Double Crossed(27)
“You have a good holiday, then?” Throughout the hall, girls were beginning to eat, but Bex just blew a bubble with her gum and grinned, daring us to ask her for the story.
“Bex, if you know something, you’ve got to tell us,” Liz demanded, even though it was totally pointless. No one can make Bex do anything she doesn’t want to do. I may be a chameleon, and Liz may be the next Einstein, but when it comes to general stubbornness, Bex is the best spy ever!
She smirked, and I knew she’d probably been planning this scene since she was halfway over the Atlantic Ocean (in addition to being stubborn, Bex is also quite theatrical). She waited until all eyes were on her—holding the silence until Liz was about to explode, then she took a warm roll from the basket on the table and nonchalantly said, “New teacher.” She tore the bread in half and slowly buttered it. “We gave him a ride from London this morning. He’s an old pal of my father’s.”
“Name?” Liz asked, probably already planning how she was going to hack into the CIA headquarters at Langley for details as soon as we were free to go back to our rooms.
“Solomon,” Bex said, eyeing us. “Joe Solomon.” She sounded eerily like the black, teenage, female James Bond.
We all turned to look at Joe Solomon. He had the scruffy beard and restless hands of an agent fresh off a mission. Around me, the hall filled with whispers and giggles—fuel that would have the rumor mill running on high by midnight—and I remembered that, even though the Gallagher Academy is a school for girl geniuses, sometimes the emphasis should be kept on the girl.
The next morning was torture. Absolute torture! And that’s not a word I use lightly, considering the family business. So maybe I should rephrase: the first day of classes was challenging.
We didn’t exactly go to bed early…or even a little late…or even at all, unless you count lying on the faux-fur rug in the common room with the entire sophomore class sprawled around me as the basis for a good night’s sleep. When Liz woke us up at seven, we decided we could either primp for an hour and skip breakfast, or throw on our uniforms and eat like queens, before Professor Smith’s 8:05 COW lecture.
B.S. (Before Solomon), waffles and bagels would have won out for sure. But today, Professor Smith had a lot of eye-lined and lip-glossed girls with growling stomachs listening to him talk about civil unrest in the Baltic States when 8:30 rolled around. I looked at my watch, the ultimate pointless gesture at the Gallagher Academy, because classes run precisely on time, but I had to see how many seconds were standing between me and lunch. (11,705, just in case you’re curious.)
When COW was over, we ran up two flights of stairs to the fourth floor for Madame Dabney’s Culture and Assimilation lessons which, sadly, that day did not include tea. Then it was time for third period.
I had a pain in my neck from sleeping funny, at least five hours’ worth of homework, and a newfound realization that woman cannot live on cherry-flavored lip gloss alone. I dug in the bottom of my bag and found a very questionable breath mint, and figured that if I was going to die of starvation, I should at least have minty-fresh breath for the benefit of whatever classmate or faculty member would be forced to give me CPR.
Liz had to go by Mr. Mosckowitz’s office to drop off an extra-credit essay she’d written over the summer (yeah, she’s that girl), so I was alone with Bex when we reached the base of the grand staircase and turned into the small corridor that was one of three ways to the Subs, or subfloors, where we’d never been allowed before.
Standing in front of the full-length mirror, we tried hard not to blink or do anything that might confuse the optical scanner that was going to verify that we were, in fact, sophomores and not freshmen trying to sneak down to the Subs on a dare. I studied our reflections and realized that I, Cameron Morgan, the headmistress’s daughter, who knew more about the school than any Gallagher Girl since Gilly herself, was getting ready to go deeper into the vault of Gallagher secrets. Judging from the goose bumps on Bex’s arm, I wasn’t the only one who got chills at the thought of it.
A green light flashed in the eyes of a painting behind us. The mirror slid aside, revealing a small elevator that would take us one floor beneath the basement to the Covert Operations classroom and—if you want to be dramatic about it—our destinies.
“Cammie,” Bex said slowly, “we’re in.”
We were sitting calmly, checking our (synchronized) watches, and all thinking the exact same thing: something is definitely different.
The Gallagher mansion is made of stone and wood. It has carved banisters and towering fireplaces a girl can curl up in front of on snowy days and read all about who killed JFK (the real story), but somehow that elevator had brought us into a space that didn’t belong in the same century, much less the same building, as the rest of the mansion. The walls were frosted glass. The tables were stainless steel. But the absolute weirdest thing about the Covert Operations classroom was that our teacher wasn’t in it.