Dropping Like Spies - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Five

“How charming,” Woods said, but she didn’t sound very charmed at all.

Ellie was quick.  It was the first thing I noticed about her.  Everything she did was a bounce.  Even when she spoke you could tell she was thinking about something else—already four steps ahead.  It reminded me of Alice.  “Oh, Charlotte,” she teased.  “What have I told you about the cargo pants?”

 “They’re comfortable,” Woods replied.  “And besides, I switched to the leather jacket.  What more do you want?”

“I see that.”

“You like the leather, remember?”

“I do.  It almost makes up for the awful boots.  And would it kill you to wear your hair down every now and again?”

Woods rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.  “Did I bring you here to make fun of my fashion sense or to teach my students?”

Ellie clicked her tongue.  “Oh, Charlotte,” she said.  “Always so jealous of my fashion sense.”

But Alice had endured enough of whatever was going on in front of us and so, as she frequently did, she spoke up.  “Hi.  Yeah.  It’s your niece here—just wondering what’s going on.”

Ellie smiled her perfect belle smile once more.  If the sun were a person, it would look like her.  “Hakuna Matata, short stuff,” she told Alice.  “This is temporary.  I’ve got a plane to catch in”—she looked up at the sky, swaying with calculations—“two hours. Two hours?  Charlotte how long does it take to get to the airport from here?”

“The helicopter’s picking you up here, remember?”  Woods said, grabbing both of Ellie’s shoulders and turning her back towards my classmates and I.  “Now would you please focus, for once in your life?  I flew you in to teach my students, so it would be nice if you actually, you know, taught my students.”

“Right,” Ellie said, pointing a determined finger at all of us.  She clapped once, smiling as she started her lecture.  “Well, as you’ve heard, I have an impressive resume.  I’ve worked with nearly all the agencies—including the ones you haven’t heard of.”

I could practically hear the minds of my classmates turning, all trying to count the agencies they knew and guess the ones that they didn’t.  “Not to mention,” Ellie continued.  “I have Peter Jackson’s personal cell on speed dial.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Erin Cross.  “You mean Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson?”

“That’s the one,” Ellie said, because she knew that somehow, out of all of her credentials, this was the most important one.  “The Hobbit, too.”

“On speed dial?” Erin challenged.

“What kind of D.A. would I be if I didn’t have a hand in make-up design?” she said.  I couldn’t help thinking that having a hand in make-up design would consist of covering up pimples on the five o’clock news or maybe dabbling in the local theater.  Not actively participating in the design of one of the biggest franchises since Harry Potter.

Erin didn’t challenge her again and that’s probably because Erin’s jaw was about to fall off of her face.  Ellie saw this as her chance to continue.  “Your professor called in a favor—”

“ A favor?” Alice asked, vocalizing exactly what I had been thinking.  Ellie shifted her attention to her niece and Woods brought her hand to her forehead.  “You owe Professor Woods a favor?”

Ellie shrugged.  “I owe her a few,” she said.  “Saved my life a couple of times—figure it’s an even trade.”

“If those are the standards we’re going by, then you owe me way more than just ‘a few’ favors,” Woods teased. 

By the roll of Ellie’s eyes (what was done in exactly the same way as Alice, by the way) I could tell that we had entered an age-old debate.  “If those are the standards we’re going by, then I only owe you five favors.”

“Six.”

“Six?”

“Guatemala.”

Ellie nodded, remembering.  My classmates all looked at one another, each of us trying to imagine Charlotte Woods and Ellie Sutton together in Guatemala.  “Okay fine.  Six—well actually you only half-saved my life that time.”

Woods laughed, accompanying the sound with a word that would have earned her detention in Madame Baudin’s class.  “A little more than half, I think.”

“Fine, what do you want for it?  Three-quarters?  I owe you five and three-quarters favors then.”

“If you don’t start teaching these girls something soon, then this is going to count as the three-quarters,” Woods threatened, sounding more like usual herself than whatever version she had been since Ellie had taken off her wig.

“Alright, alright,” Ellie replied, sticking her hands up.  “I’m teaching—Alice is right.  Don’t try to get rid of yourself.  Try to replace yourself.”  It took me a moment to realize that she was talking to us again.  “But that’s simple enough.  You’re smart girls.  If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be here and neither would I—are you sure they said helicopter?”

That last part was to Woods who, by the looks of it, was regretting any and all decisions she had made regarding Ellie Sutton.  Ever.  “Ellie!”

“Right.  Okay.”  This whole scene felt entirely too familiar.  Alice brushing her hair in our bathroom, but getting distracted and starting on her teeth with a comb stuck in her hair.  Me reminding Alice that maybe pyrotechnics weren’t her area of expertise.  It was almost like I was looking in on the future—our future.  It was almost like Ellie and Woods were some distant, hyped-up version of Alice and I. 

“Professor Woods called me in to teach you the tricks of basic disguise, but basic disguise is boring.”  Ellie put her hand against the side of her mouth, blocking the sound from Professor Woods.  “Even Miss Cargo Pants over here could teach you those tricks.”

The class laughed and, just like her niece, Ellie beamed with excitement.  “I can still hear you,” Woods said sternly.  There was an odd break between her voice and her expression.  She sounded angry, but she was smiling.  I found myself wishing that I had her mindreading capabilities so that I could know what she was thinking.

But Ellie ignored her (as it would seem Ellie often did) and said, “Would you girls like to know how to disguise yourself as a Secret Service agent with nothing but a little black dress and some bobbi pins?”