A/N: I'm trying to keep the characters the same in personalities and appearances because we all love them the way Ally Carter created them (:, but some things may change to fit the story better. For example, the girls are not spies and they don't go to spy school…sorry.

Also, this story is based around the same time as CMH, so hopefully the storyline and the events kind of correspond to one another in some way. The whole thing is still a work in progress so I'm not sure exactly where this is going sooooo hang in there with me (:

Lastly, I am not Ally Carter…I do not own the Gallagher Girls or any of the characters!

1. The Big News

Field Trip. Two words that can make any class of students excited, no matter how big or how old. When my sophomore class at the Gallagher Academy was told that we would be going on a class field trip, that's all anyone could talk about. No one knew the actual specifics, but at an all-girls boarding school, that doesn't stop the rumors from flying around.

As I walked down the hallway to my room, all I could hear were conspiracies on what our field trip was going to be and to where. We were going to that big amusement park located a few hours outside of town; we were going to be the first group ever to be spending the night in the white house and partying it up with the president's daughter; we were going into orbit in outer space.

Although that last one was definitely out of the question—and not only cause it would take much longer than a few days to even get into orbit, but because no one would be stupid enough to board that many girls on a space ship for months on end—that didn't stop my smallest and most fragile roommate, Liz Sutton, from freaking out about not having the proper helmet for breathing out in space. I could see the panic rise in her eyes as she walked beside me, passing Tina Walters who was announcing her conspiracy to Anna Fetterman.

"Liz, we're not going into outer space," I assured her. For a genius, she really doesn't use her common sense very often.

"And how would you know, Cammie?" I heard Tina ask from behind me. Leave it to Tina, the daughter of the town's gossip columnist, to overhear and butt her way into a conversation. "Did your mom tell you something?"

And that's the main reason I hate that my mom is the head mistress at the Gallagher Academy. Don't get me wrong, I love having her here and being able to talk to her every day, but when everyone thinks that I'm in the loop that I'm clearly not in and they ask a bunch of questions that I have no idea as to what the answers are, I hate having her in charge.

I turned around, annoyed and irritated by Tina's question. "No, Tina, I don't know anything. I just know that we won't be leaving school for three months to go into orbit. It's just not logical," I told her, bothered by the fact I had to even explain that obvious detail.

"But if you did know something, you would tell us, right?" she asked again, giving me this weird look as if that would make me tell her the information I supposedly had.

I sighed. There was only one way to get her leave me alone. "Yes, Tina. I would tell you if I knew any more details than the rest of you. But I don't. So I'm not." I turned back around and continued into my room, Liz following right behind me.

"So, space is out of the question," Liz stated as she slumped down onto her bed by the window. "What about the amusement park? That's logical, right?"

"Don't forget a lot of fun," Macey Mchenry, our other roommate-slah-comestic-heiress-slash-politician's-daughter, added through the open door to the bathroom. The running water shut off and Macey appeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame and saying, "I personally wouldn't mind a day off from school stress."

I opened my mouth, getting ready to remind her that this field trip was supposed to be educational and therefor won't officially be a break from school, but I was cut short by the sudden burst from the closed door at the front of the room. I turned to see our last roommate, Bex Baxter, standing in the doorway with a face so red, it looked as if someone had taken a marker and colored her cheeks with it. She looked as if she was about to scream when she slammed the door closed again and stormed over to her bed, holding her breath the whole way. It wasn't until she plopped down face first onto her fluffy mattress that she let out her horrific, blood curdling scream into her pillow.

I eyed Macey, who returned the exhausted look. Bex was always known for overacting, and from living with her the past three years, I can tell you firsthand how bad her temper tantrums could be. We even have a bull's eye on the back of the door that she throws her alarm clocks at when she's extremely mad to prove it.

Macey, being the brave one, spoke up first. "What's wrong this time, Bex?" she asked, sighing.

Bex flipped over onto her back and stared at the ceiling. She avoided eye contact when she said with her thick British accent, "My mum isn't chaperoning the class field trip. She promised me she wasn't going to flake out again!"

I noticed she was eyeing her alarm clock, something Macey's look told me she saw it too. Before we had to explain to my mom that we needed another alarm clock for our room, I positioned myself between her and her prey and sitting on her bed. "I'm sorry your mom isn't going, but you know if there was any way she could've made it, she would've found it. She wouldn't miss this field trip if it wasn't for something important."

She must have decided that the alarm clock wouldn't help this time because she turned away from it and sat up on her elbows. "I guess you're right," she sighed. "My mum wouldn't ditch the field trip knowing how important it is to me unless it was for something big."

"Exactly," Macey exclaimed, happy that the anger was gone and the temper tantrum was slipping away. It wasn't rare that we were able to dodge that bullet, so when we did, it deserved a sigh of relief.

"We still have no idea what the field trip even is," Liz pointed out. She stood in front of her closet, running her eyes over every possible outfit combination. She shook her head and asked, "How do they expect us to pack properly?"

"The field trip is in two weeks," I reminded her. "They aren't expecting you to pack so soon." But of course, Liz was thinking ahead of time like always. I swear, she always had papers and projects done before I even knew one was assigned.

Liz continued to shake her head, unable to comprehend why they would leave out such a vital part of information.

Giggling to herself, Macey stood up, wrapped her arm around Liz's small shoulders, and led her away from the closet. "Come on, my little genius. Let's be normal and wait a little while to start packing."

Liz stopped abruptly and scrunched up her face, disgusted by Macey's remark. "Normal? But that's so…average."

Bex laughed and rolled back over to her stomach, laying her head down on her pillow and turning towards the wall with her back to us. Macey let go of Liz and rolled her eyes, still giggling to herself. And I just sat there, so dumbfounded by how different my friends were.

It wasn't until a week later that Tina came running up the grand staircase in the middle of the foyer, yelling out my name in a panic.

"Cammie! Cammie Morgan! Has anyone seen Cammie Morg-"

"Tina!" I exclaimed as she approached the top of the stairs. "What's wrong? Is everything okay? Is someone hurt?" I quickly asked, running through all the scenarios in which I was extremely important to find.

Tina shook her head aggressively, trying to catch her breath. "No, no one's hurt…I just…found out…what the field trip is!" she excitedly told me in between deep breaths.

I've never actually met a crazy person before—and I'm talking the kind that needs to be locked up in the mental asylum—but if I ever did see one, I imagine giving them the same look I was giving Tina at that moment. The field trip? That was what was so important? Not that someone fell into the pound out front, was attacked by the giant snapping turtle (rumor has it that it's a record breaking size, but no one has gotten close enough to officially get the measurements), and that my mom or all of the teachers were nowhere to be found, leaving me as their last hope at amputating their half-bitten off arm? Because even that wouldn't have needed such urgency to find me as Tina had running up those stairs.

"You ran across the school, shouting my name at the top of your lungs, and practically giving everyone a heart attack…because you know where we're going for our field trip?" I asked in disbelief. And everyone says Bex was dramatic.

Taking a big deep breath, finally gaining back her normal breathing pattern, Tina looked at me, put her hand on her hip, and snarled, "Do you want to know or not?"

I looked around at all the girls that had stopped to watch us, probably freaked out by Tina's behavior moments earlier. They were all staring at me, waiting with big eyes to finally find out the big mystery as to where the sophomore class was going the following week. Everyone was dying to know, from the little seventh graders to the big-shot seniors. I turned back to Tina and nodded, anxious to find out myself. "Where are we going?"

She looked around, leaned in close, and gave me a wicked smile. She was enjoying this way too much for someone who nearly burst a lung just minutes before. When she finally spoke, it was enough to get the whole crowd buzzing with excitement. I, on the other hand, felt as if the excitement for the trip was slowly draining out of me. The outdoors, the survival skills, the bugs! I had never wanted to encounter such a place in my life, and in that moment, the desire to do so was even less.

Why, of all things, would my mom chose for the sophomore class to go camping?