Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover (Gallagher Girls 3)

But we were on a moving train.

And I didn't have a parachute.

And Aunt Abby was staring right at me.

I expected her to smile like she'd done when she pulled me out from under her bed, but instead she glared at me with a look that was equal parts fury and fear, as Macey and I darted back into compartment fourteen.

"Sit," my aunt commanded, and we each sat on the lower berth while my aunt began to pace. "Do you know what you've done?" she asked, but it wasn't really a question. "Do you know what could have happened tonight?"

Her voice shook. I feared for a second that the Secret Service might come through the door again, but the train was loud and the rain was hard and we kept barreling through the night. I glanced around the small space. It was no use. I, Cammie the Chameleon, had absolutely no place to hide.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous this all is? If the Secret Service caught you … If a member of the media caught a glimpse of what you can do … If there are two girls in the school—in the world—who should know better than to take chances like this, it should be the two of you!"

"I thought rules were made to be broken," I said, confused at first but growing angry. "I thought being a spy was rules-optional," I said, throwing her own words back at her.

"Being a spy means you never have the luxury of being careless!" The train rocked and the night grew darker as my aunt leaned closer and said, "Trust me, Cameron. That is one lesson you don't want to learn the hard way."

Maybe it was the sound of the rain, or the look in her eyes, but I couldn't stop thinking about the way she'd changed in my mother's office, morphed from the Abby I knew into a woman I had never seen before. And just that quickly I realized the smiling, laughing, dancing woman who had walked into my life after four and a half years was just another cover—a Gallagher Girl pretending to be something that she's not.

"Where were you, Aunt Abby?" I heard myself ask. "Dad died, and you weren't there," I said, remembering a time in my life that I'd done everything to forget. I heard my voice crack, felt my eyes blur. I told myself it was the steady rocking of the train that made me feel unsteady, but I knew better as I shouted, "He died and you didn't even come to the funeral. You didn't call. You didn't visit. Dad died, and ever since then you've been a ghost."

Abby turned her back to me. She started for the door, but those words had been alive in me for years, the doubts and questions stacked end to end, and I couldn't stop them if I'd tried.

"We needed you!" I thought about my mother, who still cried when she thought no one could see her, and before I even realized it, I was crying too. "Why weren't you there when we needed you?"

"Haven't you learned yet, Cam?" Abby's voice was softer now, as if she were being dragged back into a dream. "There are some things you don't want to know."

I could feel the train—or maybe just the world—slowing down as she stepped toward the door and whispered, "Stay away from that boy, Cammie." It wasn't an order this time, it was a plea.

"Zach?" Macey asked, as if there could possibly be anyone else. "He's from Blackthorne. We know him."

Then Abby looked at me. For the first time, it seemed like she wanted to smile, but there was no joy in her expression as she asked, "Do you?"

I love the Gallagher Academy at night. There's beauty in the shadows—the only time when the outside really reflects what's going on inside. Nothing is truly black or white. The whole world in shades of gray.

And that night was no different.

"What does that mean?" Liz asked, and Bex paced, but I just stood at the little diamond-shaped window in our attic suite, looking out at the dark grounds, letting the story I'd just told wash over me.

"Wait, you mean Zach got to jump out of a moving train?" Bex asked, not even trying to hide the envy in her voice.

I looked at Macey, who shrugged.

"I still can't believe you left the mansion like that," she said, examining my short skirt and tall shoes.

I tried to smile. "Originally, there was also a wig."

I expected her to laugh. I wanted her to roll her eyes or say something about the world of synthetic hair and people fashion-deprived enough to actually utilize it. I wanted it to be funny. But it wasn't.

"So Abby was really…" Liz started, then lowered her voice, "mad?"

I nodded. The word didn't do it justice, but at the moment, it was the only one I had.

"You're not going to get into trouble, Cam," Bex argued. "Abby's cool."

But she hadn't seen the change in Abby on the train. She hadn't heard the tremor in my aunt's voice or seen the look in her eyes as she strolled through the Hall of History and into my mother's office and closed the door, leaving Macey and me to make our way upstairs alone.

"What?" Bex asked, proving that she knew me maybe better than I knew myself.

"He …" I struggled with what I wanted to say, what I wanted to believe. "He didn't kiss me."

Yes, I'd just been severely reprimanded by a member of the United States Secret Service. And yes, I'd been caught sneaking out and violating about a dozen school rules. And yes, my elbow was totally swollen from where Zach and I had landed on the floor of Macey's compartment.

And yet that was the thing that worried me most.

"He didn't flirt," I said finally. "He didn't tease me … I mean, once I figured out I'd seen him in Boston—"

"Wait," Bex said, moving closer, completely ignoring the big pile of junk food that she and Liz had smuggled back into the school after their road trip home. There was something new in her eyes as she said, "Zach was in Boston?"

"I kept thinking I saw him there," I said again, calmer now. "But I thought that I was…you know …"

Bex and Liz looked at each other as if they totally didn't know.

"She thought she was only seeing him because she wanted to see him," Macey explained.

"Ooooh," Bex and Liz sighed together.

"It's a by-product of very dramatic kissing," Macey went on like a doctor identifying a common side effect. "Go on."

"So I didn't think anything about it. But today I saw him again. And he was in the same disguise, and I knew it was him in Boston." I looked down at the pile of candy wrappers and half-eaten bags of chips and thought about how, a year ago, we'd huddled together in that very room, going through Josh's trash, but there was a lot about boys and their dirty little secrets that we still had to learn.

"So he followed you before?" Liz asked. "So what? He's probably just doing what we're doing—tracking Macey."

And then she stopped. And realized.

"In Boston, there was no reason to track Macey," I said, just because I needed to say the words out loud. I looked back at the grounds that seemed darker than usual. And colder. Somehow when I wasn't looking, fall had fallen, and I shivered a little, still chilled from the rain.

"Maybe he knew what was going to happen," Macey

said.

"Or maybe he was one of the people doing it," Bex said, the old skepticism coming back to her voice.

"Or"—Liz's eyes were the only ones shining as she said—"he wanted to be near Cammie!"

Macey shrugged as if to say that our little blond friend had a point.

Whatever the case, that didn't change the fact that a very cute, very mysterious spy boy was either out to save us, or kidnap us, or date us.

And I wasn't sure which one we were best equipped to handle.

I don't know about normal girls, but for spy girls, there are few things as scary as a closed door, a locked room, and a whispered conversation you can't quite hear. Well, the next day my life was full of all three.

The Hall of History remained dark. My mother's office doors remained closed (and, unfortunately, soundproof). I thought about the passageway that led behind the room, but then I shook the notion from my head. I didn't know what my aunt had told her. I didn't know what kind of trouble I was in.

All around me girls worried about tests and projects. People opened letters from home and continued the debate about whether or not Mr. Smith's new face made him as hot as Mr. Solomon. But I couldn't help but think about how the world is just a web of secrets. I kept wondering if there was any way to break free.

That Sunday night I walked toward my mother's office, thinking about Abby and Zach, Philadelphia and Boston— all the questions no one ever answered, but as I stepped foot inside the Hall of History, I found myself looking at Gilly's sword.

I heard myself whisper, "Someone knows."

As I knocked on the door to my mother's office, I knew it wasn't going to be an ordinary Sunday night supper…

Because Macey was already there.

I looked from my mother, to my roommate, and finally to my aunt. I expected yelling. But when my mother whispered, "Cammie," it was worse. Way worse. The door closed behind me, and I saw Mr. Solomon standing there. I didn't know what to expect anymore.

"Mom, I—"

"I was told that Liz and Bex were out testing a prototype of a new piece of equipment for Dr. Fibs during your little…mission last night?" Mom asked.

Her eyes seemed to be warning me not to argue. "Yes," I quickly answered.

"Very well."

For a second I thought that might be all of it, but of course the lecture wasn't over. "Cameron, I trusted you to believe me when I said that Macey's safety was no longer your concern."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I trusted you to know that security protocol is not something that should be interfered with on a whim."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I trusted you, Cammie." My mother's voice was softer then, so that was the hardest part to hear.

"I received a call from Bex's mother last night," Mom continued, and I braced for the wrath of two spy moms scorned. "The Baxters would like for you to spend winter break in London—"

"Really?" I asked in surprise.

"And if I hear," Mom spoke over me. "If I see … If I even suspect that you have been out of these grounds again without permission, then that will not happen. Am I making myself clear?"

"Yes," I said, feeling the weight of the situation settling down on me.

"The latest polls have the race neck and neck," my mother said. She was too calm. Too easy. "It's understandable then that Macey's parents are going to want her with them as much of that time as—"

"No!"

"—possible," Mom went on as if I hadn't said a word.

I glanced at Macey. She'd been quiet all day, but standing in my mother's office, her silence seemed infinitely louder.

"That will, of course," Mom said slowly, "be something we will not allow."

I'd already opened my mouth to protest when I heard her and stopped short.

"You mean," Macey was saying beside me, "you mean I won't have to…go?"

"No," Mr. Solomon said. "Frankly, Ms. McHenry, the risk is too high. We want you at home where you belong."

I've lived with Macey for a long time, but one thing every spy learns eventually is that you never know everything, and I'd never seen Macey look like she looked then. I thought about the girl who had crawled out of the limo, and the girl she had become before this crazy election started changing her back. It was as if the word "home" was a code— a signal—and that alone told her she was safe and she could lower her guard.