Diamonds in the Rough

by Pixie Muffin

When Hanna Marin's scholarship at the elite Rosewood Academy is threatened by a mystery person known only as A, she teams up with friends to find out who A is & to keep her spot at the Academy. Short PLL AU! 13/13 chapters. Constructive criticism?

6. Chapter 6

VI.

Caleb set up his personal corner in the Grand Library, complete with snacks, drinks and his laptop. He could sense the evening ahead of him would be a long one. Two six-packs of Red Bull would certainly get him through it, he hoped. It wasn't like he was doing anything particularly complicated.

He began with the lightweight stuff ― masking his IP address and getting into the school's database. Now came the actual search. He scanned a few offices ― admissions, athletic, academic ― before finding the finance office's scholarship information. Hanna Marin's information still had not been updated, and she remained listed as the recipient of the Diamond Scholarship. Caleb checked the list of the other recipients, surprised to find one Michael Montgomery listed.

Caleb's shock came from two facts: 1) the fact that the Montgomery name was one he never expected to find attached to a scholarship of any sort ― grants and prize money only, and 2) Mike Montgomery's GPA was nowhere near the 90.0 benchmark required for the Diamond Scholarship.

Caleb scoffed. If he wasn't reading it directly before his eyes, he wouldn't have believed it was possible. How could somebody be failing so spectacularly and still be receiving a scholarship?

Caleb clicked through to review the rest of Mike Montgomery's stats; immediately, a long list of credentials came up.

As Caleb skimmed through, he realized that the credentials began to read more like a rap sheet.

Mike had a record of disciplinary problems. Disrespectful behavior toward professors, poor attendance, and a history of drug use on campus, including possession of: marijuana, alcohol, and unprescribed painkillers. Several reported violent incidents, including damaging another student's vehicle and drunkenly breaking the nose of yet another student during a dispute.

Caleb put his cut-and-paste skills to work, lifting the information from the database into a text file. He spent the next hour coding the file and worming his way into the code of the school's website, where he dropped all of Mike's dirtiest secrets into cyberspace for all Rosewood Academy students to see on the school website's front page the next day.