Boys were looking at us. Boys were walking toward us. It's one thing to know that boys are coming…someday. It's quite another to be enjoying a nice, relaxing meal and then turn around to see a mob of teenage testosterone moving your way! (I mean, hello, I was wearing the skirt with the stain on the butt.)
But did my mother seem to care about that? No. She just gripped the podium at the front of the room and said, "The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women has a proud history…" I'm pretty sure no one was listening.
"For more than a hundred years, this institution has remained secluded, but yesterday, some of your classmates were able to meet another set of exceptional students from another exceptional institution." I guess meet is code for be humiliated by.
"Members of the Gallagher trustees, along with the board of directors from the Blackthorne Institute, have long thought that our students would have a lot to learn from each other." She smiled. A strand of dark hair fell across her face, and she tucked it behind her ear before looking across the massive room. "And this year we're going to see it happen."
Tina Walters looked like she was going to pass out; Eva Alvarez was holding her orange juice halfway between the table and her mouth—but Macey McHenry seemed to have barely noticed that boys were walking past the sophomore table. She glanced up from her organic chemistry flash cards for about a millisecond and said, "That's them?" She shrugged. "I've seen cuter." And then she went back to her notes.
"When Gillian Gallagher was a girl, this hall had been home to balls and cotillions, friends and family, but it hasn't had many guests in the last century," Mom said. "I'm so glad today is an exception."
Then for the first time, I realized that the boys were not alone. There was a man ushering them to the front of the room. He had a round, reddish face and a bright, wide smile, and as he walked down the center aisle, he actually waved and shook hands with the girls he passed, as if he were a game-show contestant and my mother had just asked him to "Come on down."
"It's my pleasure to introduce Dr. Steven Sanders. Dr. Sanders…" Mom started, but trailed off as the little man walked behind the staff table, tilted the microphone toward his mouth, and said, "Dr. Steve."
"Excuse me?" Mom asked.
"Call me Dr. Steve," he said with a punch at the air.
I looked at Liz, suspecting that the thought of calling a teacher by his first name would send her into shock, but she didn't seem to notice anything beyond the boys who stood near the head table.
"Of course," Mom told him, then turned to face us. "Dr. Steve and his students will be spending the remainder of the semester with us."
At this, a low chorus of whispers grew inside the hall. "They will be attending your classes, eating with you at meals." Sleeping in the East Wing, I thought.
"Ladies, this is a wonderful opportunity," Mom finished. "And I hope you will use this time to forge bonds of friendship that you can carry throughout your lives."
"I wouldn't mind being bonded to him," Eva Alvarez said, gesturing to a boy at the edge of the pack. A boy with dark brown hair and broad shoulders.
A boy who crossed his arms and leaned against the head table.
A boy who was smiling.
At me.
Chapter Twelve
"Members of this tribe can be identified by what physical characteristic, Ms. Bauer?" Mr. Smith asked an hour later, but I'm pretty sure I speak for the entire sophomore class when I say that we were far less interested in the countries of the world than we were in what was going on in our own school. I mean, how were we supposed to focus when there were extra chairs at the back of our classroom? Chairs that were waiting … for boys.
Even Liz kept looking around as if the boys were going to teleport into the back of the room or something. But Mr. Smith kept lecturing like this was an ordinary day—right up until a deep voice called "Knock knock," and Dr. Steve pushed open the door.
Dr. Steve exclaimed, "Good morning, ladies," except that, if you ask me, it wasn't. And I was just getting ready to say so, when the morning got worse. Way worse. Because, not only had Dr. Steve barged in, interrupting a perfectly nice lecture, but he hadn't come alone.
Three boys stood behind him: one was skinny with glasses and thick black hair. One bore a striking resemblance to your average Greek god. And standing between them … was Zach.
My friends call me the Chameleon—I'm the girl who blends in, who goes unseen—but I have never wanted to be invisible as much as I did then.
I mean, I get the interschool cooperation thing; I can totally grasp the concept of camaraderie and teamwork. But the spy in me had been beaten the day before, and the girl in me had been flirted with and used. I slumped in my chair, wishing Bex were still using that volumizing conditioner, because at the moment, I needed all the cover I could get.
"Can I help you, Dr. Sanders?" Mr. Smith asked, not even trying to hide the impatience in his voice, but Dr. Steve just looked at him and held one hand in the air as if he were trying to put his finger on something.
"I say, your voice sounds so familiar." Dr. Steve said. Mr. Smith is one of the most wanted (not to mention paranoid) ex-spies in the world, and every summer he goes to the CIA's official plastic surgeon and gets a whole new face, so there was no way Dr. Steve was going to recognize him. "Have we met before?"
"No," Mr. Smith said coolly. "I'm quite sure we haven't."
"Never did any work at the Andover Institute, did you?"
"No," Mr. Smith said again, then started back toward the board as if his lecture had been delayed long enough.
"Oh well," Dr. Steve said with a laugh. Then he pointed to the boys behind him. "Shall we have the boys introduce themselves?"
"I have learned, Dr. Sanders—"
"Steve," Dr. Steve corrected, but Mr. Smith carried on, not even pausing for breath.
"—that ours is an occupation where names are—at best—temporary," Mr. Smith finished. Which, when you think about it, is putting it mildly coming from a man who (according to Tina Walters) has one hundred and thirty-seven aliases registered with the CIA. "But, if they must…" Mr. Smith rolled his eyes and sat on the corner of his desk.
The skinny boy stepped forward, pulling nervously on his tie as if it were an entirely new kind of torture.
"Um…I'm Jonas," he said, shifting from foot to foot. "I'm sixteen. I'm a sophomore—"
"Thus your enrollment in this class," Mr. Smith said drily. "Welcome, Jonas. Please have a seat."
"Excellent job, Jonas." Dr. Steve said, ignoring Mr. Smith, who had started to hand out a pop quiz. "Excellent job. Now, Jonas here is on the research track of study. I don't suppose any of you young ladies could show Jonas around?"
"Humph!" Liz exclaimed, which probably had less to do with the fact that she was eager to show Jonas around than the fact that Bex had just kicked the back of her chair (hard). But Dr. Steve didn't see any of that. He pointed at Liz and said, "Excellent!" again.
(Note to self: "excellence" at the Blackthorne Institute is probably graded on a very different scale than the one we use at the Gallagher Academy.)
"Jonas, you can spend the day with Ms…" Dr. Steve looked to Liz.
"Sutton. Liz Sutton."
"Excellent," Dr. Steve said one more time. "Now, Grant, if you would—"
"I'm Grant," said the boy on Zach's other side. Grant didn't look like a high school sophomore—Grant looked like Brad Pitt's body double.
He slid into the seat beside Bex, who smiled and tossed her hair in a move that they don't teach in P&E.
Oh my gosh! Is this what it's like to have class with boys? I mean, I know I used to go to school with boys before I started at the Gallagher Academy, but there really isn't that much hair-tossing in kindergarten through sixth grade. (Although, I do remember some hair-pulling that resulted in some real tossing, but then Mom forbade me from using the Wendelsky Maneuver on civilians ever again.)
One boy remained at the front of the room, but instead of waiting on Dr. Steve, Zach walked to the back of the class. "I'm Zach," he said, sliding into the chair behind Grant—the one next to me—"and I think I've found my guide."
From the front of the room I faintly heard the word. "Excellent!" but I didn't necessarily agree.
Gallagher Girls have missions—hard ones. All the time. But as soon as COW was over, I gathered my books and fought the feeling that I was completely unprepared for what I had to do. As I started for the door I told myself all the reasons I shouldn't feel the way I was currently feeling:
In the clandestine services it does help to have as
many allies as possible, so knowing a Blackthorne
Boy or two could come in handy someday.
Mr. Solomon had been a Blackthorne Boy (and
maybe my dad had been too). They turned out
all right.
As Liz had previously stated, having unlimited
access to boys could be a good thing, scientifically
speaking.
Zach had only been following orders on the Mall
the day before.
He'd been nice.
He'd offered me chocolate.
It wasn't his fault he'd been…better than me.
"So, we meet again."
Yes, Zach actually said that, even though, if you wanted to be technical about it, we hadn't actually met in D.C. Not really. I mean, his cover identity had spoken to my cover identity, but talking to someone who doesn't know you're a spy is completely different from standing together in the middle of your top-secret school of covert learning.
Girls pressed against us from all directions, like a tide that was going out and coming in at the same time, but Zach and I didn't get caught up in the current.
He surveyed the great stone walls and ancient pillars that surrounded him. "So this is the famous Gallagher Academy."
"Yes," I replied politely. I was his guide, after all, not to mention someone who's had three and a half years of Culture and Assimilation training. "This is the second-floor corridor. Most of our classes are down this hall."
But Zach wasn't listening. Instead, he was staring—at me. "And you're…" he started slowly "…the famous Cammie Morgan."
Okay, first of all, I have no idea how Zach knew my name, but that wasn't as intriguing as the way he seemed oblivious to the crashing bodies and whispering girls.
Josh used to look at me like he wanted to kiss me, or laugh at me, or get psychiatrists to study me—all of which I totally preferred to the look Zach was giving me then, not as if I were famous, but as if I were infamous. And when you're the girl who's known for being invisible, there's nothing quite as scary as being seen.
"Come on," I mumbled, after what seemed like a very long time. I started down the hall. "Culture and Assimilation is on the fourth floor."
"Whoa," he said, stopping suddenly. "Did you just say you're taking me to culture class?" he asked, a mocking smile growing on his lips.
"Yes."
And then Zach grinned. "Boy, when they say you've got the toughest curriculum in the world…they mean it." But it didn't take a genius to know he didn't mean it. At all.
