"Bex should do it. She's the better actress." I turned to Bex. "You're way better at cover legends than I am … and flirting…and—"
"I am doing it," Bex said. "I'm taking Grant." She pointed to the chart. "And that senior with the wavy hair. And…"
"But Zach's our leading suspect," I exclaimed. "Why do I have to get close to Zach?"
My three friends froze around me, and neither Bex nor Liz seemed to know what to say; but Macey just shrugged. "Because there are one hundred girls and fifteen boys at this school, and for some reason, that one keeps coming back to you." She raised an eyebrow. "You're the genius, Cam," she said. "You do the math."
I thought about the elevator ride in D.C.; the way Zach had volunteered me to be his guide; and finally, the way he'd looked when I'd found him in the corridor right before the world went black. Zach did keep coming back to me, and every good spy knows that there are no coincidences… only plans and missions and lies. "So," Bex went on, "either he's a rogue operative trying to use you for some clandestine purposes. Or—"
Liz cut her off. "He likes you!"
And immediately I started hoping that Zach's interest in me really was about rogue operatives and clandestine missions, because … well… clandestine missions I can handle.
The Operative waited until an opportune time (while leaving the tea room) to approach The Subject.
"Hey, Gallagher Girl," Zach said, then flashed me his signature I-know-something-you-don't-know smile. "What can I do for you?"
I looked deep within me. I summoned my inner super-spy. "Mr. Smith says our midterm papers have to be a joint project. And my mother said that I should make an effort to 'embrace the collaborative nature of this exchange experience,'" I said, as if I were quoting verbatim instead of making it up on the spot.
Zach raised his eyebrows. "And you want to embrace me?"
"Only in the academic sense. Look, do you want to do this project or not?"
I could feel the stares of the girls who passed us, which is one of the truly terrible things about being a spy: when people are looking and talking about you behind your back, you're kind of trained to notice.
"So?" I asked, feeling more in control again.
"Sure, Gallagher Girl." He started down the hallway, waiting until half the eighth grade class was between us before yelling, "It's a date!"
Chapter Twenty-one
I had a date! (Sort of.) With an enemy agent! (Kind of.) The girl in me was excited and terrified, but the spy in me knew this was my greatest undercover assignment yet.
There was a time not so long ago when I'd thought that maybe dating and lying to the sweetest, cutest, nicest boy in the world might have prepared me for a life of deception, but now I know I was wrong. Totally and completely wrong. Because it turns out, real spies don't make a life lying to the sweet boys. Nope. The real lying takes place with the other kind.
"She's got to look sexy," Liz said the next night as the four of us gathered in the suite, getting me ready for my mission. Or date?
Oh my gosh—is it a date? I wondered. "Is it a date?" I asked out loud.
Macey shrugged. "Hard to say. Will there be food or entertainment?" I shook my head. "The winning of stuffed animals through competitive means?" Another shake. "Then probably not."
Liz, I noticed, was writing everything down. "But what if there's kissing?" she asked.
"Liz, there will be no kissing. Or hand holding. Or dancing—unless we're studying C&A, and then…There will be NO kissing!"
Liz looked a little confused, so Macey explained. "You can have dating without kissing, but kissing without dating is entirely different." Macey walked to the bed and started sorting through the nine million tops we'd already ruled out as "too dressy" or "too casual" or "too cleavage-dependent" (since I don't exactly have cleavage).
"She's ready!" Bex exclaimed, spinning me around.
Well, I didn't feel ready. With Josh I'd always felt nervous; with Zach I did, too, but in a very different way. I didn't even look ready, not the kind of ready I'd looked like with Josh. Then there'd been lip gloss and skirts and shoes that may not have been conducive to running four miles in the dark. Now I just looked like…me.
"No," I said. "This won't work. He's a spy. He'll figure out that I'm…spying."
"It's perfect, and no he won't," Macey said. She placed a lip brush in her mouth and circled me, surveying what she saw.
"But shouldn't I look…better?"
"Cam, he's seen you in P&E," Bex said, obviously referring to my tendency to be, shall we say, perspiration-challenged.
"And he's seen you totally dressed up," Liz added.
"What he hasn't seen," said Macey, positioning me in front of the mirror, "is casual Cammie."
I felt like Barbie's less-than-perfect friend.
"Everything about tonight has to seem normal, Cam," Bex warned, not seeing the irony in the amount of effort it took to achieve the look of utter effortlessness.
"She's right," Macey said. "Guys are like dogs—they can always tell when you're needy."
"Just remember your cover," Liz said, handing me my backpack.
"And remember to let him lead the conversation—see what he'll give you before you know what you'll have to take," Bex said, quoting one of Mr. Solomon's best lectures.
"Right," I said, reminding myself that we were just going to be in the library. What kind of terrible things could happen in the library, for crying out loud?
"And, Cam," Macey called after me. "Be yourself."
No matter where I went that semester, I couldn't get away from those words: be yourself. But I could never be all of myself, especially then, because a solid twenty percent of me wanted to spike Zach's morning orange juice with truth serum and be done with it. (Actually, that was Bex's idea, but we were saving it for an emergency.)
As I walked down the Grand Stairs I reminded myself that I shouldn't be nervous. I'd been on dates before—both real and of the study variety. And studying with Zach—not Josh—meant I wouldn't even have to hide the fact that I was doing PhD-level physics in the tenth grade. But as I entered the library and looked around for Zach, I couldn't fight the feeling that "myself was one cover legend I didn't quite know how to be.
"Hello, Gallagher Girl." He'd claimed a table in the back of the library. The VERY back.
18:00 hours: The Operative met The Subject in a suspiciously-remote location, indicating that he may have had more "date" and less "study" on his mind. —Analysis by Macey McHenry
Books covered the table. His school jacket hung over the back of his chair.
I sat down across from him. "So," I said, feeling my voice crack, "what should we start on?"
"I don't know," he said, but I got the distinct impression that he did know. A lot of things. Because, for starters, it was my scientific opinion that Zach was one of those people who used his intelligence to make sure no one knew exactly how intelligent he was (a tendency Macey tells me is common among boys with really sexy arms).
18:02 hours: The Operative became overwhelmed by the complete and utter silence at the table.
"Zach," I said, just to make sure my voice was still working. He looked at me. "So, I was thinking we could look at the impact of propaganda in third world economies?"
"That's what you were thinking?"
"Yes," I said, but he kept looking at me … I mean really looking at me. I wanted to be Tiffany St. James (even if it meant wearing the strapless dress). I wanted to be a homeschooled girl with a cat named Suzie. I wanted to be anyone but myself as I sat there feeling completely out of cover.
"So …" I tried again. "I guess we should outline the report and maybe summarize our notes and—"
"Gallagher Girl," Zach said, not waiting for me to finish a sentence that didn't have an end. "Is there something you want to ask me?"
"No," I lied, and then we both went back to our books.
18:14 hours: The Operative began to realize that the study date might actually consist of studying.
How long does it take for two people to find a comfortable silence? I don't know. One time I drove all the way to Omaha and back with Grandpa Morgan, and he hardly said ten words. My dad and I used to spend Sundays on the living room floor, trading sections of the newspaper, and there was no noise except for the sound of turning pages. But sitting there—with Zach—was different.
"So—" I started, before realizing I had no earthly idea what was supposed to come next.
He raised his eyebrows but not his head, and studied me with upturned eyes. "So …" his word dragged out longer than mine, filling that terrible void of noise.
"So what do you think of the Gallagher Academy?" He tried to laugh, then seemed to think better of it at the last minute. "Oh. It's swell."
The Operative noticed that The Subject's use of the adjective "swell" was either intentional sarcasm or regional slang and noted to check it against the Gallagher Academy database.
I went back to my notebooks but couldn't read a single word. I used to think talking to a normal boy was hard. Turns out it's nothing compared to talking to a highly trained boy-spy who may or may not have been bred and raised by the U.S. Government.
I was just starting to consider aborting the mission altogether when two eighth grade girls came running out of the stacks and stopped short, staring at me and Zach. Then they turned and dashed away, their giggles and whispers floating to me through the aisle.
"You handled that pretty well," Zach said with a subtle nod toward the gossip I inspired.
"Well, I've had some practice, I guess. Besides, sticks and stones," I said, and it was true. For a spy, it takes a lot more than giggles to hurt you.
I turned the page in my notebook and felt my eyes lose focus as I listened to the silence that seemed louder in Zach's presence.
"I gotta say," he said as he laced his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair onto two legs, balancing. "I'm a little disappointed."
"Disappointed!" I cried.
He laughed. "Yeah, Gallagher Girl. I thought you had a reputation for being…proactive?"
Which was a nice way of putting it, I guess. "Yeah," I said, wishing I could figure out some way to turn the conversation back to him. "Well, what would you do if everyone thought you had breached security?"
He smiled and leaned forward. I heard the front legs of his chair land on the hardwood floor with a crack. "I'd probably find out everything I could about everyone who…was new ?" he said, as if the words had come right off the top of his head. "Who maybe didn't have an alibi on the night of the ball? I might even try to get close to anyone I suspected," he said. He eased in closer. "I might even bug their rooms if I got the chance."
"Hahahahaha!" (Yeah, that's the sound of a highly trained secret agent forcing laughter.)
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