We pressed our palms against the cool, smooth mirror and felt the glass grow warm beneath our skin. Ready?' And then I did the thing we Gallagher Girls are best at-I lied. Our eyes met in the mirror, and she said, 'Are you We walked together down the narrow hall, and once we were inside the dressing room my mother closed the door. Then turned back to me and whispered, 'Good luck.' And I totally knew I was going to need it. 'I believe dressing room number seven is available.' She started to walk away, 'Yes, I used to have a pair like this, but they got ruined at the cleaners.'Īnd then the saleslady pointed down a narrow hallway. Very flattering.' Beside me, my mother fingered the soft denim. 'Have you tried the ones from Milan?' she asked. These on.' I felt anything but normal as the saleslady searched my eyes for some hidden clue. Pair of jeans off a rack and tell a saleslady, 'Excuse me, my daughter would like to try And normal girls very rarely feel like hyperventilating when their mothers pull a After all, normal girls probably love going to the mall with their pockets full of Christmas money. Obvious that the term normal would probably never apply to me. It's normal.' But ever since I was four years old and inadvertently cracked a Sapphire Series NSA code my dad had brought home after a mission to Singapore, it had been pretty Security cameras tracked our every move, but still my mother said, 'It's fine. My mother slipped her arm around me and whispered, 'It's going to be okay, kiddo,' as she guided me through the crowds of shoppers that filled Pentagon City Mall.

(And we've got the fake IDs to prove it.) Gets a little harder-that we Gallagher Girls are really far better at being someone else. Your appearance using nothing but nail clippers and shoe polish, then being yourself Spent your whole life learning fourteen different languages and how to completely alter But on that January day,Įven my mother…even my headmistress…seemed to have forgotten that when you've Mansion and manicured grounds, we're not snobs. That it isn't really a boarding school for privileged girls, and that, despite our gorgeous Of course, if you're reading this, you probably have at least a Level Four clearance and know all about the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women. Not when your nickname is 'the Chameleon.' Not when you go to a school for spies. To speak at lunch, or what name you'll have to use the next time you do a 'project' forĮxtra credit. Especially not when you're fifteen and don't know what language you're going to have

“Just be yourself,' my mother said, as if that were easy.

Cross my heart hope to spy