Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover by Ally Carter

after. "But you held your own against like a dozen—"
    "Three!" Macey and I
corrected him again.
    "Men."
He stopped in front of us, blocking our path. Which meant that unless we wanted
to impress him with our unusual physical abilities even more, we were probably
going to have to wait him out.
    Just
when I thought things couldn't get worse, he looked right at Macey. "How
much do you weigh?"
    "Hey!"
I blurted, stepping between them. "It was nothing. Really! It was like
those women who lift trucks off their babies—that's how I felt." I tried
to sound like that moment was as exciting and adrenaline-filled and foreign to
me as it had been for him.
    "Yeah," Macey added.
    "But the moves…" he
started.
    "My
mom made me take a self-defense class," I blurted. (Totally not a lie.)
    "Wow." He nodded.
"Hope you got extra credit."
    "I did," I said. (Also
not a lie.)
    "Well
…" Preston ran his hand through his hair and straightened his tie.
"They must be teaching you something special in that school of
yours."
    Macey
and I looked at each other as if we knew we could kill
him, but getting away might be way more difficult than usual.
    And then he laughed.
    And we breathed.
    And
he looked at both of us with (if he hadn't been a politician's son and all) an
expression of genuine gratitude as he said, "I'm just glad I get to do
this with girls like you."
    "Mr.
Winters!" one of the agents called. "We're moving."
    A
team of agents surrounded him, ushering Preston away, but Macey lingered a
second longer.
    "Well,
he seemed…nice ?" I finally found the strength to mutter.
    But
Macey merely looked at me. "You're a spy, Cam. Don't you know that nothing
is ever as it seems?"
    I
didn't get to mention Zach. I didn't get to tell her what I thought of her
speech. I didn't even get to ask Aunt Abby if she was really serious about
telling my mom that I'd been caught out-of-bounds.
    Instead
I watched the Secret Service swarm around my roommate once again. A gate swung
open and Macey stepped toward her parents. Her father reached out for her hand,
but she was already waving, pulling in votes and smiles and handshakes.
    And
there was already a voice in my earpiece telling me it was time to go home.
     
     

Chapter Fourteen
     
     
    Do you
know how long it took to get back to school? One hundred and seventy-two
minutes. Do you know how long it took for things to return to normal? Well… I
guess I'm still kind of waiting.
    As
soon as we got back, Mr. Solomon dragged us all the way down to Sublevel Two to
review surveillance tapes and take a pop quiz. (I scored a 98%.) By the time we
got upstairs to the foyer I heard the scraping of forks and the clanking of ice
in our second-best crystal, but I totally wasn't hungry, especially when I saw
Macey walking through the front door.
    "Macey!" I yelled.
    "Cam."
Bex and Liz ran behind me. "What's going on?"
    It
was a normal night at a very abnormal school. But even by Gallagher Academy
standards I'd had a very exceptional day, so I raced through the entry hall and
climbed the stairs, still calling, "Macey!"
    By the time I caught up to her
she had already taken off her jacket and was standing there in a silk blouse.
She was carrying a string of pearls and had crammed the scarf she'd been
wearing at the rally into her purse. With every step, Macey was shedding her
fake façade—her cover—one piece of pocket litter at a time.
    "You're back," I said.
    "Yeah,"
she said in the tone of the incredibly tired, "very observant. Hey, what
was up with you today?" She took another step, then shed another piece of
the clothing that only a mother can love. "When I saw you, you looked kind
of…freaked?"
    "Wait," Bex said,
"you saw her?"
    "Yeah,
I was going to tell you, but well … we haven't exactly had a moment…And it's
not exactly something you…And I just didn't know how…And—"
    "Cammie."
Bex snapped me out of it. She crossed her arms, stared me down, and gave me
that "you've got some explaining to do" look that I've