Not when you go to a schoolfor spies.

Of course, if you're readingthis, you probably have at least a Level Four clearance and know all about theGallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women—that it isn't really a boarding school for privileged girls,and that, despite our gorgeous mansion and manicured grounds, we're not snobs.We're spies. But on that January day, even my mother…even my headmistress…seemedto have forgotten that when you've spent your whole life learning fourteendifferent languages and how to completely alter your appearance using nothingbut nail clippers and shoe polish, then being yourself gets a little harder—that we Gallagher Girls are really far better atbeing someone else.

(And we've got the fake IDs toprove it.)

My mother slipped her armaround me and whispered, "It's going to be okay, kiddo," as sheguided me through the crowds of shoppers that filled Pentagon City Mall.Security cameras tracked our every move, but still my mother said, "It'sfine. It's protocol. It's normal."

But ever since I was fouryears old and inadvertently cracked a Sapphire Series NSA code my dad hadbrought home after a mission to Singapore, it had been pretty obvious that theterm normal would probably never apply to me.

After all, normal girlsprobably love going to the mall with their pockets full of Christmas money.Normal girls don't get summoned to D.C. on the last day of winter break. Andnormal girls very rarely feel like hyperventilating when their mothers pull apair of jeans off a rack and tell a saleslady, "Excuse me, my daughterwould like to try these on."

I felt anything but normal asthe saleslady searched my eyes for some hidden clue. "Have you tried theones from Milan?" she asked. "I hear the European styles are veryflattering."