I asked for suggestions and, again, you guys came through with some great ones. Since almost everyone wants a deleted scene or a sneak peek at the opening chapter, I decided that I'd give you some of both...

The deleted opening chapter of DON'T JUDGE A GIRL BY HER COVER!

Please remember that what follows is simply a draft and, in fact, it never made it into draft 2, so I'm sharing it with you merely for your enjoyment. It does not reflect on the actual, finished book.

Also, please note that there are not many entire scenes that were deleted from GG3 along the way so there really is no use in asking to see more--there aren't any, I'm afraid.

But there is this one and I'm happy to share it with you now.

Take care,
Ally

Spies have hideouts and safe houses; deep hidden vaults filled with cash and passports in almost every major city in the world. We have places we can go to sleep, to think, to disappear. My friends call me the Chameleon, because, believe it or not, I have more of those places than most. But there are some places where even the most seasoned operatives can’t hide.

“Cammie,” a voice carried on the wind and found me and I made a mental note that most counter-intelligence professionals have nothing on grandmothers when it comes to tracking someone down.

“Cameron Ann, I know you’re out here.”

“Hi Grandma,” I said, swinging from the rafters of the barn and dropping to the dusty floor beside her.

“Ooh!” she snapped, bringing her hand to her chest as if I’d just scared the breath out of her. “Don’t do that!”

“Sorry,” I told her.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Homework.”

She looked at me, her eyes asking a hundred questions ranging from “what sixteen-year-old girl voluntarily does homework in the middle of summer vacation” to “why would you do your homework in a barn rather than an air-conditioned house?” But her lips didn’t utter a single word. (Which was a very good thing because I didn’t want to say that this particular homework was for Dr. Fibs’s science class and even I couldn’t lie well enough to explain the aromas that even massive amounts of cow manure might not disguise.)

“Well, come on inside,” Grandma said, turning and starting toward the barn doors that stood open, framing a scene of the Sandhills that rose and fell behind her.

“In a minute,” I said, already starting for the ladder to the hayloft above.

But Grandma turned and snapped, “Now.” She rubbed her hands on her apron, and I knew it wasn’t a request. “You have a call. Long distance.”

-*-

As I trailed behind her my thoughts flew on the dry wind.

I thought about my classmates who seemed to scatter to the far corners of the world whenever school wasn’t in session. I thought about my mother who had put me on a plane the first day of summer break and hadn’t sent so much as a postcard since.

And finally I thought of two boys: one who probably wouldn’t have a clue how to call me; and one who didn’t really strike me as the telephone type. Performing a classic single-operative surveillance operation while tracking me through the local Wal-Mart, sure. Calling a girl up like a normal person, not so much.

“Which one of us is the old woman?” Grandma asked, walking faster, but still I lagged behind, searching the wide horizon because even though two semesters of Covert Operations training had taught me that the Morgan homestead would be a surveillance nightmare, I still looked around for eyes I could always feel but never quite see.

To our right, sheets hung on a line, flapping in the strong wind. In the west, a storm clouds grew, so I called, “I’ll come back and get the laundry before it rains.”

“It’s not gonna rain,” my grandmother told me as she started up the steps.

“But—” I pointed toward the dark clouds.

“That rain isn’t for us,” she said in the manner of someone who has learned long ago that the Sandhills can play tricks on you. A dry patch of highway can catch the sun and look knee-deep in water. A grain elevator can seem like it’s just down the road, when in truth it’s forty miles away. Clouds can bellow and brew, but then three plump drops of rain might land in the front yard, sending plumes of dust up in their wake, and that will be all of the storm.

“Things, Cammie,” Grandma said, pulling open the screen door, “are not always what they seem.”

My grandmother is wiser than all the geniuses I know put together sometimes. She knew what my school has spent more than a hundred years teaching—what every spy has to know in her soul. But I didn’t appreciate it then like I do now. I heard the sound of the ranch around us—a gate swinging free inside the corrals; newly weaned calves pacing fences, bawling for their mothers; and the noise of an old, boxy television blaring the sounds of the six o’clock news.
I listened to all that, but I didn’t I didn’t truly hear my grandmother’s words until much, much later.

If I had, I probably wouldn’t have picked up the phone.

Want to know what the finished version looks like? Or what happens next? Well, I can hardly believe it but you will know very, very soon!

http://countdownpage.createyourcountdown.com/filename=0000gtcd5bd164c042...

for the following reasons:

1. since it never made it close to being in a final draft, this scene itself is still a very rough draft.

2. this basically follows the whole Dillon subplot from the other deleted scene and so it might not make a lot of sense.

3. and I'm probably too lazy to explain it

4. my editors (wisely) pointed out that it didn't fit and, therefore, it totally belonged on the cutting room floor.

5. it has so much Zach-based testosterone your heads might explode.

6. And I just don't think I could have the smartest/prettiest/funniest/and most spy-like teen and pre-teen heads in the country exploding! Seriously! There is no way I could live with that on my conscience!!!

But I'm going to post it anyway.

Here's the setup: originally, Dillon was going to be in CMH and he was going to play the same basic role he played in LYKY: cocky, prejudiced bad guy.

And if you thought Dillon hated having prep school girls in his town, well, you can pretty much guess what he thought about prep school BOYS.

“What do you want, Dillon?” I said.

“I want you and your snotty little friends out of my town and out of my sight.”

I threw my hands out to my side. “That it?” I took a step, needing my walls--not to keep me safe but to keep me hidden in a way I hadn’t been since Josh had first seen me.

I felt my hands to into fists, heard my slow voice as I said, “Leave me alone, Dillon.” But I thought give me a reason.

But Dillon wasn’t backing down; he didn’t take the hint. I was just a girl he hated; someone he had four inches and sixty pounds on; he could be tough with me—be strong—or whatever the definition of strong that people like Dillon have to use in order to make themselves feel worthwhile.

“You’re not so hot now, are you, Gallagher Girl?” he leered, pacing around me, stepping closer and closer until I had to turn to follow him and I felt like I was riding the merry-go-round that was only twenty feet away.

“You’re gonna leave my friend alone,” Dillon said, and I knew he didn’t think it was a question.

“Josh can make up his own mind.”

“You got a real smart mouth, you know that? Maybe someday someone’s gonna wash that smart mouth out. Maybe—“

“Is there a problem here?” a voice came from the shadows. Dillon spun to see the boy who stepped into the park, but I didn’t have to turn around. “Hey, were you guys gonna use the slide or do you mind if I go?” Zach said.

Zach reached for me. I felt his hand slide down my wrist and into my hand that had become a fist without my knowledge.

“Yeah, I was just telling your girlfriend to stay away from my buddies,” Dillon said.

I expected Zach to make some kind of smart comment about the girlfriend remark, but instead he just smirked at me and said, “Leave the nice boy’s friends alone, sweetheart.”

Then Zach turned around; he started away.

And I felt the punch before it landed.

Call it women’s tuition or P&E; training or just really, really good instincts, but I knew to duck. And spin. And take two steps back before Dillon could pull his beefy arm back again.

And then I noticed something weird. Something scary. Something that I didn’t know if I could understand flooded into my brain as I realize that the fist wasn’t pointed at me.

I turned to the boy beside me. My hand was suddenly cold as I realized that Zach was no longer holding it. Instead, he was lying on the ground, Dillon standing over him.

“Cammie,” Zach said, holding a hand out, freezing me in that place and time and it was the look in his eye even more than his words that told me, “Don’t.”

And then something strange occurred to me: Zach must have felt the punch coming, too. Zach must have known to duck.

But he didn’t.

And then I knew that being a spy isn’t really about knowing how to throw punches; sometimes it’s about knowing when to take them.

Dillon was looking down, taunting as he kicked Zach once in the side.

Zach who was highly trained.

Zach who was highly skilled.

Zach who could have flattened a punk like Dillon with both hands tied behind his back…

Was lying there. Bleeding. And acting like the rich, spoiled, privileged boy that any boy temporarily enrolled at the Gallagher Academy was supposed to be.

“Yeah!” Dillon snapped as if he was so tough. As if Anna Fetterman couldn’t have put him in a full body cast with her new mastery of the ____ maneuver. “I thought you were all talk,” Dillon spat back as he turned and slowly walked away.

“Zach, you idiot,” I told the boy on the ground as soon Dillon was out of earshot. “I’m gonna—“ I started then turned to where Dillon was disappearing, but Zach grabbed my hand.

He looked up at me and said, “You know that I know you can handle yourself, right?” He looked at me as if he genuinely cared about the answer, so I nodded my head dumbly and said, “Yeah.”

I sank to the curb beside him, tu
rned his face so I could see the coming bruise, but he pulled away and turned to face me.

“You know I just couldn’t have him showing up at the county hospital telling the cops about some hundred pound girl kicked his butt?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Stop fidgeting.” I held his shoulder, gingerly touched a growing bruise.

“You know I’ve been hit harder?”

And then I couldn’t help myself, I laughed a little. “Of course.”

“You know there are worse ways to hurt a person?” He was right and we both knew the answer had nothing to do with banned interrogation tactics and the Geneva Convention. There are worse ways, and Zach and I had already lived through enough of them to last a lifetime.

“You’re bleeding,” I said, rubbing his temple with my sleeve.

“It’s not so bad. He…”

“What? Hits like a girl?” I guessed, thinking it was funny, needing to laugh, to do anything to make one of us look away, but instead Zach didn’t laugh, didn’t blink, he just stared harder and said, “Not the girls I know.”

Aside from the creaking swings that swayed in the soft breeze the world was quiet and still. Josh and I had come to that park; he’d told me stories and I’d told him lies, and like it or not those lies had brought me to that park again, another boy’s blood on my sleeve.

For the whole walk back to school we didn’t say a word.

And for the first time, I didn’t mind.

Sorry I haven't posted in a couple of days (and this isn't much of a post.) But I did want to say that I love hearing what you guys think of the deleted scenes. It's really a treat for me.

In other news, I bought my house today. Officially. Which basically means I wrote a big, honking check. And I feel poor.

So now I'm going to go to bed. Because that's what tired people should do.

A more entertaining post will follow tomorrow. I promise. Maybe with pictures from the new house because I got some cute ones today. Unfortunately, I can't find the little cord that goes from the camera to the computer. And amazingly it hasn't spontaneously appeared before me. And I really, really wish it would.

later gators,
Ally

Hey gang,

Found another one. Initially, this scene replaced the scene where Cammie searches Rachel's office and finds the picture. But then my editor wisely suggested that the picture of Mr. Solomon and Cammie's dad come to Cammie as a result of their investigation--that they EARN it, and of course she was right.

Still, I thought you guys might like this (since, so far, the scraps seem to be something of a hit.)

oh, and by the way, there are LYKY deleted scenes on the blog from about a year ago. Just go up to the little search box up above and search for them. They're there.

later gators,
Ally

As we made yet another turn I realized we weren’t walking anywhere in particular. We were just…walking.

It’s a basic rule of CoveOps to be a moving target, so that night I walked with Joe Solomon through dim corridors and down deserted halls until we found ourselves at the far end of the second story of the mansion. Stone steps spiraled from the first floor, past a massive stained glass window that had once been heart of the Gallagher Academy Chapel, and as Mr. Solomon sat on the fourth step from the bottom I wondered if he’d come there for confession.

“So,” he started, sounding uneasy, as if the words were foreign to him. “I was home over the break,” he said and I thought Joe Solomon has a home? I never really thought about our teachers outside of work and the fact that a man like Mr. Solomon might live somewhere seemed amazing to me. Mr. Solomon is someone’s neighbor. Mr. Solomon has a mortgage.

“And I was cleaning out my basement.”

Mr. Solomon has a basement?

“And I found these,” he said, as he reached into his pocket for a manila envelope. “I could have brought them to class…” he placed the envelope in my hand “…but I didn’t think…” he trailed off, and for the second time in seven minutes Joe Solomon didn’t have the strength or courage to say what came next.

The weight was uneven, like a puzzle that’s been broken apart and a part of me wanted to shake it. If Liz had been there she probably would have rushed it immediately to the lab for analysis, but all I could do was stare at it, wondering what was so important Joe Solomon had pulled it from the basement and given it to me.

“They’re pictures,” he said.

“Oh,” I muttered. “Thanks.”

“Of your dad.”

I felt the cold stone seep through my jeans as I sank to the bottom step without realizing I was no longer on my feet. The envelope lay in my hands like an offering in that holy place, and even though Mr. Solomon’s knee pressed against my shoulder, even though his breathing was the only sound in that vast, deserted hallway I forgot I wasn’t alone.

“I thought you should have them,” Mr. Solomon said. “He’d want you to have them.”

Of course I already had pictures of my father, hundreds of them--the kind you keep pasted in books and the kind you keep frozen in your mind. Even without spy training I would still remember his face, his smell, the way his hands fit around my waist as I stood on his toes and danced on the kitchen floor. But sitting there that night with Joe Solomon I knew there was a side of my father I had never seen, I remembered that the man inside that envelope was in most ways a stranger.

I felt Mr. Solomon stand slowly and take a step away from me, up the stairs.

***

As I sat on the cold stone steps, watching the moonlight fall

through the big stained-glass windows my internal clock must have switched off, because when I finally made it back upstairs

and opened the door to our suite, Liz met me at the door, shouting, “Do you know what time it is?” and for the first time in years I didn’t know the answer.

“So?” Bex said, rushing forward. “What did Solomon want?”

Even Macey dropped her books to look at me as I walked toward my bed. Down the hall, the common room was quiet.

“Cammie,” Liz said, her voice dripping with fear and excitement and smelling

like Aquafresh. “What happened?”

I placed the envelope on my bed. “He had some old pictures of my dad he wanted me to have,” I said as I started changing into my pajamas walking toward the bathroom.

“Ooh, let me see—" Liz said, grabbing the envelope before I could stop her.

“No, I—"

But it was too late, the envelope was already open and pictures were falling to my bed.

“Ooh,” Macey said. “Hottie.”

“Yeah,” I said, “Mr. Solomon is very—"

“Not Mr. Solomon, silly,” Macey said. “Your dad.” She eyed the picture in her hands. “He’s got that whole strong, silent type thing going on.”

“How can you tell?” Liz wanted to know because…well…Liz never passes up an opportunity to learn something.