Can you please make a blurb about Liz baking for bex, cammie, macey and zach? What would she bake for them? And how will they react? Thank you! (i was watching baking vids and it reminded me of liz lol
Liz is definitely the friend that gives the most gifts out of all of the girls. Even Zach. It’s almost like she can’t help it. If something reminds her of someone, she has to stop and get it.
She’s always the one that bakes for them. Every Friendsgiving, she’s in charge of the pies. Every birthday, she’s in charge of the cake. Every anniversary, every event, every. Single. Time.
And she doesn’t mind! Honest! She loves taking special requests and challenging herself to get it perfect! After all, baking is only science! (Which she totally excels at!)
Sitting alone in her new apartment, she flips through different channels. She isn’t in the mood for a romance movie. Or a horror film. Not at all in the mood for anything drama. She tried watching that show with the friends that keep shushing in the opening credits—something about keeping secrets and burying friends— and she just couldn’t get into it.
She settles on a baking show. This time it’s kids, running around and racing against the clock. They throw things in bowls, trying to make up for lost time. She sits up, totally captivated.
“I looked up and I only had ten minutes left on the clock and my cupcake frosting wasn’t thickening!” One of the contestants says to the camera.
Liz rolls her eyes. “Of course it’s not thickening! You forgot the cornstarch!” She shakes her head, exasperated at the television in front of her.
She could make better cupcakes than that. Heck, she could make some of the best red velvet cheesecake cupcakes you’ve ever tasted! (It’s true! Just ask Mr. Moskowitz!)
That gets her thinking. Cammie, Bex, and Macey were supposed to be coming over this weekend. And where Cammie goes, Zach always follows.
Liz grins and grabs her shoes, forgetting all about the tv in front of her.
She’s out the door before you could even say Moskowitz.
•••
Liz stares at the ingredients in front of her and immediately gets to work. She pulls out a mixing bowl and a cupcake tin. She even got those piping bags for the frosting!
Almost half an hour later… Flour ends up getting everywhere. There’s cupcake mixing all over the bowl. And the piping bag is so sticky, it keeps slipping out of Liz’s hands.
She’s got her hair up out of her face and her sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She sticks her tongue out in concentration as she pokes a tiny hole in the bottom of each baked cupcake.
A little bit of cream cheese frosting for the inside and a lot for the top! She places each cupcake onto a plate just as a knock sounds at the door. Liz is so focused that she can barely yell come in.
“Hey— that smells amazing!” She hears Zach say.
She can hear the bustling of her friends, walking inside, kicking off their shoes. She knows without looking that Zach comes in first. Then Cammie. Then Macey. Following the tail is Bex. She knows the sounds of their footsteps like they’re her own.
Setting the bag of frosting down—its contents spilling all over the counter—she whirls around with the plate in her hands. “Surprise!” She squeals.
Everyone laughs. “So that’s what I smelled!” Zach exclaims.
“Oh my goodness Liz, those look amazing!” Cammie says, always the one looking for sweets.
Bex immediately steps forward, grabbing the one off the top and tears the wrapper off. She takes a huge bite—one that would make even Zach jealous. Her eyes widen and she goes quiet.
Everyone stares at her. “What’s wrong?” Liz asks, her eyes wide. Her stomach flips as she runs through everything she did in the kitchen. She knows the ingredients she used. Nobody’s allergic to anything last she checks. And she’s never wrong!
Bex shakes her head. “I’m so sorry Lizzie.” She says quietly. “These are just too good to share!” She says, taking the plate from her hands.
Liz lets out a sigh of relief as Zach bursts out laughing. Cammie shakes her head as Macey rolls her eyes. “Hey! You can’t eat all of them Baxter!” Zach says.
“Oh you know I will Zachary!” She says as she prances away with the plate, already grabbing a second one.
Liz shakes her head, mimicking Cammie from earlier. She turns to Macey and Cammie, throwing her arms around the two girls. She squeezes tightly, ignoring Bex and Zach’s bickering.
“Easy… there… Liz… we can’t breathe…” Macey grits out as Liz’s grip tightens.
“Sorry!” She squeals, immediately letting go. “I just missed you guys!
Cammie laughs and pulls the two girls back in for a hug. “We missed you too, Liz,”
Macey visits Liz in Alabama the summer Cammie goes missing. Set between OGSY and OSOT.
Unexpectedly had a GG hit tweet on Twitter so if you're here from there...hi. I got my lazy ass up yesterday and wrote a few more of the prompts so stay tuuuuuned.
The summer Cameron Ann Morgan disappeared was one of the worst for Elizabeth Sutton’s mental health, but one of the best for her endeavors as a woman of science.
And so, that summer, her endeavors in science involved figuring out the butter-to-flour ratio of as many baked goods as she could find in her great-grandmother’s recipe book, and the fastest way to extinguish kitchen fires in her family’s small kitchen.
It had been seven weeks since Cammie went missing, and July had come and almost gone, the sticky sweetness of the Alabama air wanting desperately to give way to a cooler season. Liz wasn’t certain of many things scientifically (which was saying something, since, you know, MENSA member and all), but she was certain that time was carrying on, and they had to be approaching a time when they’d find out where Cammie was.
But that time wasn’t now, so instead Liz chose to put the (ever so slightly charred) oatmeal raisin cookies on the cooling rack as her eyes darted to the small window just above the sink, the long gravel driveway her father’s truck usually came down awaiting a sleek limousine that would carry Macey McHenry.
Like clockwork, Liz saw the flurry of dust and gravel the long black car was kicking up as it went up the half mile gravel road separating her family’s small house from Farm Road 3425. It almost looked silly against the backdrop of fields of cotton and okra and wheat. Her mother had been fussing all day around their house, sweeping and re-sweeping every square inch, nervous about the Senator of Virginia’s daughter coming to stay on their small house. While Liz had reassured her mother that Macey was normal and didn’t care about things like the size of her best friend’s houses (that she could verify with scientific certainty), she shared a bit of her mother’s nerves. This was the first of her friends that she had seen since the week after Cammie had run away.
Six weeks of being cut off from most of the world, just getting quick phone call updates from Bex and Zach, who were spending their summer in Budapest and London and even Istanbul. She wasn’t exactly jealous, but she was itching to talk to her friends about what was happening in the outside world as the search for Cammie continued.
Liz was bolting out onto the porch, even forgetting her shoes, as she saw a pair of long legs step out of the limousine. Her younger sister, Ellie, bolted out right after, yelling “Lizzie! NAILS!” and Liz took a step back, narrowly avoiding the rusted metal of their front porch, potentially giving her tetanus.
“Oopsy daisy.”
“So you’re a klutz even here,” teased a familiar voice, and Liz grinned, throwing on the shoes closest to the door as she ran out (feet protected) to throw her arms around her gorgeous friend.
“Macey!”
“Hiya, Lizzie,” grinned Macey.
“Hi, Macey,” came her mother’s voice from the door. She stepped out slowly, taking in Macey’s glossy dark hair that graced every magazine cover in America the previous fall, her designer sunglasses perched on top of them, and the shorts and t-shirt that must have cost at least a grand each. “Did you find this place okay, sweetheart? GPS work and all?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Macey, smiling. Two years ago, Liz would have never dreamed that this interaction would be happening, that Macey McHenry would be smiling kindly at her mother, glad to be able to spend time away from her parents and her McMansions, but when Liz had called and asked if she’d want to spend a week or so with her, Macey had said yes before she could even get the ask out. “Thank you for letting me stay in your home. I really appreciate it.”
Her mother’s smile brightened. “Oh, it’s no trouble at all, dear. Liz always talks so positively about you girls, I’m glad one of you got the chance to come down here for a bit.”
Ellie, apparently tired of being ignored, had run up to Macey as soon as she and Liz had stopped hugging. “Your hair is really pretty! I’ve seen you on a magazine cover before!”
To her surprise, Macey’s cheeks flushed a little pink. “Thanks, Ellie, but from what Lizzie tells me, it should really be you on the cover. Vogue needs someone a little cooler than me.” Macey threw her a wink, and Liz could practically see her sister fall in love with her.
Liz started leading Macey inside, and Macey took in the house, smiling at the picture of Liz, Ellie, and their parents on the fridge, framed in the living room, the general coziness of the house, and then stopped near the kitchen, her nose crinkling ever so slightly. “Liz, is something burning?”
“Oh! The cookies! Sorry, I’ve been trying out baking,” said Liz, running to check on the cookies that were still on the cooling rack.
“Actually, she’s been trying out burning our freaking house down,” said Ellie sagely from Macey’s other side, and Liz threw her a glare only an older sister could pull off. Macey couldn’t help but grin at the interaction. Of the four girls in their suite, Liz was the only one with siblings, and she provided advice about living with sisters that none of the three girls could ever hope to know about (although Bex argued that living with 100 girls for six years is exactly the same).
“It was only a little fire!” insisted Liz, holding her fingers a centimeter apart.
“Liz, there’s no such thing as a little fire,” said Macey, snagging a cookie from the cooling rack, and taking a bite. Macey had almost caught up academically to her classmates, had been cramming CoveOps with Abby over the summer whenever she was in D.C., but even Joe Solomon himself wouldn’t have been able to manage a poker face at the taster of the burnt raisin in the cookie that almost knocked Macey’s teeth out.
“Oh my gosh, I knew it, they’re terrible,” moaned Liz, snatching the rest of the cookie from Macey and taking her own bite, then immediately spitting it into the trash can two feet away from her.
“They’re not terrible, but uh, I think your sister is right, and you should be banned from the kitchen for the foreseeable future.”
“Mom has already banned me from the oven. Twice. In the last week,” said Liz, taking Macey’s hand and leading her throughout the house, pointing out the bathroom and living room and dining room and the guest room where she’d be staying as they walked.
When it was just the two of them in Macey’s room, and Macey had begun to unpack the bags she’d brought with her, spreading out tops Liz’s grandmother would have chided her for (something Liz chose not to mention out loud, especially since Macey would not be meeting her grandmother) on the patchwork quilt that her mother had made when Liz was a baby, Liz lowered her voice and whispered, “Have you heard anything about…you know…Cammie?”
Macey shook her head slowly, and brought her own voice down to a whisper, “Abby won’t tell me anything. She dropped by my parents for the Fourth of July in D.C. and I did my best to hound her, and see if they knew anything, but she just wouldn’t say. Lizzie, I’m starting to think they don’t have any leads other than Mr. Solomon’s cabin.”
She looked down at the floor then, fingering the linen pants she had been in the middle of unfolding, and admitted, “I even tried bugging her room, but she caught me. She just…won’t tell me anything.”
“Have Bex or Zach said anything? I had a worm running through every camera in every train station in Western Europe, but it takes hours and hours to sift through that data, so I haven’t gotten anything new for them. I know they’re out there and all, but they’ve only called me once,” said Liz, and Macey noticed she had started pacing. There was a worn spot on the hardwood in the middle of the room, and Macey could only guess her little blond friend’s pacing habits had begun in this very room.
“No. They’re being secretive, though. I know Bex’s parents are doing a lot with MI6, and they might have some more information than we don’t, but Zach said they’ve just been…following her parents. Swimming, I guess. Still trying to enjoy summer a little before senior year.” Macey didn’t necessarily sound bitter, but there was an edge to her voice, as if the words were difficult to spit out. Liz knew the feeling a little too well.
“It’s been hard to enjoy the summer,” admitted Liz as Macey began to hang up items in the small closet in the room. “I just worry so much, Macey, and I can’t talk to anyone about it besides you guys, and God, Cammie’s just alone or…or in the wind or whatever, and I can’t do anything about it and I just don’t know what to do.”
The last word was deflated, and Liz sat back on the bed, her small fingers fiddling with her tank top, and Macey could sense her friend had been spiraling for weeks, waiting to vomit that out. “Lizzie, hey, hey,” she came over, dropping down on the bed next to her, taking her shaking hands in her own. “We’re going to find her, Lizzie. But there’s only so much we can do right now, and part of that is letting the adults work and helping where we can. Cam wouldn’t want you to kill yourself over this.”
Then Macey paused, giving a dark laugh. “Although, if and when we find her, I’m going to kill her myself for going without backup. But it’s not fair to you, or to all of us, to not try and live our life. This is our last summer before our senior year, Liz.”
“I know, Mace, I just feel guilty for enjoying any of it at all when Cam is out there alone. Ellie and my parents and I went to Disney World for a week for Ellie’s eleventh birthday, and for almost three days I just…forgot about everything happening. You know Ellie keeps asking if she can go to Gallagher? I don’t want her to have to deal with what we deal with. It’s just not fair.”
Liz was definitely spiraling. So Macey took her small friend’s hands again, lifted her from the bed, and smiled. “Come on, Lizzie. I want to see the best Alabama has to offer.”
The Sutton's didn’t really have a backyard. It was more of an expansive field with wheat billowing against the hot, muggy Southern air, and it was the most peaceful and serene Macey had ever felt, as she and Liz joined Ellie, who was jumping rope on the dirt, crisscrossing the rope, spinning in circles as she jumped, and doing tricks Macey didn’t know where possible with a jump rope (granted, the Gallagher Academy’s usage of jump rope was more focused on ways to strangle someone with one).
It was also the most graceful she had ever seen a Sutton girl, and that made it about ten times funnier. “Macey! Do you want to see me side-swing through a hula-hoop? I’ve been practicing all summer and I think I can finally get it down. Do you want to try it with me?”
Macey grinned, jumping the two steps off the porch to land gracefully near Ellie. “I’ve never actually used a hula-hoop before. It’d be fun to try, but you can’t laugh at me if I look ridiculous,” she said, taking the purple hoop Ellie had extended to her as she bent down to grab a neon yellow one from the stack leaning against the siding of the house.
Ellie’s eye went wide. “You’ve never used a hula-hoop? That’s crazy!”
“Ellie,” started Liz, cutting her eyes at her sister, “Macey grew up differently than we did.”
“Differently? How? I thought everyone had stuff like this.” It was an innocent enough question, and Ellie wasn’t perceptive enough to see the flash of sadness across Macey’s face, reminding her that, once again, growing up a politician’s daughter hadn’t been entirely glamorous.
Liz glanced towards Macey, as if silently telling her it was up to her to share as much or as little as she wanted. Macey smiled down at Ellie, the setting sun softening the angles of her face and adding a glimmer to her eyes that Liz usually didn’t see. “I grew up an only child, Ellie,” she started, looping the hula-hoop over and over her arm. “My dad is a politician, and so my parents were very uptight with me, and they believed children shouldn’t be childish, so a lot of my childhood was spent reading or skiing or any of the other really boring rich people sports.”
Ellie smiled back. “Pfft. Who needs skiing when you have Red Rover and hopscotch? I’ll teach you. It’s easy.”
Liz leaned over the porch railing, giggling as Ellie taught Macey different tricks with the hula-hoop. Macey was incredibly graceful and coordinated, her years as a dancer making her willowy, but strong, but they all giggled when the hoop slipped again and again off her body.
With the sky turning dark, and a brief break for homemade strawberry ice cream (noting that this was not Tina Walter’s liquid nitrogen lab concoction), the three girls were laughing and giggling as Ellie insisted on flashlight tag and Sardines and every other fun game she could come up with for three players.
Then Ellie was being sent to bed by Liz’s mother, leaving the two of them sitting on chairs on the porch. Macey was finding constellations, marveling at the stars in the wide, milky expanse. “It’s so beautiful here, Lizzie. I’ve never seen this many stars. I’ve really only been to Florida or Texas in the South. I’ve never seen the South like this,” she gestured at the sky, pointing at the stars.
“I mean. It’s okay, I guess. I miss Virginia,” Liz admitted.
“I feel so peaceful, though,” Macey said back, then squinted at the sky again, “Hey! I see the Scorpius constellation. I’ve never seen my own zodiac sign in the night sky. Always way too much light pollution in D.C,” then she sat back in her chair, “I do feel guilty though.”
“About Cam?”
“Yeah,” she admitted, then took a deep breath, looking back at her little blond friend, “I know I told you earlier that we need to enjoy the summer as much as we can, and not try and feel too guilty, but I feel guilty, too. She’s all alone out here, and I’m…,” she laughed sadly, “Pointing out stars in the sky. I wonder if she’s looking at them, too.”
“When we first started at school,” started Liz slowly, “And Cam’s dad first went missing, she used to tell us that he told her when she was little that if she looked up at the night sky, they’d be looking at the same moon. Cam did it a lot more our first few years at school, so I’ve been trying to do that this summer, too.”
Macey smiled back at her. “You always know what to say, Bookworm.”
Liz shrugged. “It doesn’t always feel like it, Peacock. But I try.”
So Macey turned her eyes back up to the stars, hoping the North one would bring their friend back home soon.
"what is a gallagher girl? she's a genius, a scientist, a heroine, a spy."
(a first pass at some character-focused photoillustrations and graphics, with the majority of the images sourced from the library of congress's archives. a fun distraction from work!)
