and cute. Let me tell you, I was none of those things, especially after not sleeping or eating, wearing a blindfold for an hour, then walking up and down the frozen Mall all day!
My nose was running. My feet were killing me. All I really wanted to do was get to Dorothy’s slippers, click my heels together, and go home. But instead I had to put up with a boy who assumed I needed protecting. A boy with whom I could never “be myself.” A boy who was staring at me as if he knew a secret—and worse—as if the secret was about me.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked.
At this point I should point out that I was pretty sure the boy was flirting with me! Or at least I thought he was flirting with me, but without running it by Macey (and maybe plugging a sample into the voice-stress analyzer that Liz had developed for this very purpose), there was no way I could be sure. Last semester I’d thought I was learning how to interpret boy-related things, but all I’d really learned was that Gallagher Girls shouldn’t flirt with normal boys—not because we won’t like them. But because we might like them too much. And that would be the worst thing of all.
“Look, thanks for the chivalry and all, but it really isn’t necessary,” I muttered what may have been the understatement of the century, since I’m pretty sure I could have killed him with my backpack. “It’s just up here.” I pointed to the Museum of American History, which stood gleaming twenty yards away. “And there’s a cop over there.”
“What?” the boy said, glancing at the D.C. police officer that stood at the corner of the street, “you think that guy can do a better job protecting you than I can?”
Actually, I thought Liz could have done a better job “protecting” me than he could, but instead I said, “No, I think if you don’t leave me alone, I can scream and that cop will arrest you.”
Somehow the boy seemed to know it was a joke . . . mostly. He stepped away and smiled. And for a moment I felt myself smile, too.
“Hey,” I called to him, because, despite how annoying he was right then, a pang of guilt shot through my stomach. After all, he had been all knight-in-shining-armory. It wasn’t his fault I’m not the kind of girl who needs saving. “Thanks anyway.”
He nodded. If it had been another day or I’d been another girl, a hundred other things might have happened. But I had begun the semester with a promise to be myself, and the real me was still a girl on a mission.
I darted for the doors and pushed my way inside, then slipped into a narrow hallway behind the help desk. I watched the entrance, waiting ninety seconds to be sure that I was clear.
“Bex.” I tried my comms unit. “Courtney . . . Mick . . . Kim . . .” I told myself there was no way they’d all been made. They were probably downstairs in the ice-cream parlor; or maybe waiting in the van.
I grabbed a visitors’ brochure from a stack on the help desk, slipped into a narrow stairwell, and began the three-story climb to the slippers, not really caring that I wouldn’t get to see the sights. (After all, the “Julia Child’s Kitchen” exhibit didn’t even illustrate how she used to send coded messages in her recipes.)
I could feel the ticking clock, almost see the look on Mr. Solomon’s face and hear him say well done. I was so close; I scanned the map and took the stairs two at a time until I emerged at the far end of the floor, where the ruby slippers were displayed.
There were no signs of Mr. Solomon or my classmates; not another soul in the great oval room. I felt the clock in my head chime five o’clock. I stepped toward a case, which looked almost exactly like the one that stood in the center of the Hall of History. But instead of the sword that Gillian Gallagher had used to kill the first guy who’d tried to assassinate President Lincoln, this case held a different kind of national treasure.
The ruby slippers were so small, so delicate, that a part of me wanted to marvel in the coolness of being that close to something so rare. The rest of me just wanted to know why seven Gallagher Girls had gone radio silent and my teacher was nowhere to be seen! Then I heard Mr. Solomon’s voice behind me.
“You’re four seconds late.”
The shoes glistened as I spun around. “But I’m alone.”
“No, Ms. Morgan. You’re not.”
And then the boy from the elevator, the boy from the bench, stepped out of the shadows.
And looked at me.
And smiled.
And said, “Hi again, Gallagher Girl.”
There are changes that come slowly—like evolution. And letting your hair grow out. And then there are changes that happen in a second—with a ringing phone, a well-timed glance. And in that moment I knew the Gallagher Academy wasn’t alone. I knew there was a school for boys. And, most of all, I knew one of them had just gotten the best of me.
This can’t be happening, I chanted in my head. This can’t be—
“Nice work, Zach,” Mr. Solomon said. “Zach” winked at me, and I thought, This is totally happening!
I’d been sloppy. I’d been distracted. And worst of all, I’d let a boy stand between me and my mission objectives . . . again.
The whole thing might have been too awful—too humiliating—to endure if I hadn’t summoned the courage to say, “Hi, Blackthorne Boy.” Since I wasn’t supposed to know the Blackthorne Institute for Boys even existed, there was a split second when I had the upper hand.
Mr. Solomon blinked. Zach’s mouth gaped open, and I was the person smiling when my teacher said, “Very good, Ms. Morgan.” But then he looked at the boy who had beaten me at my own game, and my face went as red as Dorothy’s shoes. “But not good enough.”
I saw the day like a movie in my mind: Zach and his friend watching Bex twirl in the breeze; the boys standing on the long escalator ride into the Metro station. They’d been there—we’d seen them! But we’d thought they were just . . . boys. And they were. Kind of like we’re just girls.
“Your mission was . . . what?” I started, amazed by how even my voice sounded, how steady my pulse felt. “To keep us from achieving our mission?”
The boy cocked his head and raised his eyebrows. “Something like that.” Then he smirked and exhaled a half laugh. “I thought I could just make you late for your meeting. I didn’t think you’d actually tell me where it was and walk me halfway there.”
I thought I was going to be sick—seriously—right there in front of eight security cameras, my favorite tea
cher, and . . . Zach.
I’d thought he was chivalrous (but he wasn’t). I’d thought he was cute (but tall, dark, and handsome is highly overrated when you think about it). And worst of all, I’d thought he’d been flirting . . . with me.
A group of tourists wandered into the shoe exhibit and pressed closer to the case. I was jostled by the crowd, then blinded by a flashing camera. Mr. Solomon put his arm around my shoulders and guided me to the doors.
I looked back toward the slippers.
But Zach was already gone.
How weird was the helicopter ride home? Let me count the ways:
In an effort to make themselves less tailable, Mick and Eva had traded their school uniforms for jumpsuits from the National Park Service maintenance staff.
Kim Lee had fallen down the stairs at the National Gallery, so she had to sit with her ice-packed ankle propped on Tina’s lap.
Courtney Bauer was still wet, following a very unfortunate Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool incident.
And Anna Fetterman kept staring into the dark with her mouth open because, of all the Gallagher Girls on the Mall that day, she was the only one to achieve our mission objective (yeah, you read that right, Anna Fetterman!), and she was the most shocked person of all.
Even Bex had picked up a tail on her way out of the Metro station and didn’t make it to the museum on time.
So that’s why the entire sophomore CoveOps class from the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women sat in silence, watching the Washington Monument fade into the dark night while the helicopter rose, carrying us home.
I thought there would be questions. And theories. But even Tina Walters—the girl who had once hacked into a National Security Agency satellite in order to look for the alleged boys’ school—didn’t have a thing to say.
After all, it’s one thing to learn there’s a top-secret school for boy spies.
It’s another to find out they might be better than you.
The countryside shimmered beneath us, and the mansion finally came into view, lights shining through the windows and reflecting off the snow.