Shannon Hale’s Princess Academy meets Stu Gibbs’s Spy School series in the third book in the Mrs. Smith’s Spy School for Girls series. Abby and her classmates have all been invited to Briar Academy to participate in The Challenge, a prep school competition where teams compete for prizes and the glory of being the best of the best. While there, they figure out their nemesis, The Ghost, is using Briar as headquarters to plan a devastating attack on his enemies (a.k.a.: pretty much everyone) using a brand-new invention Toby developed. And this time, The Center and Mrs. Smith will be of no help as Abby suspects there is someone working for The Ghost on the inside—and they can trust no one. Beth McMullen is the author of the Mrs. Smith’s Spy School for Girls series; the Lola Benko, Treasure Hunter series; the Secret of the Storm series; and several adult mysteries. Her books have heroes and bad guys, action and messy situations. An avid reader, she once missed her subway stop and rode the train all the way to Brooklyn because the book she was reading was that good. She lives in northern California with her family and two cats. Visit her at BethMcMullenBooks.com. Double Cross Chapter 1 SAVING THE WORLD IS NO EXCUSE. IF YOU WANT TO BE a spy, and possibly save the world, you have to practice. Take advantage of every opportunity to improve your skills. Me and my best friends, Charlotte and Izumi, are serious about spying, which is why we’ve spent the last month of summer on the Smith School for Children campus perfecting a karate move we call Deadhead the Rose, where we roundhouse kick the withered flowers from their stems to make way for new blooms. As a gardening technique, it is much faster than pruning shears. We’ve gotten pretty good. I can deadhead an entire rosebush in under a minute. We’re kicking roses outside Headmaster Smith’s office window, in New England heat so unrelenting Charlotte keeps pretending to faint just to get a break, when Izumi whispers, “You guys. Come here.” We peel off our gardening gloves and squeeze in tight next to Izumi under the window, wide-open in hopes of catching a passing breeze. The air is a thick, humid blanket we cannot throw off. Staying low, we peer over the window ledge. Inside, Mrs. Smith alternately studies a piece of paper and fans herself with it. These original Smith School buildings have no air conditioning. Global warming is now in a race with tradition to see who breaks first. Mrs. Smith wears a headset and her resting expression, which is total annoyance. “It’s not without precedent,” she says into the headset. “I started with the spy school well before sixteen, as did others. If I want to let this girl in early, I’ll do it. She could be our next Veronica Brooks. She has a brilliant mind. We don’t want to lose students who are truly exceptional.” Everyone knows Veronica Brooks is the gold standard in spying, but who is the other girl Mrs. Smith is talking about? There’s a pause in the conversation. Izumi elbows me, eyes wide. “I’m not asking you,” Mrs. Smith continues. “I’m informing you. As a courtesy. Now, you have a lovely day.” She tosses the headset on her desk in a way that leaves the lovely day sentiment in doubt. We crawl away from the window on our hands and knees, to a safe distance, and all begin talking at once. “Is it us?” I whisper. Me? Is she finally going to let me into the spy school? Before this gets really confusing, an explanation. The Smith School for Children is exactly as it sounds: a preppy paradise of redbrick buildings, climbing ivy and students in uncomfortable uniforms. We have a Latin school motto, which loosely translates to “don’t be a jerk,” and a coat of arms featuring a roaring lion (not kidding). Our hallways are lined with portraits of former headmasters, none of whom look like they can take a joke. But get closer. Go deeper. Look underneath the school. And I don’t mean that metaphorically. Below the buildings in the old tunnels and passageways, the Center hides the spy school, a secret training facility for teenage girl spies, kids who are innocent-looking on the outside but sharp on the inside. These are the girls getting done what the adults cannot. Because, after all, who suspects a kid? Unless we are noisy or badly behaved, we are invisible. We can move through the world without warranting so much as a second glance. By the time you realize the Center spies have come for you, it’s too late. Mrs. Smith was a founding member of the spy school. As was my mother, Jennifer Hunter. Yes. My mother was a spy. Is a spy? Being as I didn’t find out until I was twelve, and then only by accident, I’m still a bit fuzzy on the details. Right now I could not tell you where Jennifer is or what she is doing. At home in our tiny New York City apartment reading the latest Stephen King or apprehending a notorious arms smuggler in Yemen? Your guess is as good as mine. A proper teenager would rebel against all this spy non