"Holographic, radio-synthesized photo paper," mom said, when she saw my gaping mouth. "Dr. Fibs whipped up a batch in his lab over the summer. Hungry?" She held her cupped hand toward Bex and me. Amazingly, I'd forgotten all about my empty stomach, but I took a green piece for good luck. Something told me we were going to need it.
"Girls, I need you to do a tour."
"But…we're sophomores!" Bex exclaimed, as if my mother had mysteriously forgotten.
Mom's mouth was full of chocolate, so Buckingham explained, "The juniors are beginning their semester with interrogation tactics, so they are all under the influence of sodium pentothal at the moment, and the seniors are being fitted with their night-vision contacts, and they won't un-dilate for at least two hours. This is most unfortunate timing, but Code Reds are such for a reason. We don't know when they'll happen and, well, one is happening now."
"What do you say?" Mom asked, smiling. "Can you help us out?"
There are three things a person has to be before they show up uninvited on the doorstep of the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women: persistent, powerful, and completely out of other options. After all, most potential students never make it past the "We are not accepting applications at this time" speech they get whenever they call or write; you have to be turned down by every prep school in the country before you actually drive all the way to Roseville, hoping that an in-person visit will change our minds. But no amount of persistence or desperation can get you through the gates. No, for that, it takes real power.
That's why Bex and I were standing on the front steps, waiting on the black stretch limousine that carried the McHenry family (yes, those McHenrys—the ones on the cover of last December's Newsweek) to drive down the winding lane. They were the kind of people who aren't easily turned away, and we learned a long time ago that the best place to hide is in plain sight, so Bex and I were there to welcome them to Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women. Our mission: make sure they never know just how exceptional we really are.
The man who stepped out of the limo wore a charcoal gray suit jacket and power tie; the woman looked like the cosmetics heiress she was—not a hair or lash out of place— and I wondered if my cherry lip gloss would impress her. Judging from the scowl on her face, it didn't.
"Senator," Bex said, extending her hand toward the man, sounding as American as apple pie and loving the charade. "Welcome to the Gallagher Academy. It's an honor to have you with us today." I thought she was laying it on a little thick until Senator McHenry smiled and said, "Thank you. It's wonderful to be here," as if he didn't realize she couldn't vote.
"I'm Rebecca," Bex said. "This is Cameron." The senator glanced at me then looked quickly back to Bex, who looked like a picture-perfect model of an elite education. "We're happy to show you and …" And that's when Bex and I both realized that their daughter hadn't appeared. "Is your daughter going to be…"
But just then, a black combat boot emerged from the limousine.
"Darling," the senator said, pointing toward the stables, "come look. They have horses."
"Oh, is that what I smell?" Mrs. McHenry said with a shudder. (For the record, our school smells just fine, unless of course your smelling ability has been irreparably damaged by a lifetime of sniffing perfume samples.)
But the senator glared at his wife and said, "Macey loves horses."
"No, Macey hates horses," Mrs. McHenry said, narrowing her eyes and glancing toward Bex and me as if to remind the senator not to contradict her in front of the help. "She fell off one and broke her arm."
I was thinking about disrupting this little display of domestic bliss to tell them both that there weren't any horses in the stables—just freaked-out seventh graders and a former French spy who had invented a way of sending coded messages in cheese, when a voice said, "Yeah, they make great glue."
Now, I don't know this for a fact, but I'm pretty sure Macey McHenry had never touched a horse in her life. Her legs were long and athletic; her clothes, though punk and rebellious, were definitely high-end, and the diamond in her nose was at least a carat and a half. Her hair might have been stark black and bluntly cut, but it was also thick and shiny, and it framed a face that belonged on the cover of a magazine.
I've seen enough TV and movies to know that if a girl like Macey McHenry can't survive high school, then someone like me would probably get eaten alive. And yet, something had driven her to our gates—making us her last resort. Or so her parents thought.
"We're …" I stammered, because I may be a whiz at poison-concocting, but good at public speaking—I'm not! "We're really happy to have you here."
"Then why did you keep us sitting"—Mrs. McHenry cocked her head toward the iron gates—"out there for over an hour?"
"I'm afraid that's standard protocol for people who come without appointments," Bex said in her most honor-student-y voice. "Security is a top concern here at the Gallagher Academy. If your daughter were to go here, you could expect that same level of protection."
But Mrs. McHenry's hands were on her hips when she snapped, "Don't you know who he is? Do you know—"
"We were on our way back to D.C.," the senator stepped in, cutting his wife off. "And we just couldn't resist bringing Macey by for a visit." He sent his wife a this is our last chance, don't blow it look as he added, "And the security is most impressive."
Bex opened the front doors and welcomed them inside, but all I could do was watch them go and think, Senator, you have no idea.
Bex and I got to sit in Mom's office as she went through her standard speech about the school's "history." Really, it's not all that different from the truth, just abridged. A lot.
"We have graduates working all over the world," Mom said, and I thought, Yeah, as spies. "We focus on languages, math, science, and culture. Those are the things our graduates tell us they've needed most in their lives." As spies. "By admitting only young women, our students develop a sense of empowerment, which enables them to be highly successful." As spies.
I was just starting to enjoy my little game, when Mom turned to Bex and said, "Rebecca, why don't you and Cammie show Macey around?" and I knew it was showtime.
Bex glowed, but all I could do was think about how we'd only had one half of a covert operations course, yet we were already going on a mission! How was I supposed to know how to act? Sure, if Macey wanted to conjugate Chinese verbs or break KGB codes, I was perfectly trained, but our mission was to act normally, and that's something I'm totally not qualified to do! Luckily, Bex just likes to act. Period.
"Senator," Bex said, gripping his hand, "it was an honor meeting you, sir. And you, too, ma'am." She smiled at Mrs. McHenry. "So glad that you both—"
"Thank you, Rebecca," Mom cut Bex off with her don't-overdo-it voice.
Macey stood and, with a flurry of her ultra-miniskirt, was through the door and into the Hall of History without even a glance at her parents.
Macey was leaning against a cabinet that normally chronicled the history of the gas mask (a device on which the Gallagher Academy holds the patent, thank you very much), lighting up a cigarette, when we caught up. She took a long confident drag and then blew smoke toward a ceiling that probably held a dozen different kinds of sensors, the least of which was for smoke.
"You've got to put that out," Bex said, entering the make-sure-she-knows-she'd-be-miserable-here phase of the operation. "At the Gallagher Academy, we value personal health and safety."
Macey looked at Bex as if she'd been speaking Chinese. I had to think for a moment to make sure she hadn't.
"No smoking," I translated as I pulled an empty aluminum can from a recycling bin at the top of the stairs and held it toward her.
She took another drag and then looked at me as if to say she'd stub out her cigarette when I forced her, which I could, of course, but she wasn't supposed to know that. "Fine," I said, and turned to stalk off. "Your lungs."
But Bex was glaring at her and, unlike me, she actually looked capable of throwing someone off the landing; so with one last drag, our guest dropped the cigarette into the empty Diet Coke can and followed me down the stairs as a wave of girls pushed past us.
"It's lunchtime," I explained, realizing that the green M&M had gotten together with the Tic Tac in my stomach and were trying to convince me that they would like some company. "We can go eat if you want—"
"I don't think so!" Macey cried with a roll of her eyes.
But stupid me jumped to say, "Really, the food here is great," which totally didn't serve our mission objective, since gross food is usually a pretty good turnoff. But our chef is amazing. He actually worked at the White House before this incident involving Fluffy (the First Poodle), a gastronomical chemical agent, and some very questionable cheese. Luckily, a Gallagher Girl saved poor Fluffy's life, so to show his appreciation, Chef Louis came to us and brought his awesome crème brûlée with him.
I started to mention the crème brûlée, but then Macey exclaimed, "I eat eight hundred calories a day."
Bex and I looked at each other, amazed. We probably burned that many calories during one session of P&E (Protection and Enforcement) class.
Macey studied us skeptically, then added, "Food is so yesterday."
Unfortunately, that was the last time I'd had some.
We reached the foyer, and I said, "This is the Grand Hall," because that sounded like a school tour-y thing to say, but Macey acted like I wasn't even there as she turned to Bex (her physical equal) and said, "So everyone wears those uniforms?"
I found this to be particularly offensive, having been on the uniform selection committee, but Bex just fingered her knee-length navy plaid skirt and matching white blouse and said, "We even wear them during gym class." Good one, I thought, taking in the horror on Macey's face as Bex stepped toward the east corridor and said, "Here we have the library—"
But Macey was heading down another hallway. "What's down here?" And just like that she was gone, passing classrooms and hidden passageways with every step. Bex and I jogged to keep up with her, throwing out pieces of made-up trivia like "That painting was a gift from the Duke of Edinburgh" or "Oh, yes, the Wizenhouse Memorial Chandelier," or my personal favorite, "This is the Washington Memorial Chalkboard." (It really is a nice chalkboard.)
Bex was in the middle of a pretty believable story about how, if a girl gets a perfect score on a test, she's allowed to watch one whole hour of television that week, when Macey plopped down in one of my favorite window seats, pulled out a cell phone, and proceeded to make a call right in front of us without so much as an excuse me. (Rude!) The joke was on her, though, since, after dialing in the number, she held the device out in front of her in bewilderment.
Bex and I glanced at each other, and then I tried to sound all sympathetic as I said, "Yeah, cell phones don't work here." TRUE.