"But I thought maybe you'd . . . We won't have a CoveOps teacher."
"Sure you will, Squirt." She smiled slightly. "Sure you will."
Chapter Nine
"Dr. Fibs's filing cabinets?" I heard myself mutter five minutes later - still a little shocked, to tell you the truth. But what else is a girl supposed to feel after riding in an underwater elevator, going through six more scans (two retinal, three voice, and one full-body), and them climbing fifty feet up a rickety staircase that looked older that the school itself?
So, yeah, shock probably covers it. But that didn't stop me from examining the hidden door thorugh which we'd just emerged. "I never knew there was a passageway behind Dr.
Fibs's filing cabinets!"
"Which is the sole reason it's still functioning."
Bex and I spun around to see Professor Buckingham behind us, standing in the doorway of the dim room with her arms crossed, looking like the most intimidating barrier of all.
"Cameron, Rebecca, come with me."
There are three things it's important to know about Professor Buckingham. 1) She's our oldest faculty member. 2) She is an absolute legend at MI6. And 3) She walks faster than should be humanly possible with a bad hip. At least it seemed that way as Bex and I dragged our heavy bags up the staris, trying to keep pace.
"I hope your break was nice, ladies." She glanced back at us. "Or as nice as can be expected under the circumstances."
"Professor!" Mr. Mosckowitz called from the stairs above us. "I need the -"
"My office. Second shelf," she called back without missing a beat. "I have been asked to convey three very important facts to you both. The first is to remind you that what happened in London is highly classified. Anything you might have seen . . ." she stopped and stared at us over the top of the glasses. "Any conversations you might have had are not to be repeated to anyone - especially your classmates. These are stories you will not share on school grounds."
Bex shot me a quick glance, and knew she'd heard the loophole too. That's probably why Professor Buckingham didn't waste a second before adding, "The second thing is that there will be no more trips off school grounds." She turned to climb again.
"Extracurricular or otherwise."
Climbing up the stairs. I watched my teacher turn her back to me. "I'm sure we've missed some, Cameron. And if we did . . . well . . . I do hope you'll tell us."
Before I could ask exactly what they might have missed, I stopped midstride and studied the wall, staring at a piece of molding used to twist and open into a passageway to the barn where we had Protection & Enforcement. The entrance was covered now - a solid wall of stone blocking it forever.
In the first-floor corridor, we passed the place where a grandfather clock used to stand, concealing a trapdoor to the mansion's original ventilation system . . .
Near the library, I looked for the bookcase that used to swing open to reveal a rope ladder that ran from the mansion's basement to its roof . . .
But it was gone. They were all gone.
Professor Buckingham must have read my mind, because she stopped at the top of the Grand Staircase and studied me.
"I think, Cameron, that you'll find a lot of things are different."
Armed guards stood in the foyer below us, scanning the fingerprints of my classmates, rifling through their luggage. The stained-glass windows I loved so much were covered with bulletproof glass. The Gallagher mansion had endured hundreds of years of storms and termites and overzealous seventh graders, but in that moment I knew my school was wounded, and all I could do was stand there, staring at its scars.
"They did all this for me?" I wasn't sure how it was supposed to make me feel - flattered or sfe or just really, really guilty.
The hallways were quiet. The Hall of History was dark. Below us, the last of our classmates were being cleared to come, home, but nothing of the place around me felt like the home I'd left.
Well - that is, until I heard the screaming.
* * *
"You're late!"
There was no mistaking Liz's voice. Her accent was stronger, like it always was after a break. And yet as I turned and looked at the incredibly tiny blonde who stood in the mouth of the Hall of History, hands on hips, I was totally not expecting what I saw, because Elizabeth Sutton, supergenius and amazing friend, was angry.
Not the kind of angry that she gets when she oversleeps and wakes up to study at 6:05
a.m. and not at six sharp - not like how she gets when Bex teases her about her patented system of color-coded flash cards. Not even the kind of angry that comes with hearing that a teacher won't be offering assignments for extra credit.
Liz was angrier than I've ever seen her as she looked between the two of us, then threw out her arms. "I have been so worried!" She shot toward us like an eighty-five-pound bullet, grabbing us both, squeezing with more strength than I thought humanly possible (well- when Liz is the human is question). I would have felt pretty lame, except Bex was totally thrown too.
"Hey there, Lizzie," Bex said with what little breath she could draw. "Have a nice holiday?"
But I doubt Liz even heard.
"Why didn't you two call me? Why didn't you e-mail or write or . . ." She pulled back, then looked from me to Bex. "I told myself that you were probably bust having fun and . .
. were fine. And then I got back and I saw all the new security measures and I was so worried!"