Ally Carter - [Gallagher Girls 01] I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You

Gallagher Girls Book 1

Ally Carter

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

ChapterThree

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

ChapterSeven

ChapterEight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

ChapterEleven

ChapterTwelve

ChapterThirteen

ChapterFourteen

ChapterFifteen

ChapterSixteen

ChapterSeventeen

ChapterEighteen

ChapterNineteen

ChapterTwenty

ChapterTwenty-one

ChapterTwenty-two

ChapterTwenty-three

ChapterTwenty-four

ChapterTwenty-five

ChapterTwenty-six

ChapterTwenty-seven

ChapterTwenty-eight

ChapterTwenty-nine

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without thehelp and encouragement of many wonderful people. I thank the tremendously talentedDonna Bray and Arianne Lewin for all their kindness,professionalism, andsupport. I owe a lot to my wonderful friends and family, who have always stoodby me. But mostly, for this book, I thank Kristin Nelson, who sent the e-mailthat started it all.

Text copyright 2006 by Ally Carter

In memory of Ellen Moore Balarzs, a true GallagherGirl

Chapter One

I suppose a lot of teenagegirls feel invisible sometimes, like they just disappear. Well, that's meCammie the Chameleon. But I'm luckier than mostbecause, at my school, that's considered cool.

I go to a school for spies.

Of course, technically, theGallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is a school for geniusesnot spiesand we're free to pursue any careerthat befits our exceptional educations. But when a school tells you that, andthen teaches you things like advanced encryption and fourteen differentlanguages, it's kind of like big tobacco telling kids not to smoke; so all ofus Gallagher Girls know lip service when we hear it. Even my mom rolls her eyesbut doesn't correct me when I call it spy school, and she's theheadmistress. Of course, she's also a retired CIA operative, and it was heridea for me to write this, my first Covert Operations Report, to summarize whathappened last semester. She's always telling us that the worst partof the spy life isn't the dangerit's thepaperwork. After all, when you're on a plane home from Istanbul with a nuclearwarhead in a hatbox, the last thing you want to do is write a report about it.So that's why I'm writing thisfor the practice.

If you've got a Level Fourclearance or higher, you probably know all about us Gallagher Girls, sincewe've been around for more than a hundred years (the school, not me I'll turn sixteen next month!). But if you don'thave that kind of clearance, then you probably think we're just an urban spymythlike jet packs and invisibility suitsand you drive by our ivy-coveredwalls, look at our gorgeous mansion and manicured grounds, and assume, likeeveryone else, that the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is just asnooty boarding school for bored heiresses with no place else to go.

Well, to tell you the truth,we're totally fine with that it's one ofthe reasons no one in the town of Roseville, Virginia, thought twice about thelong line of limousines that brought my classmates back to campus last September.I watched from a window seat on the third floor of the mansion as the carsmaterialized out of the blankets of green foliage and turned through thetowering wrought-iron gates. The half-mile-long driveway curved through thehills, looking as harmless as Dorothy's yellow brick road, not giving a cluethat it's equipped with laser beams that read tire treads and sensors thatcheck for explosives, and one entire section that can open up and swallow atruck whole. (If you think that's dangerous, don't even get me started about thepond!)

I wrapped my arms around myknees and stared through the window's wavy glass. The red velvet curtains weredrawn around the tiny alcove, and I was enveloped by an odd sense of peace,knowing that in twenty minutes, the halls were going to be crowded; music wasgoing to be blaring; and I was going to go from being an only child to one of ahundred sisters, so I knew to savor the silence while it lasted. Then, as if toprove my point, a loud blast and the smell of burning hair came floating up themain stairs from the second-floor Hall of History, followed by ProfessorBuckingham's distinguished voice crying, "Girls! I told you not to touchthat!" The smell got worse, and one of the seventh graders was probablystill on fire, because Professor Buckingham yelled, "Stand still. Standstill, I say!"

Then Professor Buckingham saidsome French swear words that the seventh graders probably wouldn't understandfor three semesters, and I remembered how every year during new studentorientation one of the newbies will get cocky and try to show off by grabbingthe sword Gillian Gallagher used to slay the guy who was going to kill AbrahamLincolnthe first guy, that is. The oneyou never hear about.

But what the newbies aren'ttold on their campus tour is that Gilly's sword is charged with enoughelectricity to welllight your hair on fire.

I just love the start ofschool.

I think our room used to be anattic, once upon a time. It has these cool dormers and oddly shaped windows andlots of little nooks and crannies, where a girl can sit with her back againstthe wall and listen to the thundering feet and squeals of hello that areprobably pretty standard at boarding schools everywhere on the first day aftersummer break (but they probably stop being standard when they take place inPortuguese and Farsi). Out in the hall, Kim Lee was talking about her summer inSingapore; and Tina Walters was declaring that "Cairo was super cool.Johannesburgnot so much," which isexactly what my mom had said when I'd complained about how Tina's parents weretaking her to Africa over the summer whereas I was going to have to visit mydad's parents on their ranch in Nebraskaan experience I'm fairly sure willnever help me break out of an enemy interrogation facility or disarm a dirtybomb.

"Hey, where'sCammie?" Tina asked, but I wasn't about to leave my room until I couldcome up with a fish story to match the international exploits of my classmates,seventy percent of whom are the daughters of current or former governmentoperativesaka spies. Even Courtney Bauerhad spent a week in Paris, and her parents are both optometrists, so youcan see why I wasn't especially eager to admit that I'd spent three monthsplopped down right in the middle of North America, cleaning fish.

I'd finally decided to tellthem about the time I was experimenting with average household items that canbe usedas weapons and accidentally decapitated a scarecrow (who knew knitting needlescould do that kind of damage?), when I heard the distinctive thud of luggagecrashing into a wall and a soft, Southern, "Oh, Cammie come out, comeout, wherever you are."

I peered around the corner andsaw Liz posing in the doorway, trying to look like Miss Alabama, but bearing agreater resemblance to a toothpick in capri pants and flip-flops. A very redtoothpick.

She smiled and said, "Didyou miss me?"

Well, I did miss her,but I was totally afraid to hug her.

"What happened toyou?"

Liz rolled her eyes and justsaid, "Don't fall asleep by a pool in Alabama," as if she should haveknown better which she totally shouldhave. I mean, we're all technically geniuses and everything, but at age nine,Liz had the highest score on the third-grade achievement tests ever. Thegovernment keeps track of that kind of thing, so the summer before seventhgrade, her parents got a visit from some big guys in dark suits and threemonths later, Liz was a Gallagher Girl just not thekill-a-man-with-her-bare-hands variety. If I'm ever on a mission, I want Bexbeside me and Liz far, far away, with about a dozen computers and achessboarda fact I couldn't help but remember when Liz tried to fling hersuitcase onto the bed, but missed and ended up knocking over a bookcase,demolishing my stereo and flattening a perfectly-scaled replica of DNA that I'dmade out of papier-mch in eighth grade.