Effy Stonem awoke from a reckless night of sleep. As she opened her eyes she remembered why she didn't want to wake up this morning.
It was her first day of community service. She turned to her clock to check the time.
"Shit". She exclaimed, as she realised she needed to be there in 10 minutes. She jumped up out of bed and quickly threw on some clothes. It only took her 5 minutes to leave the house. As she drove to the community centre she started to wonder what the other people would be like that were doing the community service. Her immediate thought was that they would all be a bunch of wankers. Effy's plan was to just not talk to them and to get through her community as quickly as possible. Upon arrival at the community centre she noticed a guy standing outside smoking. He had brown, straight hair and was wearing the community service uniform.
"Jesus Christ, please tell me we don't all have to wear that". Effy said to him, looking at his uniform. She instantly remembered that she didn't want to speak to anyone so without hearing his reply. The guy looked up at her though. Even though she was walking away, he shouted towards her,
"I'm Freddy, by the way".
Effy didn't even turn around to acknowledge him. Freddy sighed and continued smoking outside.
Effy entered the community centre building and walked into the changing rooms. In there was her assigned locker that contained her community serive uniform. Effy sighed and put the orange overalls on over her outfit. Once she had it on she turned around and jumped from surprise. A blonde girl with pigtails was standing right next to her.
"Hello! I'm Pandora – but most people call me Panda. What's your name?" The girl said excitedly to Effy.
Effy remembered that she didn't want to speak to anyone, but she couldn't help but speak to Pandora. She seemed so sweet and innocent.
"Uh, I'm Effy". Effy replied, forcing a smile.
"Cool name!" Pandora said, smiling.
Effy looked around the changing rooms. There were 8 other people in the room, all wearing the uniforms. Effy thought to herself,
"So these are the people I'm going to be spending my next 6 months with…."
Freddy was back in the changing rooms now and was talking to a pair of twins.
A woman walking in the room interrupted Effy's thoughts.
"Hello, I'm your probation worker for the next 6 months. My name is Leanne. Could you all head outside so that we can make a start right away". Leanne asked nicely.
Surprisingly everyone made their way outside without any complaints. Once they were outside Leanne gave them a kind of introductory speech.
One of the lads, whose name was James kept interrupting Leanne with annoying comments. Effy thought to herself that he seemed very up himself.
At the end of the introduction, they were instructed to paint over some graffiti on the walls nearby.
They set into it straight away. Once they had started painting Freddy broke the silence of the group by saying.
"Well I'm Freddy. Who are all of you?"
"I'm Pandora! But you can call me Panda!" Pandora replied eagerly.
"I'm Katie and this is Emily". Katie replied, gesturing towards her twin sister.
Emily just smiled, and didn't say anything.
"Well I'm James, but everyone calls me Cook. So I'm Cook". Cook explained.
Effy decided to just say who she was now, rather than waiting until later.
"I'm Effy". And that was all she said.
They all looked at her.
"I'm Naomi". A blonde girl suddenly spoke up.
"and I'm JJ". A boy with curly hair said.
"I'm Thomas". A tall boy who was standing next to Pandora explained.
After their introductions everyone went silent and went back to painting. Cook putting on some music broke the silence. He started singing and painting in time with it.
A couple of the others started to get more into it and were talking to each other and getting to know each other.
Out of no where the sky went black with dark clouds and rain started to fall heavily. The gang looked up for a second to see what happened.
"What the fuck is going on with the weather". Cook said.
No one had time to answer because giant blocks of ice started falling from the clouds. The group started to panic.
"Get back in the community centre!" Katie screamed.
The others didn't question this logic, and they all dropped their paintbrushes and sprinted into the building. Luckily they only had to run about 100m, but as they ran they had to dodge the ice.
Leanne was standing outside the door waiting for them to come in. As they were all running in, suddenly a lightning bolt hit the gang all at the same time.
They were all swept off their feet and hit the ground. Leanne was also knocked by the lightning.
She sat up from the ground.
"Is everyone okay? Are any of you injured?" Leanne asked urgently.
The gang all sat up and informed her that they were all fine.
"What the fuck was that". Naomi exclaimed.
"Okay guys, that's enough for today. You can all go home and get some rest…" Leanne told them.
They headed into the changing rooms to put their uniforms away. No one said anything to each other as they were all quite shaken up from their day of work.
As they left, Effy noticed that Leanne was in her office acting strangely. She was sat on the floor twitching. Freddy and Pandora were walking out of the community centre with her, so they saw her too.
"Do you thinks she's okay? Should we do something?" Effy asked the pair.
"Uh, I'm sure she's fine. Just leave her". Freddy said, pulling Effy out of the building. As they left the building Effy lit a cigarette and headed towards her car. Once she was in her car she noticed the rest of the gang leaving also. But then she noticed that the only person that hadn't left was Thomas. She didn't think much of it and she drove home.