an: like all first chapters of my multi-chapter story, this one is a test drive. sorry if there are spelling mistakes, i was in a rush to get this out.

this is my play on cinderella, you can kind of guess who everyone parallels with.

disclaimer: i'm not ally-c.

"throw it away,
forget yesterday,
we'll make the great escape" -- boys like girls
----

"Listen up, Cammie, the next words that come out of my mouth are life altering." I've heard a lot of life altering words in my sixteen years, I can't lie about that, but none of them ever came from the mouth of someone who:

a.) is wearing bright pink "Kiss Me Kate" lip gloss. Which matches their bright pink mini skirt. And matching black top. And high heeled shoes,
b.) considers the hair straightener to be the greatest invention of the 21st century.
c.) can name almost every Nylon cover girl, but can only name ten US presidents.
d.) all of the above.

Well, if you picked option d, then congratulations, you perfectly described my cousin Tina. Her twin sister, Anna, is only a little different. And by a little different, I mean that she's a blonde to Tina's brunette. The discrepancy stops there.

"We're serious, Cam. You get to start over, where nobody cares about you," Anna agreed, solemnly nodding her head. "Your reputation depends on us. Don't you care?" Short answer: no. Long answer: I'd care more about paint drying than to keep up with their petty social lives.

I would have taken her seriously if not for the fact that I saw her nearly stab out her eye with an eyelash curler this morning.

"Yeah, you don't want to be a freak do you?" Tina cringed at the thought her black sheep of a cousin threatening her A-List status.

"We could give her a makeover!" Anna gushed, clapping her hands together excitedly. I can't believe I was related to someone who did that.

Tina studied me for a moment. "I can see her as a plain looking Sophia Bush. Without the good hair."

"Really? I guessed Leighton Meester with smaller lips and lack of killer cheekbones."

"—man, she's gonna need a lot of work."

"Work? I hope you mean plastic surgery."

I waved my hands in the air frantically. "Hello? Right in the room! I can hear you criticizing me!" I snapped. The pair rolled their eyes at me before returning to their endless supply of magazines and Roseville High yearbook.

Tina put on the sickly sweet voice that usually made my skin crawl. "Cam, honey, we just want you to look good. I mean," she dropped her voice to a sympathetic whisper, "you got expelled from your school. I didn't want to tell you this, but people are already talking about you at Roseville. We just want you to look good when they finally see you." Like all good covers, I knew not to correct her about the expulsion bit. If people at Roseville thought I was a delinquent, then I'd have to stick with it.

"Besides," said Anna, "we're experts. Give us one day with all of our beauty supplies, and you'll go from Cammie the Corrupted to Cammie the Cute in no time."

If that didn't seem like hell, then try the past two weeks of my life. Ever since my parents dropped me off at my Aunt Mia's house to live while they were on "business" (good thing the Walters family was gullible, none of them even questioned the fact that I went to a boarding school.), life had been nothing but an endless blur of being forced to accompany the twins to the mall and putting up with their backhanded compliments. Sometimes, it got so worse that I was seriously considering putting them in a box and sending them to Cuba, but I guess when you're popular, people will question where you are.

Aunt Mia and Uncle Marc lived in small three bedroom home. Anna and Tina shared room, so I got to sleep in the guest room—aka—their storage room for shoes and accessories. Let me tell you, it's not pleasant to wake up with Anna's unmade face in yours, demanding to know where you put her new Manolos.

I didn't mind the lack of space that much—I shared a room with three other girls at Gallagher—but I did mind the constant reminder that I was an outsider in their perfect home. Mia was my dad's sister, so I expected her to treat me like a daughter of her own, not some poorly dressed street urchin. Marc was better, but he was hardly ever home. Somebody had to pay for the twins' compulsive shopping.

"Are you paying attention?" Tina's slightly nasal tone snapped me out of my trance. I had to give them credit: for two Serena van der Woodsen wannabes (I preferred Blair, myself), they had the organization of a small army. In two short minutes, they set up an easel with pictures of various A-Listers and what exactly I needed to know about them. Mr. Mosckowitz—my eclectic but neat freak teacher— would have been proud.

"Yeah," I muttered, sitting back up from my lying position on Anna's bright yellow bed. It was of the few non-pink or corresponding shades of pink things in the room. Obviously there was a theme here.

"Good." She grabbed a ruler and whacked the picture on the easel—a scenery shot of Roseville High. "This is Roseville High School and yes, those are real roses courtesy of our gardening club." Tina snorted at her joke, but stopped abruptly when she figured out that I didn't find her Home and Garden humor amusing.

Anna flipped to the next picture. "And these are the people who matter," she said proudly. The quality was surprisingly good for a blown-up yearbook picture. Instead of the school, it was a girl with jet black hair and bright blue eyes. Judging by her "my life is so perfect I'm bored" expression, this one of the many girls the twins' gossiped about in private.

"Macey McHenry—"

"As in the senator?" I queried.

"Yes, that Macey. You'll love her and hate her at the same time," Tina explained, slightly bitter sounding. "She's a bitch, but you'll get used to it. Especially if she deems you worthy of hanging out with her." Deem me worthy? Was I the only one who saw an issue with that statement?

The idea of high school hierarchy made me want to laugh and re-watch Heathers for tips simultaneously. If I could deal with exams at Gallagher, then I think I could deal with the Senator's big, bad daughter.

Another flip and a new picture is on the easel. This time, it's a pretty black girl with long, dark hair and cappuccino colored skin. Unlike Macey, she was grinning at the camera, but it seemed like she didn't want to be there. "Rebecca Baxter," introduced Tina.

"It's Bex if you don't want your ass kicked," Anna added; something told me that she had made that mistake before.

"She's British, doesn't take crap from anyone, and is too dramatic," Tina said, making it all the more obvious that this speech had been rehearsed beforehand.

Anna revealed the next picture: a blonde girl who smiled nervously at the camera. "Liz Sutton," announced Tina indifferently, even stifling a yawn for emphasis.

"Nothing special," she explained with a shrug, "but she's the nicest. She and Macey are like sisters." Looks can be deceiving—I know that better than anyone—but that girl must've had one heck of a tough skin to be considered "almost sisters" with Mussolini-Macey.

Two pictures flip by, and I'm made familiar with two boys named Jonas ("He's weird," Anna said, "but he's like my dorky brother.") and Grant ("Yeah, he's hot," admitted Tina, "but don't bother, he and Bex are on the verge of being a couple.").

As they made me less of an outsider in their insider world, I couldn't help but miss my own friends. Gallagher girls aren't just peers, we're sisters. And at that moment, I would have given anything to see Courtney, Kim, or Eva again. Despite the risks, I had even given them the address of the house to write me letters (emails are ridiculously easy to hack; letters are better with Dr. Fibs DNA recognizing seals), but I knew it was false hope. After everything that happened, there's no way that the teachers would let them risk school exposure again.

I tried to get my mind off what happened, so I focused all of my attention on the next boy. He seemed vaguely familiar, but it wasn't until I realized his picture was on Anna's night stand that this was Josh Abrams.

Ever since I moved in, Anna seemed to only talk about the latest gossip or her new boyfriend, Josh. From what she told me, I knew he was cute, but I had no idea he was gorgeous. With his brown hair and bright baby blues—not to mention the best smile—, I now understood why Anna was obsessed with him.

"Josh Abrams," Anna gushed with a goofy grin plastered on her face, "Fun, smart, cool, sweet—"

"Oh God, you're making me sick!" snapped Tina. If were were talking about anything else besides a movie star look alike, then I would have respected her outburst. But for future notice, that girl better keep her mouth shut when we're discussing Josh Abrams. Even if he was my cousin's boyfriend, I was allowed to have an opinion of him, right?

Anna must have caught on to me gaping at his picture, because she pointed out harshly, "and he's totally taken." A girl could dream, right?

"Please, as if anyone else could deal with his sugar-like qualities and your weird obsessions." She hastily flipped over to the next picture. And this time, she was the one with the goofy grin. Maybe I was still buzzing over Josh, but after looking at this boy, I was seriously questioning what exactly was in the Roseville water. He had messy dark hair, with his gleaming mischievously—like he knew something you didn't; I was very familiar with that look—and green eyes. It was the half smirk that got me.

"Zach Goode," Tina swooned. I have a tendency to embellish, but believe me when I say that this girl actually swooned while she said his name.

Anna rolled her big brown eyes. "Who's the obsessed one, now?" she teased, with a playful smile.

Tina mock-gasped. "There's no such thing as obsession when it comes to Zachary Goode." I laughed, I couldn't help it. This was the first time that I saw the twins exhibit some sort of personality that wasn't a rip off of Mean Girls.

She turned to me. "He's editor of the school newspaper, he knows pretty much all there is to know about everyone. It's crazy." She beamed. "And he's single."

But the idea of him being single didn't make my stomach dip. I knew my cover down pat, but something about him knowing everything about everyone was suspicious. And right now, suspicion was synonymous with danger. It wouldn't take much for everything to unravel, just one misstep and everyone would know the truth.

That my parents didn't really leave for a "business" trip.

That I didn't really get expelled from the Gallagher Academy.

That I'm really a spy.

I guess that I should start from the beginning..

the next chapter will be less lame, promise.

i might change the summary, just so you know. so, what do you all think? i hope it's not too similar to other stories, i've put in a lot of twists to make it different. the next chapter is about why cammie is with tina and anna.

liked it? hated it? be sure to tell me about it? :D

-- asha (: