Disclaimer: I don't own the 39 Clues, Cahills vs. Vespers, or All Time Low's 'Underneath a Paper Moon!'

"Me and you, living under a paper moon
'Cause real life just isn't right
Let's fabricate."

Underneath a Paper Moon - All Time Low

Prologue:

"Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them." William Shakespeare.

This is the story of a girl named Sinead, a boy named Jonah and how they were - before all the branch-leader madness. Once upon a time, there lived a girl who lived in a three-story mansion in Boston. She loved inventing things, but sometimes the pressure just got too much to handle. Then, she would walk down to the local playground, and swing all her problems away.

Everyone said she was destined to be great, destined to cure cancer or something equally amazing, but she didn't believe in fate.

And there lived a boy named Jonah, who lived in an extensive three-story mansion in Beverly Hills, California. He had his entire life predetermined by his parents, the moment they realized he could sing. Not just plaster words on a melody, like most artists, but really, truly sing. After all the tours, concerts and record deals, he thought he had seen it all.

Life was colorful, he presumed. Like yellow journalism's headlines, blacklists made by prominent hotels, and the green of his fans' shirts, it held little surprises. Not much entertained you when you were rich, famous and had an amazing talent.

The only times he truly felt alive was when he met a fan that was actually into what he was doing, that felt the amazing high he felt at concerts. No one to hold witty banter with, no one to laugh and smile with, no one to spill all his secrets away.

There were only three times he was surprised in his life.

Once was when he met a cancer survivor, who was crazy about his music. He didn't understand how she had the will to live, to lose her hair and turn a sickly white color, and still care about music.

The second surprise was when she died a month later, and her parents sent him a letter saying thank you. Thank you for making her last days so pleasant, for making her wildest dreams come true.

He didn't understand how that worked; all he did was exchange a few words with her. How could that make someone who was about to die, deliriously happy?

When he met elderly Mrs. Pluderbottom, he was pleasantly surprised that the fame didn't matter to her, nor the money or the name. She was concerned with Jonah Wizard, fan of Shakespeare, not Jonah Wizard, hip-hop singer/rapper

So it came as a surprise when he met a girl at a lonely park, and she didn't care either.

Sinead POV

I bit my lip, swinging higher and higher. The tension eased as my legs swung back and forth comfortably, propelling me higher.

I used to have this cousin in Canada called Miranda. Loads of fun when she'd come down here to the U.S. and visit, but now she's married (engaged, excuse me) to this dentist's son, and the wedding's in a week.

In third grade, I'd swing as high as I could, stare into the afternoon sky and think I'd see all the way to Miranda and her house. It would be cream with little pink piping on the windows, like one of the gingerbread houses Mom made at Christmas time.

Of course, I was looking at another skyscraper in Boston's skyline, but that's not the point.

Hair blowing in the wind, it felt like I was in a movie set, and the director was about to yell, "Cut!"

Life hadn't been kind lately, and I was failing my Spanish course by two points. The Clue Hunt was the last thing on my mind as I swung on the rusty swing set, wondering how to tell my perfectionist parents the horrible news.

I wouldn't even be on academic probation, not for the first report card. I had another two cycles to pull my grades up to at least a C+, and then I would be out. I knew I could make at least a B- by then, nevertheless a C+. It was just the embarrassing forty-five I got on a test that yanked my grade all the way down to that sixty-eight, that you couldn't retake for a seventy.

I was going to retake it, but the teacher changed her mind about the retake. Much simpler to make it a common assessment, which you couldn't retake. Less papers to grade, and everyone was happy, right?

How do you explain that to parents who won't listen?

Scraping my orange Converse on the ground, my lips were permanently frozen into a scowl. Dragging my feet in the ancient woodchips, I ground the swing's momentum to a screeching halt.

But the creaking of the swings didn't stop. Looking around in curiosity, I spotted a familiar red baseball cap, and a ridiculously shiny silver necklace around a hazelnut brown neck.

The first words out of my mouth weren't, "Jonah, I am deeply and irrevocably in love with you," as my crazy cousin (Amy) would like to believe. They were actually a string of expletives, punctuated by a rude finger gesture.

I guess he wasn't used to not "feeling the love," from every girl he met, because his mouth fell open in shock.

Maybe it was me being annoyed that he was pretty much useless in the gauntlet, except for that one question that anyone could have Googled, had they had their phones.

Or maybe it was me being pissed that he visited me in the hospital after the explosion, with a handful of apologies about my "accident," and flowers that would wither away.

But mostly, it was me being pissed off at the world in general.

I had just called him an ugly bastard in five different languages (by the look on his face, he knew all of them), and was expecting a rude, "well, no one said I liked you either, Starling."

But he did the exact opposite: he laughed.

Staring at him in confusion, I felt the anger flowing through my veins dissipate. Granted, it wasn't directed at him, exactly, but I was still a bit mad.

"What're you laughing at?" I demanded, sticking my tongue out at him childishly.

Laughter subsiding, he flashed me a real smile. "Not many people would have the guts to do that, bro," he said. "Props for that."

Rolling my eyes, I decided he was okay, even if he was utterly useless in the gauntlet. "So what are you doing here in Boston?" I asked curiously. "Thought you had an album coming out, not that I care," I added, because I didn't want to seem like a fan.

Sure, he didn't sound like a dying walrus like someone I know, but Jonah Wizard wasn't exactly my favourite artist. Fast music combined with high stress levels prompted me to do stupid, impulsive things, and I wasn't going through anything like the Franklin Institute again.

"Finished that ages ago," he said, dark brown eyes still holding a hint of his previous mirth. "That's what I want the public to think."

"So what are you actually doing?" I asked.

I was expecting him to say, "art show," or something equally Janus-y of him, but he simply replied, "school," with a simple shrug, and left it at that.

There was only one school up to the caliber of a Cahill here in Boston, and it just so happened to be that I attended it.

The world was out to kill me, it seemed.