her favorite sweater.
Whenever I'm in Nebraska I always pretend I'm too weak to open pickle jars, because Grandpa
Morgan likes to do it for me.
As I have thoroughly documented elsewhere, I once had a clandestine relationship with a really
cute, really sweet boy and then lied about it.
A lot.
· On the first Sunday after winter break in my sophomore year, I helped Liz implant a camera
in the watch Grandma gave me for my birthday. And then I wore it to Sunday-night supper in my
mother's office so that I could do the worst thing I've ever done. Ever.
When you're the daughter of two secret agents, you learn pretty early that spies walk a moral tightrope. We do bad things for good reasons, and for the most part we can live with that. But that Sunday night, when I sat in my mother's office eating microwavable crab puffs and fingering my new custom-made spy watch, I thought about my cover: hungry daughter bonding with her mother-slash-mentor. Then I thought about my mission: do a basic recon of the headmistress's office and hope there will be a report titled Operation Black Thorn or Contents of the East Wing just lying around.
Sunday-night supper in my mother's office is something I've been doing ever since Mom and I came to the Gallagher Academy. Usually, however, I don't feel nauseous until after I've eaten (because even though Mom once manufactured an antidote for a rare poison by using the contents of a hotel minibar, she has yet to master microwaves and hot plates).
"So," Mom said, gesturing to the small silver tray of puffs, "how are they?"
(Note to self: research bioweapon potential of microwavable crab puffs.)
"They're great!" I lied, and my mother smiled. No, scratch that—she glowed. And at that moment I seriously wanted to back out, to put the watch in my pocket and forget how I'd already memorized the exact position of everything on her desk in case I got a chance to snoop and then had to put things back. I wanted to stop being a spy and start being a daughter. Especially when Mom glanced at my wrist and said, "You're wearing Grandma's watch."
I rubbed my thumb over the smooth glass that now doubled as a telephoto lens. "Yeah."
"That's nice," she said, and smiled happily. Even though she seemed to be fine now, I thought about the worried woman I'd shared a limo with from D.C., and the conversation I'd overheard. I wasn't the only operative in that room clinging to her legend.
And then, before I could stop to think, I blurted, "Do you have any fingernail clippers?" Mom looked at me for a second, and I knew I couldn't back out now, so I held out my right hand, which thankfully, wasn't shaking. "I've got a hangnail that's driving me crazy."
"Sure, sweetie," Mom said. "In my desk. Top drawer."
So see, I didn't even have to pick the lock or fake the fingerprint-activated drawers. I was perfectly within my daughterly rights as I moved to my mother's desk and rummaged around for the clippers.
A brief search of the headmistress's desk revealed the following:
Headmistress Morgan had ten different lipsticks in her desk (only three of which were for purely cosmetic uses).
Mom carried a small pan into her private bathroom and turned on the water, and that's when I took pictures of every single thing in her trash can. Headmistress Morgan had, evidently, been fighting off a cold, because her trash contained fourteen used tissues and an empty bottle of Vitamin C.
I knocked a paper clip dispenser off her desk and channeled Liz with a loud "Oopsy daisy." Then I huddled on the floor as I picked up paper clips with one hand and rifled through her bottom desk drawers with the other.
Of all the items the Gallagher Academy receives royalty revenues from, Band-Aids are surprisingly the most profitable.
I could hear my mother on the far side of the room, stirring things, pouring things. "Did you find them?" she called out.
I held up the nail clippers with one hand while I closed her bottom drawer with the other.
I smiled and waved my manicured fingers and thought, I am a terrible daughter.
But my mother only smiled in return, because maybe I'm also a pretty good spy.
Ironically, the one person who could explain the difference was the one person I totally couldn't ask.
I placed the nail clippers back where I'd found them and looked down at a desk that even an expert would swear had never been touched. I placed my palms against the middle drawer and felt my fingertips brush against the smooth wood of the underside, the cool metal track on which it ran. But something else, too. Something thin and worn.