I exist in life, so I have my daily school thingies. So let me just say, I have exams. And I have one tomorrow. It's super hard, so I'm going to be off for a while.
Spies, Spies Everywhere
Cammie "the Chameleon" Morgan
Chapter Ten: The Little Things
I woke up on my own, my internal clock telling me from the light streaming brightly into the room, that it was nine thirty-two. Liz and Bex were gone, and the water from the bathroom was running. Macey was still here, with fresh shoes that possibly was worth a thousand, standing by her bed. I swung my legs off the bed and chose to wear a sweater and jeans. Today was Saturday, I told myself after staring at a marked calendar nearby the small kitchen (can't believe they spend their budget for placing calendars in all rooms) as I tugged on my tennis shoes. I could check the library I saw on a brochure after a quick breakfast, stay there until lunch. "Macey?" I called to the sealed bathroom door.
"I'm nearly done; wait." She called back. Promptly, my best friend appeared, decked out with a baggy blue shirt and skinny jeans. Macey, out of all the people in the world, sported a messy ponytail, a few bangs tucked back into her ear. Nonetheless, she was just…Macey. She looked me up and down. "You can tell me, you know. You looked like someone…died." The last part was spat out, as if she was saying something disgusting. That word is like an uncomfortable sweater to us spies (but not the one I'm wearing, it's comfortable!) People die in the line of duty, but that world is dangerous. After all, someone I knew and loved died, and he died a whole long time ago.
"It's okay. Mary wanted me to see her doll collection." I assured her and myself. FACT. What I said was true; Mary had an abundance of her "collection." "We were doing truth or dare." LIE.
Not sounding entirely convinced, Macey slowly turned, twisting the knob of the door. "Let's go eat." We went down the hall, down the steps, and turned a step to the mess hall. There was slurping coming down, and for a second I was afraid that aliens had come to suck the student body's brains. To my relief, they were feeding on noodles.
Shortly, we were sliding our trays down the aisle, and I added beef and more vegetables to the growing pile of my noodle dish.
"Gallagher Girl, you know, yesterday." I turned to Zach, who was balancing shrimp into a small bowl. He walked me to our designated table and sat. "I think the school isn't teaching spies, it's more like intelligence-gathering thing. They teach us skills we're never going to use on the field."
"I know that." I interjected, digging into my noodles, watching girls around me and far-off tables continuously fork perpetual ramen into their mouth. "It's something Liz would do in front of the computer."
Before he could reply, Daniela and Jenelle swarmed over me, slapping a large, fat file on the table. "Hey, Cam, we really need your opinion now." Jenelle said (or I though she was Jenelle). "Today we're gonna visit our-"
"-mom!" Daniela finished, tidying papers that had scattered from the thick folder. "And we were thinking if we should dress the same or differently."
I glanced at Deryn, who rolled her eyes. "They always get like this. Are you trying to be clones or Thing One and Thing Two?" she teased.
"No!" They both glared at her.
Sarah laughed at their antics. "They think about this everyday."
"They do?" I asked.
"Oh, yeah!" Jenelle replied, slicing all her meat loaf into tiny pieces, earning stares (at her food) from Mary and Faith. "These boys call us cute, and they're sort of creepy…"
"…and eventually we will tire them out of our tricky ways." Daniela completed again.
"That's fabulous." Faith said in a manner of someone who didn't. She polished off the last of her noodles and exited with her tray, saying over her, shoulder, "I'm going to the library. Anybody wanting to join me?"
"Touchè." I called after her. "I think you guys should do what you want." I suggested in earnest opinion.
"But that's not a real answer!" Jenelle sighed, and then buried herself into her ramen. Really, those noodles are contagious; it's the only food on the menu on breakfast. Macey and Zach followed me up the set of stairs, stopping by a single door labeled "THE LIBRARY." The room had ownership to an entire floor, and we ambled in, crossing detectors that scanned for many types of things, besides metal.
It was towering bookshelves and old tables and chairs. An unused fireplace led to the chimney, and possibly, a secret passageway. But I couldn't get all handsy with the fixtures. For an instance, a few girls waltzed around with books piled in their arms, many sticking their faces into aforementioned things on tables. I saw Alice curled up nearby the window and a really comfy-looking couch, the bright sunlight from the windows lighting up her black and blonde-highlights in a special way.
We'd just come to a halting stop, panting hard (even the number of stairs would make Bex wheeze when a tenor voice said, "Good morning ladies and Zach."
Either Leander Hastings was a copy of Joseph Solomon or he was being himself. Really, both of their first and last names summed up to five syllables! In a spy sense, that was coincidental and abnormal. It's the comparison that counts. His face was framed by gelled-up raven hair and electric-blue eyes, giving him a classy look with the tailored suit and all. Enough of looking at him now, Cammie. "Hello, Mr. Hastings." I said, and Macey and Zach made the same greeting.
Faith strolled up the elevator with a thumb-drive swinging around her neck. "I used the elevator." She said, and my jaw dropped. She grinned mischievously. "Tu pazzo?"
I wasn't mad, of course. Just shocked she didn't tell us. There's more to Faith Sanders than meets the eye. "What can we read? Do we need clearance?" I fired the question at Mr. Hastings.
"Anything. Anyone, except the civilians and seventh graders has access to this floor. Remember to check out the books; I'll give you your very own library card." And he went off to check out a petite girl's stack of books.
Zach pulled me over to an aisle that said, "Nifty Inventions." In wonder, I chose a green book that read, "The History of the Pen" and leafed through the yellowed pages. Pretty much everything in the library was yellowing; a room of books with secrets so old. There were pen guns, pen needles; there was even a blueprint of a pen stun gun. A whole chapter was dedicated to the poisons mixed with the ink, when Zach said, "Cammie." I saved the page.
"What is it? Is it about the basement levels?"
"No about the Stone's Advanced School for the Gifted. Their teachings are a bit useless, as I said earlier." Zach leaned back on the shelves, and I crossed my arms. "Well?"
"That doesn't mean everything we need on course is there for us. I go to the Gallagher Academy. You went to the Blackthorne Institute." I emphasized went. His school was mainly about being assassins; I went to a school for spies.
"Either it's both or one of them, because last time I saw Mr. Burns teach the sophomores strangling and bone-breaking." He was serious, no longer being any of the legends he was previously before, from the ballroom to the tombs. And Gillian Gallagher's castle, I'll never forget that.
"They both have CoveOps and PE, and it's just the same." I said.
"But their curriculum is unique. There is only one Blackthorne, one Gallagher. This is Stone." He pointed out; it was if he showing me a photo that I couldn't read the captions. It was right in front of me, but I couldn't see it. Whatever it was, it was making Zachary Goode worried.
Sure, before we went on the plan, my mother told me this was going to be a break from Roseville, Grandfather and Grandmother Morgan's Nebraskan ranch, and stay here for the spring break. She was busy as usual, which proved there was something covert involved. That was totally typical for a headmistress with the paperwork of new spies-to-be and checking back with Townsend and Professor Buckingham. So maybe it meant she wanted me to get away from something?
As I checked out the book about pens, I was handed a dark black card with permanent ink, and I dropped a silver card on the floor. I'd previously gotten it before, and I still had.
I picked it up as Mr. Hastings stared at the card. "Cammie, where did you get that?"
Faith appeared in a flash. "Oh, I gave it to Cammie." She said, and our Music teacher nodded in acknowledgement. "I need it now, please." I returned it without a word, and she pulled me along to a secluded corner with smaller bookshelves, Zach following after.
Within a corner, Audrey and Macey were speaking in hushed voices. When I appeared though, my friend leapt up with a suspicious stare. "What is it? Did something happen-"
"Macey…silence in the library." Faith held up the silver card. "This is done now. We have all the time in Saturday. Audrey, we can go now!" she said, passing it over.
She tucked a strand of dark hair that shielded her face, before, whispering, "You have clearance, right?"
"Do you always ask that question?" Zach interrupted.
"By all means necessary, we say that. And we needed Cammie's fingerprints to access the passageway. It was a bit, nuts, sure, but she said she would come back." Audrey lay back on an old armchair bolted to the floor. near a beanbag couch. She slid the card on a small crack, standing up. "Stand here." She ordered us to stand in a perfect formation, and she followed. She exchanged a look at her roommate, who nodded as if, Go ahead.
And then she flipped off the right armrest on the chair. The wooden base that supported it slid off, and smacked a small indent I'd never seen before.
Below us, my stomach flipped as the ground dropped underneath us.
This seemed a bit boring...hm? This is a display of different places in Stone. After all, the school was rebuilt after the American Revolution.
You know the armrest thing? If you don't get what I'm saying, please reread ze chapters. I got the idea from this chair I use. This armrest was wobbly, and on day I was pulling it to the other side of my bedroom when the right armrest flipped off to smack the side of the leg. So then I had an idea, as if it triggered something!
So yeah. I form things from the ordinary norm.