you. But we're really just a school for exceptional young women. Our classes are hard. Our curriculum unique. But you may use what you learn here anywhere in the world. In any way you see fit." Mom's eyes narrowed. Her voice hardened as she said, "If you stay."
When Mom stepped forward, I knew she wasn't talking as an administrator anymore; she was talking as a mother. "If you want to leave, Macey, we can make you forget this ever happened. When you wake up tomorrow, this will be a dream you don't remember, and you'll have one more dismal school experience on your record. But no matter your decision, there is only one thing you have to understand."
Mom was moving closer, and Macey snapped, "What?"
"No one will ever know what you have seen and heard here today." Macey was still staring daggers, but my mom didn't have a copy of War and Peace handy, so she reached for the next best thing. "Especially your parents."
And just when I'd thought I'd never see Macey McHenry smile…
Chapter Five
By the third week of school, my backpack was heavier than me (well, maybe not me, but probably Liz), I had a mountain of homework, and the sign above the Grand Hall was announcing that we'd all better dust off our French if we intended to make small talk over lunch. Plus, it was almost a full-time job keeping rumors separated from facts. (No big surprise who the rumors were all about.)
Macey McHenry had gotten kicked out of her last school because she was pregnant with the headmaster's baby. RUMOR. At her first P&E class, Macey kicked a seventh grader so hard she was out cold for an hour. FACT. (And also the reason Macey's now taking P&E with the eighth graders.) Macey told a seventh grader that her glasses make her face look fat, a senior that her hair looks like a wig (which it is, thanks to a very unfortunate plutonium incident), and Professor Buckingham that she really should try control-top panty hose. FACT. FACT. FACT.
As we walked between Madame Dabney's tea room and the elevator to Sublevel One, Tina Walters told me for about the tenth time, "Cammie, you don't even have to steal the file…Just take a little—"
"Tina!" I snapped, then whispered because a crowded hallway full of future spies isn't the best place to have a covert conversation, "I'm not going to steal Macey's permanent record just to see if she really set the gym on fire at her last school."
"Borrow," Tina reminded me. "Borrow the permanent record. Just a peek."
"No!" I said again, just as we turned into the small, dark corridor. I saw Liz standing there, staring into the mirror that concealed the elevator as if she didn't recognize her own reflection. "What's wrong with …" Then I saw the little slip of yellow paper. "What? Is it out of order or—"
And then I read the little slip of yellow paper.
SOPHOMORE C.O. CLASS CANCELED.
MEET OUTSIDE TONIGHT. 7:00,
DON'T WEAR YOUR UNIFORMS!
-SOLOMON
Bex's reflection appeared beside mine, and our eyes locked. I started to rip the note from the mirror, to save it as a piece of Gallagher Academy history, because two things were extraordinary about it. First, I'd never even heard of a class being canceled, much less witnessed it myself. Second, Joe Solomon had just invited fourteen girls to go on what amounted to a moonlight stroll.
Things were about to get interesting.
I've seen Liz freak out about assignments before, but that day at lunch, she was as white as the salt in the shaker as she went over every tiny, perfectly punctuated line of her CoveOps notes—stopping occasionally to cinch her eyes together as if she were trying to read the answers on the top of her head. (Maybe she was. With Liz's head, anything is possible.)
"Liz, est-ce qu-il-y-a une épreuve de CoveOps dont je ne connais pas?" I asked, thinking that if there was a CoveOps test I didn't know about, someone should really bring me into the loop. But Liz thought I was trying to be
John Kessel, James Patrick Kelly