Back. I am going to try and update once every week. Now on to the story.
Disclaimer: ... What do you think I'm going to say? I mean if I wrote the GG's I would not be here I would be on the way to Paris, than France, than Italy, than Germany, than Switzerland, than a cruise to the Caribbean, than...well I think you get it.
Abby's POV:
It took a while for me to stop laughing. I honestly do not know how I can laugh at a time like this but I guess ignorance is bliss. I really could kill Cam right now, she is in so much trouble. Rachel is glaring at me, I take this as my cue to read. I compose myself and begin...
There are many excellent things about having three girls sharing a four-girl suite. The first, obviously is closet space-followed by shelf space followed by the fact that we had an entire corner of the room devoted to beanbag chairs. It was a very sweet setup (if you'll pardon the pun), but I don't think any of us really appreciated what we had until two guys from the maintenance department knocked on our door and asked us where we wanted the extra bed.
"I'm So Sorry that I made you lose your beanbag chair corner." Macey says oozing with sarcasm
"Well remember, we didn't like you that much." Bex replies, It shocks me a little. I thought they were the best of friends since the start but apparently not. I look at Macey and all she does is roll her eyes.
Now, in addition to our teachers and our chef,
I look around and can tell everyone in the room is drooling over Chef Louis' food. Even Rach...and evil idea pops in my head. I take out my cell phone and take a picture. Blackmail!
the Gallagher Academy has a pretty extensive staff, but it's not the kind of place that advertises in the want ads (well...you know...except for coded messages). There are two types of people who come here-students looking to get into the AlphaNet (CIA, FBI, NSA, ect.), and staff members looking to get out.
"Technically, wouldn't they not be staff yet?" Liz asks, and I realize she has a fair point. They would not have been staff until after they got out of the AlphaNet.
"Right again, Lizzie." Bex replies.
So when two men built like refrigerators show up with long poles and vise grips, it's fairly likely that those have been the tools of their trade for a while now-just in a very different context. That's why we didn't ask any questions that night. We just pointed to a corner and then the three of us made a beeline for the second floor. "Come in, girls," my mother yelled as soon as we entered the Hall of History-long before she could have seen us. Even though I'd grown up with her, sometime her superspy instincts scared me.
"Rachel, you really shouldn't be scaring your daughter." I say with mock sincerity.
I turn to look at her, but it was a bad idea. Quickly I start reading before I get an earful of a lecture.
She walked to the door. "I've been expecting you." I'd been working on a doozy of a speech, let me tell you, but as soon as I saw my mother silhouetted in the door frame I forgot it. Luckily, Bex never has that problem. "Excuse me, ma'am," she said," but do you know why the maintenance department has delivered an extra bed to our room?"
My eyes grow wide. No one has ever dared to say something like that to my sister. The last person who did is... I thinks, still in a coma. (Not Joe of course!)
Anyone else asking that question in that tone might have seen the wrath of Rachel Morgan, but all my mom did was cross her arms and match Bex's scholarly inflections. "Why, yes, Rebecca. I do know." "Is that information you can share with us ma'am? Or is it need-to-know?" (If anyone had a need -it was us. We were the ones losing our beanbag corner over the deal!)
I roll my eyes. Ahhh! I need to stop spending so much time with Rachel! I notice Macey is staring at me and I realized that I stopped reading. Not wanting to explain I continue...
But Mom just took a step and gestures for us to follow. "Let's take a walk." Something was wrong, I realized. It had to be, so I was on her heels, following her down the grand staircase, saying, "What? Is it blackmail? Does the senator have something on-"
"I have a bad feeling that this is not going to end well." Zach pipes up and I turn to him in surprise he really blends into the shadows. Wait...
"Just out of curiosity Zach, but what is your codename?" He looks at me in surprise. "Shadow...why?"
"No reason." I smirk. Ahhh! Now I need to stop spending time with Zach.
"Whats with the sudden British Accent?" Liz asks me.
"AHHH!" I scream.
"What?" Bex asks in alarm, looking around the room for any hints of danger, and...Cam.
"I need to stop spending so much time around you guys!" They all look at me with questionable looks about my sanity. Then they all burst out laughing.
"Cameron," Mom said, trying to cut me off. "Is he on the House Armed Services Committee? Is it a funding thing, because we could start charging tuition you-" "Cammie, just walk," Mom commanded. I did as I was told, but I still didn't shut up.
"And that is where it wont end well." Macey says dramatically.
"She wont last. We can get rid of-" "Cameron Ann Morgan,"
"Oh, no," I give a fake gasp. "Not the middle name card!"
"You wouldn't!" Zach continues up the dramatic act.
"The horror!" The three girls shout.
Rachel gives me a sweet look and asks, "Abby, can I see the book for a moment?"
"Sure." Bad idea. As soon as the book is in her hands, she smacks me upside the head with it.
"Hey!" I protest. She just smiles innocently, "Here's the book back." I childishly stuck my tongue out at her.
Mom said, playing the middle-name card that all moms keep in their back pockets for just such an occasion. "That's enough." I froze as she handed the large manila envelope she'd been carrying to Bex and said, "Those are your new roommate's test scores." Okay, I'll admit it-they were good. Not Liz-good,
"I don't think anyone's scores will be as good as Lizzie's." Bex says in all sincerity, causing little Elizabeth to blush.
or anything, but they were far better than Macey McHenry's 2.0 GPA would indicate. We turn down an old stone corridor, our feet echoing through the cold hall. "So she tests well," I said. "So-" Mom stopped short, and all three of us nearly ran into her. "I don't run decisions past you, do I, Cammie?" Shame started brewing inside me, but Mom had already shifted her attention toward Bex. "And I do make controversial decisions from time to time, don't I, Rebecca?" At this, we all remembered how Bex came to us, and even she shut up. "And, Liz." Mom shifted her gaze one last time. "Do you think we should only admit girls who come from spy families?"
"No. Way." I look at my sister in surprise.
"What." She asks.
"I never thought you would blackmail three young, innocent, girls." I say in fake drama.
That was it-she had us. Mom crossed her arms and said, "Macey McHenry will bring a much-needed level of diversity to the Gallagher Academy. She has family connections that will allow entry into some very closed societies. She has an underutilized intellect. And..." mom seemed to be pondering this next bit. "...she has a quality about her." Quality? Yeah, right. Snobbery is a quality, so is elitism, fascism, and anorexicism.
"I'm not anorexic!" Macey says, "I still eat!" No one contradicts her.
I started to tell my mom about the eight-hundred-calorie-a-day thing, or the B-word thing, or to point out that Code Reds were fake interviews, not real ones. But then I looked at the women who had raised me and who, rumor has it, once sweet-talked a Russian dignitary into dressing in drag and carrying a beach ball full of liquid nitrogen under his shirt like a pregnant lady,
"Mrs. Morgan?" Liz asks.
"Yes, Ms. Sutton."
"What really happened?" Bex continues. "Is that the truth." Elizabeth finishes.
"Yes girls, that really did happen. But a really long time ago, and it's best if you not repeat that. It was classified mission information."
and I knew I was sufficiently outgunned, even with Bex and Liz beside me. "And if that isn't enough for you..." Mom turned to look at an old velvet tapestry that hung in the center of the long stone wall. Of course I'd seen it before. If a girl wanted to stand their long enough, she could trace the Gallagher family tree that branched across the tapestry through nine generations before Gilly, and two generations after. If a girl had better things to do, she could reach behind the tapestry, to the the Gallagher family crest imbedded in the stone, and turn the little sword around, then slip through the secret door that pops open.
I look around the room. I notice that Zach has a far off look in his eyes and I'm guessing it has to do with Blackthorne coming to Gallagher a couple of semesters ago. I continue reading. And that snaps him out of whatever he had been day dreaming about.
(Let's just say I'm the second type of girl.)
"She had ruined so many blouses I had to order an extra twenty at the start of the semesters." Rach informs us and we all think about how Cammie was anywhere and everywhere in the mansion on a give day.
"What does this have to do with..." I started, but Liz's "Oh my gosh" cut me off. I followed my friend's thin finger to the line at the bottom of the tapestry. I'd never known that Gilly had gotten married. I'd never known she had a child. I'd never dreamed that child's last name was "McHenry."
"You guys new since the first semester of sophomore year! And you never bothered to tell me!" Macey is fuming and I think back to when Macey ran while I was her security detail. Cammie did say that Macey had overheard her talking to Zach about it. And with one look at Rachel I can tell she is thinking the same thing. We should have told her sooner.
And all this time I thought I was a Gallagher legacy. "If Macey McHenry wants to come here," Mom said, "We'll find a place for her." She turned and started to leave, but Liz called after her, "But, ma'am, how's she gonna...you know...catch up?" Mom considered this to be a fair question, because she folded her hands and said, "I admit that, academically, Ms. McHenry will be behind the rest of the sophomore class. For that reason, she will be taking many of her courses with our younger students." Bex grinned at me, but even the thought of Macey's supermodel legs stretching her high above a class full of newbies
Macey glares at Bex and Liz.
"I didn't think that! Only Bex and Cammie did!" The glare changes to just Bex. To save her British...butt... I continue the book.
couldn't change the fact that two guys with bald heads (that may or may not have prices on them) were at that very moment making room for her in our suite. The question on my mother's face was whether we would make room for her in our lives. I looked at my nest friends, knowing that our mission, should we chose to accept it, was to befriend Macey McHenry. The good girl inside of me knew that I should at least try to help her fit in.
Everyone smiles.
The spy in me knew I'd been given an assignment, and if I ever wanted to see Sublevel Two, I'd better grin and say "Yes ma'am."
Everyone laughs.
The daughter in me knew there wasn't any choosing involved here.
Everyone smiles and laughs.
"When does she start?" I asked. "Monday." That Sunday night I met Mom in her office for Tater Tots and chicken nuggets. We had one hard-and-fast rule about Sunday night suppers-Mom had to make them herself, which is nice and all, but not exactly good for my digestion.
I can't help myself, I just burst out laughing.
"Just out of curiosity Abby, but can you cook?" Zach asks mirroring my earlier question.
"Yes Shadow it just so happens that I can cook wonderfully." I say. I had always joked that I had gotten all of the cooking skills.
(Dad always said the most lethal thing about her was her cooking.)
"It is." I mumble under my breath. But we're spies and everyone in the room hears. All the kids break into laughter while Rachel, mirroring my earlier move childishly stuck her tongue out at me.
Directly beneath us, my friends were dining on the finest foods a five-star chef could offer, but as my mom walked around in an old sweatshirt of my dad's, looking like a teenager herself, I wouldn't have traded places with them for all the creme brulee in the world.
"Awwww!" echo's through the room from the three girls and me.
When I first came to the Gallagher Academy, I felt guilty about being able to see my mother every day when my classmates had to go months on end without their parents. Eventually, I stopped feeling bad about it. After all, Mom and I don't have summers together. But mostly, we don't have Dad.
Suddenly I become interested in the floor. It's all my fault. It's all my fault. It's all my fault. I look up with regret in my eyes. Rachel takes one look at me and opens her mouth to speak, "Abby-" I cut across her and continue reading.
"So how's school?" She always asked as if she didn't know-and maybe she didn't. Maybe, just like every good operative, she wanted to hear all sides of the story before making up her mind. I dipped a Tater Tot in some honey mustard dressing and said, "Fine." "How's CoveOps?" the mother asked, but I knew the headmistress was in there somewhere, and she wanted to know if her newest staff member was making the grade. "He knows about dad." I don't know where the sentence came from or why I spoke it. I'd spent six days dreading Macey McHenry's arrival into our little society,
"Well thank you for 'dreading' my arrival." Macey says with sarcasm.
but that was what I said when I finally had my mother alone? I studied her, wishing Mr. Solomon would have covered Reading Body Language that week instead of Basic Surveillance. "There are people in this world, Cam-people like Mr. Solomon-who are going to know what happened to him. It's their job to know what happened. I hope someday you'll get used to the look in people's eyes as they put two and two together and try to decide whether or not to mention it. Am I right to assume Mr. Solomon mentioned it?"
"In a way..." I put in mysteriously.
"Kinda." "And how did you handle it?" I hadn't yelled, and I hadn't cried, so I told my mother, "Okay, I guess." "Good." She smoothed my hair, and I wondered for the millionth time if she had one set of hands for work and another for moments like this.
Laughter rings out of me, and I couldn't stop.
I imagined her keeping them in a briefcase and swapping them out, silk for steel. Dr. Fibbs could have made them-but he didn't.
"No Lizzie." Bex and Macey say together. Liz must have been thinking about inventing a extra pair of hands.
"I'm proud of you, kiddo," she said simply. "It'll get easier." My mom's the best spy I know-so I believed her.
I put on a fake pout and the girls and Zach laugh.
When we woke up the next morning, I remembered that it was Monday. I forgot that it was The Monday. That's why I stopped cold on my way into breakfast when I heard Buckingham's powerful "Cameron Morgan!"
"Never a good sign." Liz mutters. I'm guessing a teacher shouting her name is a nightmare to Liz.
echo through the foyer. "I'll need you and Ms. Baxter and Ms. Sutton to follow me, please." Bex and Liz looked as lost as I felt, until Buckingham explained, "Your new roommate has arrived."
"Ooohhhhh!" Zach and I say simultaneously. Like we had no idea that was coming.
Buckingham was pretty old, and we did have her outnumbered three-to-one, but still I didn't see any alternatives. We fallowed her up the stairs. I thought it would just be Mom and Macey in her office-Macey's parents having already been sent away in the limo if they'd bothered coming at all (which they hadn't) -but when Buckingham threw open the door I saw Mr. Solomon and Jessica Boden
Shudders from Bex, Liz, Macey, and Zach. A skeptic looks crosses my face. Wonder what that's about.
sharing the leather couch. He looked so completely bored I almost felt sorry for him, and Jessica was perched eagerly on the edge of the sofa. The guest of honor was seated across the desk from my mother, wearing an official uniform but looking like a supermodel. She didn't even turn when we walked in. "As I was saying, Macey," my mom said, once Liz, Bex, and I had positioned ourselves in the window seat at the far side of the room while Buckingham stood at attention in front of the bookshelves, "I hope you'll be happy here at the Gallagher Academy." "Humph!" Yeah, I know heiress isn't one of the languages I speak, but I'm pretty sure that translates into Tell it to someone who cares because I've heard it all before, and your only saying that because my father wrote you an enormous check.
"Yup, that about sums it up." Macey laughs.
(But that's just a guess.) "Well, Macey," an utterly repulsive voice chimed. I'm not sure why I hate Jessica Boden, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that her posture is way too up-and-down, and I don't trust someone who doesn't know how to properly slouch.
"I'm there with you sister. Or...daughter of my sister?"
"When the trustees heard about your admittance, my mother-" "Thank you, Jessica." How much do I love my mother? Very much. Mom opened a thick file that lay on her desk. "Macey, I see here that you spent a semester at the Traid Academy?" "Yeah," Macey said. (Now, there's a girl who knows how to slouch.) "And then a full year at Wellington House. Two months at Ingalls. Ooh, just a week at the Wilder Institute." "Do you have a point?" Macey asked, her tone just as sharp as the letter opener-slash-dagger that Joe Solomon had been absentmindedly fingering while they spoke.
"How can someone absentmindedly finger a dagger?" Liz asks horrified, and I remember that the girls don't know what Blackthorne is.
"You've seen a lot of different schools, Macey-" "I wouldn't say there was anything different about them," she shot back. But no sooner had the words left her mouth than the letter-opening dagger went slicing through the air, no more than a foot away from her glossy hair, flying from Mr. Solomon's hand directly toward Buckingham's head.
"Scary, yet entertaining." Bex says.
It all happened so fast-like blink-or-you'll-miss-it fast. One second Macey was talking about how all prep schools are the same, and the next, Patricia Buckingham was grabbing a copy of War and Peace from the bookshelf behind her and holding it inches from her face just as the dagger pierced its leather cover.
"The poor book!" I say in a very Liz like southern accent, causing everyone to giggle. except for Zach because, apparently, guys don't giggle.
For a long time, the only sound was the subtle vibration of the letter opener as it stuck out of the book, humming like a tuning fork looking for a middle C. Then my mom leaned onto her desk and said, "I think you'll find there are some things we teach that your other schools haven't offered." "What..." Macey stammered. "What...What...Are you crazy?"
"Nope...That's Abby." I glare at my sister.
"Now Rachel, that's not a very nice thing to say to someone who is filling in for CoveOpps for you." I say. "Not to mention someone who has an embarrassing picture of you drooling over Chef Louis' food like five minutes ago." Rachel's eyes widen and I grin to myself and continue.
That's when my mom went through the school history again -the unabridged version-starting with Gilly and then hitting highlights like how it was Gallagher Girls giving each other manicures who had figured out the whole no-two-fingerprints-are-alike thing, and a few of our more highly profitable creations. (Duct tape didn't invent itself you know.)
Something civilians will never know, that the most awesome group of girls invented the thing they use for bracelets, flowers, wallets.
When Mom finished, Bex said, "Welcome to spy school,"
"Oh yeah!" Bex and Liz high-five.
in her real accent instead of the geographically neutral drawl, which is all Macey had heard until then, and I could tell she was about to go into serious information overload, which, of course, wasn't helped by Jessica. "Macey, I know this is going to come as a big adjustment to you, but that's why my mother-she's a Gallagher Trustee-has encouraged me to help you through this-" "Thank you Jessica," Mom said, cutting her off yet again. "Perhaps I can make things a little more clear."
"What comes next did not make things clearer. Just an F.Y.I." Macey says to Rachel.
Mom reached into her pocket and pulled out what looked like an ordinary silver compact. She flipped up the lid and touched her forefinger to the mirror inside. I saw the small light scan her fingerprint, and when she snapped the compact closed, the world around Macey McHenry shifted as the whole Code Red process went into reverse. The bookshelves had been facing wrong-way-out for a week, but now they were spinning around to show their true side. Disney World disappeared in the photo on Mom's desk; and Liz broke out her Portuguese long enough to say, "Sera que ela vai vomitar?"
I laugh. Only Liz.
But I had to shake my head in response because I honestly didn't know whether or not Macey was going to throw up. When everything stopped spinning (literally) Macey was surrounded by more than a hundred years of covert secrets, but she wasn't stopping to take it all in. Instead, she screamed, "You people are psycho!"
"Not psycho...spies. Well except possibly Abby." Zach joins in on the me bashing.
"Since when did it turn out to be pick on Abby day?"
"It never stopped." Rachel comments. I glare.
and bolted for the door. Unfortunately, Joe Solomon was one step ahead of her. "Get out of my way!" she snapped.
"I still can't believe you did that." Bex says.
"What?" Macey asks as confused as I felt.
"Yelled at Joe Solomon." Liz finished. I just grin to myself and laugh out loud.
"Sorry," he said coolly. "I don't believe the headmistress is finished quite yet." "Macey." My mom's voice was calm and full of reason. "I know this might come as quite a shock to you. But we're really just a school for exceptional young women. Our classes are hard. Our curriculum unique. But you may use what you learn here anywhere else in the world. In any way you see fit." Mom's eyes narrowed. Her voiced hardened as she said, "If you stay."
I could tell at that point Macey was probably considering leaving the mansion. But obviously she stayed
When Mom stepped forward, I knew she wasn't talking as an administrator anymore; she was talking as a mother. "If you want to leave, Macey, we can make you forget this ever happened. When you wake up tomorrow, this will all be dream you don't remember, and you'll have one more dismal school experience on your record.
"At that point I was freaking out. I creepy when someone says you wont remember a thing." Macey says.
But no matter your decision, there is only one thing you have to understand." Mom was moving closer, and Macey snapped, "What?" "No one will ever know what you have seen and heard here today." Macey was still starring daggers, but my mom didn't have a copy of War and Peacehandy, so she reached for the next best thing. "Especially your parents." And just when I'd thought I'd never seen Macey McHenry smile...
"Best thing I'd ever heard in my life." Macey mutters.
I hand the book to the person next to me who just so happens to be Zach.
Read & Review:
*How was the story
*Your favorite Gallagher Girl book
*And your favorite part of that book
And please read my story 'Confessions' I wrote it for a Romance Challenge and I would like all of your input on that story.
-Cameron 'Chameleon' Morgan. =D
