Protocol: Chameleon

t w o

    If there was a civilian watching The Gallagher Academy from a birds-eye view, they would have seen multiple girls getting down from fancy limousines and entering a huge building resembling a castle, completed with perfectly manicured grounds.

At one glance, they would have thought it was a preppy boarding school that admits rich snobs who feed on their daddy's money.

Well, hence the perfectly coincidental cover.

   I'm not sure what Gillian Gallagher was thinking when she established an all-girls spy school, but her thoughts were definitely not to teach students how to sew or how to manicure their fingernails.

   Although, there was this time in seventh grade when we had to sew bulletproof pads onto our bras. Also, when Liz accidentally scraped her fingernails against the walls in Dr. Fibs chemistry labs that had thick layers of grime he was testing for cross-species genetics. She spent a whole day hunched over the sink using all Macey's nail products to get them off.

But that, of course, is besides the point.

   So when my schoolmates hugged their parents goodbye and entered the gates of this exceptional building, I grinned. Somehow I just knew that this was going to be an exceptional semester.

~*~

We rushed out of our secret room, completely aware of the time. And completely aware that we were late. Now, a Gallagher Girl is never late.

Never.

    I know this may sound dramatic and too far-fetched, but it's true. Some may say it's even in one of the unspoken rules in the Ten Commandments. (That some very well being Tina Walters.) OK, yeah so maybe even that was a bit far-fetched. The four of us burst into the doors of the Grand Hall, taking in the sight before us and praying that the teachers weren't here yet.

   I think I heard sighs of relief as we took our place and sat at the sophomores table, glad that the teachers haven't made their appearance yet.  Sitting beside Bex, I poured myself a glass of orange juice. Immediately of course, I was bombarded with questions.

"So, Cammie, how did your break go?"

"I heard you snuck out, yet again to Roseville to make a dead- drop."

"My sources tell me that you were involved in a knife fight in Istanbul."

So, the last one made me choke on my orange juice a bit. I sighed again, seeming to do that very often lately, and turned to my classmates.

"My break went fine Eva, thanks. And no Mick, I was here the whole time, check the surveillance feed, if you'd like. Tina, Istanbul, really?"

Tina Walters simply shrugged and sipped her drink as she stole a glance at Bex, "So Bex, how was London?"

At first Bex looked at me, wide-eyed silently asking, 'Do they know?'. I gave her an almost subtle shake of a head, indicating that they weren't aware of the fact that four Gallagher Girls stayed at a spy school the whole summer.

Bex turned to Tina. "It was bloody brilliant." she said ever so proudly in her native accent and smiled wickedly at me.

No, but wait. There should be more to Tina's question. Tina was famous for being the school's source for gossip. No surprise there considering the fact that her mother is one of the leading gossip columnists in one of the fashion magazines Macey probably picks up everyday. So, I thought of Tina actually giving a toss about Bex's free time during the break. There was no way Tina Walters was actually concerned.

Just when I thought otherwise,

"Because my sources tell me that you exposed a double agent working for Interpol in Paris."