Here's my new story I hope you like it. Oh and the chapters always are in Cammie's POV but aren't when it says a different characters Pov so yeah just wanted to get that out of the way
I was just sitting in a couch in the library with Zach's head in my lap when all of a sudden Liz runs towards us.
"What's wrong Liz" Zach asks her sitting up from my lap.
"Just come and see yourselves" she told us and ran back to my mom's office.
So Zach and I got up and walked to my Mom's office to find Bex, Liz, Macey, My mom, and Mr. Solomon with a total of 6 books on my mom's desk.
"honey We have these books that seem to be in your point of view since Mr. Solomon came to Gallagher" My mom told me.
"Oh so are we going to read them" I asked her.
"Yes" Macey told me.
"Ok then let's get comfort able" I told the people in the room.
"Well who wants to read it first" Macey asked the people in the room.
"I'll do it" Liz said and grabbed the book.
" I'll tell you I love you but then I'd have to kill you " Liz said reading the title.
Chapter one
I suppose a lot of girls feel invisible sometimes, like they just disappear. Well, that's me- Cammie the Chameleon. But I'm luckier than most because at my school, that's considered cool.
I go to a school full of spies.
My mom and Joe just smiled and rolled their eyes
Of course, technically, the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is a school for geniuses- not spies- and we're free to pursue ny career that befits our exceptional educations. But when a school tells you that, and then teaches you things like advanced encryption and fourteen different languages, it's kind of like big tobacco telling kids not to smoke: so all of us Gallagher Girls know lip service when we hear it.
"Of course you would say that Cammie" my mom said laughing.
"What it's true" I mumbled to her.
Even my mom rolls her eyes but doesn't correct me when I call it spy school, and she's the headmistress. Of course, she's also a retired CIA operative, and was her idea for me to write this, my first Covert Operations Report, to summarize what happened last semester.
"Ah so this is about Josh isn't it" Macey asked me.
"Maybe" I told her and then I heard Zach groan.
"No I've had enough of that jimmy kid" he said to me putting his head on my shoulder.
"Come on this one book wont kill you" I told him.
"It actually might" he mumbled.
She's always telling us that the worst part of the spy life isn't the danger- its the paperwork.
"Preach" Joe said making us all laugh.
"Really the paper work is that bad" I asked him.
"Yes" he told me seriously.
After all when you're on a plane to Istanbul with a nuclear war head in a hat box, the last thing you want to do is write a report about it. So that's why I'm doing this- for the practice.
If you've got level four clearance or higher, you probably know all about us Gallagher Girls, since we've been around for more then a hundred years (the school, not me- I'll turn sixteen next month!).
"Wow Cammie thanks for stating the obvious" Bex told me kind of smiling.
"Hey you can never be too clear" I told her.
But if you don't have that kind of clearance, then you probably think we're just an urban spy myth - like jet packs and invisibility suits- and you drive by our ivy-covered walls, look at our gorgeous mansion and manicured grounds, and assume, like everyone else, that the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is just a snooty boarding school for bored heiresses with no place else to go.
"Really that's what they think of us" My mom asked not really surprised but surprised enough.
"Yes" I told her.
Well to tell you the truth, we're totally fine with that- it's one of the reasons why no one in town of Roseville, Virginia, though twice about the long line of limousines that brought my classmates back to campus last September. I watched from a window seat on the third floor of the mansion as the cars materialized out of the blankets of green foliage and turned though the towering wrought- iron gates. the half- mile- long driveway curved through the hills, looking as harmless as Dorothy's yellow brick road, not giving a clue that it's equipped with laser beams that read tire treads and the sensors that check for explosives, and one entire section that can open up and swallow a truck whole.
"One that makes me not want to ever take a walk on that road and two remember Gallagher girl the Dorothy exhibit" Zach said to me
"Yes now lets continue the book" I told him
(If you think that's dangerous, don't get me started on the pond!)
"Ok then note to self don't ever go swimming in there" Zach said.
I wrapped my arms around my knees and stared though the windows wavy glass. The red velvet curtains were drawn around he tiny alcove, and I was enveloped by an odd sense of peace, knowing that I n twenty minutes, the halls were going to be crowded: music was going to be blaring: and I was going to go from being an only child to one of a hundred sisters so I knew to savor the silence while it lasted.
"Preach" Everyone in the room said.
Then as to prove my point a loud blast and the smell of burning hair came floating up the main second-floor Hal of History followed by Professor Buckingham's distinguished voice crying, "Girls! I told you not to touch that!" The smell got worse and one of the seventh graders was probably still on fire because Professor Buckingham yelled, " Stand still. Stand still I say!"
"Seriously who's gonna stay still while on fire" Macey asked in a confused voice.
"Someone that wants to be put out" Zach replied.
Then Professor Buckingham said some French swear words that the seventh graders probably wouldn't understand for three semesters and I remembered how every year during new student orientation one of the newbies will get cocky and try to show off by grabbing the sword Gillian Gallagher used to slay the guy who was going to kill Abraham Lincoln- the first guy that is. The one you never hear about.
But what the newbies aren't told on their campus tour is that Gilly's sword is charged with enough electricity to...well... light your hair on fire.
I just love the start of school.
I think our room used to be an attic once upon a time. I t has these cool dormers and oddly shaped windows and lots of little nooks and crannies where a girl can sit with her back against the wall and listen to the thundering feet and the squeals of hello that are probably pretty standard at boarding schools everywhere on the first day after summer break ( but theyprobably stop bing standard when they take place in Portuguese and Farsi). Out in the hall Kim Lee was talking about her summer in Singapore: Tina Walters was declaring that "Cairo was super cool. Johannesburg- not so much,"
"Told you " my mom said to me smiling
which is exactly what my mom said when I'd complained about how TIna's parents were taking her ot Africa over the summer and whereas I was going to have to visit my dad's parents n their ranch in Nebraska- an experience I'm fairly sure will never help me break out of an enemy interrogation facility or disarm a dirty bomb.
"Yes you can as long as you use your imagination" Zach told me.
"Oh shut up" I told him back
"Hey where's Cammie" Tina asked but I wasn't about to leave my room until I could come up with a fish story to match the international exploits of my class mates seventy percent of whom are the daughters of current of former government operatives- aka spies. Even Courtney Bauer had spent a week in Paris and her parents are both optometrists so you can see why I want especially eager to admit that I'd spent three months plopped down right in the middle of North America cleaning fish.
"Would you like to take a family trip out side of the country" my mom asked me
"YES PLEASE" I almost screamed
"Fine I'll find a place" My mom told me.
I'd finally decided to tell them about the time I was experimenting with average household items that can be use as weapons and accidentally decapitated a scarecrow (who knew knitting needles could do that kind of damage?) when I heard the distinctive thud of luggage crashing in to a wall and a soft southern ," Oh Cammie. . . come out, come out where ever you are."
"That sounds a bit creepy but then that's just me" bex said.
I peered around the corner and saw Liz posing in the doorway trying to look like Miss Alabama but bearing a greater resemblance to a toothpick in Capri pants and flip flops.
A very red toothpick
"Oh my gosh you got a sun burn" Macey said.
"Yeah it funny how I got I though" liz told
She smiled and said " Did you miss me?"
Well I did miss her but I was totally afraid to hug her
"What happened to you?"
Liz rolled her eyes and just said "Never fall asleep by a pool in Alabama," as if she should have known better- which she totally should have. I mean we're all technically geniuses and everything but at age nine Liz had the highest score on the third-grade achievement test ever. The government keeps track of that kind of thing so the summer before seventh grade her parents got a visit by some big guys in dark suits and three months later Liz was a Gallagher girl- just not the kill-a-man-with-her-bare-hands variety.
If I'm ever on a mission I want Bex beside me and Liz far far away with about a dozen computers and a chessboard- a fact i couldn't help but remember when Liz tried to fling her suitcase on to the bed but missed and ended up knocking over a bookcase demolished my stereo and flattening a perfectly-scaled replica of DNA that I'd made out of papier- mache in eighth grade.
"Oopsy daisy," Liz said throwing her hand to her mouth. Sure she knows cuss words in fourteen different languages but when faced with a minor catastrophe Liz says oopsy daisy. At that point I didn't care how sunburned she was- I had to hug my friend.
At six thirty exactly we were in our uniforms sliding our hands over the smooth mahogany banisters and descending down the staircases that spiral gracefully to the foyer floor. Everyone was laughing (turns out my knitting needle story was a big hit), but Liz and I kept a looking toward the door in the center of the atrium below.
"Of course it would be a he hit Gallagher girl" Zach said to me.
"Why wouldn't it be" I asked him not surprised of his snarky ness.
"Because its always the fake stories that are great" he said back .
"Maybe there was trouble with the plane?" Liz whispered. " Or . . . I'm sure she's just late."
I nodded and continued glancing down at the foyer as if on cue Bex was going to burst through the doors.
"She would if she could" Liz mumbled.
But they stayed closed and Liz's voice got squeakier as she asked " Did you hear from her? I didn't hear from her. Why didn't we hear from her?"
"My gosh Liz you sound like a girlfriend when her bf doesn't text for a week" Macey said slightly chuckling.
"Well sorry if I care too much alright humph" Liz said and continued reading.
Well I would have been surprised if we had heard from her to tell you the truth. As soon as Bex had told us that both her mom and dad were taking a leave of absence to spend summer with her I knew she wasn't going to be much of a pen pal. Leave it to Liz to come to a completely different conclusion.
Macey started to open her mouth.
"Don't you dare day anything about my friendship life McHenry. Don't you dare" Liz threatened.
Macey then closed her mouth.
"Oh my gosh what if she dropped out?" Liz cranked up the worry in her voice. "Did she get kicked out?"
"Why would you think that?"
"Well . . ." she said stumbling over the obvious," Bex always has ben kind of rules-optional." Liz shrugged and sadly I couldn't disagree.
"And why else would she be late? Gallagher girls are never late! Cammie you have to know something!"
"Um if she knew something don't you think she would tell you" Macey asked out of curiosity.
"I don't know I was worried alright" Liz told her.
Times like this are when it's no fun being the headmistress's daughter because A) it's totally annoying when people think I'm on the loop I'm not in B) people always assume I'm in partnership with the staff which really I'm not. Sure I have private dinners with my mom on Sunday nights and sometimes she leaves me alone in her office for five seconds but that's it. Whenever school is in session, I'm just another Gallagher Girl( except when the aforementioned A and B apply).
I looked back down at the front doors then turned to Liz.
"I bet she's just late," I said praying that there would be a pop quiz over supper ( nothing distracts Liz faster than a pop quiz).
"Happiness wise or worry wise" Zach asked her.
"Happy wise" Liz answered.
Zach just gave Liz a ' What's wrong with you look'.
As we approached the massive open doors of the Grand Hall where Gilly Gallagher supposedly poisoned a man at her own cotillion I involuntarily glanced up at the electronic screen that said "English- American" even though I knew we always talk in our own language and the accents for the welcome- back dinner. Our mealtime conversations wouldn't be taking place in "Chinese- Mandarin" for at least a week, I hoped.
We settled at our usual table in the Grand Hall and I finally felt at home. Of course I' actually been back for three weeks but my only company had been the newbies and the staff. The only thing worse than being the only upper-classman in a mansion full of seventh graders is hanging out in the teachers' lounge watching your Ancient Languages professor put drops in the ears of the world's foremost authority on data encryption while he swears he'll never go scuba diving again. (Ew mental picture of Mr. Mosckowitz in a wet suit. Gross!)
"EWWWWWWW" Every one in the room said even mom and Joe.
Since a girl can only read so many back issues of Espionage Today I usually spent those pre-semester days wandering around the mansion discovering hidden compartments and the secret passageways that are at least a hundred years old and haven't seen a good dusting in about that long. Mostly I tried to spend time with my mom but she's been super busy and totally distracted. Remembering this now I thought about Bex's mysterious absence and suddenly began to worry that maybe Liz had been on to something. Then Anna Fetterman squeezed on to the bench next to Liz and asked Have you seen it? Did you look?"
Anna was holding a blue slip of paper that instantly dissolves when you put it in your mouth. (Even though it looks like it will taste like cotton candy it doesn't -trust me!) I don't know why they always put our class schedules on Evapopaper- probably so we can use up our stash of the bad- tasting kind and move to the good stuff like mint chocolate chip.
Mom and Joe just started laughing.
"Oh you so wish" Joe told me still laughing.
"Oh course you'd pick your favorite Ice cream" Mom told me.
But Anna wasn't thinking about the Evapopaper flavor when she yelled " We have Covert Operations" She sounded absolutely terrified and I remembered that she was probably the only Gallagher Girl that Liz could take in a fist-fight.
All of us except Mom and Joe kind of chuckled.
I looked at Liz and even she rolled her eyes at Anna's hysterics. After all everyone knows sophomore year is the first time we get to do anything that even approaches actual fieldwork. It's our first exposure to real spy stuff but Anna seemed to be forgetting that the class was a cake itself was sadly kind of a cakewalk.
"I'm pretty sure we can handle it," Liz soothed prying the paper from Anna's frail hands. "All Buckingham does is tell horror stories about all the stuff she saw in world war two and show slides remember? Ever since she broked her hip she's-"
"But Buckingham is out!" Anna exclaimed and this got my attention.
I'm sure I stared at her for a second or two before saying "Professor Buckingham is still here Anna," not adding that I'd spent half the morning coaxing her cat Onyx her cat down from the top shelf of the staff library. "That's got to be just a start-of-school rumor." There was always plenty of those - like how some girl got kidnapped by terrorists-
"That's you Cammie" Zach told me.
"Oh shut up" I told him
or one of the staff members won a hundred grand on Wheel of Fortune. (Though now that I think of it that one actually was true.)
"No," Anna said. "You don't understand. Buckingham's doing some kind of semiretirement thing. She's gonna do orientation and the acclimation for the newbies- but that's it. She's not teaching anymore."
Wordlessly our heads turned and we counted seats at the staff table. Sure enough there was an extra chair.
"Then who's teaching CoveOps?" I asked.
"I can take a guess" Joe told us smiling.
Just then a loud murmur rippled through the enormous room as my mom strolled through the doors at the back of the hall followed by all the usual suspects- Twenty teachers I'd be looking at and learning from for the past three years. Twenty teachers. Twenty- one chairs. I know I'm the genius but you do the math.
Liz, Anna and I all looked at each other then back at the staff table as we ran though the faces trying to comprehend that extra chair.
One face was new but we were expecting that because Professor Smith always returns from summer vacation with a whole new look- literally. his nose was larger, his ears more prominent and a small mole had been added to his left temple, disguising what he claimed was the most wanted face on three continents. Rumor has it he's wanted by gun smugglers in the Middle East, ex- KGB hit men in Eastern Europe and a very upset wife in Brazil.
"Oh yeah Maria. Man she was annoying" Joe said sipping some of his coffee that he got while getting drinks for us. (PLEASE DONT BE AFFENDED IF YOU NAME IS MARIA I APOLOGISE DEEPLY!)
Sure all this experience makes him a great Countries of the World (COW) professor but the best think professor Smith brings to the Gallagher Academy is the annual anticipation of guessing what face he will assume in order to enjoy his summer break. He hasn't come back as a women yet but its probably just a matter of time.
All of us started nodding our head in agreement.
The teachers took their seat but the chair stayed empty as my mother took her place at the podium in the center of the long head table.
"Women of the Gallagher Academy who comes here?" she asked.
Just then every girl at every table (even the newbies) stood and aid in unison, "We are the sisters of Gillian."
"Why do you come?" my mother asked.
""To learn her skills. Honor her sword. And keep her secrets."
"To what end do you work?"
"To the cause of justice and light."
"How long will you survive?"
"For all the days of our lives." We finished and I felt a little like a character on one of my grandma's soap opera's
We sat down but mom remained standing "Welcome back students," she said beaming. "This is going to be a wonderful year her at the Gallagher Academy. Fore our newest members," she turned to the table of seventh graders who seemed to shiver under her intense gaze- "welcome. You are about to begin the most challenging year of your young lives. Rest assure that you would not have been given this challenge were you not up to it. To our returning students this year will mark many changes." She glanced at her colleagues and seemed to ponder something before turning back to face us. "We have come to a time when-" But before she could fiish the doors flew open and not even three years of training at spy school prepared me for what I saw.
Before I say anymore I should probably remind you that I GO TO A GIRLS SCHOOL- that's all girls all the time with a few ear-drop-needing, plastic-surgery- getting male faculty members thrown in for good measure. But when we turned around we saw a man walking in our midst who would have made James bond feel insecure. Indiana Jones would have looked like a momma's boy compared to the man in the leather jacket with the two days' growth of beard who walked to where my mother stood and then - horror of horrors- winked at her.
"thanks for the compliment Cammie" Joe said smiling and slightly laughing.
"If I know where this is head you wont be saying thank when we continue on reading" I told him making him looked confused.
"Sorry I'm late," he said as he slide in to the empty chair. His presence was so unprecedented, so surreal, that I didn't even realize Bex had squeezed onto the bench between Liz and Anna and I had to do a double take when I saw her and remembered that five seconds ago she was MIA.
"Trouble ladies?" she asked.
"Where have you been?" Liz demanded.
"Forget that," Anna cut in," who I he?"
But Bex was a natural-born spy. She just raised her eye-brows and said
"You'll see."
"And that's the end of Chapter one" Liz told us.
"OK I'll read next" Bex said.
So how was it Please review and tell me what to fix and stuff. Thank you to everyone that reads my story. Please review and have a nice day. Oh I have a friend joining Fanfiction if you could please check out her page I would be extremely grateful