Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy (Gallagher Girls, #2)

by Ally Carter

that we Gallagher Girls are really far better at being someone else. (And we’ve got the fake IDs to prove

when you’re a Gallagher Girl, normal is a completely relative thing.

Still, I couldn’t help squirming in the hard metal chair—maybe because it was cold in there, maybe because I was nervous, maybe because I was experiencing a slight underwear situation. (Note to self: develop a wedgie theory of interrogation—there could totally be something to it!)

Most little girls in England grow up wanting to marry a prince. Bex grew up wanting to kick James Bond’s butt and assume his double-0 ranking.

A pair of freshmen rushed by our door talking about who would make a better Gallagher Girl: Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Veronica Mars (a debate made much more interesting by the fact it was taking place in Farsi).

She cut me a look that could kill (and will—just as soon as our head scientist, Dr. Fibs, perfects his looks-can-kill technology).

Who or what was Black Thorn? Or maybe Blackthorne? (Is it possible that Headmistress Morgan and Mr. Solomon were taking on a group of terrorists-slash-florists?)

Headmistress Morgan had ten different lipsticks in her desk (only three of which were for purely cosmetic uses).

Of all the items the Gallagher Academy receives royalty revenues from, Band-Aids are surprisingly the most profitable.

Blackthorne was a school! That Mr. Solomon had gone to! A school where they make more Mr. Solomons!

(Have I mentioned that we had evidence that strongly suggested there is a boys’ school? For spies!)

“During the Cold War, the concept of recruiting and training operatives at a young age was not an uncommon practice. And there may have been institutions formed for that purpose.”

I don’t know exactly how many operatives are out there waiting today, ladies, but if they’re good—and you should assume they’re very, very good—

Blending in, going unseen, being a shadow in the sun is what I’m good at. Seeing the shadows, it turns out, is not my natural gift.

But I know Bex well enough to know she was really talking about a pair of boys who were sitting on a park bench thirty feet away, staring at her.

But that’s what spies do—we pretend. We have aliases and disguises and go to great lengths to not be ourselves.

(At one point Bex had almost talked me into crawling out the bathroom window in the Air and Space Museum, but a U.S. Marshal walked by and we decided not to press our luck.)

And ten feet in front of him we saw the boys from the bench.

“Hey,” one of the boys from the park bench said. He did that half head nod thing that all boys seem to do…or at least the boys I know.

The boy rested against the railing. He was slightly shorter and broader through the shoulders, but in the blurry reflection of the elevator doors, he almost looked like Josh.

Nobody looking for a Gallagher Girl would expect me to be with a boy. He was cover. He was useful.

“Look, thanks for the chivalry and all, but it really isn’t necessary,” I muttered what may have been the understatement of the century, since I’m pretty sure I could have killed him with my backpack.

“But I’m alone.” “No, Ms. Morgan. You’re not.” And then the boy from the elevator, the boy from the bench, stepped out of the shadows. And looked at me. And smiled. And said, “Hi again, Gallagher Girl.”

I knew there was a school for boys. And, most of all, I knew one of them had just gotten the best of me.

They’d been there—we’d seen them! But we’d thought they were just…boys. And they were. Kind of like we’re just girls.

How weird was the helicopter ride home? Let me count the ways: In an effort to make themselves less tailable, Mick and Eva had traded their school uniforms for jumpsuits from the National Park Service maintenance staff. Kim Lee had fallen down the stairs at the National Gallery, so she had to sit with her ice-packed ankle propped on Tina’s lap. Courtney Bauer was still wet, following a very unfortunate Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool incident. And Anna Fetterman kept staring into the dark with her mouth open because, of all the Gallagher Girls on the Mall that day, she was the only one to achieve our mission objective (yeah, you read that right, Anna Fetterman!), and she was the most shocked person of all. Even Bex had picked up a tail on her way out of the Metro station and didn’t make it to the museum on time.

After all, it’s one thing to learn there’s a top-secret school for boy spies. It’s another to find out they might be better than you.

So Gilly did the next best thing: she opened a school where proper young ladies could learn all the things they were never supposed to need, a place where young women were free to become exceptional without the pressure or influence of boys.

“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.

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.

“—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.

Grant didn’t look like a high school sophomore—Grant looked like Brad Pitt’s body double.

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.)

At the end of the table, Courtney Bauer and Anna Fetterman were making plans to highlight each other’s hair using materials from the chemistry labs. (Note to self: never let Courtney Bauer and Anna Fetterman near your hair.)

“So,” Tina asked again, “do you like him?” She couldn’t be serious. Then I looked up and down the long table of eavesdropping girls, and realized she was totally serious! I couldn’t believe she was asking me that. In the Grand Hall. With boys…everywhere! It was as if Tina didn’t know that it’s standard protocol to do a basic security sweep and activate a bug scrambler before engaging in conversations that classified. I mean, sure, it was pretty loud in here, but the Blackthorne Institute could very well have an excellent lip-reading curriculum.

It was as if a virus had been injected into our school, but Macey’d known about a thousand boys before she’d come here. And I’d known Josh. The two of us had been exposed to boys before, so we had built up antibodies. We were, in a word, immune.

Fun is movie marathons; fun is experimenting with fourteen kinds of ice cream and creating your own custom flavor. Fun is not hanging out in the place where I had met, kissed, and broken up with the world’s sweetest boy. And participating in a clandestine training exercise with a different boy who wasn’t sweet at all.

Spies don’t train so that we’ll always know what to think; we train so that in times like this we don’t have to think; so that our bodies will go on cruise control and do the right things for us.

“And bring Zach,” DeeDee hurried to add. “That sounds like fun,” I said, except, if you asked me, a party with Josh and DeeDee and Zach sounded like the kind of torture that had been outlawed by the Geneva Convention.

And C) I didn’t have a thing in my closet that could possibly compete with pink mittens on the adorableness scale!

and there was probably a tape of the whole ordeal floating around somewhere. (Note to self: find and destroy that tape.)

Body-waxing as a torture-slash-interrogation tactic is illegal under international law. FALSE. (But if the yells coming from Tina Walters’s bathroom were any indication, it totally should be true.)

And I couldn’t help but think that spy stuff is hard. Girl stuff is hard. But I doubt there’s anything harder than spy-girl stuff.

And I suppose we did look lovely. Bex’s dress was long and black with a strappy back that totally showed off her muscles; Liz looked like the tooth fairy (but in a good way), in a soft pink gown with a full skirt. And Macey, of course, looked like a supermodel in her simple green gown and her hair in a ponytail (I know—a ponytail? Unbelievable.)

“You’re enjoying this way too much. You’re smirking.” We reached the foyer and turned toward the Grand Hall. “I got news for you, Gallagher Girl, if you’re not enjoying this, you’re in the wrong business.”

but I’m afraid you aren’t quite finished getting ready.” Can I just say that it’s a really good thing Joe Solomon is an extremely skilled operative, because at that moment he should have been very concerned for his physical safety. After all, that is not a thing you should tell a group of girls who have been recently plucked, waxed, gelled, sprayed, and mascaraed.

I had to dance with Zach Goode (after all, a Gallagher Girl always has to be prepared to sacrifice for her country).

And then he dipped me. Yes—actual dippage. And he winked. Yes—actual winkage.

And most of all, I knew that even though Josh might have been the boy who “saw” me, Zach knew where my favorite passageways were; Zach knew I was a pavement artist; Zach knew where I sat in class and what I ate in the Grand Hall and who my best friends in the world were. Zach “knew” me—or at least the version of me that Josh would never see.

“Besides,” Zach said, “at my school, we learn how to keep a secret.” “Yeah. I know. I go to a school like yours.” He looked at me. “Do you?”