Antoinette Vance looked around herself. She was at the front of her new school, and it was beautiful. There were three buildings, and the grounds had two big water fountains on either side of the path leading to the door of the one in front, and the lawn was filled with lush green grass. The front had a big, black, wrought iron gate with the letters SDS intricately designed into the patterns. Kids of Annie's age and older were scattered around the lawn.

St. Daniels School was the fanciest boarding school in all of London, and Annie had been accepted in because her mother was a very high class fashion designer back in France, where Annie was from. Her mother had put her on a plane to London as soon as she had found the school to be to her expectations when Annie was twelve and she had gone every year since. Annie would not be coming back home until the two months of vacation in the summer.

Antoinette hated her name, and instead made everyone call her Annie. Her mother and father were both French, and they had named her after a famous queen from their country. Her mother had come up with the nickname that she now used, Annie, while her father, who would have preferred a boy, often called her Tony instead. Her mother did not approve of her father's nickname though, so he only used it when talking only to Annie herself.

Annie tried to pull down her skirt. To her taste, it was far too short. It went to about two or three inches above her knees. Her whole outfit didn't seem right to her, actually. She wore a white button down blouse with a dark blue school tie and matching blue skirt and knee high white socks with black dress shoes. Her hair was tumbling down her back in strawberry blonde curls with a little bit pinned back out of her face.

Annie had never enjoyed the fancy outfits that her mother forced her to wear. She preferred the simpler outfits, and she didn't like to draw attention to herself by wearing fancy outfits. Nobody could say that the fifteen-year-old was ugly, or not pretty. But she wasn't as beautiful as the other girls she knew, in her opinion. Her mother was very pretty, but Annie looked more like her father than her mother.

Annie's father was a successful businessman back in France and between his salary and her mother's, Annie's family had enough money to live very comfortably in Paris. But neither of her parents had truly wanted children. They were too immersed into their jobs. They had gotten pregnant with her barely a year after their marriage, and they hadn't expected to.

So that was why she now found herself in a boarding school, thousands of miles away from her parents in a different country. Her parents did love her, but they didn't want to have to stay at home with her all the time so they sent her off so that they could still do their jobs with no worries for the safety of their only child.

She walked forward, pushing her backpack strap further up on her shoulder and rolled her suitcases behind her. Her grey eyes made their way across the grounds as she walked, taking in everything she saw. She walked inside the massive building and looked at the huge room. It had hardwood floors, with a dark red carpet leading up to the front desk. More children were standing around in there too. At the front desk, a lady sat. She looked like a sweet, grandmotherly kind of lady and she was every bit of forty years old.

"Hello," Antoinette said when she got to the desk. "My name is Antoinette Vance, and I need to sign in." Her voice was timid, shy.

"Of course my dear," said the woman, looking down at some papers and sifting through them. "My name is Missus Gertrude, and I am the person here whenever you sign in or out of the school. It is my duty to inform you that you are not allowed to be out of the school grounds past eight o'clock and you are not allowed out of your dorm past ten o'clock." She handed Annie a key with the numbers B12 on it.

"This is your room key," she explained, though Annie already knew. "There are five floors in this school. A is the one above us, B is the next, C is the next, and D is the next. That is what the letter on your key means. The number is the room number. There are thirty-five rooms in every floor, and the even numbers are on the left while the odd ones are on the right. You will have two roommates while you stay here." She then handed her a piece of paper with what looked to be a schedule on it.

"That is your schedule," she said. "There are two other buildings beside this one, but they have the same setup including the amount of floors and the amount of rooms on the floors. Your classes will be held in building B, on the right side of the building we are in right now. That is the High School Building. The Junior High School classes are in building A, on the right side of the building we are in right now."

"Also," she continued. "The cafeteria is located in the A floor of each building. It takes up the whole floor, and therefor there are no dorm rooms there. Breakfast is served from six o'clock in the morning to eight o'clock in the morning, lunch is at eleven o'clock to noon, and dinner is at six forty five. You are allowed snacks, but only those that you have brought with you that will be kept in your dorm room."

"Now," she said, putting her hands down on the table. "You are free to go up to your dorm room. There are two elevators on either side of this desk. Use the one on the right, which is for students. Thank you for coming to St. Daniels School, and I hope you have a wonderful year." Annie bid the woman goodbye and walked to the elevator, loading it with her luggage before getting in and selecting Floor A.

She stepped out of the elevator a moment later. There was a long hallway with beige carpets and light cream wallpaper. There were priceless paintings lining the walls and in between each painting there was a white wood door with numbers on it. She walked into the room marked with the number eleven on it quickly and looked inside.

Inside there were pale beige walls, white carpeted floor, and all of the furniture in the room was made of white wood. She stepped inside and took in the lone window that was on the wall farthest from the door, in between two beds. Both had bedframes made of white wood. Neither bed had any bedclothes since the students were supposed to bring their own.

Annie saw that next to one of the beds, the one on the right side of the room, there stood a girl around her own age whose back was turned to her. The girl's black hair was done up in a simple bun and she wore the same outfit as Annie, as it was the dress code for the school as a whole. She was thin like Annie, but she had a little bit more shape to her where Annie didn't yet.

The girl was bent over her bed, making it neatly in bedclothes of pale blue. She turned around when she heard the door gently close behind Annie and smiled at her. Standing up straight, she was no taller than Annie was and definitely no older. "Hello," she said. Annie noticed by her accent that she was obviously from England. "My name is Lilia Lynne." "My name is Antoinette Vance," Annie said. "But you can call me Annie."

"Cool," said Lilia. "I think we're gonna be real good friends." "I think so too," said Annie, smiling. Both girls turned to get their sides of the room done up some more. Annie got into one of her suitcases and made her bed in her lavender-colored bedclothes before putting up the rest of her room decorations. She hung up some letters above her bed spelling out her shortened name in the same lavender as the bedclothes before moving onto her dresser.

She put her music boxes on top of the white wood dresser with her favorite on in the very middle, a beautiful musical jewelry box that played 'Silent Night' when it was opened. She then unpacked her clothes and arranged them there as well. She put a couple of pictures on her bedside table, one of her and her parents not too long ago and one of her and her Golden Retriever puppy Princess.

She then moved on to her bookshelf. Both girls had one. She got into the biggest suitcase she had, which was completely filled with her novels, and started arranging them alphabetically on the shelves before moving on to her desk, the last bit of unpacking needed. She put her other pictures on her desk, one with her and her old friend Marie when they were about ten years old, and one with just her in the back yard of her big house. She then placed her laptop on it as well.

Satisfied with her side, she laid down on her bed and looked at the small wall clock on the other side of the room. It read the time as six o'clock. She laid her backpack down next to her and got into it, coming out with her music player. She put in her earphones and cranked up the volume a little bit, but not so much that she couldn't hear with them in, before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath in. For just a moment, she let her whole world drift away.

.~.~.~.~.

Alright guys so this is a part of the first chapter from a story that I hope to one day publish. I hope that you all like it! Also, to my regular readers, this does not mean I wont be updating my other story. To everyone else, it would be absolutely a gift from god if you would leave questions, comments, or any sort of other reviews for it!

Prompts for Questions:
1) What kind of people would you meet?
2) What might you do?
3) How would you react to being away from home?
4) (Any other suggestions might be nice!)

-CahillGirl2001