oh, you guys are all such sweeties :) thank you so much! i forgot to mention another change; townsend is the coveops teacher and solomon is the headmaster. sorry if it seems a bit fast moving towards the end - i was reading it over and i felt like i was a bit detail-heavy so i cut out a bit. also, i don't own gallagher girls, or superbad.
also, i know cammie is very different in this story. if she were still a chameleon, i don't think she would've accepted a dare like that - so as a heads up, she WILL drink, she WILL smoke, and she WILL curse. (to the anonymous reviewer, mostly everyone is 17)
[ - the dining hall; breakfast - ]
Cammie was still incredulous as she and Preston settled down at their usual table, her hazel eyes traveling between Preston, who was whistling jovially and searching for his schedule with exuberance at the thought that he would definitely be winning this year, and all the tables in the dining hall, combing for a certain Zachary Goode.
Eventually, they landed on the door at the back of the dining hall, which lead out by the lake. Students were free to eat wherever they liked, and the dining hall was probably too mainstream for Zach or something—she could see his tall figure disappear behind the door as it shut with a small click.
Cammie shifted her gaze from the closed door back to her best friend, feeling a newfound sense of admiration for the scrawny, weedy kid she had known since birth. "You're..." Cammie trailed off, "genius. Evil, but genius. Where've you been hiding this talent for the past seventeen years?"
However, these compliments seemed to go straight over the messy head of Preston, because he had just caught sight of his side of the bet—tall, thin, and ethereal, Macey McHenry looked better than all of the try-hards sitting around her without make-up, or, for that matter, brushed hair. It probably had to do with the fact that she hadn't bought a new uniform since the eighth grade; her blouse clung to her body like a second skin, and if she hadn't been wearing opaque black tights, her skirt would've left little to the imagination.
The duo passed her table, and Preston started to hyperventilate a bit. "I can't do this, I mean, look at her, she's—she's like, like, Mila Kunis, and I'm standing here like, like, I dunno, McLovin'," he stuttered, throwing conspicuous glances over his shoulder. "Can we just say you win? I'd rather buy you a semester's worth of Uncle Zhang's Combination Platters than try and and and deal with, with her—"
"Pres, don't take any offense to this," Cammie said, her tone changing drastically from her previous remarks, "but grow a pair, and remember what you're having me do."
"Oh, like it's that difficult for you to get someone to love you, you just like, look at them and some shit happens and suddenly you have Jonas Hemsworth doing your homework and Dillon O'Haire leaving you flowers...What am I, Cam? I'm like Duckie. Or Ronald Weasley. I'm Velma, Cam, and do I really have double Languages today because life is against me and I want to die—"
Cammie flicked a bit of sausage at Preston. "Shut it, Preston, you're making my ears bleed. Now, I rarely say this, but since you're being a ridiculous, wimpy invertebrate who I don't want to be seen associating with, I'm going to have to instill some confidence in you." She took a breath. "Preston, you are not McLovin'. Well, actually, he didn't do too bad towards the end of the movie, but besides the point. You are Bruce Wayne, you are Clark Kent—"
"If you think talking about comic books is going to make me feel better, it's not," Preston grumbled. "In fact, I think I might've just felt worse. Because Macey doesn't sleep with guys who read comic books. Like me." He stabbed at his egg with vigor.
Cammie sighed, bored of Preston's antics. Her roommate wasn't as bad as Preston made her out to be—a bit aloof, but otherwise very nice. In fact, if Macey didn't despise Preston to the pits of hell and back, Cammie thought they'd make a lovely couple; that was part of the reason she had given him the dare in the first place.
Macey's table suddenly interrupted into laughter, and Preston scraped back his chair moodily. "Let's go to CoveOps already," he muttered, throwing his napkin onto his barely-touched plate. "I'm not hungry."
For a boy, Preston could be such a woman sometimes.
[ - sublevel 3; first period - ]
"It's freezing," Preston chattered as the pair ambled down the hall, rubbing his hands together as his bookbag banged against Cammie's legs annoyingly. "C-can we just g-go back to being so-sophmores in sublevel one..."
"Have I told you to man up already today?" Cammie asked, her breath forming white clouds in front of her face. "There should really be a quota for how many times you can be a spineless little freak per day. I say zero." They reached the classroom door and Preston eagerly pressed his hand against the scanner. The door swung open, and warm air was expelled from the brightly-lit classroom.
"I'm just establishing this now; Edward Townsend is Jesus," Preston said gratefully, stepping inside the room. He stuck his head out when he realized his best friend wasn't following him. "Hey, are you coming?"
"I-— yeah, in a second," Cammie responded absentmindedly, as she spotted a petite brunette traipsing down the hall, one arm holding a few textbooks, the other holding a phone. "Hey, hey Tina!" Cammie called, jogging to meet her classmate.
Tina looked up from her phone momentarily. "Hi, Cammie," she said, with a very wide smile. "Did you hear? Courtney Bauer got pregnant over the summer, and the father is this Italian— "
"No, no," Cammie waved off. "I don't care about Courtney. I was wondering, um, you know Zachary Goode?"
Tina smirked. "Yeah, who doesn't?"
"Could you tell me about him?" Cammie asked, wondering how Tina was perceiving this. It was always ridiculously dangerous to talk to Tina Walters (if you thought normal gossip was bad, spy gossip was at least ten times worse), but Cammie had given up caring about what people thought years ago. Plus, she needed as much information as possible, and it's not like she'd just go up to Zach and ask him; he'd probably laugh and walk away.
The brunette shrugged, her amber eyes glinting. "Why not?" She said, looking up, thinking. "Well, nobody really knows about his parents. They died or went rogue, either way, he was dumped here four years ago under some very special circumstances— apparently Solomon had to fight hard to let him attend. He's a bit of an enigma..."
Cammie started to get impatient. She knew this already; it had been flying around Gallagher's rumor mill for about a month after he had arrived. "Uh, okay. What about like, more basic things. What does he do? Where does he go? Does he have a girlfriend?"
The instant those words came out of her mouth, she wished she could pull them back and swallow them. Tina's eyes had suddenly gone very bright and very narrow, and her lips curled. "Oh, I didn't realize..." she asserted. "Well, if it's those types of details you're looking for—"
"Don't read too much into it, really," Cammie cut off rapidly. "It's just—well, you see...Um, Macey likes him. You know, she's always had a thing for uh, those types. Don't you remember Grant?"
Tina smiled, and a pit formed in Cammie's stomach. "Oh, of course," she lilted. "Sorry for assuming...I know you have very high standards..." Cammie ignored the implication; she figured if guys had the nerve to call out at her in the halls, they could very well make up stories. It wasn't like Tina was completely clean either. "Well, I do believe he hangs around the back of the school in between classes...he also goes to a lot of Baxter's dorm parties...but you should tell, ah, Macey, he's not really the shining-armor type. More of a black knight, really."
They stopped walking, and Cammie placed her hand on the scanner, and the door opened again, just as the shrill bell rang. "Thanks, TIna," Cammie managed, trying to sound as kind as possible as they separated.
An hour later, when Townsend's first lesson (because Townsend was the type to have six pages of notes and assign nine pages of homework on the first day) finished, Cammie apologized to Preston profusely as she sped out the door, promising to make it up to him as soon as she could.
Then, she started to follow Zachary Goode.
Not to her surprise, he went round to the back of the school, but not the nice, lake view side: the uglier, gray-er side, closer to the forest. Discarded, flimsy cardboard boxes were stacked upon each other, plastic cups and empty bottles littered the area.
He disappeared around a corner, and she slowly counted to ten, listening for the slightest sound— and then she heard it. The sound of a match against sandpaper. Cammie grinned to herself as she dug through her book bag; what she was looking for was wedged between her COW notebook and her iPod. She stepped around the corner.
Zach was leaning against the wall, eyes cast downward, looking pensive and bored at the same time. He hadn't moved at the sound of her oxfords against the cement, but no doubt he knew she was there. She took three careful, even steps toward him, feeling nervous but not knowing why. Finally, his eyes moved, acknowledging her presence.
"Do you have a light?" She asked, pulling a cigarette out of the box she was holding before stashing it back in her bag, leaving the slender paper cylinder between her index and middle finger. An amused look appeared on his face, as he looked down at the ground; among the trash was a still-smoking blackened match and a crumpled matchbox. "Well, that sucks."
She put the unlit cigarette in her mouth anyway, and Zach got the hint. Holding his own cigarette almost delicately, he let it meet the end of Cammie's cigarette, igniting it. He exhaled deeply, a stream of smoke swirling from between his lips.
Cammie inhaled slowly, then opened her mouth, wanting to introduce herself, when the bell rang, signaling second period. Zach gave her a fleeting look, before stepping away from the wall, turning, and striding away.
When she was sure he was out of earshot, Cammie turned to the stack of boxes grimly. "That went well," she muttered to it sarcastically, tossing her cigarette on the ground. "It went fantastic."
do you like zach? :) tell me in a review.