jeri, #12, TRANSFORMATION

Madeline Callen is a spoiled little rich girl, who doesn't care about anybody, and thinks the world revolves around her. Jamie Madison is a juvenile delinquent, and the oldest child of twelve from a poor family, who has been sent to jail five times just so her family wouldn't have to support her. When a new boarding school for "problem" children opens up in the middle of a forest miles away from civilization, Madeline and Jamie's parents decide to do what's "best" for their girls and sends the to the school where they become roommates. At first they distrust one another, but when a strange flaming bird begins to appear outside their window at night, they come together united by the fact that nobody believes them about the fire bird. The two fourteen year olds find themselves racing to discover the secret of the bird, and who they truly are on the inside. Much of what is happening is making the two girls question everything they have ever known. But their time is cut short when a lady with a crimson clipboard visits them at the school. She informs them both that their parents have died in a horrible gas explosion. The girls are given three days to pack before they are taken by child services. Put out, the girls begin to pack with heavy hearts. It seemed like the brief respite they had from reality had ended, but when the find the lady's clipboard still lying in their room, several things become clear. The flaming bird was a Phoenix, a Greek mythological bird of flame, and it had been sent to watch the two girls. The girls were part of an illegal experiment, to see how certain lifestyles effected the growth and development of children. they realized they had been put with fake families since birth, and that their whole lives were a lie. Furious with their new knowledge, they take the clipboard which had a lot of incriminating evidence on it, and make their escape from the school. Fleeing through the forest they eventually come to a road. They hear dogs barking in the distance and know that the scientists are hot on their trail. They eventually get a truck attention, and the trucker agrees to give them a lift to the nearest town. Halfway there three black cars begin to follow them. It turns into a car chase, that only ends whens when a police car that was hiding in some bushes, trying to get people for speeding, spots them and calls in for back up. The girls give the police officer the information but he believes them the papers to be fake and, believing the girls to be guilty, sends them to jail. For Jamie, this is the same routine, but for Madeline, this is a disaster. the girls are kept in a holding cell, awaiting trial, for three days then when it looks like nothing can stop them from locking the two girls up for the rest of their fabricated lives, and man from the CIA visits them in their cell. He explains to the girls that the CIA had been on the trail of these scientists for a long time, and the information that the girls provided gave them the final evidence they needed to arrest the scientists. He also told them that the government wants them to come and be child spies. Since they technically don't exist, they would be the perfect candidates. plus they have already proven themselves when they took on the scientists. The only other option is to be put in to foster care. With absolutely no hesitation the girls accept. They are not the same girls as they were at the beginning. they have both been given knowledge, but in their knew line of work that knowledge could kill them. So it was with a new sense of self that they began their next great adventure.