Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover by Ally Carter Page A

that kind of damage. Bruises like that usually
earn you a week's worth of extra credit in P&E. But Macey didn't want to
hear those things.
    And
it was just as well, because I didn't want to say them.
    So I helped her into her school
sweater wondering:
     
    7. Did I think Macey was okay?
(Because I was the only one who seemed to be asking it.)
     
     
    Sometime
in the night our school had reversed itself. The Code Red was over. The Senator
and his entourage were gone. Bookshelves and paintings had spun around again,
and in the Hall of History, Gilly's sword was gleaming in its protective case.
    Everything
seemed right. Everything seemed normal. Then I heard a voice I hadn't heard in
a very long time say, "Hey, squirt."
    My
mom calls me kiddo. My friends call me Cam. Zach called me Gallagher Girl. But
no nickname in history has ever had the same effect on me as
"Squirt." I suddenly had the urge to spin around really, really fast
and eat cotton candy until I was sick. But instead I just said, "Hi."
    "Someone grew up."
    "I'm
sixteen," I said, which was about the dumbest thing ever, but I couldn't
help it. Even geniuses have the right to be dumb sometimes. I felt Bex and Liz
come from the Grand Hall to stand beside me. "Everyone, this is"—I
gazed up at her, wondering how she could look almost exactly the same when
almost everything in my life was different—"Aunt Abby?" It came out
like a question, but it wasn't.
    "Don't
tell me," my aunt said as she turned to Bex, " you must be a
Baxter."
    Bex
beamed. It didn't matter that the two of them had never met before. My aunt
didn't wait on introductions. Which was just as well—Bex never waited on
anything. "So how's your dad?"
    "He's great," Bex said
with a grin.
    Abby
winked. "Do me a favor and tell him Dubai at Christmas is no fun without
him,"
    Beside
me, I could practically feel Bex's mind spinning out of control, wondering
about Dubai in December. But Abby didn't offer details; instead she just turned
to Liz.
    "Oooh,"
Abby said as she examined the fresh cut on her chin. "Paper clip?"
she asked.
    Liz's eyes got even wider. "How
did you know that?"
    Abby shrugged. "I've seen
things."
    I
thought back to Mr. Solomon's cabin. Whenever he and my mother spoke about the
things they'd seen and done, I wanted to hide from the details of their lives.
But as Abby spoke, we hung on every word.
    "Does
Fibs still have that stash of the SkinAgain prototype in the lab?" my
aunt asked.
    "Isn't
that a little"—Liz started—"strong?" (Which might have been a
bit of an understatement, since I know for a fact the Gallagher Academy
developed SkinAgain after an eighth grader fell into a vat of liquid nitrogen.)
    Abby
shrugged. "Not if you mix it with a little aloe. Rub some of that on, and
no way that leaves a scar."
    "Seriously?"
Bex and Liz asked at the exact same time.
    Abby
leaned into the light. "Does this look like the face of a woman who
survived a knife fight in Buenos Aires?"
    Every
girl in the foyer (by then there were quite a few) craned to look at her
flawless, porcelain skin.
    "That's
not a good idea, Ms. McHenry," my aunt said, startling her admirers. I
turned and saw Macey reaching for the front doors, and realized Abby had sensed
her without even turning around. And just that quickly her skin stopped being
the most amazing thing about her.
    "I
don't do breakfast," Macey said. (Which was a lie, but I didn't say so.)
"I'm going for a walk."
    At
the sound of the word "breakfast," the girls in the foyer seemed to
remember that they'd spent an entire summer without access to our chef's
Belgian waffles. They filtered out, one by one, until it was just me, my three
best friends in the world, and the woman who had taught me how to use a jump
rope to temporarily paralyze a man when I was seven.
    She
stepped closer to Macey. "The security division noted two helicopters in
the vicinity this morning— probably paparazzi looking for pictures of you—but
until we're sure…" She eased between