hi! so once i read gg5 (which was amazing), i wanted to write a pre-cammie story - and here it is. it focuses on catherine (zach's mom), rachel, and abby's time at gallagher during an exchange with blackthorne (with solomon and zach's dad). this was as canon as i could make it with the information given in the books. hope you like it :)
"This is pathetic," Rachel Cameron sighed, as her malachite green eyes glanced calmly around the clamorous Dining Hall of Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women. Her dark hair was pulled back, as always, into a thick, neat braid that nearly reached her waist; her navy blue socks were pulled up just below her knees. She had on small diamond earrings, a starched school uniform, and was very pretty. In fact, most people who could've seen her would've assumed she was the bored, rich, snobby daughter to an affluent businessman or CEO.
Most people would've been wrong.
Most people wouldn't have known that those carat diamond studs could've set off an explosion large enough to topple the Empire State Building. Most people wouldn't have known that she wore her hair in that braid as an advantage to herself during her Protection & Enforcement class, where not only breaking the bones of other students was allowed, but encouraged. Most people wouldn't have known that she, and everybody else who attended Gallagher Academy, was a spy in training.
(And if somebody did, in fact, know that, they either had the right amount of clearance [Level Three or higher], or were lying face down in a ditch in Siberia. Dead.)
Next to Rachel, a girl around the same age nodded in agreement. "You'd think these Blackthorne boys all look like Tom Cruise or something," Catherine Hadley yawned, running a thin, china-plate white hand through her bluntly cut auburn hair carelessly.
"Just because you've had six boyfriends in the past month, Cate," grumbled a younger girl, shaking her hands vigorously to dry off the freshly applied nail polish on her fingers. She was visibly more made up than the two other girls, with slightly smudged eyeliner and candy pink lipgloss. "And Rachel, you wouldn't care about the Blackthorne boys even if they did look like Tom Cruise."
"That's because Blackthorne boys are nothing to care about, Abby," Rachel shrugged. Her sister raised a skeptical eyebrow. "It's just another spy school, like us, Abs. But for boys."
"Exactly," Abby said, matter-of-fact. She put one hand on her hip. "Guys, please, be more excited otherwise I can't talk to you anymore. Boys go to Blackthorne. When was the last time we had boys at this school? Never. We'll be eating with them, taking classes with them—"
"Dating them?" Cate asked, smirking. "Sweetie, teenage boys in general are hedonistic, self-absorbed, and stupid. Spy boys?" She shook her head. "Don't even think about it."
Abby rolled her green eyes, which matched her sister's perfectly. "Olivia Miller said Blackthorne boys—"
"I wouldn't trust Olivia Miller farther than I could throw her," Cate snorted.
"You could probably throw her pretty far," Rachel pointed out.
Cate tilted her head to one side. "True. I still wouldn't trust her, though." She smirked again. "Anyway, we're not talking about Olivia Miller. We're talking about Blackthorne boys. And the simple truth is, whatever you've heard about them, they've probably heard the same things about us. And when they come, I can guarantee that everybody will be sorely disappointed."
"Tell that to entire student body," Abby replied, and she had a point: all around the Dining Hall, peppy underclassmen were busy doing each other's hair, applying lipstick, spritzing perfume on their necks, and reviewing flirty conversation starters in Swedish. Even the seniors were examining their reflections in compact mirrors (that also doubled as a fingerprint-based population database), begging their friends with concealer to cover bruises sustained from P&E on their knuckles.
"Let me reiterate my previous statement," Rachel declared, gesturing around the Hall, "This is pathetic."
Cate laughed as Abby shrugged and left the girls to sit at her sophomore table with a few other students who automatically leaned over excitedly—probably to gossip more about Blackthorne. "They still have the notices up everywhere, as if we're not going to realize fifteen kids have shown up at our high-security campus," she said incredulously, pulling a taped flier down from the wall and examining it.
ATTENTION, GALLAGHER STUDENTS!
The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women will be graciously welcoming our brother school, Blackthorne Institute, into our halls for the rest of the year. During this time, the Blackthorne students will dine in our Dining Hall, study the our curriculum, and sleep on our campus. We hope to encourage positive relations with Blackthorne, and we expect nothing less than the best behavior during these months. Please use this unique opportunity to truly honor Gillian Gallagher by displaying hospitality, respect, and intellect.
The Blackthorne students will arrive on Monday, October 5th, 1985, at nine o'clock in the morning.
—Headmistress Pierce
The girls sat down at their senior table, which was all the way to the left, joining their classmates.
"Aren't you guys excited?" Charlotte Quinn, an easily-impressed blonde senior, exclaimed loudly when the two girls sat down. Rachel could, unfortunately, smell her heavy, flowery perfume, even though there were at least three girls between them, and coughed lightly. "Actual boys are coming here! In nineteen minutes and thirty-four seconds!"
"Not particularly," Cate answered, as Rachel studied, uninterested, for a Cultures & Assimilation pop quiz that Madame Dabney had hinted at on Friday.
"Well, of course you wouldn't be," Charlotte sighed, patting her hair uncertainly and resting her soft chin on the back of her delicate hand. "You've had...experience with boys before, haven't you, Cate? And Rachel doesn't care about anything other than her grades and reputation, I know."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Rachel asked, frowning.
"Nothing, just, well, you're a bit of a stickler for the rules, aren't you?" Charlotte shrugged, casually eating some eggs. "I don't think I could really see you with a Blackthorne boy. Boys don't like girls who don't, you know, put out, right? You're not even wearing make-up right now—don't you care that fifteen boys are going to see you with hair all flat like that?"
"Flat like—" Rachel began, before Cate cut her off with a simple, "Charlotte, shut up."
The blonde shrugged again and turned to talk to another girl.
"She does know I'm at the top of our P&E class, right?" Rachel said, slightly offended at Charlotte's remark, but not really. "I was the only senior to perfect the Aleksandrov Maneuver during first semester."
"I think she knows you're at the top of every single one of your classes," Cate told her comfortingly, and Rachel rolled her eyes, returning to her Cultures textbook. "Plus, makeup would clog your pores and give you blackheads." She said it a bit louder, so Charlotte could hear, and Rachel suppressed a grin.
A whine of feedback erupted from the podium at the front of the Dining Hall as Headmistress Pierce tapped the microphone. Headmistress Pierce was, in Rachel's opinion, the ideal sort of headmistress: kind, but strict; understanding, forgiving, but firm. Getting on her bad side was terrible, and it was impossible to get on her good side—but most of the girls loved her. Rachel supposed looking after one hundred teenage girls everyday could give those types of qualities to a person.
"Attention, everybody," Pierce greeted sharply. "As all of you know, we will be receiving some very special guests in approximately ten minutes."
A hush spread throughout the Dining Hall.
"Remember, we are to take this opportunity to form bonds—"
"—you know what kind of bonds Charlotte wants to form," Cate murmured under her breath. Charlotte rolled her eyes, but Rachel grinned as Pierce kept talking.
"—that will last you not only through this year, but through the rest of your careers in covert or research operations. Remember, the boys you meet today are the people you will share missions with in five, ten years. But before we introduce them to you, a few words from their Headmaster, Dr. Steven Sanders!"
The Dining Hall doors burst open, behind which a very stout man with light brown hair that was slowly receding back in his head, a tweed suit, and a rather uncouth smile. He made way towards the podium and began speaking, but barely any girls paid attention as he stammered and gripped the podium tightly until Headmistress Pierce took the stage again, looking rather unimpressed, but faking a big grin. "At Gallagher, we often consider ourselves a family. However, the same can be said for all spies, all over the world. Therefore, as a family, we'd love to extend a very warm welcome to family. Girls, the Blackthorne Institute for Boys!" She clapped lightly.
Then the doors to the Dining Hall burst open, revealing exactly fifteen boys.
It seemed as if the entire Hall had stopped breathing, as one hundred pairs of eyes turned towards the entrance, examining the group. First glances told them the school colors were a nearly skin-tone shade of yellow and dark grey (although they weren't wearing uniforms like the girls were); second glances showed that all the boys had the same standard haircut—short, not quite at a military buzzcut, but short enough to be noticeable.
Most of the girls sat, frozen, with hands clasped tightly in their laps as they realized that real, live, boys were standing in the same room as them; some had the sense to attempt welcoming smiles. The more conspicuous ones began to murmur over their looks ("the one to the left is hot" "that tall one has nice arms"), but in general, for the first minute, the Dining Hall was completely standstill.
Except for Rachel, whose fork dropped out of her hand and onto her plate with a clatter; one hand covered her mouth, as if preventing a scream, the other gripped very tightly onto her knife as she stared across the room to the fifteen boys who all stood a bit awkwardly at the entrance of the Dining Hall. All except one—blond hair, clear Paris green eyes, impassive expression—who was staring directly at her.
"Shit."
please review and tell me your thoughts?
