DON'T KILL ME! MY FAMILY SOMEHOW MANAGED TO BRAKE THREE COMPUTERS IN TWO WEEKS. I am acctuall typing this on a computer with a cracked screen attatched to my Tv. So the print is huge. I am betting now that I finallly updated you want me to shut up and get on with the story...
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Gallagher Girls, despite how awesome that would be.
We grabbed a quick bite to eat from the kitchen and came right back. I picked up the book and immediatly found where we left off and begam to read as everyone settled in.
"Good luck."
"You being nice? The world must be ending!" I turn to Joe with a fake shocked expression and Liz has to stifle a giggle.
"Rachel , the standards here are really falling if you are letting him go here." Joe says to Headmistress Morgan.
I smirk as I answer, "Touche."
It wasn't a cheery, break-a-leg "good luck," though. It was a watch-out-or-you'll-have-your-legs-broken "good luck."
"That sounds more like Joe." Abby laughs along with the girls
"I agree wholeheartedly." Mrs. Morgan says with a mocking smile.
"What is this...Pick on the teacher day?" Said teacher asks.
"Possibly..." Macey says mysteriously.
Liz went back to her flash cards, but Bex and I stared at each other
"Stalker-ish much?" Macey laughs at the wording, and I contradict her.
"No Spy-ish."
across the table as our faces morphed from sheer terror to uncontrolled excitement. For Gallagher Girls, leading a mission is no punishment-that's the gold-freaking-star!
"Obviously!" Bex says in a duh! voice.
I roll my eyes a habit I must have picked up from Cammie.
Only a little of the dread lingered in the back of my mind
"Good." Joe nods, "Never lose focus and control and never underestimate."
"Like how you underestimated us and got beat by Anna Fetterman?" Bex says tilting her head slightly.
"Rebecca I assure you that I never underestimated you girls I just forgot that you guys are smaller than the seniors who had taken the same test only days before."
"Sure..." I say in a manner that it is obvious I am being sarcastic.
as I realized that we were about to play with live ammo-maybe in both the literal and figurative senses of the word.
"We never introduce Gallagher Girls to live ammo until Senior year but it is a controversial topic. Most don't think it necessary." Abby informs us.
"Why do you think it's controversial girl?" Solomon asks the semi circle.
"Because they are live?" Macey gives it a shot.
"Because they are offense not defense?" Liz tries.
"No..."
"Because they make you lazy, if you need a gun it's too late for one to help." Bex says. (A/N Something along the lines of what happens in GG5, Ally Carter wrote it. I just changed it a bit =))
"Correct Ms. Baxter."
Macey returned to her salad while Mr. Solomon added, "Et n'oubliez pas, mesdemoiselles, ce soir vous este des civils-ressemlez-y."Oh, yeah, just what I needed-fashion advice from Joe Solomon himself.
"I agree squirt, he has low to no fashion sense." Abby says.
"Hey!" But she ignores him, and continues,
"Now that we have that straightened out, continue."
The Grand Hall went back to normal, but I doubt that any of the sophomores, besides Macey, took another bite.
"Gasp! You're actually eating!"
"Shut it Goode."
As if we hadn't known it before, Joe Solomon had just reminded us that we'd soon be venturing out from behind out comfortable walls, operating on our own for the first time in our superspy lives. Four years off training had all come down to this, and I for one didn't have a thing to wear.
"Oh No! It's a disaster!" Bex says in fake drama. I decided to join in.
"How will we live!"
I'm not sure how it happened, but at some point between one P.M. and six forty-five, the sophomore class from the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women morphed from a group of spies-in-training into a bunch of teenage girls.
"Shocking! I mean it's not like it's a all-girls school for teenagers." Joe says shaking his head. Abby hid back a snicker and gives him a high five.
It was pretty scary.
"Terrifying!" Abby laughs.
Liz spent her afternoon becoming the textbook version of what an undercover operative should look like,
Liz blushes and I had to laugh...I mean how old was this textbook...
copying everything from the patent leather purse to the pillbox hat.
That answers that. Smirking I continue to read
(It was a pretty old textbook.) Then the hallways started reverberating with terrifying yells of "Have you seen my black boots?" and "Does anyone have any hair spray?"I was seriously starting to worry about the fate of national security.
"It is a horrifying thought that these girls are going to be in charge of the nation."
In our suite, Bex looked awesome (as usual),
"Why thank you!"
Liz looked ridiculous (but try telling her that)
"HEY!"
and Macey was looking at an old Cosmo as if determining whether green is the new black was a matter of life or death.
"It was important ant the time! Gosh!"
"STOP INTERUPTING ME EVERY SINGLE SENTENCE!" I want to find out what happened since this is the report I was not present in, and I didnt even really know Cammie back then.
All I could do was sit on my bed in my old jeans and a black knit top my mom once wore to parachute onto the top of the Iranian Embassy,
"So that's who the top belonged to..." Macey says
"Did you really do the Mrs. Morgan?" Bex asks
"It's..." But Abby intterupts,
"Let me take a guess... It's Classified?" We all enter at the last word.
"Possibly..."
and watch the clock tick then Tina came busting into our room. "Which one?" she asked, holding a pair of black leather pants and short skirt in front of her. I was on the verge of saying, neither, when Eva Alvarez ran in."Do these go? I don't know if these go!" Eva held up a pair of high-heeled boots that made my feet hurt just by looking at them."Um, Eva, can you run in those?"
"It doesn't matter as long as I look FABULOUS!" I joke.
I before Eva could answer, I heard someone say, "They're all the rage in Milan." I looked around. I counted heads. And then it dawned on me who was speaking. Macey stared at us over the top of her magazine, and added, "If you want to know."
"Why did you hae to put your input in! It got the entier Sophomore class into our dorm." Liz complains.
"Well sorry, I guess I could have let you go as fashion disasters then."
"So that's why they all looked so...how do I put this without being mean...Interesting." Joe says smirking at the memory.
Within minutes, half the sophomore class was in our little suite, and Macey was telling Tina, "You know, lip liner is supposed to go on the lips," and Tina was actually listening! I mean, this is the same girl who had single-handedly started the Macey-is-Mr. Smith's-illegitimate-daughter rumor.
"WHAT!" I cringe at the shreak. But continued to read so we didn't have a Macey Meltdown.
Little did we know she was one fashion emergency away from turning to the enemy! Courtney was borrowing earrings; Anna was trying on jackets; and I wasn't sure if I would ever feel safe going into hostile territory with any of them ever again. "You know, Eva, what blends in Milan might stick out in Roseville,"
"Pfft, like they are going to listen. Nice try Squirt."
I tried, but she didn't care."You know, guys, hiding in plain sight requires looking plain!" I said, but Kim Lee was wriggling out of a halter top and nearly knocked my head off with her flailing arms."You know, I really don't think he's taking us to the prom!" I shouted, and Anna put Macey's gorgeous formal gown back into the closet.
"Yeah I am going to take thirteen girls to prom."
"Okay, not a thought I wanted in my head but thanks anyway." Abby says miming gagging, and Liz giggles.
"Your just jealous that you arent one of the thirteen girls, Abbigail." Joe smirks,
"Gross! No!"
I'm the chameleon! I wanted to cry. I'm the CoveOps legacy! I'd been preparing for this night my entire life-doing drills with my dad, asking my mom to tell me stories, becoming the girl nobody sees. But now I was drifting deeper and deeper into the shadows until I was standing in the middle of my own room, watching my closest friends swarm around our gorgeous new guest, and I was completely invisible
"I noticed you.." Liz squeaks.
"Sorry, I just kinda wanted them to like me..." Macey whispers staring at the floor.
"Lose the earrings," Macey said, pointing to Eva. "Tuck in the shirt," she told Anna, then turned to Courtney Bauer and said, "What died in your hair?" (Courtney does have a tendency to over-gel sometimes.)
"Sometimes?" Macey askes.
Bex was sitting with Liz on her bed, and they both looked as amazed as I felt."Hey!" I cried again, to no avail, so I called upon my superspy heritage, and seconds later I was whistling loudly enough to make the cows come home (literally-that's why Grandpa Morgan taught me how to do it).
"It comes in hand for both spying and farming." Rachel jokes.
"Buy it now and we will include absolutely free, absolutely nothing... Only Nineteen, Nintey-Nine." Abby finishs.
My classmates finally turned away from Macey, and I said, "It's time."A silence had fallen over the room, but then a longer, deeper quiet stretched were through playing dress-up, and everyone knew it.
"But dress-up is so fun." I complain.
"We can dress-up like pretty princesses." Joe laughs.
"Don't worry Joe we all knew you had princess dresses in your room, it's okay to come out of the closet now." Abby says in all seriousness, until a smile creeps up and the girls and I burst into laughter.
Joe threw a murderess glance at Abby and then at me for not getting him out of it by reading.
"Hello, ladies."The words were right, but the voice coming to us through the shadows was wrong in so many ways that I can't possibly describe it here. Really, it would be cruel to all the trees who would have to give their lives for me to explain what it was like to be expecting Joe Solomon and get Mr. Mosckowitz.
"Such a dissapointment." Bex sighs.
"A real tragity." I shook my head slowly.
"It was absloutely horrible." Macey agrees, and we colapsed in a fit of chuckles.
"Deffinitely pick-on-the-teacher-day." Joe mumbles.
"Don't you all look very..." He was staring, mouth gaping, as if he'd never seen push- up bras or eyeliner before. "...nice," he finally said, then slapped his hands together, I guess to stop the nervous shaking. But he still couldn't steady his voice as he said, "Well, very big night. Very big. For..." He hesitated. "...all of us."
"It was his first mission." Rachel informes us even though we all knew that.
Mr. Mosckowitz pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and stared beyond the lighted driveway of the mansion. Even I didn't know exactly what lay in that dark abyss. Sure, there are woods and jogging trails and a lacrosse field that is handy during Code Reds (and doubles as a great underground storage facility for the helicopters), but everyone knows the Gallagher Woods are a minefield-maybe literally-and I started shaking in my sensible if there are snipers? Or attack dogs ... or ...
"A CAR!" Bex screams in terror interrupting my reading.
"What?"
"It said 'or', I was just filling in a guess."
but before I could finish that thought, I heard crunching gravel and squealing tires, and turned around to see an Overnight Express truck roaring toward us.
"Sorry Bex but you were wrong! It was a 'Truck', not a 'CAR'." Liz says.
"Technicalities." Bex says rolling her eyes.
Gee, what's the package emergency? I wondered. But when the driver's-side door flew open and Mr. Solomon jumped out and yelled, "Get in!" I realized we were the , my mind flashed back to one of Liz's note cards. COVERT OPERATION RULE #1: DON'T HESITATE. Mr. Mosckowitz opened the cargo doors and I climbed inside, imagining that the truck was like our teachers-it had led a fascinating and dangerous life before it retired and came to us. But I didn't see a wall of monitors and headsets-none of the stuff the trucks have in movies-only crates and crates of packages.
"Sorry to disspoint girls, but I had little time to plan this." Joe says glaring at Rachel
"You asked me the day of!" She defends.
That's when the truck became even cooler, because I'm pretty sure Mr. Solomon had stolen it!
"Maybeeee..." Joe says mysteriously.
"First rule," he warned as we settled inside, "don't touch any of the packages."Then Mr. Solomon crawled in behind us, leaving Mr. Mosckowitz outside looking up at him like a water boy who'd just been asked to hold the star quarterback's helmet."Harvey?" Mr. Solomon said impatiently but still soft enough that he sounded like a pretty nice guy,
"Joe? Nice? What has the world come to!"
Abby gets a nice elbow in the ribs, and I continue.
"clock's ticking." He tossed Mr. Moskowitz the keys."Oh!" This seemed to wake him up. "Yep. Sure thing. I'll see you"-he pointed toward all of us-"out there.""No, you won't, Harvey," Mr. Solomon said. "That's the idea."Call me crazy, but this wasn't how I'd always pictured the first time I'd be in the dark with a guy who looks like Joe Solomon. (And I'm pretty sure I speak for the entire sophomore class on that one.)
"T.M.I." I say along with the adults.
"Operatives in deep cover will be given false histories," he fired at us through the dark. "These histories, including names, dates of birth, and favorite kindergarten teachers, and are called ...""Legends!" Liz blurted. A test is a test, in Liz's mind, and as long as there was a Q&A, she could handle this mission business."Very good, Ms. Sutton," he said, and even in the dark I knew Liz was a number two lead pencil away from heaven.
I turned my head...interesting saying...I could use this as blackmail.
I turned to Liz who was completely red."
"For this mission, ladies, you will be posing as normal teenage girls. Think you can handle that?" I'm not sure, but I think that might have been Joe Solomon's idea of a joke-but it was soooo not funny
"I can be funny!" He protests.
Abby and I scoff. But at his glare I reopen the book.
because, if there's one thing we're not, it's normal. But he obviously didn't care about any of that, because he just plowed on. "When conducting manual surveillance on a subject in a three-man rotation, the person with visual contact is the ...""Eyeball!""Correct. The person within sight of the eyeball is the...""Backup.""And the final person ...""The reserve."
"Thank you Liz for keeping us away from answering the questions." Bex says. And I think she is being truthful.
"Very good. Now remember, rotate frequently, but not too frequently. Vary your pace and spacing, and above all..."I felt the truck come to a stop. The engine turned all, what? I wanted to cry. The most important night of my life, and he forgets the punch line!
Laughter echos though the room, and smile. Only my Gallagher Girl
A small light came on in the ceiling of the truck, bathing us in an eerie, orange-yellow glow, and I heard music, the kind a merry-go-round makes, and I wondered if my whole life from that point on would be a house of . Solomon moved a television monitor to one of the shelves and fiddled with some wires. I was expecting a view of the world outside (or at least something from the WB), but instead I saw what I'd been seeing for years-the fourteen faces of the sophomore class."In the field, ladies, you can never expect to have things go as planned. I fully expect you to master the ability to improvise. For example, tonight's mission requires a vehicle not owned by the Gallagher Academy. So"-he motioned around us-"I made alternative arrangements." (Yep. He definitely stole it!)He passed earpieces to Bex, Liz, and me, and said, "Basic comms units. Don't be afraid to use them." Then he showed us a pair of tortoiseshell eyeglasses,
"Liz's" Abby guesses.
an I [HEART] Roseville button,
"Bex's" Macey inputs.
and a necklace with a silver cross.
"Cammie's" I finnish.
"There are cameras contained within these three items, which will allow us to follow and critique your progress." The cross swung from his forefinger and, on the screen, the image of my classmates swayed back and forth. "These are for our benefit tonight- not yours. It's a just teaching exercise, ladies, but don't expect us to come to your rescue."
"Joe..." Rachel warns
"If they came then yeah I would help."
"Nice save." Abby whispers.
Okay, I'll admit it. I was starting to get a little freaked out at that point, but seriously, who can blame me? We were all feeling it-I could tell by the way Bex's leg twitched and Liz kept wringing her hands. Every girl in the back of that truck was on edge (and not just because we were up close and personal with Mr. Solomon, either).
Joe shivers, it's small but I notice it. It must be creepy to have teenage girls fawning over you if you are a teacher.
Even though Liz, Bex, and I were the only ones going outside, we were all more than Gallagher Girls right then-we were operatives on a mission, and we knew there would come a day when way more than grades would be riding on what we were about to learn. The carnival music suddenly got louder as the back door opened, and the first thing I saw was a bright orange cap as Mr. Mosckowitz peeked in. "They're close," he . Solomon plugged a wire into a speaker, and in the next second I heard my mother's voice joining the carnival music. "It's great weather for running."My blood went cold. Anyone but Mom, I prayed. Anyone but know the phrase Be careful what you wish for! Oh yeah, I'm now a really big believer in that one, because no sooner had the words crossed my mind than Mr. Solomon turned to us and said, "There are three types of subjects who will always be the most difficult to surveil." He ticked them off on his fingers. "People who are trained. People who suspect they may be followed. And people you know." He paused. "Ladies, this is your lucky night." He pulled a black-and-white photo from the pocket of his jacket and held it up. The face was new to us, but the voice that came blaring through the speaker saying, "Yes. I should probably get back into that habit myself," was one we knew well."Oh, bollocks!" Bex exclaimed, and Liz dropped her note cards."Smith!" I cried.
"It was kinda shocking." Bex says.
"You expect us to recon Professor Smith?"I couldn't believe it! Not only was it our first mission ever, but he honestly expected us to tail a man who had thirty years of experience, and who had seen us every school day since seventh grade, and who, worst of all, was the single most paranoid human being on the planet! (Seriously. I mean, he's got the plastic surgery bills to prove it.)A team of CIA all-stars would probably get made within twenty minutes.
"Depends on the agents." Mrs. Morgan says.
Three Gallagher Girls didn't stand a chance. After all, once a guy's heard you give a report on the trade routes of Northern Africa, he's probably gonna wonder why you're sitting behind him on the merry-go-round!"But... but... but... he never leaves the grounds," I protested, finally finding my words. "He would never enter an unsecured area on a whim." Oooh, good one,
"And she's catching on.." Abby comments.
I thought, as I struggled to recall Liz's flash cards. "This goes against the subject's pattern of behavior!"But Mr. Solomon only smiled. He knew it was an impossible mission-that was why he'd given it to us. "Trust me, ladies," he said with somber respect, "no one knows Mr. Smith's patterns of behavior." He tossed a thick file folder toward us. "The one thing we do know is that tonight is the Roseville town carnival, and Mr. Smith, for good or bad, is a man who loves his funnel cakes."
"Now I'm hungry." Bex complains.
"We just ate!" Macey exclaims.
"Well, have fun!" My mother's voice came blaring through the speakers. I imagined her waving at her colleague as he turned at the edge of town. I heard her breathing become deeper, almost felt her cross trainers as they struck the dark pavement."Your mission," Mr. Solomon said, "is to find out what he drinks with those funnel cakes."I'd been waiting my whole life for my first mission and it all came down to what? Carbonated beverages?!
"Drinks are so important in the field." I say jokingly.
"Subject's at the firehouse, Wise Guy,"
The girls chuckle at Solomon's code name.
"I didnt't pick it out! Matt and Abby did." He said glaring at Abby.
Mom whispered. "He's all yours." And then, just like that, my mother and her watchful eyes were gone, leaving us alone in the dark with Joe "Wise Guy" Solomon and a mathematician in a bright orange cap . Solomon thrust the necklace toward me and said, "In or out?"I grabbed the cross, knowing I would need it.
"Cliff hanger." I said as I shut the book. So we haven't met Jimmy,...yet.
Thank you for not killing me! =) Please review. and you can yell at me for not updating fast enough... I do deserve it. )=.
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