48 pages • 1 hour read
Ally CarterI'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 9-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary
The next day, Cammie, Liz, and Bex have their first driver’s ed class, for which Macy joins them since she’s their age. While Cammie sits in the back seat with Bex and Liz, she sees Josh outside and ducks down to avoid being seen, not wanting her homeschool cover story to fall apart. Bex and Liz urge her to look because the boy on the sidewalk is really cute. Cammie refuses, saying she doesn’t “care how wavy his hair is” (98), which makes Bex and Liz suspicious because they didn’t say anything about his hair.
Back at the dorm, Liz and Bex berate Cammie for not telling a teacher about Josh. They’re worried he could be a honeypot—a slang term for someone using sex appeal to infiltrate a group. Cammie tells them everything about her interaction with him, adding that she doesn’t think he’s a honeypot and that she doesn’t want to report him because she likes him. Bex and Liz decide to track him to see if he’s an enemy agent or just a normal teenage boy, figuring that he’s either trying to “infiltrate the Gallagher Girls through Cammie” or her soulmate (102).
Chapter 10 Summary
On Saturday, the girls take the bottle Josh touched during their mission to the forensics to run his fingerprints and find where he lives. Later that night, they scope out his house, which is in a nice neighborhood with manicured lawns and picket fences. As Cammie looks around, she can’t help but think “a spy would never belong there” (108).
A party is in progress a few houses down, which the girls know Josh’s family is at after hacking his email. Cammie stays outside to keep a lookout while Bex and Liz go inside. Josh returns and leaves again, and Cammie reveals herself to distract him right before Bex and Liz rappel off the roof and land on top of him.
Cammie keeps him distracted while Bex and Liz have a series of mishaps getting off the roof. Josh seems reluctant to return to the party and unenthusiastic about his house and neighborhood when Cammie tells him both are really nice. Bex finally manages to untangle Liz from her rappelling cables and get them down, and Cammie makes an excuse to extract herself from the conversation with Josh, even though she doesn’t want to. Another boy arrives as she disappears into the night. The boy asks who she was, and Josh replies “oh, nobody. Just some girl” (114).
Chapter 11 Summary
Over the next few days, Cammie tries not to think about how Josh said she was “just some girl,” but the words hurt, even though she knows they shouldn’t. Classes continue as usual with Mr. Solomon assigning them to dig through trash bags and Bex driving poorly during driver’s ed. On one driver’s ed excursion, Bex takes them to Josh’s neighborhood and Liz uses a remote to blow up one of the car’s tires that she rigged with a small explosive. The car comes to a halt in front of Josh’s house, and Bex rushes to get the spare tire from the trunk, tossing a bag of Josh’s garbage into the car. While their professor teaches them how to change a tire, Cammie wonders if Josh would even see her if he wandered by or would she “simply be ‘some girl’?” (124).
Back in their dorm room, the girls go through Josh’s trash. Amidst used paper towels and empty gum wrappers, they find a note on pink paper from a girl who seems to have a crush on Josh. They argue about how important the note is, given it’s in the trash, and finally realize that “despite our elite education and genius IQs, we didn't know boys” (129). A cluster of religious school program pamphlets seem out of place in the trash until the girls remember Cammie told Josh she was homeschooled for religious reasons. Bex concludes Josh is looking for Cammie just as Macey enters and asks who the boy is.
Chapters 9-11 Analysis
Cammie, Bex, and Liz show off both the areas where they excel and lack in these chapters. While Liz works wonders in the lab and hacking email, her ability to rappel off the roof leaves much to be desired, and she relies on Bex to save her with more honed skills. In Chapter 9, Cammie messes up by saying Josh has wavy hair, which tips off Bex and Liz. Despite all their training, the girls still make amateur mistakes, especially when feeling pressured or when outside their comfort zones.
The thought that Josh is either a honeypot or Cammie’s soulmate shows the dichotomy between spies and teenage girls. Cammie’s feelings for Josh make Bex and Liz consider that he could just be a normal boy who was talking to Cammie because he thought she was pretty. Their interest in investigating him shows both their commitment to the academy and to Cammie. If Josh is an enemy operative, they want to find out to keep the school safe, but they also want to keep him away from the professors in case he is just a boy because they want Cammie to have a chance with him. This situation tests the bonds of friendship between Cammie, Bex, and Liz, and their ability to find a compromise shows how unbreakable those bonds are.
The girls digging through Josh’s trash shows them putting the lessons they learn in class to practical application while exposing how their lessons make them realize how little they know. The note in the trash makes Cammie question her feelings. Though she likes that Josh saw her when she’s usually so invisible, she isn’t sure she can compete with a girl who writes love notes and who doesn’t lead a double life. The realization that they don’t understand boys prompts the girls to seek out Macey’s help, which was foreshadowed by Macey offering pointers and observations about clothes and Mr. Solomon in previous chapters.
