Free Cross My Heart And Hope To Spy by Ally Carter

thanks for the chivalry and all, but it really isn’t necessary,” I muttered what may have been the understatement of the century, since I’m pretty sure I could have killed him with my backpack. “It’s just up here.” I pointed to the Museum of American History, which stood gleaming twenty yards away. “And there’s a cop over there.”
    “What?” the boy said, glancing at the D.C. police officer that stood at the corner of the street, “you think that guy can do a better job protecting you than I can?”
    Actually, I thought
Liz
could have done a better job “protecting” me than he could, but instead I said, “No, I think if you don’t leave me alone, I can scream and that cop will arrest you.”
    Somehow the boy seemed to know it was a joke…mostly. He stepped away and smiled. And for a moment I felt myself smile, too.
    “Hey,” I called to him, because, despite how annoying he was right then, a pang of guilt shot through my stomach. After all, he had been all knight-in-shining-armory. It wasn’t his fault I’m not the kind of girl who needs saving. “Thanks anyway.”
    He nodded. If it had been another day or I’d been another girl, a hundred other things might have happened. But I had begun the semester with a promise to be myself, and the real me was still a girl on a mission.

    I darted for the doors and pushed my way inside, then slipped into a narrow hallway behind the help desk. I watched the entrance, waiting ninety seconds to be sure that I was clear.
    “Bex.” I tried my comms unit. “Courtney…Mick…Kim …” I told myself there was no way they’d
all
been made. They were probably downstairs in the ice-cream parlor; or maybe waiting in the van.
    I grabbed a visitors’ brochure from a stack on the help desk, slipped into a narrow stairwell, and began the three-story climb to the slippers, not really caring that I wouldn’t get to see the sights. (After all, the “Julia Child’s Kitchen” exhibit didn’t even illustrate how she used to send coded messages in her recipes.)
    I could feel the ticking clock, almost see the look on Mr. Solomon’s face and hear him say well done. I was
so
close; I scanned the map and took the stairs two at a time until I emerged at the far end of the floor, where the ruby slippers were displayed.
    There were no signs of Mr. Solomon or my classmates; not another soul in the great oval room. I felt the clock in my head chime five o’clock. I stepped toward a case, which looked almost exactly like the one that stood in the center of the Hall of History. But instead of the sword that Gillian Gallagher had used to kill the first guy who’d tried to assassinate President Lincoln, this case held a different kind of national treasure.
    The ruby slippers were so small, so delicate, that a part of me wanted to marvel in the coolness of being that close to something so rare. The rest of me just wanted to know why seven Gallagher Girls had gone radio silent and my teacher was nowhere to be seen! Then I heard Mr. Solomon’s voice behind me.
    “You’re four seconds late.”
    The shoes glistened as I spun around. “But I’m alone.”
    “No, Ms. Morgan. You’re not.”
    And then the boy from the elevator, the boy from the bench, stepped out of the shadows.
    And looked at me.
    And smiled.
    And said, “Hi again, Gallagher Girl.”

Chapter Ten

    There are changes that come slowly—like evolution. And letting your hair grow out. And then there are changes that happen in a second—with a ringing phone, a well-timed glance. And in that moment I knew the Gallagher Academy wasn’t alone. I knew there was a school for boys. And, most of all, I knew one of them had just gotten the best of me.
    This can’t be happening, I chanted in my head. This can’t be—
    “Nice work, Zach,” Mr. Solomon said. “Zach” winked at me, and I thought, This is totally happening!
    I’d been sloppy. I’d been distracted. And worst of all, I’d let a boy stand between me