Chapter 6
Alex had survived his first day of classes at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women. It had actually been quite enjoyable. His training as a spy had consisted of going on adventure holidays while learning languages with his uncle and going to an army base. This spy school stuff was quite interesting. After CoveOps he had had Languages, Computing, Countries of the World and Driver's Education. Driver's Ed had been quite funny. The girls had been so good in all the other classes but were absolutely terrible in Driver's Ed. It was the only mundane class they had and they all failed terribly at it, the boys did too. No one could drive well and certainly not safely. To Alex, who could drive, it was hilarious to watch. One boy actually crashed into a tree.
The students had a bit of free time to themselves before dinner. Alex took the chance to get to know his roommates. He had to get close to Charlie to try and find out if he was the assassin and if so who his target was, he wanted to figure out Zach (who had seemed to know one of the girls well) and he wanted to hang out with Tom because he just seemed like a genuinely nice guy. The guys stayed in their room and talked a bit, the others all knew each other so Alex was the one being questioned. He didn't like that considering he wanted to learn about them. He told them his cover story given to him by the CIA. That he had been pulled out of public school after the CIA saw him hack into the school computer system. They had then figured out he could fight as well and decided that he would make a good spy. They had promptly put him in the Blackthorne Institute. Alex didn't find out much about the other guys. He did however hear that they had to go through trials to decide who came to the Gallagher Academy and that Zach and that girl (turns out her name was Cammie) had gone out but hadn't talked in a while. What had Alex really confused was the fact that Charlie had come to the Gallagher Academy. The CIA had received an anonymous tip that he was the assassin and they had just assumed his target was at the Blackthorne Institute. Now it didn't look like that was the case. If Charlie was the assassin, which Alex had yet to confirm, why had he come to the Gallagher Academy? Who was his target? Alex vowed to find out.
Dinner was at seven that night. The boys weren't really sure what to expect. When they walked into the dining hall, all chatter stopped immediately. The girls were already seated at long tables with food in front of them. The teachers were sitting at a table at the front of the room. The whole place was silent. Then Alex heard a chair scrape back, the headmistress got up from her seat at the centre of the teachers' table. "Welcome boys. The only thing you need to know about dinner at the Gallagher Academy is that we use it to practice our foreign languages. Today's language is Spanish. Grab some food and sit down," she said. Alex felt a mixture of panic and relief at that statement. Relief that Spanish was tonight's language and panic that dinner each night was in a foreign language. Earlier Alex had learnt that the girls were excellent at languages. He only spoke three languages fluently, that paled in comparison to their fourteen. Alex looked around and found similar expressions of panic on the other boys' faces. "How many languages do you speak?" Alex asked Charlie, who was standing beside him. "Only four," Charlie replied, "French, German, Spanish and Russian." Alex felt slightly better after hearing this, the only language out of those four that he didn't speak was Russian.
Alex, Tom, Charlie and Zach went to get some food and then sat down at a table with four Gallagher Girls, one of whom Alex recognised as Cammie. "Hi, I'm Alex. What's your names?" he asked the girls in fluent Spanish. They introduced themselves as Macey, Liz, Cammie and Bex. Alex then introduced the rest of the boys. The girls said friendly hellos to Tom and Charlie but only spared a curt nod for Zach. Well that's awkward, Alex thought as he realised that the girls weren't going to speak to Zach. "Are classes here very different to Blackthorne?" asked Bex, the braver of the girls. She had directed the question at Alex so he felt he had to answer. "Well I'm new at Blackthorne, I haven't even been there one full day yet," he grinned. The girls laughed and asked him about himself, he had to tell his cover story and felt a twinge of sadness at this because he liked all the people at the table and wanted them to know the real him. Maybe someday. They all chatted happily for a while and Alex noticed Cammie and Charlie had really hit it off across the table, he wondered what they could possibly be talking about for so long.
At first when the boys had sat down things had been a little awkward, especially with Zach there. Now they were all chattering and gossiping and Cammie found herself in a conversation with Charlie. They had started talking about their families and how it was a bit rough being away from home. "I guess I'm lucky," Cammie had said, "my mum's the headmistress here so I am home." "Really? That's great. Where do you go during the summer?" Charlie had asked. Cammie told him about spending the summer with her grandparents and then asked him where he went. They got into a good conversation and were soon laughing about how much better the food was at Gallagher than at Blackthorne. Cammie glanced around her after a few minutes and was surprised at what she saw. Zach was glaring daggers at her and Charlie while Alex was looking at them curiously. Bex was deep in conversation with Tom and when she caught Cammie's eye she looked up and winked. Liz was ranting on about an essay that was due in three months (typical Liz) while Macey nodded dutifully before telling her to shut up. Dinner was almost over and Cammie felt sad about her conversation with Charlie coming to an end, she had been enjoying herself. She had just got up to go back to the dorms with the girls when she heard Zach's voice behind her. "Wait, Cammie can I please talk to you?" he asked. She sighed and then nodded yes, following him out the door and into an empty corridor.
"What do you want?" Cammie asked when it was clear that Zach wasn't going to say anything. "To say sorry for leaving last time and never getting in touch. Something came up and I didn't have time to say goodbye. Please Cammie, stop ignoring me," he begged. She hadn't really realised she had been ignoring him but thinking back on it he had seemed to be trying to catch her eye during class and had tried talking to her once as well. She had ignored him. "Zach I don't know what to say. It wasn't just last time, it was every other time too. You keep breaking my heart and I don't think I can do it again," she answered honestly. He seemed stumped for a second, it was clear he hadn't realised how much he had hurt her. "Cammie, I...," he began but was interrupted by Dr. Fibbs who had just come down the corridor. "Off to the dorms now, no shenanigans in the corridors," he told them sternly, then walked off muttering something about how much harder law enforcement was now that there were boys there. "You heard him," Cammie said, deciding she had had enough of Zach and his excuses. "But-" he began, panic in his eyes. "No Zach," she cut across him, "I told you, I can't do this anymore." Cammie walked away from him and towards her dorm, her heart breaking a little bit with every step but she also felt light and relieved, she wasn't going to let herself be hurt by him anymore.