Dropping Like Spies - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Twenty-Four

“I know,” I said, trying to lace as much significance into the words as I possibly could.  “I know.  Dad, I’m sorry.  I should have left a note or—”

“You shouldn’t have gone in the first place!” he snapped, the worry gone.  It’s so much easier to be angry with someone you love once you know they’re safe.  “You have no idea what sort of risk you opened yourself up to because if you did—”

“Zach.”  It was Grandma, her voice as cool and calm as ever.  All it took was that single word from here—just that one call of his name—for Dad to stop himself entirely.  “I thought we agreed to approach this calmly.”

“Oh,” he replied dangerously, not taking his eyes off me.  As if I may run away again if he dared lose sight.  “This is calm.  Compared to what she should be getting, I’m goddamn Gandhi.”

“Zachary,” she said, not quite as calm as before, but not nearly on the same level as Dad.  “Take a seat.  Morgan, you too.  Let’s have a chat about what this field trip means for you.”

I could feel the urge to run bubbling up under my skin.  To sprint right out of that office and go find some place quiet.  Maybe I could go back to my secret room that I’d found last semester.  I could stay there for hours, letting the heat of the fire soak into my clothes.  Let the shadow roll over my shoulders and steal the hurt—rob me of my embarrassment and my consequences.

But as I looked to my father, and then to my grandmother, I knew that I wouldn’t make it a foot out of the door before someone caught up with me.  And so I sat, more than a little uncomfortable with being on the wrong side of Grandma’s desk.

“In case it wasn’t made clear already,” Dad said, plopping down next to me.  “You’re grounded until further notice.”

Grandma nodded, agreeing to the terms, but it was clear that my being grounded would be the least of my problems.  I hung my head as the rest of the punishments came rolling in.  “Morgan, as you know I will always be your grandmother before I am your headmistress,” she reminded me, which only made me dread what was coming next.  The only time she said something like that was when my good pal Martin was standing right behind us and I was about to face some serious detention.  “But I’m afraid you’ve given me no choice.  As headmistress, I’m stripping you of all of your extracurricular activities until further notice.”

My head snapped up, trying to see if she was serious.  She was.  She totally, totally was.  “Until further…” I started, unable to even finish the sentence.  I spun to my father who looked both unsurprised and unsympathetic.  “But that’s—that’s not fair.”

“No,” my father grumbled, slumped in his chair with his arms crossed, looking exactly like Matt—or rather, Matt had looked like him.  “What isn’t fair, is waking up to find out your daughter is missing and that she didn’t even leave a note letting you know she’s alive.”

And that was the real argument here.  The point that beat them all.  I was in the wrong and there was nothing I could say to combat that fact.

Grandma went on.  “Your CoveOps training will be limited to your classroom time and you are forbidden from leaving the grounds.  Your training with Professor Woods and Mr. Hughes will come to an immediate end.”

“The Gathering?”  I protested.  “But I’m Junior Captain!”

“And as Junior Captain, you should have thought about your responsibilities to your team before you ran off to the other side of the world,” Dad argued and I could feel that we weren’t as in step as we should have been.  I wanted to ask him what kind of responsibilities were on his mind when he had been running off to the other side of the world, but I didn’t, because I was already in enough trouble at the moment.  I didn’t need my big mouth adding to the whole mess.