Extremely Classified-Deleted Scenes from the Gallagher Girls Series

LYKY- Bonus Chapter

I'm not a girl who lives in mansions. I don't summer at the Vineyard or ski the Alps. Sure, my mom is always saying that I'm an extraordinary young woman, but moms aren't really the most impartial judges of these things. Especially when they're holding open the door of a limousine and trying to convince you to crawl inside and leave behind the only home you've ever known.

Sure, I knew where we were going. Technically speaking, I had been preparing for this day my whole life. Still, I'm pretty sure I held my breath for the entire two-hour ride through the Virginia countryside-right up until the moment the limo slowed, and these great big gates swung open and we started down a long, winding lane. At that point, I'm pretty sure I wasn't breathing . . . at all. We drove past a guard shack by the gates that looked normal enough-but when one of the guards opened the doors, I saw the largest bank of security monitors I'd ever seen. We continued on, passing this huge lake, where a glass dome rose from the center of the water. Three women were walking toward it-you know, across the lake. I glanced at my mother, because even though I might be exceptional in her eyes, I've never walked on water, and I really didn't know how I was going to start now.

I wanted to stop and study everything. And I wanted the car to go faster.

I wanted to ask a million questions. And I wanted nothing to interrupt what I was pretty sure was the coolest moment of my entire twelve-year-old life.

But most of all, I wanted my mom to tell me it wasn't all a dream. That I really was going to follow in her footsteps. That I really was about to enroll in the best school in the world. That I really was going to go to a school for spies. "Welcome to the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women," my mother said as we climbed out of the car. I turned to face her, but she was busy gazing up at limestone walls that seemed to belong to another world, with stained-glass windows straight out of a cathedral. She wasn't staring at the building as if it were a mansion, or a school. Or a job. Instead, she stood there, staring as if she were . . . home.

PROS AND CONS OF LIVING IN A REALLY, REALLY BIG MANSION: PRO: It turns out mansions come with chefs!

CON: Chefs don't like it when you sit on the counter and make suggestions like you do with Grandma Morgan.

PRO: The Gallagher Mansion comes with acres and acres of grounds perfectly suited to goofing off.

CON: Acres and acres of grounds are the perfect home for approximately nine trillion ticks, chiggers, and other things that find my ankles delicious.

PRO: Every grade has its own common room with a huge TV and comfy couches.

CON: Common rooms can be pretty lonely when you arrive two weeks before classes start and are temporarily the only girl in the entire school.

PRO: There is an entire portion of the library dedicated to Television: covert uses of.

CON: All those corridors mean that it takes FOREVER to get anywhere! (Note to self: see if there might possibly be shortcuts of some kind.)

For two weeks I wandered the halls and browsed the library. I helped my mom hang pictures in her office and explored the grounds. But on the Sunday before classes started, I woke up and rolled over in bed, listening. It didn't take long to realize that this day was different.

Screaming. There was a lot of screaming. For a second I wondered if maybe the Gallagher mansion might be haunted. I stepped outside my room, and three girls rushed past me so quickly they were almost a blur. That's when I remembered what day it was-those weren't the screams of Gallagher Girls past, they were the "Welcome home" cries of Gallagher Girls present.

And I was supposed to be one of them.

For two weeks I'd been lost and alone inside the huge halls, but as I started downstairs, I couldn't help but think that the Gallagher mansion was nowhere near as intimidating as the girls who lived there.