This is my first fanfic so hope you enjoy!:)

Disclaimer: I do NOT own M.I. High, CBBC does.

As he walked into the room, he felt something wrong. Something odd in the air. Then it struck him. It was so close to Valentine's Day. That was probably why. Smiling slightly, he shook his head.

"Hey, Oscar," Avril greeted him brightly. "What are you doing for Valentine's Day?" She opened her eyes wide and innocent, a faint smile brushing her lips.

Normally Oscar would've answered with something typical: "Oh, nothing", or "Why do you want to know?" This time, however, he felt an inclination to answer vaguely with the truth. "Oh, I'm going to be out and about, you know. Not the regular, though. Maybe go and hang with some friends."

Catching Carrie's eye from across the classroom, he winked slightly. "What are you going to do?"

Before Avril could answer, Mrs. King barged into the room, flaunting several large A2 paper-and-cardboard posters. "Alright, students," she said brusquely. "The Valentine's Dance is going to be on Thursday, starting at 6 and ending at 10. Who will volunteer to help me hang up these posters?"

Without a thought, Avril raised her hand. "Miss—" she began but Mrs. King cut her off.

"Very thoughtful, Avril. I want you to take four of these posters and pin them to the notice boards outside Mr. Flatley's office. I'm quite sure you are capable of that," Mrs. King announced. Then, noticing the frustrated look on Avril's face, she asked, "Do you have a problem, Avril?"

The schoolgirl frowned and absent-mindedly picked off a piece of fluff from her light yellow tank top, then flicked her straight black hair – with a streak of purple down the left side – and cried out, "Do you know how many trees you killed just to promote the dance?" Without waiting for an answer, she continued ranting, "Why couldn't you have made it with recycled paper, at least? Do you know how big your carbon footprint is…?"

At this point, Oscar's communicator began to flash. He pressed lightly on the eraser to signify that he had gotten the signal. Casually turning sideways, he noticed Carrie pocketing her communicator and gathering her books. Behind her, Rose made no effort to stop the flashing communicator. Instead, she shoved it deeper into her jacket pocket and continued talking to Donovan.

Hmmm, Oscar thought. That's funny. Why isn't Rose responding? She's usually the first one to the storeroom, what's with her?

Beside him, Oscar could feel Carrie beginning to fidget. At last, out of pure exasperation, she slung her backpack over her shoulder and pushed rudely past Rose out into the corridor. "Rose," Carrie hissed. "Don't you remember? Science project!"

Rose tilted her head slightly upwards. "Can't we do it later?" she asked lightly. "I mean, you're going to be fine on your own, aren't you?"

Carrie's face was flushed. "Fine," she snapped. "If you're going to be like that, then fine!"

Oscar raised his eyebrows momentarily then partially excused himself from Avril, who wasn't paying attention anyway. She was too busy raging at a bewildered Mrs. King.

Stopping adjacent to Rose on his way out, he whispered angrily, "We need to work as a team."

Tension filled the air between the two pupils, until Rose lazily batted her eyelashes and replied unerringly, "Yeah, whatever. I'll catch up to you guys later."

Out in the corridor, Oscar bumped into Carrie, who was impatiently tapping her foot.

"How did it go?" Carrie asked without expression.

"She said she would come later," Oscar answered briefly. "So what do we do now? We can hardly turn up in HQ without Rose."

The corners of Carrie's mouth pulled down. "And what will Frank say about it?" she added. "He's hardly going to be pleased."

Together, they walked down the corridor towards the caretaker's storeroom, where they waited for several minutes. Oscar thumped the wall hard when Rose strolled in from another doorway.

"Where've you been?" Carrie demanded. "You're five minutes late. What do you think Frank's going to say?"

Rose smiled warily. "I, uh…" she began. "I've just been talking to ah, Donovan about sports and what the stimuli do to the brain."

Snorting, Oscar roughly pulled away the light switch to reveal a finger-scanner and jammed his thumb onto it. With a small ping, the door unlocked itself. They filed in, in one line – Carrie leading and Oscar closing the door behind them.

Rose pulled the lever and fwoom, their stomachs were left behind as the lift plunged down into darkness.

So... what's going to happen next? (I don't know, I'm working on it). Meanwhile, please click the big yellow 'Review' button below, thanks :)