by Ally Carter
"Oh, it's a … school thing." At the word school, he recoiled slightly. I looked down at the uniform that—until that moment—Josh had never seen me wear. "So, how have you been?"
"Okay. How about you?"
"Okay," I said, too, because, even though I could have told Josh a lot of things in a lot of different languages, the things I most wanted to say were the very things that neither the spy in me nor the girl in me could ever let him hear.
"So we're both okay," Josh said. He forced a smile. "Good for us."
Oh my gosh, could this moment be any more awkward, I thought—just as… you guessed it… the moment got a lot more awkward.
"Josh." The voice was soft and familiar. "Josh, your dad said he could …" The voice trailed off, and I saw one of Josh's oldest friends step out of the pharmacy's side door.
DeeDee's short blond hair did a little flippy thing where it stuck out of the bottom of her pink hat. Which matched her pink scarf. And her pink mittens. Pink was definitely DeeDee's signature color. "Oh my gosh, Cammie! It's great to see you!" she exclaimed.
She paused and studied my uniform for a second, as if remembering that almost everything I'd told her last semester had been a lie. And then, despite everything, DeeDee hugged me.
"Hi, DeeDee," I said, forcing a smile. "It's really … good … to see you, too." And it would have been if I hadn't noticed something just then that had nothing to do with being a spy on a training op and everything to do with being an ex-girlfriend.
DeeDee and Josh were standing too straight and trying too hard not to touch. A panicked look passed between them that screamed, We've been caught. And, Do you think she'll know?
It didn't take a genius to look at them together—to know that Josh and DeeDee were no longer just friends.
Spies don't train so that we'll always know what to think; we train so that in times like this we don't have to think; so that our bodies will go on cruise control and do the right things for us. My mouth smiled. My lungs kept breathing. I maintained cover, even when I heard Mr. Solomon's voice in my ear saying, "Okay, Ms. Morgan, let's see you hand off."
"We're … I mean…I'm…" DeeDee corrected quickly, as if trying to hide the fact that in the past few weeks she'd lost her single-pronoun status. "I'm on the committee for the spring fling—it's a dance…and you know…kind of a big deal…" She was rambling, unsteadied, which is pretty common for people in deep cover for the first time. "And Josh is helping me get businesses to donate door prizes and stuff. For the fling. Next Friday night. And—"
She might have rambled on forever, and I might have let her, but then a voice echoed down the narrow street. "Cammie, there you are," Zach said as he strolled around the corner, stopped suddenly, and looked from Josh to DeeDee and finally at me. "I was wondering where you'd disappeared to," he said. Then he turned to the boy next to me, stretched out a hand, and said, "I'm Zach."
DeeDee looked at Zach then back to me, and smiled that all-American-girl smile of hers like this was the most superfun reunion ever!
But Josh didn't smile. He looked between Zach and me with the same kind of expression he used to have while doing his chemistry homework—as if the answer were right in front of him but he couldn't quite see it.
"Zach," I said as my Culture and Assimilation training kicked in, "this is DeeDee. And Josh. They're …" I started before I realized I had no idea how that sentence was supposed to end.
"We're friends of Cammie's," DeeDee said, saving me.
"Zach and I …" I started, but then somehow couldn't find the words to finish.
"I go to school with Cammie," Zach said, and I marveled for a moment about how smoothly he had lied, before I realized it wasn't a he at all.
"Really?" DeeDee looked confused. "I thought it was a girls' school?"
"Actually, my school's doing an exchange with Gallagher this semester."
Then (and I swear I'm not making this stuff up) Zach slipped his hand into mine!
"Oh." DeeDee's eyes got wide as she looked at Zach, then at me, then at our joined hands. "That's really great!" She beamed, and since DeeDee is about the most un-spylike girl I know, there wasn't a doubt in my mind she was happy for me.
I looked at Zach, trying to see him as DeeDee did. He was sort of tall, and his shoulders were pretty broad. I guess if you have to run into your ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend, then there are probably worse kinds of cover. (I know, because my mom told me a story once about the Privolzhsky region of Russia and a very unfortunate hat.) But that didn't change the fact that I was finally with Josh again, but Josh…was with DeeDee. And I was holding the wrong boy's hand.
"Cam," Zach said, and I realized it was the first time he'd actually called me by my name—not Gallagher Girl. It sounded … well…different. "The van's leaving in ten." He nodded at Josh and DeeDee. "It was nice meeting you."
"You too," DeeDee said, but Josh didn't make a sound as we watched Zach go. He'd already turned the corner by the dry cleaners before I realized he had taken the quarter with him.
As little as I liked to admit it, Zachary Goode was officially it.
"Oh…well…I'll let you guys get back to your party plans," I said as I stepped away.
"You could come," Josh called after me. I stopped. "Next Friday. You know, the whole town's gonna be there. You could come if you want."
"And bring Zach," DeeDee hurried to add.
"That sounds like fun," I said, except, if you asked me, a party with Josh and DeeDee and Zach sounded like the kind of torture that had been outlawed by the Geneva Convention. But of course I couldn't say that. Of course I had to smile. And lie. Again.
PROS AND CONS TO BEING A SPY WITH A BROKEN HEART:
PRO: Whenever you feel like punching someone, you can. As hard as you want. For credit.
CON: The person you punch may very well punch you back. Harder. (Especially if that person is Bex.)
PRO: High stone walls and state-of-the-art security greatly reduce the chance of seeing ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend in tremendously awkward social settings.
CON: Advanced training means that your photographic memory is now so reliable that you'll never be able to forget the sight of the happy couple together.
PRO: You're perfectly capable of putting all your old love letters and ticket stubs into a burn bag and hiding it really, really well.
CON: Realizing that, despite everything, you can't set the bag on fire. Not yet.
PRO: Knowing that, no matter what the operation, you can always count on your friends.
"We hate her," Bex proclaimed that night as the four of us walked downstairs for supper.
"No, guys, we don't hate DeeDee," I said.
"Of course you can't hate her—that would be petty," Liz said in the manner of someone who had given it a great deal of thought. "But we can totally hate her."
That sounded great in theory, except… well… DeeDee wasn't exactly easy to hate. I mean—she's the kind of person who dots her I's with little hearts (I know because we found a note from her in Josh's trash last semester), and she wears pink mittens and invites her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend to parties even though she totally doesn't have to. DeeDee was utterly un-hate-able. (And that's what I despised most of all.)
The corridors were virtually empty. Delicious aromas drifted from the Grand Hall as Macey McHenry placed one hand on the railing of the Grand Staircase, turned to me, and said, "We could hack into the DMV and set her up with a dozen unpaid parking tickets."
"Macey!" I cried.
"It might make you feel better," she rationalized. "It would make me feel better."
But I didn't think anything could make me feel better right then, especially when we reached the marble floor of the foyer and Bex said, "You could go to that party and show him what he's missing."
Really, going to that party was the last thing I needed, because A) I'd sort of promised under oath that I wouldn't sneak off campus anymore. B) If I went I'd have to take Zach with me (like that wa
s going to happen). And C) I didn't have a thing in my closet that could possibly compete with pink mittens on the adorableness scale!
I was just getting ready to point out those simple facts when I really heard what Bex had said.
"Wait," I said. "How did you know about the party?"
"Cam," Bex said softly, "you were on comms."
Oh. My. Gosh.
As if it weren't bad enough that I'd just had one of the most traumatic and heartbreaking conversations of my young life—I'd had it while wearing a comms unit!
My classmates had heard everything…Mr. Solomon had heard everything…Dr. Steve had heard everything!
That had been my chance to redeem myself in front of the Blackthorne Boys, and I had frozen. I, Cammie the Chameleon, had been seen … by my ex-boyfriend…and his new girlfriend…and I had frozen.
It took all three of my roommates to drag me into the Grand Hall for supper. I barely managed to stay through dessert before slipping away. (Really, there's no reason to waste perfectly good crème brûlée.)
But then I found myself roaming dusty corridors that I know are rarely used, passing entrances to secret passageways and fighting the temptation to slip inside, until finally I was standing in a long, empty hall, staring at a tapestry of the Gallagher family tree, longing to ease behind it—to enter my all-time favorite secret passageway and disappear.
And I might have, too, if I hadn't heard a voice behind me.
"You know, I don't think I ever got the rest of my tour."
Zach. Zach was standing behind me. Zach was halfway down the corridor watching me, and I don't know what was scarier, that I had been sloppy enough not to have heard him or that he was good enough not to have been heard.
"So what do you say, Gallagher Girl?" He walked toward me then hooked one finger behind the ancient tapestry and peeked behind it. "Is this when I get my Cammie Morgan no-passageway-too-secret, no-wall-too-high tour?"
"How do you know about…"
He pointed to himself and said, "Spy."
Zach cocked his head and placed one shoulder against the cold stone wall, and suddenly I became acutely aware of the fact that we were…
Alone.
"So," he said, "that was Jimmy?"
"Josh," I corrected.
"Whatever," Zach said, waving the detail away. "He's a cutie."
And … well… Josh is a cutie, but I highly doubted that Zach meant it seriously, so I just rolled my eyes. "What do you want, Zach? If you came to make fun, go ahead," I said, laying myself bare (or as bare as a girl can be in a government-approved school uniform). "Mock away."
He studied me for a long time, his face fighting a smile before saying, "Gee, you know, I would…but you just took the fun out of it."
"Sorry."
I took a quick step, but Zach blocked my path. "Hey," he whispered. "Why'd you freeze out there today?" Suddenly he wasn't the boy who had winked at me in D.C., and bore no resemblance to the guy who had sunned himself on the gazebo steps. So far I'd seen three different faces for Zachary Goode, and at the moment I didn't have a clue which was real and which was legend.
"I'm fine," I said. "I'm over it."
"No you aren't, Gallagher Girl. But you will be."
Walking to my mother's office on Sunday night, I couldn't help wondering when it was all going to get easier. Josh wasn't even my boyfriend anymore, yet my life was still full of boy-related drama. Hadn't I spent a good portion of my winter break trying to put those things behind me? But that was before I knew that I'd stink at countersurveillance—that the drama would follow me wherever I went.
A few minutes later Mom appeared in the doorway of her office. "How are you, kiddo?"
"Fine."
But one of the downsides of having a top government operative for a mother is that, most of the time, she knows when you're lying—even to yourself.
"No," Mom said. I heard the click of the door as it locked into place. "You're not."
I could have told her it was nothing; I might have informed her that I was as fine as I could be, considering that Eva Alvarez had barged into our room at six a.m. in the morning (on a Sunday) asking to borrow Macey's curling iron. But my mother knew better, so I just walked over to the leather sofa, sank into the soft cushions, and said, "I saw Josh."
And my mom said, "I know."
Of course I knew she'd know, because—well, she is a spy, and my headmistress, and there was probably a tape of the whole ordeal floating around somewhere. (Note to self: find and destroy that tape.) But right then Rachel Morgan was looking at me not as a spy, but as a mother. Maybe that's why I had to look away.
She sank to the couch beside me. "I know it may not seem like it, but this is a good thing, Cam. Seeing him was a good thing."
But it didn't feel like a good thing.
"The tea we gave Josh is quite effective, but sometimes certain triggers can cause people to remember the things we need them to forget. Josh has seen you. He's talked to you. We know that he doesn't remember following you on your CoveOps final. He has no recollection of coming back here and being debriefed. The Gallagher Academy is just an elite boarding school to him," my mother said. "Josh is no longer a security threat."
So now we knew that Josh would never know the truth.
I've been punched hard before, lots of times, by people who know what they're doing, but something about my mother's words made me lose my breath. I know it's crazy— me thinking that maybe one day Josh would dump DeeDee the Adorable and suddenly remember the truth about me and love me anyway. I know that was a crazy dream. But it was my dream. And a part of me hated to watch it die.
"I know this is hard, kiddo," Mom said one final time. "So that's why I thought you might like something to take your mind off of it." And then Mom reached behind her desk and pulled out a large white box wrapped in a beautiful blue ribbon.
Well, obviously I'd gotten presents from my mother before—good presents (signed first editions of A Spy's Guide to Underground Moscow don't grow on trees, you know), but I had a feeling this present was different. I felt like there was some kind of string attached.
"Go ahead," Mom said. "I think it should fit."
I untied the ribbon and let it fall to the floor, took the top off the box, and peeled away the layers of tissue paper.
"It's a dress," I said, stating the obvious—except it wasn't just a dress. It was red…and floor-length…and strapless! And I know normal mothers probably buy normal daughters strapless dresses all the time, for dances and proms and cello recitals and stuff, but the last time my mother had held a dress like that she'd been getting ready for a New Year's Eve party on board the yacht of a Middle Eastern arms dealer, so something about this dress felt…different.
"It's beautiful," I said.
Mom walked over to the microwave to pop in some frozen burritos. "I'm glad you like it. I thought it would look good on you."
Which, to tell you the truth, I sort of doubted, but I didn't think it was the right time to point that out.
"Uh, Mom…"
"I also thought it might come in handy in a week or so."
I sat there staring into the box, thinking that whatever was coming, it was big. It was important. And it required formal wear.
Chapter Fifteen
The Gallagher Academy has prepared me well for a lot of things, but none of those things are red. Or strapless.
Maybe my mother had forgotten that I was the girl nobody sees—The Chameleon—and chameleons simply don't walk around in formal gowns with empire waists and long gauzy skirts that flow when you twirl. It was as if my mother didn't know that this dress was for someone who was definitely supposed to be seen.
"What's the matter, Gallagher Girl?" Zach asked as we left COW the next morning and started the walk to C&A. "You seem…jumpy."
Well, he would have been jumpy too if he'd heard Bex's theory that a terrorist group was going to take over a prom and we were going to have to go undercover and stop it, but obvi
ously I couldn't say that. And in a few minutes, after we'd settled into the Chippendale chairs of the Culture and Assimilation classroom, no one was saying anything.
"The all-school exam…" Madame Dabney exclaimed as she stood in the center of the room. Soft rays of early sunshine glowed around her, and her voice had taken on such a dreamy quality that I almost expected harps to start playing as she floated across the floor. "Ooh, ladies," she said, then rushed to add, "…and gentlemen. In all my years of teaching at this fine institution, I have never had the opportunity to organize such an exciting educational experience."
Liz went still, and Eva and Tina tore their eyes from Grant's muscular forearms.
"This Friday evening, all students in grades eight through twelve will be invited to a formal examination." Madame Dabney waited for what she must have expected to be a standing ovation. "A ball, ladies and gentlemen," she explained when no one broke into applause. "There's going to be a ball!"
Tina gasped, and Liz's eyes went wide in a way that can only be induced by the combination of both tests and high heels; Jonas swallowed hard and turned the exact same shade of red as the dress that was hanging in my closet—the dress I was going to have to wear … for a grade!
There had to be some kind of mistake, I thought. Surely Bex was supposed to get that dress and I was supposed to get instructions on how to access the dusty, dirty, mice-infested ductwork of the Russian Embassy or something.
Mice I can handle. Strapless bras? Well let's just say, I'm the kind of girl who likes things sufficiently strapped.
"Tomorrow during this time, you will each be fitted for a gown." She beamed at the girls. "And tuxedos," she said as she turned to the boys. "On Friday evening you will be asked to participate in a cumulative examination—a night that will encompass everything we teach. And you will be expected to dance."
At that point I'm pretty sure every other girl in the room heard "dance."
But I thought back to Bex's words as we'd stood in the deserted East Wing, and I, personally, heard "rematch."