Ally Carter: [Gallagher Girls 02 ] - Cross My Heart & Hope To Spy

And I whispered the fact that I'd known for years but only just remembered.

"There is no ventilation access from the chem labs to the East Wing."

Chapter Three

There are many pros and cons to living in a two-hundred-year-old mansion. For example: having about a dozen highly secluded and yet perfectly inbounds places where you can sit and discuss classified information: PRO.

The fact that none of these places are well heated and/or insulated when you are discussing said information in the middle of the winter: CON.

Two hours after our welcome-back dinner, Macey was leaning against the stone wall at the top of one of the mansion's tallest towers, drawing her initials on the window's frosty panes. Liz paced, Bex shivered, and I sat on the floor with my arms around my knees, too tired to get my blood flowing despite the chill that had seeped through my uniform and settled in my bones.

"So that's it, then?" Bex asked. "That's everything your mom and Mr. Solomon said? Verbatim?"

Macey and I looked at each other, recalling the conversation we'd overheard and the story we'd just told. Then we both nodded and said, "Verbatim."

At that moment, the entire sophomore class was probably enjoying our last homework-free night for a very long time (rumor had it Tina Walters was organizing a Jason Bourne-athon), but the four of us stayed in that tower room, freezing our you-know-whats off, listening for the creaking hinges of the heavy oak door at the base of the stairs that would warn us if we were no longer alone.

"I can't believe it," Liz said as she continued to walk back and forth—maybe to keep warm, but probably because…well…Liz has always been a pacer. (And we've got the worn spots on our bedroom floor to prove it.)

"Cam," Liz asked, "are you sure the East Wing couldn't have been contaminated by fumes from the chem labs?"

"Of course she's sure," Bex said with a sigh.

"But are you absolutely, positively, one hundred-percent sure ?" Liz asked again. After all, as the youngest person ever published in Scientific American, Liz kind of likes things verified, cross-referenced, and proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

"Cam," Bex said, turning to me, "how many ventilation shafts are there in the kitchen?"

"Fourteen—unless you're counting the pantry. Are you counting the pantry?" I asked, which must have been enough to prove my expertise, because Macey rolled her eyes and sank to the floor beside me. "She's sure."

In the dim light of the cold room I could see snowflakes swirl in the wind outside, blowing from the mansion's roof (or … well…the parts of the roof that aren't protected with electrified security shingles). But inside, the four of us were quiet and still.

"Why would they lie?" Liz asked, but Bex, Macey, and I just looked at her, none of us really wanting to point out the obvious: Because they're spies.

It's something Bex and I had understood all our lives. Judging by the look on her face, Macey had caught on, too (after all, her dad is in politics). But Liz hadn't grown up knowing that lies aren't just the things we tell—they're the lives we lead. Liz still wanted to believe that parents and teachers always tell the truth, that if you eat your vegetables and brush your teeth, nothing bad will ever happen. I'd known better for a long time, but Liz still had a little naivete left. I, for one, hated to see her lose it.

"What's black thorn?" Macey asked, looking at each of us in turn. "I mean, you guys don't know either, right? It's not just a me-being-the-new-girl thing?"

Everyone shook their heads no, then looked to me. "Never heard of it," I said.

And I hadn't. It wasn't the name of any covert operation we'd ever analyzed, any scientific breakthrough we'd ever studied. Black thorn or Blackthorne or whatever could have been anyone, anything, anywhere! And whoever … or whatever … or wherever it was, it had made my mother miss some quality mother-daughter interrogation time. It had also forced my Covert Operations instructor to hold a clandestine conversation with my headmistress. It had crept inside the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women (or at least its East Wing), and so there we were, not quite sure what a Gallagher Girl was supposed to do now.

I mean, we had three perfectly viable options: 1) We could forget what we'd heard and go to bed. 2) We could embrace the whole "honesty" thing and tell my mother all we knew. Or 3) I could be … myself. Or, more specifically, the me I used to be.

"The forbidden hall of the East Wing is almost directly beneath us," I began slowly. "All we have to do is access the dumbwaiter shaft on the fourth floor, maneuver through the heating vents by the Culture and Assimilation classroom, and rappel fifty or so feet through the ductwork." But even as I said it, I knew it couldn't be nearly as easy as it sounded.

"So…" Macey said, "what are we waiting for?" She jumped to her feet and started for the door.

"Macey! Wait!" Everyone looked at me. "The security department did a lot of work over the break." I pulled my legs closer, wrapped my arms tighter. "I don't know what kind of upgrades they made, what they might have changed. They were all over those tunnels and passageways, and …" I trailed off, grateful that Bex was there to finish for me.

"We don't know what's in there, Macey," she said, even though the fact that we didn't know what lay waiting in the East Wing was kind of the point, and I could tell by the look on her face that Macey was getting ready to say so.

"Surprises," I finished slowly, "as a rule … are bad."

Macey sank to the floor beside me while I told myself that everything I'd said was true. After all, it was a risky operation. We didn't have adequate intel or nearly enough time to prep. I can list a dozen perfectly logical reasons why I stayed on that stone floor, but the one I didn't tell my friends was that I had promised my mother that my days of sneaking around and breaking rules were over. And I'd kind of hoped my vow would last longer than twenty-four hours.

"So, what do we do now?" Liz asked.

Bex smiled. "Oh," she said mischievously, "we'll think of something."

Covert Operations Report Summary of SurveillanceBy Cameron Morgan, Rebecca Baxter, Elizabeth Sutton, and Macey McHenry (hereafter referred to as "The Operatives")

When faced with the knowledge that faculty members of the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women were planning a rogue operation, The Operatives began a research and recognizance mission to determine the following:

1.

2.

3. What was such a big freaking deal that no one wanted

The Operatives to know about it?

4. Why were The Operatives no longer allowed in the East

Wing? (A change that had added ten and a half

minutes to their average daily commute between classes!) 3. 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?)

4. What does Mr. Solomon look like with his shirt off?

(Because, if you're going to set up an observation post,

you may as well be thorough.)

When I woke up the next morning I tried not to think about the night before, but it's kind of hard to forget covert and potentially dangerous missions when A) The dirty tower floor left a stain on your best school skirt. B) At breakfast, your mother says, "Good morning, Cam. Did you girls have fun last night?" which everyone knows translates to I'm acting perfectlynormal because I totally have something to hide. And C) Avoiding the mysteriously off-limits East Wing means you have to find alternate routes to sixty percent of your daily destinations.