Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover (7 page)

And
then a hush went through the crowd, because our teachers were not alone.

Macey's
parents were walking through the doors, waving and shaking hands, followed by a
member of the United States Secret Service. I'm pretty sure if there had been
any babies to kiss, The Senator would have done it.

There
are a lot of scary things about being a Gallagher Girl, but having people who
don't belong in your school walk inside it is high on the list. And I knew that
we were being welcomed back to a very different school.

"Ooh,"
Liz said beside me. With wide eyes, she watched

Macey's
parents greet our Culture and Assimilation professor, Madame Dabney.

Across
the table, Bex grinned and whispered, "Pop quiz?"

"Welcome
back, ladies," my mother said from the front of the room. "I can
honestly say that I have never felt so glad to have you all here …" She
paused; her gaze swept over the room, which instantly grew dim as the sun
slipped below the horizon. If I hadn't known better, I might have sworn I heard
my mother's voice crack as she finished, "safe and sound."

No
one whispered. No one giggled or teased. What had happened to Macey (and to me)
hadn't been some wild tale that we'd carried back from our summer vacations. It
was real. And no one felt like laughing anymore.

"As
you know, the eyes of the world are now upon the Gallagher Academy," Mom
went on. I couldn't help glancing at the McHenrys to see if they guessed my
mother's secret meaning, but the two of them kept nodding the same somber nods
that must be second nature for anyone with their name on a ballot.

"We
must learn and we must persevere. We must be careful and we must be brave. And
most importantly"—right then it seemed as if a hundred girls sat up a
little straighter, literally rising to the challenge—"we must protect our
sisterhood." Her voice grew a little stronger. "And our
sisters."

I
don't know for sure how many active Gallagher Girls there are in the world.
Hundreds. Thousands. We disappear into society and do our jobs without a word
of thanks or any hope of praise. I may be the Chameleon, but in truth, every
Gallagher Girl has to be somewhat invisible. Yet now, we were all in the spotlight.

"There
are things that are expected of us," my mom went on. "For that
reason, there will be some changes this semester."

A slight murmur went through the
crowd.

"AM
lessons will take place inside the safety of the primary mansion." Senator
McHenry nodded as if this seemed like a good idea, not really understanding
how
good,
considering that a paparazzo with a telephoto lens might have some questions if
he ever caught a teenage girl practicing a perfect Forenstyl Flip on a
three-hundred-pound member of the maintenance staff.

"Also,
as far as our most notable student of the moment is concerned, we will be
enforcing a strict
no comment
policy," Mom continued.
"Be prepared, ladies. People are going to want to hear how Macey is
coping." I glanced at the girl beside me, wondering the same thing.
"But they're not going to hear it from us."

Gallagher
Girls keep secrets—that's what we do. And that mission had never felt so
personal.

"And
perhaps the biggest change of all," Mom said slowly. I felt the room lean
closer. "This semester we will be welcoming a member of the McHenry's
security detail into this school for Macey's protection."

I
can't swear to it or anything, but for a second her eyes locked on me.
"The security of Macey McHenry will not change what and how we learn. To
that end, let's welcome Agent Abigail Cameron, who will be responsible for Ms.
McHenry's security detail."

The
room around me filled with noise and movement, but in my mind, things were
suddenly quiet and slow. A woman with long dark hair and gorgeous green eyes
had appeared at the back of the room.

"As
it so happens, Agent Cameron is a graduate of the Gallagher Academy and
therefore
uniquely
qualified to give Macey the best protection possible."

I
know, having aced my lip-reading midterm the previous semester, that the hall
was a chorus of "Wow, she's pretty"s and "Wait, who's
that?"s.

I
know that every Gallagher Girl in the Grand Hall was looking at the woman
walking through the room, thinking,
This is our sister.
But not me. All I could do was
stare at her and whisper, "Aunt Abby?"

When
you've spent four years living with a certain British secret agent-in-training
who loves to practice spontaneous attacks and self-defense maneuvers when
you're brushing your teeth, it takes a lot to knock you off guard. So I like to
consider myself the kind of person who can keep a straight face during just
about anything. Or…well…almost anything.

I
tried to remember the last time I'd seen my mother's sister—not since before
Mom left the CIA, not since before I started school here. Not since before…Dad.
And yet there she was, twenty feet away and walking closer.

Her
hair was longer than I remembered, past her shoulders now. She was still thin
and athletic, but she seemed shorter somehow, and then, genius that I am, I
realized that maybe I was just taller.

"Hey,
Cam," Bex whispered, jabbing me in the ribs, "isn't Cameron your
mom's maiden name?"

"Yeah,"
I murmured as if it were just a big coincidence.

I
studied her every move as she wove between the tables; she was the embodiment
of what every girl in the room wanted to be when she grew up.

"She
seems sort of…familiar," Liz said, and I could almost hear her mind
working, gears turning, as if my aunt's face were a code she was trying to crack.

Then
Abby winked at me, and, for Bex, the pieces fell into place. "No
way!" She was pointing between my aunt and my mother as if memorizing
every detail of their unmistakable family resemblance. "That's your
aunt—"

"Shhh!"
I whispered, cutting her off. After all, Tina Walters was only a few feet away;
the McHenrys and Agent Hughes were at the front of the room; there were at
least a dozen reasons why this was not the best time to go through the entire
Cameron family tree, not the least of which was that I was already way more
notorious around there than any chameleon should rightfully be.

My mother was the headmistresss.

I'd
had an illegal (sort of) relationship with a normal boy who had crashed
(literally) my Covert Operations midterm last December.

And
the last time several members of the student body had seen me, I'd been kissing
a boy from the rival spy school in the middle of the foyer during finals week!

I
was
not
invisible
anymore. And something told me that having my aunt leading Macey's security
detail wasn't going to help matters. At all. Because even though I hadn't seen
her in years, I was sure that if there's one thing Abby is not, it's invisible.

"Cam."
Liz's voice was soft. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Aunt
Abby finally made it to the front of the room, and I just sat there feeling
like maybe … I had.

Questions
I Never Wanted to Hear Again After That Night

1.
              
Did Zach call/write/break
into and/or bug my grandparents' house over summer vacation? (Because the
answer was no.)

2.
              
Did I know
that the news channels only showed part of the footage from the attack in
Boston, but it happened to be the part where my skirt blew up? Way up!
(Because, sadly, the answer was something I couldn't forget.)

3.
              
Did I think
Mr. Smith's new face made him look kind of…hot? (Because
Smith
and
hot
were two
words I never wanted to hear together.)

4.
              
Where had
Aunt Abby worked? (Because I didn't know.)

5.
              
What had Aunt
Abby done? (Because I couldn't even guess.)

6.
              
Why would an
operative in the prime of her career come out of the field to take over Macey's
security detail when there had to be a lot more senior operatives who would
have dropped everything to keep one of their own safe? (Because I didn't want
to think about it.)

"Come
on, Cam," Liz pleaded the next morning, the lack of significant intel
finally weighing on her. "She's your
aunt.
You've
got to know something."

I
just shrugged. "Liz, she's a deep-cover covert operative—you know how it
is."

Liz
stared at me blankly, but Bex nodded. After all, her parents were with MI6, so
she
did
know.
Better than anyone.

"Do
you think she'll be teaching a class?" Liz gripped her extra-credit
project for Mr. Mosckowitz as if her life depended on it (because, when you're
Liz, your life kinda does). "I tried hacking into Langley, and everything
about her was classified. I mean,
seriously
classi—Ow!" Liz cried.

I'm
not sure how she did it, but Elizabeth Sutton, the smartest Gallagher Girl in
perhaps the history of Gallagher Girls, had just managed to cut her chin with a
paper clip.

Bex
laughed. Liz bled (but only a little). My stomach growled, and I felt the clock
inside of me ticking again, telling me that it was time, so I grabbed my bag
and called, "Come on. We don't want to be late."

I
was already in the hall before I noticed someone was missing.

"Macey!"
I yelled, pushing open the bathroom door. "We're heading down to—"
But I couldn't finish. Because Macey McHenry, the girl with the physical
appearance so perfect a supermodel might feel inferior, was changing her
clothes
in the bathroom.
And then I saw why.

A
bruise covered her entire side, green tinges bleeding into purple. Her elbow
was still swollen to twice its normal size. I didn't have to hear her wince to
know how much it hurt, and yet the look on her face said that having me witness
her vulnerability was the most painful thing of all. Macey's pride was the one
thing that had come away unscathed, and she was going to protect it if it
killed her.

"Cam!" Bex yelled from
outside. "We're hungry!"

"Go
on," I called, my eyes still locked with Macey's in the mirror.
"Macey's not letting me go without eyeliner." It must have been a
believable cover story, because the door closed. The suite grew quiet, and
Macey turned around.

Wordlessly,
she held her arm out to me, and I eased her shirtsleeve over her cast. She
turned back to the mirror but no longer met my eyes as she said, "Nobody
finds out."

Bex
would have thought it was cool. Liz would have calculated the exact amount of
force it would have taken to do that kind of damage. Bruises like that usually
earn you a week's worth of extra credit in P&E. But Macey didn't want to
hear those things.

And
it was just as well, because I didn't want to say them.

So I helped her into her school
sweater wondering:

7. Did I think Macey was okay?
(Because I was the only one who seemed to be asking it.)

Sometime
in the night our school had reversed itself. The Code Red was over. The Senator
and his entourage were gone. Bookshelves and paintings had spun around again,
and in the Hall of History, Gilly's sword was gleaming in its protective case.

Everything
seemed right. Everything seemed normal. Then I heard a voice I hadn't heard in
a very long time say, "Hey, squirt."

My
mom calls me kiddo. My friends call me Cam. Zach called me Gallagher Girl. But
no nickname in history has ever had the same effect on me as
"Squirt." I suddenly had the urge to spin around really, really fast
and eat cotton candy until I was sick. But instead I just said, "Hi."

"Someone grew up."

"I'm
sixteen," I said, which was about the dumbest thing ever, but I couldn't
help it. Even geniuses have the right to be dumb sometimes. I felt Bex and Liz
come from the Grand Hall to stand beside me. "Everyone, this is"—I
gazed up at her, wondering how she could look almost exactly the same when
almost everything in my life was different—"Aunt Abby?" It came out
like a question, but it wasn't.

"Don't
tell me," my aunt said as she turned to Bex, "
you
must be a
Baxter."