Dropping Like Spies - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Twenty-Six

Okay, so I know what you’re thinking.  This was a horrible idea.  Wasn’t I already in enough trouble?  Hadn’t I just gotten grounded for an eternity for doing this exact thing?  What was Dad going to say?

I know, okay?  I know all of the thoughts going through your head right now because they were going through mine, too.  The risks.  The problems.  The fact that my hair never looks good enough this early in the morning to be sneaking off and meeting relatively cute boys on the Patomic—it had all crossed my mind.

But here’s the thing.  In this business, when a friend asks you for backup, you back them up.  It’s just what we do.  It was one of the first lessons I remember Grandpa Joe ever teaching me, all the way back when rattles were still an acceptable option for playtime.  It was a lesson that he didn’t remind me of often, but every time he did, he sounded more serious than usual—more heartfelt, almost.  I didn’t know how Grandpa Joe had gone about learning this lesson for himself, but there was definitely a story there and it was hard for him to tell it.

I didn’t want any stories that were hard to tell so, really, I had to go.  It was a rule—one of Grandpa Joe’s rules, no less. And plus, not even Zachary Goode could kill me twice.

Alice, of course, was more than willing to volunteer her time and resources to breaking me out.  She had spent all of her energy the night before planning it out—sketching it across pages and pages of paper.  I think she might’ve been glad to have the project.  Ellie’s disappearance was still eating at her.

With Mastermind/Physical Goddess Alice Anderson at my side, it was easier than expected for me to leave.  Did you know that there’s actually a series of tunnels that lead straight past the gate?  Seriously, just tweak with the Gallagher family tapestry for a while and you’ll find it.  You walk in one end, still in the mansion, and when you walk out the other, you’re a mile away from Roseville. 

Within a half hour, we were out and about, taking in the fresh air of dawn and freedom as Alice led me to a perfectly beige car—a spy’s dream.  “Alice?” I asked.  “Where did you get—?”

“Maggie,” she said, a pride in her voice that she was unable to hide.  She flicked her sunglasses from the top of her head and I watched her hips sway as she walked onward.  “Let’s just say that whatever happens tonight is a no-questions-asked sort of deal, okay?”

If it wasn’t official before, it certainly was then.  Alice Anderson was the coolest person I knew and possibly the best future spy that the world had to offer.

Alice drove, which was fine because I wanted nothing to do with it.  Everyone knows that it’s a bad idea for a girl to sit behind a steering wheel when she might puke and that morning was no exception.  My stomach turned as I asked myself what we were doing.  What had I dragged my best friend into?  I didn’t know who the enemy was and, when it really came down to it, I didn’t know the risks.  Not even Alice knew the risks, which was just downright terrifying because Alice always knew the risks. 

“Hey, Alice?” I said, watching the road zoom by in the headlights.  The sun was only just peeking over the horizon, casting streaks of blood reds and striking oranges on the other side of our windshield.  “Are we doing the right thing?”

She glanced in my direction, then back at the road.  Apparently that was all it took for her to get a read on me because she knew exactly what to say.  “What we’re doing breaks exactly seven and a half school rules and directly defies your father and grandmother,” she said.  I sunk in my chair, but Alice was quick to continue.  “But that doesn’t mean that it’s not the right thing to do.”

I watched her as she leaned over her steering wheel, trying to get a better look around an upcoming corner.  It was like she didn’t even know what she said.  Like she didn’t even know about the gift she had for making things make sense.