Dont Judge a Girl by Her Cover Read online

  Macey McHenry was going to be worth a lot of votes.

  And so she was going there. Alone.

  Well … if by alone you mean with one of the most honored Gallagher Girls in years (who, reportedly, looks a little like me when I wear my hair back), a caravan of fourteen Secret Service agents of her own personal detail, and at least thirty advance team members who were tracking her father's every move. But in the most important sense she was alone. Because she was going without us.

  Monday morning, Macey was up at five a.m. and together we all walked her downstairs, where the smell of cinnamon rolls wafted in from the kitchen. Outside, the sun was coming up in the distance. A hazy light fell over the horizon, and through the windows I could see the guards doing a sweep of the woods.

  Liz was wearing her E=mc2 pajamas, and Bex's hair was looking particularly out of control, but still we paraded Macey through the mansion until we saw Aunt Abby.

  She wore a dark gray pantsuit with a plain white blouse. A little plastic earpiece was already pinned to her collar, the wires disappearing down the inside of her jacket. She looked the part—she was the part. And then we handed Macey off to her without a word, the changing of the guard.

  And then I went and took a shower.

  And then I ate a cinnamon roll.

  And I didn't hear a thing Mr. Smith said about ancient Rome and the catacombs, which if you know where to look, still provide pretty awesome access to the city.

  All day long, it seemed like people kept saying exactly what I was thinking.

  "Well, I guess she's probably there by now," Tina said after breakfast.

  "Macey is going to get to see so many cool protection tactics," Eva remarked on our way to COW.

  "She's with Abby," Liz said on our way down the Grand Staircase.

  "And Abby rocks," Bex reminded me just as we parted ways with Liz and headed to the elevator for Sublevel Two.

  From a purely intellectual standpoint I knew Macey was as well protected as she could possibly be, but Mr. Solomon had been teaching us for a year that being a spy isn't always about intellect—it's about instincts. And right then my instincts were telling me that it was going to be a very long day.

  And that was before Mr. Solomon met us at the entrance to Sublevel Two with a stack of Winters-McHenry T-shirts and said, "Let's go."

  I'd been in a helicopter with Mr. Solomon twice before. The first time I'd been blindfolded. The second, I'd just found out that there was another top secret spy school… for boys! But that day, boys and blindfolds seemed easy in comparison.

  "Security threats come in how many forms, Ms. Alvarez?" Mr. Solomon asked.

  "Five," Eva said, even though, technically, we hadn't covered that chapter yet.

  "And who can tell me what they are?" our teacher went

  on.

  "Long range, short range, suicide, static …" Bex rattled, not to show off, but more like she had to say them—like they'd been on her mind for too long and she had to set them free.

  "That's four," Mr. Solomon told us.

  The blades of the chopper were spinning; the ground beneath us was roaring by—trees and hills, rivers and highways, towns full of normal schools and normal kids and people who would never ever know the answer to our teacher's questions.

  "Internal," I said so softly that with the spinning blades and gushing winds I wondered for a second if anyone heard.

  But we're Gallagher Girls. We hear everything.

  "That's right," Mr. Solomon told us. "And that's the big one."

  I told myself that he wasn't talking about Macey—that he didn't mean that what had happened in Boston had been orchestrated by someone inside, someone close. But rather he was speaking in general terms, reminding us all of what we knew too well, that traitors are the most dangerous people of all.

  "You're going to see a lot of things today, ladies. Seasoned operatives working in the field with one primary objective. It's not about intel, and it's not about ops. It's about protection today, pure and simple."

  In my mind I was already running through the scenarios that only a man like Joe Solomon could come up with. I was imagining what tests could possibly be waiting on the ground.

  Bex must have been thinking along those same lines, because she asked, "What's our mission?"

  "It's a hard one," Mr. Solomon warned, then smiled. "Just watch. Just listen. Just learn."

  Gallagher Girls are asked to do hard things. All the time. But until that day I never really knew that the hardest mission of all is to do nothing.

  After all, it's one thing to take a group of highly trained teenage future spies and drop them off in a crowd of thousands and tell them to find the potential security threat. It's quite another to take those same girls, equip them with comms units tuned to the same frequency as the Secret Service (not that the Secret Service actually knew or anything), and tell them to sit back and enjoy the show.

  I don't even like letting someone else put the syrup on my waffles (I have a system), so letting other people be in charge of Macey's safety…well…let's just say it was a little out of my comfort zone.

  And if that wasn't bad enough, the jeans that someone had packed for me to change into were a little on the snug side. And I don't know about everyone else, but Bex Baxter is the only girl I know who can enter and exit a helicopter without having it do really unfortunate things to her hair.

  Most of all, I wanted to pretend that I still believed I lived in a world where hair and jeans really mattered. But I didn't. So I just thought about my mission and stared out into the crowd.

  And then I disappeared.

  The Essentials of Being a Chameleon By Cameron Ann Morgan

  1. It's very important, at all times, to look like you belong.

  2. When #I is difficult, try pointing to imaginary people and walking purposefully toward no one.

  3. Stillness. Stillness is key (except when you're doing #2) because people see motion more easily than they see things. So when in doubt, freeze.

  4. It totally helps if you aren't all that special looking (in either really good or really bad ways).

  5. Acquaint yourself with your surroundings ASAP.

  6. Dress in a way that isn't flashy, fashionable, ugly, or obscene.

  7. Hiding is for amateurs.

  "This is…wow," Bex said ten minutes after we'd arrived at the park … or what I think was supposed to be a park.

  A long grassy promenade covered at least two city blocks. Beautiful historic buildings lined the space, but at the far end, someone had erected a stage. Bleachers circled behind it, facing the lawn, and from where Bex and I stood it seemed like half of Ohio had come out to see Macey's triumphant return.

  Over the loudspeakers I heard a local politician trying to make the people on the bleachers behind him chant "Winters" while the people on the grass in front of the stage were told to yell "McHenry."

  "Are American politics always so…crazy?" my best friend whispered.

  I wanted to tell her that this was nothing compared to the insanity of the convention (because, for example, I hadn't seen anyone with hats shaped like produce…yet), but somehow bringing up Boston didn't seem like a good idea, so instead I just nodded and tried to squeeze through the crowds.

  A massive banner (that I'm fairly sure was also bulletproof) circled the stage, reading walk the walk. I turned and scanned the long stretch of barricades that ran through the center of the crowd. A huge tour bus turned onto the street and stopped at the end of the alleyway that cut through the audience. Its doors swung open, and somewhere in the distance, the Tri-County High School Marching Band started to play as Governor Winters and The Senator stepped out and started down the long promenade full of hands to shake and babies to kiss—two thousand screaming people, any one of whom could have given me the bump on my head.

  In my ear I heard a steady stream of unfamiliar voices.

  "Sir, could you remove your hands from your pockets, please?" a tall Secret Service ag
ent asked the man behind me.

  "Delta team, I don't like the looks of the guy on the library steps. I repeat, the library steps."

  Instantly, I felt the entire junior CoveOps class from the

  Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women pivot to see a guy in a trench coat approach a man in a plaid shirt and block his view of the candidates, who were passing in the street below them.

  A group of women were waving a sign that read god bless you, macey and preston, and as if on cue, Preston ran toward the women and hugged them while, twenty feet away, CNN carried the whole scene live and in color.

  But Macey didn't run anywhere. Or hug anyone (which is totally in character anyway—kidnapping attempt or not). Instead she held her father's hand. She waved. She smiled.

  "We have to be perfect every second of every day, ladies." I've heard Joe Solomon say some pretty heady stuff in the past two years, but I don't think I'd ever heard him sound more solemn than when he said, "The bad guys just have to get lucky…once."

  And then I couldn't help it. I thought about Boston, I thought about luck. I thought about how close we came to having a very bad ending to our summer vacation.

  "I don't know if any of you will go into protection services someday or not, ladies, but if you do…" Mr. Solomon's voice was soft in my ear, steady against the din of Secret Service orders, "This is your worst nightmare."

  At that moment, I'm pretty sure Bex wanted to drag our roommate into the nearest bulletproof automobile and drive back to Roseville as quickly as humanly possible. But that wasn't going to happen because 1) the real Secret Service might shoot us if we tried, 2) the CNN correspondents might have some interesting questions if Bex took out Senator McHenry's body men with two well-placed kicks, and 3) our midterm grades were probably riding on doing exactly not that, and as if we needed reminding, our teacher's voice was a constant in our ears.

  "Given the wind velocity and direction, the greatest threat from sniper assault is where, Ms. Morrison?"

  Bex and I looked at each other and mouthed, "The church steeple," just as Mick said those very words.

  "Four members of the Secret Service have infiltrated the protesters across the street, Ms. Fetterman," Mr. Solomon asked again. "Identify the agents."

  "Uh …" Anna started while, on the street in front of us, Aunt Abby and Macey were walking by. "Red backpack," Anna answered. "Lady in the blue bandanna. The man in the yellow T-shirt, and…" She trailed off.

  "Anyone?" Mr. Solomon asked.

  "The guy with the long red beard," I found myself saying. I wasn't sure when I'd even seen him, but as soon as I said the words I knew they were true.

  "Why?" Mr. Solomon questioned.

  "The static," I said. "Two and a half minutes ago there was a burst of static on the Secret Service frequency. He flinched."

  Somewhere in the crowd of bodies, I could have sworn I felt Joe Solomon smile.

  I used to wonder if Secret Service Agents ever got tired of hearing the same speeches from the same people a dozen times a day every day until someone either has to give a speech that says they won or give a speech that says they lost. But after that day I started wondering if the security team even heard the speeches at all.

  "Beta team, protesters stay in Level Two. I repeat, protesters stay in Level Two," one of the anonymous voices said.

  "Charlie team, we have unusual movement in a window in the City National Bank building," another voice said, and in a flash, all the blinds on the fourth floor of the building across the street were pulled down.

  And then … a voice I recognized. "Peacock is stage- ready and moving."

  "Aunt Abby," I whispered to Bex.

  "Peacock?" she whispered back.

  Onstage, The Senator was sweeping out his hand and saying, "Family. I don't have to tell the Buckeye state how much family means to me."

  The crowd cheered wildly for a few minutes, but when Macey replaced her father at the microphone, a hush fell so completely over the Ohio swing voters that I could have sworn someone or something had turned the volume down.

  "It's great being here today." Macey looked out over the crowd. She looked lost for a moment—dazed. But then I could have sworn her gaze fell on Bex and me. A new light seemed to fill her eyes as she looked at us and added, "With my family." At this point Senator McHenry put his arm around his wife, and I couldn't help thinking about Clipboard Lady's direction of "spontaneous hugging."

  "And there's something I want to say," Macey went on, even stronger now. "There's nothing we can't do if we stick together. There's nothing we can't overcome if we try. I learned that from the people who love me. The people who know…the real me." This time I knew Macey was looking straight at us.

  Beside me, I heard Bex whisper, "That's our girl."

  "Ms. Baxter." Mr. Solomon's voice brought us back to the moment, to the mission. "There's a man thirty feet behind you in a denim jacket. Get his fingerprints without his knowledge." With a wink, Bex was gone.

  There were more speeches, more cheering, but eventually Macey walked down the steps on the left side of the stage and through a gap in the bleachers that led to a secure area behind the stands. As soon as she disappeared, I heard my aunt's voice saying, "Peacock is secure and holding in the yellow tent," and I took my first deep breath since Sunday night.

  The crowd was staring at the stage while Governor Winters said, "Our opponents have had four years to talk the talk, but now it's time to walk the walk!" People clapped. People laughed. It was like he was a puppet master and two thousand people jumped every time he pulled the strings.

  But I didn't clap. I didn't laugh. I just kept hearing Mr. Solomon's voice—not in my ear—in my head. I remembered something he'd said in the helicopter. "Protection is ten

  percent protocol and ninety percent instinct."

  And just then my instincts were telling me to turn around. Maybe it was the way the buildings lined the grassy lawn, maybe it was the crowd of people that passed by me, but something made me think about last semester and Washington, D.C. So while The Senator and Governor Winters stood with their hands locked together above their heads, and the band started playing, I turned and watched the crowd clapping and dancing. The candidates pushed toward the barriers, and the crowd rushed closer, but one guy slipped away.

  Farther from the bulletproof banner.

  Farther from everything.

  Except the bleachers and the yellow tent that stood behind them.

  Another banner hung from the side of the bleachers, advertising www.winters-mchenry.com, and I watched it blow in the breeze, a corner flapping free, banging against the aluminum posts, but no one noticed the sound. No one saw the gap. No civilian would have appreciated that sliver of access, and what it meant. But the guy in the cap walked toward the banner. He slipped through the tiny crack, and that's when I knew he was a pavement artist.

  I knew he was like me.

  "No," I felt myself scream; but with the band and the crowd and the chatter of agents securing the rope lines, the word was lost. And he was gone.

  I followed, pushing through the gap myself, but all I could see was litter and the tangled wires and rods of the metal stands.

  For such a sunny day, it was dark under the bleachers; for such a screaming crowd, the noise seemed very far away. A warm breeze blew red, white, and blue confetti across my feet, while the band played and the people cheered.

  And I felt someone behind me.

  And for the second time that month, a strange hand grasped my shoulder.

  I forgot all about Mr. Solomon's assignment as I reached back and grabbed the offending hand, stepped into the move, and swung the guy smoothly through the air, watching him crash onto a red balloon with a pop.

  But suddenly I was the one who was breathless as I stared down at the guy who lay beneath me, and I heard the only words I totally wasn't prepared to hear.

  "Hello, Gallagher Girl."

  Chapter Twelve

  Zach was there
. Zach was staring up at me through the shadow of the bleachers, lying on his back, his shoulders pinned beneath my knees.

  He was real this time. This wasn't spy genes and teen hormones running away with me. I wasn't hallucinating or daydreaming or the victim of some freaky hologram-based countersurveillance diversion.

  I was just looking…

  At Zach.

  "Hey, Gallagher Girl," he said after … I don't know … an hour or something, "you gonna let me up now?"

  But I totally didn't want to let him up because A) I had the superior position, and with any boy—much less a Blackthorne Boy—superior position is something you should hang on to when you get a chance, B) if I didn't let him up, there was a lot less chance of him retaliating by flipping me through the air like a rag doll (which I totally wouldn't have

  put past him), and C) I kinda liked knowing where I stood with Zach. For once.

  So instead of moving aside and pulling him to his feet like a good girl, I just leaned over him like a Gallagher Girl and said, "What are you doing here?"

  But Zach didn't answer right away. Instead, he did that Zach thing he always did. He gave me a look that was so deep—so intense—that it was as if he were trying to send the answer to me over some cosmic, psychic thread or something.

  Then he smirked and said, "I'm very interested in Ohio politics."

  I scooted backward, stumbling to my feet as I blurted, "You can't vote."

  "Yeah, but I can campaign." He pointed to the winters-mchenry button on his jacket as if to prove his point. And then it hit me—the feelings of panic that cute boys and kidnapping attempts have probably been prompting inside Gallagher Girls for a hundred years.

  I'd thought about seeing him about a billion times. I'd imagined what I'd be wearing and what cool thing I would say, but I can assure you that in none of my fantasies had I been wearing my most uncomfortable jeans and a T-shirt that was two sizes too large. I'd thought about what kind of girl I was going to be—interested but indifferent, lovely but amused. And yet I was none of those things as I looked down at him and muttered, "You're a long way from Blackthorne."