by Ally Carter
Mom stopped stirring whatever it was she’d taken from the microwave. She forced a smile. “What brought that on?”
I guess it was a pretty good question. After all, normal girls probably know their parents’ story, but that’s not necessarily true for spy girls—spy girls learn early that most things about their parents are classified.
Still, I couldn’t stop. “Was it a mission? Did you meet when you were both working at Langley, or was it before that?” I felt myself running out of breath. “Did the Gallagher Academy do an exchange with Blackthorne then, too?”
Mom cocked her head and studied me as if I might be coming down with something. “What makes you think your father went to the Blackthorne Institute?”
I thought about the picture but lied. “I don’t know. I guess I just . . . assumed. I mean, he did go there—didn’t he?”
She looked down at the bowl and kept on stirring. “No, sweetie. He had friends who went there. He guest-lectured on occasion. But your dad grew up in Nebraska—you know that.”
I did know that, but somehow in the last few months I’d started questioning everything I’d ever known.
“So how did you meet?” I asked again. “How did you know . . .” I said, biting back the one question I really wanted to know but couldn’t ask: How could you trust him?
My stomach growled, but I didn’t feel hungry.
“Someday I’ll tell you the story, kiddo.” My mother smiled and handed me a plate. “Just as soon as you have clearance.”
I sat in the secret-room-slash-observation post for a long time that night, listening to the wire taps. Searching for some small clue.
It was well after midnight when I finally eased out of the corridor and stepped over the ashes of a fire that had gone out. I slipped through the massive opening of a stone fireplace (one of many entrances to that corridor), expecting silence, expecting darkness, expecting anything but the sound of Zach Goode saying, “So the tour is closed, huh?”
Which is why, spy training or not, I bolted upright too quickly and banged my head on the top of the fireplace.
“Ow!” I cried, clutching the back of my head. “What are you doing here?”
“Come on,” he said, ignoring my question and gently feeling the back of my head where a bump was starting to form.
I tried to pull away, but he pushed harder, and even though I know he was The Subject and all, it’s hard not to get a bit of a shiver down your spine when a cute boy is inches away with his hand in your hair.
“You’ll live.”
“You’re being nice,” I said, honestly shocked.
“Don’t tell anyone.” He crossed his arms and nodded at the stone wall from which I’d just mysteriously appeared. A smile grew on his lips as he said, “So . . . did your bugs hear anything interesting?”
21:00 hours: The Subject admitted to leaving some of The Operative’s listening devices within the East Wing. Or he tried to trick The Operative into admitting that there were remaining devices . . . Or The Subject was just making covert small talk. Or . . .
21:01 hours: The Operative couldn’t help but remember how much easier it is talking to regular boys.
“What is it, Gallagher Girl?” He asked, sliding his hands into his pockets. “No snappy comebacks? Nonexistent cat named Suzie got your tongue?”
“How do you know about Suzie?”
He pointed to himself once more and said, “Spy.”
Moonlight fell through the windows, slicing between us.
There were no sounds of squeaking floorboards and giggling girls, and I couldn’t think of a single thing to say as I stood there drowning in the silence, struggling for breath while my head throbbed and Zach leaned closer. And closer. His hand reached toward my face, and for the second time that semester I froze.
His finger brushed a strand of my hair away from my eyes, but then he pulled back as if he’d felt a shock. His hands slid into his pockets. His gaze fell to the floor.
And it felt like we might have stood there forever, before he said, “Why don’t you ask me about it? About them?” I felt my breath catch as Zach glanced back at me. “I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours.”
I don’t know what surprised me more—that someone had finally asked to hear what happened to my dad or that Zach’s tough exterior was crumbling. He didn’t cry or shake, but instead he stood so still that when I started to reach for him I pulled back, almost afraid to break whatever trance he’d fallen into. I remembered Grandpa Morgan’s warnings that there are some wild things you’re not supposed to touch.
“It was a mission.”
I don’t know why I said it. The words were foreign to me, and yet they slid so effortlessly from my mouth that they must have been back there, fully formed for years, waiting for that chance to slip free.
“Four years ago my dad went on a mission. He didn’t come home. Nobody knows what . . . happened.”
Then Zach looked at me and said the words I’ve always known but never dared to utter: “Somebody knows.”
And he was right—someone somewhere knew what had happened to my father, but I couldn’t say so. There was something in the way Zach stood watching me. A silence stretched out between us; and even though we were inches away from each other, it felt like a thousand miles.
“What?” I asked. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying somebody knows,” Zach said, not snapping, but his voice was sharper—stronger. “I’m saying you shouldn’t act like there aren’t any answers just because you haven’t taken the time to look for them.”
“What am I supposed to do, Zach? I’m just—”
“Just a girl?” he questioned me. Then he shrugged and sighed. “I thought you were a Gallagher Girl.”
Zach walked away, but I stood there for a long time, wondering if I should go to my mother; if I should go to my friends; but instead I slipped into the corridors I hadn’t used in months, pushed my way through cobwebs and darkness, trying to walk away from the tears that burned hot down my cheeks, because maybe I didn’t want to admit weakness; maybe I wanted to wallow in my solitude and grief.
Or maybe crying is like everything else we do—it’s best if you don’t get caught.
The next two weeks were honestly two of the weirdest in my life—not for what happened, but for what didn’t happen.
Zach didn’t harass me. He didn’t tease me. He didn’t even call me Gallagher Girl and flash his cocky grin in my direction.
After a lifetime of being the girl nobody sees, I felt like I’d become a whole new type of invisible.
And then one day, as I was leaving the Grand Hall, I felt someone bump against me and I heard Zach say, “Sorry.” Then we kept walking in opposite directions—him up the Grand Stairs and me outside.
I didn’t notice the note in my pocket until I was already outside, standing in the light rain that seemed to never stop.
I didn’t stop to marvel that he’d just pulled off the greatest brush pass I’d ever seen. I didn’t run for the shelter of the barn.
Instead, I stood in the heavy wet air, looking at my name scrawled across a piece of Evapopaper. I opened the note and scanned the page, the words barely registering before the paper washed away in the rain.
Well, obviously the note was gone long before I found my friends and barricaded the door to our bedroom—which was a shame, because, if ever there was a piece of evidence that needed examining, that was it. But the note was gone. Lost. We couldn’t analyze the handwriting or the intensity with which he’d held the pen. We had to go on words themselves and what little prior knowledge we had about the subject.
(Copy courtesy of Cameron Morgan)
So I hear we get to go to town this weekend. Want to catch a movie or something? –Z
P.S. That is, if Jimmy doesn’t mind.
Translation: This weekend might be a good chance for us to see each other outside our school in a social environment, free of competition. I do not view other boys as t
hreats, and I enjoy making them seem insignificant by calling them the wrong names. (Translation by Macey McHenry)
“Oh my gosh, Cam,” Liz exclaimed. “He asked you out!”
“What does it mean?” I asked, turning to Macey, who plopped down on her bed and pulled off her nine-hundreddollar shoes that she’d worn to the P&E barn and were now covered with mud.
“You mean besides the obvious he’s-asking-you-to-themovies part?” Macey asked.
“Yeah, besides that,” I said, because it couldn’t have been that easy. Spies never act without motivation, without a cause, and I didn’t have a clue what Zach’s ulterior motive might have been. I didn’t know why he’d asked me in a note and not in person. I didn’t have a clue what the significance was behind him not signing with his full name. We’d been studying boys for almost an entire academic year, and yet I didn’t feel any closer to understanding a culture where people insult you, then tease you, ignore you for weeks, and then ask you to the movies!
“He’s got to be up to something,” I said finally. But my roommates just looked at each other like there was another explanation. “Don’t you think he’s up to something?”
The rain grew heavier outside, the wind howled, and finally Bex stood and strolled toward me. “Yes. He’s definitely up to something.”
I looked at Liz for confirmation, but she was busy entering Zach’s words into the Boy-to-English translator that had finally made it to the prototype phase.
“And that’s why,” Macey said, smiling, “you’ve got to go.”
Sure, if you’re a Gallagher Girl and you spend all day every day inside the Gallagher grounds, then the thought of going to town—any town—starts to look pretty good. And going with a guy like Zach Goode looks even better.
But not if you’re a Gallagher Girl who is actually engaging in what might be a deep cover honeypot scenario . . . Not if your best friends think this is the perfect opportunity to A) Try out Macey’s new under-eye concealer that’s legal only in Switzerland. And B) Practice the classic three-operativesurveillance scenario. . . .
And most of all, not if you’re a Gallagher Girl with an ex-boyfriend in that particular town.
Saturday morning we woke to sunny skies. Winter had gone away somehow, melted with the snow, and now a pale sunlight filtered through the windows. And I remembered what I’d agreed to do.
“I can’t do this,” I said, not really sure if I was talking about Zach or the push-up bra that Bex was insisting I wear (because push-up bras were invented for honeypot situations). “What if I let it slip that we’re on to them? Or what if he drugs me and uses me to access the restricted portion of the science labs? Or what if . . .” I trailed off, thinking of the one question I couldn’t bring myself to say: What if I have fun?
Instead, I asked the other question that had haunted me for days: “What if I see Josh?”
I’d spent months shrouded in the safety of our walls, knowing that as long as I didn’t leave the grounds I’d never have to see Josh again—which is a luxury normal girls don’t have when avoiding their ex-boyfriends.
“Relax, Cam,” Bex said. “We’ll be following you on comms—you’ll have backup. And besides, what are the odds you’ll even see Josh anyway?”
“One hundred and eighty-seven to one,” Liz answered automatically. I might have looked at her like she was a little bit freaky (which she is—in a good way), but she shrugged and said, “What?” defensively. “If you factor in pedestrian traffic routes, population numbers, and patterns of behavior, the answer is one hundred and eighty-seven to one.”
But there was one thing not even Liz had learned how to quantify: fate. I knew I was tempting it. Again.
My stomach flipped. My fingers tingled. Every nerve in my body seemed to be alive—pulsing with a charge that felt nothing like I’d ever felt on dates; and nothing like I’d ever felt on missions—just nothing I’d ever felt.
Liz did my hair. Macey worked a miracle with my makeup. And Bex was busy sewing a button camera onto my jacket. We had a plan. We had been training for this moment for years, but when my roommates started downstairs, I looked at myself in the mirror.
“It would be okay if you liked him, you know.” Macey lingered in the open doorway. Behind her, the hall grew silent as girls headed out for the long walk into town.
I thought about the rules of covert operations: don’t get emotionally involved in a subject; never lose perspective or control. Better spies than I have flouted those rules and ended up heartbroken . . . or worse. I glanced through the window at the barn, where we learn to shield our eyes and protect our kidneys—we dodge punches and take kicks.
But even the Gallagher Academy hadn’t figured out a way to help us protect our hearts.
“I have eyeball,” Bex said through my comms unit an hour later. Which was a comforting sound. So far, neither Zach nor I had said much of anything, because A) When we got downstairs there was a huge group of people waiting to walk to town (one of whom was Tina Walters). B) The wind was blowing, so I had to keep my head at a weird angle to keep my hair out of my face. And C) Even though I’d been on dates (and missions) before, I’d never done both at once.
And finally, it’s kind of hard to talk when you walk two miles only to find yourself in the middle of the Roseville, Virginia, Founders’ Day parade. Yes, I said parade.
Both the spy and the girl in me knew I was supposed to be saying something—I was supposed to be doing something—but as soon as we turned onto Main Street I heard the blare of trumpets from the Pride of Roseville Marching Band; I saw church ladies selling brownies and raffle tickets for a chance to win a homemade quilt. The entire town of Roseville seemed to be either marching down the streets or filling the square.
“He looks good, Cam . . . I mean Chameleon,” Liz hurried to correct her mistake. I glanced up and down the crowded streets and couldn’t see my roommates anywhere, but there was some comfort in knowing they were there. “Cough if you think he looks good.”
10:41 hours: The Operative couldn’t help but notice that The Subject both looked and smelled REALLY good.
Zach did look good. He wasn’t in his uniform. He’d put something in his hair so that it was messed up in all the right places. And I kept thinking that there had to be something nefarious going on—that there was no way this boy was on a real date with me.
“Hey, Chameleon, you know you can talk,” Macey said through the comms units. “It is allowed.”
But talking wasn’t exactly easy, because I was with Zach. . . . On a date-slash-honeypotting mission! I had a comms unit in my ear and a package of breath mints in my purse, and there was a 1/187 chance I would see my ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. . . . I was dealing with a lot of issues!
“Do you want to do something?” I asked awkwardly, even though, technically, we were doing something.
“We could go to a movie,” Zach said. “Or get something to eat.”
“Okay.”
“Or we could just . . . walk,” he suggested, and for the first time I wondered if he might be nervous, too.
“Okay,” I said again.
“Or we could have that clown over there paint our faces and then go rob the bank,” he suggested, as if I wasn’t really listening. But I didn’t fall for it.
“No way. Last October they installed a Stockholm Series 360—it’d take us at least forty-five minutes to crack it.”
“Good to know.” He laughed.
Suddenly I wanted to stop in the middle of the street and ask Zach why he’d asked me out. I wanted him to confess that I was being honeypotted too. But when Zach reached for my hand and led me through crowded sidewalks, it didn’t feel like the gesture of an operative on a mission. And then, more than anything, I wanted to stop hearing Macey’s words, It’s okay for you to like him, because sometimes not liking someone is easier.
A middle-aged man in a red jacket lingered in the center of the square. Antique cars lined the street while men with big bellies ki
cked the tires and sipped lemonade. We were only two miles away from school, but the Roseville town square felt like another world. The most dangerous thing I could see was a crowd of little girls in sparkly leotards pushing their way down the sidewalk. Zach pulled me around a corner and onto a quiet side street.
“So, plant any good bugs lately?” Zach asked.
A spark was in his eyes, but I couldn’t laugh. I couldn’t even speak. The silence pulsed between us like the beat of the retreating band.
“Just so you know, Gallagher Girl,” he whispered softly, “I’m going to kiss you now.”
For the first time in months I wasn’t thinking about my mission or my cover or my friends.
I wasn’t thinking.
His hands were warm on the back of my neck; his fingers laced through my hair, and he tilted his head as he moved in. I closed my eyes.
And I heard, “Oh my gosh! Cammie, is that you?”
Zach said a really bad word as he inched away from me. (But I doubt DeeDee noticed, because the bad word was in Farsi.) The noise coming from the square seemed louder than it had just seconds before, and I knew that whatever trance I’d been in was completely broken—the moment was totally over.
Zach had started to kiss me. I had almost let Zach kiss me!
“Hi, Cammie,” DeeDee said. She hugged me and smiled at Zach. “I’m so glad you two are here!”
Josh stood five feet away, staring at me, but he didn’t say hi. I’ve thrown enough punches in my life to know when someone is hurting.
I stepped away from Zach as if I could make Josh forget what he’d just seen, but then I noticed the reflection in the window behind me—Josh’s reflection—and I knew that Zach must have seen him. Immediately, my mind raced with a thousand questions—was that why Zach had tried to kiss me? Why did Josh look so sad?
There were no fewer than twenty things I simply had to ask Macey McHenry! I started scanning the crowds, looking for my friends, but instead I saw a man across the street.