I've been planning on writing a story from Zach's perspective for a while. And today, I decided I might as well start now.

Here Comes the Spy is going to remain my priority, however, so I don't know how often I'll be able to update.

I realize this chapter is really short, but it's the prologue so the others will be longer. I promise. This is just introducing you to the story, okay? Okay.

Of Frogs, Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails

A Recount of Zachary Goode's Life to Date

What are little boys made of?

What are little boys made of?

Frogs and snails

And puppy-dogs' tails,

That's what little boys are made of.

What are little girls made of?

What are little girls made of?

Sugar and spice

And all that's nice,

That's what little girls are made of.

I could tell you countless things about that piece. How it came about in the nineteenth century and is attributed to Robert Southey. How its words have evolved over time. How its just a single part of one long-ass poem.

What I can't tell you is what the hell the man was high on when he wrote it.

Last time I checked, my skin wasn't slimy with mucus, I didn't walk at the slowest pace known to the world, and I didn't have damn tail wagging out of my ass. You never know though; maybe I overlooked those things.

But I know I'm not wrong when I say that girls are absolutely insane. Definitely not made of everything nice.

..^.^..

I came from a somewhat dysfunctional family. There were the usual marital spats between my parents and the nights where my dad slept on the couch as is usual with all married couples. Then there were the times when they fought so loudly that I could hear it from my secret spot at the top of the giant oak tree in our backyard. Sometimes, there would be a crash of silverware or plates. Once, one of them broke a chair.

I guess I passed it off as normal for our type of family. I didn't have anything to compare it to as none of the kids on our block had CIA parents. And even if they did, I wasn't friends with any them.

The climax of these fights came in March of second grade. I was outside, making a rough outline for an ambush on a terrorist nuclear plant (just like every other kid my age did for fun). I could tell from the sound of my parents' voices that this fight was different than the others. There was something like desperateness in my father's and lethalness in my mother's. And then, as quickly as their voices rose up, they cut off.

I remembered dropping my pencil and paper onto the damp grass and looking to the kitchen window looking out into our backyard. The eyelet curtains closed off my view, so I picked my tools up again and went back to playing. I wasn't interested enough to go all the way over to the house to ask what was going on.

I should've been. Mom had me buckled in the car by the end of the night. We took four duffel bags with us, and only one of those was filled with clothes.

We didn't talk about or see Dad before we left. In fact, we never would again.

..^.^..

We traveled for the next four and a half years, stopping in various cities and only staying in them for a few months at the most. I wasn't stupid. I knew my mother was working on ops and not ones for the CIA. But I was kid and inclined to think the best of her.

Finally, the summer before I was to start seventh grade, my mother sat me down. She told me about the Blackthorne Institute for Young Men. That it was a school for boys to go to where they learned how to be a spy, to be an assassin. That I would be going there in the fall.

"I can't teach you everything you need to know," She said from across the table. She was leaning back in chair, relaxed and not at all worried about sending her son off to learn how to be a killer. "I don't have enough time for that, Zachary."

I knew why she didn't have time. In the months leading up to that conversation, she'd been busy at work. Working on another one of her rogue missions.

"I know," I told her. I didn't think about what might happen at Blackthorne. I didn't think about the fact that she said I'd learn to be an assassin. All I thought about was the fact that soon, I wouldn't be living with her anymore. And for some reason, I felt relieved.

..^.^..

Blackthorne was like nothing I had ever seen before. Mom had had to let me out of the car before the gates, and so as I walked down the long road to the school, I was able to take it in fully.

All of the boys were clothed in jumpsuits of the worst possible yellow color. The fence around the school's perimeter was like one you might see at prison. The building had a grey exterior and a low-sloping roof. Any regular passersby would see it as exactly what it strived to appear as: a detention center for juvenile teenage boys.

I readjusted the bag on my shoulder. The sound of the gates opening alerted me to the car approaching behind me and I stepped to the left of the road. The car slowed as it came up to me and the back window rolled down.

"Hey," A boy my age said from the car. He was scrawny with a neat part in his hair and nerdy glasses. Definitely a research type spy. "Need a lift to the doors?"

"Nah, I'm good." I said. I wasn't here to make friends. I wasn't even here by choice.

The boy in the car gave a little frown. "You sure?" I nodded. "Well, then I'll walk with you."

I almost protested but thought better of it. If the boy wanted to walk, he could walk. But that didn't mean I was going to talk to him.

Unfortunately—or maybe it actually was fortunate—I did end up talking to him. And that is how I made my first real friend. Jonas.

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I've been diagnosed with this thing called Reviewitis. I can't update until I get at least 10 reviews. :)