[Gallagher Girls 02 ] - Cross My Heart & Hope To Spy | страница 10



clearly states that operatives in training may be placed on temporary—"

"Liz," Bex said, cutting her off, "please tell me you didn't spend the morning memorizing that book."

"I didn't memorize it," Liz said defensively. "I just…read it." Which, when you have a photographic memory, is pretty much the same thing, but I didn't say so.

Down the hall, I heard Eva Alvarez explaining how Buenos Aires on New Year's Eve is awesome. A pair of freshmen rushed by our door talking about who would make a better Gallagher Girl: Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Veronica Mars (a debate made much more interesting by the fact it was taking place in Farsi).

Bright sunlight shone through our window, bouncing off the snow. It was a new semester and my best friends were beside me. All seemed right with the world.


Thirty minutes later I was in my uniform, making my way down the spiral staircase, toward the Grand Hall with the rest of the student body. Well, most of the student body.

"Where's Macey?"

"Oh, she's back already," Liz said, but I knew that much. After all, it was kind of hard to miss Macey's closetful of designer clothes, her stash of ridiculously expensive skin care products (many of which are legal only in Europe), and the fact that someone had very recently been sleeping in her bed.

The last time I'd seen our fourth roommate, she'd been preparing for three weeks in the Swiss Alps with her senator father, her cosmetics-heiress mother, and a celebrity chef from the Food Channel; but Macey McHenry had come back early. And now she was nowhere to be seen.

Bex was looking around, too, staring over the heads of the seventh graders walking in front of us. "She said she had a bit of research to do in the library, but that was hours ago. I thought she'd meet us down here, but…" she trailed off, still looking.

"You guys go eat," I said, stepping away from the crowd and starting down the hall. "I'll find her."

I pulled open the heavy library doors and stepped inside the massive bookshelf-lined room. Comfy leather couches and old oak tables surrounded a roaring fire. And there, in the center of it all, was Macey McHenry. Her head was resting on the latest edition of Molecular Chemistry Monthly, pink highlighter marks were on her cheek, and a puddle of drool had run from her mouth to the wooden desktop.

"Macey," I whispered, reaching out to gently shake her shoulder.

"What? Huh…Cammie?" She struggled upright and blinked at me. "What time is it?" she cried, jumping up and knocking a stack of flash cards to the floor.