Disclaimer: If I owned Gallagher Girls and was Ally Carter I sure as hell wouldn't be posting my ideas on the internet. So as you may have assumed, I'm not Ally Carter.
Summary: Twins Lucy and Hazel are entering their junior year at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women. And this means a few things. As well as the normal drama's that come with going to a school for spies, there will be sublevel two, cover stories and an ongoing war (read: flirtation) between cove-ops teachers Professor Grant Newman and Professor Rebecca Baxter. And of course, Blackthorne boys. A running commentary on spy school.
This story contains no spoilers.
There was not a school day I loved nor despised as much as a day like today. A day where the sign in the dining hall requested that we speak English-Australian. It was a day where I didn't have to put on an American accent or use their slang but it was also a day I had to be horrified by the attempts at an Aussie accent done by my classmates. While my sister Hazel was quite happy to try to help people with their accents I was slightly more sadistic, preferring instead to laugh at most, cringe at the truly pathetic and throw in as much obscure slang as I could to confuse everyone. Really, the most fun to be had was through inventing your own slang. The expressions of confusion were truly priceless.
"G'day Lucy!" Came my twin sister's voice from behind me. I was sitting in the dining hall reading and trying to ignore the truly horrendous accents being done by the seventh graders while eating my breakfast. It horrified me that my sister who was as Australian as me still used words like G'day even though she knew no-one actually talks like that in Australia. And as much fun as it was to invent slang, I preferred the avoidance of it altogether on days that we weren't designated to speak with our Aussie accents. Hazel on the other hand, talked like this whenever she could. Ugh.
I shook my head in disdain ignoring her and continuing to read. Hazel was undisturbed by my lack of response, having grown accustomed to it, and continued to chatter away happily, thankfully not using slang terms.
"Aren't you excited to be back Lucy? I mean I know we've already been back a few days but it's so good to see everyone again. I already miss Seth though it's so sad that he lives so far away but of course he'd freak out if he knew I was studying to be a spy. When do you think I'll see him next? Maybe Christmas? Oooh! What do you want for Christmas this year, I want to get my prezzie shopping out the way really early this year. Ah! I forgot! Today's our first cove-ops lesson of our junior year! Do you know who's teaching us this year? Can you believe we'll finally get to see sublevel 2 today Lulu? I-"
She could've gone on forever but this was where I chose to cut her off. "Don't. Call. Me. Lulu." I said in my most menacing voice. I loved her (most of the time) but my parents calling me Lucinda had been cruel enough without Hazel making up a full Oxford Dictionary of embarrassing nicknames for the name.
She pouted flicking her dark red hair over her shoulder. "But I'm older! I can call you what I like. When we're away from mum and dad I'm responsible for you and therefore I have the right to call you Lulu if I want!"
That was a low blow. She was only seven minutes older than me but she'd never let me forget it. "We're twins! That means that when you get down to it we were conceived at the same time. And just because you're older doesn't mean you're more mature. And maturity is a better show of responsibility than age." I said without ever actually looking up from my book.
"Do you want to take this to the P&E barn?" She asked clearly getting riled up.
I slammed my book shut looked up at her standing behind me and raised one eyebrow happy today I was allowed to use Aussie slang. "Bring it on Ranga!"
If there was one thing I could say that would Hazel as angry as when she reminded me she was older was when I called her a ranga.
"I'm not a ranga!" She shouted her voice getting quite shrill. "My hair is brown, not red!"
"Whatever helps you sleep at night tomato." I said.
Letting out a shriek of indignation she stormed out of the dining hall. If she hadn't played the I'm-older-than-you card I would've felt bad but as it was I just felt a kind of smug, self-satisfied amusement.
"That was mean." Stephanie, who'd followed Hazel in, said in a reasonable facsimile of an Aussie accent. She was one of my roommates along with Hazel and my best friend Emma.
"I tend to disagree." I said in a haughty tone. We were sisters, bickering was part of our jobs. She'd get over it.
"It's fair dinkum beaut to see you again Professor Baxter!" I heard Hazels voice chirping at the front of the hall. And of course we all looked up. Inside the doorway was a real life legend we'd only met once before.
Rebecca Baxter. Ex-student. Spy extraordinaire. Completely gorgeous woman. And the rumoured inventor of the wi-fi the school used that wasn't effected by the signal scramblers. Oh my God. We'd all met her once before at a careers night where she'd been a representative of MI6.
There had been rumours she'd be here, but at any girls school, let alone one where eavesdropping is both a science and an art form, things had a way of becoming wildly misconstrued and it was always better never to believe something until you'd seen the proof. But there she was. And obviously as she was on crutches with a massive cast around her leg she wasn't on her way out to a mission. Unless of course, that was her cover. You never knew… But what seemed most likely was that the rumours were (for once) true and she was here to teach.
Oh my God. We were going to be taught by Rebecca freaking Baxter! I slammed my book closed and along with the rest of my class who'd been sitting at the table make my way over to the doorway where Bex (as she quickly informed us we should call her) was regaling everyone with an amazing story of the mission she'd broken her leg on involving a croquet mallet, a stale Easter egg and a bottle of Chanel no.5 perfume being used for purposes other than those of scent.
I stared at the apple with doubt. There was nothing particularly distinguishing about the apple that made it seem suspicious. It was just a vibe I was getting from it. Yes I was vibing an apple. Get over it. I needed something to amuse myself with. I grabbed the much less dodgy looking orange next to it from the fruit ball and went over to sit with the few of my classmates who were actually up this early on a Saturday morning.
Looks of confusion followed my arriving at the table at seven o'clock on a Saturday. Everyone knew I was a late sleeper. The truth of the matter was that I'd just never gone to sleep the night before. At first it had just been because I'd been totally engrossed in the book I was reading and by the time I finished it three AM was just around the corner. I'd been reading in one of the old forgotten rooms upstairs I'd discovered last year. The walls had been papered in sheets rambling about codes and pigeons and Blackthorne's freaky neatness.
There were also scribbling's of fieldwork reports about the operatives Sutton, Morgan, Baxter and McHenry. This room was one of legend. It was the hideout four of the most famous Gallagher girls in recent history had used as their headquarters. It now lay dusty and forgotten. I could tell from the dust coating everything when I'd discovered it that I'd been the first when there since them. Aside from doing a little spring cleaning so I wasn't constantly sneezing I left it relatively undisturbed and began using it as a place to get away.
I have lots of friends and there's no-one I don't get along with I'm just not really a people person so going to boarding school where there was nowhere to escape to alone had been hard and was the reason I'd began exploring the mansion. Another of the gems this room had yielded was a map signed by the famous Chameleon of the many passage ways around the castle. And exploring all that the map had revealed was what I'd been doing when it got to three AM and I'd finished my book. When in the passages time seemed to pass differently and by the time I emerged it was already six thirty. What was the point of going to sleep?
It was the weekend after what was potentially the most boring and average first week back in all of Gallagher history. Nothing had happened. Well, I guess that wasn't strictly true. We'd seen sublevel two. And a seven grader had touched the sword and set her hair on fire. But that was normal. We'd found out that Bex was going to be co-teaching cove-ops with Professor Newman until she could go back into the field.
The first lesson with them had been very… interesting. Instead of it actually being a lesson it had turned into a debate between the two of them over who would be the better agent for a honey-pot mission.
This debate ended when Bex uttered the phrase. "Bloody hell Grant! I have push ups bra's and while you're a looker you're a bit rubbish in the sack!" This caused a look of disappointment to come across the faces of most of the class and a blush to rise in Grant's cheeks. Everyone knew they had history. She was his guide around the school in what was the first ever Blackthorne exchange. Now it was a regular thing that happened every year. The full class of Blackthorne juniors spent the year here with us. It was one of the things that was going to make this year very, memorable.
"Ladies!" Professor Newman said coming into the hall and addressing the half of the junior class that was there for the first time since the incident. We all giggled a little as since then Bex had tried to back-step and explain how she didn't actually know she was just guessing. It had probably made it just little bit worse. "Go get dressed ladies and be back down here in fifteen minutes! We're going on a fieldtrip and I doubt you wish to wear your pyjamas on it. Go wake your classmates, tell them the same thing."
Great, the day after I'd had no sleep was the day we had a cove-ops fieldtrip. Awesome.
We were blindfolded and loaded onto a helicopter and straight away we knew what was going on. This happened every year. It was actually famous now, like a rite of passage at Gallagher. No-one knew what went on but we knew it happened to every junior class. I was ready to finally have the mystery removed.
Even though the helicopter was loud I still slept. I'd made sure to be sitting next to Emma so I could snooze on her shoulder. Having slept through the flight however I had no idea how much time had passed when we arrived and were shepherded into a van, still blindfolded. We weren't allowed to take them off until the fan slowed to a stop.
We took the blindfolds off and were given coms units in the form of small stud earrings Hazel and I had made as a joint extra credit assignment freshman year. Pretty, glittery and useful. Mine had a sparkly grey stone similar in colour to my eyes that I loved instantly and pushed through the holes in my ears with the intention of never giving them back.
As soon as all the coms were handed out, Professor Newman's voice crackled through them and into our ears in a manner that was slightly disconcerting. "Ladies, your mission today is simple. Lose your tail. They could be anyone doing anything; the point is, with a tail, you're not going to know. Is that business man running late for his train or is he waiting to take you out? How about that lady, is she really pregnant or is that a cover designed to gain your sympathy?"
"That's actually not a bad idea." We all heard Steph murmur to Hazel who had to stifle her giggles.
"The point is ladies, in this line of work, it's not all about being able to get information, but being able to make sure they don't have any on you. Or even worse, make sure they don't have you." With those last words of 'wisdom' static crackled through our coms and his voice disappeared.
"What Grant –the melodramatic git— meant to say," Bex said rolling her eyes at his dramatics, "is that, today, you will have a task that seems simple, but the very few people can do let alone people as young as you." I wasn't sure whether this particular phrase was the truth or whether it was thrown in with the knowledge we would take this as a challenge. I thought it could be both. "Arrive at the rendezvous point alone and I will admire you for years ladies, as when I was your age and had this same mission I couldn't. Good luck."
This didn't give me great hope. "Pair up girls and off you go." She said handing and envelope to Ally and throwing the doors open. We were at the mall. The mall of America that is.
"It's a picture of Dorothy's red shoes. It says 'There's no place like home. Meet me at the ruby shoes at 4 o'clock.'" She read out loud, her voice quivering slightly.
"Well Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore." I muttered to myself as I climbed out of the van.
"Ooh! Look at the pretty cupcakes Emma! Can we buy one please please!" I usually prided myself on never using sentences I believed would have an explanation mark when written out, enthusiasm wasn't really my thing, but for pretty sugar covered baked goods I would make an exception. And after all, our cover was that we were normal Aussie tourists checking out the sites. For me it wasn't totally a cover.
We only had one hour left before we had to be at the ruby slippers and I was sure we weren't clear yet. We'd done a lot to get rid of our tails. Slipping a barcoded item into one of their coat pockets as they tried to follow us out of a souvenir shop had been a stroke of genius on Em's part and I liked to believe they were still having trouble with the burly security guy who had responded to the shops alarm. I was glad that this was happening on a weekend and not a school day. I hated to think of how much harder this would've been had we been wearing our school uniforms.
We had an hour left and I knew exactly what we needed to do. I'd just spotted our tail in the reflection of the bakery. Who said you couldn't admire the cupcakes at the same time as checking out your surroundings? He was tall, buff, tan and had that annoying surfer boy cliché look everyone assumed was synonymous with Australian guy. And I knew him.
"When I turn around I need you to turn in the opposite direction. Be careful not to pick up another tail. I'll meet you at the ruby shoes in an hour. Trust me on this one." I murmured to Em quickly.
With a quick squeeze of her hand I pulled out my phone and pretended to be texting away on it deliberately turning and walking straight into the surfer boy. I jump back and look up at him apologising profusely as I watch out the corner of my eye as Emma makes her escape.
"Bloody hell mate, I'm such a klutz!" I said making sure my accent was obvious.
"That's fine. Sorry. I've gotta go." He said in an American accent. As if I needed anymore confirmation. Hastily he made to walk around me eyes still on Emma.
"Oh my God! Is that you Seth?" I asked grabbing his arm as Emma rounded a corner and disappeared out of sight. Me knowing his name finally grabbed his attention and he finally glanced down to see who the hell the annoying Aussie tourist attached to his arm was. "What are you doing here?" I asked injecting much too much enthusiasm into my voice for a boy who annoyed the Christ out of me.
He was too young to be an actual agent and this made me come to a realisation. It all seemed brutally obvious now. Blackthorne. Whenever the juniors came back from this particular mission the boys came within a week. This was their mission as much as it was ours. They were meant to tail us. I still couldn't believe Seth was one though.
The only thing I didn't get was why he didn't seem to take an interest in the fact that I, a subject, was talking directly to him. Oh. My. God. He still hadn't realised I was one of the Gallagher Girls. This was going to be fun!
I could see an internal battle waging behind his eyes. He could talk to me, pretend the American accent I'd heard had never happened and find out why his girlfriend's twin—and therefore, undoubtedly, his girlfriend—was so far away from Tasmania and the boarding school they both supposedly attended while also having to come up with a reason he was there. Or he could pretend he didn't know what I was talking about, he was just some random I'd mistaken for someone I knew.
The idiot went for option 1.
"Hey Lucy!" he said with enthusiasm so fake it made Barbie seem less plastic. "What are you doing here?" His Aussie accent was back in place and the easy transition made me wonder where he was truly from. I linked my arm through his and started us walking in the opposite direction to the meeting point.
"Mum and dad decided we should all go on a holiday together. It was very spur of the moment." It was a really dodgy excuse but it didn't really matter. As soon as Seth had chosen to find out why I was here, he'd lost to me. "Hazel is going to be so excited that you're here as well. I should call her and she can come and meet us! Why are you here actually?" I knew I was running out of time, but while I had him linked through my arm no-one was going to look at us twice.
"Uh, I'm, um, here, with my, uh, school. Yeah. I'm here with my school." I honestly wondered how he'd gotten to come on a mission like this when he had no ability to lie.
"Wait here a moment." I said parking him in front of a toilet block I knew I could get a good view of from around the corner with my compact. "I'll just be a second and call Hazel to meet us here. She'll come straight away."
Before he could say anything more I ducked around the corner and pulled out my compact positioning it so I had a good view of his face. I couldn't hear him where I was but I'd always had a talent for lip reading.
I couldn't be sure but I thought what he saying into the pair of sunnies the unsubtle idiot was holding to his mouth was "I lost eyeball a while back man. And worse than that, my girlfriend is here. I'm so ducked." I crinkled my eyebrows at that last part. Ducked? Oh, oh.
"This is Night Owl. Guys, Blackthorne is here. I report this is Night Owl with proof that some of our tails are very young and very annoying Blackthorne boys look out." I said into my coms. A chorus of shocked explanations followed by general ascent that the message had been received.
I peered around the corner again and sure enough Seth was still standing there awkwardly picking at a loose thread on his shirt. Poor bastard. Oh well. I walked off.
Fifteen minutes later and with exactly twenty-three seconds to spare I sidled up to the exhibition. Huddled around it was the majority of my class with only Hazel missing. As I arrived I was regaled with tales of how after my warning nearly everyone had made it without a tail. I had a theory of what had happened to my sister, the only one who still hadn't shown up, and as if on cue Hazel appeared, Seth attached to her arm.
I whacked my head into a brick wall.
"Hey guys! Look who I found! This is my boyfriend Seth!"
As she announced this Professor Newman stepped into view walking towards us followed by Bex propped up only by her crutches and sheer will power.
"You've done very well ladies. Or, at least, most of you have." He said raising an eyebrow at Hazel who was too busy staring dreamily at Seth to notice.
"I think we'll have to change this mission soon Grant. More and more of them are actually completing it every year." She says in a way that makes me unsure whether this is a good or a bad thing. I get that feeling a lot around Bex.
By this stage we weren't paying any attention. Instead we'd all turned our focus to the much more interesting argument going on between Hazel and Seth.
"I thought you went to boarding school in Tasmania?" He said scratching his head and looking anywhere but at her.
"And I thought you were meant to be spending this year at boarding school in Queensland?" She said hands on her hips and lips pouted. Yes, there was actual pout-age.
"Bloody hell, this year sure as hell just got a lot more interesting." I muttered to Emma.
AN: So this is going to be a story I hope to be updating fairly regularly and promise to actually keep at. It may later on become a joint project with a friend of mine who goes under the fanfic name of special-rock. As the story is about a pair of twins we plan on writing chapters from each twins perspective. I'll take the chapters from Lucy's POV and special-rock will take those from Hazels.
Please review with your suggestions and whether or not you'd like to see Hazels POV. Or just review to tell me what you think. Basically, please review otherwise I get depressed and don't post anything new for months and months.